Day started with me needing to measure a patient’s blood pressure. This might seem like a simple task to normal people, however, where I live it is heavy duty stuff:
1. You have to find the ‘bb machine’ (blood pressure meter). This involves going to different floors and asking if they have one.
Warning: Some floors might tell you they don’t have one even thought you can see it right before your eyes.
2. You have to beg the nurses to let you use it. By the way, you can dream about them letting you borrow it if it’s anywhere under 60 minutes before they get to go home. Noway. You just will not be allowed to. You won’t be allowed to take it until the next shift’s set of nurses come in.
3. Promise that you’ll bring it back to these same exact nurses
4. Find the proper cuff. This involves looking at various floors again. You have to take the 4-5 flights of stairs. Elevators carry only 4 people at a time and since no one takes the stairs, they elevators are always full.
5. Beg these nurses that you want to borrow the cuff from to allow you to burrow that cuff.
6. Promise that you will return it and thank them once they give you the green light on borrowing that cuff.
7. Find your own stethoscope. Yes, find your own stethoscope because some idiot you work with believes he/she is too ‘cool’ to bring a stethoscope so he/she took yours off your shoulder to do his job properly.
Warning: the person might have went home…with your stethoscope.
8. Open the patient’s room and turn on the lights.
Warning: You will be making the mothers angry at this stage for waking the baby up by turning on the lights, and you’re making the baby sick by opening the door because you just let all the ‘rey7′(wind) in.
9. Put on the cuff on the kid. At this stage you might have figured out that you got the wrong cuff (because the kid is overweight or the cuff is not functioning) so you might have to go back to step #4.
10. You might not be able to do it all because the kid has started crying and you’re officially in a room with a crying orchestra.
11. You might be interrupted by an angry nurse asking you where the cuff or ‘bb machine’ that you borrowed is.
12. After you do end up measuring the patient’s blood pressure, return everything borrowed to the nurses. Thank them for everything. Yes, even if they were really rude with you.
**you might need to sit down for a couple of minutes right now. Take a deep breath. Remind yourself that you’ve just completed a very difficult task. Reward yourself for doing it and making it out alive.
The Libyan Wilderness 
Great post. I wonder after all that what your own bp is! 😉
I do hope in the future all this will be a “funny” memory and you will be telling your juniors “haha! When I started out here…” and they will all look at u in disbelief because such antics are ancient history and Libya has joined the ranks of the developed world! Well…we can hope!
Thanks for that awesome reply. It got me to forget the difficult task I had to complete today and remember there is still hope in our Libya. I hope with all my heart that I get to see that day.