sound relief

personal highlights:
- paul kelly singing "to her door", "how to make gravy" and "leaps and bounds" (with the entire mcg singing along, of course!)
- when crowded house sang "weather with you", the notorious melbourne weather relented briefly and blue skies appeared overhead. they also did "don't dream it's over" and "better be home soon".
- the stadium went completely nuts when hunters and collectors belted out "holy grail", followed by the collective love of "throw your arms around me". aww...

memorable moments:
- the girls on the ground sharing a simultaneous orgasm when jack johnson appeared on stage. im not jealous at all.
- kylie minogue leading 120,000 people in an emotional sing-along of "i still call australia home"
- midnight oil, fronted by a smirking, self-conscious peter garrett, revisiting their signature protest songs, as well as an electric version of the national anthem

not-so-memorable moments:
- sound equipment failure during wolfmother's set
- dickheads shouting "aussie aussie aussie, oi oi oi" during the minute silence
- the mountain of rubbish left behind at the end of the night


the intermittent rain did not stop the crowd from having a great time

magic: blue skies appeared briefly when crowded house sang "weather with you" :D

the disinhibitory effects of vodka: drew and catherine salute the mighty g

coming down off nights

physically i am tired but mentally i am restless. i tell myself it's the camaraderie but i suspect it's the subconscious sense of power i get from doing night cover, the feeling that what i do is worthwhile, urgent and important.

last night i watched clint eastwood's latest movie gran torino, and it left me with an idea that won't leave me. like a cancer it grows at the edge of my consciousness, gnawing away incessantly until it crowds out all other thoughts and takes over my mind. even as i slept it builds, initially infecting my dreams, then dragging me into the timeless limbo between wakefulness and sleep, until finally i struggle awake, still exhausted in body and agitated in psyche. i yearn for release, for someone to talk to, to bounce ideas off, to share and echo and reaffirm and help me make sense of it. but there is no one. my mind turns and turns around it. It can't let go. loneliness is reinforced. i sit and smoke and pace and makes cups of tea that i leave half-drunk and tries to find distractions in a million little things. but it's no use.

when one sins, one at least is directed towards a goal: forgiveness. even if man cannot grant it, perhaps god can. but if one hasn't sinned, what then? those that live blameless lives live without purpose. why has god given us no meaning but granted us free will? why can I not decide? why am i left to my own devices? isn't that dangerous? isn't that... when everything is possible, nothing is sacred. i live in fear of such freedom.

maybe that's why, as much as i bitch and moan about it, work is the only activity that defines my existence at the moment, and keep me from going insane.

the (un)kindness of strangers

so there is this woman on the ward who is a month down the track of an ercp complicated by pancreatitis and multisystem failure requiring a prolonged icu admission. shes making slow recovery and spikes a fever one night while on meropenem. the only new thing i find is a murmur. this is potentially very bad. so the septic workup is negative and blood cultures are pending as usual. the team orders an echo and leaves her on meropenem. two days later i get paged about her having another temp. i ask the nurse over the phone to take some blood cultures from the picc line and give her some panadol, and i'd review her and take some blood cultures peripherally myself (because she has no veins) after sorting a few things out in ed. but oh no, if only it was that simple.

nurse: we can't use the picc line.
me: why not?
nurse: i don't know. i was told we can't use her picc line.
me: but she's on meropenem. does she have another iv access? how are you going to give it?
nurse: oh i don't know.
me: well... can you find out?
nurse: (silence)
me: hello?
nurse: anyway i can't take blood from the picc line.
me: why not? is it blocked?
nurse: we don't take blood from the picc line.
me: well, we need to because it could be the source of infection. can you get someone else to take it?
nurse: okay i'll take the blood cultures from the picc line.

anyway, so i get to the ward a bit later to find 1) the blood cultures haven't been taken, and 2) the patient is now receiving meropenem through the supposedly unusable picc line. nice. after explaining to the nurse why we need to stop the antibiotics and take blood cultures while she is still febrile (while trying to resist the overwhelming urge to strangle her), she says anyway she couldn't take the blood cultures because i hadn't physically written up an order form for them.

AARRRRRRGGGHHHHHHHHH!!! DIE YOU STUPID FUCKING BITCH!!!

the cultures finally get taken. and the next day the lab rings the evening cover about positive cultures in two out of two bottles. the picc line had been removed and the tip sent for culture. a toe was being organised to conclusively rule out endocarditis. and the patient was restarted on vancomycin.

vindication is a sweet, sweet thing. sigh. why can't people just do their job? pete is right. i've been sucked into the abyss again, just a few weeks back. there is no why. there is just the shit that comes with everything. deep breath and move on. it's not me, it's them. blah blah blah. if only it was so easy! i think im going to need that annual leave...