Spain Here I Come!!

YAY!!!!! I'm on holiday, finally! And I'm off for 2 weeks!! woohooo!!

The best thing is I'm travelling to Spain with mum & dad. I will be there for about 8 days....so no blogging for the time being ok? I pwomise to show some pics when I get back. =)

We are going to spend a half of the trip in Southern Spain and the other half of it in Barcelona.

Ok...I should probably go to bed...need to catch the early flight to Malaga.

See ya guys soon! Hope you all will have a nice weekend.

Adios!

Simply Gullible

Oh...it is not me! It was a female nurse in my ward. (Let's call her A).

There was a patient B in the ward who had a penile prosthesis inserted quite a long time ago. He was admitted for a different urological problem. Anyway, he probably was having some problem with his prosthesis and decided to ask A about it.

"Excuse me nurse, you know I have a penile prosthesis. I was wondering why my erections are not as long as it should be?"

"(A turns red) Errmm, I do not actually know, but I'll ask my colleagues and see if they can answer your question."

She told her fellow nurses about the question and everyone began to laugh at her. She did not go back to B to answer his question. As she was busy doing her other tasks, her colleagues decided to make fun of her. Let's name one of them G.

"Hey, remember you told us about the penile prosthesis problem? Well, the surgeon who performed the prostehsis insertion was just on the phone, and I have explained to him about that patient's problems. Apparently, there is a mistake in that batch of prosthesis. That is probably why his erections are shorter than normal."

"Huh, are you sure?"

"Yes....If you don't believe me, you can speak to the surgeon yourself. He also said that the length of the erection must be measured so that the default can be written down in a form, and this will be sent back to the manufacturer."

"Huh, I don't believe you. There is no way I am going to do that."

"Look, I am serious. You got to measure the length of the erections. As I said, the prothesis that was inserted into that patient has a manufacturing defect. We need to measure it so that we can let the manufacturer know how short it is."

"Right, why it has to be me?"

"Well, it is obvious isn't? You are the nurse looking after him."

"Right, fine. I'll do it."

A ruler was passed to her and she began to put on her gloves......


hahahahahahaha


She caught some of the other nurses giggling. And then it only struck her that it was actually a joke! A is just simply gullible!!

07.30 am and still in bed

I woke up this morning thinking that it was only 6.30 am. But I jumped out of my bed the moment I saw that the time was actually 7.30 in the morning. Shit. I am going to be soooo late for work. Work starts at 8am. Shit. Then, I remembered that my friend, who gives me lifts in the morning, (let's call her L) has probably left for work first. I smsed her anyway to say that I was running super duper late.

I went for a shower kerbau style and was out of the house by 8 am. I walked fast, nearly running, to catch the train. Arrived at the city centre 10mins later and I had to walk a moderate distance to the hospital. As I walked, I was cursing myself for sleeping through my alarm (which was, in fact, a double alarm). Shit. Shit. Shit.

By the time I reached the ward (roughly 8.30am), sweat was kinda pouring down my forehead. The ward round was probably over by then. *phew Thank goodness my consultant did not see me walking into the ward late. Otherwise, it would be quite bad, wouldnt it? I cooled down and a few nurses spotted me late.

"Ling, you are sweating. You just rushed in, eh?"

"Hi Ling. There you are. You slept in, didnt you?"

"Ahhh Ling. You're here finally."

Those were a few comments I received from them. I giggled when I heard them. It was so obvious I overslept this morning. =D Being my usual efficient self, I managed to get on top of my workload today, despite being late. =P

My shift ended at 2pm today. Although there were quite a number of admissions today, both my colleague and I managed to clerk them all. I was quite happy that I was able to leave the hospital on time....for once. Just before I left, one of the senior doctors based in the ward saw me packing my bag and said:

"You going home already, Ling? You woke up late this morning, and now you're skiving away..."

hehehe...I started to laugh. It seems to me that the whole ward is aware of my "sleep in" this morning. And I really do quite guilty to be honest. It is so different when I was still a student. When you are late, no one really cares and you don't have any responsibilities to attend to. Imagine if I was the only junior doc in that ward, then, things probably could go worse. No one would be there for the ward round.

