life in the mobile photos

It's been rainy these days. Typical.

I couldn't get up this morning, the rain soothed me to deep sleep, so I was late and I missed the great morning teaching on Endocrinology. The taxi guy sang "I Try" by Macy Gray in the taxi to work today. My favourite song remember. Remind me of Yaya. I did try!

Still raining in the evening. Boohoo..

Empty place. Lala's & Aza's white orchid still viable on the diner.

So last Thursday I got a call from IzaKusha at work. It's amazing how a simple phone call or a text message would brighten up your busy day like that. We talked and talked, and revived the pack, and catch up with stories. I was hiding in the toilet near the Respiratory Office. Who cares. My Ija reminded me that it's OK to pursue the dreams for now, keep the du'a going and hope for the best. When it's time it's time. We are so alike, I miss you already. We'll rock Bangi when I'm home OK.



I was in deep sh*t after a bad bad day one day so I went hunting for comfort food after work. That one up there, people, is by far, the best ice-cream I've ever tasted in my life. No kidding. Vanilla tastes better than chocolate on my tastebud, but coconut is definitely superior!



So pathetic. A doctor who goes home and watch a soap on a bunch of interns who sleeps with their attendings to survive the crappy junior doctor life. It's far from true in real life FYI. What are the chances of working in a hospital full of hotties like that? Nil. Zilch. Nada.

I haven't got a digital box installed yet so everyday is a DVD collection day. Just to keep the place noisy. That was when Derek said something like "I'm drunk, vulnerable and good-looking. And you took advantage." What's with guys and the thrills of the chase. Habis madu sepah dibuang? Aku emo all right.



The world does seem so small with the internet these days. I can live without TV but not the web. *Cringe on the thought of it*. mIRC, AOL, MSN, YM, G-Chat. Remember those days when your favourite movie was You've Got Mail?

I got my internet and my cuppa coffee. So that's me, pretty much a happy bee.

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." - Kahlil Gibran

It is truly devastating when you diagnosed a few months old baby with a disease the parents, the staff, you and everyone knows that won't make the baby sees any future. Indeed Allah SWT has His plans for each one of us and only He knows what's best.

Medicine really amuses me. It's amazing how it is, like life, can be learned either as a spectrum or something clear cut. I have 2 small infants with spinalmuscular atrophy - one just newly diagnosed this week. Both have complications in their lungs so bad that they're struggling to breathe when they're feeding. Then I met another 4 year old today with the same diesease. She was all cute in her pink dress and shoes, and she loved my pink scarf today. So we talked about everything pink. She even liked my polka-dots pink socks. Yes I was post-call so I'm allowed to be all cute and odd.

So on one hand you have someone with the bad end of the disease, and on the other is doing pretty OK. But when she gave you a weak cough and left the ward in her automated wheelchair, you know she won't make it far though. But who are we to decide this anyway.

Anywhoo.

I'm sure at this stage everyone has read the medical report of DSAI ex-aide which is circulating on the w.w.w like nobody's business. At this rate I think most of us are pretty much pissed off if not laughing at the internal jokes coming from the jungle govt. Well I am if you're not. I've had enough of this fabrications it is damn frustrating. The world is laughing at us too. BTW tenesmus is a sensation of incomplete defecation but let's not go there.

Shot 1 in Disney Paris. No wonder my sis was giggling when she took the picture.



Shot 2. Hello Tony! Ngee..


OK I'm missing my familiar friends it's not even funny.

Tomorrow marks an important date in our calendar, the Isra' Mi'raj. Here's a little something to freshen up the mind.

Cheerios all!

spent

When you diagnosed a 5 months old baby with HIV positive from a supposed-to-be HIV negative mum, things can get a bit more complicated than a simple run of treatments. Has mom been playing around? Or daddy did? What about other kids? Do we need to test them as well? Has someone been lying? Etc etc. My last on-call on Friday, I had a 4 months old who kept seizing on me for almost 1 hour and a half despite the treatments. He ended each bout of seizure with high-pitch cries suffering his non-stop overactive brain activities. Then I had another kid turned blue with rattling breath sounds drowning in his own lung secretions. They're both palliative patients.

