|
[Tue Jun 23rd, 2009 • 2:59am] |
I blog so little these days I nearly forgot my password!
Having said that I'm forgetting my passwords for everything except my uni and Gmail accounts these days. For example, everytime I go on Amazon I have to reset my password. Doh.
I don't know what's worse to have, Alzheimer's (or actually, any form of dementia, although Alzheimer's is arguably the worst - or the best? - form for its intervals of clarity) or MND. Why, is there a competition you ask? Nothing, just racking up a list of diseases that I never want to get in my head. Technically this would mean everything in the Oxford Handbook and then some. On a related note, it took me 3 whole years of clinics to realise the Oxford Handbook beats both K&C and Davidson's which are each like 20 times the size of the former. But if I had to had to get a disease, I suppose coeliac's the least of all evils. Non fatal and all you have to do is avoid gluten. Can even get free gluten-free bread/pasta etc prescribed on the NHS! Awesomeness.
This week is full-on. I don't understand why post-exams is more stressful than pre-exams/inter-exams. Where is the logic?!
Two majorest sources of stress (of many):
1) Friday: throwing end of med school party for 20. Feeding everyone single-handedly. Eek. Ok I lie, there are wonderful people bringing wonderful food. But still, going to pengsan. But I have settled on my final menu and it is awesome. AWESOME.
1b) Said menu includes 15+ dishes. I made 3 courses for the 2 of us for a monthly-versary last year and nearly died.
1c) If Mission: Cooking fails I am going to tapau from Brick Lane and leave the crying for being a failure and an idiot to that night.
1d) Why did I think this was a good idea. Why??
2) Thursday: results day. Will find out for certain if this is truly the end of med school. Don't care about what exactly I got at the moment, so long as I pass, bottom centile also can I don't mind.
On the (very narrow) bright side, if worst case scenario in 2) unfolds, 1) won't happen. At that point only the tiramisu will be ready which I will promptly sit home and scoff in its entirety. GENIUS. Do you like my planning? Do you???
YAWN I wanna sleep. But cannot. Back to shopping lists.......
|
|
| They paid paradise to put up a parking lot |
[Wed Jun 3rd, 2009 • 5:32pm] |
They say you make your bed, you lie on it...
But what if you don't remember making it?!! And are convinced you never made it, cf it being a reckless act in an inopportune inebriated moment. Don't have too many of those any more, and I don't like how I'm being made to feel inadequate/less of a person for that.
Poo.
I wish I could say all the hours holed up were spent furiously advancing a good cause. Unfortunately, usually life is altogether less spectacular.
Or it must just be me.
10 fingers and 10 toes, yeah we're OK.
|
|
| Pointillism. Jabbing, jabbing away to fill the space. |
[Thu Apr 23rd, 2009 • 3:16am] |
One day I will be at a stage where I will never have to worry about another exam ever again.
That stage will either be 10 (or more!) years from now when I have finished them all. (You think finals are finals! This is just the beginning!!)
Or when I decide I want to be a professional locum SHO. Or, when I decide to drop out of medicine altogether.
And do what I dunno. Sit home. Stare at walls. Shower only when I've accumulated so much daki I can scrape it off my neck in little Faber Castell rubber snakes. Hehe Yan used to have daki like that. Yarksss man.
I use 'drop out' as opposed to 'quit'. Can you see? I am not cutting the mustard. Not! Cutting! It!
I half-wish I didn't do well last year....so this year would be OK in comparison T_T fts.
I'm not even that worried. I'm worried that I am not that worried. It just feels like I can't be bothered because "there will be bigger fish to fry".
You see, a thought has plagued my initial insomnia (= sign of anxiety. That's me - the anxious type.) muchly for the past year, and that is I can't see the light at the end of this tunnel. Not in a depressed nihilistic illogical way, but in a "hello? hello? can you hear me?" way.
