why procedures are important.

It's 2am as I write this blogpost and first let me give you a little history :-)

The past 2 days I spent at the hospital because I went through some excrutiating pain because of a 2mm big kidney stone. It was detected on a scan and I was instructed to drink as much fluids as possible while on painkillers and some other alleviating drugs. I also had to pee through a sift, so I would be able to find the stone if it so chose to make its exit.
(TMI ? Maybe, but bear with me ;-) )

This evening I was painfree and I was discharged from hospital (thank God, I'm back with the family again. I also chose to take my little sift home. No stone was found yet and I wanted to see that little bugger.

So, here I was, just after a shower, and I needed to pee, badly. Our bathroom is upstairs and my little sift was in the toilet room downstairs. I was juggling with the thought of peeing upstairs, without my sift, because I was really feeling tired but I told myself 'no, you HAVE to use the sift'.

I don't have to add that the stone has chosen to make its exit now. I caught it and I'm happy.

All this to tell you that, however tired or stressed you are, whatever deadline you are up against, procedures are massively important in our job. If you decide to cut corners because you know better and/or because you think that 'one time doesn't hurt', you might as well be wrong this one time. Think about it, be flexible, but don't sacrifice procedure just for the sake of it.