Of dreams and desire....

So i'm back from England yesterday...and today i'm back in KB...and tomorrow i'm back to work...not sure if i would be jetlagged from English time coz apparently i wasn't in England long enough to recover from the initial jetlag...anyway, would write about London and my West End adventure in another post...felt a need to write down about this recurring dream theme i've been having...well, as far as i can remember (vaguely), it has occurred twice...

Don't really remember the details...just that in my dream, i was supposed to be meeting a person (i'm assuming it's a guy)...and i can remember the anxiety and anticipation and excitement about meeting this person...but somehow, one by one my friends would come along and tell me he's delayed by one thing or another...can't remember any of the reasons for delay but they just felt ridiculous...and in the end, i woke up...never meeting that person...dang, must be my biological clock ticking loudly into my subconscious mind...it would at least have been nice to actually catch a glimpse of the person i was supposed to meet (even if he had to be swiftly carried off by the stormclouds or something)....

Was reading a book over my English holiday...it's called The Journey of Desire, by John Eldredge...honestly, i'm not a fan of Christian books...but i daresay it was divine intervention that brought me to this book...a month back or so, i stumbled upon a comment left by a friend which mentioned that i reminded him of the sea turtle stranded in a barren desert in the story which was in the above-mentioned book (just for the record, i don't think i'm like the sea turtle coz i don't delude others into thinking that the sea doesn't exist...i'm more like the sea lion, who is always dreaming of the sea)...the comment must have been left there for a while but i never noticed it...so i decided to get the book and read it for myself...Suet Lai got it for me the last time she went back to KL...but she only gave it to me a day or 2 just before i left for my English holiday...

I thought that was a sign i should read it somehow...and i must say this is one Christian book that really spoke to my desire...i'm just so glad that there are Christians out there who believe that we should not kill our desire but embrace it...at every turn of a page or two, my tears will swell up and spill over...i don't think i've read a book that made me cry that much (apart from PS I Love You)...i wish i could read it everyday to remind me of how i should have the freedom of desire and how i should channel my desires to God...it is too easy to forget...when i was younger, it used to amaze me how Israel quickly forgets God everytime He delivered them from their afflictions...i wondered, how can they forget the miracles and amazing feats God did for them? i'm older now...and i realized how foolish my amazement has been...for i forget too...again and again i forget...just as Israel did...

How God must be looking down at this child of His and shakes His head...He'll say: I forget too...again and again i forget...all your iniquities and sins...as long as you come back to My Side and love Me with all your heart and soul and mind...Oh, such amazing love...Oh Lord, don't let me be ruled by my heart's desires but help me to surrender them to You each and everyday...don't let me forget You, Lord...

A good call, a good book and a good song...

I was call again yesterday...yea 3 eod calls in a row, remember? Did 2 appendicectomies during the day...well, taught the HO how to do one but i did most of the crucial knot-tying coz she couldn't hand-tie properly...then was hanging out with Grace and Kean Khang in ICU..Grace was on call too and we had Burger King for dinner...ahh...it's good to have friends with devoted husband...even if you don't have one yourself...

Grace was about to finish a thrashy romantic novel titled "Brighter than the sun"...you know it's thrashy romance with titles like that...i haven't read one in quite some time...so i thought why the heck not...so i borrowed it, not expecting to actually get to read it...but after the last appendix i did that night, it was pretty quiet...oh, the last appendix was quite an amazing one...the lady was morbidly obese...and so was her appendix...and it had perforated at a few sites...and it was faeces-laden...and there was quite some localized pus collection...but never mind about that...

So i thought since it was quiet, i'd start reading the book a little...i guess when you're really engrossed in a book you don't realize that time flies...by the time i felt quite sleepy, i saw that it was already 6am plus...and i was almost finishing the book...really, if i read surgical textbooks with half the zeal i had, big boss would be so proud of me...hehe...so i thought i'd get some sleep and slept till 9am plus...came home, finished the book and slept some more...woke up about 115pm to get ready for locum...

