Fasciotomies and Mercy the Leader.

Good evening!
It's one of those peaceful nights alhamdulilah and despite being quite tired tonight I do feel like venting philosophically.
I am still interning at the ER dept but this week I am in a department known as dept 5. Notorious for being filled with sick, amputated or septic patients with horrible looking wounds. And for the the most part, it is true. This week while doing the dressing for some patients I have encountered a full set of exposed leg tendons in a woman with diabetic 'foot'...or rather diabetic 'leg'.
Or a young man who accidentally injected some drugs subcutaneously in his leg and developed a cellulitis which developed into compartment syndrome which required fasciotomy.
I dont know if what i saw was a fasciotomy, all i remember is that i saw the muscles of his legs contracting before my own eyes. It was a sorry sight, to see a young man so destroyed because of a useless harmful action. However, who am I to judge him?
Behind his action was ignorance and pain and poverty and escapism and self hate and alot of dark and terrible things. How can I judge him? He is a human who has despaired enough to lead himself to his own destruction. People dont go into drugs just because they're happy or OK with life.
It is clearly said in the Quran and in hadith that Allah is the most merciful. Most merciful. Meaning He (swt) IS the number one merciful. No one comes before Him in Mercy. Meaning that in your life, no one will be more merciful on you more than Allah is. Not your family not anyone.
So what exactly IS mercy? (aka in arabic: Al Rahma)
I looked it up on google and this is what it said:

compassion or forgiveness shown towards someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm.

synonyms:

leniency, lenience, clemency,  compassion, grace, pity, charity, forgiveness, forbearance, quarter, humanity,  humaneness,humanitarianism;  mildness, soft-heartedness, tender-heartedness,kindness, sympathy, liberality,  indulgence, tolerance, generosity,magnanimity, beneficence

So it means that God has all the power to destroy you, yet He shows compassion and forgiveness. He is lenient and is forebearing and forgiving and mild. Subhan Allah. Why is He so?
I can't conceive a wise enough answer, but I can reply with a simple sentence that makes sense to me. Allah is forgiving because Allah understands us. He can see right into our hearts, He can see our vulnerabilities and intentions and reasons more than we can understand them ourselves. Even when we're to be judged on the youm-al-hisab we arent judged on general guidelines and criteria. We are judged according to the content of our hearts and only HE can see that. Let's not be afraid. There's always a chance to fix things, there's always a chance to clean out the darkness within and make room for light.

Mercy is also another component of a true and sincere relationship. Famously, the cliche answer to the cliche questions of "what makes a good relationship?" is "love, ofcourse"
I can't disagree because love is a massive umbrella carrying beneath it so many tender and compassionate meanings.
Like when a group of birds are called a flock and a group of tigers is called a streak, a group of compassionate feelings are called love. It's not a singular term but rather a plural of many similar yet intrinsically unique experiences and feelings.
 Usually, in any group there's a strong/dominating character that leads the flock. It is usually that leader that guides the direction of ambush or flight.  If love had a leader that propelled it along...it'd have to be MERCY.
Mercy is the single-most powerful member of the 'love' family. It is the one that decides how the emotions will flow. It decides how desire will flow and everything else.
If there is love but with a recessive mercy, the whole group will flop. They will attempt to fly by themselves, but eventually they'll disperse and evaporate. Because it is the glue to them all. It's what keeps those other things in place.
Not all tiger groups are the same. And not all 'love' is the same. They may contain the same members eg caring, compassion, desire, intimacy, mercy, prioritizing the beloved etc but the strength of each member differs according to the gang.
If mercy dominates (ie being lenient, understanding, humane and tolerant) it is likely that this 'team' will fly well.

ABGs and Ramadan

I withdrew an arterial sample for ABG analysis from a patient a few days ago. After a couple of attempts I finally got it, and while I was almost 90% certain it was arterial, after the results of the ABG came out with a pH of 7.1 I immediately started doubting myself. How could this be an arterial sample? Surely I took a venous sample by accident...

Even so...are venous samples really that acidotic? 

My urology resident asked me to tell him the results of the ABG on the phone and I hesitantly told him the results and was about to apologize about probably taking a venous sample. He told me that this wasnt a venous sample, but was in fact an arterial one taken from a patient with severe acidosis as a result of acute renal failure.

This little situation made me really think...It is hard to stay on your ground when things go unexpectedly wrong. 

You expect certain things and when they go wrong after you do them, you doubt yourself. Did I really do the right thing?

