oh my amazing God. my life is looking up. no wait it just got 10x better. i am graduating with honours!!!

shit happens. there is nothing more succint and well-put than this rather crass sounding and matter-of-factly phrase, simply because, well you know, it’s true. why say “hey, you know, it happens to the best of us, so deal with it” when you could just as easily convey the same sentiment with “shit happens”. cos yeah, shit really does happen. while i don’t intend to let this post become an ode to dookie, i really mean to say that i had the shittiest of shit days today. i’m not going to harp on it and torment you with details but i guess it was really an amalgamation of road blocks and annoying niggly little things that triggered an avalanche of self-doubt, fear and anguish. i know i shouldn’t let things get me down, seeing as i’ve come this far…..but it’s kind of hard to keep telling myself to be positive when the obstacles keep coming, and the silver lining is nowhere in sight. i know i have a lot to be thankful for, and believe me, i am. it could have been a lot worse. but sometimes, no matter how big or trivial the problems are, you just have to give in to your emotions, whine A LOT to someone who won’t hold it against it you in future (thanks sher!), have a good cry, before you eventually come to the realisation that hey, maybe things aren’t really that bad, and there is light at the end of the tunnel. grin and bear it, suck it up, just keep swimming. i cannot wait for the day when i’ll look back at this all and say to myself, “i have no idea how i got through this but i did”.

love this song- it got me through so many hard times back in 2004 (officially the most harrowing year of my life). so yes i dedicate this post to all you anonymous people out there who need encouragement, and this poem i dug out from my old blog in 2004, just to remind myself that shit happens, but that’s what toilet paper is for.

 

don’t quit

when things go wrong
as they sometimes will
when the road you’re trudging seems all uphill
when the funds are low
and the debts are high
and when you want to smile
but you have to sigh
when care is pressing you down a bit
rest if you must, but don’t you quit

life is odd with its twists and turns
as everyone of us sometimes learns
and many a failure turns about
when he might have won
had he stuck it out
don’t give up though
the pace seems slow
you may succeed with another blow

success is failure turned inside out
the silver tint of the clouds of doubt
and you can never tell how close you are
it may be near when it seems so far
so stick to the flight when you’re hardest hit
its when things seem worst
that you must not quit.

p.s. i caught This Is It yesterday- fking amazing stuff. MJ’s passion for music, saving the earth and showmanship is so awe-inspiring that it makes my heart ache. i never considered myself a fan but now i am compelled to promote his labour of love- go watch!

A boy said,
Girls are like apples on trees.
The best ones are at the top of the trees.
The boys don’t want to reach for the good ones because they’re afraid of falling and getting hurt.
Instead, they pick the rotten apples on the ground that aren’t as good, but easy.
So the apples on top think there is something wrong with them, when in reality – they are amazing.
They just have to wait for the right boy to come along, the one who’s brave enough to climb all the way to the top of the tree.

saw this while randomly blog-surfing, and i loved it so much i had to share! isn’t this a beautiful analogy? every single girl needs a little reminder every now and then that they are fabulous.

now that med school is finally over, i miss it so!! sometimes i have to pinch myself and look at my calendar to make sure that there really is NO MORE UNI. has it really been five years? FIVE long, gruelling (okay, not that gruelling), insane years of anatomy/physiology/pathology/internal med/surgery? was i really eighteen when all this first started? wowza.

i spent the whole of yesterday and today in bed doing crosswords and watching shows. the feeling of not having anything to do is somewhat strange. i miss being in the hospital, (pretending to be) busying myself with patient admissions and whatnot, gawking at unusual presentations of rare diseases and generally fantasizing about being in the Land of The Employed next year.

