kimochi d'aemii

and the tone has been set

2012-01-01T01:06:00.003+11:00

Two thousand and twelve.

You've only been here for 23 minutes and you already suck!!
Am stuck in Canberra. Was hoping to catch the Sydney fireworks on TV. Please enlighten me... which of the local channels actually showed live coverage of new years' fireworks, let alone the Sydney ones? All I could find were reruns of some Barbra Streisand movie, an episode of That 70s Show, some sci-fi thing called Paranormal talking about alternate universes and gravitons (interesting stuff tho!), some Star Trek episode where some Trekkie looking like Data was making out with some Elvira-like female and Van Helsing, amongst the numerous SBS channels that included Bollywood movies. I had to search through Youtube to watch the fireworks that I could've seen from our apartment, had I been in Sydney. So, I watched the fireworks belatedly on my laptop, alone. Without the hubby. WHEN I COULD HAVE SEEN IT LIVE, even if it was via TV. Pathetically sad, even for my standards.

Spent the rest of it since I started this post talking to my parents. Lovely as they are, I had wanted to call up my grandma's place to catch up with all my aunts and uncles and cousins. I thought they'd all be there, but nobody tells me anything as usual. Turns out, everyone had left for their respective homes in different countries around the world by today. Ended up yakking to my parents for nearly an hour instead. Was kinda nice to be able to tell them I had thoughts of leaving medicine completely. Again, I blame two thousand and eleven for that change of heart.

Two thousand and twelve. You better shape up and get your act together. Don't you dare emulate two thousand and eleven or I'll kick your butt so far, you'll end up in some parallel universe. *roar*

hurry up and leave, 2011

2011-12-19T22:13:00.002+11:00

The year's coming to a close and I'm glum. Not because it means I'm one year closer to death. Am momentarily stuck in a moment of feeling helpless. Driving for four hours straight, at times in rain so heavy I couldn't see more than 5 feet in front of me.. driving back to a rented apartment alone gives one a few moments to reflect.

It's not very gratifying to feel that I haven't made any difference to people. Do you realize how frustrating it is to come across patients regularly who travel several hours to wait another few more at a crowded clinic, to be seen by a registrar (they're lucky if they get one of the good ones..) for less than 10 minutes and then be either be told that they're not healing well, or they are but to come back in another couple of weeks once their broken bone has healed? Some of these people struggle to find the means to come, either because of lack of transport or lack of funds. Couple that with a painful injury, sometimes in a cast that doesn't allow them to bend at the knees to sit comfortably in the car... And yet, there are ads on TV telling people that help is never too far away (via helicopter), showing signs in the middle of nowhere with things like "pediatrician --> 500km" or "heart specialist <--- 630km" on them.

It's not near. It's bloody far away for these people. It's frustrating to be part of this system, where we're at the bottom of the food chain. People "up there" sit there making rules that affect the lives of many hundreds out there without full understanding of the implications for those affected.

Do you know how much of a lightbulb moment it was for me to admit to myself that I've enjoyed my short weeks of ICU more than I've enjoyed ortho all year (except for my secondment hospital posting)? Yes, the huge blocks of days off help a lot. Maybe it's that. Or maybe I feel like I'm doing something useful - like preventing home teams from inadvertently killing their patients from sheer neglect when I go on MET calls. Coming from someone who has been gunning to get into ortho since internship, this is huge.

I thought 2010 was a crap year. The workplace woes resulting in a non-negotiable boss-initiated week off, no questions asked. The stress associated with planning the wedding (would have been worse without the support of the Tubby-Hubby) - so much so that I forgot to actually enjoy the moment of getting married because it passed in such a huge blur. Sad, eh? The disappointment of not scoring an ortho interview (for that was the goal) and scrambling around to rack up the points. The bulk of it was mostly the mental torture stemming from work, and a particular colleague at the time.

This year was worse. It's like the universe is out to prove that it can outdo itself. The few moments we could steal of married life were good but we were mostly apart this year due to work. I'm renting an apartment nearly 300km away for goodness sakes. And then, I lost my rings. On the one-year anniversary of his proposal. Both rings. And then the bitching at work! This year took my workplace woes to a new level of hell. Then my car died on me. A minor crack in the radiator was undetected and ended up blowing the gasket. The engine needed to be replaced and the car was at the mechanic's for more than a month. I got stuck in floods, the worst in the region for decades. The regional hospital was basically in shutdown mode for the week until waters receded. And then my grandpa. The parents thought it would be a nice thing to tell me that my grandpa isn't likely to make it.. one month into his ICU admission overseas. You have no idea how much I seethed at being told so late. He died soon after. I found out on the train, via a text message. Gee, thanks for the kind gesture. The Tubby-Hubby was next to me on our way to pick up our wedding album. We were to bring it back home to show my grandparents the wedding they missed. It was the main reason we got the album made. He never got to see it. It kills me every time I think about it still. We flew back for the funeral. We flew back again less than a month later for the vacation we planned half a year ago, wedding album in tow. The poor Tubby-Hubby has occasionally had to suffer the under-the-surface bubblings of angst and frustration I can't contain but otherwise, I've been trying to lie low ever since..

So yeah, given all that, I'm glad this year's coming to a close. I'm glad I'm getting a new shot at things. I'm scared of not living up to expectations, but am glad nevertheless to start fresh. I'm glad that I get to go home every night to home, not some derelict run-down apartment where I look over my shoulder all the time to ensure my own safety. Two thousand and eleven, I'm glad you're going to be history soon.

C is for Cookie

2011-12-15T15:28:00.000+11:00

Sometimes, I wonder

Why suffer so?

Why jump through the hoops

When there's other places to go!

The operating room,

It has its thrills

Those bloody messes

And the drilling of drills!

But then I think,

Is this worth the time?

To while away the years

As I while away my prime.

I'd rather be happy

Than trudge through the day

To come back home exhausted

It's not worth the pay..

So once again

Here, I stand

At crossroads familiar

A decision in demand

But let me be,

And let me stay

In my dreamland

For another day!

So for all you friends

and family too

A happy Cookie Day

to all of you!

medical marvels

2011-12-10T21:44:00.000+11:00

Once again, I'm warning all of you. Do not land yourself in the hospital if you can prevent it. You will be surrounded by incompetent nincompoops, especially on weekends. Just take a peek at these pieces about UK hospitals. It's old news, really.

I'm most likely offering a skewed view so indulge me and share your thoughts with me after you hear out my tales. All names are fictional in this context.

***

Teddy, the ICU registrar receives a call on the Outreach phone, a dedicated line meant for consults by the rest of the hospital. His side of the conversation goes something like this:
"Yes, I remember Mr Connors. Uh huh. ..you're concerned about his heart rate?"
*long pause accompanied by a myriad of facial expressions ranging from bewilderment to utterly lost*
"So you're the team registrar?"
*another long pause with the facial accompaniments*
"So you're the intern?"
*a slightly shorter pause*
"So you're the nurse? Um.. why don't you call the resident looking after your floor to review the patient first, and if they have issues, they can call the medical registrar to review. If the med reg thinks the patient needs ICU to get involve, they can call us then."

For those of you who don't work in a hospital, the ridiculousness of this might be lost on you. I don't mean to sound elitist, but am just stating how the chain of command works. Ward nurses aren't supposed to MAKE referrals to any team - it's not the job they were trained to do, it's not their call to make. If they were concerned, they should refer to the doctor responsible for the patient they're worried about. If they're still concerned for the patient's safety, there's a MET call/Code Blue system in place to get senior help FAST. There was absolutely no role for them to call up the ICU registrar to request a review, yet this particular one was quite indignant that ICU hadn't reviewed this WARD patient (who was NOT in ICU) in two days and why not?!

****

The Outreach phone rings again.
Jack starts to talk to his counterpart, another registar, on the other end of the line.
The full story emerges after Jack hangs up the phone with a very bemused on his face.
"There's this paranoid schizophrenic patient down at the psychiatric unit who's refused to eat for the past two days now. They want us to bring him up here to ICU, sedate him and give him IV fluids"

... where do you even START?!

First of all, the patient is mentally ill and is a scheduled patient, basically classifying them as an involuntary in-patient. Therefore, as a doctor (they obviously forgot what that entailed), the psych team is legally allowed to implement any and all treatment/evaluation deemed appropriate to the benefit of the patient. That translates to "go and restrain him so you can put in an IV cannula to start the fluids through, you nincompoops"

So the ICU Outreach team troops down to the mental health unit to review this patient, made sure he was all ok and document that the medical ward is perfectly capable of having patients with cannulae in situ, and if they required any help to insert lines, to call the anesthetic team. The medical team hadn't even reviewed the patient yet, as Jack had advised over the phone.

As the ICU team troop back to the unit, Jack gets a call from some manager up in hospital administration, saying that it was unsafe to have the patient up in the ward. Honestly, medical admin, you're making that clinical call?! If you were so concerned about the patient, why don't you come and review the patient yourself to reach a decision, usurping both the medical registrar, the psychiatry registrar and the ICU registrar of their jobs?

Oh, the saga continues. After Jack finishes entering the review into the ICU database, the MET call/Code Blue pager goes off. Guess where at? No prizes for guessing.. the psychiatric unit. The reason? "The patient dropped his GCS a little." By the time the ICU team arrived again, the patient had his eyes closed. They flipped open immediately and the mouth uttered a very comprehensible "Yah, what mate?" as soon as the ICU registrar approached and tapped him on the shoulder. Decreased GCS - what utter crap!!

***

And then there were the phone calls - 3 so far in my two days at work this block of shifts. All kept asking about a certain patient in one of the ICU single rooms, inquiring about his health. Um, how do I put it without being blunt... "He died last week." It's like he hasn't let go.. his xrays are still around, random teams that have been involved with his care have been calling at random times (what consultant calls up on a weekend afternoon anyway!?), and even family have called. Awkward.

***

What about our Dancing Queen.. the one that's been in ICU for over 150 days and counting. The one that has stiffened up from being bedbound, intubated and ventilated for most of this time and has grown all sorts of bugs that can only be managed with nephrotoxic antibiotics that are reserved as a last resort? Now, do you think the family is being considerate, or being just plain cruel, to plaster the only wall she can see from her bed with enlarged pictures of the patient when she was well.. when she was leaning over balconies enjoying sunsets, or when she was playing with her grandkids. I call it cruel, especially if I was the patient sitting there with multiple holes in my abdomen from so many surgeries that I'm leaking everywhere. I wouldn't want to be reminded of what could have been, what was, what I could have done.. Yet, the family refuse to let her fade away in a comfortable, painfree manner but insist on us shoving tubes down the patient's throat and other awful maneuvers that wouldn't improve the patient's eventual quality of life.. if she made it out of ICU, let alone the hospital at all.

***

Oh, I could go on but my head hurts. So many other similar events happen on a daily basis. Add that to the incompetence of certain staff members on any given shift (or those with personality problems, or those that like the thrill of power struggles). Then add truly sick patients in ICU requiring medical attention. Then add the occasional procedure required like central or arterial lines. Factor in patients arriving and leaving the unit at any given time, plus the paperwork involved. All in a day's work. My head hurts =(

ungrateful wench

2011-11-30T09:49:00.001+11:00

The ICU. At night. Be scared. Be very scared... of Angry Amy. She reared her face and made a guest appearance last night when we had this lady yell the house down. Post-craniotomy for removal of a brain mets, she was brought into HDU and wouldn't shut her shrill little mouth all night. She obviously subscribed to the "The louder I yell, the more attention they'll pay me" school of thought. To make matters worse, she was Cantonese-speaking and her poor daughter had to interpret for her. The lady obviously could understand and speak some English, for by the end of the night, she was forming simple, blunt sentences such as "You no care" and "I want to leave." The daughter had enough before we hit this stage and left for home at around 4am in the morning.

Now, I don't have a lot of patience but I make up for it with tolerance. This lady had used up any and all -ence I had about two hours into the shift. She claimed she was in pain but refused analgesia. Ok.. that's not so uncommon amongst the patient population. Matyrs. Or plain stubborn idiots. That was just the tip of the iceberg. She then loudly claimed that ICU wasn't providing her adequate care along the lines of "24-hour care my foot. Someone comes to check on me every hour and looks at the computer. Otherwise, they only come when I yell out." So I spend the next 40 minutes going through explaining that ICU has gone electronic and all notes are in the computer now, to pointing out that she has a dedicated nurse looking after her and all sorts of things. She managed to say in English "I don't accept that" to all my explanations like a freeeeeeaking petulant child. She tried the "I want to speak to the boss of ICU" angle, at 3am in the morning. Uh, no. She finally agreed to have some fentanyl after demanding that she'll be fine with paracetamol. Uh lady, it's not your call. She still wasn't happy and resorted to "Oh, it's all my fault then, I'm wrong and you're right." and kept repeating that for the rest of the hour. *gnash teeth silently* Every. single. button. pushed. She kicked up such a fuss, claiming we didn't care for her, let her die, blahblahblah, that she set off the confused hypoxic guy opposite her and caused her neighbor to develop stridor.

So I cracked the shits. Apologized to her daughter and asked if she could please translate what I was about to say. And let the feral woman have it. I was this close to rhetorically asking her if she was the doctor here, and would like to dictate her own management after having her skull just cut open. Never have I said that to the patient, and seldom does the thought cross my mind. Seems really arrogant and I wouldn't have been able to get the words out completely before sheepishly apologizing halfway through.. but tonight. MAN. that close to saying it to her. crazy woman. Thanks a lot for reinforcing the maybe wayward views I have about Chinese culture and habits.. where the more you fuss, the more it means you care.. or how nothing else but an injection (for whatever ailment befalls you that day, even a sniffly nose) is the only way to "cure" you. Olanzapine gun, you were my best friend tonight =)

Halloween 2011

2011-11-01T23:15:00.003+11:00

So All Hallows' Eve

Is here once more

But this year is different

From the ones before

Yes, there are things

That never seem to change

Like the Christmas decorations

In the supermarket range

Or the lack of pumpkins

That were suitable to carve

There were a few, a few weeks back

But the night itself was pumpkin-starved

But that's ok,

Because I made do

Like every year,

It's nothing new

The only change is

I'm now wed

'Twas a year ago today

I became a missus instead

So screw the candy

and the lack of tricks

Forget the kiddies

And the decorations for kicks

For Halloween is still not quite,

It's not quite right here, but that's alright

A feast we'll have, and a feast to enjoy

A feast for two without the fright!

morons

2011-10-28T18:40:00.000+11:00

I really really need to get this off my chest, especially before my night shift starts.
Am already cranky for not being able to sleep through this afternoon in preparation for the next few nights, and for having an awful dream where I met someone in-dream I really didn't want to see and then I wake up to find idiots in my inbox.

The medical admin where I currently work really need to get their act together. I've never come across a more incompetent team (despite having only worked long-term with three previous teams - one during university, the others up in Sydney).

I have been working at this hospital since mid-January this year. We're now nearing the end of October and I get an email saying "I have been advised that you have not been to see the staff at the Occupational Medicine Unit at The Canberra Hospital on Level 10 for your immunisation/vaccination screening." You're joking right? It took you until now? I went away for 8 weeks early on during the year and got my little vaccination card after getting verification of my immunization status. But, no, that doesn't count because we're in a frickin' different state that really doesn't have much going on for it except that someone decided a while back to cordon off an area of New South Wales and declare it the capital territory. To be honest, I completely forgot about immunization. I vaguely remember attempting to do the right thing and seek them out, until I shortly gave up trying. Seriously, they open for two hours a day - from 1.30 - 3.30pm and then you need to go to another clinic for them to be happy you don't have TB. That clinic's not much better, opening between 12 and 3pm. What planet did these people come from!? Do they honestly believe that doctors who are hauling ass around the hospital trying to work have time to go up during their measly opening hours so they can shuffle some paper around? Especially surgeons?

And then there's that mandatory training of a new x-ray machine that the operating theaters are getting. You gotta know, this mass email telling us we all had to attend included everyone from registars to bosses from both orthopedics and plastics. The first email came out early August, telling us training sessions would be either Sept 8th or Sept 22 during bloody working hours: 2 - 4pm! Again, what planet did these people come from?! So a boss emailed, saying they'd rather come back Saturday and get the thing over and done with in one shot without having to worry that we were losing precious allocated theater time. After 2 more emails hounding for us to reply and sign up because training couldn't proceed unless there are 10 or more people (or what? you lose money? why does it matter if this is all mandatory for us anyway?), we get an email four days before the rescheduled session to say it's been cancelled. We have since had three more reschedulings and several emails in between to nag us of the new training dates. Why? Because they couldn't get their act together. The first two times, rescheduling happened because the bloody x-ray machine hadn't physically arrived. The last, was because they couldn't get it "commissioned" in time, whatever that means. Seriously?! Eleven emails since August and they still couldn't get it together.

And don't get me started on the horrible rostering, or their lack of responsibility.. or the fact that they somehow "forgot" to give the IT department a list of all new incoming doctors at the beginning of the year and therefore, none of us had passwords issued for immediate use on our first day of work. They're here to support us - bullshit! They told one consultant colleague of mine they would pay for his relocation costs, seeing that he was shifting all his stuff from overseas to here. He arrived, they stuck him in accommodation for only 6 weeks because his contract is for a year (and not 6 months, so apparently they're not obliged to provide him with accommodation) and then refused to pay for relocation costs because "it was never promised." Sorry, there's just so much wrong with this place.. I'm really really looking forward to leaving and have already started counting down the days. I don't know how anyone who has worked here before had anything good to say about it. Personally, all the consultants I've met have just smirked and skirted the issue about their previous stints here - and that's not even taking the awful medical admin into account.

And with that, off to night shift a little less angsty. =)

another round of gnnnnaarrrrrgh!

2011-10-12T21:58:00.001+11:00

Can i hazard a guess that it's universally annoying to all to know that one is right, but can't do a thing about it? Patients are lovely like that. they revive random sentiments every so often, just to keep me on my toes. Just yesterday, I had to talk to a 40 year old housewife in Mandarin to explain why her distal radius fracture really needs surgery.

Despite explaining that:

her bones would heal in about 6 weeks regardless of surgery
she would continue to have improving levels of pain until her bones healed
we would give her medications through the drip and tablets to control her pain
her arm would be out of action for the next 6 weeks until her bones healed
she would have poor function if her bones healed in a not-so-ideal position like they're in now
she may not have pain now, but may experience pain in the future with unsatisfactory positioning of the pieces
she will have no guarantee of finding an orthopod who will perform the required surgery up in sydney, let alone guarantee that the surgery will proceed at the latest, tomorrow
she doesn't even know where to find an orthopod
any number of friends she's got, unless they're in the medical system, will not even come close to getting her near an orthopod in Sydney (I was also thinking that it would prolly help if she had some English speaking friends in an English-based country but kept that thought to myself)
she is already fasted for more than 6 hours and is technically ready to go to theaters
she could be home in sydney by tomorrow afternoon if all goes well
she is lucky there wasn't much trauma on in theaters and we could fit her in within the next few hours
we don't advocate operations just because we like cutting people open and we have nothing better to do (shush, all you naysayers! *waits for the ortho-bashing*)

We traced lines and angles on her xrays to explain. We got her friend to explain (after we went through the above again in Mandarin because, much to my dismay, her friend couldn't speak English either. URGH!). We showed her what normal bone alignment was supposed to be like and what hers looked like. She obviously got it because there was a lot of tsk-tsking and shaking of her head along with her gasps.

And despite all that..

The lady refused surgery.
And for what reason?

She was paiseh. Really, lady. You would rather live with a broken wrist that would very likely continue to collapse and shift in position (especially after you refuse a backslab because you were scared of pain) and cause you functional problems in the future, besides the possibility of pain and future corrective surgery or wrist fusion. You would rather live with that because you were too shy or polite or whatever you call it for not wanting to bother your friends by staying an extra night because you were only meant to stay one night. Really, lady? Really?

So, I got a bit shitty with her. I was right! She knew it just as well as I did. She knew I was being so persistent as her advocate, so she kept thanking me. That really made me more mad. I told her to stop thanking me because it wasn't going to help her wrist return to normal function. And then I launched into the consequences of declining surgery, making sure she understood them all. She said she did. Then she would start to thank me again. We went in circles and it drove me mad. My Aussie colleague could only roll her eyes as she figured out the gist of it without needing to understand a word of Chinese. Because nobody was happy, we got an ED intern that could speak Mandarin to reiterate everything again just to make sure the lady wasn't being daft because of my linguistic skills, or lack of.

By then, my colleague and I had had it. Why the hell were we wasting time with an obstinate idiot who obviously values "face" to avoid any "shame" (such as walking out with a backslab) more than her well-being, or that of her family's. So we left it at that and told her that ultimately, it was her body, her choice but she had to be put in a backslab as basic fracture management.

Imagine my surprise when I saw her name on the pre-op patient list this morning!!
She had some sense of self-preservation after all! Yay, there's hope.. but boo, she made me work for it dammit!

oh chute!

2011-10-02T20:36:00.000+11:00

uncouth neighbors with no manners irk me to bits. just had to get that off my chest..
out of curiosity, what's the worst "payback" anyone's given to their unruly neighbors? sadly, or not.. mine haven't been too creative. they mostly involved poking a broom or bouncing a ball up at the ceiling to coincide and drown out stomping from upstairs.. or sarcastic passive-aggressive letters. the latest of which had photographic evidence of the oodles of garbage left in front of our garbage chute. seriously, who does that?! they bothered to take the trash all the way to the chute but couldn't be bothered opening the door to dump it in! they're either really stupid, or really lazy.. or both. some people, honestly! *huffs*

some people have all the luck

2011-09-17T07:26:00.000+10:00

I thought these things only happened on TV. Obviously, I'm still too naive.
Came across a gentleman in his mid 40s in clinic yesterday who explained why he was a single parent..
His wife died of lung cancer earlier this year, and his teenage son now has metastatic testicular cancer because he hadn't mention the lump he found before, due to the goings-on with the mother. The guy now has a broken elbow from getting hit accidentally at work by his boss and can't drive.. and is now relying on his dad to chauffeur him around to various medical appointments. D'ohs all over the place!

Besides the few we've got as inpatients who are there because of failed suicide attempts, this guy has probably one of the sadder stories I've come across in a while. =(

celebrations schmelebrations

2011-09-15T20:13:00.002+10:00

Today was a bad day at work. It was good in that I got to be in theaters all day and got to do my own unsupervised case, the first in a very long time.

But, I ache all over and my head feels like it's going to explode.
I feel like i'm an arthritic 90 year old granny.
My joints hurt when I move them. My palms hurt when I type.
I feel like one giant bruise.
I'm also dry retching again, and no, it's not to do with beta-hcg levels.

I had to quell a mob of very angry patients who had their surgeries cancelled today. they were threatening to revolt and one was a crazy drug-seeker with a verbally abusive partner.

I don't need to come home to flip through the news and find out that today is apparently R U OK day. My first reaction was "What new Facebook/chain mail fad is this now?" What kind of day is that?! Why only today? Can you not ask me if I am ok tomorrow? Or last year? Do you think that people are so dumb and so emotionally retarded that they don't have the humanity to comfort another human being feeling down or depressed, especially if it affected someone close? Seriously, who was the brilliant spark that decided to come up with another asinine holiday when really, every day should be a celebration of anything and everything that each of us want to celebrate. Why should we all observe earth day only once a year, and why should we all light candles to conserve energy for a mere few hours a year. what about the smoke emitted from the candles people burn during the blackout? Aren't there enough crazies out there, to not encourage more? Childrens' Good Manners Month, Festival of Sleep Day, Lost Sock Memorial Day, Have A Bad Day Day, Toothache Day... I could go on and on. and for goodness sakes, stop going down the path of idiocracy. I realize that a lot of these were made up tongue-in-cheek.. which makes R U OK Day even more irksome because it comes across as trying to be hip while reaching out with a serious message, a campaign of sorts. If you're going to come up with a bizzare holiday to celebrate and promote, at least learn to spell it properly instead of using abbreviations.A good friend of mine committed suicide a few years back. He was very well OK, thank you very much.. except he wasn't. Obviously. Hence, the shock suicide. It would have taken a many R U OKs to have even seen it coming, if ever. One bloody R U OK day is certainly a tad too simplistic a dream that the day will change or save a life, just because you were part of the flock of sheep that thought it would be cool to initiate conversations, "meaningful" ones as the website states, with strangers and family alike.If people really cared that much, if they really had that awareness about them, they *should* and *would* be asking others about feelings and emotions as part of one's everyday routine.

So screw you, R U OK day. Thank you for your fake sympathy. As far as I'm concerned, the only celebrating I'm doing today is that of my hubby's birthday. Hmph.

next year is starting to fall into place

2011-08-29T13:51:00.000+10:00

do you have any questions to ask us?
.... noo. *awkward silence*

well, i've got one for you

(oh crap, time to start rifling through the memories again)

*i can't remember the exact wording. everything was a blur*

what would you say if i offered you the job right now

wow. i'd take it!

well, it's yours.