Went online and checked out a friend's blog...she posted LeeHom's new song from his new movie "Lian Ai Tong Gao"...it's called "NI Bu Zhi Dao De Shi"...i love this song...the music is so touching that i couldn't stop my tears from flowing...so i put up the link on FB and few minutes later i received a mail from Kenny...he sent me the mp3 version of the song...now i can download it to my phone and use it as my sms tone...hehe...and Vince sent me the lyrics to the song...so i'll be learning it when i get home from locum tonight...here's the link to the song...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8v9xr8lqhQ

Great call last night...

I have to say that i had a great call last night...i only went into OT once for one case throughout the day...well, it was a chemoport insertion and we had a difficult time cannulating the subclavian vein... even the internal jugular vein we had to puncture a few times before we got it in...and so the patient ended up having pneumothorax...but he was so stable throughout the night...and there were only few admissions...there was a neuro scare though...one of the post op neuro patient was complaining of facial and periphery numbness...the HO noticed that her calcium level was very low...1.52....i was like, and they just let it go all this while? so we gave her IV calcium gluconate and T. calcium lactate stat...her ECG had the classic prolonged QT interval...i was so worried she was gonna go into some arrhythmia...but thankfully she didn't...

The last admission came in about 2am...one of our old patients...who refused BKA even though we told him his leg was dead...he actually discharged AOR...he only came back last night coz he couldn't stand the pain of a dead limb...quite pissed so i just told the HO to start him on antibiotics... didn't go up to see him...but then i think i felt bad about it so i couldn't sleep well the rest of the night...so in the end, although i had a great call, i still didn't have a great sleep...crap!!!

Anyway, i was out for dinner with Connie and Becky at Upperstar Lintas just now...it was good time to catch up...since we haven't got together for quite some time...so i told them about 'my Adelaide Affair' (i thought this would make a good title for my book, if i ever got around writing it, hehe) which they had been dying to hear about...and Connie said it was like a romantic drama comedy....well, actually the whole story was damn funny lah...if you're not the one being spurned...but even i can still laugh at the absurdity of it all...

By the way, i just finished reading "Agnes Grey" by Anne Bronte...while i was back in KL i noticed a few classics stashed away in one of the glass cupboard...i was asking Pei who bought those...coz i didn't remember buying and reading them...but Pei said the books have been there for a while and she didn't buy them...hmmm..strange...but good for me coz i took one of it and read...though reading old English can be quite a challenge...don't really understand some of the sentences but i supposed i got the gist of the book...

Agnes Grey is a story about a young girl who set out to be a governess but who met with the harsh reality of the worlds of rich, spoilt brats and their unreasonable parents...she met a nice 'curate of a parish' (whatever that means) when she became the governess of 2 young ladies....and her accounts of how she fell in love with him and how she never told anyone close to her about it really reminds me of how i used to be...i supposed i'm still like that in a way...if i really like someone, i usually keep it a secret...won't dare to tell a soul...won't even dare to show any hint to the guy that i like him...except that these days, i can't seem to find a guy that i might like...well, Agnes Grey thought that she might lead a life of spinsterhood and die alone but she ended up marrying the guy she was in love with...perhaps i too may dare to dream that that could happen to me...

The Time Traveller's Wife

I got the book before i watched the movie...but i watched the movie in a plane before i actually read the book...i just finished reading the book a few days back...Jasmine told me Jimmy said the movie was very disappointing...i guess that happens when you read the book first then only you watch the movie...i liked the movie as it was...but there were a few loose ends that didn't make sense...and in a story that revolves around chrono-displacement aka time-travelling, things can get quite messy and confusing...but i felt that it was a good movie...it justified the book...didn't change too drastically... but when i finally read the book, a lot of things kind of explained itself...

