Tuesday, August 30, 2011

A post call Raya...

So i've survived by 3rd eod call...there was referral last night from district...30 year-old lady involved in an MVA...she was the front seat passenger and she wasn't wearing her seatbelt...the driver tried to avoid an oncoming lorry and swerved to the left and crashed into a retaining wall...the patient hit the dashboard and smashed the windscreen...thus sustaining bilateral corneal laceration and a huge forehead laceration wound....since eye team was going in for EUA and T & S, so our side would do the forehead T & S under GA as well after they've fixed the eyes....

Got a call from OT just before 6am saying the eye team was almost done so i went into OT straightaway....then the eye ppl told me they had to suture the left cornea as well coz there were some lacerations...so i waited (while sleeping uncomfortably in OT) for them to finish...but by the time they finished it was 8am...my call was over...so i had to passover to my colleague who was on call today to come into ot to start suturing the patient's forehead...i felt bad for passing over to him but we're both doing eod calls...so i think i need my rest so that i can be on call again tomorrow....

Came back and zonked out till almost 2pm...if it weren't for my mobile messages, i probably would have slept till later...that's how tired i was....thought wanna go out for dinner with some friends...but most of them are working today...bad timing...when i'm working they are not, and vice versa...oh well, it's not like i'm not used to having dinner on my own...gonna study till dinner then need to go hunt for food...i think most eateries would be closed due to raya...

Friday, August 26, 2011

5 EOD calls in a row...Selamat Hari Raya indeed...

Yesterday i started my 1st of 5 EOD calls in a row over the Hari Raya Break...i'll be on call again on Saturday, Monday, Wednesday & Friday...praying really hard there won't be any onslaught of facial burn patients that the casualty ppl would intubate freely without ensuring if there was a place to ventilate the patient...coz then i would be the one who need to beg around for portable ventilators or a place to ventilate the patient if the burn unit is already ventilating 2 patients....i'll settle for minor limbs burn...even facial lacerations on idiots who still managed to get into accidents despite the massive jam that's going to happen over the Raya break....please Lord, have mercy on me...give me the strength and peace to go through the coming week...

Selamat Hari Raya anyway....

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Korean dinner...and cocktails & cakes thereafter...

I went to visit Pa today...woke up about 12pm...found out Ma's wallet got stolen when she and Pei went to the market in the morning...sigh...series of unfortunate events...after lunch, Ma and i went to the place where we kept Pa's urn...i just felt that i needed to see Pa...thought that maybe i'd find peace... didn't see his physical self though...wish i could see him like how my niece Sylvia could...but i did find the courage to go on...i would make Pa proud of her daughter...we're not quitters...

Sent Ma to Lot 10 to exchange her Shiseido goods after that...got stuck in the jam for quite some time..reached home about 4pm plus...read 2 pages of anatomy and fell asleep...had a date with Twink tonight...she was supposed to come pick me up at 6pm to go for dinner...but somehow there was a change of plan...in the end i went to pick her up from at Sri Hartamas where she had her facial done...

So we went to a nearby Korean restaurant and had a pork bbq feast...since i've been pork-deprived in KB...hehe...after dinner, we drove back down to the Gardens and had dessert in Alexis...i just remembered that our family had our Chinese New Year lunch there this year...and that was the last time i had photos of Pa taken...and i realized that i didn't take a photo with him...just the 2 of us...

Anyway, i ordered a long island iced tea and Twink ordered a lychee martini...and we had mango cream cake and strawberry mascarpone for dessert...so it turned out that long island iced tea is a combination of 5 white spirits (poison according to Twink, of which i know none of their names), orange and coke (and no tea whatsoever)...i would have added more coke to the mixture to dilute the alcohol taste...but after the ice melted,the alcohol taste was less...so it was quite nice...and the lychee martini looked very feminine...very suitable for women...and at least it had lychee in it...

I had a good time bitching about my life (or the lack of it) in KB...told Twink of some horror stories...one particular story involved a certain person in my department whom i was assisting in an AVF operation...so this person was blaming me for trying to ruin his life coz i prepared the LA using a mixture of lignocaine & marcain adrenaline...which was what my urology boss had been using for the few hundred AVFs he had created (and no he had never had a case where the artery ceased to pulsate)...so when he found the vein, it wasn't in vasoconstriction...and then he found a pale cord-like structure at the radial aspect of the forearm which wasn't pulsating...and he started going on about why we shouldn't use marcain adrenaline bla bla bla..."hmmm, i wonder why the artery is so small?" and "damn, it's not even pulsating"...