*stunned silence*

wow. thank you.

it's done. you'll be hearing from us officially soon.

...and with that, next year has already been planned. i never thought i'd be saying this, but man! am i glad to know i'll be back in sydney again! =D

2011-08-20T15:29:00.000+10:00

it's been an awful week

one i walked right through

didn't care much 'bout the goings-on

or of things that are yet to brew

it's no fun being in tears

especially on a bus

no longer mad, but just heart-achey

with no further need to cuss

my head still hurts though

and i nearly got killed

my car went off road

i left me a tad chilled

my ankle still hurts

from a fortnight past

a bruised elbow to add

clumsiness shall outlast

my interns have gone

with new ones to start

i hope they don't fight

i hope they'll be smart

karma strikes, yet again

for my colleague's in trouble

she lied again, that lazy bitch

she'll need a body double

a new week starts soon

a new week of hell

i hope it's less rocky

with lesser storms to quell

workplace d'ohs

2011-08-12T22:43:00.000+10:00

dear patient,
please find your common sense, or just a brain cell or two. please don't show up to clinics six months after your last appointment to whine about having to wait 1+ hours when i raise the possibility of an xray when you had all that time to get your mri done. after all, you were last told to get your mri so we could review further surgical options and unless you think we have xray vision, i don't see how else we could have helped you this time around without your scan.

*****

dear colleague,
please stop screwing us over. especially me. if you were truly sick yesterday evening, then at least have the courtesy to inform the rest of us so we could scramble around and come up with a contingency plan to cover your 7am - 9pm shift today. we are already short-staffed and i've already had to relinquish my precious theater days to help out at clinics. it's not very nice to send us an sms at 6.11 the morning of your sick day if you had known you were sick last night already. unless of course, you are just playing hooky.

*****

dear interns,
please tell your registrars sooner rather than later, if you're having problems with each other. we do not need to find out first from our head of department, asking us to sort you guys out because "your interns are fighting." it's hard not to laugh at the mental picture of a bunch of 20-something year old professionals with the responsibility over a many someone's life in a punch-out on the ward. i'm sure you guys were more civilized than that, but it's not nice to shout at each other either.

*****

dear patient,
please stop being such an attention-seeker by constantly threatening us with legal action. it is not our fault that you alleged your injuries were from your boyfriend throwing you out the window, and that you no longer have a home to go to. please get it through your head that the hospital is not a hotel, that you are not allowed to be drinking bottles of wine and smoking, especially with broken bones that will be keeping you off your feet for a total of 6 weeks. you cannot decide to "visit" home and abscond from the hospital willy-nilly. we're not letting you back in the next time you pull a stunt like that. please do not even try to claim that nobody has taken the time to explain anything to you, including what injuries you have. utter bullshit. you had a fricking operation. you were shown your pre- and post-op xrays. hello? anyone home? how stupid do you think we all are, to not realize you're lying through your teeth?

*****

*sigh*
there were a few more moronic patients, especially at clinic. every other one would be either called "that loser" or "that moron"..
what a day.
glad to be back home with the hubbs for the weekend =)

2011-08-09T17:54:00.001+10:00

as nice as it is to have something interesting to share, sometimes.. like now.. i'm just glad things have settled down into a little rut. work's more tolerable now. they've revamped the roster and it makes a bit more sense. the new group of accrediteds are all lovely to work with, and very willing to teach - very awesome.

this past weekend could even be called... nice! we had the oddest of presentations to ED, including a dislocated fibula head with no associated fracture, a sternoclavicular joint abscess, and this kid that was so flexible she popped out her shoulders spontaneously. both of them. oh, and then there was the obturator dislocation of a 16 year old kid's hip from his MBA going at over 200km/hr (didn't know they could go that fast!), and the guy that slipped 3 meters down a tree to pop out his hip and smoosh his heel to smithereens with blood dripping from his open fracture at the foot of his bed. fun stuff. for me, not them.

and the best thing to look forward to right now? home in three sleeps! =D i was prepared that it would be hard to live three hours and 200-odd kilometers away from all that i called home, but honestly, i never realized it would be *this* hard. never again if i can help it!

a wee little recap

2011-07-08T22:26:00.000+10:00

we've gone and returned - three weeks of living someone else's life, done.
back to face the cold reality, literally.

i miss the (mis)adventures we've had already!

a quick run-through of what transpired, for there were way too many things to log.
tune into flickr for a brief pictorial overview. couldn't exactly include the 8gb+ worth of shots taken in total... all shots (ie the majority) with blackmail potential have been screened ;)

crammed airplane seats. singapore stopover for 3 hours at crummy hotel. red-eyed. taiwan. family. round-the-island tour. buffets. 7-11 meals. mos burgers. taiwan beer. hualian. taipei. taroko gorge. alishan. kaohsiung. shopping. night market. singapore. tourists. matching tees. hawker centers. wedding dinners. yam-seng ambush. more family. friends. memories. food lists. foot massage. exploration. more shopping. snuffles. dslr. crammed airplane seats. car registration fail. car registration done. late start. 4 hour drive. cold apartment. restocking. looking forward to next seeing hubby.

it was nice while it lasted... sorry we didn't have more time for all.
now, time to plan for our next (mis)adventure to help us recover from post-adventure blues...

Does this sound fair?

2011-06-09T23:03:00.001+10:00

Yah, what the title says.. does this email sound fair?
Sending it off soon if it doesn't come across as emotionally whingy!

--------------

Dear Medical Admin,

There have been some anxiety regarding the Bega rotation amongst my colleagues for various reasons, but we have all been told since early this year that we would all need to undertake secondments to both Bega and Calvary Hospitals. To my understanding, that was why everyone's Bega terms were reduced from 10 weeks to 7 weeks once we had a 6th unaccredited registrar onboard. The remainder of the year at that stage was redistrubuted amongst the remaining registrars who had not been to Bega, so it would be equitable and everyone would have the same amount of time there.

I have spent 10 weeks at Bega myself, instead of 7 weeks because of a misunderstanding between a colleague and I. I did not agree to the arrangement proposed, but the people in charge of rostering at the time were unaware and confirmed a roster according to the arrangement proposed by my colleage. This was later resolved after an unnecessary amount of meetings and phone calls that occurred during working hours and prevented me from seeing patients during fracture clinic for the duration of these meetings and phone calls, as initiated by my departmental superiors.

As I have completed my Bega term but have yet to undertake a Calvary Hospital rotation, I am expecting to work there at some stage before the end of the working year. I feel it is important for me to receive the same working and training opportunites as my colleagues, and the current roster does not address this for several of the unaccredited registrars, myself included. I would like to suggest:

- Redistribute rotations for the remainder of the year again re: Calvary Hospital rotations amongst those of us who have not had the chance to work there, as it would be the most equitable option. This is especially in light of the major restructuring of the year's terms halfway through the year. It was done earlier this year already as previously mentioned, as it was felt that everyone should receive the same opportunities. Therefore, why can it not be done again for the same reasons if everyone involved was first consulted?
- Get written confirmation from all parties involved in a shift swap or a term swap prior to the swap being approved and the roster amended.
- Include all affected parties in the discussion and feedback prior to a major restructuring of a contracted year, especially if occuring halfway through the year and two days prior to lengthy secondment changeover.

Please feel free to contact me if you have further questions or issues.

Kind regards,
Amy

thirty days short

2011-06-07T21:02:00.004+10:00

why couldn't you wait
for just thirty more days
i would then get to see you
through the taiwanese haze

everyone else, except for me
they all had their chance
to be there all the way,
to stay for one last glance

they broke the news
as we were on our way
to pick up the albums
of our special day

these albums were rushed
especially for you to see
to share with you
when here, you couldn't be

i wish you were still here
so we could give you a hug
there are so many things yet to tell you
at the heartstrings, you do tug.

so they broke the news
as we were on our way
the tears gushed out in public
much to the hubbs' dismay

to those who had passed us
on that horrid horrid day
they must've thought my hubbs was mean
to make me cry this way

it took a while to sink in
and then, i was still in shock
and the tears welled up from nowhere still
as i wished to turn back the clock

and then i thought i could,
could hold it together well
until i saw your photograph
and then the tears did swell

i bawled and bawled
and bawled some more
i had never known
such eyes so sore

now that everything is done and done
and you've become grey dust
i've finally found that closure i sought
keeping memories is now a must

the ones of you when we were young
and those of you as a hero,
a philanthropist, and a mentor,
with no cares for deniro

twelve more days until the day,
the day we were meant to meet
we're still going back as previously planned
except you won't be there to greet

i hope you didn't suffer
too much at the end
your fighting spirit was strong,
and that, i commend

i selfishly wish though,
that you could've fought more
so we could have seen you
to reminence the days of yore

2011-05-19T01:08:00.001+10:00

10 year olds should be banned from playing football!

*sigh*

long day, but not a bad day.

0645h - 0050h after midnight.

a day full of kiddies

*beams*

one kid after another with broken bones.

wait a sec, that didn't come out right.

anyway, besides our ortho kiddie patients, there was literally a busload of elementary school kiddies from melbourne and the majority of them landed in our ED with gastro. don't want to sound mean but it was kinda funny seeing the whole waiting room flooded with little kiddies in their school uniforms. thought it was a school outing at first until i saw a few of them holding little puke bags. the kiddie ward nurses were uber stressed lol. nearly 30 kids in one shot!

long day, but not a bad day.

0645h - 0050h after midnight.

but you know what.. if i hadn't stayed back, i wouldn't have run into an old friend, G, from med school

'twas nice to see a familiar face =)

she does it again

2011-05-15T00:44:00.000+10:00

i can't believe it. looks like i'm the official S-magnet.
she's gone off to a different hospital for the time being, yet still manages to get me in trouble and pisses me off from afar. now, that's what i call a pro. she does it again. and yes, prepare for my rambles again too.

......

i think it's completely inappropriate, and in my indignation, whinged to a few of the nurses that were unlucky enough to be nearby about it all just to get it out of my system. how fair do you think it is, and how professional would you rate it if you came in with some neurovascular compromise, losing sensation in your hands from a fracture.. or needed to go to the operating theaters to have your macerated, bleeding hand washed and explored and find that you can't have your injuries fixed because they've scheduled a 29 year old guy who was hungover, decided to jump over a concrete block but failed and cut his shin down to bone in front of you. the guy's otherwise fine, walking on his injured leg and denying pain. yet, he gets to go to the operating theaters ahead of you because, well.. he's going out with one of the doctors.

so yah. the boyfriend showed up to our ED. S called to ask my senior registrar to give him the vip treatment. couldn't get through and called me instead. !@#!#$@. i hate being cornered like that.

S had said he was being triaged in ED, and if i could make sure he gets treated correctly and if i would go see him later when i had time. in my head, i was thinking "later, definitely". after all, i figured that if the nurses were triaging him, they would know how bad his injury was.. and if it was bad enough, they would give me a call to review sooner or later. plus, i had just been assigned to procure all the scans this one patient had so i could email them to another specialist up in sydney. for those of you who have no idea how hard it was to extract all images from the guy's CT, MRI, ultrasound and plain films from the computerized xray system to something sendable by email.. it was fricking time-consuming!! thank goodness for irfanview =) and that was half the battle. the other half was to contact this specialist i've never met to ask him to look at these films for us. honestly, wouldn't blame him for asking "and just who in the world are you again?" .... oh, and then to be bombarded by calls every 5 - 10 minutes from the rest of the hospital, ED and GPs from all over the state at the same time. frankly, i didn't have time to go see S's boyfriend.

so, i was there trying to sort this guy with his gazillions of images out and i get a call from my senior reg. she happens to be good friends with S and finally got S's message about the bf. i nearly lost it when my senior reg told me to go and see the boyfriend in ED now "as a matter of priority". that phrase is so gonna irk me to pieces like how bush's "war on terror" catch-phrase irked a few people. i could hear my volume dial up a few notches and the pitch rise a bit as i slowed my words down and enunciated quite slowly to my senior reg as she was deaf and stupid that "i know he is in ED but i am sorting out the abscess guy for our boss, and i will see the boyfriend as soon as i can afterwards." it was enough to get the attention of the guy sitting next to me at the computers who turned and introduced himself as the consultant of the team we were dealing with. man, he must've thought i was some hot-headed arrogant orthopod in training after hearing my tone of voice =( i was so appalled and embarrassed..

so anyway. yah. i survived. i feel mean and i like it, just at this moment. i feel mean deriving happiness from the knowledge that there's some justice in the world because two such horrible people had managed to find each other. i had to take a history from the boyfriend and book him into theaters for his wound washout. his wound was the size of a 20 cent piece. yah. that's more important and urgent than that macerated hand with cuts all over it with blood dripping down. right. sorry, i digress. i haven't quite swallowed the whole bitter pill yet, you see - getting bossed around by a senior registrar i don't respect, having to choose between professional duty and not offending the senior, having to even have to see the loser boyfriend at all... i know what the right thing to do is, and i know i'll get into trouble if i do the right thing. that's the bit that irked me the most. knowing that S got with a loser made the bitter pill a bit easier to swallow... not only does he smoke, but is also a pisshead. the idiot was drunk after 10 pints of beer last night and felt it would be appropriate to tell me he's still hungover at 5pm the next day. *points to an imaginary level above my head* respect. *points to the spot under my shoes* where S and her bf stand.

gnaaarrgh. it just really really gets to me though i know i shouldn't let it. i'm all about following the principles. any principles. life principles would be nice. it infuriates me to no end that people with more urgent injuries get delayed treatment just because this one loser had a girlfriend who happened to work in the field his injury fell into, and so happened to know the senior reg working that day who was just as pushy, arrogant and inconsiderate as his girlfriend who would find that bossing the junior registrar and delaying other people's treatment sat well on her conscience. it sucks to come back to reality.

and here we go again

2011-05-08T21:59:00.001+10:00

what doesn't kill me

will only make me stronger

the chin just needs to stay up

just a tiny bit longer

i don't know yet

if what's done was right

to have gone home

or stay to fight

it was one of the most

difficult things i've had to do

but a decision was made

and i'll stick to it like glue

for if i don't,

i really do fear

i'll lose my sanity

and things i hold dear

so with a glint

in my eye

i return to my hell

and pray i won't die

hoping to leave the cranky pants behind

2011-05-03T23:14:00.000+10:00

so my computer clock tells me it's 10.52 at night.
and i have a few things to get off my chest before i head back to the hospital

indulge me, yet again.. for i suspect i'll be ringing in my 30s talking to a middle aged alchoholic who choked on a roast dinner yesterday and has been sent to ED from whoopwhoopland.

politics
already whinged about bin laden. done, dusted. now onto the political scene in singapore.
political awareness is one thing, falling back into sheep mentality is another. nicole seah is good, tin pei ling is bad. if one is in, the other is out. black and white. one or two. that seems to be the general consensus via everyone and their uncle's facebook musings over the past few weeks. well, tell me then. what's so good about nicole seah? when asked about her experience in politics and policy making during one interview (or lack of, as she joked), she answered like she was sitting for a camp counsellor interview. sorry little lady. what you do in secondary school and what you call "community service" isn't unique to just you. hell, everyone had to do it. our class went to help out old folks and took them to east coast park for a bbq! does that mean all of us have what it takes.. hang on, why were you talking about community service anyway when the question was about your political experience? seriously, what about the idea that neither is good? what about option three? or five?

work
shut up, do your job and don't take me for granted. i will have a word to my resident tomorrow for refusing to chart up post-op antibiotics for all our patients today because it wasn't her job. bullshit. stop telling me the same thing five different times by five different people. stop telling me i have to see such and such patient. i don't have to, not if they haven't been properly seen by ED. stop pointing out the obvious to me. i KNOW the kid walking from ED to the elevators with his arm in a backslab and sling is MY patient going up to the kiddie ward. i have eyes that work, you know. there's only one ortho reg on one ortho team in the hospital. it's not that hard to work it out. start telling me stuff that matters, like patients you've accepted for transfers to our hospital. especially ones that are non-orthopedic because, well, they don't show up on my patient lists and it's very annoying to be called about patients supposedly under my care i don't know about! i'll just call you and ask you what the plan is, at one am in the morning. how about that?

life
you know what? nothing immediate =D the hubbs tells me lublub at just the right times when i think i need the emotional support. the hubbs is making the effort and that's all that counts. the family is generally ok. able to talk more to the dad. working on it. the only worry would be my maternal gramps - icu for a month now. not sure what's going on as info i'm getting is through my parents. gist of it was some sort of intracranial bleed post fall and now still has a gcs of 3, tubed. worried. didn't help over easter weekend. the hubbs made some of it go away. coping better.

so they say he's dead. and now what?

2011-05-02T19:54:00.001+10:00

whoopdedoo, he died.
so what?

yes, it might sound like a very good excuse reason to party and it definitely is a huge boost for morale and patriotism (how convenient is the timing of the news in relation to everything else that's going on in the world.. the fighting in the middle east/political unrest, the elections in the states, etc?), but if you take the time to think it through, it boils down to "so what?"

do you think that because bin laden is "dead" (how many times have we heard that before in the past decade?), that all of this horrible mess they call terrorism will go away? that his supporters, or any enemies of his enemies, will suddenly snap out of it and rescind all they believe in and/or fought for all these years? that the world will now automagically be full of sunshine and rainbows?

so what?
was it worth the manpower, the further deaths after 9/11, the effort and the time of countless people across the world that was spent over the past decade looking for this one man when it was well known that he had legions of followers and supporters at his beck and call? wouldn't all of that have been better used for other causes? some community out there must have surely been deprieved of basic food and shelter at some point during the past decade. some sick kid out there needed a gazillion-dollar surgery to save their life must have surely been in existence during the past decade. you get my drift..

so i may come across as callous to those who have been affected by 9/11. i can honestly say i will never be able to truly comprehend the amount of grief, anger, hurt and other emotions experienced by this group of people but hearing the stories, and merely the mention of the date sends chills down my spine still. yet, placing myself in the shoes of someone who had lost family or friends during 9/11 as best as i can, i cannot come up with a reason to go out there and party like there's no tomorrow just because they say bin ladin is dead. at best, i can heave a great big sigh that something has been done, that closure has been achieved. and then i would start worrying about the repercussions of the news. i would think that the harder the party-goers party, the more the gloaters gloat, the more angry the supporters and family of bin ladin will get.. which could possibly translate to something more vicious for everyone else that doesn't belong to "them" ... so, all the more reason not to party, whoop and celebrate but instead, spend the time reflecting in my own private domain and enjoying the closure.

a weekend of angry amy

2011-04-30T22:28:00.001+10:00

So we have this guy who's expected to arrive tonight with a closed tib/fib fracture. impressive to see on xrays. i do my bit, i tell the bed manager and the ED guy and i tell my boss. everyone knows he's supposed to come. ED calls up just now with the simple message "your patient has just arrived." my initial reaction was "so? (long pause)"

ffs, even if it was an expected transfer from another ED, shouldn't our ED at least LOOK at the patient? i already told 'em to please have a look at the patient when he arrived to make sure pain's ok and he hadn't developed compartment syndrome. so really.. they can work him up for calling me outright without looking at the patient.. and if they argue that he was a direct admission, then why is the patient in ED and not on the wards in the first place?!

*angry face+++*

the world tonight is full of horrible bitches

2011-04-30T02:17:00.000+10:00

what's the male equivalent ... a jerk? doesn't quite have the same oomph as calling someone a bitch, especially if that someone is a he. anyway, just had to let off steam. just got back from work. one forty in the morning. need to wind down before i can fall asleep. good time as any to whinge and let it all out so i can hopefully get some sleep before work starts again at about 8am tomorrow. indulge me.. i'm tired and hungry. i munched on all the snacks the nurses brought in for their night shift already, and ate the hospital sandwiches and gobbled up my two milo bars meant as an emergency food stash. but i'm still hungry and tired =(

so, the last straw came in the form of a forwarded email from my home hospital (which isn't very home-like at all!) asking me to redo my timesheets because they didn't correspond to the pre-existing pay periods. How hard can it be to understand that I'm off by a week but so what? The next timesheet follows on and everything matches up except for the fact that I've got the pay periods they want technically on two different pieces of paper. Isn't that payroll's job to sift through it all? Isn't that what they pay 'em to do? Sorry man, they aren't paying me to re-write my fortnightly timesheets to make your job easier, you lousy payroll department. All you can do is write out asinine emails shifting responsibility because "medical admin didn't forward us your payslips, please take it up with them for a breakdown of your payslip." So, you're telling me you can't dig through whatever files you have and explain my payslips to me.. the same ones you've emailed me in pdf form?

so before that, everything was building up. it's been a lousy day for everyone here... except for possibly william and kate, and all the people ~~stalking~~ watching their wedding. My home hospital was being obstructive as usual. I'm staying on out of sheer stubborness. Would've cut and run long long ago if not for my pride in keeping promises i've made, and to be contrary and show 'em i can survive whatever shit they throw at me.
I had a guy fall from 2.7m off a second storey platform he was working on. The guy's broke both his wrists and his left eye's so badly bruised and swollen that he can't open it at all. Even though he hadn't passed out from the fall, he should have a CT scan to rule out any fractures or bleeding inside his skull from the fall. The surgical registrar at my home hospital agreed. The question was now about when to send the guy up for the CT scan, given that we don't have access to a CT scanner until Monday. The ED person was such a bitch about it all. I told her the above and she started getting all uppity, saying it was a soft sell. I'm sitting here twitching, thinking to myself "you moron, what part of it do you not understand? you and i both agree he needs a CT scan and we can't get one until Monday, so it would only be logical to send him up there for his scan, no?" Of course, i phrased it in a more civil manner but they she got up even higher on her high-horse and cut me off with "well it looks like you guys aren't coping too well with him there"... so that really got me twitching and it was my turn to cut her off with "excuse me, we're coping very well here thank you. i just wanted to know from you when we should send him up for his scan (you bitch, i thought)"

And then there was the ED moron from my current hospital. Doesn't bother to look at the patient because the doctor before her had seen him. Doesn't bother to re-examine the patient. Calls me at midnight all chirpy and fake nice to tell me that this dude has a small bowel obstruction and will need admission. In my head, i was thinking - well if you've decided already, then what the hell are you calling me for? I've had several other previous run-ins with her and her mismanagement so i immediately get my angry face on when i hear her name. Run-ins like the time she refused to take bloods and run basic tests on a lady with lower abdominal pain who was five weeks pregnant based on a home pregnancy kit. She didn't think it was important to know what this lady's B-HCG levels were and refused to do 'em. That same night, she also didn't send any bloods off for a man transferred by ambulance with VT.. or so i heard from the medical ward nurses later on. So anyway, I digress. She doesn't do jack shit for this patient except read his xray report, assume he's got a small bowel obstruction and therefore automatically needs a surgical review and admission. I told her i'd go and see the guy in Ed, and not 5 mins pass when the bed manager comes up to the ward and is trying to arrange a bed for the guy. good thing i was there and had whinged to the ward nurse, because both of us said "hang on, he's not coming in to stay overnight" The ED bitch had already told the bed manager otherwise, how presumptuous! IF she was going to be admitting patients without them having been reviewed by the people she called, then she should either call the consultant to take over care, or admit them under her own name. How rude of her! anyway, when i went down to ED, the guy was walking around comfortably and was able to puff his tummy out all big and rigid to show me how distended it was when it first happened. He's since passed wind and opened his bowels. He's even said he feels sheepish about coming to ED at all because he feels fine. We came up with a plan - that he could go home knowing it was a bit risky, provided he was pain-free with no analgesia for at least 4 hours after his last pain medication, and that he could tolerated a normal diet (ie sandwiches) without any symptoms. The guy was shovelling down yogurt after managing to have some OJ when I left...'nuff said.

