Short story, part 3

I parked on the reserved place for doctor on call, even when at night there are many other parking spaces available too. But parking in that reserved place, I guess, gave me some feeling of being a bit important. Not that it mattered at all, since there was seemingly nobody around in the parking area to notice where I parked.

I ran up the stairs. Luckily my ward is on the first floor, so running up the stairs is literally quite possible without arriving in the ward panting. I reviewed the baby but somehow the parents had left the ward already at the time of my arrival. The baby looked very yellow but was receiving proper treatment with the blue light already. The story of how the effectiveness of shining blue light on babies with jaundice is quite interesting. It was a British nurse who took the babies from the nursery out for a walk in the morning sun on a bright summer day. When she had returned to the nursery she noticed that the areas of skin that were exposed to the sunlight were much less yellow than the covered areas. She told this to the doctor who proceeded with research proving that shining blue light on the skin of babies with jaundice is a very effective.

I instructed my medical officer to check the baby regularly, had a look at the other babies in the ward and soon after that, I was on my way home.

(To be continued…)

 

A short story by Hans (day 2)

Here is the second part of the story I am writing in stages. The previous part can be find in this page: 

 The whole story so far

Many babies do get jaundice. There are many risk factors for it, especially in newborns whose liver is quite immature. The problem is that the yellow substance has the potential to enter the brain and cause some damage there. This baby, I think, will be OK. Then I think about the parents, how worried they must be if my medical officer already talked about exchange transfusion. I decide I better go for a while to the hospital.

I jump in my car. Well, not really jumping, or rather not jumping at all. Most cars are made so that jumping in them is virtually impossible. Only convertibles, but then in most convertibles, people do not just jump in either. So, I enter my car in a normal way and drive to the hospital. My music is on and the song, titled, ‘Lean on me’ by Bill Withers, is playing. I like the song. “Everyone needs someone to lean on”, comes on later in the song. 

The road is dry but it has rained a lot in the past two days and I can see the reflection of the moon in the shallow rice fields which look a bit like medium sized lakes. The thought of water feeding the rice plants, connects somehow in my brain with the story of the first settlers in America. They were crossing vast plains areas that were fertile but because they seemed so dry, and failed to find water, they moved on. The following generations however decided to dig a bit deeper than their forefathers and found the most abundant streams of water to irrigate the enormous areas. 

When I read this story for the first time, the author compared the situation with so many of us living only superficially. We need to dig deep in our self, in our ego, in our mind and in our heart to find our calling, to find our talents and to find, yes, the source of abundance that is meant to be ours in our life. If we find deep within our ultimate talent, or calling, our work will become our hobby and we will shine as a bright light. Soon I reach the hospital,…

(To be continued)

A short story by Hans (day 1)

Dear Friends, 

I started to write a short story. I will post here every day (or as close to that as possible) a little piece, a few paragraphs. as the story unfolds, I will keep all parts in one page which will be linked at the bottom of each small part. I hope you enjoy.

Part 1 

21.07 is the time shown on my Samsung phone, when it suddenly starts to ring. No, my friends it is not ringing, ringing has with time become a misnomer for a phone making sounds. My phone starts to make a high tech pseudo-musical sound, which I, at first, had liked when I had bought the telephone. But after hearing it so many times in a day, it sounds more like a parrot trying to mimic the bells of a cathedral than anything else and I do not recall why, at all, I had liked this ringtone. 

I listen to the voice at the other side of the line, even while my connection is completely wireless, and it is my senior medical officer telling me the story of a baby admitted to the ward with severe neonatal jaundice. Besides the very strong yellow discoloration (jaundice) of the skin of the baby, there are no other problems but the jaundice seems so severe that my doc on call wants to treat it in the most vigorous way, an exchange transfusion, a step-wise replacement off the baby’s blood with donor blood. The results of the investigations are indeed a bit worrying but in view the child being otherwise well, I recommend to give a trial of intensive photo-therapy, which is basically shining blue light on the baby’s skin.

I touch the touch screen on the phone where a symbol of a red phone handle is displayed to interrupt the conversation. I wonder whether the youth of ten years down the line will still know why the sign on our phones to stop a conversation has such a shape. Or perhaps soon they may change that shape. I think for a while about the baby…

(to be continued)