Happy Mothers' Day!

My family's Mothers' Day celebration is postpone to next weekend. :)



My mum is so pretty!



Thank you for having us, whether you like it or not. :)



Love you mum!

Life goes on!

My new hair. I love. But cost me a bomb. Now I can wake up in the middle of the night during oncalls still looking fabulous. :) On top of the new image it gives me, it's so ridiculously manageable.



Mostly good reviews. Dad said it makes my nose look bigger, but more modern. DAD! And the nose is from you!



Muahahaha!!!

In chirpy mood. Just 1 more week of paeds. And I'm making a short trip home next week before starting my new posting! So happy!!!

Bowel-prepping myself for laksa, kueh chap, chau chai hunam & kolo mee!

Enjoying myself in KK. Eating, shopping, occasional swim (but suspended at the moment because of my hair) and now quite determine to pick up squash again.

Work is ok at this juncture because I'm more familiar with paeds. Kids and mothers like me for some reason unknown to me.



Great and fun new acquintances! I'm laughing all the time! I just realized that there's just so much humour in my field. :)



Taken in one of the many afternoon department CMEs...



What HOs do best...

EOD calls

EOD calls, originally uploaded by sharonhappymorgue.

I have 11 freaking calls this month. I'm so tired that after 4 consequetive EOD calls, I can seriously see myself aged in the mirror.

Countdown: 39 days

protest, originally uploaded by sharonhappymorgue.

Paul and Dida dear, my next posting is Obstetrics & Gynaecology. Not my fav, but I like the system here because 2-3 HOs do calls together in the same ward on same day, unlike in Paeds, so it's not too dull. And we get to order McD from the nearby drive-thru. They would only send if we order minimum of RM30/-.

HOs are scapegoats for anything wrong in this department, we get several weekends free throughout our 4-month posting. So nice.

The setback, my housemate who's currently in O&G told was that I would thoroughly hate pregnant women.

Don't care. Not that I like neonates that much anyways.

Have to stay up tonight to prepare for my big presentation tomorrow. So dumb.

I want to eat salmon sushi. Tomorrow la.

Some updates

My broadband was down for 2 miserable weeks. Got it back today. Apparently something wrong with the port, so some techician came to fix it.

Sorry guys for not replying any email and comments.


Last week my car died in the middle of the busiest road in KK on a Friday evening. I was post-call and extremely tired from EOD calls that whole week. Needlees to say I caused the traffic jam to be more jammed that day. Had to get a tow truck to pull my poor car to the garage.

But I got to ride in a tow truck, hence the pic. :)



My call list for this month. Looks better than last month's. So happy. No EODs.

Have to give a big presentation this Thurs for the whole department. Something on beta-thalassaemia major. No internet for the last 2 weeks was hell. So spent the whole day online for resources.

Have to get to the hospital early tomorrow. Have to escort an infant to Queen Elizabeth Hospital for MRI. Leaving Likas Hospital at 7am.

Countdown to finishing paediatric posting: 43 days.

Back in action.

Long hiatus.

My break home was too short. :( Miss my family.

This weekend I'm having no calls! Can you believe that?! I've been having weekend calls for the last 3 months, except for the one week that I went back to Kuching.

So deliriously and dizzily happy.

That I spent a bomb on an iPod Nano. It's gorgeous! Despite all the vibrant colour choices, I settled for the classy-looking white one and bought a leather pouch to complete the classy look.

I can't be looking like teenager kan?

Regreted initially for burning my 2 months savings, but after my very succesful blood-taking from 3 neonates this morning, I was convinced that the iPod was a good thing.

Don't ask me how I made that connection. I was listening to Eric Clapton I think when I the 3 babies' blood effortlessly. :)

Which meant I could go home around 10.30am this morning!

Did laundry, washed my bathroom, cleaned my room a little, and then spent the whole day downloading songs! Now I'm hooked! Didn't even study for my upcoming exam on Friday!