I pwomise I would be early tomorrow!! *fingers crossed

Tragedy in The Toilet

This is written in retrospect.

It was a nice peaceful quiet working Friday. Both my colleagues and I have finished all our outstanding jobs and have clerked in all the patients that arrived at the ward. So, we decided to have our first coffee break for the week. (mind you, it was a busy week). Sat down at the usual coffee shop, and ordered my usual mug of tea with a scone.

15 mins later...

*teeeteeeet *teeteeeet (that's my pager going)

I made a face when it went off because I was lazy to answer it and was kinda surprised to get a page from the ward. I called the ward and was informed about a patient with a low haemoglobin of 6.5. The patient was actually a border in the ward. So I didnt know much about him.

So I quickly gulped down the remaining half mug of tea and rushed up to the ward to review that patient. I first looked into his notes to get some background about the reason for his admission. My effort was futile. There was no new notes written in his casenotes. The only information I managed to gather from the nurses was he was transferred from a different hospital and he is known to have diabetes.

Right. That wasn't very helpful, was it?

Ok. I decided to speak to the patient myself about his current admission. The patient was placed in a sideroom. The door to his room was closed, so I knocked at it first and opened the door. "That's weird," I thought. Patient was not at his bed. I called his name a few times, and actually went into the room to see if he was around. There was still no sight of him.

"Uurrghhh...uurrgghhh"

I turned around I followed the direction of the moan. There I found the patient lying on the floor, with his pants halfway down his legs, and faeces splattered all over him and some on the floor. *fuck

I shook him to see if he was alert. And thank god, he was. I shouted for help and the nurses came to clean him and bring him back to his bed. Remember this man has a haemoglobin of 6.5 and guess what? His faeces were very dark brown-blackish in colour. So there you go. I have found the reason for his problem. He was obviously bleeding from his upper GI tract. He looked very very pale, was tachycardic, tachypnoeic and sats were 88% on air. BP was still ok.

I've managed to get IV access on him in order to get crossmatch 4 units of red cells for transfusion. My colleague helped me to phone the SHO for review and he came almost immediately. I was supposed to take some blood gases from him too, but unfortunately, I failed miserably. The patient was very oedamatous to the extent where I could not really palpate for his radial pulse. There was pitting oedema at his wrist!

Oh well, the SHO managed to get the ABGs, and the patient was resuscitated and they took him for an emergency upper GI endoscopy.

*phew (so much for a quiet and peaceful Friday, eh?)

Urology Nite Out

A night out with my friends yesterday has allowed me to gain abit of social life. hehe. Eversince I started working, I have been hiding in my house most of the time or going out by myself. So the night out, with my urology colleagues, (hence the name urology nite out), was certainly something I had looked forward to.

The pub we went to was this place called "The Three Judges." It was located just about less than 10 mins walk from my flat. To be honest, the pub looked kinda dodgy from the outside. It seemed like a pub for the older population, not for young people like us. =P But one of my colleagues (lets call him G) kept telling us that it is the best pub in Glasgow. He said the pub has even won a few awards! Therefore, to proof his point, he decided to organise this nite out at that pub.

Upon entering, the pub has a pretty nice atmosphere. Everyone looks pretty sane, busy drinking their alcohol and chatting away. We managed to get a table at the corner. My guy colleagues were very kind to buy us gals the drinks. While drinking, we started talking nonsense. haha. G,who obviously is a regular customer at this pub, started pointing out a few customers in the pub and told us stories about each. It was quite interesting. One was a brazilian hooker, two gals who were sitting at the other end of the pub were lesbians, and etc....

I drank a pint of light beer, followed by a glass of raspberry beer. That was my first raspberry beer in my life, and it tasted great. This beer, according to my friend, originated from Germany. It has a very addictive taste: sourish mixed with the usual beer flavour. I was slightly lightheaded after the first pint, but I am by no means drunk. My friends were all laughing at me, coz as usual, I was as red as a tomato. And guess what? I learnt something new that nite as well. Apparently, some of us Asians, do not have a gene that metabolises alcohol properly. That is why some of us turn very red after taking alcohol. So I guess I am one of them eh?