Urgh, so i ramble. Have run out of steam. Shall end it here for now. Hope to get some dinner, and then some shuteye =(

corporate callousness

2011-04-19T00:35:00.001+10:00

so the spate of unfortunate events continue.
goody goody gum drops.

we had finally decided to book our flights for our getaway mid-year. thought everything was hunky-dory. had connecting flights booked, was going on a five day tour of the country i was born in but never got to know. it was gonna be fun.. being a tourist in one's own country, exploring it with the hubbs.

and then i get a call from singapore airlines.
they would have to rebook our 1.30am flight from singapore to taipei to a 12.20 flight the same date.
*shrug* no biggie. thank goodness we picked the earlier flight and was landing in singapore at 9.40pm the night before.

or so we thought.. until i got the confirmation email with our new flight times. 12.20 PM.uh-oh.
our tour was meant to start at 11am and with the new flight time, we wouldn't have even left singapore at 11am, let alone be in kaohsiung to start the tour. the rep on the phone only said twelve-twenty. never said am or pm. i had assumed. still, it would have been nice for her to be more thorough and confirmed. the time properly.

so, the calls to the customer service center began. and man, has it been a journey. the fiasco hasn't even ended yet. for nearly every day for a week, i would call 'em and get a different person each time. some were more dense than others when i had to explain my situation for the umpteenth time from the very beginning with each new customer service rep. my calls have been "escalated" to a different department (or a supervisor, depending on what rep i talk to) three different times now. each time, i've been told to call back in the next 24 hours to get an answer. i give them some time. i call back in another 2 - 3 days.. and get more irate each time that i'm back to square one. at one stage, one very rude rep placed me on hold while i was still talking. he had assumed i would answer yes when he asked to place me on hold. he put me on hold for fifteen minutes, only to get back to me and offer alternate flights. i bluntly told him that if he had bothered to listen, he would have known that i already knew of these flights he was "offering" and the purpose of my call was to CONFIRM my flight schedule change to these "offered" flights. the guy then put me on hold for close to ten more minutes to tell me that i can't confirm my accommodation request but can confirm my flights. again, i told him bluntly that if he had bothered to listen to me at all for the thirty seconds i managed to talk to him for in our twenty five minute phone call, he would have learnt that i called only to confirm flights and not accommodation. idiot.

they don't seem to understand that regardless of any of the flights they've offered to rebook us on.. including the current ones that reach singapore at ten past midnight and leave singapore for taipei at 8.35am, each combination of flights would require us spending a night. now, correct me if i'm wrong but i'm under the impression that if an airline cancels a flight, they are obliged to provide their customers with alternate arrangements that include rebookings, refunds, providing accommodation if an overnight delay occurs and some even provide airport meal vouchers. oh ho ho.. not singapore airlines. each rep has maintained that the airline policy was to rebook the customer to another flight with the shortest connecting times and their obligation ends there. when told that the umpteenth time, i asked the rep if he thought what he proposed was reasonable to any sane person - that we would spend the 8-odd hours between our flights in the airport terminal and sleep on the terminal chairs when it was through no fault or plan of ours to have to spend the night in singapore. he may not have seemed to think it a big deal but out of principle, i don't see why i have to either fork out money to get accommodation or have to sleep on airport terminal chairs when the airline cancelled our flights and can't book us on any other.. PLUS to be further inconvinienced by having to miss our 5-day tour at our destination. they're lucky i'm only asking for them to provide us accommodation for the night instead of making them pay for the tour they're making us miss - all because they cancelled flights due to "operational reasons" as i was told by the rep.

at this rate, i'm irate enough to stamp my feet and ask for a refund. ranked one of the top airlines in the world my ass. maybe so, but they sure are lacking in basic courtesy and goodwill.

travel troubles

2011-04-09T18:52:00.000+10:00

so..
we've decided to postpone our honeymoon and do a proper family holiday instead of trying to cram too much into the little precious leave time we've got.

we're now trying to confirm accommodation and man...tripadvisor.com has the most hilarious reviews. helpful and entertaining for us, unfortunate and sad for the people submitting the reviews to have gone through such vacations from hell. wasn't too surprised at the lack of quality, but more at the extent.

hoping to spend some time as "tourists" and see singapore in a new light, we decided to revisit sentosa. that's fine and all. the problem is with the hotels. all the pros mentioned were standard things expected of four and five star hotels, so it's nothing to pat them on the back about. the cons mentioned are the bits that scare us. couldn't help but share. here are a few recent gems (as current as april 8th) from the tripadvisor site that is making us shudder and cringe, and laugh... holy moly.

"The hotel is a little run down, with koi fish dying in the ponds and unkempt lawns."
"I was put in a room with a view on the wall of a neighboring building"
"The main bed was rock hard....although we were provided with a mattress cover which helped."
"We also didn't like that there was pump soap, shampoo and condition. The previous guests could have used it, someone could have put something in it as well as there was no seal on them - very unsanitary."
"Balcony door handle came off within 10 minutes of entry into room"
"Found in the bedside drawer a shopping mall receipt the previous guest left behind."
"No "Do Not Disturb or Make My Room" signs/indicators."
"Holder of the above bottles badly installed and comes off the wall"
"There were no drinks in the minifridge. There were no snacks available either."
"To be fair it had a nice big balcony. Which is probably the best thing I can say about the room."
"Now, in the room, there is a sofa bed which is supposed to open up in to a bed for my kids. And when we went out for dinner, we had expected a turn down service when we returned at nearly 9pm. There wasn't any. So I had to work out how the sofa opened up myself. Then put the sheets on. The worst part was the design of the room was terrible. When the sofa bed opened out, it blocked the cupboard. So once it was opened, there is no way of opening the cupboards. And guess where the extra pillow and blankets were? In the cupboard! What a waste of my time!"
"The fridge had a half drunk can of beer and the carpets were very dirty."

For hotels that bill themselves as 4 - 5 stars... honestly. such a load of crap being offered! they'd have to throw in way more than the breakfast that they didn't include to entice us to book rooms with any of the hotels there. Even if they included the $10,000 drink at the Blu Bar on 36 at the Sydney Shangri-La that comes with it's own room and diamond into the room price, I'd still have second thoughts about staying at any of the hotels on the island.

So.. we're back to square one for now. =(

i'm glad i'm not on call

2011-03-31T20:40:00.001+11:00

today would've been a good day. i still think it turned out alright just because i got to leave before 6pm today and didn't need to stay back to deal with the uber-pear-shaped mess that wasn't my fault. no really. not my fault!

fracture clinics are always great. get to follow up patients post-op and don't have to dictate letters! sometimes, like today, we finish early after our little teaching session and i get to stop by town to the local organic vegetarian cafe for lunch - yay =) then the day started to suck. nothing we decided on during ward rounds this morning got communicated to the nursing staff. then, the garbled messages that did get through got even more garbled as it got passed along to the bed manager. i would've irritated the hell outta switch calling back several times within the hour just asking to be put through to the bed manager but hey, they couldn't give me a direct line either so really, i maintain it wasn't my fault.

and then came the ED reviews. the poor guy that the ED locum had misdiagnosed as having osteomyelitis had been on IV antibiotics for the past 24 hours, but his red and swollen elbow had just grown bigger in that time. the ED locum was a tad worried by this stage and thought he'd give me a call. alarm bells rang when he mentioned a normal xray with a red swollen elbow of sudden onset associated with direct trauma and full range of motion at the affected joint. that's not fricking osteomyelitis!! a septic joint, i can understand as a misdiagnosis, but i can't fathom how the hell he came to conclude the guy had osteomyelitis with a normal xray to boot. olecranon bursitis, you toot. burrrrrsitis.

anyway, that was just frustrating but easy enough to sort out. then came the guy who cut his arm with a sheet of steel and had decreased sensation. fair enough.. manageable. what wasn't manageable was dealing with trying to slot all these cases into theater. then came the other guy of similar age that went and confused everyone else because there were too many cooks spoiling the broth and all the messages got garbled again between ED, the bed manager, the theater nurse unit manager, the team leader in theater and me. and then the surgical ward nurse manager wanted to join the fray too.

but this guy.. man, i should've taken a picture when i had the chance. he was a guy in psychiatric high dependency unit who had escaped from his locked unit during an interview. it took six grown men to pin the guy down as he tried to bolt. the guy nearly made it but got himself tangled in some barbed wire fencing and cut himself all up. he also lost his pants in the process as someone tried to grab his legs. he's now in his wee undies, sporting a splendid muddy gaping hole on the flexor aspect of his wrist that spans a good 3 - 4 inches in diameter with random strands of mangled skin stretched across and little blobs of fat. took me about 2 hours to sort him out logistically because theater staff flipped about having some psychotic guy on suicide watch being anywhere near theaters. i don't really blame them but he was a staffing nightmare to enable him to get the wound washout in theater that he really needed.

looking back, it wasn't too bad. the bit that irritated me all day was the fact that all the messages weren't getting through to everyone that needed to hear them, causing a ton of miscommunication with people "updating" others with old information and confusing everyone. that, plus bed block and coordinating theater times. my only consolation is that i get to go home and sleep in peace with no fear of getting woken up in the middle of the night if and when the psychotic patient decides to make a bolt for it again!

when it rains, it pours

2011-03-24T23:25:00.000+11:00

Apparently, whatever's out there in the universe following me with a giant raincloud decided that there was more left in store for me. you know the huge deluge that's been through a lot of the NSW east coast earlier this week? Well, Bega was one of those affected areas that's now been declared a national disaster zone. We flooded. It was so bad, my boss was flooded in and his home on the hill became a little island. He had no power and couldn't show up to work until 2 days after the floods.. and then he had to kayak for 20 minutes from his home to get to dry land to get picked up by his colleague to show up for work today. I kid you not.

Someone was watching over me though. I was supposed to have driven up to Canberra on Monday. Wasn't looking forward to that one but I got my stash of mandarins, big bag of Doritos and my 1.5L bottle of freshly squeezed limeade ready in my little Chooq-mobile and planned to drive very very carefully through the mountains in the downpour. It wasn't raining as badly when we had first driven down, and even then, we had to drive through some pretty awesome but scary uber thick fog through windy two-lane mountain roads that included hairpin turns for a good hour or so. I was bracing myself for this trip back, but I never made it. The Chooq-mobile decided to strain and grunt up one of the slopes on the way out of town, flash me an exclamation sign on the dashboard and spiked a temperature that sent the thermostat needle way past the red mark. I had to turn back and it was for the best! If I had lost my common sense, I would've plugged on and either have been stuck in Canberra for the next few days because they closed the road due to mudslides and car-sized boulders, or had broken down in the middle of nowhere halfway up the mountain to then be freaked out by the mudslides and falling boulders the size of cars. Either way, not very good.

My payment for being kept safe? The price was a new engine on the Chooq-mobile. Ouch.

As an aside, I should probably stop planning to visit places. Seems like every place I want to go visit has been struck by a calamity this year. Japan for our honeymoon's now off. New Zealand was our backup, also slammed by an earthquake. Vanuatu was also on the cards, also stuck by an earthquake. Had been planning to visit the Bega Cheese Factory this weekend on my off days.. it's now flood-stricken. Where shall I plan to visit next...hmm?

there is nothing else left to do but laugh

2011-02-27T22:00:00.002+11:00

Have you ever had so many things go wrong for you in such a short span of time that you think there's someone out to get you, that there's a grey little cloud spurting rain and lightening following you over your head or that you're in a horrible twisted dream you can't wake up from, no matter how hard you pinch yourself?

It's been like that lately. Not quite sure what's in the air, but certainly nothing positive from the universe.
After the whole Bega fiasco, it turns out that I scored a pyrrhic victory. S had the last laugh (for now!) - I was greeted by no keys to pick up (because she had dropped them off at a different spot from normal on Friday night when she left) and had to use the spare key which was a bit raw in the lock. After sufficient turning and grunting to get the door open, I walk into a living room with a theater scrub cap on the ground, a couple of cloth placemats strewn across a crumb-ridden dining table and random plastic bags/paper on the carpeted floor. My tour of the hospital-provided unit continues to the kitchen, where I'm greeted by a countertop full of old dried up blobs of various sauces and a sink literally overflowing with dirty dishes/pans that spill onto the countertop. The stove has bits of dried food around the burners and the microwave is dirty when I open it. The bedrooms only harbored tiny daddy long leg spiders, the least of my worries and disgust. The bathroom sink had a used toothbrush on one side of it, and a plastic bag with strands of hair dangling from it into the sink and some sort of plastic packaging on the other side of it. The toilet bowl's in a room all by itself and has an empty toilet paper roll and kleenex box on the floor flanking the bowl. I move onto the laundry room, to be greeted with crumpled up theater scrubs thrown in the laundry sink and I open the lid of the washing machine to be greeted by what appears to be bed linen thrown in there but not yet washed.(I poked around a bit more with one timid finger afterwards and there is UNDERWEAR in there! eeew!)

Now, can you blame me for seething after the hubby and I drive three fricking hours through 220km, most of it through rain and fog to be greeted by the appalling state of the unit S left it in!?

(On the bright side, this unit's better than my rented one and it's already all hooked up to the internet!! yay!! also on the bright side, I gots the hubby! double yay!! And triple yay for finally appearing married to everyone else because the replacement wedding band arrived and was brought up by the hubby!!)

Oh, and then there's worse.

I'm supposed to be training in orthopedics. That means bone related. I don't know which bright spark thought it would be a good idea, or an idea at all, to have the orthopedic registrar cover general surgery AND obgyn. Now, go mull on that one.

And as if things were on a roll, the hubby went and hurt himself badly and had been limping around for the past few days with a nasty wound to the elbow. Though I'm supposed to only know about bone-related injury, any wound that exudes a pool of liquid isn't too good a wound to have, no?

And the kicker for the day was the phone call I received from a colleague of mine informing me that he'd rather I hear the bad news first hand from him, rather than filtered through later on. A patient had an operation on the wrong side of the body. It was a very unfortunate chain of mini-disasters that culminated into one big horrible one and my heart sank when I heard the news. From the xrays not having markings indicating which side of the body the part was on, to the consent form having the wrong side, to the wrong body part being marked, to the demented patient pointing to the wrong side, to the patient not being clinically checked just before going into the operating theater... it all snowballed. We're just going to have to wait and see if the family will press charges and pursue it any further.

What a weekend.

Am going to be on-call for the next two days, and then this coming weekend. Good luck to all the surgical patients who don't have orthopedic problems because all you've got is me!

Now Monday, bring it on!!

double-crossed

2011-02-23T21:51:00.001+11:00

how many ways can you screw a person over, over the same issue?

i whinged and whined about how i got screwed over regarding Bega not even two weeks ago.
well, it appears that i am in the process of getting screwed over again. over Bega. by the same person. such awesomeness!

i had initially wanted to send this out as an email to the consultant organizing the Bega roster, and cc: the Screwer-upper but in the end, i think it was more of a therapeutic exercise. i could organize my thoughts better after typing it all out and i feel less angry.

here we go:

Dear Consultant and Screwer-upper (we shall call you S from now on - Screwer-upper is too long to type every time),

This is a follow-up to our conversations today to ensure there is no miscommunication.

As discussed with Consultant, the roster for secondment to Bega will remain as it currently is and I will be going to Bega this coming Sunday in preparation for commencing work Monday, February 28th.

As discussed with S, I do not agree to commence my secondment to Bega in April for various reasons. These include:

- Other registrars being affected with a new Bega roster, as they have made plans according to the current roster. This includes a three-way swap between S and two other registrars over several weekends in the coming months that has been agreed upon, and the changes reflected in the current main hospital roster sent out to the group. It is above and beyond my role to be responsible for shifts accepted by my colleagues based on their personal reasons when it was not allocated on the original roster.

- I have made new plans, on short notice as well, to accommodate the current Bega roster, as I was under the impression 1+ week ago that I was originally allocated to go to Bega in April. Some of these plans are irreversible, especially on short notice again. One of these plans, as mentioned, involves my unit being sub-leased for the time I have been rostered to work in Bega. I feel that it would be highly unprofessional to break my agreement and ask my tenants to vacate on such short notice, potentially leaving them homeless or in temporary accommodation so I can remain in my current unit if I was to stay at the main hospital as S suggested for me to do.

- S feels that S has just settled in at Bega and would like to remain, rather than move back to Canberra after two weeks. I acknowledged that everyone requires time to settle in, and it would have been easier for everyone involved, both hospitals and registrars, if we had followed the original plan of going to Bega in 10-week blocks. However, the current Bega roster was drawn up to coincide with the wishes of S as S had discussed with Consultant less than two weeks ago. This was after two long conversations prior to this decision stating that I did not agree to the arrangements as stated on the Bega roster, and that if arrangements could be made to stay for two weeks on short notice, why not remain for the next 8 weeks? The rest of the group have now planned rostering and personal activities around the current Bega roster. Everyone in the group has been inconvinienced in some way due to the changes, including a restructured main hospital roster with more overtime shifts per week and no theater days for unaccredited registrars.

- The main hospital roster has undergone a major restructuring, with some shifts being removed altogether. This is mostly because of the lack of registrars and recent emergency events that have resulted in registrars unable to work their rostered shifts. Given that the restructured roster is only one week old, it would be detrimental to the functioning of the subspecialty team to need to review the main hospital roster again to accommodate for any changes caused by a new Bega roster.

I have suggested once again to S, that if she is unhappy regarding the current working roster, that she should speak to Consultant about possible alternatives like she had previously done.

I have stated that I do not, and cannot speak on behalf of my other colleagues at the main hospital but I do not agree to further changes to the Bega roster given the above reasons.

S has stated that S will speak to the other unaccredited registrars to find alternative arrangements if possible to allow S to stay at Bega.

I didn't feel the need to justify or further elaborate on my personal reasons for not going to Bega in April. One of which was just based on the principle of the matter!! Such nerve! Let's not mention that we've already booked and paid for plane tickets from Bega to Sydney for the hubby this Sunday. Or the fact that I was lucky enough to have expressions of interests in this unit for this odd time period (I have an wonderful agent!). Or the fact that my orthodontic treatment has been changed due to the unexpected secondment happening more than a month earlier than planned. Will S reimburse the extra costs entailed? Will S find me accommodation for the 10 week period where I will be homeless if she insists on remaining at Bega while other tenants stay at my apartment unit? I could go on, but I'm tired of harping on the issue. I just needed to get it out of my system once and for all, and pray to any and every sentient being out there that S doesn't succeed in screwing me over again.

an ode to the rooster cow

2011-02-21T22:08:00.003+11:00

my blog, my rules, my domain!
SO... i've decided to plug my fingers into my ears and shut my eyes really tight
i'm gonna ignore everyone for just one night
as i chant "lalalalalalalalalalala" without restrain!

for those of you who shiver and shudder at mushiness, as i once have, steer clear and stop reading.
you have been warned.

.........

i've never met anyone

who loved me for me

except for my parents

as anyone could see

as dense as i am

though i see it now

it took three-odd years

to find my dear cow

the rooster he is,

and a rooster he'll be

yet he insists on being

a cow full of glee

it never ever occurred

to my wee little brain

that someone else

could love just the same

the new year has barely

started to roll

yet tears have splish-splashed

as events took their toll

yet through the ups

and more through the downs

you make me smile again

especially through my frowns

i'm thankful and grateful

and so full of awe

that you're here with me

tho ain't sure what you saw

so thank you dear hubby

i love you so, you know

to the rooster-cow i married

you know, i love you so

the backstabber strikes again

2011-02-11T22:38:00.000+11:00

dear selfish bitch,

you do not get to screw me over yet again.
i thought you were young, green and naive. a bit like me. oh, ho... how wrong was i!
i tried to help you out by working the second weekend at our new workplace because you had "personal problems" as you told the group. you told me you just wanted the weekend off because it was your birthday.
i still went soft and agreed. it was the worst thing i've ever done. i lost my wedding AND engagement rings that weekend because i took your shifts. i was never supposed to have been there at all. i would have never lost my rings that weekend if not for you.

and then you screw me over by lying to the powers-above that i agreed to go to bega. then you rub it in by messaging everyone else but me an sms of thanks, that you were helping me out by going down for two weeks. what a bunch of bullshit. especially when people already knew you were picked to go to bega first and hence, if anything, i would be helping you out by going down the third week.

so now, you send an "updated" roster where you've penciled your own leave in, and conviniently forget that you had agreed to work my upcoming weekend shifts in exchange for me working yours that weekend i lost my rings. you then wrangled your way out and have roped in another colleague to work this weekend shift you took off me and now, that colleague has bailed and you've run into rostering problems yourself because of all the shift swaps you've done.

so i've sent out a mass email to everyone letting them know that i am not working the upcoming weekend shift. you do not get to screw me over again with your selfishness, bitch.

unkind regards,
amy

shut up amy, shut up.

2011-02-09T19:35:00.000+11:00

on a few occassions here and there, i have gotten so sick of my daily rants and whines whizzing around in my head that i have this irrisistable urge to stomp my feet and tell myself to shut up.

today was one of these rare occasions.

after a horrible past week and a half of incessant whines, as justified as i may feel about them, i've had it.
i'm at that stage where i just look back at you with vacant eyes that glint of a certain stubborness and pride, challenging you to throw all you've got at me, the worst situations you can muster. and at the end of it all, you'll still see that glint asking you "is that the best you've got?"

welcome to the real orthopedic team. we've been working together for about 3 weeks now and true colors are beginning to show. some good, some worse. one backstabber already surfaced. i was the lucky victim. selfish bitch. anyway, shan't go into details. have whined enough about it in real life, especially into the ringing ears of poor hG. i just needed this extra outlet to vent out the last of my steam and i'll be fine. that doesn't mean i won't forget.. but that i'll be fine for now.

Sometimes, I surprise myself

2011-02-03T22:36:00.001+11:00

It's been a crap week. An awful one that resulted in me showing up to work with two puffy eyes looking very decidedly ... well, asian and squinty. No offence, but boo to squinty puffy eyes!!

Thank goodness for Australia Day. I have newfound appreciation for the public holiday. Without it, I would have had to work for two weeks straight without a day off. With it, my long stint was cut to a mere 9 days straight. Yay! On the downside, we had an awful weekend. Non-stop steady stream of patients and that horror ward round of about 60 patients, most of which weren't on my team at the time. It was ugly, so I stayed back to help out Sunday night. My senior decided to be nice and let me have some theater time.

Now you see, most people would jump at the chance for theater time. It means being in the zone, the surgeon's zen garden where everything else can wait because we're all scrubbed up and it's up to whoever's NOT scrubbed to go deal with issues outside the operating theater. It's where time seems to fly and 3 hours hammering away at a hip seems like 30 minutes. So.. my senior thought he was doing me a favor. For me, I'm not too fussed about getting theater time at this stage. I figure that you could train anything and anyone to perform operations and there isn't really time at 9pm in the evening to get any real teaching. It was a mad scramble to get in, fix it and get outta there.

So anyway, I was called to theater on short notice while my colleague decided to be brave and carry my pager for me and sort out the patients in ED. We finished, I met him down in ED, we admitted two more patients requiring surgery, got changed out of our scrubs and were thankful to be able to go home to catch about 5+ hours of sleep before we were expected at work at 7am the next morning.

It was only when I was in the car on the way to work at about 6.40 in the morning that I realized I didn't have my wedding rings on. You have no idea what that feels like unless you've been through it yourself. I felt my heart go through the floor of the car, heard it splat on the ground and then go squish in the far distance as it bounced along the road to be squished again and again by each oncoming car. And that repeated itself the whole day. We searched and searched and there's no news of them yet. Oh, and that was only Monday. What a way to start the week.

And Tuesday was when I showed up as puffy squinty eyed girl getting sympathy from the nurses about the rings. Hell, I needed it. And then Weds, I think I got run down so much my body decided it had enough and chucked a fever. The nurses took my temperature during our outpatient clinics and it read 39.3C. The look of horror on their faces was awesome. The mad scramble to get me some panadol was good and it was a good reason to work a bit slower than usual. To be fair, I wasn't feeling right since Monday anyway and the temperature just made me feel more spacey and nauseated.

And then we have today, my ED day. Sorted through a bunch of inappropriate patient referrals that showed up at our registrar review clinic. Thank goodness ED wasn't busy at all. Only 2 patients to admit all day by 5pm! BUT.. a hella lot of clinic patients, incessant calls from GPs all over the south coast, and annoying calls from the wards through the pager. It was so bad someone rained pity on me when I went to return their page, exclaiming that she heard that practically the whole hospital had been paging me this morning and she's sorry I was so busy.

...

So here I am. Thursday night. Chinese New Year. With my plate of reheated mycoprotein fake chicken burger patties. Alone. Missing my hubby. In a different state, in a different town. Faced with the prospect of having to move again in as soon as a week as the worst case scenario. Without news of my lost rings. At 10ish at night after work, when I was supposed to have left work at 5pm. And yet, for the first time in a while, I felt happy. Maybe it's all relative. We should all be delegated uber-crap weeks, maybe have one every few months to make the humdrum seem like bliss. The awful reality of the public health system and how cruel it is shall be reserved for another day. Right now, I don't feel stressed, I don't feel tired. I'm happy that I made someone else happy today, that I was able to give them reassurance and establish trust before their major operations, that my patients have been all lovely and appreciative (except for two little bitches, but we shan't go there), that I got all my jobs done and have everything/everyone accounted for and that I called my grandpa and got him a bit excited when I told him I was able to go back and visit him in June in time for his birthday. And the best part is, I gets to see my hG in less than 24 hours =)

And the whinging begins.

2011-01-26T16:31:00.000+11:00

It's been one and a half weeks at Canberra, and I haven't even worked through all of it yet but I'm sitting here with a whopping big headache trying my very hardest to convince myself that I can make it through the rest of the year. I miss hG. I miss home and all things familiar. I think I'm too old to do this whole uproot-your-life-and start-new thing anymore.

The place is great to visit with friends or family - museums galore and the Floriade! It sucks to live in, especially by oneself. Even more so in a dinky apartment infested by bugs. Dinky, I don't mind. No airconditioning in weather that gets up to 37 degrees celcius, I can live with. Bugs, I mind. A lot. Dodgy neighbors give me the creeps. It sucks when you don't feel safe coming home from work every day. Am always on the lookout as I climb up the 4 flights of steps to my apartment. I don't relax until I twist the deadbolt shut and I hear a resounding thud. This was the best apartment for rent we could find near work. Half thinking of moving out in a few months if a better place comes up.

