Dear Friend.....

When two people have shared

as much as you and I have;

When they've opened up

their hearts,

shared their dreams,

thoughts, and fears;

When two people

Know each other well enough

To know if sadness

is hiding behind a smile

or if happiness is glowing in the eyes;

When they've shared

so many laughs,

and when each other's pain

at times has triggered tears;

When two people

believe in one another

and are always sincere

to each other;

When they've trusted

one another with the truth

that lies within -

Then you can be sure

that they are friends for life...

Just like you and me.

- Zoe Dellous

Remember this dae? It was my birthday present from you a few years back..... It has been one of the best so far. I'm really glad we met up today. Missed u loads.....

My weekend off!

I finally got my weekend off! :D After working continuously for two weeks! Yeah! And all three days off! Haha..... The little things in life to rejoice about! This is something that I'm never gonna get in a long time to come so better make full use of it. Haha.....

Met up with the girls yesterday after almost 5 months! It was really good to see you da kannas! I still cant believe how excitable we are even after all these years! Haha..... Nothing much has changed since Crescent times in that sense. Catching up was great ya guys..... Hope to c u pple soon. :)

I'm truly rejoicing every minute of my 'holiday'. Haha

Worth

One forwarded email that I received:

A well-known speaker started off his seminar by: holding up a $20.00 bill In the room of 200, he asked, 'Who would like this $20 bill?' Hands started going up. He said, 'I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this. He proceeded to crumple up the $20 dollar bill . He then asked, 'Who still wants it?' Still the hands were up in the air. Well, he replied, 'What if I do this?' And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty. 'Now, who still wants it?' Still the hands went into the air. My friends, we have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value.

It was still worth $20.

Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value. Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless to those who DO LOVE you. The worth of our lives comes not in what we do or who we know, but by WHO WE ARE and WHOSE WE ARE. You are special - Don't EVER forget it.' If you do not pass this on, you may never know the lives it touches, the hurting hearts it speaks to, or the hope that it can bring. Count your blessings, not your problems.

'And remember: amateurs built the ark .... professionals built the Titanic.

1st call

I survived my first call!

Actually on the whole, it was a very good call by all measures. I had 8 admissions and managed to get 2 hours of sleep.

But I was really dying in the middle of call. Most of my admissions came in from 4pm to 12pm and i think out of 8, 5 went into high dependency ward and required lots of urgent investigations. I probably became tbe On-call radiologist's new found enemy. Was calling him every half an hour to arrange for urgent scans for different patients. And in addition, I was constantly running to and fro from A&E to the wards. I was pretty slow too I guess. Was kinda lost initially and ended up getting pushed around between A&E staff and ward staff. Sighz..... Only managed to find time to change into scrubs around 2am in the morning.

And on top of all these, I was having a horrible headache. I skipped dinner cos there was no time, which made the headache even worse. Managed to get ponstan from one of the ward nurses and took the meds after a cup of milo, only to throw everything up a while later. Felt slightly better after throwing up but the headache got worse +++ . But had to settle an urgent referral of a patient to another specialist immediately so dragged myself to the ward, hoping I wont end up collapsing along the corridors requiring resuscitation. . Felt like running away from hospital. For the first time I had regrets. I started thinking about whether this was what I wanted to do after all. Was really at breaking point by then. Finally decided that I really needed a break after settling the blue letter i.e. referral letter. Met Belle in the wards as I was getting another cup of milo from the vending machine. Thanks Belle for sitting down with me for a while even when your call was getting really busy! Yep, so went to lie down for abt 20 min after that before proceeding on to finish up the rest of the changes. Felt a lot better after that.....

Finished clerking and changes around 3.30. Updated the list for the next day and went to bed. My MO's sms to me before I went to get some sleep: Hope to see you only at rounds in the morning! Haha.....

Managed to get about 2 hours of sleep unlike the passive HO whose phone was ringing every ten minutes as he desperately tried to get some sleep.

I was really glad to have a very supportive MO. It was harder in the earlier part of the evening as she was operating and I was all on my own. Things got slightly better after she came down.

I guess on the whole, I take it as a personal achievement for surviving through this call. Even though having only 8 admissions is considered a luxury +++.

I bumped into one of the patients I saw during my call in the wards this morning.

"Hey doctor, u stay the whole night is it? Whoa, u must be tired ah! Go and rest ok. Oh ya, thanks for taking care of me yesterday ah. My pain is a lot better now. Thanks ah doctor! " (even though it was my reg who prescribed the meds which relieved the pain. haha.....)

All that suffering during the call didnt go to waste.....

1st week at work

Drained, Demoralised and Dejected

And my hopes of getting this weekend off - something that I was looking forward to from the start of the week - were dashed today. Had lots of plans that I was so eagerly looking forward to..... sighz

Lessons learnt in the 1st week:
1) One bowl of cornflakes can actually last me from 5am in the morning till 10pm at night. Amazing yea?

2) Being able to spend more than 3 hours at home (excluding sleeping time) is a luxury. (My routine for the past week: Wake up - bathe - eat - work - back home - bathe - eat - sleep)

3) Scoldings are a part and parcel of life. Learning to smile and to move on with the rest of day as per normal after a bout of scolding is an essential skill.

And this is just the 1st week.

Actually it hasn't been that bad. I mean, my workload is pretty decent compared to a lot of others. I guess today hasnt been that great a day.

Just gotta start afresh tmr. Let bygones be bygones. No point feeling down and depressed - it aint gonna help.

Oh well, I will survive, or so hope.

May 2nd

It's May 2nd tmr. Start of working life officially. The day I was looking forward to since I set foot into medical school 5 years ago. It's been a long journey and now I'm finally here at the end, or rather at the beginning of it all.

I'm happy, excited but at the same time, there's a good amount of apprehension lingering at the back of my mind. Maybe it's the one week of scary stories that is taking its toll. I dont know.

Yesterday was Dean's office's orientation programme for us, the incoming housemen. One of the seniors spoke to us about her experience as a house officer. She has spoken to us many times before - at the various milestones of medical school i.e. start of clinical years, year 5 and now the start of housemanship. Her talks have always been very inspiring and yesterday's one was no exception. It amazing how she always manages to keep her spirits up and be so positive about everything.

As I listened to her speech and later recited the Physician's pledge with the rest of the class, I was just thinking. About what being a doctor means to me at the end of 5 years in medical school. I remember being asked this question at my medical interview. "What does being a doctor mean to you?" And i remember saying this - Being a doctor means someone who can care and comfort even when he's not able to cure. It must have sounded damn cliche to the interviewers but i truly said this before i heard of the existance of the motto "to cure sometimes, to relieve often and to comfort always".

Now as i'm about to start this journey, all I hope is that I'm able to live up to what I said. And on top of all these, Primum non nocere ( do no harm). I hope I do justice to the 'DR' in front of my name. It's not going to be easy, but I'm gonna try my best.....