I've chomped off my locks for this boyish do. Reasons? I feel restricted by my long hair, always obligated to keep it shiny and off my face... and it's progressively getting very dry because of my swimming.



I'm planning to join Mercy Malaysia for a medical camp next month along the Salt Trail, but it worries me just going through the itinery. Daily treks of up to 7km... and participants have to undergo some sort of physical before the camp. I'm so unfit at the moment. I'm thinking of intensifying my swimming and walking everywhere, including 5 flights of stairs everyday to get up and down the hospital.

Wish me luck.

Life and work is very routine in this department... let me rephrase, work. Not much of a life at the moment because I finish work around 8.30-9pm everyday. And calls can be pretty bad, especially in the labour room. Luckily I'm only doing 2 calls a week with the current number of HOs.

I'm up at 5am to wash my hair. Was too tired last night. Crazy day yesterday. 2 colleagues were absent because of MC, so another colleague and I were left to fend for ourselves in a ward of almost 100 patients. Luckily there were 2 taggers around to help us with blood-taking.

And I iniatiated my first "red alert" yesterday. One lady was bleeding pervaginally post-partum for 2-3 days, but just had to collapse during my rotation. I was mortified to see a huge pool of fresh blood on her bed when I examined her, and when I parted her thighs to check, literally fresh blood poured from her vagina. A lot. and her BP was in a dropping trend. Hence the red alert. She was immediately wheeled into the OT for a hysterectomy, and she used up all the type "O" blood in the hospital, causing probably 2-3 elective caesarean sections this morning to be postpone.

I got home almost 10pm last night. And today I'm oncall. Another 36hrs straight of working.

But I'm still euphoric really from my dive on Sunday. I was most amazed at the visibility of the water of Pulau Sapi, almost 8-10m, compared to the 3-4m I used to experienced diving back home. And the colourful fish and corals and one nudibranch, vibrant blue and black. Heaven. And I almost unwittingly touched a stingray on the ocean bed, if not for my very alert dive leader. :)

Got to stop here. Already 6.02am. Work starts 6.30am. It's a 20mins drive.

Thanks Davi and Bren for comments. My HP pocket PC has been quite lovely really. I'm more organized now.

I have decided to apply to work in the district after my internship, after a lot of soul-searching and concluding that I just didn't want to miss out the opportunity of a lifetime to work in a district setting. After all, I'm not in the hurry to do my specialization. And I chose the busiest district in Sabah, rationalizing that if I don't eventually like working in the district, the busy life would help me pass time. My other colleagues thought that district would buy them some time before deciding what they wanted to do for the rest of their lives.

Working so far has been ok. If I were to focus on the positive points, I would say that I'm pretty happy. I love the simplicity of the field of obs and gynae, and the camaraderie of the interns working against the evil forces of healthy population boom and "blaming culture" of the department here. I have 2 challenges for myself in this posting. To not lose my temper against all the unbooked pregnant ladies for the duration of my posting, and to keep as low profile as I possibly can in this department. Working here is like a maximum security facility, where inmates in Guantanamo Bay have more human rights.

Calls can be pretty bad in terms of the number of patients coming in, but because there would be 2-3 of us working at the same station per call, we have come up with a system so that each of us get to snooze for an hour or 2, unless if the admissions were crazy. During my last call 2 nights ago, I had to deliver a baby in the elevator! I ran to the elevator when someone screamed, thinking that someone collapsed, only to find a pregnant woman lying down on her back in the lithotomy position in the elevator. The nurses ran to the labour room to get hold of a sterile delivery set, but the baby couldn't wait. Both baby and mum were ok after the drama.

I'm taking a diving refresher course today, and I hope to join some trips in the next few weeks, depending on my calls. I forgot to mention that in O&G, we are oncall even though we are not technically oncall. They would just call you up at the very last minute to ask to go down to work. Yes, very shitty. Because this department is run by pretty shitty people, really.

So what else is new with me? I got myself a HP pocket PC which I love so much! It's also my phone and camera. And I get go online during the boring and stupid daily department meetings.

Thank you dear friends for your well wishes!

My grandpa is finally with grandma and our doggies in heaven.


Found this old photo of Grandpa dancing with me... not much recollection of grandpa growing up except for his love of doggies, hearty appetite & sporadic but delightful sense of humour. He was bed-bound for almost a decade after a stroke.


The passing of a patriarch...


Will probably never see this shophouse anymore after this...

Some pics from the week-long wait and funeral of grandpa: