:)

so, the war is over. and i am proud to say that i have fought it well :))

having more than one lecturer saying that you are just not good enough is really a good form of motivation. it feels great to prove to other people, and most importantly to yourself ,that you can actually achieve more than you can ever imagined.

it still feels like a dream. i am really grateful that my effort is paid off. the sweat, tears, every small step, throughout this year, are not wasted. the satisfaction after trying your best and getting what you desired is awesome.

i will take this as a motivation, to motivate myself to work even harder. i know with effort, with faith, with your 100% heart, you can achieve what you want:)

i owe my gratitude to so many people. but most importantly my parents. i know i have made them worried. i need to learn to be independent.

thankyou so much. to you . you. you. and yes, you who is reading this now :)

war

the EOS war will begin soon.

i hope by then i will be all prepared.

everyday, i just want to tell you, it is not because of convenience, now.

but it was because of inconvenience, 3 years ago.

anyway, i shall be focused to fight this upcoming war.

smile and jiayou :)

still breathing

i am still surviving, despite the crazy timetable. there goes three weeks of obs. and in few weeks time will be eos. everyday is a new learning day. the more i learn, the more i realise i duno something. its tiring, every night coming home to collapse on my bed, but it feels good to coz i know i have fully utilized each day.

i presented a case on anemia in pregnancy the other day. during physical examination, i commented that there is no pallor in the patient even though her hemoglobin level is just 7.5g/dl. the lecturer took a look at her palm and compared with his, and said, how can u say there is no pallor? coz obviously his hands look much more erythematous compared to the patient's. But i took up my palm and compare, mine is paller than the patient. lol.. the lecturer was then speechless. lol. i also didnt believe that she has no pallor on the conjuctivae and palms until i compared with mine. maybe my Hb is lower than a pregnant mother with twin pregnancy. lol..

looking at so many pregnant mothers with medical / obstetric problems in the ward everyday, i am thankful that i didnt create so much problems to my mother. and i am thankful that i was born healthy and not sent to NICU after delivery. i am thankful for my mother, for her unconditional love which has guided me all these years :)

hope the new year has been good for everybody.

happy new year:)

spent my new year eve typing case summary for obs. and the comment from lecturer was :)) it feels great when your effort is paid off. but i believe there is always room for improvement. will try to do better next week/year ;p

last day of the year, listening to the new year speech by our dear prime minister, i dont feel lonely at all, even though i have all by myself today.

it has been a great year, many ups and downs, but i know they are all there so that i could be a better person. i know i always complain. but i thank god for whatever that happened.

2010 brought many great experiences. i believe 2011 will promise more.

quoting from a book, ' when you are in hell, find a bus stop and sit down. we wait for the bus, we know its coming, but we don't know when. whether its stormy or sunny day, whether you are in hurry or not, you still gotta wait. it comes when it comes'

i just have to constantly remind myself that bad days will pass, so will good days.

anyway, happy new year! may 2011 bring us happiness, health and much love :)

busy bee

busy beee. obs has been really crazy. with average of 4-5 hours of sleep everyday, everyone is like zombie. labour room was great. but i told myself i will never have normal spontaneous vaginal delivery after assisting a few. i feel the pain for the mother in labour. with every contraction, the mothers cry in pain. but i also shared the joy of every mother as the baby's head pops out. as the baby cry, everyone smiles :)

one thing about obstetrics, whatever that happened during the pregnancy or labour, the baby will be born alive most of the time. so it will most likely be a happy ending :) but the workload is crazy. student rounds every morning infront of houseman and mo are just nerve wrecking.

i am thankful for the weekend christmas break, eventhough its just 2 days. felt much charged and much loved :) today is the first day i finally get to sit infront of my comp and slack slightly.

a month more to EOS. i duno how am i going to go through it. but i know it will be over in no time. gotta add oil!

side note, i spoke to a senior after so long. still as inspiring as ever. one thing which he mentioned stuck me, he said our character should always improve and develop. so true. but so hard. he reminded me that there's a life beside being a medical student. other roles which we have in life. a point which i almost forgot.

christmas

christmas is in a week's time. not that i celebrate this over commercialised day, its just everybody else celebrates it.

bought a non medical book today, after so long. realised that i need something else in my life besides medicine. which is quite hard, because i don't even have enough time for medicine. Learning from the Heart, by Daniel Gottlieb, the same author as Letters to Sam, a book which inspired me so much. gonna read it before obstetrics start, before the war begins.