Oh well, the night ended quite fast, and we were asked to leave coz the pub was closing. We chatted for awhile outside the pub. I was needing the toilet badly. My bladder was on the verge of bursting. So I quickly excuse myself and rushed home. hehe. *phew Lucky my detrusor muscles are still working well. =)

Ash Cash

Ash cash is new to me.

I have never heard of it before until a few days ago. My colleague called me and informed me that there was a letter addressed to me in his ward. He also mentioned that the letter does not seem to be from the hospital administrator. hmmm....It was abit odd to receive a letter from outsiders addressed to me in the hospital.

The letter was sealed in a white envelope. I opened it quickly, curious to find out what it was all about. My colleagues were sharing my anticipation too. Anyway, I took out a slip of paper, with the heading "Funeral Care," followed by a cheque.

"Ash cash" were the words my colleagues said simultaneously. I was baffled. They explained to me that everytime I fill in a cremation form, I will be paid by the company that carried out the cremation. After hearing that, I have mixed feelings. I felt guilty for being paid just by filling in a form after the death of a patient, but at the same, it was an extra bonus. Oh well.

Digital Rectal Examination

5 years of medical school is a long time indeed. However, I did not have much opportunity to perform a digital rectal examination. I think I probably have done less than 10 as a medical student. Don't misinterpret me, I do not fancy sticking my finger into a stranger's ass. However, I have never felt for an enlarged prostate gland. So if a prostate gland is enlarged, I would not know it is actually big (coz lack of experience). You get what I mean?

Yesterday, my colleagues and I sat down to have tea. One of my colleagues, who was on-call for the whole week, complained that she was asked to do 5 digital rectal examinations, one after another. There were nothing interesting to find on the examinations. However, this topic led to another subject. Palpating for the prostate gland in male patients with them on all fours.....

hmmm....normally, the patient would be lying on his side with his knees bent at 90 degrees. According to a different colleague, he was told that it is better for the patient to be on all fours during the digital rectal examination, as it enables the examiner to get a better feel for the prostate gland. I do not know how true this is, but a few of them actually admitted that they have heard of this before.

All of us burst into laughter. And as expected, my fellow guy colleagues starting developing their own wild imaginations. (Imagine walking into the examination room, with the patient on all 4's and a finger in the rectum??!) You get the idea...... Don't think anyone of us would fancy doing the examination in that position.

A Weekend At The Hospital

Here are a few notes I wish to make about my weekend at the hospital.

SATURDAY

• It was a bloody long shift.
  
• My left eye felt sore.
• Oh great! I found that the contact lens in my left eye was torn. (no wonder it was sore)
• Had to remove it....and worked with one good eye = Headache at the end of the day.
• Spent 4 hours searching the entire hospital for a venesection kit. (Mind you, it was the weekend, most depts were closed. So, I phoned one dept to another, before finally, a specialist nurse, who was on-call from home, said she'll come over to the hospital to pass me a few kits).
  
• Acted as a translator. (Just realised that I have not been speaking Chinese for a looonng time...so I had some difficulty finding the correct words to ask the patient).
• Temperatures. Patients in the hospital just loved to get a fever, which gave me more work to do.
  
• 5 mins before I was meant to finish, a patient went into an epileptic fit. sigh.
  

SUNDAY

• Another long day for me. Arrived the next morning for work and found out that there were 13 admissions into my ward (it was meant to be 6 initially), and 2 from the other ward which I was covering.
• WTF?!
  
• A patient "decided" to fall out from her bed....so had to go and make sure she is alright.
  
• Referrals. I was asked by the consultant to refer a few patients to different medical teams.
  
• Noon. Most admissions have arrived, and so, I began to clerk them in.
• *gurling noise from my tummy. Hungry + Stress = :(
• By about 3 pm, I saw only 4 of the admissions. Still have 11 more to see!!! arrghhh!!!!
• A few other things cropped up and needed to be sorted out.
• 6 pm. Saw another 2 more admissions. And another 9 more to go!! And I'm due to be off my shift at 9 pm.
• Sat down for 5 mins to gobble some chocs to increase my depleting energy stores.
• I was nearly on the verge of breaking down....just felt I won't be able to finish them all by tonight. But, I managed to calm myself down and continued my work.
• 9 pm. 5 more patients to see. ("Go sl, you can do this," I whispered to myself).
• One patient was not happy that I saw him so late in the night. Sigh.
• 11 pm. I bumped into my colleague who was covering the wards downstairs. She looked awful and she admitted that she cried earlier on as she has had a rough day.
  
