i may have mild depression. though i really dont think so. since there doesnt seem to be any triggering factors.

moodswings

I want to live a simple life, hopefully often filled with happy days, with the occasional ups and downs. Its doesn’t have to be the kind of mindless absolute incredible happiness, but I wouldn’t mind if this occurs once a while. I need my peace, the simple pleasure I get from just hanging out with my family, seeing my friends. Laughing with them. Chatting with them. Doing things with them. I need people to understand I am who I am, please accept me just the way I am. I may be incredibly stupid, true I can’t find my way around, I get lost countless number of times, I don’t know the way to a lot of places, but this is what I am. Please understand my fears, my stresses, understand and accept them.

I want to get back to the days I used to remember, where life wasn’t extremely easy to get by but at least there wasn’t roller coaster rides just once too often. I get tired. Tired of feeling frustrated, angry, upset, pissed off, stressed, indignant. Tired of all these negative feelings. I want to be at peace, happy.

Sometimes I wish life was really simple. Not too many expectations, less demands. No arguments, no upsets, no tiffs, no misunderstandings. It just makes me feel really really drained.

fond memories

Time flies, it’s the last day of hols! I don’t really feel rested to tell the truth. And I don’t feel like I have played enough. One week is simply too short!!!

Starting my psychomed posting, quite excited actually since I have always been interested in psychiatry… hee. But yar this also marks the first time in 16 weeks that I would be seeing unfamiliar faces. Its funny how long ago it seems like when I just got to know my new cg… and yet that part of my life has come to an end and I am moving on. Everyone is moving on.

Boohoo. Having spent 16 weeks with Esther, Eugene, Philey, its going to be hard trying not to miss their presence. Especially since we have such mo qi! First at AH, when xinxin and nana were still with us, then at sgh, when it was just the four of us. It was really sad when xinxin and nana left us and went to ttsh for med, but it was through these 2 months at sgh that I really got to know the three of them better.

Esther: my ex-rv clsmate, whom I used to not know very well, but kept bumping into since I came into med! She was the interviewee in the same room just before me! Haha. And it took me this long to discover that we are actually really similar in our thinking and the food we eat (or rather, those that we don’t… muahaa!) In my rv days, I have always thought that she was quite different from me, cos we hang out with different crowds.. I was the nerdier one hee! But somehow, it seems like I was wrong all this while! And woah don’t be fooled by her innocent look! Theres a side of her that’s really really funny, and she’s really cheeky too! But yar this may be due to the bad influence of Eugene lah… =P and yes! Almost as greedy as me for all things chocolate and durianish! But I often wonder why I am twice her size… *bewildered* ahha always salivate whenever we passed by the display case on polar café… over the yummy-looking choc cake! And always try ways and means to find an excuse to buy the cake… like whoever’s bdae it its, she will just perk up and offer to buy the cake! Haha too bad we didn’t succeed though… alas. And she’s my great protector! Whenever philey tries to stress me up or disturb me, esther the peaceful will morph into esther the tigress! Makes me rather touched actually… hehe.

Eugene: best remembered as my og-mate who was often MIA due to erhmm!!! His pak-toh sessions with esther during medicamp!! So didn’t really got to know him that well during that time… now that I do! Well, he is really funny and crappy lah. And really really sweet to esther! But the funny thing is, people don’t feel uncomfortable hanging out with them alone leh. At least I don’t, though I tend to feel awkward when I am alone with couples! And Eugene is really nice, not just to esther but to all his friends too!! Having survived thaibetes with him, its like having gone through a terrible war! Had numerous occasions when we just had to keep asking ppl what horrible experiences they had with thaibetes until we were both so dejected and disgusted that we didn’t want to study for our test anymore…oh well when faced with a horrible tester its always better to have a gd friend taking it with you than ur worst enemy lah.