just got over paeds. cant say i love it, but its not as bad as what i have imagined. kids can be really annoying when they are ill, just like adult, lol.. but they are really cute when they are well. its funny to see the way they talk, they way they think. reminds me a lot of my niece:) exam was okay, wasted all my adrenaline panicking the night before. but i am glad that it is over.

i have been a good girl this year. will santa send me what i want? i duwan anything much.

all i want for christmas is you.

merry christmas :)

bye mr black :(

it was a tragic week. my stethoscope took its last breath. huhu. while following the ward round, the doctor was commenting that particular patient has THE classic sign of a disease, so i went there and auscultate the patient. and i heard nothing. after trying on my friends many many times, i finally gave up and certify its death :( cause of death: idiopathic/trauma/infection. heh.

my first stethoscope, accompanied me for 3 years+. from the noob that didnt even know which side to put in, to being able to recognize murmur in patients, it has served me well.

and thankfully, my gp told me that he has one brand new extra stethoscope! and he gave that to me :D that saves me pocket from a hole. sometimes, you just gotta be thankful with what u have.and i am.

my old black stethoscope, and meet the new Mr grey :)

its december already. time really flies. means exam is one step closer as well. research is on the run too. cracked my head trying to key in the data. paeds is ending soon too. so fast so fast so fast. and my immune system is failing me too. i have been getting sick every posting since psy, ortho, and now paeds. at the rate that i am falling sick, i will acquire all the antibodies and antiviral by the time i graduate wei! ;p

care

so true. i feel, we always tend to hurt the people who care for us.

i need more strength

got back ortho and psy results ytd. i got my first A in clinical school, and also first failure in my medical school.zzz. still can't believe i failed the ortho paper. and still can't believe i got A for the ortho clinical exam. irony. anyway, i am thankful that i didn't fail both the paper and clinical, considering i have such a horrible posting with so much distractions.

went back to the ward on a friday nite. paeds ward was quiet. so we got a chance to speak to the houseman who is oncalling. when asked how's the life of a houseman, she said, the worst day as a medical student is nothing comparable to a day as a houseman.

responsibilities, scoldings, are what you get everyday. you will feel stupid everyday. you will wonder what you actually learn in the 5 years of medical school. you try very hard everyday, but its never enough. thats what she said.

i remember i saw a specialist scolding a houseman, and infront of everyone, her tears rolled down. at that moment, i told myself, i should never never be like that. i must train my crying tolerance level so that i won't cry so easily.

and despite the increasing number of houseman, the workload is still a lot. just yesterday, a houseman was involved in accident after oncalling because it was just so tiring.


huhu. i am scared. i am not sure if i have the mental ( and physical) strength to go through all this.

but at the end of the conversation, she told us, whatever happened, just tell yourselves, never never give up.

yes, i have to keep telling myself, never never give up!

man vs machine

today, during our class, we were discussing murmurs found in child, which most likely due to congenital heart disease. the lecturer asked what should we know as a medical student/future doctor? to know there IS a murmur, or to recognise what is it? his answer was, we are only required to know if there there IS a murmur, coz everything after that will be answered by a machine called echocardiogram.

last time, when there wasn't echo, doctors are expected to come out with diagnosis and management just by using stethoscope. things has changed huh? i wonder will it be a day that clinical skills are no longer important anymore, and everything is replaced by robotic machine, they can make the diagnosis, they can manage the patient.

what is different of us and machine is that we have clinical skills to recognise different signs, which a machine could not do, the rest can be done by a machine. anyone can just google their symptoms online and get the management plan easily. but, with more and more medical schools mushrooming here in msia, i wonder if we will get enough training for our clinical skills. if we are competent next time. if we can do better than what a machine does.

but i do hope i can work like a machine now. recharge by plugging in and can work once fully charged. i am so tired already. zzz. 10 weeks to EOS. ohman! howtostudy7postingsalltogether.to handle the current posting is tough already, to revise the past postings are insane.

machines are good because they have no feelings. they are not emotionally attached to anyone.

but when they could not take it, they break down.

i really really hope things can end up in different way :(

its the kids!