As for work, this has got to be the most disorganized system I've ever encountered (mind you, I've only encountered about 4 or 5 other ones in my short career but still...)

Who was the smartie that decided it would be a good idea to have five different programs with five different log-ins and passwords to access different aspects of someone's file? We can't even order and view xrays on the same program, and ordering xrays might as well have been asking us to fill in an electronic operation report with all the zillions of fields to complete. Don't get me started on the amount of fuss we had to go through to GET the fricking passwords.. and even then, they didn't work. Oh, and then there's this whole thing about going electronic. We write our notes on paper, they get shuffled to wherever they go to get scanned in and a few days later (actually, I'm not sure of the timeframe), they automagically appear on the computer system that requires yet a different username/password combination to access. Gee. Saving a lot of trees here, aren't we. And then we have the rotating roster that takes me away from the bulk of the action most days of the week Or what about ... ah hell. There's got to be a more efficient way of doing things and there must be a better functioning system out there that we could implement, but for the life of me, I can't come up with one. I don't even know where to begin because it's all so ridiculously convoluted and it's driving me mad. I need a system. I need algorithms. I need some sort of stability, something that grounds me other than coming home from work to check mail, shower and sleep.

It's gonna be a long long year..

I didn't study IT but still...

2011-01-06T20:41:00.000+11:00

In the Life of Amy, there are always WTF moments. Some are blips while others have a lot more impact. The new year didn't waste much time in throwing me one of them.

The phone rings.

*drumroll*

I don't know if you've had bad experiences with phone cards, where one party can't hear a thing and the other party's shouting "hello" until their face turns blue but when I picked up the phone, it was kinda like that. There wasn't a dial tone or static.. just silence. Nobody said hello back. It was kind of annoying after the third time it happened, not to mention a tad creepy at that stage. But then, this voice answers back. A voice with Indian-accented English telling me it belonged to John Smith and he was asking for a Mrs. Lee.

*keep your mind open, keep it open. don't judge too fast, don't jump to any conclusions. be nice to the telemarketer and then hang up soon*

So John Smith tells me he's returning a call for a technical assistance request coming from my computer. I told him I've never lodged such a request before and asked how he got my number. He misunderstood, or misheard me and was incredulous that I had no computer. *shrug* What the heck, why not? I went along with that and said he must have gotten the wrong number because I didn't have a computer, so why would I lodge a technical assistance request?

The scary part was that he was able to read out my phone number, initial and last name, and my street address. Now that got my attention. I had to find out where he got my info. I knew they were shady because a lot of things didn't make sense, telling me to run programs because I had spyware on my computer that couldn't be eradicated via anti-spyware software or deletion of the files - that only specialized people could remove it. Bullshit. Alarm bells were having a field day in my head. The long and short of it was that I had fun driving them insane but I was still a tad freaked after the call. If they were really legit, which I highly doubt, then they really need to work on establishing their credibility quick smart.

So all these things didn't add up. I pushed all their buttons and John eventually got fed up, put me on hold and the next thing I knew, there was another guy with Indian-accented English on the phone with me who introduced himself as the supervisor.

John had wanted me to type in "prefetch spyware" in my Windows start menu run prompt. He treated me like an idiot and spelt it all out - "peter robert echo flow-.." you get the point. I was feeling a tad mean.. and I did tune out halfway through because I got bored. So I got John to repeat it all again halfway through. Googled it at the same time mind you, but I wasn't about to go run some program - legit or not - just because some stranger calls up and tells me to. Who knows if it's gonna trigger some remote-access thing, or if reading whatever pops up on my screen to them will give them further information about my system at the very least.

And I just keep saying yes, I got what he spelt out. He asked what operating system I'm using and I refused to answer that too. Shouldn't he know what OS I'm using if he indeed received an error report from my computer? I asked him that, and he wouldn't answer my question and just kept repeating his question. (Granted, I appreciate that some error messages don't specify OS and other information but I was very loathe to reveal any information to the guy anyway).

Seeing that we were going around in circles, I bluntly told him I refuse to run any program until he tells me what the program is supposed to do, and what I'm supposed to see. The guy kept asking me to read out what was on my screen! This is when he got fed up and the "supervisor" got called in.

The guy was a lot more fun to talk to. So much so, that he got really agitated and tried to intimidate me. Professional.

Supervisor (S): What do you see on your screen?

me: What do you mean?

S: What do you see on your screen?

me: What do you mean? I don't see anything unusual.

S: What do you see on your screen?

me: I'm sorry, I don't understand. Am I supposed to see anything?

S: What do you see on your screen?

me: (grinning by now) I don't see anything! I don't understand. What am I supposed to see? I haven't done anything yet.

S: silence. The previous guy told you to type in prefetch spyware. Did you not do that?

me: No. I told him I wouldn't do it until he told me what I was supposed to see, and what the program is supposed to do.

S: Why didn't you do what he said? Run the program!
me: What am I supposed to see on my screen when I run the program?

S: Type in prefetch spyware and tell me what you see in the window that pops up

I forget how the conversation went exactly but here's the gist of it...At some point in the conversation, we get back to how they ended up with my details again. He revealed that they apparently received these error reports and will randomly chase a customer up sporadically, getting their contact details off the white pages. (As for that, it's utter crap. I went to look myself up on the white pages - they got my address correct, which creeps me out because my details are wrongly listed on the white pages.)

me: So you're telling me I have spyware and you want to get rid of it for me. So what kind of file names am I looking for after I run the prefetch?

S: Any sort of programs. Exe files, PDFs..

me: So if you received a technical error report saying that spyware caused my Windows error, can you tell me what the spyware is so I can deal with it?

S: You need to run the program and then tell me what you see on your screen!

me: So you're telling me that my problem is that I have spyware on my computer and you want to tell me how to fix it.

S: You have spyware on your computer. Now do you think this is a good thing? It may contain all your credit card numbers, passwords and other information about you. Now, you you think it is a good idea to have this on your computer so hackers can extract the information at any time?

me: So you're telling me that my problem is that I have spyware on my computer and you want to tell me how to fix it, right? Then can you please tell me what spyware I need to look for and I'll deal with it. I have anti-virus protection that is up to date and am very aware of what is on my computer.
S: You think you can just delete it and that's the end of your problem. You think that your antivirus software will find it? (I was thinking to myself - well, Microsoft Security Essentials has deemed my computer safe and if you're calling from any branch of Microsoft, you would think you wouldn't rat out your own anti-virus program...) They can't find these spyware. You think you update the anti-virus program and you'll be fine but you're also downloading new virus files into your computer.

Mind you, I was getting more and more amused as his voice got louder and higher the more he ranted. So I let him go on for a bit. I stayed firmly obstinate but polite and kept thanking him, and that I'll fix the problem. It irritated him to no end.. to the point where he challenged me, asking if I worked in the IT industry, lol. I denied that, and man, you should've heard him go off! He ranted that if I thought all computer problems could be fixed by the user, then what did I think tech support was for. I reminded him that I didn't solicit this call, but thank you for alerting me to my problem and I will deal with it.

He gave up and hung up.

I must admit, I would have sounded like a horrible little prat but to my defence, I did explain my attitude to the guy. I know I didn't need to but I did. Did they think I would willy-nilly run things on my computer based on what they told me? In all the years (we're talking since Windows 3.1 here) that Windows has failed me with errors and BSODs, not to mention the numerous error reports automatically sent (no, didn't disable it after my most recent reformat and install), why would I suddenly get a phone call from tech support now? Or that their tech support customer database is reliant on http://whitepages.com.au. Now, really. The guy just talked over me when I brought up all these points in my attempt to tell him I don't trust him. Ah well. Live and learn.

My only regret is that I didn't take down their phone number. It's the only thing I always forget to do until hindsight kicks in. Poo.

the ghost of christmas past came late this year

2011-01-03T21:05:00.001+11:00

So I get sidetracked easily, contrary to popular belief although hG would contest that. He's seen the other side of me. The one I keep locked up so the rest of the world can continue to believe that I'm all grown up. Anyway, I came across a facebook update by a classmate of mine from junior high, warning people about this people-searcher called spokeo.

Curiosity got the better of me, and despite freaking out not just five minutes before at the horrible thought of having to know enough anatomy of the abdomen to "tutor" third year medical students for tomorrow, my fingers took me to the spokeo site. It's not like typing your own name into google you know. It's a tad more personal, a tad more nail-bitingish given that you have the option of searching for your online presence by username. So, I did. And a zillion things came up. Thankfully, I have an uber-common name. Yay! And, apparently, my choices of online usernames are a tad humdrum.. or so odd that nobody else in their right mind would be able to look me up. Yay!

And so, I'm sitting there clicking on everyone else's page, curious to see what my dopplegangers-by-name have put on their pages, what they look like and so forth. And then, I click on this one link that took me to my own site - a 2006 version. Was expecting to be pleasantly surprised by one of my dopplegangers-by-name, so imagine my surprise when I realized I was reading my entries of old. An odd feeling, I tell you - half spooky, half familiar. I don't recall creating it and worst of all, I don't recall why I came up with some of the pages I did. My old self in 2006 wasn't very precise either, so I didn't leave myself many clues to piece together my questions although I think I had every plan to continue my cyberspace presence there for a long long while.

How many plots of cyberspace have you claimed? How much information have you let loose for all to grab? Enough for some of 'em deep-crawlers like spokeo, intelius, or pipl to aggregate it all into a tidy little package that someone else could use to create a profile page on your behalf? Just think about it a little, and if you need to, buff up your privacy settings for your various online profiles. (Unless you actually like the prospect of acquiring a potential stalker, or two. Personally, I've been through it and it was scary as hell. I'll pass.)

merry new year!

2011-01-01T11:29:00.000+11:00

so the clock struck twelve

and the fireworks went off

we were already perched

quiet, with nary a cough

through the window

from across the hall

we saw the bridge light up

we saw sparks and all!

the camera snipped

and the camera snapped

we caught some sharp shots

and were duly rapt

so with these snaps

(so amatuer)

we wish you all

a happy new year!!

May twenty eleven be bigger, brighter and all things better than twenty ten!

a belated happy halloween!

2010-12-08T22:27:00.000+11:00

no pumpkin carving this year..
here's a sneak peek at what happened for halloween *grin*

Lists!

2010-12-04T16:31:00.000+11:00

It's been a while since I've done one of these compilations but well, I've been in an organizing mode lately. I get into these moods where I feel like I have to re-organize my life and re-organizing was definitely a huge thing lately. Been trying for the past month to consolidate our things, get rid of doubles and trying to sort things into our 25 IKEA expedit boxes. Wedding things are still floating around, we still haven't seen our professional shots from the big day itself, let alone the video compilation... and that's just the life part of it all. Work is a whole new can of worms, don't get me started.

Anyway, so when I get these moods, I sit down, literally chuck everything out from all their usual nook and crannies onto the floor, make a huge glorious mess that eventually end up in multiple piles that hG likes to term as "amy droppings".. and start putting things back. Of course, these moods are accompanied by loads of list-making. Oodles and oodles of lists, to-dos, to-files and so on. Not that I manage to complete any of my lists. I used to be quite good about it but have lost a lot of steam in the past few years. Now, I'm lucky to even get through a quarter of my lists, but nevertheless, the process of making them tends to be therapeutic.

So here's a few of the sites I've found myself on lately...

Pearltrees - a one-click bookmarking system online that saves each page as a "pearl" that you can consolidate into "trees." best part is that you can "pluck" pearls from other users to link up with and search or browse for either users or pearls that run along the same vein as your own, or whatever else strikes your fancy

Flickr - most people should know what this is without needing much prompting. recently rediscovered =)

Tabbles - tag your files!! cross tag your files!! Now, I don't need to remember where I've buried or what I've named a file =) All I've gotta do is type in what the file is in my mind .. or what I wanna look for (like typing in "ortho" and "xrays" and "left" to bring up all jpegs of xrays taken of left wrists, hips, femurs etc). awesome for work, awesome in general!

Ninite - haven't tried this one myself.. not quite game enough to but keeping it at the back of the mind for when I become very desperate. It's a one-stop shop for installing commonly used applications in a few clicks.. useful for when you've just reformatted or gotten a new computer to start filling up again!

Hmmm.. and now, some online window shopping! if only i could print my own moolah. oh, the technolust never ends =(

iwantoneofthose.com - 'nuff said.

thinkgeek.com - also 'nuff said.

Notion Ink Adam - /drool.

nabaztag

wall scratch world map

a few "hmmmmm.. i..in..interesting..." ones to throw in while we're at it:

wooly wall planter

glow-in-the-dark toilet paper

re-inventing fast food into fancy food

happy clicking!

i just need to get this out of my system

2010-11-13T11:36:00.004+11:00

i had all these great plans for today
to finally clean up and all
to pack and stuff

so i cleared out three huge bags of garbage and lugged them down to the garbage room
was surprised by this dude coming out from somewhere in the distance - hadn't heard a car door close or anything during my trek from elevator to garbage room. that's usually a good indicator that someone's just gotten out of their car, right? i mean, most people close their car doors as a last step after getting all their stuff out the car, right? so yah, i got startled a bit.

shrugged it off, went into the garbage room. the place was full of bins, i forgot what colored tops were what.. why can't they just make garbage bins for normal garbage with the same awful army green lids, and the special recycling ones with different colored lids? why do they make both "special" by giving them different colored lids from their bases? i always get them bloody confused, especially with the colors having nothing to do with the contents. you'd think that the recycling bins' lids would be like bright green, blue or brown or something that screamed "ECO!" or "SAVE THE EARTH!" but no.. it's yellow. wtf am i supposed to link with yellow? a banana?

so yah, i get mixed up and dump my largest bag of garbage in the yellow-topped bins and then get distracted by the door opening. i didn't even get a chance to work out i needed to dump my trash in the red-topped bins. i eventually would've on my way out when i saw the red-topped ones but all i saw when i walked in was a sea of yellow, so i had assumed that it was for normal trash. anyway, the door opened. it was the same guy that startled me earlier. i was even more distracted. no, he wasn't hunky. he wasn't even hot. i was really confused as to why he came in to latch the garbage room door open, empty-handed. thought most people came in the garbage room to dump trash. so what did he want? i was stumped for only a millisecond before he started telling me how to recycle and pointing out what could and couldn't be dumped in the recycling bin. i was like, "yah and your point would be?" not realizing that the bloody yellow ones were for recycling yet. so he comes over and starts dumping my bags IN the trash bin and pretty much takes over. i was so flabbergasted at the gall of the guy, especially after he grabbed my empty, folded IKEA reusable bag from under my arm to dump in the recycling bin, that i just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. to get as far away from the guy as possible. now. instinct took over, i clammed up and dumped my trash to get out of there asap.

not only until the guy was out of eyesight (which took a while because he managed to catch the same same elevator as i did, and then walked for a block out towards the shopping center in the same direction as me) was i able to slow down and think. and then fume. and FUME. and fume so much that retail therapy, an sms and a phone call couldn't cull it. so here i am. fuming. i so need to let go. =(

but seriously, this is one of those.. wtf, who DOES that?!?!? moments. i should start an anthology of these one of these days..

a bit of this and a bit of that

2010-10-17T21:55:00.002+11:00

i've had a couple of gripes up my sleeve but i missed the boat and now, i've forgotten what they were. i vaguely remember the gist of it but like most things seen through hindsight, my gripe doesn't seem so gripe-worthy now. the sun will still rise, with or without Sydney's posse of idiot drivers, crazy patients.. oo!! speaking of which, something got revived. gripe-from-the-dead, here we go!

every so often, i come across a situation that makes me think long and hard, making me reflect on why i decided to become a doctor. this was one of them. it brought out the fighting spirit in me. i haven't felt it this strong in a very long while. i was angry, frustrated and wanted to do the best for the patient but wasn't allowed to do so by idiot family members. i find it very hard to believe and even harder to accept allowing a demented patient's family to take her home with a broken hip because they've refused to let her undergo surgery. they believed that the body is a miraculous thing and will heal itself, even if it's a broken neck of femur that will render the patient immobile and in constant pain if left unfixed surgically. they spat on the information provided, refusing to believe anything but their own warped ideas. it took myself, two registrars and the consultant a total of 2 hours or so to make them agree to the surgery. to make them understand that yes, the patient may die during or from surgery, but may also die without surgery. lying in bed all day for about 6 weeks or more is not exactly healthy for an 80-something year old who used to hobble minimally around the house. people like this tend to develop infections like pneumonia, blood clots and pressure sores from being in bed and immobile all day, not to mention the amount of pain stemming from the broken bone. for 6 weeks or more! would you subject your family member to that kind of torture? i can't believe those family members scoffed at the above, saying they knew better than their treating doctors and all of that was hogwash and they would like to take their mother home thank you.

anyway.. onto other things. happy things. like looking forward to halloween 2010. instead of my annual pumpkin carvings.. or whatever substitute i can find to carve, i'll be dressing up this year. yay! pictures may follow soon, depending on how they turn out.

dumdumdedum.. ;)

you're on

2010-09-01T15:50:00.002+10:00

you're on.

as simple as that.
one phone call. two and a half words. the best words ever.
and with that, next year's career and financial stability sorted.
now comes the hard part..

moving again.
this time, i'll be a missus.
hmm.

wouldn't have ever imagined to have the need to quote my alma mater's motto but this is as good a time as any... "i look ahead"
goes to show, yet again as it usually happens in the life of amy.. never say never.

running out of time

2010-08-15T23:42:00.004+10:00

so many things to do
so many things to see
i wish i had more time
for everyone and me

daily work and politics
daily rants and raves
fighting for my brain cells
none of it, it saves

there're studies to be conducted
and studying to be done
wedding plans yet to be made
oh, where is all the fun

i need more time
and not more rhymes
yet rhymes are all i do
i'll take ideas to help me
from you and you and you!

i think i may want to be a vampire

2010-07-23T21:50:00.003+10:00

i'm tired.

i can see this turning into a long tirade, a whingefest with a splash of self pity and doused with attention-whoring so hence, i warn you.

i'm tired.

i really want to have a break. you know it's bad when watching Eclipse unlocks the shackles of daily life and you find yourself wishing you too could become a vampire. or a werewolf. honestly, i'd rather a vampire.. the wolf women ain't as purdy as the vampire women, though the wolf men.. hm. moving on.

so yah, i'm tired. have i mentioned that yet?
i managed to work four out of five days this week. thursday was spent at home trying to overcome chills, aches, fevers and dysuria. i swear i might've come down with pyelonephritis but i've got some antibiotics to give a shot so we'll see how well that goes. antibiotic effectiveness usually is rate-limited by my compliance. i've been good so far - managed 3 doses in a row, yay!

so the other four days of work at the new hospital have been hell. not the fire and brimstone kind. the ant looking in from the wrong side of the clingwrap at a tower of cupcakes kind of hell.
monday was spent re-orientating myself to a hospital that was supposed to be my mothership, but where i haven't worked at for about a year now. that, and sorting out operation lists for the next two weeks that A so kindly did to facilitate change-over, but which promptly went missing as expected. funny how lists only disappear when they belong to whatever team a certain senior of mine is working on. ant-clingwrap-argghhh.

tuesday and wednesday were spent trying hard to keep the bosses happy, especially with double theaters running simultaneously.. and then having to deal with the shit from tweedledee and tweedledum. lying to me to keep me out of the operation, only to be insanely sweet and feign innocence later and then pretend to make up for it by trying to be best buddies watching out for me and getting me to scrub into a later case. AS IF I WAS DONE A FAVOR!! in terms of job description, the resident's main job is to tend to the wards and make sure all's calm before coming into theaters. i know. i did that job last year. A and i both did and therefore, i think we're both justified in feeling frustrated at having OUR resident go behind our backs to ask unsuspecting seniors for permission to scrub in when the senior resident should ALWAYS have priority. after all, my job as the senior resident is to essentially be the third hand - i go wherever the registrars or bosses need me to go, be it clinics or scrubbed into an operation. i'm also supposed to supervise my residents and interns, and make sure the operating lists run smoothly by being the secretary and sorting out paperwork.. and making things happen. my job isn't about wasting time over politics and insecure colleagues who feel they always need to suck up to whoever has the most influence over their life at that particular moment, nor is it to "fight for theater time". honestly!! as someone who supposedly wants to do orthopedics really really badly, my resident sure doesn't get the big picture. at my resident's level, it would be nice to get some operating time but being in the operating theaters 24/7 is not going to make one an orthopedic surgeon. there are other things to learn and see; other things like outpatient fracture and bosses' clinics to review post-op patients and their recovery, managing patients on the ward and learning how to prioritize and organize one's day so that one actually HAS the time to come into theaters without being paged every 15 minutes.

honestly, i've had it up to here. (try to imagine amy standing on her tippy toes with her arm stretched above her head). the worst part is.. it's only my first week. 3 more months with double trouble. three. ant-clingwrap-argggghhhh!!

that being said, hell if i'm taking this lying down.
mind you, i'm a more timid type.. or maybe just being taurean. slow to anger, but once you tip me past boiling point.. watch out!! right now, i'm still just boiling. slowly. so for now, everything's simmering and a few bubbles pop here and there. like when i pulled rank to scrub into a trauma case despite my resident being there all bright and shiny in those ridiculous looking lead gowns we all have to wear. the thing was, he wasn't even CLOSE to the level of being able to do the case, yet none of the registrars had put on their gowns yet. talk about pre-empting. so yah, i pulled rank. i scrubbed in, he didn't. he got the shits and left before the boss did. it didn't help that the boss remembered my name after working with him for only one term last year. do you know how HARD it is to recognize someone when they're all covered in theater caps with a huge mask over their face?? man, i was impressed. the boss not only recognized me, he REMEMBERED me. gobsmacked.

or when i got sidelined again today - it happens on a daily basis. i had to pull my senior registrar aside and explain the situation. he was nice enough, he understood. it's not hard to understand when one of the tweedles argues with you in theater, refuses to help you when you don't do things his way and lies to you about your boss insisting that he does the operation - what an insult to have that come from someone your junior. for goodness sakes, my senior registrar was already a consultant in his home country. he came here and to qualify as a boss, they made him do his last 2 years of training again. the guy's going to be a boss two times over and tweedledum has the gall to steal the surgery from him, let alone take shortcuts and then scoff when questioned?

but.. the clincher will ALWAYS be this. i know it's not nice to gloat over someone else's misery. i hardly ever do.. hardly. look, i felt bad enough pulling rank and was steeling myself up to have a chat with my resident to clear the air but before i had the chance, he was doing it again.. going behind my back and scrubbing into a surgery i was supposed to be assisting in. if the guy has no remorse over being an asshole, hell if i'm going to waste my time over an asshole. SO, with a clear conscience, i happily gloat over the greatest clincher of all: the insightless, dangerous, and unstable senior of mine.. the same one that made me fear for my personal safety on his last day as i left the hospital.. this senior of mine got an interview to get onto the orthopedics training program last year and he didn't this year! it's almost unheard of for that to happen. once you start getting interviews, it's a matter of time before you get on the program. he's like.. backtracked. oh ho, but that's not all. all his OTHER colleagues within the two hospitals he's working at, one with one year less experience than he has.. not only did THEY get interviews this year, but they got onto the training program for next year!! man, did that make my day. and P's, my other senior registrar. and A's. and i bet, a hell lot of other people i don't know about that this horrible registrar has scarred in some shape or form. my favorite people from work got on the program like they deserved and restored my faith in the system. it was awesome to be able to scroll through the names and come across so many familiar ones! and at the back of my mind, the devil in me loudly reminding me that tweedledum wasn't listed. that was the icing on the cake.

like P said.. just carry that thought with me for the next three months. it'll see me through, he said. i hope he's right. or else i just might go find me some vampires.

just a few short letters

2010-07-04T12:44:00.002+10:00

dear hypocrite,

you surface once again, except this time, you've outdone yourself.

who are you to approach my resident to ask him where I am, and then comment on "oh, she's doing that again to you is she?" when he tells you it's my day off. it's my day off because i was bloody sick with fevers and chills but hey, you never asked and he never said so I'll accept that it's not your fault to jump to conclusions. it's never your fault, is it? it was none of your business to begin with but hey, that's not your fault either.

who are you to proceed and warn my resident to not let me abuse him with my days off? i'm glad my resident SRMO shut you up when he replied that I was sick, and that he felt I deserved my day off and he was gladly covering. who's doing the abusing here, when you were the one leaving him with more than a week's worth of discharge summaries to do when he took over from you? the ward clerks chased you and paged you to do them, you assured us ALL you spent your last week doing nothing but discharge summaries to make the next person's life easier.. and the first thing he complains about is having to do discharge summaries from two weeks ago.

seriously though, the kicker was when you called out to my SRMO as he was leaving ED and told him to please not mention your conversation to me. newsflash hypocrite-person: we've left high school ten years ago, keep up with the times.

worst wishes,
amy

......

