Short bursts of happiness

Trying very hard not to feel depressed. The time right before work is always worse as the thought of going to that hellhole is just well, depressing. But when it' s time to go home, I would always feel happy. And I always feel good during my off days. But not anymore recently. During my off days, I find that I am feeling a bit down too. Nope,that can't do! Refused to let stupid O&G defeat me although I know this is going to be a tough battle since the new shift system is out and it involves us working for even longer hours.

And so I am trying to give myself short bursts of happiness here and there to counter that depressed feeling. Forced myself to come to the mall today and just hang out. Kinda missed Nadiah who would always be there for me in Uni. She seemed to be able to sense it whenever I was feeling down. She would ask me out for shopping or a movie or a nice meal or go eat some really sinful cakes/ ice cream/ chocolate.

Although there is no replacement for a good friend, I thank God for a new company, for bringing him into my life.

We went for a little road trip to Desaru, my suggestion, of course. Need to get out of town for a bit..so sick of work and the hospital and the town.

                                                       

The desaru beach was surprisingly quite clean and nice.

                                           

                 

Ostrich farm                                         

It's really not bad. They have guides and every few minutes there'll 

be someone giving a talk and introduction about ostriches. 

                                         

                                           

                               

The ostrich egg is hugeeee! We have been told that an ostrich egg is equivalent to 25 chicken eggs! Guess how do you open an ostrich egg? They used a drill! 

I have a photo of me standing on 2 ostrich eggs but I don't have the photo with me. It's quite amazing how big and hard an ostrich egg is. 

We tried the ostrich satay. If you want to visit the farm, I suggest you go with an empty stomach because there are a variety of ostrich meat products for you to try- fried ostrich eggs, ostrich bak kut teh (lol?!), ostrich satay, ostrich steak, ostrich meat curry etc etc. Too bad we already had lunch before we went there.

And if you're lucky, you'll get to witness some extra scenes like ostrich copulating.. Haha.. We were lucky. 

What a shit place I'm in!

I am not happy. There are temporary short bursts of happiness on and off but the baseline feeling that I feel is :( . It' s not something chronic, just started to have this feeling since 2-3 weeks ago. Sigh... I feel so exhausted mentally. Of course the root of this crappy feeling is O&G. Working in this department in this hospital just sucks beyond words. The work that never ends, that's one thing. And you walk and breathe stealthily afraid that any move of yours might cost the life of both a mother and  her baby. And then you will be punished and what punishment could be worse than having to spend another few months in this posting- Extension. Just thinking  of it gives me sleepless nights (not literally of course, most days I just come home and konked off  'cuz I am burned out by the time I reach home)

I know I shouldn't be such a baby considering all specialists and MOs now are relatively so much nicer than the previous ones, at least that's what I've heard. After work everyday, you have that feeling of unease, worrying that throughout out your shift you might have done something wrong or not written something properly. Documentation is of utmost importance in O&G. Improper documentation could jeopardize their job. I understand, I really do. Every perinatal mortality and morbidity contributes directly to the national statistics. That is why everyone in O&G is so paranoid and obsessive about documentation. And if I remember correctly, perinatal mortality and morbidity is one of the statistics used to determine how developed a country is.

All this stress, worry, trepidation, work are slowly taking its toil on me. A few specialists saw my face a few times during work and they said "Why do you look like you're going to cry?" I didn't know my face is so easily readable. And I thought that I could hide my feelings well. I thought wrong.

Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....................................

It's not that bad when I'm working because I don't have the time to feel and think. The most difficult moment is when I wake up, knowing I have to go to work. That feeling of dread is not a nice feeling. I want to enjoy this posting, enjoy doing the procedures and enjoy handling the emergencies. But how can anyone enjoy learning in such an environment. Whenever there is an emergency or a mortality you start praying that you have nothing to do with that case. They will read every single word written in the case file and identify any possible mistake. So whether it's a case that you've clerked today or 2 months ago, you better start praying that your patient never gets into any problem ever. I appreciated the mistakes that I have made because one thing commendable about O&G is that they teach and so I always learn from my mistakes. But any mistake in their eyes is also deserving of an extension. Whatever we do is wrong, whatever we don't do is also wrong.

