Lost and found

After what was possibly my most eventful on-call ever, i lost my precious companion of 5 years~ it was all due to my carelessness~ The Saturday call started off pretty mild with a few hours to rest after lunch~ with one patient collapsing in HDU. However the night and wee hours of the morning was particularly hectic with a further 3 patients collapsing, all of whom have been issued DIL (so no issue bout management there) but all have opted for active resuscitation. While resuscitating the final patient who had grade 4 encephalopathy with massive upper GI bleed and prolonged coagulation time, i managed to lose my stethoscope. I was doing CPR and the steth hanging on my neck was really getting in the way~ so like a pro i took it off trew it on the emergency trolley and continued my valiant yet futile resuscitation. After the patient was pronounced dead a phone call came from 8A~ What ?? I'm 3rd call~ I'm in charge of the male ward tonight.. the female ward is none of my business.

However i took the call and the staff nurse informed that there was a patient who had been fitting in the ward on and off since 4pm in the afternoon~ doing doing doing the call was at 2.30am!! What had been done for her?Nothing! The houseman in charge just ordered to run fast normal saline!! Can you imagine that? So i ran up fast forgetting the fact that my darling stethoscope was still lying on the emergency trolley. Apparently the patient had been fitting in the ward on and off having 15 sec fits which aborted spontaneously then regaining consciousness for 10 minutes then start fitting again~ this had been going on for so long and the MO was not informed!! What the~~ i informed the MO immediately and IV medication was given immediately~ The mother and all the nurses were so thankful that something had been done. But you can imagine the repercussions~ Hypoxic brain damage might have already set in~

Anyway went back down to fill up the burial permit and totally forgot bout my darling steth.I had like 2 more lines to set(after setting bout 15 in total that day)in 7A so that was foremost on my mind. The next day when i went to 7B to find my stethoscope it was gone!

Thank God when i tried my luck again this morning, it was miraculously there hanging on the trolley waiting for me to get it! I love you steth! How could i survive without you?

Today was a good day~All my work was settled early that day~ had 2 very nice and competent MO's in the ward~ and for the third time the daughter of the patient i did the pleural tap for came with chocolate gifts for me~ Fuah~ so nice. She was there cos her father had an appointment at the chest clinic. She brought 2 bags of goodies, one for Dr.S the sweetest and mildest tempered MO ever, one for me and a box of chocolate for my bumbling yet hardworking colleague called Chee Kong. Haha apparently she had just struck the lottery and was really still indebted to us for taking care of her father~ and i got to play Santa Claus handing out goodies to the respective doctors.

Good day~and with a new houseman in the ward i guess there will be higher chances of getting off work at 5 sharp like today~muahahaha happy days~

blardy tired

it's been 4 days since i came back too Ipoh and it's been work work work~
wa lao~ come back and the next day i'm on-call with a new HO and MO in the ward~
Changes~ i must get used to changes day to day~ second to second even

However i must say that was the best call of mu life!
11 admissions and 10/11 of the admissions were before 12~
and the MO was so nice and went tru almost all the cases with me~
Praise the Lord!!
man~ and only one case after midnight which was a blardy simple dengue case~
bliss bliss bliss~
slept for 5 hours~ simply amazing~ i hardly ever get that even in a passive call

However i'm so not optimistic bout my next call which is very soon~ this saturday~
Groan~
The good news is I can now finally see the fruit of my labour~
Got my payslip yesterday~
muahaha and the amount for 1 and 1/2 months was more than what i expected~
really happy really made all the slogging worth it
and that amount was not inclusive of on-calls~
Hallelujah~
So the 3 of us JH SC and me scooted down to the nearest bank to check our balance
alas everyone in Ipoh seemed to be doing the same thing~
the q's were damn long~
and just before we entered a certain bank a gaggle(10 0f them) of teenage Malay girls ran (i mean it~they were running!!) into the bank and each of them had just received 700 bucks and all of them withdrew 300 each~wonder if they're trainee nurses?

And when it was our turn~~ alas the money had not been banked in~
we therefore slumped out of the bank with greatly deflated moods~
according to MM the money will probably be banked in in 2-3 days~
really hope so!!

Langkawi Day 3 and 4

I have nothing to do but watch mundane Saturday morning tv and blog i guess~ well at least i went to pasar tani today and ate lots of yummy food~ nasi lemak with ikan masin,raw prawns, sardine curry puff~ ah heaven.. almost numbs the pain of missing out a Saturday morning shopping session actually~

I realized tht i have loads of resized pictures from Langkawi tht i have yet to blog about.

Haha since i have painstakingly resized it and all i thought it would be a waste if i don't post it up here. So here it is but i don't have the energy to write in detail bout it already cos its seemed to have been so long ago~ ages and ages

So here's Day 3.