People in uncertainly oscillate between arrogant/ignorant self confidence and the other extreme which is complete incontinent self doubt.

In medicine it is so important to be confident of oneself yet at the same time leave room for doubt. A margin of error.

Ramadan is here by the way! How intruiguing. This is the first time I spend most of my Ramadan in the hospital. Today I'll be breaking fast in the middle of the shift at around 7pm and then continue on working. I dont know how that will go, but it will be certainly something different! 

I'll be back soon!

Mass mentality cliches

For the trillionth time today someone asks me "why did you come back to Egypt?" with this distainful look on their face. 

It is so boring. So cliche.

This is one of the issues I have with human beings. The mass mentality. Everyone thinks in the same pattern and the same old shit thoughts circulate in the same minds of everyone. And the very same assumptions and the very same complains. It is so boring.

(by 'everyone' i dont really mean everyone, i'm exaggerating)

How many times have I heard about how corrupted this country is? How many times have I heard people saying "...but you know, foreigners abroad do so and so...unlike us"

How many times have I heard people complaining about the messed up system in the hospital I work in?

How many times do I hear people say that they want to leave this goddamn shit country and live abroad cuz they're sick of being here?

How many times do I hear people say that here we learn shit but abroad in medical schools they learn better than us?

How learning here is all based on recall and abroad its based on understanding and practice?

How many times do I hear people ask me if I have the british citizenship (often men who ask this)?

Freaking hell...its SO boring.

I've heard it so many times. It's like this broken record. Or its like people have these implanted chips in their brains that have 'complain' mode on repeat.

This whole "we lack and they have" mentality is so retarded. It's the biggest and most ignorant generalization anyone could make. Most of the people who are this way are often the people who havent even left the country (and wont). 

The idea is not "stop complaining guys, this country is the mother of nations" that's not true. This nation has its fair share of bullshit. We cant deny that. But isn't it about time we found something else to talk about?

It's getting old and boring and soooooo cliche. 

Among the educated and well-informed it is a pure shame to utter such terrible generalizations. It should be crime. Circulating negativity should be a crime. It destroys people's livelihood and traps us in man made prisons.

If you've been occidentally shot in the leg while you were innocently walking in the street...or if you've acquired HIV while getting a blood transfusion...or if you suddenly developed multiple sclerosis. It seems unfair that you should be inflicted with such terrible things, when you had done nothing wrong. 

It angers you first and then you go through all sorts of phases including depression and selfpity and all that. Then you're supposed to reach a level of acceptance and start adapting and living with it...and for those who have the hearts of heros, to start actually MAKE USE of their weakness and turning it into a point of strength. 

You can raise the awareness on the dangers of guns...you can become a lawyer and aim to create stricture legislations on the licences to own guns. You can inspire young disabled people to make use of their lives. You can work in the field of neuroimmunology to find a cure for multiple sclerosis.

You can do so much shit with your 'disadvantage' to turn it into an advantage, a goal, a calling to pursue.

 You live in a damned corrupted nation, complaining will do nothing. Nothing nothing nothing. In fact it is counterintuitive. It reduces morale of others, it increases pessimism, it discourages the hearts of the weak. WHY?
It is an act of cruely to be negative with others and inject negative hateful thoughts into their minds, especially young ones. 

We can make use of our disadvantage. 

How?
That's the question.

And the answer wont be 'words'. It will be in action.

I often like to pretend I'm a superhero and when faced with the challenges of everyday like a long, traffic jammed road, or faced with a bitchy aggressive nurse, or a cocky doctor, or a bureaucratic trip to several offices just to get one or two measly governmental stamps on a piece of paper...I like to imagine those as 'missions' and with the accomplishment of each one, I'm gaining more 'lives' or 'coins'. These lives represent stamina and patience for example. 

I could even go to the extent of counting how many "lives" I gained that day. And I think of a way to make use of those lives that I've 'earned'.

I realized that we must survive and we must make it through our tough times. And the only way we can make it out of this is to maintain a healthy attitude of mind. 

It is a disgusting, slimy journey passing through the mother's birthcanal at birth, the first and probably most traumatic experience in our human lives, but we gotta pass it. Whether you pass through happily or grumpily, you'll still have to go through it. So what the hell, you might as well try to make it pass with the least harm to yourself and to others.

Whatever corruption or shit you may be passing through, make it to your advantage. Shut the hell up and stop complaining and add value to your environment.