• 11.30 pm. With a few pre-op ECGs that need to be done and chasing results, I decided that I should leave the ward, before I missed the last train home, which was at midnite.
  
• 0015 hours. Arrived at home. Hungry. Headache. Knackered. Dead as a log.
• Could not sleep as the adrenaline was still kicking about in my body. Only managed 3 hours of sleep before I had to get up and leave early for work to complete my unfinished jobs.

hmm....reflecting back on my weekend, I was thinking.....maybe I was being slow in doing the jobs? don't think so...as I think I work quite fast. Maybe I was inefficient? Dunno. All I know is I was so glad that the weekend was over.

Itch

I hate itch. The moment you start scratching, the itch gets worse.

Recently, I have developed a funny rash. The skin around my neck began to feel really itchy initially. I began scratching away, thinking that it is caused by my hair poking around my neck. However, the next day, my body began to itch. This time, I put it down to dry skin, since the weather here in Glasgow is getting colder.

However, exactly a week ago, after coming back from a late shift at work, I realised that my whole body was covered with red little dots of rash. I was feeling super duper itchy. Nothing I do could help to reduce the itch. The rash also started to spread down both my arms the next day.

I became worried. Allergy? nah...neither did I use any new creams, nor eat anything different. Bed bug? Well, bugs won't bite me in this fashion. I was clueless. I did not feel ill at all. The only thing I had was a sorethroat which went away within an hour or so.

My whole neck area was (and still is) filled with red patches. I had to be careful with my clothes, so that I can hide the rashes . Otherwise, ppl would think that I'm suffering from a contagious disease (with the rash).

Clarythine did not help to relieve the itchiness. I decided to take Piriton instead, which worked wonders! Unfortunately, Piriton made me so drowsy that I felt so miserable trying to work and finish my jobs at the same time. hehe. Even the nurse in the hospital noticed that I looked so sleepy. But at least the rash is reduced. Not so red anymore and not too itchy. Tiny red dots are still visible though.

I think this rash could be a viral thingy or maybe just stress-related rash?? I dunno.

Intriguing

Fracture of the penis.

hmmm....intriguing eh? How could this happen? There is no bone at the penis....so how could you possibly "fracture" it?

After doing my homework about this, I learnt that fracture of the penis is defined as the rupture of the tunica albuginea of the corpus cavernosum secondary to trauma. Lets go into the anatomy of the penis for awhile. The penis is made of a few erectile tissues , i.e., corpus cavernosum (left and right) and the corpus spongiosum. The tunica albuginea covers the corpus cavernosum. During an erection, these tissues enlarge, which causes the tunica albuginea to become thin and stiff. At this point, the penis is vulnerable to injury.

Fracture of the penis is not common. Any sudden blunt trauma or bending of an erect penis can tear the thin tunica albuginea, resulting in a fracture.It usually occurs during sexual intercourse. (Don't think I'm going to explain how it can get bent...use your imagination). Apparently, you would be able to hear a "cracking" sound when the fracture occurs. Oh my, it sounds really painful, doesn't?? If the injury is severe, the urethra maybe damaged as well. (The urethra is a tube that carries urine from the bladder to the external). Urgent treatment of the fractured penis is required, otherwise, it may become deformed. Although complications from this injury is not common, they include erectile dysfunction and painful erections in the future.

So people, please be don't be too rough during sexual intercourse...the last thing you want is having a fractured penis and spoiling everything.

Just Hours Before Death

Have you ever heard that a dying man is usually more active just before he/she dies?? I think that statement is very true.

I was involved in a care of a dying man recently. He was not speaking much when I first met him. Most of the time, he tends to mumble to himself. The last day he was alive, this person became quite talkative and, in fact, verbally abusive.

I remember asking the patient how he feels. He just told me to leave him alone. Then, later on, he began to vomit a number of times and I decided to keep a closer eye on him. As I started to count his heart rate (by feeling for his pulse just about his wrist), he started scolding me. He said, "What are you doing, you stupid bitch!"