dear desperado,

you are demanding, rude and think you're entitled to everything just because you see yourself as short, cute, helpless and female. you kind of act like those private patients who come to public hospitals thinking they own the hospital and demanding the world and the universe.

that's ok though. i don't have to see you much. i just need to put up with you because you're The Boy's colleague. it's not ok though, to assume that i will drive you and the rest of the lab folks back home after a late games night. i'm happy driving you all home, don't get me wrong. it's on the way, it's late and it's cold. what i'm not happy about was when you got out of my car and thank The Boy by name, but nobody else. I don't expect thanks, but if you are bothering to give thanks, shouldn't you be thanking the driver of the car and not the passenger?

or what about the time the other lab people and i drove you shopping for housewares to help you settle into your new apartment? you bought things that you couldn't carry and didn't fit into your shopping basket. fair enough. it's not fair though, when you bulge your eyes out and leave your mouth agape before making some sort of throat-clearing noise when we all agree that we were done shopping and headed for the cashier. it's not fair that you stared at the back of The Boy as he took my items from my hand and marched off to the cashier and then had the gall to call him back to demand that he carries your purchases for you with a petulant glare and pout.

you have no right expecting someone's fiance to be taking care of your inadequacies. no right at all. so if you feel so short, female and helpless.. go do something about it to make yourself feel better but leave my Boy alone.

flabbergasted,
amy

the whirlwind

2010-06-30T22:10:00.002+10:00

so much drama,
so much goss
everyone's talking,
even the boss

backstabbing and lying
amongst two-faced cheats
fake smiles and stares
as extra little treats

a patient killed here,
a patient maimed there,
a few more extra jabs
hey, nobody's keeping tabs

such was the world
that disturbed my cozy own
the whirlwind moved on
new places, same tone

now i'm much happier
hearing with glee
all the comeuppance
for all there to see!

all in a day's work

2010-05-22T22:15:00.003+10:00

what's the oddest thing that's happened to you lately?

i vaguely remember a time when these randoms would happen on a more frequent, regular basis and i must admit, i kind of miss my misadventures. the boy.. now upgraded to the fiance.. would most likely be shaking his head, glad that my magnetism for the oddballs is waning but i beg to differ. gone are the days of random people sending me their resumes (nice to know they were once blueberry pickers proficient with microsoft word.. but hell if that'll be the clincher to the date they were after!!).

but that being said.. i seem to be attracting same-sex oddballs nowadays. a funny thing happened on the way to the bathroom just the other day during fracture clinic. sick, sniffly, tired, sleep-deprived with a headache knowing there were 57 patients waiting to see you/your registrar was not an ideal state to be in, but sick, sniffly, tired, sleep-deprived with a headache with 57 patients waiting to see you/your registrar and desperately needing to pee was even worse. dashed off to the bathroom and barely had time to arrange myself and do my stuff when i hear a knocking on the door not 3 seconds into utter bliss. "someone's in hereeee!!" i called out. i didn't expect to hear "i have a question to ask you" as the reply. i was so utterly perplexed i forgot what i was doing for a bit in an attempt to make sense of the reply. failed to do so and took my time. imagine my horror when i walked out of the bathroom.. the one-cubicle bathroom with walls so thin i could hear the waiting room tv whilst inside.. yes, that bathroom. imagine the horror when i got accosted by an elderly lady who promptly asked "do you remember me?" my brain was more like "omgomgomgsheheardmepee.omgomgeew!" took me a few more seconds to focus on what the lady was saying and she eventually lifted up her skirt to show me her week-old bandaged knee from her knee replacement surgery to ask when her dressings should be changed. i managed to splutter out a reasonable response and she happily hobbled away to her physiotherapy appointment, leaving me gobsmacked in the middle of the corridor with the realization that i had just encountered my first stalker patient.

nuthin'

2010-05-20T21:37:00.002+10:00

you know something's wrong when a consultant stops his team halfway across the hall upon seeing you and asks if you are ok, you look terrible.

not sure why i'm so stressed, so tired.. all the time. things haven't been better since the new registrar came. despite knowing that i should be constantly upgrading and thinking like a registrar, i waste time and brain cells on internet monotony in the form of facebook games. somehow, i feel that i'm not where i'm supposed to be by now. i know why. i know how to get there. i just. can't. get. my. ass. off. the. ground.

instead, i sit here with a dribbling and blocked up nose, droopy eyes laden with bags, a mouth full of metal with a few cuts and a million things to do.. and i'm typing. about nothing.

gah!!!

someone kick me please =(

tragicomedy

2010-04-23T23:26:00.003+10:00

today was tragic. truly.

in two months' time, in another two years' time.. i'll be laughing about this. hell, this might even make it as a wedding story as an example of the story of my life, but at the present moment, i'm only laughing because it's so tragic i don't know whether i should laugh or cry.

so here goes the saga of amy trying to get her aussie driver's license. i have to convert from my international one i've been driving on for the past eight years ever since i got permanent residency this year.

part one: the knowledge test
strike one - i book one friday, take time off work and miss my appointment because i took a ticket instead of just approaching the counter. by the time i got there, i was half an hour past my appointed time and they told me they turned off all computers by 4pm. i'm thinking in my head - can't you just boot it up? it's just an imac after all. but... i don't contest it and rebook for the next week.
strike two - managed to get another block of time off and then comes the debacle regarding my name. it turned the flavor of "your name on your taiwanese driver's licence despite the sanctioned translation doesn't match your name on your photo ID we issued even though both names are in our system.. but how can we prove that you are the same person if you have different names?" it took another half hour and the involvement of the branch manager to explain that the taiwanese license has no english characters to input my english name and therefore, the translation service cannot add my english name to their translation. i showed them my healthcare card, my credit card, atm card and my international driver's licence all showing both chinese and english names and they still were asking how they could prove i was me. "look at the frickin' photo, does that not help?" no.. they wanted my passport. i asked them how (the f@#$) that would help, given that it shows the same name as my credit card and has a picture of me, just like my license has!
no strike three - i pass my test, third appointment lucky and book in for an on-road driving test. they were surprised and looked at me like an idiot when i refused my learner's license after they tell me i wouldn't be able to drive without a fully-licensed passenger with me. i asked them how i would get home from the test then - they repeated the above. i thought it was kind of warped and asked if there was an alternative. so they issued me a new photo id with a crazy bad photo instead of returning the one i just handed in half an hour ago because that one was "void" ... wtf. can't you just give me the card sitting there on your desk!? so i drove home on my international licence.

part two: the driving test
so i arrive after leaving my team on a busy afternoon with two concurrent theaters running. i get everyone's blessings, including my head of department's even though i had just bailed on his elective surgery list this afternoon. i turn up to the driving test center and realize i forgot my wallet at the hospital. there goes my photo id, my credit cards... so i have other documents plus passport to lodge my application. i approach the window instead of taking a number (i'm learning!!) and get greeted by a surly asian dude with a true blue aussie accent. his name was phil. i'll remember that for a while, after what happened today. i have half a mind to lodge a complaint about phil. phil who was rude - when i asked if i could just explain to my friend that we just started the test and could he please wait for us, phil deadpanned "there is no need, proceed ahead" while completely ignoring my friend who was by the passenger's window next to phil's head by this time. i drove off leaving my friend a tad bewildered but he was a smartie and figured it out eventually. phil, the phil whom i resent for marking me wrongly. do you not think i would know if i had been driving in the middle of the road? do you not think other cars would have honked at me then? do you not think that my stopping the car with a soft jerk at the stop signs would erase all doubt of a rolling stop but i ended up getting marked down for a rolling stop? phil who was unprofessional - tapping impatiently while i was crawling through the 40k/h school zones as required. oh, this phil picked on other things during my test but what really gets my blood boiling is that i see him as a hypocrite. if you dare to fail me by nitpicking and not being able to back up your marks with the evidence, like tell me which stop sign i failed to stop completely at.. then i dare you to drive up to your own "exacting standards" and i'd like to see you pass your driving test. asshole.

so now, i have to resit my driving test next week.
in the meantime, they stuck me with a learner's license meaning i can't really drive to work alone anymore and will need to carpool. sux0rs. =(

schticks and scatterbrains

2010-04-21T00:57:00.003+10:00

a scatterbrain i am
and a scatterbrain i'll be
i'm sorry for all the troubles
that seem to follow me!

it sometimes feels like rainclouds
strive to do their best
to drench and soak and make me shiver
to put me to the test

but then i see that silver lining
the one that makes them rainbows
there're always lessons to be learnt
to keep me on my tippy toes

like just this past week
i've been such a dope
i've locked myself out again
should've learnt but.. nope =(

and then came the RTA
they're the Aussie DMV
they refused to see that i was me
despite my guarantee!

my driver's licence was apparently bad
for it didn't match my cards
i showed them bills and more and more
but they viewed them with disregard

i had to come back with my passport
which showed yet another name
couldn't they just look at my pic
and see that they're all the same?!

we eventually worked it through
and i passed my theory test
it starts again with part two
won't they ever just let it rest?!

in excelling, you get penalized
in failing, you get away
what kind of place am i stuck in,
i shake my head in dismay

i've been driving for the past eight years
and because i've passed my test
they treat me like a newbie driver
no more solo drives.. i protest!!

and then last week i was cornered
to get my fluvax shot
'twas my first and i kicked up a fuss
but the wiley needle lady, she heeded me not =(

there's more to whine but i shall stop
for by now, i'm sure you're all sick
i'm glad of how things are as of now
i hope there'll be no more shcticks!

metal-mouth

2010-03-31T00:11:00.004+11:00

what irony! it just hit me after watching episodes 16 and 17 of ugly betty. i was so happy for her! (spoiler alert, stop reading if it bugs you)

so yah, i was all happy that she finally got her braces off until i realized that i would be a metal-mouth in less than 24 hours and i'd stay that metal-mouth for a minimum of 6 months. it means meeting new people with braces. it means sitting for job interviews with braces. it kinda takes some getting used to, especially with all the negative vibes and jibes about braces in general.

i'm kinda nervous about it all, now that i'm actually going through with it. first, i get a haircut that came with bangs. BANGS! i haven't had bangs since i was a kid. hG wasn't too happy with the haircut... and then i told him about the braces. man, you should've seen his face. gobsmacked. when he finally found a voice, he asked me what i was trying to do, turn into ugly betty?!

terrible, terrible.

so long, last day of being able to eat nougats and all things sticky! so long, last day of being able to run my tongue over my teeth without lacerating it. hellooo to dorkdom and many more misadventures with food stuck in braces to come!

counting down to good riddance

2010-03-05T21:32:00.002+11:00

dear hypocrite,

thank you for constantly placing me in situations where i have no choice but to be like you. sometimes when i'm lucky, i get away with just keeping quiet. i already constantly evaluate and re-evaluate myself and my performance but because of you, i have stepped it up. i am constantly checking and rechecking my behavior and try to keep it real instead of living in my own little bubble. i really am trying hard to not become like you, so thank you for helping me keep my guard up all this while. i sincerely mean that.

now that we have the mushy part out of the way..

i especially loved it when you bristled with indignation when other people have made a mistake but refused to acknowledge their mistake as you saw it. that's fair enough. generous of you to accept that it's human to make mistakes and you're willing to accept that, but draw the line at not having the balls to own up to one's mistakes. funny that. what about the time when one of your mistakes was pointed out in black and white, and the knee-jerk reaction you had was to screech back asking if it was all your fault now for being in the situation you were faced with.

in the exact words of he-who-must-not-be-named, your notes are exquisite, i might add. bravo! they are so perfect that it takes me twice the time to read your words than it would take me to write my own set of notes. sometimes, i even have to stop and ask for someone more intelligent, or with better eyesight, to decipher your perfect handwriting. the precision of those notes, man! so precise that all you need is the date on your entries - we automagically figure out the time of events somehow, usually by guessing the time based on the entries before and after your notes.

and where do i start with that attitude of yours? i have resigned myself to the fact that you will continue to do what you want, regardless of whether it may be the best for you or not. I admire how you have so quickly adopted and adapted, claiming credit whenever you can. I'm glad you think that will get you places. Maybe it will, but i hope you enjoy your time just as much when you crash and burn. not if, but when.

i really don't mean to wish you harm but you are making it really hard for me to continue harboring any sort of good will towards you. i have lied to myself and made up excuses for you so i could keep giving you second chances but my supply is fast running short. frankly, i'm glad our time will come to an end soon. i don't ever want to see you again. if you keep this up, you will eventually sink and at this point, i would happily sit there next to the pile of lifesavers and watch you thrash about.

so i hope you have a good rest of the year and learn to grow up a little. i know that i definitely have during our short meet, and that the rest of my year will continue to be a huge learning opportunity in the lesson called life.

with blatant disregard,
amy

usual humdrum

2010-02-07T14:26:00.002+11:00

not much happening
sun and moon rise like clockwork
usual humdrum

mandatory vacations suck

2010-01-15T17:47:00.003+11:00

this sucks. i have the rare opportunity to go aaaaaaanywhere in the world for about two weeks. anywhere i want (granted, it still depends on how deep my wallet is but still!). eh-nee-where! and i don't know where to go.

i have to get out of the country so they can give me my permanent residency visa on my "new" arrival back to australia. seriously, how messed up is that to begin with but i won't even go there. the issue at hand is to pick out a place i can bum at for at least 8 working days while they process the piece of paper called my visa and i'm quite stuck. i have to leave within 5 days to fit it all in my work schedule. urgh, the gggnargh-ness!

so let's see.

taiwan? most sensible. parents, free accommodation. angst foreseeable due to friction from too much time with the family. can take the time to study because there'd be nothing else to do though. but i just went back! =(

singapore? hot, humid, no free accommodation, was just there. can catch up with people i've missed but that's about it

new zealand? pretty, always wanted to go, nearby.. but the boy can't come and we had wanted to go explore the place together =(

japan? haven't been in a while and would be nice to go but again, the boy can't come =(

korea, greece, south america? would be fun, haven't been but again, the boy can't come =(

los angeles? nobody's left, everyone's moved on with families and careers so there's nobody to catch up with

too bad tasmania isn't officially its own country.

so there you go. a rare chance to go anywhere i want because i've got no other choice and i think i'm settling for taiwan. urrgh, how utterly sad.

happy holidays!

2009-12-18T22:14:00.004+11:00

what a week it's been since returning to australian soil! managed to come back in one piece. for those of you curious about the airbus 380... let them iron out the kinks first before you let yourself be game enough to try new technology. our flight was delayed two and half hours from sydney to singapore. we started to accelerate at the top of the runway before decelerating not 2 seconds afterwards. looked out the window onto the wing to see lovely streams of smoke trailing behind. the captain put me out of my misery with his announcement a few minutes later by saying we had to return to the terminal to change the plane's tires.. and that there was a minor techinical fault with one of the engines. i turned back to the window to spy four fire engines trailing our plane back to the terminal. when the plane finally took off, everyone clapped and cheered.. it's been a while since i've been in a cabin full of cheering strangers. our luck couldn't have been any better. our flight was delayed again on the return trip, what were the odds! this time, the tire pressure light apparently sounded prior to take-off and the pilot wasn't sure if the light was faulty or if the tire pressures were truly low. back to the terminal before we finally lift off.

in the spirit of the holiday season.. c'mon everyone, feel free to sing along with me now.

on the twelfth day of r'turning
my karma gave to me
twelve crazy patients
eleven more as nutty
ten bagels weekly
nine dental fillings
eight missing cards
seven hours of working
six new hairbands
five working days!
four plants dying
three dental bills
two wonky handphones
and a dead car battery!

happy holidays from the newest fluff, bah'wahn and the rest of the fluffmily!

who DOES this?

2009-11-24T16:02:00.005+11:00

seriously, who does this? it baffles me to no end to stumble upon such unique specimens of the human race every so often...

what kind of person comes up to the main desk area of a hospital ward to borrow a pen to scribble down a phone number and never returns with an uncapped pen? worse still, the person didn't even have a relative on the ward! now, all i have left of my purdy pen is its cap you see above. hmph. seriously, what're they gonna do with a half used un-capped pen. i spent the rest of the day providing great entertainment to the nurses everytime i decided to whine out a "gimme back my pehhhhhn" when i saw my pen cap hanging forlornly from my ID tag lanyard.

what kind of person goes to the laundry room in the dorms to take all your wet clothes out from the washer and plonk them on the dirty bench so they can use your machine? worse still, what kind of person opens the dryer door for whatever reason while your clothes are in there tumbling towards dryness and then leaves the door open so the timer runs out and your clothes are still wet an hour afterwards when you go down to collect them? (yes A, like i told you, i don't think i'll ever get over that one)

what kind of person blocks up a whole lane of cars in a one-lane street for the next few minutes waiting for a good time to make an u-turn? drive around the block dammit! selfish prat!

what kind of person catches your eye from the back of the car in front of you and then proceeds to pick his nose AND eat his booger.. all the while watching you?!

any more you'd like to add? the more the merrier!
here's to the start of a wonderful holiday season..
may we all survive it.

Say what?! Keep wishing, it's not quite Christmas yet

2009-11-08T14:13:00.007+11:00

OHHhhh hohoho. Christmas didn't come early, nope. Though I might be in the southern hemisphere where things are supposedly the opposite of normal and where the toilet flushes counterclockwise, it doesn't mean that Christmas gets to come early for chiropractors. It's weird enough to spend Christmas at the beach with the sun searing nice burns into your skin.

Sydney Morning Herald's "Emergency Department Turf War" was an eye-opener. I've depended on a chiropractor for a couple of years in the past, even following her to her new practice but stopped when I realized that I could crack my own back to achieve the same results with less frightening and sudden twists of my spine and neck. Suddenly, the $60 a pop (and that was a discount for being a long-time customer with weekly appointments that later degenerated to monthly appointments) seemed a tad too much and I stopped going.

"If chiropractic was [an] emergency treatment option, we could avoid thousands of patients being admitted" the chief of the NSW arm of the Chiropractors' Association of Australia was quoted as saying by the SMH. Goodness, where do I start?! I know the media is infamous for taking things out of context so I'm taking everything with large helpings of salt, but geez they did a good job this time around. Chiropractic practices has no place in the emergency department - I completely agree with several of the doctors quoted later on in the article.

First of all, how the hell is back pain amenable to chiropractic therapy life-threatening? Isn't that the whole point of the emergency department? For people with life-threatening conditions, ie an ee-mer-jen-see? Don't get me started. I'm the one that's always going on about implementing a public education campaign to educate people as to what an emergency is. That guy that collapsed on the street is an emergency. So's that woman with a river of blood pouring out from her netherbits. The graze you got while snorkling yesterday that's still painful is not an emergency. You broke skin. IT WILL HURT. Insomnia is not an emergency. It's an unfortunate inconvinience that you can see your GP about. The ED is not a 24h pharmacy, and the will not dispense drugs as you demand. Your cucumber up your ass is just plain hilarious and if you're able to walk in, it's not an emergency but we'll help you get it out eventually.

Also, tell me - if chiropractors were so beneficial, shouldn't all those people whom they're targeting at the ED... shouldn't they all have been seen in the community by a chiropractor as more of a preventative measure in nipping the pain before it got too debilitating? That being said, I would really like someone to explain to me how back pain warrants a trip to the ED when it's been grumbling along. Sure, when one's immobilized by the pain and requires analgesia only obtainable in a hospital setting.. sure, come on through. For the rest of you who refuse to take your pain medications and show up to ED a week later with back pain so bad you can't get out of bed.. TAKE YOUR FREAKING PAINKILLERS and then we'll talk.

Forget the oodles of studies disproving the efficacy of chiropractic therapy. Forget the fact that chiropractors as poo-pooed by the medical community as a whole. Really, forget all of that. Just concentrate on what they're currently proposing. Imagine your local emergency department.. yes, the one that looks (and sometimes smells like) an asian wet local market at times with the hours of waiting you need to do just to get seen by a nurse, let alone a doctor. Now imagine a section of that ED cordoned off with curtains drawn and massage oil in place next to the Aquim gel with patients being wheeled in, bed by bed, for their chiropractic treatment and seeing them walk out one by one. Seriously, if you were the patient in the next bed who had come in for acute abdominal pain because of gallstones, would you want your nurse pre-occupied with wheeling the next patients in and out of the chiropractic booth while you writhe in pain because she was too busy to give you that morphine the doctor charted up 3 hours ago? And also, why would the chiropractors need to take up already precious and scarce resources from the ED budget when they could very well run their own "emergency department" for people with back pain on a walk-in basis. Really. Christmas isn't coming early for you this year, go try to mooch off another system. hmph.

happy belated halloween!

2009-11-04T21:52:00.004+11:00

seems like i'm half a step behind since starting psychiatry. it must have been messing with my mind...

anyway, the newest fluff (now, in aquatic!) wishes you a happy halloween 2009 - hope everyone had oodles of fun regardless of whether you chose to trick or treat!

what would you do for a klondike bar?

2009-10-23T19:42:00.005+11:00

i'd do a lot, especially given the fact that they don't even have klondike bars in this country (not even at usafoods.com) but repeating this is not on the list..

the cast is as follows

me as myself

P for patient

B for blockhead aka patient's daughter

and away we go..

[hospital corridor]
nurse: B would like to talk to a doctor about her mother

me: sure
*turns to B*
how can i help you? (again, does it not remind you of the retail industry?)

B: I would like to now how my mother is going

me: she's doing great. they let her weight bear as tolerated on her broken ankle that we've fixed. the operation went well, we had to put in some metal plates and the xrays afterwards show that everything is in the right place. She's been seen by the physiotherapists and if safe, will be going home. If not, she will be going to rehab for more physio. She's doing quite well and we think she might be stable and independent enough by monday with her walking to go back home!

B: She can't go home. I was assured that she was going to rehab. Right from the start. P can't go home.

me: why not? a rehab spot may take weeks to become available. if it takes two weeks to get P to rehab and she is back to her baseline level of function before then, she will be fine at home

B: she can't go home, she needs rehab. she can't manage at home, i won't be there to take care of her all the time and she will be alone at times during the day. who's going to look after her when i'm not around? how will she walk to the toilet? she'll fall down again, she can't go home.

me: i understand that you're worried about how P will function when she goes home but she is being seen by the physiotherapists every day and she will only go home once she is able to walk safely and independently, by herself! if she can't make the cut and needs more help, she's not going home and will go to rehab. she will only go home if she is back to her baseline level of walking and function.

B: Ok. So how long will it take for her to get a rehab bed?

me: ...
*tries hard not to roll eyes or groan*
it's hard to say. P is on their waiting list. it could take weeks. she may not need rehab by that time because she is walking too well to need rehab. in that case, she would go home instead.

B: no, but she's not going home.

me: why not?

B: because she can't go home! she's got dementia and psych issues you know

me: ok, how was she like before the fall and fracture? was she at home by herself at times? you weren't there all the time, right?

B: yes, i had to go to work and i do odd shifts

me: well, was P able to manage by herself during that time?

B: yes

me: was she able to go to the toilet by herself when you weren't around before her fall?

B: yes

me: *thinking i've got this in the bag now* so you're telling me she was able to manage and do things by herself before her fall, even when you weren't around right. we aim to get her to the same level as she was before her fall and fracture. when she goes home, she will be able to safely and independently get to the bathroom and do everything else she did before the fall.

B: but she can't go home, she's got the fracture! she can't walk properly and even with the frame.. what if she falls again? no, she can't go home

me: *gnashing teeth by now* that's what i'm trying to tell you!! she WILL be able to walk properly because our physiotherapists would have made sure of that! we will ONLY send P home if she is able to walk the way she did before her fall. the fracture has been fixed now. that's why she. had. the. op.per.ray.shun. we put METAL in there to fix her bones. that's why she is allowed to walk.on.it... because her bones are now strong enough with the metal in place to support.her.full.weight. she will fall when she falls. it is not going to make a difference whether she goes to rehab first before going home, or if she went home straight from the hospital whether she will fall down again in the future.

B: but she's got the fracture and it's not healed properly! she can't walk on it! she can't go home!

me: yes, the bones will take about 6 weeks to heal but the metal plates we put are keeping the pieces in place so they can heal in the right positions. if it wasn't strong enough, the consultant wouldn't have let P put her FULL weight through it. she.can.walk.fine.

B: no, but i was assured right from the start that she would be going to rehab. she can't go home, sheblahblahblahblahblah

(you get the point. the conversation, if you could call it that, would go on for another 10 minutes in a moebius loop)

today was the second of such conversations i've had with her.
the social worker, the occupational therapist and both physiotherapists have had similar conversations with her throughout this week.

the blockhead made me miss the chance to pick up my mail from the post office. i got there as the roller door scooted its last few inches towards a resounding thud on the ground as the post office closed for the day.

saying i was irked would be the major understatement of the year.
wwwwwhhhhhhhhyyy... oh why did evolution miss these fine specimens of the human race?
gnnargh.

sorry, just had to get that out of my system. thanks for tuning in. until next time...!

