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
2.20.2009
i knew it was too good to be true
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.
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.
2.14.2009
the annual gripe
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!
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!
1.16.2009
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.
1.14.2009
borrowing santa's sleigh
if i could be santa
for just a single day
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
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
11.14.2008
another round of gnarrrrghh!
...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!
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!
10.14.2008
a couple puffs of brainfart
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.
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.
10.07.2008
the deepest shade of red you can imagine.. and then some
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.
*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.
9.05.2008
it's been a while.. again
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.
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.
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