the long unrelenting AHHHHHHHHHHHH

there is that long, unrelenting "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" in the background noise of my head every minute of every day, a clue to the underlying stress.

final year is really a cycle of ups and downs - stresses and boredom. you keep looking at the same material, thinking you know it already, only to be shocked into stress when some doctor pops you a question on basic stuff on to find you've already forgotten it/ don't know it quite as well as you thought/ totally clueless.
(FYI, i am usually in the last catergory :( how daft)

my stress levels have been rapid cycling several times in a day, up down up down up down up down. something to that extent, maybe more!
it's enough to drive a person mad. plus i get resting tachycardias and sometimes i wake up at night with palpitations and drenched in cold sweat from an exam nightmare. AWFUL :(
worst of all is not being able to sleep because of the stress induced palpitations! :(
i should really start taking a beta blocker soon or i'm going to fall to pieces before the exams even start.

i'm manifesting my stress externally by having pain in every single place you can think of. my orthopod tutor was laughing at me for having more pain than an old granny.
i have chronic back pain, knee pain (from chondromalacia), shoulder pain (from impingement), thumb pain (from cheerleading, zookeeper's thumb), a mucinous cyst on my finger and toes, hyperlaxity causing flat feet and lax ankles.
and oh, neck pain from not sleeping well and headache from all the pain :\
no wonder he was lauging at me as he went through my list one by one! but he was very nice about it and offered to prescribe me beta blockers if i needed them. i think i'll take him up on his offer soon!

the long unrelenting AHHHHHHHHHHHHH? i have to learn to deal with it (no, i am not hearing voices yet. just one voice!) and hopefully it will spur me to actually studying instead of sitting in front of my books and mountains of papers pretending to study so my parents won't nag at me. :\

2 good things about this week:
1) ortho is FULL OF EYE CANDY :D my favourite tutor has a lovely sexy baritone and is really hot, to boot. he radiates charisma and i've obviously been swooning over him and my friends are so exasperated with me they roll their eyes at me every time he walks by. haha.
2) i saw cute medic boy (now a doctor!) and he remembers me! :D oh, joy!

happy valentines, you all! :D

countdown: 2 weeks

infectious diseases is over, and i have failed the test miserably. i'm a little shocked and dismayed (alright, make that quite, it's been quite some time since i was failing mathematics regularly). but i suppose i deserve it, having not studied as hard as i should have!

anyway. there is this new thing on facebook, a meme called "25 random things" (which reminds me, i haven't done dragonfly's old toy meme yet! oops i'm so sorry!).
and to my ultimate shock and horror, i realised that so very many of my classmates have put down: i don't know what i'm doing in medical school/i think medical school is the wrong choice for me/i shouldn't have chosen medical school etc.

it breaks my heart to read that. i know of so many others who would have given an arm and a leg to get in but couldn't because these people have taken up their places (not undeservingly though).

coupled with the facts that:
1) medicine is no longer thought of as a "noble" profession - litigation rates are up, patients are becoming more and more non-compliant
2) complaints against medical personnel are on the rise
3) burnout rates among doctors are higher
4) slipshod work is also higher

stuff like that gets you down.
i was really depressed for quite a bit to learn that so many people thought that way.

i was one of those people who decided that i wanted to be a doctor when i was young (i really enjoyed bandaging my sister and jabbing her to make her feel "better", all in the name of play, of course!), and i firmly made my choice when i was 14. nothing has changed my mind since then (except for a short period of time when i really felt that i should have done nursing instead, but i'm over that now. more on that some other time).

but such is medicine, such is the job and the demands on you.
i never expected to make such a huge lifestyle change, to have almost no "university life" to speak of, to be totally out of the loop with the rest of my friends in other faculties, to wake up early early early and go home late late late. so many things, so many things.