It's a huge big pile of shit we are in. We, meaning, all of us in O&G. Arghhhh.. Damn shit la... Cannot tahan...

Low point

I am at such a fucked up place with fucked up bosses and seeing literally fucked up patients.

I haven't cursed for a long time, not even in crazily busy medical.

This posting is in an entirely different realm..the evilness of the people here just know no bounds.

Pampered and Loved

There have been a few times when I really wanted to blog but the internet at my house is practically non-existent. I'm hoping that I'll have time to finish blogging this post before the internet is down again.

3 more weeks to my medical posting. Can't wait to leave already, unlike in Paeds when I didn't feel like leaving at the end of my posting. Passed my medical assessment, with a shocking 97%. I didn't do that, God did. It just couldn't be me. I didn't even have time and the motivation to properly revise. My assessment was on Valentine's day, Thursday and the day before was Ash Wednesday, a day of obligation, meaning it was a must to go to church for mass. But I skipped church on Wed and I felt so bad and so guilty. But if I had gone, I would just come back from church and crash straightaway without studying.

In retrospect, God is great indeed! I had some time to study on Wednesday at the expense of missing church. My ward wasn't the active ward on Thursday, which meant that I could finish my ward work quite fast, leaving me with some time to study and calm down before my assessment in the afternoon. I was so afraid that God would punish me for not going to church but I was such a faithless creature for even thinking that. God is loving and wonderful and merciful. How could he possibly be so petty as to fail me just because I missed Ash Wed?! I was completely speechless and just touched when I found out I passed with such good marks.

During my assessment, I got a call from a guy asking me very abruptly for my exact location in the hospital. I was annoyed at first. For one, I was in the middle of exams and this guy never introduced himself and just asked "Di mana kamu sekarang?" To cut the story short

A bouquet of roses with a box of chocolate was delivered to the hospital for me, to my ward, signed and received by a male colleague on behalf of me in front of all the patients, my colleagues and MO. I told the sender later that luckily I wasn't in the ward to receive the flowers in person and be the center of attention. Imagine the horror! Haha..  I know I deserved to be smacked for saying this. Many girls would kill to be at the center of attention for this. But what to do?! I am just too shy! Muahaha...   

The gifts, the dinner, the time spent with you, the many hugs and kisses...

I feel very pampered and very much loved. 

C.R.A.N.K.Y

My threshold is 1 week- The threshold for the duration which I can stand not seeing TGIL. I realised that since the beginning, we have always gone out at least once a week and because of this, I can only stand not seeing him up till 7 days. Every time we meet up, it's like I am recharged. Today, it's almost nearing the deadline of 7 days and I find myself missing him terribly, although we talk EVERYDAY! And we work in the same hospital. OMG, I hope I am not some kind of weirdo/ clingy girl because that's the last thing I want to be.

Worked night shift last night. The exhaustion and insufficient sleep and missing him is making me very very cranky and a bad company, considering my brother is in town. So unfair to my brother.

To release some bit of crankiness within, I don't care how overly mushy I am. I miss seeing him, miss being next to him, miss our actual face-to-face conversation (although I prefer to just listen to him talk and tell me all his hilarious work experiences) and miss his touch. And the last time I went back home for Christmas, I missed him terribly too, psychologically knowing that we were 1 1/2 hours apart and not in the same town. OMG, I AM DISGUSTED WITH MYSELF. THIS IS MAKING ME EVEN MORE CRANKY. URGHhhh...but still missing him nonetheless. *forlorn look*


TGIL= The Guy I Like

A compassionate patient

I have this patient who was so worried for my colleagues' and my young adulthood. She asked me "Doctor, you all semua nampak macam teenagers. You all ada tak masa untuk pergi tengok wayang and shopping. Mak cik risau la..."

Another time, I wanted to take her blood in the evening.