Having said that and following on from the last sentence, I will want to kill myself if I fail the stupid BLS station again this year. Fts! In real life you would have an ECG machine that is INTUITIVE to use. See, they've not only modified thing such that you can read the rhythm AND defibrillate through the same pads, you don't even have to put them on the right way. No red/green/yellow business anymore, no aVR/aVL/aVF, just slap them on wherever on the chest and READ. Then SHOCK. (Btw, those waffle-iron paddles you see on TV? Years out of date.)
Can you see how medicine is surreptitiously hijacking every train of short-term thought and diverting them into a big field of nothingness.
I am not depressed, but I am afraid I will be. The real problem is that I don't have a special interest. Medicine is a dx of exclusion after ruling out
- surgery (no manual dexterity; no head for anatomy; tendency to almost pass out in the stuffy gown when the A/C is not working, all too common an occurrence in NHS hospitals!)
- O&G (the paradox of why all that oestrogen means everyone acts like they are PMS-ing all the time);
- paediatrics (too hard, too long to train, and too much at stake in terms of patients)
- GP (no future in M'sia cos everyone wants to see a damn specialist),
and - psych (not enough guts!)
But of course Medicine is damn hard also la. Sheesh. All these stupid syndromes. Who in their right mind wants to get a syndrome named after them?! I can understand if you were a great architect or something liddat, but someone like Alzheimer must get cursed by millions round the world every day. Or if you want a more light-hearted example, maybe Peyronie. HAHAHA. Gotta love Peyronie's. Oops I appreciate it is not funny for those affected. But you know.
Anyway, so it's like, no matter how hard I slog I will never feel like I have a real goal. Right now it's finals. Then later it will be MRCP lor. I hope I won't have to take too many resits. For postgraduate exams, unlike undergraduate exams, involve examiners wanting to fail you. That aside, then what wor? When am I going home. Where am I going to get sent by the gahmen. What kind of shit will I have to put up with. How many years in this career? The current other half is not a medic. Will he understand? If I were in his shoes I would have run a mile. To his credit this has not yet happened. Maybe cos he still thinks I can just stroll into a job at Gleneagles or something (ha!). On the other hand I am bracing myself for the worst in a small village that takes 5 hours to reach by motorboat. Nothing wrong with riverside villages you know, just that................. some people are meant for the city. Maybe this means I should choose a specialty that I can only train in at a teaching hospital (ie in a big town). Haha. Suggestions please? Must be a medical specialty ok.
This career is now all I know and I couldn't possibly be doing anything else. Yet............. I have a feeling it's going to be shit.
Without trying to sound ungrateful (for I am grateful, cos what job would I be doing otherwise?) - why did you insist on me following you into this world if you knew it was going to be so tough? Why?
(Forget character-building, I'm done with that. I'm 24 this year, my growth plates fused 6 years ago, my grey matter is just about set, can't make no more neural connections. Sorrito. Finito.)
Haih have to summarise Mental Health Act tomorrow... how come I don't remember anything from third year. OK after that better get cracking on haematological malignancies. Like I know anything about those either. Ha. Die-fire lo. And I think I might have strep throat or IM but I haven't had enough of a fever and my tonsils look OK. So how come my oropharynx feels like a big gravelly road bump! OK. One more month - PIAAAAHHHH!! Night.
|
|
|
[Sat Apr 18th, 2009 • 1:09am] |
I have no friends because I hate everyone.
[as per Little Miss Sunshine when the emo teen brother who takes a vow of silence writes that on a piece of paper, which is his mode of communication, to explain why he doesn't have friends.]
Emo teen bro: *scribbles* I hate everyone
Suicidal gay Proust scholar uncle: Everyone?
ETB: *underlines 'everyone'*
Be assured this is not just finals stress talking, although this entry is precipitated by stress.
Haih fuck this shit. All this shit. Stupid washer ate my blouse I bought in Philly! FFS. Drug charts before I sleep, or die.