The steps leading up to the 7 wells~ looks like chicken feed right? But seriously it's no joke okie?Wa lao~ woke up early in the morning for this arduous walk up~

After walking what we felt like 1000 steps we were met with this glum sign~ what??? We only climbed 271 steps?? and we have 367 to go? And it was steep okie?

We could have stopped half way and just settle for the waterfall but we decided it would be a waste if we didn't go to the 7 wells after traveling so far to get to Langkawi. So basically there are 7 pool like things like the one u see above. We were like practically the only ones there so i told JH come on change into ur bathing suit and have a dip in the clear as crystal pools~ But noo~ JH was just too shy to strip down in a place where no one seems to be going anywhere near the water. A few hikers came just to enjoy the view~ what?? These are natural water slides ready to be pounced on~ Gak~ but since JH was shy and i didn't want to be the only person bathing there i gave it a miss~ so we were on our way down when these ang moh kids ran in to the area , tore off their clothes and jumped in slip sliding away~ oh to be young and impromptu again~

Look what we spied at the waterfall on our way down the mountain~

A heart shaped marking on the rock~

Pretty nice waterfall too~

Cos we didn't want to miss anything we even went to the Langkawi wildlife park (tho the sign states otherwise)

Brave boy~

Clever beruks~

Only me and the peacocks~ no one dared to go in there~ i was outnumbered 20 to 1

me driving~dun be scared now~

and last but not least one of the best pizzaa ever complemented by a foot long sausage

Day 4

More pics of Awana~ in case ur wondering everyone was looking at this...

........... fishies~

Fed some sparrows with leftover bird seed from the wildlife park

Took some wuliao pictures~

Ditto~

enjoyed the padi fields~

said bye to the lembus and kerbaus~


and off we left for a tax-free alcohol and chocolate shopping spree~

loved Langkawi~

Happy days~

Finally a nice long break from Ipoh to go back to good old JB~

I sure miss being able to understand all the mandarin speak around me instead of staring blankly at everyone when canto shit is spouted from their lips~ Don't get me wrong a i don't hate cantonese ppl i just don't like the language. It doesn't help that everyday ppl speak to me in that language like its some universal language~ and *gasp* don't look at me in wide eyed horror when i say i cant speak the d*** language cos no one in Jb bothers bout anything canto anyway~ every TVb drama is dubbed in good old Mandarin (which is incidentally the decreed common language that helped Shih Huang Ti unite China) So pls take ur canto accented Mandarin and go away if you have nothing nice to say about canto-ignorant ppl such as myself~

Anyways the reason i have a wondrous 5 day break is cos.. er i applied for it~ but just 3 days are going to be deducted from my leave cos weekends don't count. Ain't that wonderful? Praise the Lord~

The journey from Ipoh to JB was not as butt bustingly horrible as I imagined~ Thnks to JH i got to the Medan Gopeng bus station with time to spare to get some french fries at the drive tru McD nearby. And i can tell you those were the most mouth-wateringly yummy french fries i have tasted ever~ when ur happy everything tastes great looks great feels great~

As apposed to the 12 hour trip i took way back in sem 5 for my electives, this trip was decidedly a shorter 7 hour trip where i get a single seat~muahaha no more fat ppl encroaching onto my space~ and a free bottle of water. The bad thing was due to the lack of meat on my bones, i was left shivering almost the entire journey despite wearing a jacket on top of my 3/4 sleeved top and topping that up with a rather thick towel. Until that is i found the secret to staying warm~
I covered my feet with whatever pieces pf clothing i had in my bag and wa lah~ i'm as warm as toast~ As long as my extremities are warm, the rest of my body is warm~

And oh imagine what awaited me back at home~ My wonderful family and my wonderful magazines!! 5 issues of 8days 1 Singapore Cleo and 3 New Idea~ Bliss how am i going to finish all that?

My frown line seemed to have disappeared since i touched down in JB and i've been getting decidedly more sleep~ muahaha this is the life~ I guess without work you'll never know how wonderful mundane life is like.So please help me give a tight slap to anyone that laments their life is so boring because they have nothing to do~ relish in nothingness i say!


I notice that i haven't posted many pictures ever since i started working in Ipoh~ well there is a very logical reason for that~ i have no camera over there~ Haha so for the sake of putting pictures in my blog these are the events and occasions i missed while i was away up North~


1. Steamboat/Teppanyaki dinner for Uncle Kwok and Auntie Robyn

Okie i don't really have a nice picture of them but this was what the whole family got up to~eating!! Here are random snap shots.

Cousin and his girlfriend~wedding bells are ringing soon~

Ah ha~ another potentially married couple in the near future~ he's a policeman and she's my cousin~ haven't really spoken to him yet but what i gather is that she is blissfully happy.

More paparazzi pics of the new couple.

