I've started a few blog posts only to stop midway and scrap everything. How do I write something that won't show how disillusioned and bitter I am about how I find life and human nature is?
Optimists must be either deaf and blind because they sure aren't reading the papers or listening to the news. Kids as young as 11 have allegedly been found to force an 8 year-old to perform sexual acts. Babies are being dumped like yesterday's newspapers. We see a 3 year-old kid being kicked like a football and we do nothing - no one cared enough to get to know this family and now the kid is dead, suddenly EVERYONE has an opinion on who should have been blamed.
Sometimes I wish I am more oblivious to the goings on in this world.
Just digressing a little bit - I was on my way back after escorting a case of possible head injury and have not had dinner so we stopped by a roadside stall for a bite to eat. It was nearing midnight and the other tables were mostly young folks. However, the table nearest to us had a 2 year old kid with them and I was thinking, should a kid that young still be awake at this time of the day?
The case I escorted was a 12 year-old girl who was riding a motorbike with a friend. It was near Maghrib already and apparently was going out to buy a book. She fell off her vehicle and never regained full consciousness. We intubated her and sent her to HUSM for a CT scan. I told the mother that there is a reason licences are only allowed to people of a certain age - but as I left the mother in the waiting room near the Red Zone - I think I had again let my emotions get the best of me. I am sure she is already regretting letting her daughter on that motorbike that evening.
In the last week, we had a 13 year-old who came to us with his foot torn off at the ankle. I spent three hours reducing both bones of his ankle and another three fixing his loose joints and putting a skin graft on the wound. Everytime we had to inspect his wounds he was whimpering like a baby. I bet he felt like a hero riding on his motorbike before the accident.
In that same week, a 14 year-old was admitted for breaking his thigh bone - also due to an accident while he was riding his motocycle.
I know being a doctor means that I shouldn't be judgmental but being impartial is the most difficult aspect of my job. Most times I just want to shake some senses into parents who allow their young kids on motorbikes. I especially hate it when they claim to not realise when their child have creeped out without them knowing. Come on!
In the ward at the moment, there is a 17 year old boy who is basically a vegetable. He had been involved in a motor vehicle accident and suffered a traumatic brain injury. He is now on a breathing tube on his neck and takes feedings via a tube from his nose into his stomach. When I received a request for a medical report involving a boy whom we intubated for poor GCS and had sent to HUSM, only did I remember that this was the same boy who was knocked down after going to buy breakfasts for his family.
His bed is covered with personal items from home. Often I would find a soft toy in the clutches of his motionless hands. Here is a boy who's just waiting to explore what life has to offer and he is now bed bound for the rest of his life. Instead of being able to take care of his parents, he has to rely on them still for the most basic of human functions.
I guess we never consider that such a thing can happen to us until it does happen.
2 comments:
Wow, took you quite some time to come up with this post. And here I was thinking that you people had an advantage prior to marriage with the Kursus Perkahwinan, I guess there was no mention of common sense in that particular course.
It's a vicious cycle, once they start to have unprotected sex, leading to premarital conception, followed with immaturity in upbringing and education of the said child, leading to such events later in life. I bet you that these motorcycle heroes would at one point or another be involved in premarital sex and the vicious cycle starts again.
Sorry to go into the religious point of view, but I find that most family would usually say, 'It is God's will'. I think we should stop blaming God and start looking at ourselves. We bought the bike for them, not God, we closed one eye when they do stunts without licence, not God. I think once this mentality changes, there will be less problems.
WKY - I know and I am constantly depressed when I start thinking about this.
I guess common sense is not that common after all. Maybe rather than start a Sex Ed campaign in school, we should hammer in some common sense in people....
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