I hate everyone and everything
(Except family. You can't hate family. You are allowed to develop lots of emotions towards family; 'hate' is not one of them. For that matter I suppose 'lust' isn't either. NB My brain isn't wired to pervert everything pervertable, just that my GP gave me an on-the-spot viva and my task was to explain causes and management of PV bleeds according to age group starting from the neonate. Wtf? Random question or what. So I said la ok in the neonate you just reassure the mum it's a withdrawal bleed from her oestrogens... from then on to pre-puberty you want to be ruling out child abuse etc. Speaking of GP this afternoon, I hope the suicidal lady I saw doesn't go and kill herself. :( sad. So I don't hate her. Or a lot of people la haih. Why am I so lousy. Wanna hate also cannot hate properly)
(But I still hate everyone else)
/over and out
|
|
| 3+ months to qualification... 1+ months to last undergraduate exams |
[Sun Mar 22nd, 2009 • 3:48pm] |
Terrified!
Something I've known for a long time is that my STM is good and my LTM is bad. BAD. This combo works when you have exams on 3 months' worth of work. When you are assessed on 5 years' worth, --> MEGA FAIL.
Also, despite all the stereotypes, I am beyond hopeless at orthopaedics. People have shown me how to examine a knee a million times and each time it's like new to me. Arggg.
(Actually I am beyond hopeless at many things...ENT huh? Ophthalmology huh? NEURO CARDIO omg HUH!?! So useless at those subjects it's unbelievable.)
If I get my OSCE on one of the last days I will properly shit my pants.
I don't fucking get why household products all have to say SEEK MEDICAL ADVICE on their labels. As if a doctor is really supposed to know what to do when you say, accidentally drink Cif. OK they are I suppose (see this is why I can never be a GP). But right now all this prospective doctor can think of is...... refer A&E, maybe call ITU, then REFER PSYCH. Done. Not my problem anymore.
I have resolved to always live within the catchment area of a good teaching hospital where if me or my loved ones get an MI we will get straight to a cath lab. And I want a good GP who keeps him/herself up to date.
Oh ya and I want to donate my organs. Please, anyone reading this, please remember in the event of my demise. This is imperative. I WANT TO DONATE MY ORGANS (after I'm dead that is..... I think I would still like to keep my kidneys as long as I am alive hehe cos what if one fails?!!). I carry an NHS Organ Donor card. There is no question.
OK MCQ time. OK thanks bye.
|
|
|
[Fri Feb 20th, 2009 • 1:00am] |
Haiya. Life is stressful.
I bunked today (first proper bunk this rotation, on the 7th last day!) because I've not been sleeping enough, and also because now my awesome consultant or in the other words the only person in the team who would properly teach me anything is on leave (it's not that the other doctors don't know stuff - oh they do, everyone doing Renal can only be smart - I just get told to take bloods and do TTOs all the time. Like fts, how is that going to help me pass finals. Got a TTO station ah in finals? Since when. Plus I completely understand it's not your fault you got given so much work to do...BUT I'm not getting paid to do the TTOs, you are.) I felt I would get more of an education staying in today.
And so I did! Predominantly to do with Jade Goody and how she is dying and how much respect I have for her carrying herself with such sense and grace to essentially her grave. OK, it boggles the mind how she got famous and stayed famous, but whatever, I'm not 27 with 2 young kids and riddled with bowel liver AND groin mets. Aw man. That must be a shitty feeling. Especially since cervical cancer is really supposed to be one of the curable cancers. How suay is she. Who dies from terminal cancer at 27!?!?!
(Psst, what on earth are 'groin' mets? Pubic bone mets.....? In my limited experience we only say 'groin' to be polite about examining hernias and doing femoral stabs and things. "We're just going to stick a small needle in your groin." Ha, small my ass lah. Gosh, learning to be a doctor really makes you pray and pray you don't end up in hospital as a patient, for any reason, cos all sorts of nasty things happen to you in the name of diagnostic and therapeutic benefit. I NEVER WANT AN ABG, EVER, IF I AM CONSCIOUS, NO MATTER HOW SICK I LOOK. AND NO MEDICAL STUDENT IS VENFLONNING ME. JUST - NO. I DON'T NEED IV FLUIDS OR IV ANYTHING, I JUST DON'T. If it's really a do-or-die situation then only a phlebotomist or a clin tech please. If it has to be a doctor then I want nothing less than an anaesthetist. Haha I am such a wimp, I'll be the patient all the nurses bitch about and all the doctors roll their eyes at. I better steal, I mean borrow, some 0.1% lignocaine to carry around so if ever I need any of these things they won't have an excuse not to anaesthetise me first. Anyway OHhh, I just Googled it and apparently groin mets means groin NODE mets. Say so lah.)
