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I did a thing

Injury angst for writing dummies.

Hospitals and injury are always such a staple of angst fics, but 9 times out of 10 the author has clearly never been in an emergency situation and the scenes always come off as over-dramatized and completely unbelievable. So here’s a crash course on hospital life and emergencies for people who want authenticity. By someone who spends 85% of her time in a hospital. 

Emergency Departments/Ambulances.

Lights and sirens are usually reserved for the actively dying. Unless the person is receiving CPR, having a prolonged seizure or has an obstructed airway, the ambulance is not going to have lights and sirens blaring. I have, however, seen an ambulance throw their lights on just so they can get back to the station faster once. Fuckers made me late for work.

Defibrillators don’t do that. You know, that. People don’t go flying off the bed when they get shocked. But we do scream “CLEAR!!” before we shock the patient. Makes it fun.

A broken limb, surprisingly, is not a high priority for emergency personnel. Not unless said break is open and displaced enough that blood isn’t reaching a limb. And usually when it’s that bad, the person will have other injuries to go with it.

Visitors are not generally allowed to visit a patient who is unstable. Not even family. It’s far more likely that the family will be stuck outside settling in for a good long wait until they get the bad news or the marginally better news. Unless it’s a child. But if you’re writing dying children in your fics for the angst factor, I question you sir. 

Unstable means ‘not quite actively dying, but getting there’. A broken limb, again, is not unstable. Someone who came off their motorbike at 40mph and threw themselves across the bitumen is. 

CPR is rarely successful if someone needs it outside of hospital. And it is hard fucking work. Unless someone nearby is certified in advanced life support, someone who needs CPR is probably halfway down the golden tunnel moving towards the light. 

Emergency personnel ask questions. A lot of questions. So many fucking questions. They don’t just take their next victim and rush off behind the big white doors into the unknown with just a vague ‘WHAT HAPPENED? SHE HIT HER HEAD?? DON’T WORRY SIR!!!’ They’re going to get the sir and ask him so many questions about what happened that he’s going to go cross eyed. And then he’s going to have to repeat it to the doctor. And then the ICU consultant. And the police probably. 

In a trauma situation (aka multiple injuries (aka car accident, motorbike accident, falling off a cliff, falling off a horse, having a piano land on their head idfk you get the idea)) there are a lot of people involved. A lot. I can’t be fucked to go through them all, but there’s at least four doctors, the paramedics, five or six nurses, radiographers, surgeons, ICU consultants, students, and any other specialities that might be needed (midwives, neonatal transport, critical retrieval teams etc etc etc). There ain’t gonna be room to breathe almost when it comes to keeping someone alive.

Emergency departments are a life of their own so you should probably do a bit of research into what might happen to your character if they present there with some kind of illness or injury before you go ahead and scribble it down.

Wards

Nurses run them. No seriously. The patient will see the doctor for five minutes in their day. The nurse will do the rest. Unless the patient codes.

There is never a defibrillator just sitting nearby if a patient codes. 

And we don’t defibrillate every single code. 

If the code does need a defibrillator, they need CPR.

And ICU. 

They shouldn’t be on a ward. 

There are other people who work there too. Physiotherapists will always see patients who need rehab after breaking a limb. Usually legs, because they need to be shown how to use crutches properly.

Wards are separated depending on what the patient’s needs are. Hospitals aren’t separated into ICU, ER and Ward. It’s usually orthopaedic, cardiac, neuro, paediatric, maternity, neonatal ICU, gen surg, short stay surg, geriatric, palliative…figure out where your patient is gonna be. The care they get is different depending on where they are.

ICU.

A patient is only in ICU if they’re at risk of active dying. I swear to god if I see one more broken limb going into ICU in a fic to rank up the angst factor I’m gonna shit. It doesn’t happen. Stop being lazy. 

Tubed patients can be awake. True story. They can communicate too. Usually by writing, since having a dirty great tube down the windpipe tends to impede ones ability to talk. 

The nursing care is 1:1 on an intubated patient. Awake or not, the nurse is not gonna leave that room. No, not even to give your stricken lover a chance to say goodbye in private. There is no privacy. Honestly, that nurse has probably seen it all before anyway. 

ICU isn’t just reserved for intubated patients either. Major surgeries sometimes go here post-op to get intensive care before they’re stepped down. And by major I mean like, grandpa joe is getting his bladder removed because it’s full of cancer. 

Palliative patients and patients who are terminal will not go to ICU. Not unless they became terminally ill after hitting ICU. Usually those ones are unexpected deaths. Someone suffering from a long, slow, gradually life draining illness will probably go to a general ward for end of life care. They don’t need the kind of intensive care an ICU provides because…well..they’re not going to get it??

Operations.

No one gets rushed to theatre for a broken limb. Please stop. They can wait for several days before they get surgery on it. 

Honestly? No one gets ‘rushed’ to theatre at all. Not unless they are, again, actively dying, and surgery is needed to stop them from actively dying. 