The Perfect Patient

2009-10-02T23:12:00.005+10:00

The Perfect Patient (as would only exist in the land of Mary Poppins)

[Spoken]
Wanted: a patient for one adorable doctor

[Sung]
If you want to be my patient
Have a cheery disposition
No nonsense, amaze!
Complies, all days.

You must be good, you must be with it
Proactive and smile a wee bit
Have some common sense, time will tell
Listen, don't yell

Never be coy or linger
Never you point or wag your finger
Respect me as your treating doctor
And never show me all that's under

If you won't scold and dominate me
I will never give you cause to hate me
I won't add more movicol
So you will poot
Put blood in your bed
Or needles in your boot
Hurry, Patient!

Many thanks
Sincerely,

Ay El Double Ee.

i understand but i don't believe

2009-09-14T23:01:00.005+10:00

it's job hunting time. i never realized how stressful it would be. i never realized how calm i would be either, staring the very real possibility of having to leave the country in the face should i be unemployed next year.

everyone tells me to stop worrying, that there are plenty of jobs around, that nobody is jobless. everyone tells me i'll be fine, that someone will snap me up.

i spent the past week being very grouchy nevertheless.

what i can't reason out in my own mind is why they can get away with what i call discrimination. yes, i can play the devil's advocate and see things from their own perspective. it doesn't mean i agree though.

the policy states that visa holders can only be offered a job if all other applicants of the same job who are citizens or permanent residents have rejected their job offers - in other words, visa holders get treated almost as second-class, getting offered jobs that none of their own want. the scraps i tell you. the leftovers.

from their point of view, it would be less hassle to employ non-visa holders - less paperwork, protecting their own, ensuring a better guarantee that the person they choose wouldn't need to be suddenly deported or leave the country mid-contract and creating a position that needed to be filled. i get it. i just don't agree with it.

how is it fair that we go through the same education and training as the others, only to have a computer program shift us to the bottom of the list of applicants on the basis of our visa status and nothing else. it doesn't matter if we may be the best person for the job, that we might have more experience or qualifications. one of their own will get the offer first. all we can do is sit here twiddling our thumbs hoping one of them rejects their offer so we can move up a spot or two on the list and claim the position as our own. should we not be so lucky, we sit there twiddling our thumbs at a faster rate with the increasing frustration and angst building up at all this inaction.

to make matters worse, you hear stories dribbling in about others in the same situation. visa-holders. they were luckier. they were offered jobs. now, i don't hold anything against them - congrats to them for being able to find jobs with such harsh odds. my question would be to the employers of these aforementioned visa holders. how in the world did you manage to offer them jobs so early in the recruitment period? we're talking about the first week or so of interviews when some others haven't even gotten to that recruitment stage yet. do you mean to tell me that out of all the applicants you've interviewed that applied for that position (up to 75 in some cases) after culling some on the basis of their qualifications, visa status or both, that every single one of them rejected their initial early job offers knowing full well that might've been their one and only at the time? really now. how else would you explain offering the position to a visa holder so early on?

i knew the system wasn't perfect, i thought i had become cynical with low expectations but this..
tell me, have i been naive enough to be viewing the world through rose-colored glasses still? i thought i ditched those sometime through med school.

a farewell letter

2009-08-19T00:10:00.005+10:00

dear ~~moron~~ patient,

do you too have fluff between your ears like the puppets of Avenue Q? you leave me with no choice but to assume so.

goodness, where should i start? shall we go into detail about that time you came with a week's history of lower back pain that was getting so bad you couldn't get out of bed? you know, it might have helped if you had taken some sort of pain relief at some point during the week. the walking thing might have been less painful. it would've also saved you about three hundred bucks to call the ambulance to bring you in.. well, the taxpayers i guess. and it also would've saved you a two hour wait to be given some paracetamol and ibuprofen before getting sent home.

what about the time you giggled your way into the department with your boy in tow to tell us that your netherbits were accidentally chomped on and you're now left with one nub less?

or that other time where you've had a few weeks worth of anal pain. shush, don't tell me, i don't want to know. that's what your gp is for. to treat your damn hemarrhoids. or wikipedia. good on you for braving the crowded waiting room for the past five hours. there was a reason why you were triaged as a category 4.

i guess this next one wasn't really your fault. you just picked a crappy gp to trust. why else would your gp send you to the emergency department at a bit past eight on a sunday night so you could get an xray of a wooden splinter in your finger just to see how deep it is. that being said, why did you listen to him instead of pulling the splinter out with tweezers like we eventually did, 4 hours later?

you should be ashamed of yourself - what kind of parent notices that the backing of the earring on your two year old daughter is starting to disappear but waits three more weeks until it completely disappears before thinking it might be time to remove that offending earring? your daughter is now going to be literally scarred for life. look at those dressings on her ear covering where we had to gouge out that earring backing!

and please, try to hang onto those memories tighter. the next time another doctor asks you if you've seen anyone for your cough of two weeks, do not look blankly at her and say no when you have just been to the same emergency department less than 24 hours ago for the exact same complaint. bloody liar. and when accosted with this information, please have the decency to admit that you're just ~~an idiot~~ forgetful instead of insisting that no doctor saw you that first time. and when further reminded that you were indeed seen and discharged by a doctor, learn when it's time to give up instead of complaining that you weren't sure who saw you but whoever it was only spoke to you from the end of the bed. you. bloody. fool. i'm sorry you had to find out that you were deaf this way. after all, i greeted you the same way i greeted all other patients. "hi my name is amy. i'm one of the doctors and i will be looking after you today." everytime i say it, i feel like a masseuse or an airline hostess but i put up with it for your sake. so don't you dare tell me you don't know who the hell saw you. i had to fumble through the folds of fat to reach your tummy and i had to listen hard to hear your distant heart sounds. i sat next to you to take your history and found you the cordless phone so you could call your husband to pick you up. don't you dare tell me that whoever it was that saw you spoke to you from the end of the bed.

ohhh, it's only been a short six or seven weeks since i've been here this year but oh, you have opened my eyes so. i didn't think they could've gotten any bigger but you proved me wrong.

if i had things my way (and i assure you that many of my colleagues would agree, for this was one of their wishes i've usurped), there would be a sign that covered all those huge shiny ones with the big red cross on it pointing you towards the emergency department. this new sign would boldly command you to keep on driving past, do not stop, do not pass go unless you fulfilled these next criteria - that you must have a saturation of 60% or less on room air, acopic at your nursing home, have an ejection fraction of 5% or less and still continue to smoke, unable to walk into ED, be an octogenarian or older and/or be bipap dependent. only then, are you allowed to step foot into the emergency department, let alone the rest of the hospital.

luckily for you, i have yet to receive news of any job promotion granting me such power to change presentation criteria. in the meantime, i wish you all the best in your endeavors and try not to win any darwin awards.

sincerely,
your caring doctor

eedee

2009-06-30T19:07:00.004+10:00

ortho's come and ortho's gone
and it's been weeks since i've moved on

they chucked me back to ol' eee-dee
oh how it's disagreed with me!

i hate the fact that it never ends
that stream of patients makes no amends

headaches, toothaches and bleeding noses
life sure ain't a bed of roses

chest pain, sprains and broken bones
stuff that i greet with big fat groans

it's never enough that you do your job
patient expect more, or they will dob

and then you have 'em chinese-speakers
they latch on 'til i turn a streaker!

as if they deserve some special care
don't you assume, oh don't you dare!

my hat off to those who like the term
the thought of ed just makes me squirm

the only thing that gets me through
is the fact i love my ed crew =)

so on i stay for a month or so more
and then i'll be rid of this terrible chore!

but in the meantime, please bear with me
i'll be cranky and whiny and be hardly free!

let nature do its thing

2009-05-17T10:32:00.003+10:00

Is it too cruel to sometimes wonder why we have hospitals at all, or why there's such a large R&D industry flourishing at the moment in various races against time to come up with the latest medical breakthroughs and drugs? Would it be better to let nature take its course and let the weakened and sick go on their own time, rather than prolong their misery both physically and mentally? Sure, we could come up with measures to make the process more comfortable.

In such a world, palliative care would be the end all and be all of medicine as we know it. ICUs wouldn't be filled with a geriatric population averaging 80 years old. Drunks who get into punch-ups and break their wrists wouldn't be allowed into the hospital. They would be able to smoke and drink as they like, with lots of painkillers prescribed until their fracture healed. They would be given advice on how to take care of their injury but their lives are their own to ruin if they refuse compliance. None of this would be the fault of their doctor and better yet, none of this would be known to their doctor if they were never allowed onto a hospital bed in the first place.

Blood banks would be non-existent because there wouldn't be a need to transfuse people. If they're anemic from disease, we would let the disease take its course. If they're anemic from huge blood loss from trauma, well then we let the survival of the fittest.. or luckiest continue. There would be no subspecialties. No cardiologists to put in pacemakers, no respiratory physicians to manage those who chose to smokebliterate their lungs, no gastroenterologists to worry over those whose first instinct is to reach for the booze nor surgeons to cut out tumors, let alone perform tummy tucks and facelifts. Wait, I take that back. I guess there should be cosmetic surgeons around. Those who choose to take that risk and encounter complications would just fall into the survival of the fittest category, seeing that there would be no resuscitative measures available in their world to save them from their own folly.

Is such a world really too cruel, or would it take us back to a simpler, less complicated world. Why is there such a drive in the first place to prolong our lives, to survive.. for what? The world as we know it has limited resources that can't keep up with the careless reckless nature of our existence, yet we strive to stay here for as long as we can with any means possible so we can continue with blatant disregard and misguided good-will to unbalance the cycle of life. Why do we bother, why does medicine even exist? Surely, we would all be better off letting nature take its course for no path would likely be worse than the one we've paved for ourselves already, no? Sometimes, I wonder..

typicalities

2009-04-03T20:47:00.002+11:00

So.. my ortho term started.

My first week started in chaos and ended in chaos, w00t! go me.

Monday found me showing up half an hour late because Medical Admin sent me the wrong info pack and therefore, I got the handover last Friday from the wrong team. To think I was so happy to hear that all the discharge summaries have been done for all the inpatients... I showed up Monday to find that NONE of my patients had bloods ordered over the past weekend. Some hadn't had a blood result since the middle of the previous week. So wasn't impressed. Then there were the pre-admission clinics to attend, without a stethescope of course so I could assess my patients pre-operatively quite well thank you.

Tuesday found me telling an old demented chap from a nursing home that I had to put in a catheter. I was less than an arm's length away from his face - I thought he was deaf and drowsy. I was so wrong.. next thing I knew, he had taken a swipe at me and punched my right eye. By the time I got the catheter inserted, with the help of a male nurse.. both the nurse and I walked away with our battle wounds. The guy had dug his nails into us and clawed us relentlessly.

Wednesday found me in the operating theaters - short notice and short of staff due to sickies. Went in for the wrong operation so I ended up assisting in two rather than 1 surgery...

Thursday found me a sugar daddy. Well, he was a rich elderly stuck up and eccentric guy who said he had no daughters, how he wished I was his daughter and would I like to have lunch or dinner with him and his wife during the weekend, and how nice it would be if my parents were here so we could all have a group meal and chat. ....ahhuh.

Friday found me introducing myself to my boss twice, once in the morning and once just before he left. I had forgotten that I'd met him before you see....

I can only hope that the rest of the term gets better =)

season two

2009-03-25T21:01:00.004+11:00

it's nearing the end of term.. one down, four more to go before i mark the end of my resident year. if you were counting my life in terms of scrubs episodes, we would be around episode 6ish of season two. season two! goodness, time's flown.

so here's an itty bitty li'l ditty
one of those random bursts
the term's nearly done, what a pity
for i went through a lot of firsts

i learnt a lot and felt more comfy
relating to matters of the heart
those ecgs still don't fill me with glee
but i'm a wee bit closer to perfecting the art.

this term has been full of laughs and tears,
snorts, giggles, grins and shrieks,
frustration and angst with cavaliers
or when an ignorant patient speaks.

i've dealt with death and liars,
gentlemen, absconders, fools and saints
we've had drunks and high fliers
a colorful picture, my workplace paints!

the variety that's normal, or "nfc"
along with the staff, will be something i'll miss
for i'll be dealing with bones, wherever they'll be
the rest of the body will no longer exist

hopefully though, i won't become one of those
those surgeons that don't know medicine
and can't recognize a nose..

i'm starting to ramble and run out of rhymes
i think i should end this before i commit any crimes!

...

but before i go, a wee bit of goss
here's my thank you for my mentor and boss!

mind your manners

2009-02-27T17:28:00.004+11:00

HOW FUCKING DARE YOU TELL ME HOW TO BE POLITE.

i came home today, pushed the button in the parking lot to get up to my apartment.
the doors opened to reveal three men and a full shopping cart of flattened cardboard.
i wasn't paying attention to where the elevator had come from.. downstairs in B2 or from the ground floor upstairs.
so the doors opened.
none of the three men moved.
they stood as one would stand in a bar, crowded over a skinny tall table with a bowl of peanuts atop.
so i asked "going up?"
no reply.
i proceeded to walk in.

"letting us out would be the polite thing to do" one of the men in a striped apron said.

"WELL NONE OF YOU WERE MOVING SO I ASSUMED YOU WERE GOING UP LIKE I ASKED" i replied, albeit in a normal tone of voice. the voice in my head on the other hand.. it was exacerbating a pre-existing headache that had refused to leave me alone all week.

frickin hell.

telling me about manners.
why don't you try some introspection and reply to a question like any other normal courteous person would.

*storms off*

so not the week to test my temper i tell you. so not.

what the fuck is wrong with everyone today

2009-02-24T19:06:00.003+11:00

do you ever get the urge to shout from the rooftops at the top of your voice, preferably with a megaphone "what the fuck is wrong with everyone today?" i know that every so often, i do when i come across a shitty day. today was one of them.

being tired, cranky and starving with a hypoglycemia-induced headache is a great baseline state to start with i suppose. sorry for the lack of compassion. i find it hard to muster any for this one patient of ours whom created unnecessary stress by demanding to be discharged here and now this afternoon. this little idiot was a 19 year old diabetic who keeps coming back to hospital with diabetic ketoacidosis. this was her 6th admission since the start of 2009. it didn't help that we've linked her up with all the services she needed. it didn't help that we told her over and over and over and over and over again how serious it was, that one of these days.. she would end up dead with her poor compliance with her insulin regime. we told her it would be sad to see her in the obituaries for something so easily treatable if she would just bother to take care of herself. of course, i doubt that any of that has sunken in. the little shit lied that she had a follow-up appointment with the diabetic clinic last time she was in. we called up to confirm and they had no records of her. she lied again today, saying her boyfriend had arranged for her to meet her diabetic educator today after leaving hospital. lucky for all of us i was cynical. i called up her diabetic educator, explained the situation with the idiot teen in front of me and found out that no such arrangement had been made. surprise surprise! the little shit is standing in front of me, gesturing wildly and mouthing that her boyfriend lied to her (now why the hell would he lie about making a medical appointment for her?) and all the while, her face turned red as a beet. of course, i told the diabetic educator that the patient was standing in front of me, would she like to speak to her.

other minor incidents happened at work, all of which were nuisances. one of them involved a boss. the endocrinologist called up to consult with 3 of our patients slickly turfed them all off to either local doctors or pre-existing ones looking after them outside of hospital. that left me tracking them down through various hospital switchboards and the white pages all afternoon to come up with a fricking management plan for these people.

then there were the surgeons who decided that this dude needed to be transferred to another hospital without having the courtesy to tell our ICU team what the plans were, let alone figure the logistics of how we'd actually get the patient across at nearly 5pm when everyone's gone home, who the patient would be admitted under, and most importantly, if the other hospital had an empty bed for the guy once he arrived. on top of that, the procedure wasn't even booked and the ultrasound results weren't even available to confirm the diagnosis that would be treated by the proposed procedure. what a farce.

and then i come home and was accosted with idiots on the road left right and center. those that drove slower than a snail, and those that drove too fast for their own good in good going traffic. came back and opened my email to find more idiocracy. "Please be advised I have spoken to Automatic Fire and they have been in 98% of the apartments so they advised they do not need access in your apartment."

How the hell does one conduct a fire and safety inspection on a building and say "oh it's ok, we've inspected 98% of the building, therefore it must be 100% safe" Explain that one to me.

time for food, i'm out of brain juice.

on a final note, the only good news today was that my mom underwent her hysterectomy and all's well. they found osme sort of fibroid, i'm guessing from my dad's description, and a cyst that have been sent off for histopath but seems benign.

ok, food time. hungry amy = bitchy, cranky amy

i knew it was too good to be true

2009-02-20T17:40:00.003+11:00

what an end to what started out as a bloody wonderful week. by the time i left work on tuesday, we had 5 patients in icu. one hadn't even arrived yet. it was about the same on wednesday when we effectively had 3 patients all day. one had gone off for investigations, another was post-op and didn't arrive til afterhours.

with days like that, anything more would be relatively shitty. by thurs afternoon though, it was starting to get a bit ridiculous. we started with a code blue/met call - the guy died after failing to respond to 10min of cpr. what a way to start. the day ended with 2 more codes, each within 5 minutes of each other. both ended up in icu, ready to greet me when i got to work this morning.

that wasn't all that greeted me. we had another code blue within 5 minutes of walking in - the guy's heart decided to go wonky and danced at bullet speed. in the meantime, all the respective teams had come and gone and before i knew it, i had to discharge half the ward today before even getting the chance to start our own icu rounds! of course, things must always go wrong on days when you least want them to... pharmacy couldn't find discharge medication scripts and we ended up writing outside prescriptions for everyone going home. ct scans were done with no results available. patients were getting antsy waiting (for goodness sakes, it was still before noon) and being bloody nuisances. this one guy kept talking over me, pointing at his room door and wanted me to ask the doctor when he could go home. after trying to ignore it a few times, all the while explaining he could go home in another hour or two, i gave up, looked him squarely in the eye and said quite flatly "i AM the doctor." (now will you shut up and listen) would be what was left unsaid. bloody people never listen. i always introduce myself with "hi i'm amy. i'm one of the doctors working in this unit" and most people respond with a hi to acknowledge they were listening. anyway...

the day's come and going.. sucks that i have no break to look forward to - i'll be at work =(
before i go, one last gripe to let loose. i'm pre-empting that i'll offend a few people but frankly.. it's just an opinion. take it or leave it, i say.

and the gripe starts like this...

i check my email to find a link to rsvp to a 130th birthday celebration of rgs, the secondary school i went to when i moved to singapore. i had lots of fond memories of my time there.. mostly of choir pracs and shows. in comparison to my time in junior college over there, i would've much preferred my time in secondary school. that being said, i was quite appalled.. with mild amusement at the program they had proposed. a birthday celebrating 130 years, and they get the current principle to say something, sing the school song, listen to a concert (which will likely be the usual gamut of song and dance with proportionate ethnic representation) and then bellow out some school cheers (what exactly would they be cheering for when most of the cheers are shouted in baritone voices at sporting events?). it all sounded very artificial and concocted. corniness aside, the clincher in my books would be the allocated 1.5 hours after all of that for "conversations and reminiscences" .. which mind you, is completely optional (so why allocate it in the first place when there was nothing else after this optional segment anyway?) did they not think, that with all the independence they've instilled in us through their innovative teaching, that we would have the brains to organize our own time to catch up with whoever we wanted to? seriously, if they had wanted to set aside time for catchups, they could've at least marketed it as the after-party rather than part of the proposed program for the night. and speaking of the program... it's a milestone and yes, they've invited old teachers and principals to attend the function but wouldn't it be a lot better to get them as guest speakers to share their thoughts on how far along the school has come and all that kind of catch-up, rather than fill up the bulk of the night with a concert of random acts?

*sigh* all i could think of when i was reading the program was .."how typically singaporean, to be so regimented that even free time and will needed to be allocated and spoonfed to a population of sheep." i mean no disrespect, but from random conversations here and there with singaporean friends, those with independent thought and free will have gotten the hell outta there as soon as they could, leaving the sheep behind to be sheparded by a group of communists at heart who mask their true motives behind slick propaganda and glib half-truths.

i'd much rather you let me vent and rant and get rid of all the steam that's built up over the past couple of days but if you must, go ahead... may the blasting begin.

the annual gripe

2009-02-14T10:45:00.004+11:00

maybe for the first time since i've started this yearly tradition (which in a way is kind of hypocritical i suppose, seeing that the point is to be anti-valentines and i dedicate a post annually to it... but anyway, that's besides the point)...

so as i was rambling..

maybe for the first time, this won't be a gripe per se, but more of a sense of relief.
yes, there are the smattering of stories and pictures of valentines, but for once.. it crept up on me. the stores seemed to have skipped right over it and plonked lots of chocolate eggs and fuzzy bunnies on their shelves next to the little pile of red. for once, it seems that priorities have been straightened out and people were more concerned about the raging bushfires down in victoria, or the floods up in queensland on this valentines' day. w00t to the sensible! i've maintained again and again that seriously, holidays are only nice if you get the day off. you could hold a party every single day of the year if you truly wanted and come up with something to celebrate.. my many many unbirthdays (to you? to me!), anniversaries, other people's birthdays, the day this blog started, the day i first started biting my nails, the day i met you, the day i stopped biting my nails, blahblahblah.

so yeah, this year's gripe is much more muted and more of a sigh of relief that there's enough hope left to steer us away from eventual idiocracy. the origin of the fires on the other hand...

anyway, as usual.. today's like any other day on any other year. i skipped my surgical tutorials even though i had psyched myself up for them just last night. for 7.30am, it was such a calm, quiet morning with the faint twittering of birds to be heard outside. i had planned to stop by a nearby cafe and saunter to my tutorials with a coffee in hand and was drooling about breakfast, mentally going down the street to pick a cafe. i was about to walk out the door when i took one last peek outside, stopped in my tracks and said to myself, this is crazy! you've woken up at the crack of dawn on the one weekend where you didn't need to work after working overtime last weekend and this past thursday... to attend these tutorials that you haven't rsvped to, at a place you'll need to take 20 minutes to walk to and another 20 minutes to find, to sit for several hours in a room full of registrars you barely know who are sitting their exams this year, to listen to topics you haven't prepared for, in a class where you don't know the structure of, with two pieces of scratch paper to take down notes with... on a grey drizzly cold morning.. for what? out of interest.

the last bit did me in.

for those of you that do celebrate vday, hope you have a sweet one =)
meanwhile, it's back to my warm comfy bed for me!

2009-01-16T00:45:00.004+11:00

this is it!
such an anticlimax..
no epiphanies, no lightbulb moments...
and surprisingly very little contact with poo despite it being a colorectal term.

guess that if there wasn't the SISTER2sister bootcamp coming up in less than 48 hours with two consecutive days of unsuccessful attempts at contacting my new little sister, i'd be in a better frame of mind to mull over what the past year as an intern has been or not been for me.

ah well..

a la typical taurian slow but steady style, maybe i'll grok in another day.. or twenty.

borrowing santa's sleigh

2009-01-14T22:31:00.000+11:00

if i could be santa
for just a single day

any day of the year will do,

how 'bout the fourth of may?

i'd traipse around the world
in my special santa sleigh

i think i'd ditch the reindeer though

you'd think they'd rather play.

there are so many friends,
and all of them dear
i have grand plans to catch up with all
but time always falls short, i fear

i'd travel in my santa sleigh
i'd visit friends far and near
but 'twas too late to catch up with one
now i've one less friend who's here

i had barely started this ditty
and then the bad news broke
it came in the form of an sms
i had hoped it was one twisted joke.

at first, it was just disbelief
and then the news sunk in
why in the world would he take his life?
when it was just about to begin...

i don't think that anyone's quite sure
the whys and hows will keep us a'guessing
i just hope that he has escaped his pain
having the chance to know him 'twas indeed a blessing.

tonight, i've returned from an end-of-term meal
and such an awful feeling 'twas to know
that i couldn't catch up with all who came
some didn't even hear my hello =(

as much as i know that life goes on
though i've bawled my eyes out just yesternoon
it still feels just a tad naughty
to be enjoying life, or whistling a tune

but time, as usual, will always pass
so i guess it's just as well
that there's work to do and camps to attend
no time for unhappy thoughts upon to dwell

speaking of friends in this ditty to nowhere,
my borrowed sleigh still firmly parked
i've been catching up with an old classmate of mine
and finally... well something sparked ;)

now two more days are all i have
until the resident year begins
whatever the new year decides to bring
guess it's good enough to start with some grins

another round of gnarrrrghh!

2008-11-14T17:13:00.004+11:00

...and i thought i could leave the hospital in peace to embrace the crazy weekend that was to come. the little sister graduation's tomorrow. 50 screaming teenage girls to babysit, oops i mean mentor and guide, through more than 12 hours of continuous contact to get them through the formal dinner and speeches... wish me luck.

but nooo..
finished afternoon rounds by 3.30ish. finished all our jobs. wrote up all the fluids, med charts and ordered bloods to last us through to monday. weekend discharge letters and scripts all ready to go. i manage to get less than 1km away from the hospital when my pager rings.

i know it's my fault for returning the initial page, but curiosity got the better of me. one of these days, it's gonna kill me. so to cut a long story short, it took me a total of three attempts from hospital to car in the parking lot to safely make it back home. you will understand why it irked me to no end when i got a fourth page at 5.30pm about 30 seconds after walking through the door after picking up my parcel from the post office (thank you A!!!) and bringing in the shopping for the weekend.

gnarrrrghhh!!