Aaaaahh the TV better be back by this Sunday cos I want to watch her wedding and cry like a baby!
Such is your life when you don't have friends la... you empathise with celebrities. I mean I have friends. I have a lot of friends. You count my Facebook friends and see. OK how many of them are actually people I know well enough to count as real friends is another issue. But anyway, ultimately, I think if I weren't with the bf, the only person with whom I have contact on a daily basis, I could easily keel over dead in my room or on the street or something and not have anyone notice for days (not even by people living in the same house!), which is a fear I used to have before him. OK, being worried about people not noticing you are dead smacks of the ego, but you know what I mean... Do you really want to end up a rotting corpse that stinks so bad or looks so decomposed that when people find you they automatically retch? You are dead, do you need that kind of extra insult?? Not wanting to become a human emetic is only part of the reason, but I rest my case.
Anyway I also finished up my last ever SSM (don't even know why it took that long for me to send it off, it was practically done yesterday) and revised some surgery. When I say some I mean like a bit. When I say like a bit I mean like a page. When I say like a page, ...ok never mind. But slow and steady wins the race ok. *not deluded. NOT deluded.
EH actually now I look at my book I read more than a page!! I read almost a whole topic! Dunno when I became so self-deprecating until I do it unconsciously HAHA. OK ok I'm going to finish it now.
Anyway I forgot why I was stressed. Time to sleep. Post take tomorrow man, fts. And that's only 8am. (i.e. to get there I need to be out of the house by 6.30. FTS!!!!!!!! T_____T) Imagine la, in a moment of madness I went and put down as my top two choices, jobs with an anaesthetics rotation. Which means what! 7.30am start everyday! Siao. How. I want it but I think it won't be such a bad thing if I don't get it lol. And out of 814 people what are the chances I will get it la. Haih. Depressing.
OK good night.
|
|
| Gobama! |
[Wed Nov 5th, 2008 • 8:05pm] |
Now I can wear my 'Barack is the Future' t-shirt out in public without fear of being beaten up on the London streets (as happened to one poor soul that got plastered all over the papers the weekend I got back from America).
In other news, revelation: I (now) LOVE JLS!!!!!!
Not least because they are named after me. HAHA geddit? JLS? Geddit? jokes.
This song has been playing in my head all week:
This makes me want to go out and buy their hoodie!! I don't have a fave so not sure what colour to buy. Maybe yellow cos that's the personal colour of the guy who goes to King's WOO! GO KCL!!!
Joyce this Saturday can I not go clubbing and stay home to watch X Factor instead? :D Wow the show this year is sooooo exciting we've been cancelling all our Saturday night plans to stay in and watch.
|
|
|
[Mon Oct 27th, 2008 • 5:16pm] |
Eh I have Bell's palsy! Partial, not complete, don't panic. Well, actually even partial is pretty bad.
My Rt cheek cannot move. Aaaaarrrr (lets jaw slack, drool floods out)
Nola I don't have Bell's. Choi. But the lignocaine from my third visit to dental A&E has left me unable to speak coherently. Have you tried speaking with half your tongue anaesthetised? Have you? It's damn weird! Like being post-stroke!
(I know I know tongue movement is innervated by CNXII. XII right? I dunno that's what I taught a whole load of third years last year. Oops? Hmm la la my ex-flatmate now F2 friend doing A&E in Surrey tells me to feel reassured cos he still has to look anatomy up on Google before reporting x-rays to his consultant. Yeahhh that's the way! What a legend. My beacon of hope.)