Philey: more or less my constant clerking partner (except on the rare occasions when we having cold wars haha!) well this guy is really a social animal, except he seems to be a sincere social animal! Really good at making new friends, be it the secretaries or the tutors, and esp the aunties in the wards seem to adore him! Not me though. Haha! We are like yuan jia, have to fight oh on average thrice a week at least! Cos smhow he likes to irritate me! Haha ok mebbe I am being biased lah. But he tends to evoke the worst in me, such that I can be really mean to him. Hee. Thinking bad feel quite bad, but hey! My mean-ness wasn’t totally unwarranted. But he is actually a great friend lah. At the end of the day we will still be friends (after our cold wars). Will miss my daily scolding session with him; I scold he listens. Haha! Its become quite a daily habit already…

Many many fond memories… like the four of us pretending to be jugglers and getting into formation, then with a “1,2,3… throw!” we will fling our tendon-tappers towards each other and catch it skillfully with a flair that the circus performers will turn green with envy over (yar rite). We do this everywhere! And we are really quite good at this! Haha. And the numerous times they sat in my car and totally went berserk over my mashi maro… fighting over it like kids, and trying to do REALLY weird things to it. like making it dance and trying to PR it (tts Eugene!), and stealing my mashi’s great woolly hat and wearing it to class in sgh (philey of course…) gosh. Quite embarrassing really. Most occasions esther n I would have to avert our eyes. Haha… and the guys have this funny jiggly tummy-bumping dance they do whenever they feel happy! And we have unedited footage of one of their numerous wrestling sessions in the students’ lounge…

Oh well. Really do hope that we will keep in touch even though we have all gone our separate ways… its really not easy to have met a random grouping whereby everyone is just so much on my wavelength and so fun to be with! Will miss our lan sessions, mass ban-mian eating sessions (the auntie recognizes us and even gives us extra ikan bilis!), ice-cream sessions! will really miss these guys lots... =/

my date with thaibetes

Woah. Been such a long long time since I blogged!!! And sooooo much has happened since then. Medicine posting came and went, new friends made and farewells said. And yes, it hasn’t been the best 2 months I have had in my life but hey! Sure makes a deep impression in my mind.

Of course I must first relate my horror story of my encounter of the one and only kind with the famous thaibetes (for the privileged few who knows this infamous household name that is guaranteed to strike fear in the boldest hearts).

Now when I was once a rookie medical student new to the wards, I thought nothing can be worse than having a certain woman-hater as my tester. How wrong I was! Didn’t realize the errors of my ways until I received the name of my med posting tester. Hai. More famous than the woman-hater! And yet I had thought that I was ready to take on the world after surviving that ordeal.

Past history of thaibetes (as garnered from more than 10 medical students from yr3 to yr 5, registrars and a few consultants): high failure rate especially for MBBS final yr exams. Terror. Mean. Gave a myasthenia gravis case for an eclinics test. Purportedly gave addison’s disease case to another. Wants everything to be quantified. Must mug diabetes, pet subject of said tutor. Die die also must do fundoscope! Aiyo why so unlucky u got thaibetes!!! And from my own sgh tutor: *eyes popping out and suddenly straigtening from her chair* WHAT!?!! U got ….?!?!!?

Haha so it was with all these horror stories armed in hand that eugene and I stepped into The Ward yesterday at 9.10am. Trembling. Pallor noted. and thaibetes made her appearance at 9.27am.

She brought me to a lady, and left me with the words: this lady came in for a problem, but I do not wish you to focus on that problem. I want you to focus on other things.

And with this cryptic message, she left me.

10 minutes into my clerking time, I was all ready to scream. Yes. The patient presented with myalgia and diarrhea, and her comorbidities simply stretched on and on. Exactly which one is the one thaibetes wanted me to focus on!?! There simply wasn’t enough time to get a full history of all her current illnesses, which include hypertension, diabetes, cushing’s disease (wow disease leh, not syndrome...), IHD, menorrhagia and the list goes on.

With 10 minutes to spare, I did the impossible. Did physical examination for diabetes, cushing’s, cvs, resp, and abdo all within the ten minutes. With fundoscopy thrown in for good measure. Was starting to take the blood pressure when Eugene called me to report to her.

The nightmare began when I started presenting my past medical history.

“What?! What do you mean by past medical history?! You mean the patient has been cured?! She does not have this problem currently?!”

Profuse apologies and a humbled look.

“Wait. I thought you mentioned she was admitted from the cvs clinic! Shouldn’t you tell me about her IHD before starting on her diabetes!!!”

Which would have been what I usually would have done, except that the patient was NOT admitted for any hear problems, she just mentioned to her dr in passing that she has had a fever for the past 3 days.

And it all went downhill from that point in time. Instead of allowing me to present my history to her, she directed specific questions to me like “so does she have ____?”

And she ended her grilling by telling me “why do I have to dig all these out from you! Why can’t you just have volunteered the information yourself!!!”

