Monday 19 January 2015

Two horrible dreams

Lanium?

This dream starts in Centennial Park. I am there with E to attend some party that her friend has organised. It's a lovely warm day and the sun is shining but not excessively hot. The time feels like mid morning and when we arrive there is a gazebo set up on the grass with a very long table under it.

We take seats at the table and admire the amazing looking food and drink being served. There are about 20 people around the table and we can barely hear beyond our immediate neighbours as everyone is chattering at the same time. Soon E says she is tired and wants to go, so we get up and leave.

Then I am back at my own place sitting at the desk. In front of me is a huge pile of data collection forms and a single computer speaker which is not hooked up to anything. The speaker starts to sound with 1, 3, 2 and other random numbers. I realise that they are the numbers I need to enter into the forms and start writing them down. But it is dull and I fall asleep.

I wake with a start and look up, the time is now late afternoon. On my phone are several messages from E saying "where are you?" "I've made dinner" "I've rented a movie". I jump up and get ready to go to her house. Somehow I manage to drive my car all the way back to Centennial Park to the exact spot where we had the party earlier on.

The gazebo has been taken down and several people are strolling around the park. I realise that G & B are pushing a pram down the path and wonder when they had a baby. I approach them and they gesture for me to keep my voice down so I do not disturb the baby.

G gently lifts up the hood of the pram and I see a baby inside. It is wearing a jumpsuit and I can't tell if it's a boy or a girl. The head is covered with a light blue square towel, inscribed with "Lanium (Lanthanum)". I think immediately that it is strange for them to use a drug company issued towel to cover the baby's head.

Then I suddenly realise with a chill that I cannot tell if there is actually a head under the towel.. is the baby headless?

Then I wake up.




The one where there is no mouth 

The dream starts off with the arrest pager going off. The message shows "CCU Bed 6, ruptured aneurysm" and I wonder how switch knows the diagnosis.

I run up to CCU and there are crowds of people in the room. I manage to get to the head of the bed and there lies a very unwell looking woman in her 40s. She is severely malnourished with paper thin skin that hangs in folds - she has obviously lost a lot of weight and muscle recently. She has a deep sternal wound which is covered in black sloughy tissue, and I cannot help but stare at the dark gazing hole. I look up at her face and realise that there is a huge scar where her mouth was, and one cannot identify any normal structure in that area.

I ask her how she feels but she cannot talk. The nurses tell me that she has been in hospital for 2 months with a sternal infection. There are so many people in the room and they are all talking loudly, so much so that I cannot hear anything. I feel frustrated at the lack of order and wonder what I should do.

Suddenly I see a milk crate so I decide to stand on it. I shout "everyone stop!" and the noise immediately recedes. I order some of the nurses out of the room so that there are only about 5 people left. I start reading the notes and try to make sense of what's going on, then Captain walks in and says quietly "she has previously expressed wishes not to be resuscitated, so perhaps we should respect them."

I look through the notes with him and confirm this is true. He says he will go fetch the family as she should be with them as she is passing away. Then he comes back with MM a recent patient we had (that died) in our ICU and I am shocked when he says "this man here is her father".

Then I wake up.

No comments:

Post a Comment