-----

dear waste of air and space,

it is half past five on a friday afternoon. you are not obliged to call me to review my post-op colorectal patient just because i'm the intern for the team, but that's ok. i'll indulge because i'll assume you thought that surgical people leave the hospital at 5.30pm despite starting at 7am or earlier, just like the physicians. i'll even indulge you in thinking that i'm the gastroenterology intern that you thought you paged to review a colorectal patient. so, when i tell you i'm physically not in the hospital, you need to gasp in horror and wail at me. "who is going to review the patient then?," you lament.

now listen carefully. there is this thing called overtime. there are people rostered to work overtime. that is what they're paid to do. overtime starts at 4.30pm for surgical wards. even if you didn't know that, overtime kicks in by 5pm. try paging one of them next time.

spits and spats,
amy

-----

dear eagle-eyes,

before you next decide to write down the patient's bed number and "TPN order + IVF + warfarin dose" or "IVF" not once, but twice after the first one was crossed out, do try to keep your eyes open and the neurons firing to register the blue ink that can be translated as drug and fluid orders that have been charted until bloody monday.

if looks could kill,
amy

-----
ooh, there are much more where those two letters came from. for those who are interested, feel free to tune in daily from 6.30am to 6.30pm, monday through friday. broadcasts can be heard in the vicinity of the hospital.

GNARGGGHHHHH!

a couple puffs of brainfart

2008-10-14T13:26:00.005+11:00

twenty-seven patients!!

that was a lot, even for geriatrics... but we're talking about ED here. shift started with a stack of patients yet to be seen. all the triage sheets nicely snug in their plastic little covers formed quite an impressive pile nearly half a foot high.

talk about starting the shift on the right foot...

and then we had two resuscitations, both of which i wasn't involved with. phew.
pooped, dead tired. especially since i was running on the normal body clock over the weekend and i only had one night to flip into night shift body clock mode. let's just say that my head was throbbing and i felt nauseous by around 3.30am this morning in the middle of my shift.

just had to gripe. twenty-seven waiting to be seen!! man, can't get over that just yet.

ooh, speaking of things i can't get over...
some arrogant prick hung a piece of paper saying "RESERVED PARKING," highlighted it and slipped it in a plastic sleep before twisting metal ties to A's cage in her parking lot. we both saw it, shrugged it off. next day, we were off to the conference (which was awesome - road trips, wineries, good food, some education to span the weekend!) bright and early and what did we find? a little blue piece of paper telling me not to park in this spot. not even a please, if i remember correctly. wtf. who in the world had such gall?? that particular twat, obviously. it wasn't as if the person could mistaken A's parking space as being unoccupied. the cage where the note was attached to was full of empty boxes stacked to the brim! seriously, i can't get over the gall of the person. gall? arrogance? plain stupidity? can't quite place my finger on the right word to go with the emotion. seriously though, to claim someone else's parking spot so brazenly.. wtf?!

the number of idiots in this world... they need to start encouraging more recipients of the darwinian awards.

the deepest shade of red you can imagine.. and then some

2008-10-07T23:30:00.003+11:00

i can't imagine how awful i feel. awfully embarrased but also just generally a sick kind of awful. must be some perverse twisted bit of me somewhere inside or else why would i be sharing with anyone something so embarrassingly awful that it's funny in a sad sort of way?

*takes a deep breath*

and so, my confession begins.

i was relaxed today. a rarity nowadays. it was my allocated day off from work. they forced me to take the day off but pay me, just so they could make up my total hours to satisfy the week's quota. not that i'm complaining. anyway, i digress.

so i come home today after running the usual errands.. bank, post office, groceries, fixing up the house and the obligatory visit to ikea. bag galore. a malte to boot. couldn't wait to put it together. put it together i did and it now proudly acts as a sidetable for my keys and knick knacks.

spent the afternoon putting up wall decals, trying to tidy up the boxes and such. then came the knocking.

at first, i thought they got the wrong apartment. i've done that. the elevator took me one floor too high. i got off, as it was the first stop and the lady with me lived on the floor above. i walked to the door and realized the key didn't fit. only then, did i notice that the apt number was 100 more than mine. oops.

so yeah, it happens. i thought someone was just as absentminded as me. thought they got the wrong door. they had a gaggle of children in the background. now why would i have a class of kiddies visiting me? surely they must have the wrong door. so i ignored them. yes, i'm very anti-social. for those that don't know yet, i refuse to answer the door if i'm not expecting you.

let's put it this way... i don't know what's worse - to yell out "who's there?" in a wimpy female voice and have the person on the other side figure out i'm all alone, or to ignore the person on the other side of the door and have them think nobody's home. i'm for the second option - they have their imagination to deal with - as far as they know, a football team could be living in my apt but if i open my mouth, it'll be a giveaway that i'm most likely alone. not very safe.

so i digress again. the knocking goes on all afternoon. every hour or so. quite regular. reminds me of the stories i've heard of how burglars figure out who's home or not. so i try not to think about it. after all, the sun was still out. everything seems less scary in the daytime. the knocking finally stops and i call A to validate my runaway thoughts of scary burly burglars and such. then the intercom started to ring. so now i'm a tad worried. the sun's gone down, the knocking hasn't stopped.

i'm still loathe to call out in my wimpy, now scared girly voice "who's there and what do you want?" the sentence is too long. so i talk to hG who suggests calling security. d'oh! why didn't i think of that! so call security i did. a nice fellow called matthew answered. he reassured me, gave me some advice, said he'd check it out. no news. the knocking came again. it was now around 10.30pm. now, my runaway thoughts have really gone galactic. i call matthew the security guard again. he promised to announce himself at my door next time he does a circuit.

to cut things short, i found a piece of paper scrunched up and shoved under my door but because i had a draft stopper, i never heard nor saw the paper until i opened the door. i've never been so embarrassed in a very very long while as i read a scrawled message saying "please call your next door neighbour. N - 04******** i have your keys. you forgote them in the door"

...

like i said.. i've never been more embarrassed.
on the bright side, i now have my contingency plan in place. one that i should've done long ago much akin to the charlestown one when we didn't have water or power for a few days. i've now got the local police number scrawled in ink and programmed in my phone. i've got a whole list of phone numbers of people i trust + people nearby whom i can dial out to in case anything happens. a tad paranoid, you say? i suppose so but this is what comes from living alone for all these years. a girl kinda gets a tad edgy. hmm. i should just shush now.

it's been a while.. again

2008-09-05T10:57:00.003+10:00

been a tad busy lately (nooooo... really?), hence the hiatus. seems like everytime i have a grip nowadays, it fizzles out before i have a chance to hit the computer.

quick update on the ins and outs of my world in the past couple of months. much like the numerous discharge summaries i've been typing up.

......................

Thank you for the ongoing care and concern of aemii. She is a 27yo female who presented from home with a two - three month history of wanting to vent but not being able to find the energy or time to do so.

background
see previous notes

presenting complaint
lack of time secondary to obligations called work with associated decreased energy and enthusiasm

- finished up relief term on a week of night shifts, got one week of rest before plunging into a term of geriatrics
- had psyched herself up for geris as it was rumored to be a busy hellish term
- found that it was manageable despite having no registrar for nearly half the term, dealing with a gastro outbreak requiring wards to be locked-down and dealing with delirious, sometimes psychotic patients that needed security to show up at one point
- completed term of geriatrics in one piece, sane.
- managed to move into a new house in middle of geris. bought and paying mortgage now. boo!
- commenced ED term
- decided on Day 1 that she would much rather do another 9 weeks of geriatrics than another 4 days of ED

Medications
Chocolate
Sunchips/Grain Waves
Chinese take-away

Allergies
Work
Heavy lifting

Investigations
none

At discharge
- Told to count the days til the end of each lot of shifts instead of the end of term
- Need to clean up and unpack everything at new place
- For follow-up within the next week after discharge as needed for monitoring of medication compliance and mental state.

what goes up must come down

2008-06-23T19:14:00.005+10:00

I had another bout of warm fuzzies straight afterwards. Why so, you ask? Why, I finally made it back to America after more than a decade!

Spent about 2 weeks there.. mostly in LA. Explains why this blog's been a tad quiet last month. Interspersed were mini-trips to my aunt's place in Orange County, a day trip back to the valley and a weekend in Philly/NY. Caught up with a few besties from elementary school and that was a treat.

I never realized how much I miss life in LA. People always ask if I'll end up back in the states after my stints in whatever country I happen to be in at the time and I always tell people that I can't see myself going back. I used to believe that going back would be meaningless because life as I knew it back then wouldn't be the same - my friends aren't there anymore and those that are would have hopefully moved way past the days of playing in our little dirt playground at Sierra (that doesn't exist anymore btw... it's now a horrible mass of concrete they call the parking lot). This trip highlighted the fact that yes, everyone's moved on but the fact that my old besties still have tons to yak about despite the years and years that's lapsed... wow, that was a warm fuzzy in itself. We admitted we each had our trepidations.."where do we start? what will she be like? what will we talk about? will we have anything in common anymore?" we yakked though. like old times. bits and pieces fell into place to fill in the huge gaps. i missed that. This trip completely proved me wrong in my belief that life moved on when I left, and that I could never catch up. Who said anything about catching up? I could very happily walk in step with life as it is over there.

This trip also proved me wrong in that yes, I could see myself moving back. I miss life there. Life as I knew it, life that I was used to. I miss the itty bitty comforts like being able to find a bar of butterfingers in the supermarket (instead of people going "huh, what's that?"), to have normal internet packages (instead of paying through the nose for 40gbs a month), to be able to put my mail in my mailbox and know it will get delivered (instead of walking for 5 mins just to drop off mail at the communal mailboxes).. you know, the little things.

So anyway.. I had an awesome time, kudos to everyone I managed to meet up with for putting in the effort to actually make the meets happen. Sheer nostalgia, it was =)

With that in mind, you can imagine how awful it was to return to the bleak humdrum I currently call life here in Australia to face a week of relief before launching straight into a week of night shifts that cover specialties I especially suck at. The week off that I automatically get after a week of nights melted away as I battled a rather ...aggravating specimen of a solicitor and overly concerned parents (gee, what's new.) regarding a rather large purchase in the works.

Started my new term today on a wonderful wonderful note - I left home early because I wanted to be organized and ready to rock when 8.30am hit you know. I was so organized, I left both my pager and cell phone at home. go me. Let's just say I made it through today, inclusive of ward meetings I only knew about an hour prior to the meeting itself, in not too bad a shape.

One day down, a whole 10 more weeks to go. *sigh*

all warm and fuzzy

2008-05-06T00:18:00.003+10:00

really guys, i couldn't have asked for anything more. thank you for remembering and thank you for taking the time to wish me anything at all! all those shout-outs on facebook, the surprise cake and guests, that annual phone call that i had totally forgotten about, another surprise cake in taiwan... thank you for making me feel that i mean something to someone out there =)

some of you may know my take on birthdays.. what's there to celebrate? it's not like people are dying young nowadays and hitting 30 is a huge feat.. well, maybe it is for some still. in my little bubble-padded world though, i take a darker spin on birthdays. if there's any celebrating to be done, i say that the poor mothers should be celebrated for having gone through the horrible process called childbirth.. and not only survived it, but survived living with the parasite-turned-new-life-form that they plopped out for the next however many odd years.

what's there to celebrate? either way you look at it, it's quite depressing. you're either one day closer to death, or you're one year older (complete with the wrinkles, the responsibilities and all else associated with growing up).

anyway, despite being of such opinions, i still turn into a pile of mush at the onslaught of well-wishes i get every year. really really.. from the bottom of my heart (yes, excuse the mush please), thank you for letting me into your life as a friend. =)

the gripe that died on the tip of my fingers

2008-04-10T20:18:00.004+10:00

Oh wow, it's been nearly two months since I've last posted. Oh ho, what a rarity that she's been whinge-free for two months, you say! Unfortunately, it's been the exact opposite. Too many whinges, many of them lacking the oomph to stay with my long enough until I get home from work to warrant the effort to recount them in detail here. Instead, they festered and bubbled and eventually sank into the depths of my memory.

Am currently doing a week of night shifts. They have their perks - a week off (unpaid though, boo!) after a week of shifts. Being able to get errands done because for once, I'm free when the shops are open. That's about it.. the free breakfast voucher we get is great, except that the food choices are so limited and awful anyway that I've only been able to stomach packaged drinks that early in the morning. Even then, I've only claimed one voucher. Usually dying to get out of the hospital by then.

Not in the best of moods. Just got woken up by a fire alarm that I think is illegal in terms of the decibels it emits. Dug out my pair of yellow airplane earplugs, squished them in each ear and could still hear the alarm at a volume one could call normal.. like you know, the volume you set your tv or stereo to. It's gonna be a loooong night.

And then I chanced upon this article online. Take away some creative license and still... boo. the oomph has already dissipated. might let this gripe die this time around...

gotta get ready for work.

not quite what i had in mind

2008-02-18T22:19:00.004+11:00

it's been nearly a month since my very last post
i've been just a tad busy these past few weeks
juggling work and sisters, sleep and fun
and amassed some memories that are for keeps

we'll start off with boot camp, the butterfly kind
run by a sisterhood, for a few local teens
a grueling affair, 'twas this four-day camp
filled with smiles and tears at narabeen's.

what a relief it was to find
i clicked with her, my little sis.
i'd never guess that i would cry
but tears rolled out 'cause of that little miss.

i also got my first brush with fame
for natalie and sis were the honored guests.
everyone both big and small
wanted in on the photofest!

the first day of work overlapped with camp,
it wasn't ideal but what could i do?
i managed to survive our orientation
and also made a new friend or two.

meanwhile at home, my fluff became bored
they cooked up some mischief whilst home alone
poor sleepybear bore the brunt of their jokes
they took off his shirt, antics i don't condone!

the weeks rolled by and before i knew,
'twas australia day weekend wit lots to do!
my cousin had arrived, fresh from taiwan
we went 'round the city but had no time for the zoo =(

i also found a bottle of pink grapefruit juice
one called ami with a quirky little twist
they took us for idiots with a pronunciation guide
ah-mee 'twas how to say it, meant friend 'twas the gist.

the weeks dragged on, and i was always at work
my homebound fluff, oh they rejoiced!
hours on end to wreck havoc to my place 0.o
lotsa plans and opinions to voice!

work itself wasn't too bad..
i was slowly easing into routine
patients to see and forms to fill
i think i might've appeared too keen

that initial enthusiasm slowly waned
especially after my first weekend shift
'twas a mayhem to cover the place
i left the hospital a wee bit miffed.

this past weekend was really crap
more patients to see, more forms to fill
a caesar to assist, a token to keep
ooh that baby's cost me a hefty bill!!

i had on scrubs and my brown suede boots
when they cut her tummy and i was told to push
i heaved and i shoved until the baby came out
with blood and fluid, and also some mush.

it all sprayed out and onto the floor
it covered my scrubs and drowned my feet
it turned the floor into abstract art
a bloody mess my eyes did meet.

remember my gripes about Oh and Gee?
i still stand by all that i've said
the specialty's full of leaky ladies,
and bloody ones stuck in bed!

speaking of blood, 'tis bloody ruddy red
the same color that is used on the 14th of feb
valentines' this year passed without my yearly gripe
no, my caustic sentiments, they have not ebbed.

a day of hearts and bouquets of roses
of extravagant dinners and expensive candy
or lonely singles left wandering the streets
great for sales, my ain't that handy!

'tis all a conspiracy, some may say..
concocted by hallmark as they insist
why declare one day when the others just are,
as special enough too, to warrant a kiss?

anyway, i shall leave you be
that's quite enough rhyming, even for me.

didn't even hit twenty-four

2008-01-22T19:32:00.000+11:00

i was supposed to go here:

i'm here at the moment... for the term doing orthopedics:

it's been only two days, only 20 hours.. and i'm already counting down the hours til the weekend hits. really, it could have been worse. i'm lucky to have a good bunch of interns starting out with me, a decent registrar (who's mostly in the operating theaters anyway) and a good senior who's been out for 3 years. it helps that he wants to be an orthopod.

so yeah, my first 20 hours of work consisted of two medical emergencies, got chastised by the infectious diseases registrar, got the first complaint filed against me by the patient transport department for trying to organize an out-of-hospital CT scan at the request the specialist and got lectured by the radiographer to "not do this again. that is really unfair. you know that. to come in and want us to drop everything to scan your patient. that is not right." those last two things brought me pretty damn close to tears today, out of sheer frustration at the unfairness of it all.

as A pointed out, "you do you mean to tell me that some woman at the patient transport office is telling a doctor what test is best for a patient, or that she won't send the patient, despite a doctor's order, to another hospital for a better CT scan because she doesn't want to spend the hospital's money (the government's money)??"

*pissygrumble*

quick update

2008-01-14T23:57:00.000+11:00

another quick update before i disappear into another puddle of oblivion. i can sense these things, you know. =)

came back from my 2-week vacation in one piece. survived the family and relatives. it was even enjoyable this time. no, this didn't include the car crash i was in. yes, everyone was alright though i can't say the same for the hunks of metal we were travelling in.

pictures to come, watch out for them on flickr.

joined life changing experiences as a Big Sister in their SISTER2sister program. supposed to be a mentor for girls aged 13 - 18. boot camp started on saturday. don't know whether to take it as a compliment or not - been mistaken many a times by both big sisters and little sisters for being a little sister at camp. hmm. it's supposed to last for four days, but unfortunately for me, it overlaps with my orientation at the hospital. hence, been running on near empty - boot camp itself is physically and emotionally exhausting. organizers have suggested taking days off from work if possible to recover from the camp. no can do =(

sooo... what i've been doing is driving back and forth between the campsite at Narabeen (never been to narabeen? nevah been!), home and the hospital. takes aroud an hour with no traffic, boo! daytime's spent in "doctor" mode.. or as well as i can get myself in that particular headspace from 8am to 5pm. then it's a mad dash home, shower, change into big sister mode so i can gather all the stuff i need for camp before driving down there, spend a couple of hours doing the night activities planned and then driving back here like cinderella hoping the clock doesn't chime midnight too soon.

good thing this is gonna last for one more day/night and then i can just concentrate on orientation instead of falling asleep. i mean, on a good day, my attention span only lasts for 20 minutes so you can imagine what it would've been like today.

random thought jump: the other interns were reaally really friendly. it's only been one day, so it's not like i made fast friends with anyone but everyone was nice enough to strike up a conversation or two throughout the day. they seemed piqued upon hearing that i was from newcastle. the accent presented itself as another conversation starter. all's good but won't count my chickens before they hatch. we'll see what tomorrow brings =) at the very least, i hope that more sleep is in the picture somewhere.

the update that turned into a rant

2007-12-21T14:06:00.000+11:00

quick update.. i didn't fall off the face of the earth, though it may seem that way.

finally settled into new place in sydney. internet's finally back up and all's seemingly well after the moving fiasco. off til a few days after the new year. am at the internet terminal in hong kong at the moment waiting to board my flight to taiwan in a couple of hours.

the flight here was awesome. the cabin crew was awesome. well, mainly the air steward making all the announcements. he spewed some gems such as.. "here at virgin atlantic, we employ some of the best in the field. unfortunately for you, none of them are on this flight to serve you today." or "please be careful when opening the overhead compartments. contents may have moved during the flight and may drop out to hit your neighbor on the head." the best of them was "please remain seated until the fasten seatbelt light has gone off. on today's flight, we will be needing volunteers to stay back and clean the toilets for us. we will assume that those of you who stand up are volunteering." *beam* man, i like the guy. unlike the air stewardess that greeted me at the door when i was boarding the flight. she yabbered something in cantonese, waved in the general direction of my seat... all without establishing any eye contact. i moved along and got stuck in the galley between first and business class. i was distracted by the skybar they had in the first class section and had no idea where the hell my seat was, even though i knew it was seat 20k. grr.

and this continued throughout my stay here, though it'll amount to less than 24 hours in this place. every bloody person assumes that i understand cantonese. a friend suggested that i should walk around with a taiwanese flag sticker. i like that idea. i mean, c'mon. this isn't some seedy little shop in the middle of the city. this is a place where international travellers congretate and disperse again. you can't assume that every asian face you come across automatically belongs to a brain that recognizes cantonese!

oh, poo. you've gotten me started on my rant. let's go back to when i stepped off the bridge connecting the plane to the terminal last night. first thing i saw was this guy sitting in the driver's seat of one of those little airport buggy thingies with a printed, laminated sign announcing "HK$50 RIDE TO IMMIGRATION." wtf. i was like, oh man.. welcome to china. sorry, i'm kinda biased. seriously.

and then there's what seems to be the general lack of ability to give directions. i couldn't find the shuttle bus counter to the hotel. i called up the hotel. "i know i'm supposed to go to counter A16 or B16 for the shuttle bus. i've just arrived at the airport and can't find it. can you tell me how to get to your counter?" i asked.

"you go to counter A-one-six for the shuttle bus."

"yes, i know that. i can't find it. i'm behind the information counter/screen at the arrivals hall. how do i get to your counter?"

"it's at the arrivals hall. you will see it"

"i DON'T see it. how do i get to your counter?"

"hold on a minute, please"

so she transfers me to her colleague and we repeat the same exchange again. this time, i managed to clarify that i should be able to see the counter as i come out from customs so i backtracked and finally found the dinky thing.

and then today at the airport, i approached the information counter (where they have actual people rather than a touch screen this time) to ask where i could find internet access. the guy waved in the general direction and said "there's an internet cafe at the end" gee, thanks. the "internet cafe" turned out to be this stand of 3 monitors tucked away, literally in the corner of the bloody terminal. in order to use it, you had to buy something from the coffee shop, place a deposit so they'd give you an usb mouse that you can plug in to use the computer. bloody hell. at least the mocha brownie chillino i got wasn't too bad.

anyway, i hope this isn't gonna set the tone for when lu and i begin our gallivanting around this place at the beginning of the new year. in the meantime, imma start looking for a bloody big taiwanese flag sticker to wear when i come back here.

hope you all have a wonderful holiday season. stay outta trouble, have lotsa fun and see you next year =)

the gods must be crazy III

2007-11-05T17:39:00.000+11:00

seriously, i hope there won't be a fourth installment of this post title.

so here it is. peruse at your leisure while i'm out at the back trying to find a brick wall to bang my head against.

my first reaction was - is this legal? inertia won out. after all that crap during med school where i've presented hard evidence to disprove whatever facts and statements they had thrown my way, i ended up with pyrrhic victories at best. i don't have time to wade through all that so hopefully, my application for a new place in the same complex will get approved.

i finally thought i could have enough stability and predictability in life to warrant some longer-short term planning. i've long since given up on long term planning unless they're the lifetime goals type. so much for the moo cards i've gotten printed off for you guys. they're prolly gonna arrive in your snail mailboxes with a sticker over the old address now, seeing that dumping them would kinda be a waste. *grumbles*

so yeah, if i'm not around as often as i once was.. well you'll know that i'm safe and sound but just busy gnashing my teeth as i sort out some semblance of stability for the upcoming year.

Happy Halloween!

