Ios

I just finished a refreshing, recharging session of star gazing at Milopotas Beach, on the west coast of Ios island. After everyone else had left for the bars in town, I grabbed a hoodie and my airpods and headed to the beach. I laid down on the now completely deserted sand and listened to Craig David’s full “The Story Goes...” album, singing out loud while processing, reminiscing and daydreaming (does that term apply when done at midnight?). 

Millions of flickering stars filled a whole spectrum of intensity —Not one single cloud in the sky, which has been a consistent norm for the past weeks. 

I remember how my mom used to say you shouldn’t start counting the stars, otherwise you’d get an ugly wart on your face unless you finished, which was impossible. 

I thought about our unbeatable night sky back home on mount Teide, with zero light pollution, and how I’ve always wanted to share that one star-gazing experience with the one person that settles in my heart and earns it for good.

I also took delight in my ignorance regarding astronomy and constellations, when even I could tell it was extremely possible that I was facing some pretty obvious ones at that very moment. 

That led me to reflect on how thousands of years ago people relied on the night sky for orientation at sea, at the very Aegean Sea whose crashing waves where playing in the background enhancing Craig David’s already beautifully enthralling vocals. 

I was filled with a sense of gratitude and wonder regarding life, which is easy to appreciate under a clear, warm starry night on a heavenly Greek island, but not so much during an often stressful and demanding daily routine. 

Life is what you make it —What you choose to see, to feel and to own. And I think some of the people I’ve met, the things I’ve seen and learned and the things I’ve felt are in a way God’s way of reminding me of that and keeping my mind and my heart joyful, hopeful, transparent and alive. 

PS.: I caught TWO shooting stars.

Mykonos

This new experience of waking up early to a party island has been rewarding so far. First row breakfast seat just a couple of meters away from the bright, clear Mediterranean shore, as the temperature rises slowly introducing another beautiful, hot day while everybody else is still asleep. This place is called Paradise Beach for a reason.

We headed into town on a (suprisingly) very punctual, very dusty local bus. This constituted the only 20 minutes of my day with a mask covered face. Being here is like stepping into another dimension where Covid-19 is just distant dream or at least a watered down version of pandemic reality.

We quickly realized that wandering around through the charmingly narrow alleys of Mykonos town during midday is very much different than doing so in the evening. Only the omnipresent slim and multicolored island cats seem indifferent to human crowds regardless of the time of day. 

We admired the neatness and harmonious homogeneity of white walls, blue door and window frames and soft, curvy edges of the local architecture, the bright contrast offered by lush bright flowers and colorful, locally owned and run shops. It took us ages to pick our gelato flavors at a small ice cream place, which reminded me of how much I love those moments in life where these are the toughest decisions I have to make.
The windmills were as picturesque as one sunset ago, only much less crowded. And so were the bay and the ocean promenade.

A traditional gyros and a new Greek Pandora charm were both crossed off my list. And so was getting D’s new dress fixed by the very stubborn middle-aged Greek lady who’d sold it to her the day before.

“Can you get this for me , please? Ah, young eyes can see everything!” She said with a sweet, thick Greek accent, while asking me to fit her thread through the needle. She then proceeded to tell us stories about her youth in Miami, past lovers and heartbreak. I ended up buying the same dress myself, which lead to a fun “twinning” dinner and party session that evening (I’m learning new words every day, just not Greek ones).

We got lost in the intricate maze of alleys on our way back to the bus. D efficiently asked our way back —you gotta love a fellow asker like that.

“Excuse me, sir. How to we get to Plaka bus station?”
”Uhm, D, I think Plaka was back in Athens, you mean Fabrica square”.
“First one right, two more left. And then ask again”.

Walking off chuckling on the confusion his loud voice and thick accent reached us from behind “Don’t say anything else, otherwise they’ll send you to Hell!”. Big eyes, laughter. How ironic considering the name of our destination beach.

