Today

Get to work, full box of files waiting. Nursing staff in a bad mood because no beds in the hospital and casualty acting as an 'overflow', 25 patients on trolleys taking up space. Mad, melodramatic overdose patient arguing loudly with everyone who walks past her that we are abusing her. Walk into resus: one patient on a ventilator (subarachnoid bleed), paeds busy resussing the crap out of a sick kid on the other side.

Go to 'minors' area. See 10 ankle injuries from previous weekend's drinking. 1 fracture. See 8 inappropriate GP referrals of abdo pain (...about 6 weeks doctor...). Convince the American tourist that she does not need an MRI scan to her head after she fell and sustained a 1cm laceration. Explain the term 'neurologically intact'. Explain that what happened to Natasha Richardson was terrible but that she will be OK. Counsel 2 anxious sets of parents that their child who bumped their head on the coffee table is not going to die, and give head injury instructions left right and centre. Panic quietly about the American tourist, find her in the waiting room and administer tetanus toxoid, previously forgotten.

Get called to resus to a 14 year old girl hit by a car. Pupils fixed and dilated. Abdomen hugely distended and blue, blood pouring out of left ear. Resus for all its worth and watch her slip away. Counsel her parents and see the empty desperation in their eyes and the way their lives collapse in front of me. Say a silent prayer that they will be OK.

Pull myself together, go back into minors, see the cutest kid in the world who gives me a hug after I glue his forehead laceration back together. Get a phonecall from the medical on call doc, who tells me that the STEMI patient I thromobolysed yesterday is doing much better, and said to say a special thank you to me. Reduce two dislocated shoulders. Place an elderly woman with dodgy heart and lungs on BIPAP and watch as she improves.

Leave an hour late. Run, cup of tea, blog. Think about the American again. Think about the 14 year old again. Feel extraordinarily grateful for everything I have.

Fall asleep, knowing that this job is just right... for me.