Bad. Bad.

LimeWire is a pretty cool file sharing programme.

Having a cup of coffee now. Intend to study a little tonight.

Will be oncall tomorrow (Monday), Wednesday and Sunday this week. :(

My only motivation for my oncalls now is to earn the extra $$$ to buy new toys.

Thinking of getting a new camera. :)

Whatever for now that I rarely take pictures?

Maybe a new laptop since I'm online most of the time when I'm not working.

Good night!

No AGE can stop me from enjoying my holiday

I'm back in beautiful and clean Kuching!

I almost didn't make it back Saturday morning. Had the worst bout of diarrhoea Friday night which drained (literally) the life out of me.

That's why I hate paeds. I was warned to be ready for frequent URTIs (Upper Respiratory Tract Infections) and AGEs (Acute Gastroenteritis). I was boasting to my other colleagues just 2 days before my diarrhoea that I was immuned as I was healthy even after 5 weeks of paeds.

So stupid to speak so soon.

But the worst is over. I had my 1st bowl of Kuching laksa this morning, only after the 3rd morning home. I was bedbound the first 2 days and couldn't keep any food down.

Mum was even hesistant to let me eat laksa this morning, but I argued my way out of it. ")

Don't care.

Pictures from Tuaran Crocodile Farm

A break

Tuaran, originally uploaded by sharonhappymorgue.

Took a break this afternoon and visited Tuaran with Wilhma, a district town some 40mins from KK. Was there a couple of years back during my very first trip to Sabah. We dropped by the Tuaran Crocodile Farm on the way back. Fed some ostriches in the farm. More pics later. Have to sleep early. I'm oncall again tomorrow. Stupid NICU call again. Argh.

Good news is: I'M GOING BACK TO KUCHING THIS SATURDAY! FOR 1 WHOLE WEEK!

Happy Piggy Year!

Was oncall CNY eve, so today post-call. A little too tired to write. So here are some nice shots I took over the week.

Happy New Year! Piggies are cute. :)


CNY fair at Gaya Street... can get all sort of CNY goodies here.


Gorgeous lanterns!


Visited Wilhma (2nd from left) for CNY...


The night market...


A view of Queen (short, affectionate name we give the hospital) from my car... miss her so much!


I live in Penampang.


A dashing-looking cat at Lintas.

Paitan

I made the best decision in months by volunteering to go for a relief mission in Paitan, some 6hours journey from KK last Friday.

Not only I got the change of environment that I strived for initially, but I also felt so alive after months of what I would describe as aimlessness and mundanity after I started working.

There's more to life than waking up early and just working brainlessly. Yeah, there's more to life than being a houseman.

Enjoy the pictures and wish me luck. I'm oncall in Neonatal ICU tomorrow. So freaking scared. All those reptilian-like babies.

The Time Capsule

I have a persistent headache (the sound of babies crying nagging inside my head).

Didn't exactly have a bad call, but you know it's bad also when you get to "sleep" but get woken up periodically throughout the night. The end result is fatigue the next day.

Last night I was awoken several times to attend to several leukaemic children who had spiking fevers.

I could only offer them paracetamol and several minutes of my time of a fairly thorough physical, and maybe a septic work-up, if really indicated. All that more for the extremely worried parents than for the children. And also some reassurance.

The recovery ward/oncology ward in the daytime is like a happy playground from hell. Children wearing masks running around with balloons and dangerous-looking toys, screaming and chasing each other along the cold-looking hospital corridor.

They would be running into me and their remote controlled cars getting into my way.

Though it's the most lepak call in paeds, it's been quite stressful for me. Hence, the headache.

One child was screaming so loud that I was awoken from my sleep around 2am in the HO oncall room at the end of the ward. I got up and started looking for the child. I tracked the crying right up to the other end of the corridor in the procedure room.

