my favourite smarter

Of all the kids, Lloyd would be my favourite smarter in the British TV game show 'Are You Smarter Than a 10 Year Old?'



I scratched my non-itchy head looking at these brilliant kids. At 10 years of age I spent my times playing street hockey with the boys, tangkap ikan laga kat paya with the boys (balik rumah dapat sejalur bekas tali pinggang dekat badan), playing softball at the dodgiest taman (when my mate was hospitalized after a big bleeding cut across the foot from the zinc sheet), polis sentri with les boys again, etc etc.

Going to be 10 years old boy, my nephew Naqib's afterschool activities are: kelas Al-Quran & Hafazan at 5-6PM, Smartreader on odd days 8-9PM, Kumon on other days, swimming class, playing with Yaya while watching Spy Baba on Astro, and few odd hours of bicycling around the neighbourhood with friends and coming home crying with a graze on the knee after a fall each time without failing. Oh le difference..

Macy Gray in the houseee!! We sing "I try to say goodbye and I choked..I try to walk away and I stumbled..." We still luv your hair Yayaa..

I am going to the end of A&E rotation. I think I've had enough. Man the hospital is really eating me from the inside.

Yesterday's on-call was officially seen as THE BLEEDING CALL. We've had like, five or more, bleeders. One ended up in ICU. One post-appendectomy guy was rushed to surgery for intra-abdominal bleed. Just when I was about to finish dealing with that case they called me for a per-vaginal bleeding lady. And later there was a massive epistaxis. Stop it already! Like everyone just decided to bleed tonight!!

I heard great news about the newly qualified Doctors. Congratulations!! All hard works paid off. Enjoy your hard-earned title and your long hiatus before the real deal.

good ol' days

Happy Sunday in the spring. Or is it really spring? The shy weather has reverted back to bitter wintery cold. It's Ireland anyway, the reason why I'm not surprised.

The kind of food that goes straight to your coronary arteries.

I was looking at the old files in the external HD and found these. God those were really the good old days..

Venue: Somewhere in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Date: Summer 2006
Title: Cambodge Relief Mission Pilot - Advertisements
Notes: We were bored waiting and there were water bottles and cam-corder

Take 1



Take 2



Hahaha. I love these girls so much. So natural..


Then the good Cambodian fun. Hmmm..



Although I was fat (was?) and tanned, I was a much happier person back then. A lot of good fun. Seriously..

Growing up sucks. *Sulk..*

ladidam didam..

2 most favourite entities; noisy Yaya, la sister..oh 3 actually..and Hello Panda biscuits!!

Ouh it's been nice and sunny the past 2 days. Makes such a lot of difference to me, you and everyone! FYI sunshines to an Irish land are like rains on a hot African desert. Yep summer is coming!

La friend said yesterday, "Summer's coming, we have to be fit!" True. Na'ah we don't wanna see that flabbies we've been hiding under the coats for the past 3 seasons. So she went gym-ming again, and I went running. Gasping for air after a long exercise hiatus, I concentrated on the clouds while saying the magic words over and over again, "Summer's coming, we have to be fit. Summer's coming, we have to be fit." Like a mad woman. Day 1 exercise progress: failed miserably.

Day 2? Haha.. (munching chocolate chip cookies)

I asked le SHO today when things were getting moderately chaotic in A&E (as always), "Do you want me to help you with anything?"

He said, "Yes. Keep on putting that smile on your face.." (Smiled)

I hate you flirty married guy.

Another SHO pulled my arm when it was already terribly chaotic in A&E. We escaped through the back door after stealing 2 small tubs of vanilla ice cream from the patient's fridge. They were niceeee when eaten under the sun outside. What? They taxed us 42% salary each month you know..OK OK I'll pay back the ice cream don't worry..

On-call again tomorrow..happy days.. T_T

an on-call machine

Happy Sunday in the spring. I have no good breakfast to put here. Got a quick cup of latte and donut in the car on the way back to Dublin, and yesterday was the third time I was on-call this week alone.

Yes I'm doing 1 in 3 calls these days. They're for the on-calls I didn't do when I went home for the break. Seriously, being on-call takes so much out of you especially after working in A&E for the whole day. You're pretty much drained already after 8 hours trying to figure out what's wrong with the sickies and *ehem* saving lives, and now you have to be up in the wards all nights to do the ward jobs. Man it's too much.