while i am truly glad and thankful for it to be all over, i am also overcome with trepidation and anxiety for what is to come. it all sounds too scary to be true- writing up prescriptions and drug charts, admitting patients, being on ward calls, emergencies, certifying deaths… gone is the comfortable role of ‘medical student’, where one never has to write a drug chart (unless illegally) or make sure that the patient gets her CT scan done by hook or by crook, or ring the consultant at 2am in the morning with trepidation. a medical student comes and goes as one pleases, follows one of the doctors around and asks to be given some ‘work’ to do. one is often offered menial tasks like putting in drips and taking bloods and checking up lab results. if one is lucky, there is an opportunity to do an admission, or a cool procedure like a punch biopsy or a lumbar puncture. if one is truly down on one’s luck, then a slew of boring discharge summaries is thrust in one’s way with a kindly voice that goes “well you don’t really have to do it if you don’t want to, BUT it would be good for your learning”, and then one knows that one is trapped. (something i’ll try with my fifth-years next year) ahaha

i’ll say it again: i miss med school, i miss the frivolity and fun of being students, i miss having something to do when i wake up (but come january i will sorely regret this). can’t say med school was always a joyride but i got through unscathed, and i had SO much fun! i really enjoyed being a part of the team, and even though i whine a lot, admitting delirious patients and doing paperwork was tolerable, and the honour of meeting so many incredible people who have inspired and influenced my career choices has been amazing… and of course, the patients. being in a position to help others is the best thing that ever happened to me, and being a support pillar for a sick person really reminds me that i too, can be strong when i have to be.

my favourite memory of med school happened when i was in obstetrics last year, and i helped deliver a baby from a 36 year old female who had schizophrenia, a drug addiction and a criminal record. it was her 6th child, and all her previous 5 children had been put into foster care. together with her partner, they reeked of alcohol and cigarettes/pot in the delivery suite. she was aloof, cranky and potty-mouthed. it was difficult but i told myself not to judge, that i was there to do my job and be kind and supportive. after the delivery (which was by far the easiest and quickest one i’d ever done), i was getting ready to walk out of the hospital when i saw her out on the foyer, smoking a cigarette. she caught my eye, smiled and waved to me, then yelled “thanks! you did great!” over to me as i left. it was the best kind of fulfilment, because i knew it was God’s way of telling me that i was made for this crazy job.

ahhh those were the good old days. and better days yet to come!!

im supposed to turn in now but i’m way too excited for sleep. come morning i will dress in my (not-so) finest and adorn my head with flowers for Cup Day! yay! i didn’t manage to get a new dress or a ridiculous OTT fascinator as i would have liked to (these things are crazy expensive!!) but i think it will be an amazing experience. my first melbourne cup- horseys, strawberries and champagne here we come! i hope we don’t get drunk before noon- that’d be an outright shame. i’ve never been one to bet on horses (or the lotto for that matter) but i think i shall try my luck! cannot believe that i’ve been watching the races for the last 3 weeks and now i’m actually reading betcards online omg. i sort of feel like some dork looking at all these stats. why do horses have such weird names like Enzed Girl or Whipthebrewer? ahaha. last year my seniors won $150 (they bet $3 on a random horse that had 50:1 odds and it won!!) -amazing. so my strategy is this: pick ANY horse that has odds>30:1 and doesn’t have a retarded-sounding name!

im going crazy trying to finish up my modules by tomorrow… these assignments are soooo boring and frankly i can’t wait for this rotation to be over and done with. most of the time i’m in the ED twiddling my thumbs, waiting for something to happen. today the most exciting thing that happened in ED was a girl with a ?psychiatric episode trying to abscond from the ED. it took 4 huge security guards to take her down and EIGHT people to restrain her so we could give her a jab of diazepam… she was literally going “#$%@ YOU” at the top of her lungs for a whole 30 minutes before the sedatives finally overtook her.

i am ALWAYS making decisions that could potentially put me in the worst situations ever. H is right- “elle why do you keep screwing yourself over and over?” i wish i knew!

it’s funny how i keep choosing the paths that are well out of my comfort zone, despite being the sort of person who espouses routine and familiarity. i could have chosen to return home for work next year, but decidedly i signed the contract for the job in melbourne- which is insane, considering i always knew i wanted to come home. despite all my attempts to be fiercely independent, i have always loved being at home with my family, it’s such a huge comfort to me just being physically near them after spending the last 5 years apart.

i do love melbourne, and for what it’s worth i love being in the hospitals here but admittedly, i dread being on my own, especially when i am about to embark on a huge, frightening new phase of my life. i know that God would never let me take on something i couldn’t handle, but i’m still mighty scared! take india for example, on hindsight it was probably very silly to travel there alone, suffice to say i was very afraid but if i hadn’t done so i would never have had the most amazing and memorable time (awww i miss you india!) so yes. i guess that’s part of growing up- you take risks and embrace them, even if it makes your stomach flip sometimes. i didn’t feel completely adult-ish when i turned 21, but i do now… 2010 here i come- please be INCREDIBLE, because i will accept nothing short of that.

and on to other lighthearted matters, i was lucky enough to get picked to sit for a viva for a surgical prize on monday and it was hilarious!! basically i walked into the room and it was half an hour of full-on Q&A with 2 surgeons about various anatomical and surgical questions. i was shown structures i had never seen before and diseases i never knew could be treated surgically. all the meddies who know me know that i am NOT a surgeon prototype and honestly i wanted to die from embarrassment. i got quite excited when they showed me a CT brain (i love brains!) but my face fell when they made me point out structures in the EAR. omigad. luckily dinesh concurred with me on our sad sorry performances and basically turned it into a huge joke on facebook ahaha. so i didn’t think i was going to win (obviously) but anyway i checked my email to see if there was any reply- none (as expected). BUT lo and behold…. i did get an email inviting me to sit for another viva- this time for the medical prize. how wonderfully blessed am i ??! one surprise after another, thank You thank You thank You GOD! i’m beyond flattered but the thought of sitting for another viva scares me, after the trauma of the previous one. two vivas in 2 weeks is a little crazy since the last time i studied hard for an exam was probably a year ago…egads! ok i shouldn’t be complaining because i’m really, really honoured to compete for 2 prizes and i know it’s a long it’s long shot, but dear God, can i win one of them pleeease??

back in freezing old melbs! apart from the ghastly weather i am pleased to announce that i have started taking driving lessons (i know! it’s like WHEN will she ever learn how to drive…. :s) and in the meantime am trying to steal as much time off my emergency rotation as possible. i love being in the hospital but this rotation has been absolutely horrid…. the hospital in question is notorious for being haphazard, disorganised and *substandard* and boy was i proven right on my first day there. (actually i kind of skipped orientation cos H who was meant to pick me up got stoned!!!! yes true story.) i did my first night shift yesterday from 4pm to midnight and only 2 hours into the shift i was cursing, because i got assigned to Dr T (who was a complete tool).

first of all we see this patient, Mrs B who had come in with chest pain yaddayadda and he made me write up her case notes, put in a drip and take bloods- all of which were pretty reasonable. i was also told to take bloods again at 8pm to reassess her cardiac enzyme levels, so i made sure to remind myself when the time came. an hour later, Mrs B got shifted to another unit and Dr T said, “hey i put in a request for Mrs B’s chest x-ray, but it hasn’t been done, can you go find out why?” so i said i’d go and off i went to see the radiology people, who said they were kind of busy and would do it soon, but if i brought her around they’d do it straightaway. so off i went to Dr T and reported the situation, so he said “yeah go ahead, bring her there.” and i asked where Mrs B had been shifted to. he said “DMU”, and since it was only my 3rd time in the hospital i said i didn’t know and asked for directions, to which he gave me this look that implied i was an idiot and said just go straight and turn left. of course it wasn’t just “go straight and turn left”… it was more like go straight, walk past 2 doors and then turn into a dubious corridor and turn left again. so anyway i found Mrs B, and was going to wheel her off to radiology when the nurse said i couldn’t take off her ECG leads until Dr T gave formal consent to do so. i said i’d already spoken to Dr T but for the sake of being clear i ran back to the ED to ask Dr T. once again he looked at me like i was some idiot. DUH i know she doesn’t need to be monitored all the time but the nurse was being anal and i HAD to have formal consent. so he said yesyesyes go ahead and then i ran back to DMU to wheel Mrs B who was a large woman into radiology and i was seriously panting by then… at this point he strolled into radiology and said, “oh why did you wheel her yourself? couldn’t you get a nurse or someone?” seriously, WTF. it doesn’t kill to take a patient to radiology yourself. how LAZY can you get??!!

the rest of the shift goes like this: he makes me write up all his patient case notes, take bloods and chase the pathology results and write up the management plan. his only job is to scribble up cursory discharge letters and then send ME to go speak to his patients and discharge them. and no he doesn’t tell me what to tell them- so it’s my call, really. since he said “JUST TELL THEM THEY CAN GO” i figured he couldn’t care less, so i counseled and gave advice to his 3 patients… thankfully they were quite grateful to be discharged and didn’t seem to mind that their actual treating doctor didn’t come to see them. and where was he? on a smoke break. i have nothing against taking smoke breaks but to put matters into perpective, he disappeared for ages, came back smelling like an ashtray and made me do all his dirty work…. all the nurses kept asking me where the heck he was and when they couldn’t get hold of him they started taking orders from me, a lowly med student. i was soooo incensed, that the phrase “WTF” was replaying in my mind 20x over, like those scrolley words you see on screensavers. because seriously, this is bullshit. i think one of the consultants actually saw those WTFs because he came over and asked me if Dr T was treating me alright. technically i could have said “NO he’s being a douche as you already know” but deep inside i could not summon my sense of righteousness so i merely smiled and said “yes”. ya i know…… im weak like that. or rather it’s easy to do someone in but i’d rather give him a chance, D-bag that he is and all. although if ever he demonstrates such negligence again, i am going to be Little Miss Tattle-tale.

….. i am sooo glad im not working in this hospital next year.

i had a perfect friday. i wish all fridays could be like this.

it was my last day at KK but i wagged it and snoozed till 12 noon, having slept a full 10 hours which left me feeling very refreshed and satisfied. had my breakfast and surfed the net for a bit, read some Little Women (which is really good btw) and then lazed a bit more in bed… so at this point i felt extremely sloth-like and contemplated going for a run…but the skies were gloomy and it started to rain heavily….so i decided i wasn’t meant to exert myself physically (hahaha). dad cooked me a nice porridge lunch and i ate it watching The Proposal, which i really really enjoyed cause it was sooo sweet and touching; anyways i cried so much that my eyes became swollen and my cheeks were all tear-stained and blotchy! yikes. i was semi-panicking cos it was 5pm then, and i was meeting the girls at 7 for our dinner date. naturally i piled ice on my eyes copiously to help the swelling subside but it was in vain cos i’d been crying for a good hour (please don’t tell me that The Proposal is a sort of comedy, i know.) but thank God for concealer, which stopped me from looking like a trainwreck ahaha.

Dinner was at Raw, a fusion food restaurant that the girls had discovered awhile ago and loved it so much that they wanted to bring me. up till now i cannot decide if i like fusion food or not. i think it’s fun to flirt with flavors but deep inside i’m still a stickler for tradition and authenticity… anyway i really liked the place. very homely decor, and we had open-air seats in a sort-of verandah with sprawling vines and lots of ball-shaped rice paper lanterns dangling above us. plus there was a huge retro stereo just beside us, playing the most old-school songs ever! love. we had ufo gyoza for starters (not bad), i had edamame-almond crumb with seabass and pumpkin mash (divine), addie had the honey pork and basil rice (also good) and sal had the chilli lamb bolognese (a tad spicy). the service was also wonderful and we three had a lovely time! so craving dessert, in particular anything with green tea in it, we adjourned to the 24-hours Starbucks at cityhall (my haven) and had green tea lattes and frappes and cappucino cheesecake (which was absolutely fab) and chatted from 1130 to 130am… from work crap to holidays and travels to shopping to more foodie places to try out to love and weddings… iv realised that we are such yabbers but it’s great how we never run out of things to say and always have sooo much fun when we’re together….i love.

my friday was delightful. hope yours was just as awesome! x

me: “argh i have damn bad sore eyes!”
james: “haha! you didn’t wash your hands before touching your eyes!”
me: “ugh. yeah i did shake hands with a kid with conjunctivitis in 56…”
james: “now you know why i’m so anal about handwashing…”
me: “i swear i’ve never gotten a single hospital acquired infection when i was in Oz. maybe the chlorhex here sucks.”
james: ….