The book is really quite extraordinary...i think it's actually quite difficult to write a book about time-travelling...too many dates to remember...but the author did a good job in weaving the plots and creating coherence in the story....and Eric Bana as Henry is quite the perfect choice...hehe, he's cute...Rachael Macadams as Clare, Henry's wife played her role well too...so that while i was reading the book, i actually imagined Eric Bana and Rachael Macadams as Henry and Clare....

So how is life for a chrono-displaced person? it's really weird when your future is actually your past and your present self has no idea whatsoever of what your future self has done in the past...already confused? try reading the book...this book is at it's very heart, a love story..of a time-traveller who found a woman who was willing to be part of his messed-up past, present and future....imagine yourself as Clare...you've actually met your future husband at age 6...but he came from the future to see you when he was in his 30s...and you've been dating Henry since age 6, in secret coz you can't tell anyone about this..people wouldn't believe you anyway...but his present self has no inkling of that since it's his future self who went back in time....so when Clare (age 20) finally met Henry (age 28)...it was actually Henry's first time meeting Clare....

You know how at time you've wished that if only you could turn back time, you'd change the things you've done or didn't do? apparently, you can't...you can only go back in time and watch the horrible things that have happened in the past...again and again...and there's nothing you can do to prevent or change what happened...like how Henry's mother died in a freak car accident and he survived by time-travelling...but although he kept going back to the incident, there was nothing he could do to change anything...and like how Henry died...he died at age 43...in year 2000 just as the clock struck 12am...but the thing was, he was already killed in year 1984....and he was actually killed by his father-in-law...accidentally...how bizarre is that huh?

I'm still trying to fathom the concept of time-travelling...but it's a bit too deep for me....but i enjoyed reading the book...everytime Clare and Henry had their secret dates in the Meadow, i'm reminded of certain aspects of my life...or when Henry disappears on his time-travelling tours...Clare would be left alone and longing...she asked this question, Why is love intensified by absence? and i can relate to that...but i guess this time-travelling business is really not for the faint-hearted...meddling with the past/ future can have disastrous consequences...although at least for Henry, he found the love of his life, albeit for a short time...

My Sister's Keeper

I've just finished reading Jodi Picoult's "My Sister's Keeper"....been reading it since Taipei...but only managed to finish it today, while lying on my bed, drenching my pillow...and i was right...Hollywood has once again distorted the whole book...really, these days, you can't expect to answer someone who asks you "have you read the book?" with a "oh, i've watched the movie"....and still be discussing about the same story...coz chances are, the book-reader and the movie-watcher would be talking about 2 different stories...i think i'll stick to reading original books...and watching original movies...

It's one thing to drop a character or two...or change a male judge to a female judge...or change a pyromaniac elder brother to a dyslexic one...but to kill off the wrong sister in the end? you might as well call the movie by a different name and claim it as original screenplay...it's not like i didn't like the movie...i did...it was a good movie...the actors played their roles very well...i just don't like the idea of Hollywood misleading people to think that what they watched would equal to what they would have read (but which they didn't)...it's like Hansel and Gretel being lured by the witch to her candy-bejewelled house only for them to find out they'd be burnt in the furnace as food for the witch... ok, maybe my analogue is a bit off...but you get the picture...

So just a short synopsis about My Sister's Keeper (the original book version)...Anna (short for Andromeda) was genetically engineered to be a perfect donor match for her elder sister Kate... Kate was diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukaemia at age 3...Anna became stem cells donor for Kate at birth...and continued to donate more blood products and bone marrow throughout her childhood...Anna at age 13 is required to donate her kidney to Kate (now a miraculous survivor of APML at age 16) who has end-stage renal failure due to all her previous treatments...but Anna didn't want to do be a donor anymore...so she filed a lawsuit against her parents for medical emancipation...

