it's been a week since i've returned from mountain climbing!

it was, truthfully, the scariest experience of my life. but also one of the best!

i can't say i've managed to overcome my fear of heights, but i know i can push it aside somewhat, and that's a step along the road of recovery? :)

making our way to the summit in the pitch blackness of the night, with only moonlight to guide us, was terrifying once we reached the rock face and had only the rope for safety. i didn't dare to look back at all until i was safely seated on a rock (jumped on it to test if it was steady!) and the view just blew me away. :)

but for now, it's back to hospital! and i'm starting a 3 week elective in child development. it's not as interesting as it sounds, because so far it's been very very boring. hopefully things will perk up after a bit!

doing surgery calls was really interesting. this elderly gent came in complaining of massive abdo pain and constipation, the medical officer was all ready to write him off as having intestinal obstruction until he started vomiting coffee grounds right in front of us. the chest X Ray showed no free gas, puzzlingly, and the vomiting became really really really bad.

they tried to put in NG tubes but somehow it kept lodging against the wall so it couldn't suction anything. and the poor guy was just moaning in pain. poor thing!
in the midst of all that, the MO yelled at me to catherise the guy, so i tried. i honestly, honestly, tried. now guys, please don't kill me.
the first thing i said after cleaning and draping was," where's the hole! omg!"
to which the MO replied," there! SO BIG"
uh-oh.
so i looked. and i looked. and i stared. and i FINALLY found it.
try as i might, i just couldn't catheterise him. after i injected the lignocaine, i couldn't stuff the catheter in!
in the end, the MO put on gloves and showed me how to do it properly. sigh.
well, it was my first catherisation after all!
after this whole debacle, he turned to me and said,"missy, NOT GOOD. you better learn to catheterise male patients soon! and FAST. go get some experience! i can't believe you didn't even know where's the hole!!! tskkk."

uh-oh.

right now, i'm missing surgery muchly, i really don't quite like paediatrics. hmmmmmm