My first ambulance ride

Turn the siren on and glide along the road smoothly*

It was an exciting way to start my Sunday morning. Going onto an ambulance!!! Sorry for being excited about it (maklumlah, orang first time… jakun skit!), I'm sure it was a bad news for the patient and her family to have to ensued an advanced check out in the general hospital.

Since Pak Man our puskesmas driver was off on Sunday, we got to call the red cross for an ambulance.

The patient, an 85 years old woman came into our UGD the evening before with a chief complain of an acute dysarthria with very high blood pressure. Therefore, we diagnosed her with emergency hypertension with neurological disorder (cranial nerve XII), and admitted her. Without any other apparent symptoms of lateralization and normal findings on her neurological examination, we exclude the possibility of stroke. The next morning we woke up, her condition got worse. The family in panicky went haul over the coals at the nurses. Not taking any risk, we decided to refer her to the hospital.

In the ambulance, I had a chat with the patient's daughter. She seemed to cool down and relaxed. She told me about her children and how she wished she could marry one of them with a doctor.

"Anak saya yang bongsu lulusan blablabla, sudah bekerja di blabla. Sekarang lagi di Singapore untuk urusan blabla. Anak saya yang ketiga itu, lulusan blabla, bekerja di blabla, sekarang sudah ada rumah sendiri di blabla… and blablabla…"

Then she continued

"Adik saya juga punya anak cowok belum menikah. Dia lulusan dari blabla, sekarang kerjanya bagus di blabla, maunya adik saya itu menantukan dokter juga"

And suddenly, not surprisingly but unanticipated questions came out (I can bet you 1 million rupiah for this question!)

"Dokter Nabilah sudah menikah?"

Dah agak dah… So I said "Belum"

"Kalau dapat orang Indonesia mau?"

HuAargh! Over betul makcik ni

Sternly, I said "Ga mau"

"Kenapa, sudah punya pacar ya?"

With a clear voice and a firm smile I said "Iya, sudah!"

Hmmm… kenapa tiba-tiba rasa macam ambulance ni slow sangat eh?

Arriving RSSA, after handing the patient, she came to me with watery eye ponds. Oh no makcik, please don't get emotional with me. I'm bad at this! I had the time of my life riding on the ambulance for the first time, don't spoil this excitement…

"Mintak nomer HP nya dokter bisa ga?"

Eeer… ok

"Ini alamat rumah saya, nanti kapan2 dokter datang ya?"

Eeer… InsyaAllah. Then she hugged me. *startled*

And so that was my first time riding on the ambulance!

*the road wasn't as smooth as I imagined it would be. Indonesian drivers are selfish, reckless, and deaf perhaps. OMG, benci gila tengok kereta2 degil yang tak reti nak give way for ambulance! Stupid a55hol3!!