I wish I could have too dr, if only you had allow me to present.

More scoldings: why didn’t you ask whether she noticed any darkening of her skin in recent months?! Isn’t it obvious you should have asked that since you know she has got cushing’s disease!

Well dr, basically she has got one zillion comorbidities, I simply couldn’t have asked about every single thing within that 20 minutes… *sob*

The rest of the test passed in a blur. I was shell-shocked, sitting in a chair in front of her just by the patient’s bed, while she took her time slaughtering me slowly and gleefully. I was in a daze. I usually pride myself in being able to keep my calm and remain in control however bed the examiner is, but I lost it this time. Not so much because I was scared of her, but she made me fell like the stupidest girl alive. She made me doubt how I even made it into med sch. It didn’t help that her most-used phrase to me was “I chop off your head ah!!! You say that again!!!” yep. Certainly not a morale booster was it. In my confounded state, I blurted out a murmur different from what I heard in my less than 1 minute exam of the cvs system.

And she moved in for the kill.

Ranted and raved, asked me how I can possibly tie up my cvs findings. Then issued the ultimatum “Now I am giving you one last chance, if you don’t do this correctly I am going to FAIL YOU!!!!! I am giving you ten minutes to examine this patient’s cvs, and it would be treated as your long case!!!”

Ok dr, does that mean I have to examine the peripheries as well? (and I thought it was a perfectly reasonable question; apparently not)
She went bonkers.

“Go to the CORE!!!! The CORE!!! Why would you bother about the peripheries!!! Now you want to confirm your murmur!!!!”

Okok I get the picture.

To tell the truth I was feeling rather mutinous already. If she was going to fail me I don’t see the point in trying to salvage a mudslide-like sticky situation I was stuck in. Quagmire I was sinking fast in. But I told myself: why should I be intimidated. I just show her my examination techniques and that’s it.

Alas. I forgot to listen for radiation of the murmur to the axilla, and hastily did it while the patient was sitting up. Naturally this brought on another barrage of scoldings regarding my incompetency. More “I-chop-off-your-head”s!!!!

Ah well. It was rather comforting that she ended with “I will pass you, but barely.” Hee.

Second short case was less frightening. I was told to examine the upper limbs and perform any other tests that I can think of to comfirm my diagnosis.

Ahhh. Cogwheel rigidity!!! Yay! Parkinson’s!!!!! *heart sings with joy*

After doing the relevant tests, I told the dr: I would like to walk the patient.

This brought on an unexpected onslaught of incredulity and she looked at me as though I was crazy.

“What!!!! Why do you want to walk the patient!! You mean u have finished EVERYTHING that you want to do!!!! You mean you can’t come to a diagnosis even with all you have done!!!”

(wondering what wrong I have committed again…) “erm yes I mean NO!!! I am very sure about my diagnosis but I would like to confirm or exclude it by walking the patient.”

This seems to calm her a little, and discussion followed as to why it was Parkinson’s and not some cerebellar problem. Whew.

And yet, my post-test discussion with Eugene revealed startling inconsistencies. She actually scolded him for not walking the patient, and yet she scolded me for wanting to walk the patient!!!

Tiens.


But you know, it is not such a totally bad experience after all. I do think that she is an extremely smart dr and she probably excelled when she was a medical student. I sort of realized how important it is to link everything together into one nice puzzle, instead of simply clerking blindly and getting this really detailed history without knowing what to do with it. I know I am not as terrible as she made me out to be, but I am not brilliant as well. True true a part of me felt that her expectations were too high for a mere yr 3 standard, but hey! Someday I would have to be able to reason everything through on my own. Haha all these are easy to say now that I have had time to nurse my post-test 8 hr migraine and to whine about this to countless people.

I realized I do respect her. Although I am envious of other luckier students who had more of a tutorial with all their nice nice tutors, at least I managed to get through this without shedding any tears. Whew. It was really a totally nasty experience though. And ridiculous for a test to last for 3.5 hrs! But yar. Her advice is very true. At the end of year 5, this is the standard I must be at. Oh gosh. What a scary thought.

Through all these, really glad to have the support of my family!!! And especially my CG who came down to support us even though they already had their tests… and all my seniors and clsmates who wished me luck! Not forgetting the classmates in The Ward who wished us luck, although I didn’t even know some of them… ah.

Advice to future generations:

I survived Thaibetes. So can you.