Except emergency caesarians. Them babies will always get priority over old mate with the broken hip. A kid stuck in a birth canal and at risk of death by pelvis is a tad more urgent than a gall stone. And the midwives will run. I’ve never seen anyone run as fast as a midwife with a labouring woman on the bed heading to theatres for an emergency caesar.

Surgery doesn’t take as long as you think it does. Repairing a broken limb? Two hours, maybe three tops. Including time spent in recovery. Burst appendix? Half an hour on the table max, maybe an hour in recovery. Caesarian? Forty minutes or so. Major surgeries (organs like kidneys, liver and heart transplants, and major bowel surgeries) take longer. 

You’re never going to see the theatre nurses. Ever. They’re like their own little community of fabled myth who get to come to work in their sweatpants and only deal with unconscious people. It’s the ward nurse who does the pick up and drop offs. 

Anyway there’s probably way, way more that I’m forgetting to add but this is getting too long to keep writing shit. The moral of the story is do some research so you don’t look like an idiot when you’re writing your characters getting injured or having to be in hospital. It’s not Greys Anatomy in the real world and the angst isn’t going to be any more intense just because you’re writing shit like it is. 

Peace up.

I was thinking about how you’re always the first to say I love you; We were laying there on the couch, in a dark room illuminated by the light of the movie screen. I looked up at you. I could see the reflection of the movie in your eyes, the tension in your square jaw, and all the little creases in your curled up, crooked smile. You didn’t notice that I was watching you, but that’s okay. You didn’t have to. Every little thing that you did so effortlessly, I fell in love with over and over again. You turned to me and I hugged you closer, tugging on your shirt as I allowed your arm to rest around me. Before you could say anything, I leaned in to kiss you, but stopped myself just an inch before your face. You flash me that smile, oh so innocent, so sincere. I whisper your name, and find that those are the only words I know how to form. The following silence whispers the words I’ve been trying to say. You reply softly, “I love you too”, and I’ve never kissed someone so passionately as I had in that exact moment.

“i love you” pt.2 // 3.22.17 (via overdosedemotions)

High School AU's

• I’m the biggest flirt in high school, I can get anyone with a few well placed words. And then you walked in and I became a stuttering mess and I can’t control myself anymore. I can’t even flirt with other people. What did you do you wizard-

• I come from a poorer off family compared to this rich kid neighborhood, but I was smart enough to get into this lovely high school since my GPA is just..wow Anyway, I met you, and I insist on buying you all the things. And you don’t know that you have more money than I will ever in this lifetime but shhhhh-

• You’re the prettiest person I’ve ever seen, and I’m in the yearbook. I insist on taking pictures of you on any occasion because you’re just really great and the pictures are the best I’ve ever taken. Please come with me to the park, because you /and/ flowers is a match made in heaven-

• I hack into the announcements system every Friday to softly play music that people have suggested to me during class. And everyone just listens while they work and dances around and has a good time. And I’ve just been caught by you, wanna chill and pick a song..?

• I volenteer at the nurses office after school, and you’re the idiot who joined the Adventure Challege Club, where it’s lots of physical activities, and you don’t fucking listnen to your intructer, at all- We see each other a lot

• “Why are you hiding in the bathroom?” “Why are you /reading/ in the bathroom?” “…touche-” Wish I could say that was the last time this happened to us-

• So you’re the kid who runs the announcements, and I’ve been dared to kiss your cheek on valentines day, since you’re my crush and all And I didn’t expect you to just fucking stop in the middle of your little speach and say ‘I love you-’ to the whole school just now- I’m kinda dying here-

Tag List

Paths

Colours: White Grey Pink Brown Blue Rainbow Matching to an ingame path

Types: Stone Brick Wood Borders

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Other Floor Patterns

Beach Rugs Location Markers Train tracks Water Plant

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Wall Hangings

Albums

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Furniture

Colours: Pink Brown

Types: Bed covers Sofas Cushions Stall Vending Machines Mugs

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Clothing

Colours: White Pink Brown Red Blue Green Purple Yellow Black

Types: Tops Dresses Hats

Aesthetics: Denim

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Nookphone Cases

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Characters

Animal Crossing: Bob Marshal Raymond Filbert Mitzi Daisy

Pokémon: Eevee

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Miscellaneous

ehhhhhhhhhh :/

gentle reminder

you are stronger than you think

I thought you were a good person but you messed up and you used me and you still don’t remember when my birthday is and you never even knew my middle name. And you tricked me into thinking you wanted the same things as me and you acted like you cared about what I was doing on the weekends and how my sister’s classes were but I don’t think you really cared about anything at all. And there’s a lot I should have said to you but the only thing I want you to know now is that none of that was okay but I am.

(via i-wrotethisforme)

discarded // 3.16.2021

And before I met him, I wanted to escape away from this crowded place— where people pretend to be anybody else— and be in a different universe, where no one has to know who I am, yet when he came and enclosed me in his arms, I wanted to stay wherever he is, suddenly I don’t want to live alone in this world anymore.

ma.c.a // Stars in your eyes, I felt alive (via vomitingwords)