Auntie Robyn(pink batik top) and auntie Jenny (pink stripes).One stays in Melbourne and the other in Jb.

A heavily pregnant cousin-in-law and the happy father to be~

And wa-lah~ the fruit of a 24 hour labour~ I missed this too~ aw shucks~

2. Banana leaf dinner (we need more Indian restaurants in Ipoh)

And the family went for some banana leaf dinner~without me~boo hoo

3. Desaru trip

Back in the days when i was young~ like kindergarten~ when my now located in melbourne uncle and auntie was still living in Jln Rubi Jb, the family went to Desaru almost every weekend with a few other close family friends~ and this trip was sort of a stroll down memory lane.

Auntie Robyn teaching Ben how to swim~ with comical results~

Aunt: Pls pls pls learn how to swim

Uncle Boon and his daughter Fiona~ the last trip to Desaru we went together she was like 1 year old? I think i'm getting old~

I

I dont usually see many ang moh's in Jb but when they come they come in groups~ Fiona's exchange student friend

4. Decorating the new condo

Ben enjoying the comfy little sofa~ Hey? isn't he supposed to be helping?

Lots of greenery

With a tennis court and huge swimming pool~Maybe i can start learning to swim now

Thnks to the help of a digital camera i get to relive the lost one month~ it almost feels like i was there~

Present in the ward~

Wow~ i got my first gift from the daughter of a patient in ward 7B~

It was a rather hectic morning for me cos i was summoned to the endoscopy room for not having a proper consent form for the patient~ you see a colleague of mine took the consent and but he only took a consent for OGDS and left out the fact tht he was to do a colonoscopy at the same time. Therefore the initial appointment date of 6/7/07 was canceled. I fought hard to get the new appointment date which was today since the patient had been waiting for such a long long time but stupidly forgot to get a new consent form. To make matters worse the nurses forgot to note that they had already prepped his bowel with fleet.

Luckily the ppl there were kind and the specialist who is a super senior from IMU was equally nice. So in the midst of the chaos of getting a new consent form the said patient's wife, another patient's daughter whom i did a pleural tap on the day before gave me some biscuits her friend brought back from Japan~

Muahaha she gave me a pack of 6 chocolaty Jap cookies~

Wow~ the feeling was overwhelming~ they appreciate me after all~

And the uncle was damn nice bout the tap not like some other shit patients who cry and scream even before the needle is inserted~ sad to say his prognosis is not very good and has been planned for palliative care~

The life of a doctor is full of ups and downs~ you never know what will happen next..

Hopefully only good things will come our way~!

Time to rest~

Muahaha~ home from work a wee bit early today as we were post-active. managed to leave the ward at 5pm sharp without feeling guilty that there were still Mo's or other housemen in the ward~ What a wonderful day la dee la dee la~ muahaha so happy in fact that i forgot to punch out~ Stupid punch card it seems like such a nuisance but a necessary one i guess~

Retrospectively i feel that even though the Saturday call was bad, i guess the HO captain had no choice but to slot me in for the call at the very last minute~I guess she had to do it and knowing her personally she's generally a very fair and responsible person so i guess the bashing in the previous post was mainly due to uncontrolled rage~ haha i'll try not to do tht again~

Watched Transformers yesterday with JH and Shin Ch33.. My its been ages since we had the time to watch a proper movie.So guessing tht Ipoh is an ulu town and assuming tht no one in their right frame of mind would want to catcha movie on a weekday, we strolled into the cinemas at 7.50pm for the 8pm show.Needless to say it was sold out.

Being the stubborn pigs we were we decided (well mainly me and SC) to try at 8.30 pm to see if there were any cancellations for the 9pm show. Alas..there was none. Since SC wanted to watch the show a lot.. and i thought hey since we've waited so long already, we decided to catch the 11pm show. Great movie~ bt we reached home at 1.20pm and only had a few hours of sleep before work the next day. Bad move i was basically floating around half of the day when i needed to do discharge summaries. JH is on-call today~ugh hope he does okie~

I miss school life when going back at 2pm seemed such a chore already~

On-calls really age you by years~ so i bought some cheapo facial masks from Watson's. Would you believe it~ a pack of 6 moisturizing masks(those in cream form tht you have to put on ur face with ur fingers-not the ready -made sheets) for 15.90. But if u buy 2 packs(12 applications) you only pay 9.90~~ what??? You pay less for 2 products?? Luckily the sales girl alerted me bout this ridiculous offer~ the funny thing tho is tht in the brochure it was written tht 2 packs go for 19.90... Hmmm.. weird~ Anyway hope the facial masks work~ I dun want to look like a haggard old lady anytime soon~

p/s Current status : watching the Monday episode of Campus superstar on youtube while eating glico Loller strawberry biscuit rolls~ bliss bliss chill~