But I managed to book my dental appointment with my new dentist Mr Ooi.
That's right! Mr Ooi the dentist is going to be Miss Ooi's dentist! We could be family!
[walking out of A&E and bumping into a final year dentist friend incidentally with the same surname, even initials!... Btw, what kind of fucking A&E is NOT OPEN ON WEEKENDS!?!! My fricking abscess has been there since FRIDAY hello. If I went into septic shock on Saturday night from raging infection ---> ARDS ---> ITU ---> died, how. HOW? You tell me! How!]
[If you're wondering what my dental abscess looked like, it looked like a pimple in my gum. The bf wanted to pop it for me. Siao. Just because he pops every one of his zits. Even before the zits have time to look like zits he starts squeezing the life out of his skin! Poor skin.]
Me (LS Ooi #1): Hey! Lip Sin!!
LS Ooi #2: Hi Joanne! You are here! Did you manage to get your tooth sorted out? [cos obv I phoned her for dental advice before I did anything. She's great. She warned me to get it sorted out quick or my tooth would snap in half from being so weak, then it would die. Which would mean pulling out the tooth and getting an implant = transferring a dead person's tooth into my mouth. Waaa! On the other hand, if you phone me for medical advice, I can assure you you are better off looking your own condition up on emedicine.com....which btw, an ED consultant at MGH recommended I use as a trauma textbook of sorts, so don't be too ready to pooh-pooh it. Internet is king OK! *peace sign*]
LS Ooi #1: Yeah they redrilled my tooth, disinfected it again, put another filling on top, then incised and drained the abscess. So now I have to find an NHS dentist to finish the job. [shows LS list of NHS dentists in Southwark]...which one should I go for ah? Eh look, there's one called Ooi!
LS Ooi #2: YA! Go go!
LS Ooi #1: I should go and say to him eh, you are an Ooi, I am also an Ooi... all family hor!
LS Ooi #2: Maybe he will give you a discount!
Mr Ooi you better be a good dentist. Don't let the Ooi name down OK. One Ooi (=me) to do that is enough huahaha.
I am regaining sensation and soon I will be able to taste the pus I am swallowing :( even for me that is toeing the line between whatever and gross. As is stitching someone's head up in A&E and actually being able to see their dura mater. And on the underside of the triangular flap of scalp I had to reattach to the owner's head, there were these THINGS! I think they were the bases of hair follicles. A million soft little spiky projections like like... like... the bristles of a surgical scrub brush. Like legs on a sea cucumber. Like villi in intestines (refer your next bowl of chee chap chuk for a pictorial reminder). Yark. I dunno man. I can look at mangled arms and legs and torsos but those nanolegs on the underside of the scalp?! Er no.
Shit lah dental infections can give you endocarditis/some kinda stroke. Eek. :S
OK time for food then mouthwash and Augmentin.
Lazy to do stupid foundation application form help
|
|
| I hate 5th year |
[Fri Oct 24th, 2008 • 6:59pm] |
Just woke up after a good 4-hour nap...AND I could sleep some more! And this is only my 5th day of 5th year proper. Pathetic.
Bunked the afternoon cos I meant to spend time doing my SSM, which is paediatric surgery, because I think I wanna go into paediatrics, and I'm very concerned by my lack of knowledge of surgery at this late stage in my med school career, so I thought best to shadow surgeons who are actually nice, and anyone doing paeds anything is generally nice. Add that to the fact that I'm doing surgery this rotation which involves NO theatres just doing all the 'sai kang' on the wards. But then there's not much money in paediatrics, so how? Maybe the surgeons get paid more, I dunno. Anyway, after MAMMOTH ward rounds this morning plus a histopathology round (snore!!!) there weren't theatres or clinics this afternoon and my own surgical team said they could cope and exhorted me to go home, so I did! The plan was to work on my job app form but couldn't...too sleepy.
