When a person gets admitted in an ICU, he enters a whole new world- with its own rules and customs. These practices are almost unfathomable to an ICU first-timer.
One such ritual is the process of filling-up a long (and wide) form (I’m sure it has a proper name) by nurses and doctors. The form tracks the blood pressure, saturation, heartbeat, sugar levels, urine count and many other peripherals; to the minutest detail. In theory, it’s an excellent tracker. But for the patient, it can be quite inconvenient.
Having to notify the urine output when it’s negligible; especially when you need it to be much more is….. let’s say painful. Hospitals work in 3-4 shifts. The patient has to explain his plight to the staff in every fresh shift, which can be distressing.
But in itself, the form is magnificent. It’s so large; it looks like a treasure map. It seems to be laden with clues and hidden doorways (it does have figurative ones). It carries (almost) all the information the doctors need to know about the patient’s misery, as well as the clues needed for fetching a cure.
It is one of those bitter pills.
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