Listen: Note On Love
Found this on this site, thought it’d be nice to share. Enjoy!
Happy Merdeka Day
Untitled #2
Of late I count my days by whether it’s headache-free or headache-filled days, and lemme tell you it’s no fun at all to have the latter be the majority of them. Don’t understand why this is happening; some says it’s stress, but I really don’t feel stressed at all- truth! Yet this past week the first thing I do as soon as I woke up is to pray hard that I won’t have headache later during the day. It probably sounds like I’m whining about something petty, but if you’ve ever had tension headaches or migraine before, you’d know this kind of pain can be quite debilitating- in short it’s nothing you’d wish for on anyone (unless you really hate them lol).
Ruminating Psyche
That’s what I’ll be doing for the next few weeks.
No, not really. Not so much of rumination, I don’t think, but a lot of other stuff. I was told we’ll be seeing patients with all sorts of psychiatric problems- it’ll be interesting! Can’t wait, even though a part of me is nervous about starting my first rotation in psychiatry. Psych, of all rotations! They say it can be mentally draining, and I’m sure they’re right. But this is what we’ve all been waiting for- to learn at the bedside, to speak with patients, to try to understand them and their diseases, and to talk to them hoping that our words may provide some sort of comfort. Now that it’s happening, I really don’t care which rotation I’m starting with.
Tomorrow we will begin our day with ward rounds with the care team. The hospital I used to visit with my grandmother when I was a small girl seemed to have changed so much. I don’t remember much of it, but the fragments that I do remember, I can’t find them there anymore, except for the distinct smell of a hospital. In a way, it’s not a bad thing to have little to no memory about the place, because then I can build new ones without having anything else shadowing it. This will be my new ‘home’ for the next year, and we’ll see how it goes.
Updates on TTW
So! As I mentioned in the last post, we’re having our Transition to Wards course right now, and we’re almost at the end of our second week. Last week we focused on Basic Life Support, learning CPR, EKG interpretation, and how to handle emergencies / acute care in a hospital setting. There were many sessions of acute care simulation; each scenario is different from the others, each one has many learning points. There is the communication component of it, and then the clinical acumen part of it. So much to learn, absorb and internalize, I can’t help but feel overwhelmed. It’s easy to allow all this to intimidate self, but I know, too, that the point of all this is not to scare us but to give us an idea of how it’ll be like in the wards and what we’re about to face. The goal is to equip us with a set of basic skills and a sense of the real setting so we don’t feel like we’re being thrown into the lion’s cage without any warning. In this sense I feel the TTW course has accomplished its goal. This week the focus was on medico-legal information and bioethics, the latter being one of my interested areas. End of life care, informed consent, truth telling, confidentiality etc. All of this is just so… messy. There’s no clear-cut answer to all situations, and every situation is different. Some people don’t like it, but it’s precisely why it’s so interesting to me. This is the humanity part of medicine, and it’s one of the main reasons why I’m doing this. I just hope I don’t get all jaded by the end of housemanship…
Some photos taken during phlebotomy and scrubbing sessions. Was too immersed on practicing instrument tie and two-handed knot I forgot to snap shots of my ugly sutures. Next time maybe. 🙂
Girl Is Back!
Ahhh freedom! I can almost taste it. Feels good to be back here. 🙂 It’s been a long hard month since I last blogged. To those who wondered, yes exam is finally over. Don’t ask me how I did though. Lots of post-exam emotions and thoughts that are best left alone and untouched for fear of it inundating me once again (it already did- right after the exam, but I managed to calm self down after long chats with friends and family). In truth, there’s nothing I can do about it now except to enjoy my time with family and friends before school resumes on Monday. I know I’ve already given my best on that day; that should be enough for now.
Moving on… next week we’ll be having a 3-week long of Transition to Wards sessions, learning the basics like BLS, surgical skills, medico-legal stuff, phlebotomy, nursing skills, EKG interpretation, ethics, professional dilemmas, acute care, etc. So much to learn! It’s going to be exciting (and scary!), for we’re one step closer to our clinical rotations. Speaking of which- starting Monday we’ll be in our Year 3! Wow. I just barely recovered from Y2’s exam stress and anxiety, and now we’re getting ready to charge into the ‘real stuff’! Talk about time waiting for no one! (Hahaha right after writing that I just realized it’s direct translation from 岁月不留人! lol).
Anyway. That’s it for this update. I have one more day before school starts. Gonna do as much as possible before then. In this instance it means sacrificing beauty sleep for Man of Steel so the movie better be great. Righto peeps. Off I go for supper and movie. Later.
xoxo.
Two-Bit Thoughts and A Video to Share
Some Things Never Change
Vote for me, he says
If you don’t, the country will go to the wrong people
There’ll be hudud law
You won’t have the freedom you enjoy now
Economy will decline
Everything will go wrong
If you don’t vote for me
Vote wisely
Vote for Malaysia
And I sit here, wondering
When is he going to tell me
What will happen if I vote for him
Afternoon Rain and Thunder
Have you heard?
Unknowingly, or knowingly
Consuming, thrashing, forgetting
Repeat routine the next day
Yes, tell ourselves
It’s not us, it’s certainly not ‘me’
Prolonged winter in New York
Floods in Midwest US and in Malaysia
Earthquakes, hurricanes, and what-have-you’s
Surely you must be mistaken
To think it’s related to civilization
But could it be
That it’s really us
Should we give up some of our luxuries
Maybe we should
Carpool, take a train, recycle, buy less
But dear God it’s so hard
Can I just do it tomorrow?
And so the morrow turns into
Weeks, months, years
Plastic consumption is still sky high
Oil and gas still fueling our economy
Yes, nothing seems to have changed
But outside the sky is in a fury
It’s coming for us, you and I we both know it
Hello Monday Morning
Hello world! Another Monday, another start of the week. There’s a small bakery behind VIVA on Jln Ipoh, a few doors down Chapati (not sure of the spelling), that serves really good coffee. Apparently they have good breads too but I didn’t try. Check it out if you’re around the area. A few points deducted because they serve in paper cups even if you’re having it there, but coffee is still good. Good day everyone!
p.s. if you don’t know where VIVA is, it’s near KLPAC, but on the opposite side of the road.