It was funny. I was actullay not offended. But the fact that a man could be suddenly so talkative. A few of my friends have told me about their experiences with the dying person and most of their stories did mention that the patients were more active on the day of their death. Weird eh?

2 looonnnng weeks again...

Its the weekend. But I'm working. Again. =(

Why do I seem to be working every weekend? hmmm...I just did night on-calls over the weekend about 2 weeks ago. And I had the weekend off after that week of nights. Last week, I was at work from 8-9 on Monday and Friday. It was tiring because I did not have much time to recover from my deranged sleeping habit. And I SO totally missed the first junior doctors night out held on Friday nite, because of my shift and culture. It was to celebrate our first paycheck. keke.

Anyway, I will be having the next weekend off, but unfortunately the Monday after that weekend, I start a 2 week long working days.....AGAIN!!! urgh!! I MISS MY WEEKENDS!!!

Wished I was a student now...hehe...

PAY DAY! PAY DAY!! =D

Did I just say "Pay Day"?

YES YES YES YES!!!!

hehe =D

I'm so happy. It was pay day on the 31st August 2006. And, of course, it was the Independence Day for Malaysia. (Although I am faraway, but I still have Malaysia in my heart). Selamat belated-Hari Kebangsaan folks!

Anyway, back to my pay day. See, this is my first proper job (I worked as a food server before). And to be paid after a few weeks of hard work really felt great!

Everyone at work was so excited. Rumours were spreading that our salary will be banked into the account at 12am automatically. So, I waited patiently till about 11pm. But I was dead tired and as usual, ended up falling asleep on the table. The next time I woke up it was about 4 something in the morning. And I remembered that I wanted to check how much I was being paid.

I quickly logged onto my bank account and was so happy to see my first salary!! I am now (hopefully) financially independent now. hehe. The good thing is the first salary is tax-free. Mind you, the tax here is rather high.

My friend and I decided to celebrate out first pay by having dinner at TGIF. The food was certainly much better than TGIF in KL. The atmosphere was great and for the first time, I actually did not feel guilty paying 20 quid for my meal. haha.

Conduitogram? Ileogram??

Have I got you clueless over there?

There are just so many words that end with -ogram. Kilogram, histogram, etc.

But what is a conduitogram or even an ileogram??

During a particular ward round this week, I was asked by a senior doctor to request a conduitogram for a patient. I was like, "sorry, what did you say?" The doctor repeated himself and I was still left dumbstruck. hehe. Silly me. But I have never heard of the word conduitogram, ever in my life so far. Later on during the day, the word fistulogram came up. Again, I was like, "What?!"

hehe....but fear not, I have now got the idea of the words ending with -ogram. They basically mean some form of investigative procedure, involving an x-ray and radioactive dye, to check for any holes or obstruction related to the organ or tissue. For example, a fistul-ogram. Fistul, comes from the word fistula, which is an abnormal connection between 2 organs. So, a fistulogram means investigating the fistula to check for any holes. If the dye leaks out of the fistula, hence, a hole is present within the fistula and that needs to be fixed.

Hope I did not get you ppl confused. But I surely have improved my vocabulary....keke.

Don Quixote

Heard this name before? If you haven't, let me introduce you to Don Quixote de la Mancha, a man whose aim in life is to undo evil and protect the weak. He feels that his good deeds will glorify the woman of his imagination......(he turned his faithful servant girl into the love of his dreams).

Anyway, my friends and I decided to catch a ballet performance titled "Don Quixote" during the Edinburgh Festival on Sunday. I have watched ballet in the past and I, particularly enjoyed "The Swan Lake." Unfortunately, this ballet performance made all of us clueless and sleepy. I have to admit that we all did not know what the show was about. Most of the time, after every scene, my friends and I would end up discussing and creating our own interpretation of the ballet. It was funny...we all thought that this man is abit loose in his brain....probably having a bit of dementia as well. =P

When we first entered the theatre, most seats were taken up except for the cheap ones (like the one we bought). This was the first time Don Quixote was performed in the festival. Anyway, a scene is always follwed by a short interval. By the end of the first scene, a tall guy sitting in front of my friend left the theatre for good. Guess he thought it was boring. During the 2nd interval, a group of girls who were sitting in front of us left as well. hmmm....hope you get the picture of how clueless everyone was about the performance. keke

When the show finally ended with the lead character dead, we left immediately (just can't wait to breathe the fresh air outside and see the sun). A man who was making his way out looked at us and said, "Oh, did you guys get the booklet? (refering to the programme book on Don Quixote)" I shook my head in response. And he continued, "Here you are, you can have mine. I do not need it anymore." I thanked him for the book.