After getting back I couldn’t resist the strong pull of the inviting Cycladic waters. Comforting shower, brand new dark red dress on my newly tan skin. Traditional Greek dinner with everyone including incidental plate smashing followed by an OPAAA! roar and millions of bright stars on a cloudless night sky giving me permission to act just a little bit crazy while dancing yet another perfect, hot Greek summer night away.

First Week at the Emergency Department – A Memoire

First Week at the Emergency Department – A Memoire

Monday morning. 8 am. My ER phone rings for the first time. It’s loud around me, I can barely understand the soft female voice at the other end of the line. I manage to make out:

„ Hi, … from Neurology. I am calling about … patient is …dead … candidate for pancreatic transplant donation … pre-surgical CT-scan … what protocol should we order?

„Uhm… sorry, did you say you’d like a pancreas CT-study for transplant planning on a dead patient?“
(See, not that I’m an expert or anything after only 1,5 years, but isn’t a heart function necessary to, like, move the injected contrast agent through the body?)

„Oh no, just BRAINdead“.

I’m not in Kansas –a.k.a. the outpatient imaging center– anymore.

Two hours. Nothing happens. A couple of unremarkable X-ray studies. One finger over here, one knee over there… But I feel very tense. Must be the calm before the storm. I have no references. There’s no way for me to know what to expect. Everything seems just so… unpredictable.
How bad can it get? What could that imply for me? How often and likely is it that it will get to that level of severity on my very first day here? How critical is it that I see and understand everything right away?

As people start getting out of bed an into the world, a whole new day full of accidents starts to unravel. And then, all of a sudden, helicopter sounds start to become louder and louder.
First polytrauma patient.
Traumatic brain injury. I step into the trauma room. An unconscious, intubated person is presented by the emergency service. An internist, a surgeon, a neurologist, and a group of nurses all start to move around the victim puncturing, placing catheters, drawing blood, attaching monitors, checking vital parameters. So quick. So efficient. All done. Emergency CT-scan is next. Unenhanced brain, middle face and cervical spine study. After hundreds of CT Thorax/Abdomen stagings, this must be my 4th or 5th time ever looking at a brain. With my more experienced ED partner and senior attending by my side, I feel reassured. Though there’s no way to miss the large subarachnoidal bleeding and parenchymal concussions. Someone shouts out the results of the ABG. Someone else arrives with information about the designated neurosurgery OR. „Are there any cranial or facial fractures?“ Our senior makes a quick assessment. Someone else shouts something else and soon after everyone has disappeared, taking the patient with them.

And so, in a flash, it’s all over. What did just happen? And how did everyone manage to remain that calm?
I’m in awe. It’s amazing what training, experience, motivation and well synchronized, well guided team work can do. I guess I will get used to this just the way everyone else does. But for now, I can’t help but feel deeply moved and impressed. There’s something undeniably beautiful about the whole process.

And just like that, I just know: this is going to be great.

The week passes by quickly. Many polytrauma patients, intensive care unit emergencies… a suicide attempt, an overdose, a small child struck by a car, bike accidents, many brain injuries and even a blunt ocular trauma with bulbar rupture. Seeing my old colleagues from the eye clinic show up with the portable slit lamp in hand and diagnose a corneal rupture with iris prolapse on the spot filled me with pride and reinforced respect. Just a couple of hours later, the eye has been saved at their OR.

„Wow. This week has been very intense. It is usually less hectic,“ says my partner as we meet on Friday morning. I’ve been assigned the TGIF task of bringing something sweet to snack on, so I place the muffins carefully on our table. „Not bad for a first week“.
At this point, I still feel a bit anxious and tense in the back of my mind. But the amount I have learned in just one week, all the support from our amazing supervisor and the excitement of what is to come cancels everything else out.

I admire my older colleagues for the way they master during their night shifts at the ER. After one week of routine day shifts the gap between me and them becomes more apparent to me. But according to our Dienstplan, I’m only three months of training away from becoming one of them myself.
Scary and exciting at the same time, I can't wait to achieve that level of diagnostic confidence, competency and skills, and to become really useful and reliable in the process of helping and saving lives in the acute setting.

Bring it on.