Foreign Language

Work was quiet apart from one sick baby girl who maybe had meningitis. Her mum was lovely, really caring, really nice but very worried and had very little experience of all things that are medical.
The doctor on today is very thorough and good but European...Couldn't place the accent. Spoke perfect English but very technical.
"We are going to gain venous access and give your baby a fluid bolus because she is shut-down"
The mum quite obviously didn't understand a single word of that.
(I will translate for you interweb readers 'We're going to put a little needle into babies hand and give her some salty water in a drip to make her feel better')
The doc bent down and repeated the first sentence word for word but, very m u c h s l o w e r. Since when has saying something slower made it more understandable?
Then the next sentence was "we need to give baby some IV Cefotaxime but I need to decide whether to give 50 per kilo or 100 per kilo"
(Translated, Baby needs some antibiotics through her little needle and I'm going to decide how much to give her) The kilo thing is we work out babies drug doses by their weight so if she was 5 kilos in weight and we gave 100mg per kilo of drug she would need 500mg of antibiotic. Simple!
Anyways I translated and we laughed about it and finally she got the drugs and was sent to the children's ward to recover.
Did make me realise though how much medical terminology we use and how scary, these often perfectly innocent words, can be to the average Joe Public.

At break we had a discussion about the fate of this British guy in Iraq. I personally feel desperately sorry for him and his family, and cannot begin to imagine their anguish. I cannot, however, get all het up over it. It was his choice to go over there and work. Why? I asked. Greed, the others told me. (One of the girls knew someone who worked over there as a security officer getting paid 200 quid an hour. But he got v scared and came back).
This British guy knew the risks and the dangers. Why do that to his family. Put himself at so much risk and why weren't they more careful about security? He's in a war zone. Only people who have no choice should be there.
He's not young but has a young Thai Bride. He must have wanted the money for her. Well, I'm afraid the ones I love I want SAFE. Money doesn't buy happiness. It's the root of all evil and has allowed evil to take him in Iraq. A desperate cruel evil. It's not worth it but no doubt people will still do it. Well their eyes are open. Even moreso now.