And suffice to say the calls I've been doing these past couple of weeks have been challenging as well. A LOT of patients went into respiratory arrest and they happened to be on the nights I was on-call. Great. One of the patients I thought was really going towards the end of the tunnel, he had horrible croaking breath sounds as if he's drowning in his own lungs when I arrived on the ward. I was busy taking ABG, bloods, putting catheter, ordering ECG and CXR while chanting to myself, "Don't die on me, don't die on me, don't die on me..". Yeah like in one of those dramas haha..He actually didn't that night and eventually died the night after.

I'm also beginning to see the whole point of A&E rotation. It's actually very good for an intern cos you've got your arse covered by the seniors the whole time but you're still one of the first line doctors receiving emergency cases. It's cool. One time I actually went overboard and saw a patient in the resuscitation room with a heart attack all by myself and only spoke to my boss about the case 30 minutes after when I finished. Lucky me, nothing happened to the patient in the interim. *Berangan dah terer sangat*

It's also good that I'm seeing varieties of patients with different presentations. A lot of trauma cases as this hospital is the trauma center for this region. Man tell me about it. Every single road traffic accidents and every falls and broken hips. This man was sitting at the bottom of a hill when a water tank rolled down from the hill top and rolled over onto him, leaving him with fractured ribs and pulmonary contusions. I mean, what are the odds for that to happen??! Seriously..

Being in A&E also made me learn few different general rules of life. First rule, always wear nice undergarments, you'll never know when things gonna hit you low. Last thing you want when you're in agony from broken legs is people started cutting your pants only to reveal that horrible undies you're wearing. Haha seriously...Secondly, malang tidak berbau. An example would be the water tank guy above. Tak pasal-pasal terpenyek sementelah tengah duduk lepak di kaki bukit. Lastly and most importantly, everything that lives is certain to die. Whenever your time's up your time's up. This guy came in with a massive heart attack which later went into cardiac arrest. Despite our vigorous efforts of resuscitation, after few rounds of getting v tachy and shock, he died.

Oh well..

That's to sum up the busy week. I was walking home this morning when this Irish guy came from behind and complimented my pink scarf. He ended the little chat with, "Something's good going to happen to you today," as if he sees future..

We'll see..

Saturday musing

Happy weekend in the spring. Yes I was up early (miracle) and prepared breakfast for myself (another miracle).

One week really crawled. By the time I finished OLLH, I will be wrinkled and aged. Not that I haven't got those now. I miss home and les enfants. I kept wondering what on bl**dy earth am I still doing here. Home is so good FYI.

Oh well tough life..

On another note, I saw this patient yesterday in A&E with new onset PR bleeding. Suspecting an underlying malignancy I asked her, "Have you been losing weight recently? Or did you noticed your pants or clothes have becoming more loosen or big?" She answered, "Yeah I think my pants are loosen. From being washed too much." Pfftt (tried hard not to laugh).

A&E has been interesting. Other than few hiccups (no system is perfect, well certainly not OLLH anyway), I am learning so much there. From chest pain to chest drain to bleeding from down below and up above. Also the kids who fell and banged their heads on the floor when they missed kicking the football to the ones who sprayed Domestos All-Purpose Cleaner in their eyes. I braved myself and succeeded cannulation in those poor kiddies and suturing cuts in their hands.

Oh yes, alhamdulillah on the dawn of March 15th (Malaysian time), I was offered an SHO post in Paediatrics in the General Professional Training (GPT) scheme at one of Dublin children's hospitals. I was in disbelief, tertunduk malu, coz Allah SWT has been answering me eventhough I haven't served Him the best that I could. Insaf lagi.

Yes that training will include 2 more years of my life in Ireland, which 6 months will be in OLLH again for the peripheral hospital posting. Goodness gracious.. (tarik tarik rambut sendiri).

Cheerios. Enjoy le weekend!

p.s: All the best to the Final Professional Exam sitters, it's just one of those hard moments that every single one of us in this field has to endure. And best believe you will look back and laugh yourself thinking about it once it's over, such an experience..