hello again - me as a 26 yr old

thanks for the e-mail for birthday wishes last week.

Opt for a quiet weekend for my birthday last week, as I am oncall this weekend (friday/sat/sunday). Its been a good celebration and a good rest. Met an old friend from KMYS, arif.

the weather has horrible...was driving home tonight, its rain cats and dogs. tahap pemandangan less than 10 metre. dah tu mana ada lampu jln half the way through the motorway.

Oncall...its been very busy,but manageable.got 17 waiting to come in, that despite the team had tried to clear the beds at MAU to make way for new admissions. A couple people went off (GI bleed), but we got them back. So its good. Put an ascitic drain today using grey venflon, takde banana catheter (despite me never ever witness it been done). Its quite nice when the registrar said,"you have good hand. can be a surgeon". that is really nice compliment i ever receive from my senior.

GUM has bored me to death (apart from HIV of course). Being oncall has revived my passion again. The adrenaline is rushing.

She makes my day

Bumped into the lady whom I put chest drain in the hospital shop. She's home and basically came to the hospital for her follow up appt. Her husband recognized me first, called her and she came over to say thank you. I can't stop smiling after that. Its wonderful to have given her a symptomatic relief; her prognosis still, might not be very good. I wish and pray she will continue to have a great life, no matter what lies ahead.

This is why I do medicine.

Anyway, just a little note on relationship. Do you realise the longer with you be with your partner, he will start to mirror you? Behaviour wise. Think about it. His tantrum &nagging seemed to sound like mine these days.

Another skills learnt

Berjaya put my first chest drain (Sengstaken) yesterday (was on call yesterday)! wohooo!! Liking it, liking it. The hardest bit is probably when you are ripping the pleura with the dilator - you can just feel it, a little bit scary, but once you gone past that, its quite easy. Because of it, end up back going home around 11 pm last night. Suppose to go home at 10 pm. The oncall was busy, we have bed crisis; both me and the registar end up camping at A+E clerking patient in. Yesterday seemed to be pleural effusion day.

On the way home, ada accident pulak dah kat M61. Got stucked in traffic for half an hour while police and ambulance removed the casualties and cars.

Almost didn't go to work today as I was so tired when I woke up this morning. Anyway, ended up going, and manage to finish the pathology audit!

One of the pathology SpR was telling me the Micro Lab people was looking for me for my micro audit. Was quite surprise (am not that important, I don't think!). Am still analysing the result beb. Tak siap lagi siutt. My patho Spr asyik menghasut jomlah join pathology, its fun. I think she enjoys my company rather than doing proper pathology; I have been helping her with some post mortem cases (as I knew some of the patients when they were alive). I have no patience or talent with microscope. Look at 6-7 samples, already got headache, aiyoh! I realise I am becoming more and more a medic these days.

Notts and London

On my last of annual leave today. Its been a good rest, albeit tiring.

Went beraya to Notts and London.

First time drive all the way down to Notts. Guna AA direction, and they give this flipping heck of a drive - through A6 which turned out to be a single carriageway through ladang-ladang and gunung-ganang and jalan raya with corner maut macam kat genting highland/nilai, almaklumlah, lalu peak district national (kita mana la tau). Also, without any lampu jalan. Bertuah betul. I drive 40 miles/hour for about 50 miles in our journey. Decide on the way balik to use the motorway instead. Do you know that M62 contains the highest point in motorway network in the UK; at junction 22, its about 1442 feet above sea level. Kena drive a bit careful there - angin lintang kuat ooo.

Went for a daytrip to London. Ada cheaper ticket at thetrainline.com. Ada trial for printing ticket at home; only for certain routes though. Went to a Japanese place called Zipanghu - their salmon sashimi is heaven. Also reminded me London is bloody expensive. Pay for a cab fare from Earls Court to Euston for 20 flipping quids. Uishh.