Yes when you say palliative or NFR (not for resuscitations) you'd imagined your old grannies with end-stage cancer. But this is a couple of 4 months old, whose lives are basically incompatible to live. Things are certainly a lot more traumatic mentally and physically than they normally are.

So am I still into this profession? Yes indeed.

On a lighter note, I think paeds surgery is the hottest profession ever! Well other than the fact that one of them is really hot as well that is..haha..My green button has been switched on again after so long. I have now another reason to wake up early to go to work everyday. Hehe kidding..

I saw a little girl who looked like Yaya today in the clinic. How I missed her so much.


It has been a stressful week last week and just started to get busy again this week by the look of today. I came home with my stress-induced urticaria, again. I only have a pair of hands and legs but torn to be at multiple places at one time. Sue them for not having any interns in paeds!

Went home and watched Grease. It has been almost a month with no TV for me, not even TV rakyat. It's almost magical how I survived life without the box. Here's an excerpt from the movie, ah nobody can ever beat JT in his seluar singkat and leather jacket. So much fun. Enjoy.



You're the one that I want..uh uh uuuuuu honey...

I can't get up and you're gone..

What are the odds of spending the whole day dealing with ONLY 2 patients?

2 sick patients.

I'm learning so fast about paeds. Rules of thumb, have a REALLY low threshold for more investigations and just WORRY a little bit more than usual. At 4.30PM today, the baby we saw on consult for prolonged O2 need and desaturation episodes contracted a systemic fungal infection and had to be transferred to ICU. She came back to be HIV positive. Another CF kid with pyrexia turned out to have white cell counts of 0.7 with neutrophil count of 0 and global pancytopenia really. All happened at 4.30PM. What are the odds.

Thinking of going on hiatus after this 2 years. I have aged so much; the wrinkles, rabun ayam, eye bags besar rumah, my eyes are failing on me really. Ah this profession. A good break would do me good. Some fresh air and some changes. Don't know whether it would be worth slowing the momentum though.

Holidazzzeee..

Flower (Flea) Market, Old Town, Nice, Cote d'Azur

Currently feeling like this.

I found out about this today linked from a friend's blog. Ah supercool. Feels good to be the rare one in Type AB. Now I am closed to become a superhero already, as planned. Hehe. Why don't you have a look.

Your blood type diet.

just the right time to stretch the legs and chill..

It's a bliss really when you know that you have the full weekend off. Yayyy. Yes I love my job but I love my weekends more.

It's bizarre really. Yanie if you're reading this. Today I admitted the second patient that I've met before when I was a medical student. I remember exactly it was in the same day ward, just different bed, and Yanie and I took the history from the patient's dad. She was admitted for her monthly intravenous immunoglobulin infusion for hypogammaglobulinaemia. It's funny coz today when I went to them the dad immediately said, "I think I've met you before?! Here in this ward at the bed over there." Hehe. I said, "Yeah I was about to say the same thing as well." That was 1 year ago. Time really flies ha. Now she's grown taller, still a cutie.

The other patient was a little boy Yanie and I went in to see his feeding study in the radiology department. If you still remember him Yanie. The boy who went to Sweden for ECMO. I'm sure you do. We were told by the consultant radiologist that she improvised and baked barium cookies for the feeding studies. Cool innit? Cookies with barium for contrast. Hehe.

Anyway, that boy was admitted under my team again last week. He's a real heartbreaker. Having survived ECMO, 2 cardiac arrest, seizure and stroke, recurrent pneumonias, now breathing via tracheostomy and using BIPAP. And he's only 2ish years old. Still managed to wave goodbye with his good hand (right hemiparesis) and blew me a flying kiss when I discharged him. A real heartbreaker.

That's my job. A lot of cheeky monkeys and chickens who's a real heartbreaker...

Enough on the work. Yes it's weekend. I was contemplating and I realized I missed the familiar people so much now when we used to hang out on weekends cracking good jokes. Maybe it's just me. Going a bit mellow.


Haha not saying anything really. I got this fruit flavoured fizzy sweets from clinic today. Can you imagine they're giving these sweets to the kids. Apekah?

I was tagged by Ikha - my Man-ual partner. Hehe. Here goes.

7 facts. Think I did this before.

