TROLLEYYYYYYYY …CHECHEEEEE… TROLLEYYYYYYYY (CHRONICLES OF LABOUR ROOM PART-1)

PART-1

It has been 4 years since I joined my course…

Finally amma asked me today as I was brushing my sparkling teeth…”eda kochu…1.5 years of study left …Ready to handle a patient yourself???”
I scan myself for a second and replies…

“SuRE MA…provided the patient is PREGNANT”

The month long Labour room posting has changed my outlook….honestly…I have a new perspective of everything…not just gals…360 degrees of life…kudos to all mother who have had normal vaginal deliveries (not de caesareans !!!)

There’s too much to write in…so I split my post into parts…so as not to tire my lovely readers…
This is the first instalment. No MASALA has been added…neither have I edited or proof read…what u r readin right now is what is pourin out as I sit in front of my dying monitor tappin my rusty keyboard.


“The number you’ve dialled is currently busy. Please try after sometime”-call WAITING

“One thali-meal please”…..and this is followed by a long WAIT…and curses begin to pour out of the hungry food bag of yours…as if the WAITER is responsible.

Yeah…to ’wait’ is something I hate just like anyone else (hmmm…yeah I hate too much ‘weight’ too)

Ladies n gentlemen, here I introduce to you a typical yet different, tiring yet thrilling ‘WAIT’.

She’s not mad…but anyone around might ask why someone isn’t tying her up to the bed. She twists…jumps…shouts…screams…yells…’Allah…Krishna…Eeesho…Ammaaa...etc’. What pushes a layman into curiosity is the environment surrounding her bed that remains serene in spite of all hues and cries.


8 heads peep into her perinium(ooo…no vulgarity meant…). All well –learnt, smart, trained heads. All wearing the ‘theatre’ chappals (ordinarily wearing a chappal after getting into a Parx trouser and tucking in an Excalibur shirt is weird…but inside a ‘sterile’ room, where everyone is supposed to be STERILE, no gals scoff at you…there is no choice).
Yeah that’s us…the Interns…!!! And this is ‘day one’ of our ‘labour room’ postings.
With every second the intensity of her cry rises…and we are the only ones who are tensed and sweating (freshers!!!)

‘Thar she blows’

A hairline appears…recedes…appear again…

‘No…it’s not going back…heyyyyyyy…it’s fullllllll…House surgeons…Interns…get ready…’

‘CHECHEEEEEEEE TROLLEYYYYYYYYYYY’

Now is the ‘run’…

’the run for a new life’

…attendant pants in with a trolley…the mother is asked (in reality shouted) to jump into the trolley…she will have snatched off all the cannulas (and that mean the giant needles that we laboriously instil into veins for needy supplementation of fluids…drugs etc.)…creating a ‘bloody’ field in the bed. The trolley reaches the ‘labour cot’ within seconds.


I ‘run’ towards the ‘dressing room’ (you don’t have face creams…body sprays…talc…combs waiting for you) put on the gown (‘sterility’ is the golden requirement…not a spot of contamination is allowed…in reality…this is a more self defensive technique…who’ll want to spoil his dress with meconium…blood and amniotic fluid?).

Now is the ‘tough’ part…wearing ‘gloves’… !!! I’ve not yet learnt to put my fingers into the sterile pair of gloves within split seconds as the seniors do.

“C’moonnnnnnnn what the hell are you waiting for”…yells the senior PG student-another female

(Fortunately or unfortunately Gynaecology is a female dominated area. Trust me, if males ruled here…half the labour related complications and unwanted fuzzes could’ve been history).
Still trying to adjust the gloves I rush to the labour cot…


“SUPPPPORTTTTTTTTTTT”


Rest is automated…I push the perineal towel so hard that I start to think if my force is what is blocking the baby from his journey into this world.

Two elephant sized PGs literally jump over the mother’s tummy(medically- fundal ‘push’)
The entire labour room shakes in her ‘thunderous’ cry.

HAAAA….ATLAST…HERE HE COMES…


A tiny head pops out…before I can say ‘hi doooooooo’ the HS pulls him out…and there is a spurt of all nasty fluids…you’ve got to be really lucky to save your mouth and attire.

No it’s not over…the baby is still clinging on to her womb…


I cut the final physical attachment between them (technically-‘clamping’ the cord and cutting it)(fortunately none can cut off the psychological tie)
Everyone sympathises at cries…but now is one special moment when a cry is the most vital and auspicious symbol of life.

The new kiddy has to cryyyyyy…(technically we record it as BABY CRIED SOON AFTER BIRTH…CSAB). Else you’ll witness another scene of terror…when a Paediatrician will be kicked out of sleep and driven in…you’ll see nurses running in search of suction tubes etc.


Well folks the first phase of ‘delivery’ is the hard yet fascinating part…it took me almost the experience of assisting 3 deliveries, to understand what exactly happens.
Rest of the action is passive…and boring and tiring…I don’t wish to scroll into the tale… (it involves suturing)

KEEP GLUED…TRUE ACTION IS JUST COMIN UP…
”HOW GOVERNMENT SAVED DE DAY n a WOMB”….
(2 B CONTD.)