In this dream I'm sitting in a strange man's black convertible. I don't recognise who he is at all, but apparently in the dream we are on some sort of date.
So we are driving around up and down a few highways, just enjoying the feel of the wind in our hair. Then we decide to go to this shopping centre, which looks a lot like Casuarina. We take a left at the KFC, much like the real Casuarina, except as soon as we turn I see a huge boom gate which is not there in real life.
He is still speeding along so I tell him he'd better stop at the boom gate. He says "why should I stop? I don't have any money". I am somewhat horrified and tell him that I'll pay for the parking.
"All right then." He says grudgingly and pulls up at the boom gate, where there's a little hut with a man sitting inside.
"Wait here," he says to me and ducks into the hut.
The next thing I know I look up and the man is no longer there.
"What happened to the man?" I ask him.
"Don't worry about it, let's go." He says.
As we drive into the parking lot I am overwhelmed by this feeling that he somehow killed the ticket collecting man, so I start asking him again and again, somewhat hysterically "What did you do to him? What happened to him?"
Finally he sighs and says "well, if you must know.."
He pulls out a tab of pills from his pocket and shows it to me - it has the Mon-Tue-Wed etc pattern written on it like the oral contraceptive pill. He turns it around and most of the pills are missing.
He says, "I made him take all these pills, and he died of an oestrogen overdose."
Then I wake up.
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
Random Darwin, part two
Darwin's one of those places where one sees strange stuff all the time, and despite the fact my phone takes really crappy photos, I often have the urge to pull it out and snap a random photo. My interns will testify that I frequently announce "Kodak moment!" on the ward round, for example when we were trying to find a ward in the private hospital (the public frequently overflows into various corners of the private), and the nurses helpfully directed us to this sign on the wall:
One day I finally went up to this ward in the hospital called "Constant Care", which is actually really a nursing home because all the patients in it are waiting for nursing homes, and found this sign at the entrance next to the fish tank (yes, all this nursing home has to entertain its residents is a fish tank)
Back to the good old private hospital, they got a bit tired of the public staff using their things all the time, and even their bench space they were very protective of. So on one ward, which was half public and half private, I found this sign, reminiscent of primary school days...
Of all the random things I've taken photos of from medication charts, I thought this was probably the most hilarious. Fleet enema TDS, only in Darwin...
And I couldn't resist taking a photo of my intern Olivia who was so tired on our massively long ward round that she sat down on the nearest piece of furniture (of course we don't have chairs).. the patient's wheelie walker.
And here on a random antique scale....
On a different ward, a patient complained that she couldn't get hold of the nurses because there were no call bells.. so she was given one of those old fashioned ringing bells (here is Olivia again demonstrating its use). And of course our patient was an adult, just the hospital was so full they stuck her in the children's ward.
Away from the hospital, one day I went for a walk and found a dead snake just outside the driveway of the hospital... what can one say but Normal For Darwin?
A handful of really random things have happened since I moved to Darwin, and this has to come close to the top of the list. One night I was meant to go with a bunch of medical students to Lee Point for a bonfire, but I ended up staying at home because I wanted to sell my microwave. Eventually I sold the microwave and made my way to Jacky's house for dinner. While bonfiring one of the boys, a 21yo French 1st year medical student, had burnt his foot trying to firewalk. So he sat in the bathtub sulking while running his foot under cold water, and Jacky went to look for his "special bag of medications" which he'd stashed in a cupboard somewhere.
It was actually two whole plastic bags full of medications, and it was the weirdest thing ever sorting through them! Aside from the obvious paracetamol, nurofen, antibiotics (half a dozen types, including ones I'd never heard of), anti-histamines and steroid creams, there was also clonazepam syrup (just in case one develops epilepsy, perhaps?), anti-fungals, a combination paracetamol-tramadol tablet (very bizarre), oxazepam (maybe to be taken if life in Oz got too stressful?) and an anti-depressant! All the medications laid out covered a whole side table, and I was simply amazed by what one's father would give an otherwise healthy 21yo to take to a developed country where medications are readily available!
Anyway.. I gave him some panadol and nurofen, and couldn't resist giving him half an oxazepam! Then we all crowded into the tiny bathroom to keep him company, eating kangaroo stir fry to the sound of running water.. Now if that's not random, I don't know what is.
One day I finally went up to this ward in the hospital called "Constant Care", which is actually really a nursing home because all the patients in it are waiting for nursing homes, and found this sign at the entrance next to the fish tank (yes, all this nursing home has to entertain its residents is a fish tank)
Back to the good old private hospital, they got a bit tired of the public staff using their things all the time, and even their bench space they were very protective of. So on one ward, which was half public and half private, I found this sign, reminiscent of primary school days...
Of all the random things I've taken photos of from medication charts, I thought this was probably the most hilarious. Fleet enema TDS, only in Darwin...
And I couldn't resist taking a photo of my intern Olivia who was so tired on our massively long ward round that she sat down on the nearest piece of furniture (of course we don't have chairs).. the patient's wheelie walker.
And here on a random antique scale....
On a different ward, a patient complained that she couldn't get hold of the nurses because there were no call bells.. so she was given one of those old fashioned ringing bells (here is Olivia again demonstrating its use). And of course our patient was an adult, just the hospital was so full they stuck her in the children's ward.
Away from the hospital, one day I went for a walk and found a dead snake just outside the driveway of the hospital... what can one say but Normal For Darwin?
A handful of really random things have happened since I moved to Darwin, and this has to come close to the top of the list. One night I was meant to go with a bunch of medical students to Lee Point for a bonfire, but I ended up staying at home because I wanted to sell my microwave. Eventually I sold the microwave and made my way to Jacky's house for dinner. While bonfiring one of the boys, a 21yo French 1st year medical student, had burnt his foot trying to firewalk. So he sat in the bathtub sulking while running his foot under cold water, and Jacky went to look for his "special bag of medications" which he'd stashed in a cupboard somewhere.
It was actually two whole plastic bags full of medications, and it was the weirdest thing ever sorting through them! Aside from the obvious paracetamol, nurofen, antibiotics (half a dozen types, including ones I'd never heard of), anti-histamines and steroid creams, there was also clonazepam syrup (just in case one develops epilepsy, perhaps?), anti-fungals, a combination paracetamol-tramadol tablet (very bizarre), oxazepam (maybe to be taken if life in Oz got too stressful?) and an anti-depressant! All the medications laid out covered a whole side table, and I was simply amazed by what one's father would give an otherwise healthy 21yo to take to a developed country where medications are readily available!
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