today is one of the happiest days of the month, because i managed to leave on the dot at 5pm! how cool is that! this is probably one of those rare occasions in gen med department. in fact, by 4pm, my HO and i were like counting down to knock-off time already.. so we decided to go for a drink, look at some babies and toddlers at the infantcare at TTSH, r&r at the staff lounge (but unfortunately we saw somebody senior there so we decided not to go in).
got myself a haircut and sigh.. they have oredi raised the price. wanted to go for a run round the estate but it was drizzling.
oh yes, i travelled the first 10000km today at PIE!
my patient's husband commented one day on one of my post call days "u look tired, u better go home and rest.." my consultant said to me on one of the morning rounds "u look tired, u post-call?"
well, i am tired perpetually every day it seems. partially true, if u have to work almost every day for the past 2 weeks; but it is confounded by the fact that my eyes are often ptosed unconditionedly. I will try, if i remember, to work my frontalis muscles whenever possible to make myself look less tired. but then again, that will make my forehead wrinkles appear prematurely.
and i am glad that i finally have my off day today! yeah!
in 4B! that's my sec 4 class, which was more than 10 years ago. zhenwei and grace finally got married, and had their wedding dinner on 11 jan which we attended. they have gone a long way, though it didn't start then in sec sch. i believed it was in jc when the friendship became something more.
anyway it was somewhat interesting and exciting to meet the whole bunch of people whom i haven't met for ages! it was like a mini-class gathering and i was actually looking forward to go before the day arrived! 16 out of 35 of us turned up (including the couple); and that was quite impressive i must say haha.
lemme see, for the update; other than the 4 of us meddies, ft is happy with her job in ITE (not a teacher btw) and she is probably the only one who is happy with her job; hm is leaving jtc and wants to be a psychologist; zc and g train as accountants and probably earn quite a lot; the two regulars zs and yc are still serving the nation with pride; zb is an engineer with ST; nhg is a teacher at chinese high; jc is probably still with edb - haven't got a chance to talk to him cos different table; our chairwoman m appears a bit cold and getting married soon the last i heard from others. as for the couple, zhenwei is based in egypt (how cool is that!) working under SIA and grace will be accompanying him as a taitai.
also saw some common friends too whom i haven't met for a while, so managed to catch up a bit.
food wise, not bad.. i was very hungry at that time after my work so i felt quite satisfied, though i didn't get to try the dessert cos the auntie removed it when i was talking at the other table. hummph. how come nobody stop her?
one of the reasons why i started blogging is so that i can look back once in a while to see what i have written and what i have been through so far; so that i can better set my resolution.
read through my entries of last year, and to sum it all, it wasn't really a very eventful year for me... some ups and downs. some tears and joys. met new people.
i started driving, and scratched my car x1; mounted kerbs x5; dented my boot x1. the most drastic accident was the one at National Skin Centre.
i tot of buying N95 for 8 months and i finally bought it.
i became a real doc once more and started poking, auscultating and talking to relatives in ttsh.
i experienced the fragility of life when i worked in a place with mortality rate of 50%.
well what passed is the past. while i can look back and miss the fond memories, learn from past mistakes and hopefully gain the best out of it. there are probably more incidents that occurred which i didn't blog about - perhaps not too crucial; but nonetheless, made what i am today.
the new year has arrived and i wish that it will only get better and better and BETTER! and hopefully one year down the road, i will have more stories and achievements to share.
and ended it with a bang! i actually have 2 new admissions in HD today (that never happened during my 1 week stint in HD coverage) and the last case came at around 5pm - which i eventually clerked and finished off the changes. and this makes the HD ward full (yup, that never happened too).
i think the new MOs taking over us have relatively bad karma, which makes my last day quite busy. 2 of them came today cos it was supposed to be their first day today, and that makes an overlap between the incoming and outgoing MOs. so we actually have 5 MOs today (4 in ICU, 1 aka me in HD)! I must say that we (the three of us - jm, sy and myself) have relatively good karma during our one month in ICU, cos: 1) there were hardly any overflows, in the best of my knowledge, we had two overflows in CCU and NICU respectively before; and a couple in HD outside. 2) workload is generally manageable still, although we are short of one MO (supposed to have 4 in total, but we had only 3). perhaps fate has it arranged this way - less MO, less work and vice versa. 3) our consultants and reg are ok people, so that makes life easier. And most importantly, they don't come to work very early, so MOs dun have to come too early too heh!
People around me were rather helpful too, be it fellow colleagues, RT, nurses etc. And i like it being so well-controlled such that things get done efficiently.
so overall, i actually enjoy working in ICU, despite that i have to come for all my weekends and PH in dec for the ward rounds. And i learn quite a lot too, both procedural and non-procedural. I am surprised that i can actually orchestrate a full resus all by myself! It is indeed heartwarming when patients are discharged from ICU feeling better; and at the same time depressing when patients collapsed, especially the unexpected ones. One case that still moved me was this patient who collapsed b4 admission to ICU and had hypoxic encephalopathy; and he was married with one son who just graduated from polytechnic and pursuing some post-diploma degree. we had to discuss about withdrawal of therapy and somehow i find it very hard to convey the message.. everytime when i looked into the eyes of the wife, it is always a mixture of sorrow and hope. and the son, i admire his courage to take it all. i remembered that they finally agreed to withdraw therapy on one night, and patient eventually passed away that very night..
well that's not all to my ICU experience, cos i will still be doing ICU calls at least once a month; and this month i have 2.
it's the time of the year when u start to throw away old calendars from the wall, wallet and desk, and also remind yourself to write the year as 08, not 07 anymore. this time round i didn't spend my new year countdown at home or town, but instead, playing mahjong at my friend's place. didn't play for long b4 i fell asleep though and woke up at 5.30am again, and luckily my ward round next day (this morning) wasn't too bad, except for a new admission that comes in at 10.15am - that sucks a bit cos i am supposed to end work at 10.30am.
oh yes, if i haven't wished u a very happy 2008 vs call/sms/verbal/facebook/email yet, here's one now - happy new year!
new year resolution wise.. hmmm.. i haven't really thought about it yet though. something that i can name offhand include passing exams, be happier, be wiser, be more tolerant.
holidae.
singapore.
lefty left-brainer.
leo.
9 Aug.
selective procrastinator.
paladin by day and nite.
Chatters
Wishlist
tag watch
learn cooking
play a new musical instrument
lasik op
new hobby
clear exit
Fav food
chilli crab
fried kway teow
fried carrot cake @ upp bt timah, bt merah, bt merah view, clementi
fried dang hoon
pig kidney/liver/small intestine/large intestine/organ soup/pig blood
kway chap from sembawang hills
hainan chicken rice with gien3
century egg porridge
fried oyster
BBQ stingray
clams and lala
chicken soup and all sorts of soups my mum cooks
fried fishballs
fish soup from han jee @ amoy
fried chicken wings
salmon belly sashimi
hairy gourd
lotus root
szechuan veg
prawn mee esp from old airport rd, zion rd, adam rd, sembawang hills and hong lim
chwee kueh from tiong bahru, jurong west, clementi, queens st
kueh tutu
coffee/bread toast/egg from sembawang hills, ah kun
prawn cracker
strawberry sundae @ macs
hotcakes @ macs
rum and raisin
duck's tongue
indocafe coffee
water chestnut juice
sugar cane juice
marigold lemon barley
