First Post, or How I Learnt to Make a Prologue.

Let's get a few things straight before I start this piss poor attempt  of a blog chronicling my days in the Emergency Ward in Kasr Al Aini Hospital. Even though I'm probably going to mention a few stories that'll make it seem like I hated the hospital along with its staff and protocols, I just want it to be written in metaphorical paper that I don't. If anything, I'm astonished. Astonished at the capabilities of a hospital to help save and cure an enormous number of people (or at least try to anyways) every single day with minimal funds and poor working environments. This isn't even mentioning that every single service provided is free of charge (there IS a cost but it's a more personal one and I'll get to that later). Every single day the emergency ward gets AT THE VERY LEAST 1,500 patients a day. That's ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED SICK PEOPLE (give or take a hundred hypochondriacs and/or psychological crazies). And all this is happening in ONE ward. So before I get on with this, I just want to thank every single person working there right now and every single person who's working there tomorrow and the day after and the day after and so on. Now that's not saying I don’t hope a few of the people running the place burn to death in a pyre of justice but I digress and that was never the point of this blog (though I'm pretty  sure I might mention one or two occasions)

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What is the point then? Well, it's simple really. Every single day I am exposed, as an intern, to ridiculous events. They've become so commonplace and I can't help but share my stories with all my friends (boring the close ones especially because they get to hear my stories more than once).  I'd like to claim that the point of this book is to offer intuitive insight to the machinations of an ER ward in a public free hospital but then I'd be lying. The real reason is simply to entertain the readers. I feel compelled to share these stories because some of them truly are outrageous and are simply too good to just let go of into the unwritten ether. Some of these stories will make you laugh, others will sadden you and some of them might even elicit a "What the fuck?", especially from the holier than thou  readers.

Now as much as I'd like to claim that this recollection is going to be 100% factual and that all these stories happened to me, that's not the case. It's going to be about 90%  factual with some embellishments here and there, kind of like digitally retouching photos. It's still the same, only better. Some of the things that happened that I might talk about might not have happened to me personally but to close friends, but for ease and laziness I'll just pretend they happened to me.

If I get too medical, I'll be sure to try and explain myself so that all you common folk can understand. No worries, I've gotten used to it.

I hope you enjoy these stories just as much as I did living them. Cheers.

A (still currently an intern in Kasr Al Aini)

N.B: Most of these stories are after Egypt's revolution. I say that because in the midst of all the chaos, the police guarding the entrance up and left us entirely to fend for ourselves against brutish thugs (that were either patients intimidating doctors or patients' family members intimidating doctors. All in all intimidation's the key here).