I asked Rob, the other 5th year on my firm how he's so constantly on the ball considering he has no time to do anything outside of the hospital since he still takes care of his 1.5y/o daughter... he says he sleeps at 9.30 every night!
!!!
9.30!!!
Anyway in my current state I'm desperate enough to do anything lah.
New (academic) year's resolution: go to bed at 9.30pm every weeknight
If I aim for 9.30 maybe I will sleep at 10.30 then wake up at 6 = 7.5 hours sleep, which would be fairly adequate. Right now I get more like 4...this is my daily schedule:
6am - wake up. Get ready at snail-speed (or, about as fast as I can under the sleep-deprived circumstances)
7-7.10am - leave for school
7.10-7.25am - get the bus if it passes by, or walk in to the station
7.30am - get on the train
7.45-7.50am - reach the hospital, go get settled
8am - ward round. Bright and fresh from my morning coffee/Pro Plus if we're out of milk or I don't have time, + B vitamins
10am - nearing end of ward round... at this point my energy level will be seriously flagging and I will be writing jobs down half asleep.
11am-ish - when sitting down for team discussion of jobs I'll find I have no idea why I wrote down what I wrote down or why we are doing the jobs we were supposed to be doing. Oh Mrs AB's K+ was high? think I missed that.......er so what if her K+ is high? Give her a banana and she'll sort herself out right? Oh she's got bowel obstruction and has been made nil by mouth for her CT scan later. Oops, wasn't paying enough attention to the big sign on her drip stand. Who's Mr RC again? We have to talk to haematology about what? Haih, frustrated frustrated!!! Look at me groping in the dark! How to be a doctor! Haih!!!
Rest of day - goes by in a blur. I wonder why it takes me 45 minutes to NOT find a Pod to send off my request to add CRP to this morning's bloods. I get very worried I don't understand ECGs still. Worse when the third years teach me and Rob about the X-ray appearance of a volvulus and the SpR says snidely "Well I never! A third year teaching two fifth years about volvulus! Tsk tsk tsk!" Worst of all why none of the doctors seem to drink any water at all! There isn't a water cooler around (typical for the NHS) let alone a coffee machine etc and I'm volume-depleted as death! My skin turgor is reduced by the minute! I have not peed since offloading my caffeine-induced diuresis at 8 before the ward round! And now it's 4pm! (and btw I'm extremely constipated as well despite eating at least my 5 a day, simply cos there's no water in my system to let everything through, it's about all my body can do to maintain my blood pressure) Do these people know they are surely and steadily heading for chronic renal failure?!! Not worth it guys! Not at the start of your career!
5-6pm - had enough, leave. Feel v bad for leaving the house officers struggling to finish their jobs. But they are getting paid to be there while I'm paying to be there.
7pm - get home, eat
7.30-8pm - sleep cos cannot take it
9-10pm - wake up. How to go back to sleep?! But still too tired to do anything but surf net aimlessly and struggle through one page of Surgical Talk.
1-2am - go back to sleep
How I used to sleep at 2am then get up at 5.30am in third year to have a long leisurely big breakfast, take a long leisurely bubble bath, take time to dress up + coordinate makeup, shoes, accessories etc, I no longer understand!!! OK, maybe because I used to get home at like 4pm and be able to take a nap then. Haih I dunno. THE BODY IS WEAKENING, that's what it is. Btw, I think I have OA of the Rt shoulder from carrying a too-big and too-heavy shoulder bag all year last year (from constantly carrying my laptop on top of all my other crap around from constantly doing the paper on the go), which is why I carry a free Fitness First backpack now that makes me look like a tortoise. Well I say, better to look like a tortoise than have OA at 23. Same old-lady reason I never buy heels anymore or even pretty flats for that matter. I wear the world's best Puma 'ballet flats'/sports shoes for clinics now, which on top of actual comfort, have the added advantage of facilitating bus-chasing in the mornings when I desperately need to get in on time.
Yay time to get ready for dinner! OK bye.
|
|