I loved this book....it may not be a real life story...but the characters portrayed by the author are so realistic...so human...i hardly cried though...which is a good measure of how real this book is...i only cry when reading unrealistic stuffs...but i cried at the end when Anna died...she fought all the way to get herself medically emancipated from her parents and won...but she still lost to Death...the one whom everyone thought would die, didn't...but i guess that's life...always throwing the unexpected your way...i feel for Anna...it must be horrible to live a life defined by your elder sister...where you're only needed to save your sister's life...yea, sounds very magnanimous and all...but put yourself in Anna's shoes...it's easy to have magnanimous thoughts when you can't be the donor...it's not so easy when you are the only perfect matched donor...if i were Anna, i'd hate my parents for putting me through all those invasive procedures just for the sake of my sick sister...it's like, in that family, if you're not sick to the point of dying, then you don't count...

I think i'll start collecting Jodi Picoult's books...they're interesting reads...definitely worth the investment...if you're a reader...then skip the movie...

The Neverending Story

I've been reading the books I bought while i was in Australia...just finished one entitled The Lost Diary of Don Juan...learnt some interesting stuffs from that...now i'm reading a collection of Jeffry Archer's short stories called Cat O' Nine Tales...about crimes of the white-collar kind to downright cold-blooded murder....but i'll write more about these another time...

I've been wanting to write about the book i was reading while i was in Australia...remember The Neverending Story? I like fiction fantasy like this one...i wouldn't exactly say it's a child's book for the vocabulary used in this book is as wide as it is deep..plus the fonts are very small...and the imagination of the author...it's just fantastic...hence the name of the fictitious world...Fantastica....every creature is so unique and quite beyond my imagination...and i love how the author can come up with weird names like...er..can't recall any right now....i wish i can create names that sound beautiful and unique...and there's so many stories in that story...so there's always this line that goes: but that's another story and shall be told another time...

The story revolves around a boy named Bastian Balthazar Bux...he's really not your typical cute boy but rather he is chubby, bullied and shunned by his peers...his only sanctuary was his books...which was how he stumbled upon the book called The Neverending Story...eventually he was 'sucked' into the world of Fantastica and became the creator of a new Fantastica...he could wish for anything and it will be as he wished...as he was bestowed the power by the Childlike Princess or Moon Child (as she was called by Bastian)....but the more wishes Bastian made, the more he forgets about the real world he came from...

He had almost lost all his memories of his previous world but somehow he managed to pull through and worked his way back to the real world...one wish that struck me was the last wish Bastian made before he found his way back to the real world...he wished that he is capable of loving others...i just realized that perhaps i'm not capable of loving others...i mean truly love others..unconditionally..and intimately...i've always been one who is passionate about things, ideas and ideals...but not people...some would even describe me as aloof...i cry at movies and weddings..but never at funerals...so i was just thinking, if i had to go through an adventure not unlike the one Bastian went through in Fantastica, to learn how to love others, i wish i could...

I hate Queen ICU calls...

So after a whole 2 months (almost) doing calls in SMC (mostly ICU calls), i have returned to Queen ICU...i started my 1st out of 3 consecutive every other day calls yesterday...and i've decided that i hate Queen ICU calls...arrghh!!! i don't hate my boss...he's a nice guy...albeit a little odd...i just can't stand the fact that every time i'm on call in Queen i'll have practically sleepless nights...i mean, the patient turnover rate in Queen ICU is definitely much slower than in SMC ICU...and yet, it seems like the turnover happen mostly during my calls..

I had 2 admissions yesterday...when there hasn't been any for the last 2 days before yesterday..which meant that we had to transfer out 2 patients to admit these 2 new patients...one was an idiot who decided to drink pesticide in front of his fiancee to threaten her to marry him..at the marriage registry...would have loved to see the drama...but since he only drank a bit so he didn't manage to die of malathion poisoning...but he needed ventilation and observation and so was admitted to my ICU....he came during the day...and it was a good thing he didn't give me much problem over the night...

