another round of gnnnnaarrrrrgh!

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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 =)

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

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...