yep, i am now in paeds! bye bye to bones, and here come the kids. first day in the paeds ward just made me miss my niece more. i am going to head down and meet her this weekend :)

just finished ortho and psy exam last week, rushed back to kuantan, not to rest, but to rush my 5case summaries. i remember seniors telling me during my phase1, semester5 is like walking in the park, and clinical sch is like running up mount k. to walk up to mount k is tough enough, i couldn't imagine running up. but i undstn how it feels now. i barely have time to breath before the new posting starts. and i foresee things will just keep coming and coming till feb next year.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. i want to go up to a mountain and scream my heart out. but i don't even have any energy left to climb up. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

i feel like going home again, eventhough i just went home over the weekend. i miss my parents. and the warmth at home. and most importantly, i dread coming back to my room, driving my car, passing by seremban town, coz it reminds me of somebody. blah.

i thought things could be better. but i was wrong :(

晴天雨天

下了好多场雨， 几时是天晴呢？

zzz

i have been having hypersomnia recently, which is like excessive daytime sleepiness everyday. sleep sleep sleep! i hope i can sleep all day long, but this is not possible. bah.

switched to female ortho ward this week. a pretty young girl in the ward caught everyone's attention. later then we know she was involved in the 101010 accident. the one who survived miraculously despite being crushed under the bus. she had a spine injury and it may be irreversible. and she is only 20 years old.

i don't know if its because of nn that made me feel this way for the girl. is it better to be like nn or to survive like this girl? what can she do now? what can she do for her future? it is heart wrenching to see her lying on the bed, and look up to ceiling hopelessly everyday.

she is one of the beds i am supposed to clerk. but i just didnt have the courage to talk to her. wanted to console her, motivate her, encourage her. but i just didnt do that. because i know i will be feeling far worse if i am in her shoes. she is stronger than me already.

when i look at her everyday, i asked myself, who I am to complain? I have no rights at all to complain.

for the very least, i can still walk.

balance

today, i went to Mcd in seremban parade. i sat there for 2 hours alone. observing the passerby-s - old people, young people, kids, teenagers, couples, families. it was such a strange feeling. i felt that i don't belong there. perhaps i was too indulged in studies, in hospital life, that i haven't been in touch with the real world out there.

lol. the kids remind me of my niece.

i kept asking myself, is it worth it to sacrifice so much to be a doctor, or more precise, to be a competent doctor? how much litres of tears, how much kgs of loneliness till the day i can actually achieve what i want.

should the heart listen to the brain or the brain should listen to the heart? being rational and disciplined can be so painful.

its saturday night. the song issues by The saturdays is just how i feel now.

'There's a part of me that won't let you go
Keep saying yes while my minds saying no
Me and my heart we got issues
Don't know if I should hate you or miss you'

But i know what i should do now from your reply.

brrrr~

the weather is like my mood now. brr. cold and moody. huuuuhuuuu. it has been raining like almost everyday now. and i haven't been running for ages, like almost a month since my 25km. i still have knee pain when i climb stairs. probably the meniscus/ligament problem.

bah bah. its 3rd week of ortho. and it doesnt feel like it. i don't think i know much about ortho. next week is going to be first viva, then second viva following week and followed by clinical exam and also end of posting papers for Psy and ortho. ah ah ah ah ah.stress is building up.

sometimes, i just miss having someone to lean on. but i also dread to wet the pillow before sleeping because i miss the someone.

bones. moans. groannnnsss.

约定

就这样三年又过了

我还是回到这个地方
闭上眼等你的出现
空气中吻你的脸
我还记得我们的约定

really, three years has passed. fast it may seem. the promise that was held is no longer valid. funny , memories between us kept popping up in my mind this few days. and as i looked through the pictures we had, as i read back your old blogposts, tears just rolled down.


something has changed. but something remains.

i know with time, wound will heal. but will the scar be gone?

maybe it's time to find out what has changed and what hasn't. i shouldn't think so much man.

50 things you should do before graduating

i was reading this, and it strikes me, how true it is.

out of the 50 things, i like the last line the most.