I do not know what did you guys think about what happened. For me, I thought maybe it was just a convenient way for him to get rid of the book because it would be a waste to dump it into the bin. But at the same time, maybe we all looked so "blur." =D haha....whatever it is, I'm glad to say that our interpretation of the ballet was right on track except for a few scenes. But, I think I have enough of ballet for now.

Bad Venflon Days

Let me first tell you what is a venflon. It is a needle-like plastic tube that sits in a vein to allow drugs to be given intravenously or to start a drip (where you get extra fluid into your body). In order to insert a venflon into a vein, a lot of skill and experience is required.

Throughout my 7 days of night shifts, I have been inserting venflons into numerous patients everyday. The minimum venflons per day was about 2, and there was one night, where there were nearly 10 venflons to be inserted! Venflons are easier to insert in those with big fat cracking veins compared to those with small veins.

You would imagine that after having so many practice over the night, I should not face much difficulty when asked to insert one in the future (unless of course the patient has really no veins palpable or visible). However, last night (which was my last night of night shift), I faced great difficulty. I had to try about 3 times in a lady before I'd finally managed to get it done. And there was a man with a big visible vein, and I failed on 2 occasions.

ARrgghhh!!

It was really frustrating. I was suffering from a Bad Venlfon Day, and this made me feel really shit because I was meant to be more experienced...I have been doing it for the whole week!! sigh...oh well, I think it was because my mind was sunconsciously smiling away because it was the last night. So there was lack of concentration? Whatever. Doesn't matter anymore....need to retire to bed early. My eyes are nearly half shut. Good night.

No Sense of Urgency

My Thursday night on-call made me realise that some people just do not have the sense of urgency.

A patient developed post-ERCP pancreatitis, and she was in a lot of pain despite being prescribed with pethidine and a few more painkillers. She was mean to go down to the X-ray department at about 8 pm to check for perforation (which is when you find a hole in the abdominal organ). A clerk from the x-ray dept called back saying that there are about 20 patients in front of her. The doctor in charged told the clerk that this is urgent because the patient looks rather unwell.

However 6 hours later, I was paged by the nurse looking after that patient. The patient's blood pressure dropped quite significantly and her urine output was very low. The patient was also in a lot of pain and was feeling sick. I was like, "shit." I made my way up to the ward quickly and assessed the patient. She was quite tender at her abdomen. I asked if the x-ray was done, and guess what? The answer was NO.

I was like what?! Those 20 ppl in front of her should have all been cleared. Her condition does not seem too good and a perforation really need to be reuled out. So the nurse called the x-ray dept and they quickly made their way up to get the patient. Thank god the patient did not have any perforation.

Talk about inefficiency man. They did not realise the urgency of the x-ray. What if she really had a perforation?? Patient may die. Therefore, the moral of the story is an urgent thing really is URGENT!

The Quietest Night So Far...

My 5th night on call was, by far, the quietest night I have experienced. I was glad it was quiet. But there is a superstition which states that if you a quiet night the day before, you'll have a busy night the next day. hmmm...so I shall see what happens tonight. Hope nothing untoward takes place. *fingers crossed *toes crossed too.

The night started off quite weird. A nurse asked me to prescribe an antiepileptic drug for a patient. An oral drug has already been prescribed. However, the patient was not allowed to have anything through his mouth, so therefore, his drug have to be given in a different route other than the mouth. I looked up the drug guidebook produced by the hospital. I could not find any drug that matches the patient's oral antiepileptic. I asked if he can give the drug through the patient's rectum, and the answer I got back was, "Do you think if you were the patient , you would like to have your rectum stuck with a pill after bowel surgery?" I was speechless and just agreed that I would not like to take my medication through that method.

