My Next Weekend

morning...

...day break

...evening break (胡夏won by the way)

...oh shit.

So. This is my average weekend in a nutshell. Terrible I am. I guess I generally do get some work done in the morning but after that I feel so accomplished and think I can take a short break and do the same amount in the afternoon then take another short break and finish off my aim at night but I never get such 2nd winds. Once I take a break there is not turning back.

So many committments/obligations so little time D:

My Weekend...

I think this is the 1st time I am experiencing the emotional side of Medicine. The part that appears in dramas and the stuff that appears in 'Ethics Week' and where I think, "obviously I know and accept that this is part of the package in Medicine, why the hell is everyone harping on about such obvious stuff?". But cliche and emo though this may be, mad/denial/sad/sick/dying/know-they-are-dying people are always sad to handle and none of all that warning and drama serials and Ethics Weeks can prepare girls for this until we experience it for ourselves. Frankly, I pride myself on being able to become a robot at will and really, being quite emotionless and stone-hearted when I need to be. However, I guess having the knowledge of how badly damaged a person really is does get to me.

I told a few people about a recent incident where we saw 2 grown men cry when their father was diagnosed with super late stage cancer. The old man was a frail little twig who was by then, too weak to walk on his own, but he was still so funny! Ok I think I found him funny coz he had my sense of humour where he would make stupid comments but with a neutral tone and a completely straight face and people had to take a few seconds to register the sentence. Or maybe he was actually a bit confused. Or was too weak to be more expressive. Anyway. That made the scene all the more sad because his sons were crying, but were also half-laughing at his comments and patting his head at the same time. I felt I had to become as invisible as possible but then I also wanted to watch. To generalise, I always thought ang mohs were not as close to their parents as Asians are. Like, they move out as soon as they can and think going home once a month is already a good show of filial piety. So seeing the ang mohs sons knowing so many details about their father's health and seeing how protective they were over him was very heartwarming (: The half-crying, half-laughing scene was also the first time I felt heavy-hearted and slightly teary in such situations so I felt it was memorable enough to ensure that I plant it somewhere where I won't forget it.

I must admit, though, it was a combination of everything that made that particular case so sad. There was actually an exact scenario that I had witnessed not too long ago, except that it was a youngish couple and it was the wife crying about the husband's diagnosis. What Sania said is true, it does make a difference seeing big, grown men cry and seeing women cry. I felt more sorry and sympathetic than anything else when I saw the woman cry, but I was able to stay as robotic and blank as ever. See, told you I am heartless and well-suited to this field.

Unfortunately, I am sure I have not seen the worse yet. Next year in cancer care and elderly care there will surely be many chances to see patients 1 day and find them mysteriously missing the next. Or, in the case of A&E, just deteriorating on the spot. My emotionlessness is going to come in handy next year...

This week was a good week (: We went to Burton late Monday night coz we only started on Tuesday. So had 1 more day in Leicester :D You never realise that absence makes the heart fonder until absence makes your heart fonder. While good ol' quiet Burt is a nice place nothing beats the familiarity of 2nd home, except for my 1st home. Despite human (or maybe just my) tendency to complain about what they've got, I actually do find Leicester quite a nice little place and appreciate it a lot more now.

Another yay point about the week is that we got to go back to Leicester today instead of tomorrow! And Sania came with us this time coz we have PPD day at school tomorrow. And everyone was in a good mood coz we were going back to Leicester early and coz everyone was excited about seeing their friends the next day at school (I dun quite share their excitement to be honest but of course I smiled along excitedly). So I had someone more familiar to talk to on the train ride home, which is always nice. The others are very nice people but 1. different wavelength 2. not so close. And I happened to be high on coffee as well so I was able to converse very brightly and naturally with everyone this time (ignoring my shaky hands and restless legs). Sania didn't let me have another Wether's original cos she said it would add sugar high to my system ):

Although it was a relatively chilled out 3 days where we didn't pack our timetables and try to squeeze as much as we could between 9a.m. and 6p.m. somehow it was more productive.. I guess we were more focused on what we wanted to get out of the day. Today we started off our day by being stood up by the radiologist, then being rejected by the phlebotomists, which is stupid because we had been running around the past 3 weeks taking bloods already, yet when we ask for supervision they say they are not allowed to let us do it. So we are allowed to take bloods without supervision, but not with supervision. Hm. Anyway. We asked the nice teddy bear FY for nice patients and went off to take 2 very very long histories for the morning. In our defence, the histories were very detailed and the patients were bored (and old) so they chatted with us half the time and answered our questions the other half. I still haven't mastered the skill of interrupting patients. After that we thought, since they were so nice, and so bored, we should take advantage of it and examine them. Which was lucky because we got to hear/feel good signs in both :D We felt an AF pulse, heard a gallop rhythm, basal crackles and a good murmur today. I must write all this down while I can still remember them.

We also got to perform ECGs this week. But to be honest, a lot of the time I just pretend to be measuring but really just estimate and pray hard that I roughly got the right places. Quite lucky so far cos I got all males (but to be fair each one was progressively older and fatter so it was like Level 1: Beginner. Young fit man. Level 2: Senior beginner. Middle-aged plump man. Level 3: Intermediate. Old fat hairy man.). I bet the next time I am going to get a woman. Shit and then there's OLD woman D: Then old plump woman T_T

A lot of times knowledgeable old people brighten when they hear that I am from Singapore. Their eyes light up with recognition and they say, "I went there 60 years ago during the war" or "My husband used to go there on business and he stayed in...". I used to appreciate that recognition, but then sometimes these bored people get a tad enthusiastic and start showing us photographs =O There was this nice old man who showed us pictures of the ship he sailed on to Singapore, and another nice old lady who showed us pictures of her house and garage. While I find that quite endearing and somehow quite enjoy the easy chats (as compared to more reserved patients) it also makes it reeaaally hard to stick to the relevant stuff. Ok I sound like a bitch now. Next time I will tell all patients that I was born in.. Cornwall. Or like, Gloucesterhamptonfordshire.

Ahh... 星光 is sooo addictive! I wonder if it is purely because of nostalgia that I find any oriental show nice. I have recently been finding myself hooked on watching 小猪 as Dancing King 哥 in 娱乐百分百 too. Very funny!

So. 星光 is now into the final hurdle so my new source of entertainment will soon be gone. Until 星光7 starts, that is. In the meantime, I shall continue to support 胡夏 and Dudu every Saturday when I am back in the privacy of my Leicester room (: I really like 胡夏's voice! Very clean, like Pin Guan but slightly higher range, and no patten pattern when he sings. Ha, some people just have naturally pleasant voice... There was another girl in top 10 who actually could sing very well but her voice is naturally a bit geng so she kept getting faulted. You can tell when the judges have a fixed impression of someone. No matter how well they sing there will always be some flaw to pick on and if there is no flaw the 'emotion is not there' and somehow no matter how many mistakes the 'good ones' make the performance will always '真的感动到我'. Then again 胡夏 and Dudu are among those that always get high marks even if they make mistakes so I won't complain (:

It is so weird when you realise these almost-idols are about your age or younger than you. About half the contestants left are younger than me! Make up and dressing really do wonders man.. Hehe 胡夏 really reminds me of Yi Ling when she was young! Look tut tut (ok not like I looked damn good) with bugs bunny teeth :D I wonder if I can vote online for free...