''This is the only time in your lives when your only real responsibility is to learn.''

so true. many of my friends are already working. thats when we are thrown into the real world. that time, our responsibility is not only to learn, but many other things as well.

so scary. i cannot imagine graduating in less than 2 years time. one question: would i be competent enough to serve? i hope i can answer proudly then :)

child

i was having child psychiatry this few days. and one conclusion that i can make, i am no good with kids. lol. i just cant connect with them laaa. i was supposed to clerk a 6 years old girl with selective mutism/speech refusal yesterday. and can u believe it, i actually felt like i was playing squash for that 30 mins! you know, its like you are talking to a wall and there was no response. lol.

there's only one explanation, i am way too mature already ;p

psy exam is next week, which means psy is ending soon. i think i sort of like psy wei. its something really different from medical, but its interesting, because it deals with human mind. i will miss the nice MO in the ward too, who guided us in such self directed learning environment. not forgetting the consultant too, who is so cool. so cool i tell u ;p

we were in methadone clinic today for our case presentation ( which i have presented very disorganised-ly) , and the class stretched from 1130 till 3pm. we were all starving to death. and the consultant told us, ' u guys can have some methadone' , and when we showed our stoned face, he continued to say, its expensive stuff wei. lol..k, nothing interesting. i just enjoy typing here than to type my case summary. its depressive to type a summary on a patient with depression in such a depressive night. zzz.

home is one week away. not sure if i can go back next week after exam, but i just wannaaa go home so much. bah bah bah. the thought of doing research makes me feel like puking. zzzz.

crab walking

i am walking like a crab now. whyy?

yes! i did my first 25km yesterday! cant believe it right? i cant believe myself too. i cant believe i sign up for such a crazy thing , when i am having such a crazy schedule already. 4 weeks of psy, that explains a lot right? lol..

anyway, it was a hell! first challenge, up and down hills. i have lost count on how many hills that i have painfully jogged up, and down. its countless. i could feel my gastrocnemius yelling in pain everytime i jog up a hill. nextly, the hot burning sun with no shades during the whole 25km route. i just kept pouring water on my arm and thigh in all the water stations to cool myself down. lol..

most important of all, i didnt do much training for this run. all these factors coupled with lack of preparation, it was just a plain torture running the 25km. well, i didnt exactly run the 25km continously, i just gave up and started walking at around 18km. and i walked under the hot sun for 7km. luckily, i found a walking partner along the route, mr azaidi, someone whom i just get to know yesterday. lol.. he made my last few km less boring.

that just made me miss having someone to run together with. someone that could push me hard.

and this applies to runs, and also my daily lives.

i rmb during my last 21km, we were so busy saying hi byes to our friends along the route, motivating each other when we bump into each other during the U turns, the 21km seem relatively easy. now, i don't bother to look at other runners. coz i know none of them, well, besides rm, who waited for me for so longggg..lol..

i miss doing things with friends together. running together. hiking together. studying together. practising csu together. or just simply sitting together in lecture hall together. all these simple things seem so impossible now. in clinical school, people are busy with their own things. even when we go out, it will be like rushing here there. haish.

anyway, i reached the finishing point veryyy late. lol. of course i didnt get a medal. but i was given the finishing tee. yay. at least something for all the sweats! i love the tshirt, eventhough its like so pinkish. lol..

thought disorder

studying psy with all the criteria listed for DSM IV or ICD 10 is frustrating. so many things under one topic. i guess if someone is going to do mental status examination on me, it will be as bad as someone who is having dementia. huhuu.

as i was driving, it occurred to me, all the names for the diseases are named by none other than us, human. either name after the doctor who discovered the pattern of it, or name after the first patient in which the symptoms are found.

so funny. we find a pattern of disease, gather the pattern, compare it, and come out with weird names for each of them. eg.. schizophrenia. wonder how they came out with the name. lol.

the patients in the psy ward here is different from other wards. i mean, yes, of course the disease they have is different from those in medical wards. what i meant was that, here, most of the patients think they are alright. and true enough, most of them are perfectly healthy, physically.

unlike the patients in other wards who suffered from all the physical symptoms who wants to get well.here, they think they are well. and they really don't understand why they are kept here in the ward. if you see the condition in the ward, no one who is sane would want to stay there for a night.

but seeing them made me realise that anything can happen to anyone. these patients made me laugh, some of them made me tear. i felt my deep empathy towards one of the patients whom i met few weeks ago. she graduated from a prestigious uni in Sg , currently in her second sem for masters. all of the sudden, she just changed, presented with all the symptoms of schizophrenia. her mom showed me her family portrait during her graduation, it was a happy family. she looked so happy, so cheerful. now, the only word that i can use to describe is miserable. she felt miserable, didnt understand why she was kept in the ward.

suddenly, i am scared. what if this happen to me? i know this may sound childish or whatever you call it, but i am really scared.

sadly, the stigma is still present.