The 2nd admission was a young lady with metastatic adenocarcinoma of the lung..mets to vertebra...she went for a pericardial window and chemoport insertion the day before yesterday...and she developed worsening shortness of breath yesterday...great...boss wasn't too keen to take her in...i mean...what exactly was our end point here? to save her today so she can die of her cancer in maybe another 3 months?..Pang pointed this out this morning during passover round and my respond in a jest was, "I dunno...give her a chance to get married before she dies?"...kind of got me thinking...if i were in her shoes, would i be lucky enough to have a man that i want to marry who would still marry me despite my condition....and what if the tables were turned around and i had to see the man i love dies in that way...i don't know if i can bear the pain...i don't think my heart is strong enough to suffer such kind of pain...but i digress...so boss took her in anyway...boss wanted to put her on non-invasive ventilation..to avoid intubation...but the patient couldn't tolerate the NIV...so i just kept her on high flow mask 10L/min....but she was so tachypnoeic that she was bound to get tired sooner or later..

I was reading a book i borrowed from Kean Khang while things seemed a little settled just around midnight...it's a very interesting dark humour kind of book called "The Graveyard Book"...i finished it about 2am...and after checking that everyone of my patients were comfortable, i went to sleep hoping to only be awaken by my alarm at 7.30am...but it was not meant to be...coz the nurse called me about 3.45am informing that the cancer lady was complaining of difficulty in breathing...so i tried her on NIV again but she became more restless although her saturation was good...so i told her that i'd have to intubate her and she said ok....couldn't even bloody get her to lie flat...had to induce her while she was sitting upright...and she was trashing all over until the scoline set in...thank God it wasn't a difficult intubation...but her lungs were so bad...i needed to put her on high ventilator settings..and when she woke up she was so bloody restless, she was trying to extubate herself...so had to properly sedate her....

After settling her about 5am...thought maybe i'd get some sleep...but again, it was not meant to be...coz one of the uncle in ICU who had multiple problems decided to vomit out blood at 5.30am..and he desaturated coz he probably aspirated the blood...and became bradydardic...had to start CPR..and intubate him...this would be his 4th time getting reintubated..thank God he came back after 15 mins...and although this uncle was a difficult intubation, thank God i managed to get the tube in the right place....so that was it...by the time i settled him...it was almost 7am...hardly any sleep at all...

Anyway, will tell you a bit about "The Graveyard Book"....since that was the only good thing that happened yesterday...the story revolves around this boy called Nobody Owens who was raised up in a graveyard by a ghost couple and a vampire guardian...his whole family was killed while he was still a toddler...but he managed to find his way to a graveyard and was protected by the ghosts and his guardian from the man who wanted to kill him...so Bod grew up among ghosts and was given the Freedom of the Graveyard....where he can Fade, Dreamwalk and Haunt...so after his many adventures while he was growing up, eventually the man who wanted to kill him found him...and the reason why he was supposed to be killed was....hmmm i guess i shouldn't spill the beans...go read the book and find out yourself...it's a light read actually...very entertaining...

Ok, now i shall crawl into my chamber and sleep until the moon comes out...then i shall roam the night world to look for food...

April Fool's Day..and sleeping around..

Yesterday was April Fool's day..but i was too busy paying back my sleep debt (post call) and doing locum...well, supposed to only have a 5-8pm locum..then suddenly got a msg from Hoe asking me if i wanna do overnight locum...i thought, what the heck...just do it lah...haven't done overnight locum for quite sometime lately...guess i'm just tired of sleeping around...yea, that's what Elaine said i used to do...sleep around..in almost every clinic that offers overnight locum...hence me being nicknamed "locum queen"...and hence me being called "money crazy" by my ex...

Anyway, April Fool's day reminds me of a book i read quite a while ago...it was written by this Australian author Bryce something..or something Bryce..he wrote the book for his son...who was a bleeder...suffered from Haemophilia A...and much of its complications like recurrent haemarthroses and the likes...and his son was also very unfortunate to have been infected with HIV during transfusion of Factor VIII...a blood product which saved his life many many times..but which was also the one that killed him eventually...i cried so much reading that book...but it was really inspirational...if you're a reader...and haven't read this one...go read it...