1. I drank coffee too much that my pee smells like one. I go dysfunction without them. It's recent really. I used to be OK going 2 or 3 cups a day. With the stress level and workloads these days, I need at least 5 or 6 at work. Few more at home. I plan for detox in 2 years time. Serious.

2. I've always put on a brave face and act like one but I'm actually quite a cowardice. That's when it comes to hantu, driving (partly encountered), cengkerik, lipas, tikus, binatang yang merangkak (crawling insects?). I never leave my room in silence. Wake up and turn on the radio. No creepy goosebumps silence please.

3. I'm a bit mellow when it comes to goodbyes of closed ones. Just can't deal with them properly. I used to cry each time my parents dropped me back to school after going on weekend overnight at home. That was all through form 1 to form 5. And my house was like only 30 minutes away from the school. Ya ya I'm melodramatic whatever..

4. I said to myself that I wanted to do medicine since I was in form 3 and picked RCSI to go to (since the name sounded so cool back then), I also said that I want to do Paediatrics in the fourth year of medical school. So far so good alhamdulillah.

5. I secretly have an exit plan if I go burn out. That is to work as a coffee barista in my own coffee shop. I even have the concept and arrangements planned. Guess it's not a secret anymore.

6. Can't seem to get rid of the old procrastination habit. Even if I wake up 15 minutes earlier than the usual time to spare that 15 minutes for breakfast or just a little extra minutes to breathe and not rushing in the morning, I'll still end up wasting that 15 minutes on stupid things like staring into thin air until I realize that I'm late and ended up rushing myself to work in the end with no breakfast.

7. I love singing and I always have a background tune playing at the back of my head. Almost like an auditory hallucination. Hehe. Though I don't have a good voice but hell who cares. I did win the second place (or third?) with IzaKusha, Sabrina and Salha during talent time in school anyway. Singing Backstreet Boys songs. Every year without failing. Haha. Those were the days. Go BSB...hahahaa..

That's 14 facts including the last 7s. On top of whatever you've learned about me indirectly from reading the blog. That's too much you think?

Enjoy le weekend!

reinforcing reinforcements

As promised, here goes. The so-called frequent update. I don't know why am I doing this. But sometimes things can be done for no reasons at all ain't it?

I think I'm beginning to like Paeds. Last week it was about fitting in and giving the best impressions, so I wasn't seeking for the 'joy' of working yet. As I'm beginning to settling down, I can tell that it's a different fun working in this field.

First of all, I became totally selfless, well that's a bit too much. Probably less selfish putting it more appropriately. If last time I used to justify a lot what I did on the wards, hence sometimes refused to heed the call for silly stuff on the wards, well not anymore this time. It's always been 'about the kids'. The innocent kids who are born with illnesses they don't even know about. It's the purity and innocence which made one more to become selfless I'd say.

"I've never met someone doing Paeds who's unhappy." Someone used to say that to me.

I don't know about that, you'll never know when things gonna hit you low. But I do understand the concept of it, no matter how much the job takes out of you, physically and mentally, sometimes a little kiddies smile can cure it all. Aha I'm a tad bit too philosophical now.

Coming back to reality, I was on-call with one of the best registrars in the hospital last night. It was a OK call to be honest with you, I expected worse. It was in the morning that I found out that she didn't actually sleep the whole night after being called for sick kids on the wards and in A&E. Despite all that, she was smiling and still remaining the cool. So I asked her, "How was last night's call for you for Paeds standard?" She replied, "It was moderate." Smiled

I choked.

Otherwise, the team has been OK. I think my Big Boss is a Superhero (imagining her in Wonder Woman suit). She saves lives and looks cool too. She probably had Intel Centrino or whatever processor implanted in her brain long before computer was invented. How awesome. I have to really start dieting to prepare myself in my Superhero suit too (black leather Cat Woman suit?). I have to start studying I mean....

I'm thinking of a new personal project for fund raising for the hospital. Any ideas? (As if clinical jobs, exams, etc are not busy enough.)

Till then.

what's been up

Yes we could do some updates don't we? Here goes, in no chronological order.

"Hi, I'm Wan. SHO Resp (respiratory)."