Another problem was some of the drugs which I thought were suitable was not stocked in the drug cabinet. sigh. There is no way the patient can miss his dose of the antiepileptic drug, because his epilepsy was never well controlled. I decided to seek help from a senior doctor on call. And she felt funny that the patient was not allowed to have his drug orally, especially when the patient is not vomiting or anything. So after much discussion, she said to just give the patient orally. I told the nurse the instruction from the senior doctor, and boy he was not too happy. I don't know about you, but I thought this whole issue was abit weird. I do not know much about prescribing antiepileptics and I was worried that the patient may go into an attack if I gave the wrong medication. haha.

Oh well, the rest of the night was filled with calls to prescribe pain relief and to look at a few patients who developed fever. I had about 1 hour of silence, in which I dozed off on the table for about 30mins and had toast with a cup of tea, prepared by a nurse. hehe.

Ok la...i'm counting down to my weekend! Just 2 more nights to go.

Two Deaths in A Night

Yesterday night was an awkward day for me. When I first arrived for work, there was an elderly lady whose condition was deteriorating. I started to panic. At that point, the patient was for resuscitation. I was worried that I would be called in the event of a cardiac arrest, which will be my first real life experience as a newly grad doc....quite scary to be honest, regardless of how many times I have gone through the immediate life support algorithm during exams. However, a decision was made not to resuscitate her later on.

The lady finally did not make it till the next morning and passed away peacefully. It was such a sad occasion, as she was surrounded by a big group of family members, consisting of children and grandchildren. Everyone was in tears. I felt so sorry for them because the death was really unexpected. I was asked to certify her death.

Earlier on, before this incident, another man died as well. I was also asked to certify his death.

Approaching a dead person was quite awkward. I know what are the steps required to pronounce the person's death. But when faced with the situation I was actually rather nervous. It was really weird listening to a dead person's heart and chest. It was not totally silent. I could still hear some funny gurgling sounds. The person was also very cold to touch. And actually, while examining the patient, I was thinking, what if this person is not actually dead yet?? Would his spirit be agitated while I examine him/her?? It was really awkward. I was not really invovled in the care of these two deceased people. So I was not really upset about it.

Two deaths in a day's work....quite a sad day for those families. My condolences to them. As for me, I think I would be more comfortable touching the dead after today. Off to bed now.

Isn't A Wonder?

Isn't a wonder when everything don't seem to go right?

I kind of give up on some issues in life at the moment. Everyone starts complaining to me, that so and so has done this, why didn't you try to stop he/she. Everyone has their side of story. Only those who were involved would know what actually happened between them. One would say he/she said abcd, while the other person would say he/she said wxyz. So all I can do is listen and stay neutral in both issues, apologise to the person who felt hurt and advice the other not to repeat the thing anymore, or vice versa. But at the same time, both parties are not happy and frustrated with the way things are. I agree that an arguement will never solve the problem. And either way, I feel both are at fault for arguing with each other.

So, I am left with a dilemma which no one would understand. Everyone thinks that I'm trying to runaway. But in actual fact, I am not. I just am clueless as to what else I can do. If the other person does not want to listen to my ideas, for f*** sake, I can't do anything about it!! Or if the other person choose to continue informing about his/her thoughts or feelings, I can't do much about it either because the situation is already as it is. There is no way of changing back whatever happened. I mean, yes, I understand that everyone is feeling rubbish about the whole thing, but can't you guys just see through my situation?? Do you think it is so simple to listen and not react emotionally to what you guys said?? Isn't a wonder why you people just can't leave me in peace?? I am human too you know.

For the past few days, I felt absolutely miserable. And no one would ever get how I feel unless they are in my shoes. Honestly, don't start advising me that I should express my feelings (which I have tried and have always ended in arguement with either parties). Everyday, I just can't stop looking back at what has happened. But, I know that only time will let me cope with all these bumps in life.

I got to leave for work soon. Isn't a wonder how the brain switches off troubled thoughts away from these things during work? I hope that would be the case, at least! Otherwise, I would not be able to function properly tonight.