I thought that was pretty odd...and the place where it was was more lateral than where the radial artery should have been...so i palpated where the radial artery pulse should have been and pointed out that it was more medial...that structure which was not pulsating was actually a nerve...thank God he didn't clamp/arteriotomize it...but i would not be surprised that if he screwed up, it would still have been my fault somehow....to cut the long story short, thank God for His mercy that the AVF was created without much mishap...

I actually have more stories of oppression/stupidity/etc etc...but it's getting late...and i'd rather sleep than waste my time on stories about people unworthy of my time...

Friday, August 19, 2011

If only Pa were still here....

I missed Pa...i wish he was still around so that he can tell me that i can go through this hell called 'master programme'...that nothing is too difficult for his daughter...that even if i found it too hard to bear i can always come home and he'll be there for me...

I was out with Jie the whole day again...shopping...initially in MV then the Curve...and we wouldn't be more surprised bumping into the devil himself than bumping into Brian...he's actually back in Malaysia...the last i heard from him was about 2 months ago...when i started 'hell'...

I'm sure hell is a whole lot worse than going through plastic surgery master programme...but since i can't imagine anything worse than what i'm going through now...so that's hell for me...coz hell is the worst imaginable torture one has to go through...for eternity...thank God that mine is only for 4 years...

It's way past 2am now...i really should get some sleep...i was watching Pearl Harbour on astro earlier...and i couldn't cry at the touching part...but i cried at the thoughts of going back to KB this sunday night...i wish sunday would never come...

Thursday, August 18, 2011

It's good to be home...

I'm back home in KL since early Wednesday morning...took the Tuesday night bus back from KB...and honestly, i've never felt so good being back home...back when i was in KK, i'd only come home when necessary...now, even coming back home is a welcome relief from the hellhole i've been in...don't get me wrong...KB isn't a bad place to be in...but my working environment is a little too hostile for me...my work life is an analogy to Cinderella's life...day till night it's work work work...and just when i think i'm done, there's more work work work...but instead of ugly stepsisters, i have evil stepbrothers...who seem to find satisfaction in burdening others with yokes that even they found hard to bear...and while Cinderella actually made it to the royal ball, i don't even have one to attend...and there ain't no Prince Charming coming after me with my glass slipper...

So i was out for lunch and then shopping with my elder sis, niece, mom and aunt...i felt so free of burden...we had Japanese food for lunch in Pavillion...then shopped for a while at Parkson where i bought Dibo the gift dragon for Sylvia...which was kind of like a bribe to make her happy so she would follow us adults shopping without whining...plus, after that she was all friends with me when prior to that she won't even talk to me...then we went to Lot 10...shopped a little and then went back to Pavillion for Baskin Robbins...it was Pink Wednesday so we all had 2 scoops of ice-cream for the price of one...thanks to my pink-loving sis, niece and mom...ice-cream never tasted so good...didn't get anything for myself in the end...but i haven't felt this great since i started masters about 2 months ago...

I was telling my mom about my hellish life...and i told her if i failed my 1st year, i'm going to quit the bloody programme and go back to KKM and become a chronic MO...there's always my Cameron Highlands plan B...and for the 1st time in my entire life, ma actually told me i should fail my exam on purpose or just quit and come back home...ma and pa have always expected their children to get nothing less than As in their exams...really, ppl who've known me all my life know that i'm not a quitter...i've always finished (or at least try real hard to do so) what i've started...i've climbed Mt Kinabalu 4 times...and completed the via ferrata in 5 hours (ok, so that wasn't the fastest time but i wasn't the reason why we took that long)...and although i did cry while crossing that bloody hanging bridge but cross it i did...

But 2 months plus into this whole master thingy and i'm contemplating about quitting...i really don't know how much longer i can go on with this hellhole...i know i've been spoilt with wonderful bosses back in KK...and i don't expect the ppl i'm working with now to be all praises about me...but i'm already working like a dog to finish up the works that nobody wants to do and still go to OT on time (and no, i don't go to OT just to show that i am interested...i am bloody interested)...so the least these ppl can do is not make me feel like i'm a lazy ass who has no interest in the bloody programme...i mean, the way they are going, i'm sure my lawyer friends can help me sue them for mental and emotional abuse...the only reason why i'm doing plastic surgery is so that i can repair cleft lips and palates...so that i can go for missions to places in need of my service...i'm not even doing it for the so-called glamour...why does it have to be so difficult?

I'm just so tired and overwhelmed...i think i've cried so much this last 2 months that the amount of tears i've shed have surpassed that of which i've shed for all the taiwanese drama series i've watched...i really wonder if all this suffering is necessary or even worth it...maybe i should just quit and come back home and concentrate on getting myself married off...yes, i am that demoralized....Lord, if this is really what You want me to do, then please give me the strength and courage to go through the next 4 years...if not, then please give me a sign to tell me i should quit...Amen...