Diary of a hectic day on call:

- Normally when on call, I have maybe 10, 15 admissions per shift of 28 hours. Today, I had 28. 20 of those were in the first 12 hours.

- By 10am, we had ran out of beds in the infectious diseases (i.e. flu and other viral illnesses) ward. I cheered. By 3pm, we'd miraculously created 10 more beds because those patients were moved to the non-infectious ward after the nasopharyngeal aspirates returned with negative respiratory viruses results (i.e. they're not infectious). I cried.

- A 3-year-old girl proudly announced to me that she didn't plan on crying at all during today's blood-taking. She was true to her word. Not a whimper. She proudly reaffirmed that truth to her grandma when grandma came to take her back to her bed. I gave her two stickers.

- A dad brings in his 4-month-old child with a fever and no obvious source. The most worrying potential diagnosis in a case like this is meningitis. The resident sees the dad. Dad refuses all the tests for the child, including testing his snot for influenza, blood tests, and a lumbar puncture. In that same admission consultation, the dad DAMA's (Discharges Against Medical Advice). Total time spent on ward: 30 mins.

- A 3-year-old comes in with vomiting and diarrhoea, likely infective gastroenteritis. He vomits every time he drinks and looks dehydrated. I want to see his tongue. He tries to kick me in the chest. When I try to cannulate him, his veins are tiny because of dehydration and he freaks out, throwing kicks and punches, screams at the top of his lungs -- it's 3am at this point -- and makes for a very difficult procedure because of his fear. His parents await outside the clinical room, quietly concerned about the cacophony.

- A 4-year-old comes in with a high temperature and runny nose due to what sounds like a viral infection. He had a febrile convulsion (seizure due to a high temperature; quite common in 1 to 5-year-olds) last year when he got the flu. Mum tells me she was worried he'd seize again if she didn't bring him into hospital so here he is. I half-jokingly say he has to hold out and not seize until he turns 5, after which it would be very unlikely he'd have febrile convulsions again. He takes some ibuprofen and sleeps. Two hours later, I'm called to see him. He's having a seizure. Mum is crying and terrified. The seizure self-terminates after two minutes. We give him IV fluids and monitored him -- no further seizures and he sleeps through the night.

- Our social admission, Sammy, a 3-year-old boy whose mum abandoned him and no relatives want to look after him, cheerfully wanders over at 8am and wishes me a good morning. He then perches on the chair across the corridor from me and beams at me, swinging his little legs, saying 'hi' to everyone that passes him. I'm seriously considering adopting him.

- A 10-year-old comes in with ulcers all over their privates. Some blistering disease? Infection? We don't know yet. We took some swabs from the ulcers. We need to take blood. Parents refuse. We need a throat swab. Parents refuse. Child finds peeing too painful but we need a urine sample. We need to do an in-and-out catheter to get some clean urine for growing bugs. Parents refuse. Dad cusses out the entire ward of nurses and doctors. Dafuq.

- Because my call phone had gone off so many times, I even dreamt it went off during my precious minutes of sleep. Woke up in cold sweat and in a panic, thinking I'd answered my call and then fell back asleep. Sheepishly called the ward, only to be told by a no-nonsense nurse, "No, you were dreaming! Go back to sleep!"