2007-10-31T20:27:00.000+11:00

It's that time of year again. By the ghost of the Great Pumpkin! Merlin's beard! I found a normal pumpkin to carve this year instead of having to resort to various gourds, eggplants, apples and eggs like some Halloweens of yesteryear. *beams* So here it is, a good 8- or 9-pounder =)

Be it trick or treat that strikes your fancy,
A costume party or something in between,
Whatever lights up your face like an all hallows' pumpkin,
May you have a happy Halloween =)

brisvegas adventures

2007-10-21T23:58:00.000+10:00

apologies if the pictures take a while to load, especially for those of you in australia. our broadband is a third world joke

* * *

late thursday afternoon, it was
last minute plans and schedules abuzz

for some reason, it slipped our minds
closed check-in counters, we would find

thirty minutes before the flight
that's when we were supposed to alight

what to do, we stared with dropped jaws
next flight won't do, we suddenly paused

our eyes wandered around to other counters
as we hoped for better encounters

we had to forgo our jetstar seats
'twas virgin blue! we admitted defeat =(

so much for gloating 'bout our $50 tix
forked out $300 more to solve our fix

'twas the most awful feeling
hearts and brains still reeling

it physically hurt to part with the dough
a reminder of the seats we forgoed

to take our minds off the pain
we splurged on goodies to take on the plane

hazelnuts and almonds, coated in choc
bottles of juice, aye did we stock!

lucky for us, there was one last flight
or else we would've been stranded for the night

as we approached the departure gates
our bags were scanned as rules dictates

mine encountered trouble, but it was cleared
undergo an explosives test, anj volunteered

the seconds ticked past and we could finally board
when we saw our plane, we were both quite floored.

thank goodness it was, indeed the wrong plane
cramming us all in, that's a tad insane!

we turned and saw a much better view
one that contained a virgin blue

we arrived in brisbane, safe and sound
we saw the taxi line, then we frowned

phew, 'twas a quick drive into town
our hotel was easy one to track down

boarding the elevator upon checking in
getting to our floor threw my mind into a spin

we arrived at our floor and found room eight-oh-nine
'twas like this apartment, the one i call mine!

the bed and decor were all quite purdy
tho the bathroom had slime, what a pity.

the view from the balcony wasn't too bad
the city by night was kinda rad =)

our tummies rumbled, but since it was late
room service fries with aioli were what we ate

the course was awesome, exceeding expectations
it came complete with gastronomic temptations

we went though shock, anginas and drownings,
anaphylaxis and other stuff, astounding!

instead of working on that blasted letter,
we joined a night tour to know brisbane better.

but just before embarking on our trip
there's food and cash we had to equip!

so we found the mall, 'twas not a ten-minute walk!
but 'twasnt far enough to make us baulk

uh-oh, we went. look at the time!
we're gonna be late, our anxiety climbed

we managed to hail a cab passing by
stuck in traffic, we sat there and sighed

in the spirit of this trip so far
we had hailed the cabby that was a tad sub par

he had two left hands and two left feet
he didn't know our hotel's main street

we had enough, we were in a hurry
the lights were red, we left in a flurry

crossing the street in such a big rush
anj and death and a very near brush

'twas another cabby who was turning
cussed us out til our ears were burnin'

we didn't have time to care so much
we had a tour to catch and were late as such

reaching the lobby, a man we accosted
but we got the wrong man and away we fled

we finally found our tour guide name frank
he was the total opposite of that old crank

he took us all on his little bus
to see the sights he thought were a must

we cruised through paddington and past government house
and up mount coot-tha as quiet as a mouse

dinner was served, a tangle of noodles
not something i could eat oodles and oodles

we later headed down park road
which was the mini eiffel tower's foreign abode

a thai temple, we also passed
a pretty glow, did it cast

under some arches, the group jovially traipsed
oooh-ing and ahh-ing at the shadows and shapes

we hit south bank and later story bridge
we went river cruising, 'twas chilly as a fridge

that cruise was nearly the death of us
surprising how not more came to cuss

for frank had paraded us past the crowds
to the front of the line, we feared ka-pows!

we got off safe at mulberry park
in time to see the tottering girl in the dark

once again, we boarded our ride
city views and a mormon church, we eyed

14 million, it took to build
gold and marble, it was guild o.0

some time later, after chinatown
'twas when the tour began to wind down

we cruised passed fortitude valley
and meandered through some back alleys

all this while, there was this girl
annoying as hell, i could hurl

she wouldn't shut up, not since the ferry
she had a running commentary

we finally returned for a good night's rest
'twas our last night as this hotel's guests

we woke up to a beautiful day
wishing we'd planned a longer stay

the rest of the day passed without a glich
we caught the train without a hitch

arriving at the airport with too much spare time
they wouldn't check us in, not for a dime

so we sat around yakking about hair
anj yanked out my greys, i began to care

some hours later, after dinner and yak
of ecgs, hair and math attack

we were finally boarding our intended flight
can't wait to go home, the end was in sight!

a mere hour later, we landed in newie
we awaited our bags in the midst of chop suey

we made it back home, well before midnight
and greeted our homes with much delight

so that's the gist of the past few days
it could've been worse in so many ways

the gods must be crazy II

2007-10-05T19:00:00.000+10:00

my tummy was a'rumbling
and the sky was turning dark
so i trudged to my kitchen
i was hungry as a shark

i sifted through the freezer
and then right through the fridge
i ended up cooking hot dogs
as long as brooklyn bridge

a couple of eggs then caught my eye
and signaled a scrambled egg crave.
things were bubbling merrily along
if only my tummy would behave!

i had made a mess on the kitchen top
and so i reached for 'em towels
the ones with my happy cows sprinkled 'round
and then i nearly swore in vowels

for my fingers had tapped, within the tube
something quite soft and furry
it took a while to register
i withdrew my hand in a hurry!

bewildered still, i dropped the roll
and as soon as i did,
this disgusting thing dropped out too
it plopped and fluttered and slid

EWWWWWWWW what the fuck!!
i silently screamed
too horrified and shocked
then, more profanities streamed.

ew ew ew, you frickin furry thing
ew ew ew, as i scrubbed my fingers clean
all thoughts of dinner were suddenly gone,
as my tummy lurched into my spleen.

hey, you.. yes you up there
you've had your fun with my parking space
so quit messin' with me, won't you please!
you'll soon turn me into a basketcase =(

crime scene and escaped felon

story of my life

2007-10-01T19:44:00.000+10:00

so i went to get my keys this weekend and finalize the lease contract for the new place... pix of empty place soon, anj. or your could just make the trip down to see it in person with me one of these days =)

the lady at the rental office gave me all the bits and bobs needed and finally, directions to get to my parking spot that went something like this:

car park ramp just around the corner - go down the ramp
when you get in, turn left
then turn right - drive all the way done (yes, she meant down)
turn right again - go up ramp
up ramp - turn right
#719

goodness.. i thought it'd never end when she said she had better write down the directions. what is this, an obstacle course? was what went through my head. images of my driving test suddenly flashed through my mind.

this is what greeted me when the spot was spotted.

...
..
.

!@!?#

thank you for the snip, whoever's up there - that's not funny.
thank you, hG, for the snap and the company.

passionate inertia

2007-09-22T11:41:00.000+10:00

passion. i used to chortle everytime the principal of my secondary school in singapore said it. she said it was one of her favorite words, that it should be in all our vocabularies, that we should all apply it liberally in all we do. mind you, i was 13 and wanting very much to fit into this odd sea of black-haired asians i was supposed to spend the next few years with. obviously, something about our principal struck their funny bone - it was a strange mixture of amusement, embarrassment and a tinge of respect that they held for her. i guess that was the start of becoming a sheep, although i always found myself straying close to gates and fences... or to the black sheep.

anyway, that's what i'm attributing to the lack of entries of late. a lack of passion. lack of passion towards anything really. nothing noteworthy to write about for my own amusement when i reread past entries. sometimes, that gets remedied by attempts at a ditty to summarize what's been happening. even that didn't evoke any twitches of either heart or brain. i think i've whinged more than my fair share about the idiots running the institutions i've had the honor of working with, or will work with. i think i'm just tired.

i'm finally done with med school but seem busier now than when i had classes. i didn't get the buzz most people have on their last day of school. yes, i'm grateful for having left a sort of hell that i've called life for the past 5 or so years but geez, i was practically on vacation for the last rotation of the degree. what an anti-climax.

i thought i would welcome the free time i have to do whatever i want, and still have the luxury of working on my papers willy nilly. i was even ambitious enough to ask for an orthopedic attachment for the next few months. lucky for me, the universe works in mysteriously awesome ways - it gave me the perfect excuse to back out without seeming flippant. being in no-man's land, neither the university of the hospital would be able to cover me insurance-wise should i encounter an accident during the attachment and hence, i couldn't undertake such an attachment. one of the rare times that being a stickler for the rules has actually worked in my favor.

now, these very assignments i've exuberantly taken on seem to have spiraled outta control. so much to do, so little time! papers to draft, papers to re-draft, professors to track down, housing to settle, movers to find, rental contracts to sort, isps to connect and disconnect to, cars to service, cars to clean, mail to check, addresses to change, conferences to attend, fanfic to read, books to read, med books to review, notes to rewrite, piano to tinkle before contract expires, friends to catch up with, trips and weddings to plan and attend... oh, and idiot drivers to curse. just last night, i ran into no less than 4 of them in the span of the 16-minute round trip journey to the hospital. yes, i digress. anyway, where does that leave the little necessities like eating, drinking and sleeping... and most of all, the need to soak in as much of newcastle as i can before i leave it?

sydney will be new and exciting, but it'll also mean starting all over again. as much as i need this change of scenery, i'm unamused about this whole pulling-out-the-roots business. "oh, it must be so exciting for you to have lived in all those countries!" people tend to gush. i can't understand how it would excite anyone when faced with the prospect of fashioning a new life for oneself every couple of years - losing touch with friends, habits, haunts, laughs. family is in there somewhere but after all these years, i'm used to ... well, not having them physically around.

apologies for being antisocial of late and for neglecting my usual rounds of blog strolling. i'm still stuck in the dungeons with inertia to keep me company. that, and the latest blasted fanfic link i clicked on. idiot child.

shite, has a little snaperism rubbed off on me? or maybe it was the pavlova. merlin's beard, i think i might go sick up now. *winks at anj*

be careful what you wish for..

2007-08-26T23:39:00.000+10:00

a few months ago, i was still coming to grips with a vacation i didn't ask for, let alone want. i was stressing over what the hell i could do to fill in the time and make it worthwhile. now, i've been kept insanely busy for someone who is on a 3-day work week. besides the papers i need to write up and the exams i need to study for, i've been hit with a viral bug or two. frankly, i'm quite impressed at myself for being able to stave off any sort of flu-like illness after being in contact with coughing, spluttering, feverish and generally miserable people for 10 hours straight, three days at a time. yay me. i'b now duhking like dis cuz by dose is blocked and id's a horribuhl feeling. =( i'm ploughing through stacks of kleenex faster than hungry hungry hippos. everything seems to be happening all at once and suddenly, i feel like i'm running out of time. spring will already be upon us in another week's time - that's something i'll never get used to. september is supposed to herald autumn dammit. back to school and then the anticipation of halloween not long after, with thanksgiving feasts beckoning and a white christmas. urgh, now i've gotten myself sidetracked. something that's been happening more often of late... anyway, like i was saying, spring is almost upon us and in another month's time, i'll be househunting for a new pad in sydney. hopefully, i'll be all settled by mid-november and that's where the fun will begin when i start to decorate and customize! on one hand, i can't wait. on the other, i'd love to have a couple more months before the time to move rolls around. gotta be careful with what i wish for though - i'll be damned if i get faced with anymore academic hiccups to fulfill my wishful thinking of a few more months free.

paperweights and bloomin' tea

2007-08-17T23:17:00.000+10:00

this is what i've been busy with. actually, it's been a week since the course and i'm still trying to recuperate from the onslaught of physiology. besides showing up for my general practice placement, i've been losing my head in the world of fan fiction. fanfic pertaining to the world of harry potter i might add. was never a mad, die hard fan of the series but that's not to say that i don't enjoy the read nevertheless. all i'm saying is that i don't understand what all the hype is about. blasted media frenzy. you want to be transported into magical worlds and lands of fantasy? roald dahl, people. or what about c.s.lewis.. before the blasted movie. or the fanfic authors, though it's rare to chance upon one with a decent command of english grammar, let alone english literature. don't get me started on all those people who interchange there and their at will, or the ones who spell rein as reign. really. if you're gonna misspell it, one would think rain would be a more common homophonic replacement eh?

so with that to occupy me and the occasional thorns of poor english bug me, it's been hard to make myself fall into any sort of normal routine or to pay attention to priorities. i get too carried away in alternate universes until the wee hours of the morning and then drag myself to bed bleary-eyed. i wake up as the sun's about to set.. well ok, i'm exaggerating but i really wish i could wake up a lot earlier. it's just really easy to laze in bed when you know that you don't have any appointments to get to. i have hardly touched a psychiatry book in the past 2 months, have yet to put together my powerpoint presentation as an assessment item, my bedroom is a pigsty (though i finally got off my butt to clean the living room and kitchen.. but that's because i had company for tea last night you see) and well.. despite finding stuff to do to fill in the time, i feel just as lost as before. the only difference would be that now i'm stressed and lost. stressed at the shocking speed that time seems to be moving at. lost because.. well, it's the same ol' story so i shan't bore you with that. that being said, i'm glad to feel busy again. busy is good. busy keeps the mind occupied. busy will do for now =)

thoroughly psyched

2007-07-31T17:12:00.000+10:00

my psych rotation was an interesting one and i loved the people i worked with. the amount of effort going into end-of-term thank you cards is usually proportional to level of attachment i have to them. although i didn't have much time to whip up the cards, the fact that i used my precious shrinky dink paper and got out the watercolors is indicative of how much i liked the psychs =) was even a tad sad on the last day at not being able to know the outcome of our inpatients' admission. i surprised even myself that i cared that much o.0

now, it's onto my general practice attachment. two days immersed with an awesome gp in a room so cold that polar bears could call it home... couple that with a steady stream of coughing, spluttering, feverish, miserable patients... my poor immune system was overwhelmed =(

despite having moved onto a new rotation, i think i'm still suffering from a psych hangover. a patient of ours came in just last week with a bunch of angry red lines across his back. he was requesting morphine of course. i'm not quite there yet but i gave myself another surprise when i woke up with an ouch. toddled over to the mirror in that half awake state and freaked myself out with what i saw. it was a very wtf?! moment. if i was superstitious, or had this happened a few weeks ago on that friday the thirteenth, i could have probably convinced myself that i had an unsolicited visit from some dark sinister thing. the next thing that popped into my head was a mental picture of me with baby gloves on. and one of those frilly baby bonnet things. with the one-piece pajama suits. a straightjacket momentarily flickered, superimposing itself in the already ridiculous mental image. seriously, who the hell scratches themselves like this? impressive scratches, i must admit but just a tad disconcerting that i did this subconsciously. it still hurts in that stinging sorta way, implying that they're not as superficial as i first thought. makes me wonder what other things i do... or have done whilst asleep o.0 i've gone mental =( they say there's a first for everything - this is one i could do without.

trickling along

2007-07-22T13:56:00.000+10:00

aches and pains are all i feel
get a massage, what's the big deal?
my bones, indeed they creak and groan
what a worry, i'm no old crone =(

there's something else bothering me
it seems be a thing i can't see
stressing less with what lies ahead
hasn't done much to lift that dread.

oodles of thoughts and feelings
trapped under my big glass ceiling.
my mind and heart, i cannot peg
which came first, chicken or the egg?

an answer i've yet to find,
it's hard to think with a sick mind
not the perverted kind, mind you
an ailing one, one that can't spew.

plans to make and things to do,
facebook brought a surprise or two
yet i seem unable to budge
no flecks of joy from choc'late fudge

the road ahead, i can't see
it all remains fuzzy to me
plain winter blues, or something more?
summer will tell us, that's for sure.

'til this season's come and gone
the curtains will remain all drawn
i'll trickle along, seeking zen
until they open once again.

a complex complex

2007-07-07T23:08:00.000+10:00

before i start my babble, pics from taiwan and singapore are at my flickr.

just let me babble. i'm not looking for words of comfort or anything. the thought of physically talking this through with a meatspace friend makes me sick. writing it down's the next best thing and hopefully, the more times i go through the mess in my head, the more sense i can make of it. let me be and trust that i'll sort this through in my own way and in my own time.

psychiatry really messes up one's mind... or maybe it was because i've somehow ended up with a mind that was more susceptible to psychiatric influences, hmmm. whatever the case may be, i've done one week of psych and i already feel like one of my patients. mind you, psych diagnoses are subjective because if you really think about it, nobody's normal per se. how can anyone really define the limits of normal? if such limits were placed, let's say on intelligence.. then genius and idiots are both abnormal and hence need psychiatric help?

my mood of late could be described as depressed. my affect resides in the vicinity of flat. i get teary sometimes for no apparent reason... sometimes as soon as i open my mouth to talk to someone. one'd think that i would've been ecstatic to see old friends whilst in singapore. don't get me wrong, i was glad to see them but there was no familiar lub-dub i would've had during prior visits. it's this fear of raising expectations to find disappointment later on i think. thank you, med school. thank you for teaching me to aim low.

my appearance is decent i guess.. i'm not stepping outta the house disheveled yet but behavior may be described as largely normal save bursts of impulsiveness - was bored, was cold and impulsively went out to splurge over a hundred bucks on a heater for the living room. before that, i planned my trip so i'd get back less than 24hrs before first day of rotation. i never never do things like this.. i always exercise caution and leave myself at least a weekend to recover from a major trip or event. this time, i thought to hell with it.

thought content and processes are normal, but then again.. what exactly is normal? insight's present and judgement is intact, i suppose. you'll have to tell me otherwise. appetite's there.. increased if anything. sleep's fine - i still sleep like a log. suicidality is minimal with fleeting thoughts of "i could so easily cut myself with this knife. i wonder what it would feel like to slit a wrist" while chopping up veggies or something but they disappear as soon as they materialize in my mind. ever since the starting date issue, i've been feeling down, staring into a bleak latter half of the year. nothing seems worth doing and feelings of worthlessness pay a visit now and then. all in all though, i'm far from dsm-iv criteria for depression of any sort though i'm curious to see if taking an antidepressant will make any difference.

while in both taiwan and singapore, people have been asking if i ever get lonely living alone in an apartment better suited for a family rather than a lone person, in a foreign country away from family. i tell them i enjoy my own personal space. i like coming home to my fluffy rug and to the large expanse of a living room, to be greeted by panoramic views of the hills and the ocean beyond. i don't necessarily need to surround myself with roommates or comany all the time to get by. what i do want is to belong. i want to belong, to find my niche and some sort of stability along with it. i want to belong at school, at work and most of all, in lfe because right now, i don't know where the hell i'm at.

lubbity lub dubs

2007-06-08T17:55:00.000+10:00

despite the recent spate of intern ickies, i've been feeling a teeny bit excited. over what, i'm not sure. i guess i can attribute it to post-exam bliss. it would be pretty hard to fail oncology exams, seeing that it was nearly a hundred marks in total but in the meantime, i'll still go hug my tree trunks until they release the results next month. as for the ED osces, they made me one mumbling stammering nervous wreck but i was lucky enough to get the nicest examiners =) i'm not sure if they saw through my facade, or if they genuinely thought that i did well when they gave me really awesome feedback. ah well.

another source of excitement would be QH and his girl coming over to visit. tomorrow! eeek! so much cleaning to do.. my place has disintegrated into a dilapidated disaster due to the recent last minute cramming for exams. means everything else was pretty much neglected.. meant lots of orders of take-out and empty containers littering the kitchen counter. hmm. you didn't have to know that.

also managed to shed some light on an old grudge of mine. i'm not mad, i don't hate.. i'm just disappointed and didn't expect the behavior that resulted. i thought she was better than this, but i guess she has shown me wrong. anyway, i'm glad to realize that this grudge, this not being able to let go wasn't because i cared. phew.

in other news, there'll be a li'l get-together at nuls' place tonight.. can't wait to catch up! and then next week, i'm set to jet for singapore and then taiwan until the end of the month. catching up with new and old friends will be a treat! only thing i'm stressing about would be the awful humid weather that i know i'll face. and the friggin' killer mozzies they have in taiwan that make my arms and leg resemble umm.. gingerbread men with too many gumdrops? =S

also can't wait for the next two rotations to be over. two more months and then i'll be stuck with a med degree i can't do anything with because i haven't even been provisionally registered. bah. it'll be a fun challenge to see what i can get up to for Q4 2007 =) guess there were more reasons for excitement than i thought =) will be back in a month or so!

far, far away

2007-06-03T22:28:00.000+10:00

in a land far, far away. that's where my head is right now. trust me and my awesome willpower to discover that they were running shrek 1 and 2 over two nights this weekend, cashing in on the newest installation of the jolly green ogre. yep. i sat through both. i giggled like an idiot at the aptly named idiot box. i aww-ed when puss in boots put on his huge sad eyes... *sigh*

though i don't hope for a fairy god mother like fiona's.. i've got enough human god mothers, thank you.. i certainly hope that this semester will end in a happily ever after. really. if there's someone out there, someone up there who's having a blast with this latest installation of the Sims.. surely there must be some compassion left to grant me that after all the drama in the past month?

all ears!

2007-05-31T00:27:00.000+10:00

so this is it.. four weeks of emergency room madness and it's all done. just got home not too long ago, just saw them all not too long ago and yet, i already miss them. no, not the patients. forget all that touchy feelie empathy crap. we've had enough interactional skills sessions to satisfy a lifetime and half of it. i'm talking about the staff... i thought i like my ortho regs well enough during the last rotation but this bunch of people in the ED topped 'em. to think that i was dreading my ED rotation! continuous long cases didn't seem too enticing at first. i forgot to add the people factor to the equation.

yes, i've had the internship crap to deal with and it was a pain organizing anything from that far away. yes, the daily 40-min journey to and fro were a pain in the butt and i've had many a near miss with crazy speed demons swerving in and outta traffic. yes, there have been times when i catch myself willing the clock hands to hit 10 or 11, just so i fulfilled my weekly hour requirements. i come home dead beat, cramming in 12+hr shifts.. but i come home contented that at least someone's gone home feeling better.

it's been one of the few rotations where there was a sense of belonging. inside jokes, random bantering at everybody and anybody's expense, having random conversations ranging from medico-legal gossip to types of cars good for racing (abs, you would've sooo loved the convo. you would've gotten on well with the RMOs.. maseratis were mentioned!) getting called to see the weird and wonderful.. and a nearly tearful last day. all that's still tugging at the heart strings.

how often is it that one gets acknowledged, let alone spoken to as a lowly medical student by a consultant? it was awfully embarrassingly heartwarming when the consultant in charge held everyone back after handover to announce that it was my last day and thank me for helping out these past four weeks. i guess that bringing in a large fluffy chocolate mousse cake might've contributed to the flow of good words and appreciation too but still.. it was kinda nice to have one's efforts acknowledged once in a while =)

memories of tiny sick tots who leave the ED smiling and babbling in incomprehensible baby talk, sweet little old patients who so patiently explain their complaints for the hundredth time, those who wait ridiculous number of hours for their turn to be seen but still gratefully thank you afterwards, the suturing, the xray reviews, the dozens of neuro and ear exams, the "oh shit!" moments shared with senior staff, the new-found "hi, how're you?" buddies i've made outta med and surgical regs and rmos, the nurses defending and protecting me from "mean nasty doctors," the radiologists taking time out to explain both results and politics and most of all, all the weird, wacky and wonderful patients encountered over the past month .. they all remain but memories. sadly, all i've got to show are ears and more ears.

yeah, i'm rambling like i always do but just indulge me for a wee bit! i just want to savor these warm fuzzies for a while more before returning to a reality clouded by the looming exams. can't wait til they're over!

little annabelle and the field trip

2007-05-16T22:02:00.000+10:00

Sometime last year, Noelle had called up Isabelle for some advice about how to deal with Annabelle. Li'l Anna was different from the rest of her classmates, you see. She was slower than them, she needed special considerations. Noelle wasn't sure if Annabelle would be able to go on this field trip next year. Isabelle assured Noelle that everything would be fine. Li'l Anna signed up for the field trip.

She was estactic.. she would be able to join her friends, even though she would be joining them late. Nevertheless, she would be able to go on the field trip! Li'l Anna wondered about how she would get there if she was going late. She went and talked to Jill, who seemed to know lots. Jill reassured her everything would be taken care of, don't worry. Now mind you, li'l Anna might be slow but she was still able to sense potential roadblocks. She was also a tad obsessive and was a worrier so she went to speak to Isabelle. After all, if Noelle was getting all her information from Isabelle.. why shouldn't Annabelle do the same?

Isabelle reassured li'l Anna all's well and whoever was in charge of the field trip would have to sort out the problem of transport. It wouldn't be Anna's job. After all, Isabelle said Anna could go and therefore, Anna will go whether the field trip manager was happy or not.

As it so happened, the field trip manager turned out to be Chloe. She had a twin called Catie, who was filling in for her. They had mischieviously switched identities for the time being. Li'l Anna didn't know this so she spoke to Catie, thinking she was Chloe. Annabelle wanted to make sure that she would have transport to get her on this field trip. Catie didn't know much about her twin's job anyway.. and was scared to make the wrong arrangements so she also turned to Isabelle for some advice. Isabelle was happy if Catie was happy. Catie, unfortunately, wasn't happy and didn't want to let li'l Anna go on the field trip. That was the easiest option for Catie because it meant that she didn't need to find out how to arrange for transportation. Catie didn't like new things very much, nor did she like meeting new people.

Isabelle, now being sick of being the shoulder to cry on for everyone else, decided that li'l Anna couldn't go on the field trip either. She apologized for giving out wrong advice in the very beginning and as compensation, li'l Annabelle could go on the field trip if she could work something out with Catie. Catie was still unhappy, even after Anna told her where to go find cars and buses. Without Chloe's knowledge Catie went and told Isabelle she couldn't find any cars or buses for li'l Anna. With that information, Isabelle could only conclude that Annabelle wasn't able to go on her field trip after all. She would need to wait until next year to go with the other kids in the year below.

As slow as li'l Annabelle is, she is still able to feel frustrated and very sorely disappointed at not being able to go on this field trip. She's not sure what to do - should she wait until Chloe comes back and bad Catie goes away to ask to go on the field trip again? ...or should she just resign herself to the decision of going on the field trip next year and twiddle her thumbs for the time being?