No I didn't really have the thrills in my heart when I said that on the first meeting with the new people in the hospital, when I know I should. Partly because, in paediatrics I'm still the lowest in the food-chain as there's no interns, so I sometimes still partially assuming that I'm still an intern so running around doing intern jobs. Most of the times it's because I have MINIMAL knowledge in this field. It's been ages since I last do paeds and that was in student days. So I had to search somewhere in my rusty brain about the weird syndromes that they mentioned, the weird investigations that they don't do in adults to the simplest treatment of asthma and plotting centile charts. Fun fun.

Other than that, I think paeds suits me well. The new team comprises of 2 top respiratory Consultants, one being a specialist in CF, a third year Specialist Registrar, J, and a third day SHO paeds ever, that's myself. You can tell there the huge gap in knowledge hehe. I think the team is OK, mad busy, but OK. J finished his membership exams all in one go when he was at my level, so I have another people to look up to and learn from. He's a cool guy all right.

The big boss is tough I have to say, but you have to be when you're dealing with sick kids. I thought I knew someone who's OCD enough, she's like super OCD to the power of 12. Very meticulous and thorough. So I've been working hard to become super OCD to the power of 13, at least one power higher than her so to impress her. Hehe. But yeah, I'm very new in this field, and I'm ready to learn, bring it on.


Congratulations, new doctors!

Most of my friends have graduated in June. I still remember the sugar-high feeling being on stage receiving the 5 years hard-earned degree, it was good. Now it's a year passed already, so fast. Nevertheless, all the best on the new jobs. Surely internship is more about clerical less medical but grab the chance to learn the system and organisations, do courses, research perhaps. It's a fun year believe me (hiding pinocchio nose).

With Dr Linda, Dr Wan & Dr Farihah at RCSI Conferring Ceremony

With Dr Jazree & Dr Hanif @ TCD Graduation Day (kantoi la plak pakai tudung sama on both occasion..)

Of kompang and wedding bells

Again, my heartiest congratulations to my friends who tied the knots recently. As before, I was not there to attend the weddings. So to Shahnim & Amir, Mieza & hubby (aku lupa sapa nama husband Miezah), may Allah SWT blesses your marriage with love and happiness. Same for the upcoming weddings; DilaSu & partner, Hanif & Aneesa, Ecah & partner, Naim & Hanif,..(trying to remember who else). I am utterly devastated I can't attend your big day but time is just not on my side, yet. Hopefully it will soon.


Blood is thicker than water

So my Ola came and visit me for a week. It's good to see her like that coz I missed her. We went to France for 5 days - Paris, Nice and Monaco and came back with the real tan. Hehe. I used to be her little sister she wished she never had, yes I was a grumpy demanding kid. Now it's all fun reminiscing about it. Though we still fight about things so insignificant like who's sunglasses are cooler or who has a better complexion (she does), she's still the sister who stood by me all along, hand-washed my tudung on this visit (I hate doing laundry remember) and gave her shoulders and wiped my tears on saying goodbye at the airport.

Sunglasses @ La Tour Eiffel, Paris

Just glasses @ Nice, C'ote D'azure

Contact lenses/no eyewear @ Dublin Airport

New place, new life

I'm not supposed it's new, but it's definitely different. Different is new right? I moved from the old place, there's the new job with the new title, the old familiar crowd whom I used to hang out with are gone, some serious new crowd, busier job, there's plan for doing exams, etc etc. I am a new woman too perhaps.

South Dublin City view from the window in my room

I can drive!

This one deserves a heading on its own. For years I've been trying to achieve greater stuff in my life, each time I still feel inadequate because I cannot drive on the roads. Yes I'm a doctor and no I cannot drive. How ridiculous is that. A doctor who cannot drive. So I made up my mind, for once and for all, I have to try to encounter my greatest fear of being on the roads and driving on the wrong lane and hitting a cat like a pancake, etc etc. So I finally did it on mid May, I was actually driving on the highway! Big part of it was a help from a friend, some from my own guts and most of it came from God the Almighty. Eventhough it was a rental car, an automatic transmission one, I still did it. I'm not disabled anymore! Yay!

Rathmines in the morning, picking up a friend on the way to work

So that's a wrap for now. Part of the new job resolutions (if there's such thing), is to try to update the blog more frequently. Most of it will be about the jobs (warning non-medics) also just on life. We'll see.