The nurses were trying to set a new IV line for the child because her old one got bunked. And she was crying hysterically. I'm sure the whole ward got woken up.

Anyways, I'm getting the hang of paeds. I'll be still in general paeds until the end of this week then I'll be in neonatal ward I think. I'll be oncall there this coming Saturday. Need to tag someone there again before my call. Have to go through the arterial line thingy and on how to set up TPN.

---

I'm missing surgery less and less now, so that feeling of heaviness is also bothering me less. I'm also missing Mr. V less. 1 month of cold turkey is cruel but thankfully effective.

---

I'm online now to do a little research for my "Time Capsule" presentation on Near-death experience. Sounds interesting doesn't it? It's something my paeds head of department likes to do... he would be scribbling some stuff on a piece of paper during meetings or CMEs and then at the end of the gathering, he would assign some random subjects to HOs to read-up on and make a 10mins presentation the following week.

One of my colleagues got "Turtles of Sabah"! It was hilarious when he was assigned that topic because I knew he was not the kind into animals and the environment. He was a smoking, thrash-talking, kick the damn cat/dog kind of person. So I can't wait for him to talk about the beautiful and endangered turtle species of Sabah.

If he had his ways, he would be going, "Kill all the fucking tutles!"

:D Padan muka.

Another colleague is supposed to talk on abdominal pregnancy, another on handphone technology and another on van Gogh. Interesting...

I'm not sure he's doing this to check on us new HOs (because I was told that he's into public speaking) or he's into this general knowledge for doctors thingy.

Either way, I like it. :) Reminds me of Mr. V when he was asking us whether the Starling in Frank-Starling Law of the Heart and the Starling in Starling forces of haemodynamics were the same person.

They were. I did a little research on this guy and all his works, but what struck me most was that he was not well-liked during his time because he was loud and openly opposed to the then practiced empiricality. He fought for evidence-based medicine.

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Good night!

Virgin call

So far so good my savings plan except for the occasional binging sessions I have with my girlfriends. Food in KK not cheap ok. I just had a RM50 Japanese dinner, which could have been petrol money for at least 5 days.

But when it comes to food, I don't skimp. :) Food too important.

So far it's been a roller-coaster ride in paeds. I'm in the acute cubicle, so it's really crazy. And the fact that I'm new, it's extra stressful. Scoldings from my MOs and Specialist. It's not really scolding scolding. It's nagging scolding with a pinch of sarcasm and a teaspoon of irritation. It's less nurturing in this department, but the workload is bearable.

At the begining of the week I was feeling a little more motivated after getting the hang of blood-taking and managing some of the common acute cases.

Then yesterday a neonate 30+ days of life came to the ward in respiratory distress. Born to an illegal immigrant mother with no antenatal check-up. Delivered at home, no Vit. K given. Non-immunized. While resuscitating, blood oozed out from her endotracheal tube.

Haemorrhagic disease of the newborn.

Bedside ultrasound showed intraparenchymal bleed in the brain.

I don't recall exactly how long we resuscitated, but the baby died.

Though it was heartbreaking to see the child died quite horribly with her bruised chest wall (from resuscitation) and blood oozing from her nose, as I drew 10ml of blood from her heart for culture, I was quite excited to have experienced my first neonatal resuscitation in real time.

That excitement didn't translate well to my mum though when I called her to tell her the events of my day, after more than a week of not calling home.

"It's quite exciting today mum. A baby died and I got to do resuscitation on her!"

A moment of unusual silence.

"That's disturbing. " my mum finally replied.

Damn. I didn't mean that way la. It's just that I usually like to focus on the positive side of things, because in my field, we see bad things or heroic things, on a daily basis. We need to know how to balance things up.

I'll be having my virgin call in paeds tomorrow. 4th call. The most lepak call. Happy. And Saturday calls are better than Sunday calls.

It's only 9pm, but my eyes are losing thier focusing power, and I'm yawning 4-5 times/min. I need sleep.