Me: Mak cik, nak ambil darah eh..

Patient: Boleh doktor, boleh. Asalkan doktor boleh duduk. Mak cik tengok kamu ni always on your toes,  

            tak pernah duduk. 

(Me taking her blood while standing.)

Patient: Doktor, duduk lah cepat...At least you dapat duduk sekejap.

As she was a chronic patient, she was in the ward for quite some time and witnessed us slogging like a bull.

Another time, she commented "Doktor, saya rasa kalau mak kamu tengok kamu macam ini, mesti dia sedih dan susah hati."

She frequently asked me whether have I eaten. Initially I find her talkative and demanding. But towards the end, her compassion touched me. And her abrupt comments daily made me smile in the midst of my stress.

I don't think I'll have wrinkles later in life because I am sure that my face is so contorted and tense from all the stress that I am feeling almost every day that my skin will have no chance to sag. LOL. I used to think that my face is unreadable and that I can hide my feelings quite well. But lately I noticed that I have been quite readable. There were several times that the people around me noticed and commented that I look so stressed or tired etc etc and at those times, they were spot on correct.

These few days have been crazy. There seem to be a huge surge in the number of females getting sick. My ward is so bloody full, like crazy full. Ladies, please take care of yourselves! We don't want to out-win the guys in this aspect.

I really saved a life this time

The new year's eve of 2013-  31.12.12 - will always be a memorable day for me.

I was working night shift on that day. And I saved a life. Literally. I mean I am a doctor. Technically my job is to save lives, or so they tell me. But the way I see, it's more like preventing people from dying everyday. Patients with acute coronary syndrome, we start them on S/C Fondaparinux etc etc...it treats and prevents them from another attack, and thus preventing their death and complications. 

But on 31.12.12....Oh wait, it happened at 5ish am, so it was already 1.1.2013. Hmm... Well, a memorable New Year's Day then. My colleague and I were clerking a new case that came in at about 0430. The staff nurse was measuring the blood pressure of the patient right next to us and found the patient unresponsive. I attended immediately and found absent pulse. Started CPR stat. Well, of all the resuscitations that I have done in medical so far, 7 out of 10 were patients with DIL NAR (technically no CPR is done if it's NAR) And well, all of the patients that I have resuscitated so far in my 5 weeks of medical posting ended up LO, so much so that when I was resuscitating this patient, I was prepared for her demise. It's terrible I know, but an asystole patient or a patient that is almost gone really, really looks very dead...I sound very crude but it's true. They looked so dead that at the back of mind in the midst resuscitation, I was so certain that they would just pass on. 

And so my colleague and I were taking turns doing CPR while waiting for the MO. MO came, proceeded to the next step of resuscitation using drugs....and so on. Meanwhile the cardiac monitor was showing a flat line, SpO2 27%. And then after 15-20 minutes, PULSE. THERE WAS A PULSE. THE CARDIAC MONITOR WAS ALIVE AGAIN SHOWING REGULAR HEART BEAT, and I could still remember, the heart beat I saw was 126bpm. We stopped the CPR and the pulse remained and stayed strong. I didn't feel the impact of what I had done until after everything, my MO said to me,

"Thanks a lot for just now. Your CPR saved the patient's life." 

And these words kept repeating itself in my mind the whole day. I literally, really brought a patient back from the dead, brought a patient back to life! My CPR works! My resuscitation works! My judgement and decision while waiting for the MO were correct and accurate! I was in awe! Wow, CPR actually works?!!!

I was so inspired, so motivated, so touched.

My hope is renewed. My faith in CPR is renewed. I will not merely do resuscitation for the sake of resuscitating. From now on, I will be resuscitating my patients with a renewed vigour, with a fighting spirit. I will fight for my patients because who else can they trust to fight for them, if not me?!

Thank you God for this great lesson. Thank you Dr H for your encouragement. To that patient, and all my patients, Thank you because I have learned and am still learning so much from you, through you.


*DIL= Death in line
*NAR= Not for active resuscitation