DM 2

Over our 12 hour shift i seem to remember only getting a half hour for lunch (as far as breaks were concerned). If im not mistaken this is pretty illegal, i think youre entitled to at least 2 15 minute breaks and a half hour for every 8 hours. Whatevs, i was getting peasant wages anyways so details like breaks and such are quite minor when one thinks of it.

Obviously with a 30 minute break there wasnt much to do. You were more or less limited to the room you were in, the common room down the hall or the cafeteria (which most likely wasnt serving food not that you wanted to eat there anyways).

If the patient had cable it was most easiest to eat and watch tv. Granted there were several health implications that came with this (like c. difficile) so it wasnt necessarily the wisest thing to do.

The cafeteria was not bad, always lit with neon lights and decorated in a 70s manner reminiscent of a David Cronenberg film. If they were serving food it was most certainly better then what you were currently eating and you could not afford it at whatever inflated prices had been chosen.

The common room was always filled with uncomfortable furniture, old magazines (such a fucking cliche in any medical office), pamphlets on different diseases/illnesses/religions and sometimes childrens toys. If there was a tv it would either get several channels (it may have cable access but godforbid anyone takes the time to actually program the tv, surely there is SOME room in the budget to pay a technician to do this) or it got 4 channels. In this circumstance the tv got 4 channels.

Needless to say i was less than pleased to find that the only thing worth watching on these 4 channels was a fucking show on surgery as the other 3 channels had turned off for the evening.
Christ sometimes Nova Scotia seemed like it was a million worlds away. Like i had been shipped off to a Siberian Gulag. Was this a test?

Once i returned to my patient (the fore mentioned DM) I realized i may not have it quite so bad.

Admittedly this shift was uneventful (apart from the tv test). I did find out that hes the ripe old age of 92 (he looks as if hes 70 something). Rather then spend the evening acting aggravated and picking fights, he was happy as a clam and spent it singing. To add to incoherent babble, he would cough dramatically (which was rather cute). It would seem that although our comprehension skills were set quite low we managed to amuse ourselves late into the night. Its amazing how a night of the good meds can affect a body.