but it has never changed my desire to be a doctor, as much sadness and ugliness and frustration i have experienced (there has been a good deal more than most people, i am sure! largely due in part to my hearing problem and others). i still hold onto my idealism, and i can only hope it won't fade that much 20, 40 years down the road.

i still want to hold a granny's hand and tell her it'll be alright, we are here to take care of her; to tell a pregnant lady to keep pushing, her beautiful baby is coming out soon; to play with a kiddo and watch his smile (which will make my day); to tell jokes to an elderly gent and see his eye crinkle. people make my life, and my life is medicine. there isn't any other way.

guitar hero

i received a bit of a shock over the week, not sure whether the news is good or bad but i'm choosing to look on the bright side for now! :)

lately my group of friends and i (and almost everyone i know) seems to be addicted to wii's guitar heroes! :) most fabulous. except that being ditzy (by name and nature) me, i am constantly making a fool of myself on the songs :\ doesn't help that i'm tone deaf as well!
but it's great fun to sit around and watch as people get disinhibited and start yowling and wailing over songs such as livin' on prayer (my favourite!), complete with hitting the high notes ;)

i introduced my parents to wii - and my mother promptly whupped my dad in wii tennis almost effortlessly! that left my dad grumbling lots (i guess men's egos are big huh) and being rather unhappy - until he thrashed my mum at wii golf. hahahaha. boys will be boys i suppose.

on the medical side, we've started infectious diseases and it's only the 2nd posting that i really quite dislike :(
i don't quite mind the HIV patients, the STDs etc. it's really the whole infection control thing that gets me - it's so super inconvenient and scary - i detest the thought of carrying MRSA or VRE. as a result, i'm obsessive-compulsive about washing my hands and cleaning my stethoscope between patients and it's so time consuming cos i really really wash them :\

ID physicians are incredibly and their knowledge of lab results - after all, their diagnoses depend almost solely on lab results sometimes!
but i have to admit i was stunned when an attending lecturing us managed to give percentages of symptoms of how patients might present.
for example: nausea is present in 50%, and vomiting and diarrhoea in 30%.
he went on to do this for each and every symptom!!!!
granted, it's only rough percentages, but me, i have problem remembering all the symptoms, let alone the percentages!!! gracious.

today, attending (same as above) asked me, " so what are the causes of malignancy responsible for pyrexia of unknown origin that are not blood cancers?"
all i could stupidly say was, "ummm, solid organ tumours?"
i think he wasn't happy with my dumbness and gave me a scathing look. oops.
and sadly, there is no happy ending to this story - i didn't get a chance to redeem myself. it feels like geriatrics all over again (except there was a happy ending in that one!) :(

3 weeks left in clinicals, 2 weeks of study break and the BIG ONE arriveth :(
just as well i guess, rather than being in a state of eternal limbo!

weeeeee areeeee the CHAMPIONS :D

so we won the softball tourney! :) despite me playing terribly and my old injury flaring up and having to sit out most of the last few games, (all the medics on the team have diagnosed me as having supraspinatus impingement, probably with rotator cuff strain and early osteoarthritis - ahhh, the perks of having eager medics as friends), WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!

only now do i know what certain death means, we really came back from the dead!
each of our final 3 games was won in the bottom 5th innning (we play a modified version of 5 innings) when we were up to bat, and won each game by ONE measly run. that's really cutting it close!
but we won! and i've never been so elated in my life. my team spent a good few minutes just hugging each other and screaming our heads off, showering kisses all round. heh.


alright on to medicine stuff:
the new internship employment packets have been given out, and we've been asked to list our matches and selections for the upcoming intern year. problem is, they've changed the system completely from our seniors time, due to a new employer (some shuffling around, i'm clueless), so that means most of us a clutching wildly in the dark at our decisions, except for the very brilliant and brainy top few who are assured of getting what they want.

for me, it's a gamble. should i go with medicine, surgery and OB/GYN or should it be medicine, ortho, OB/GYN?
what if i don't get OB/GYN??? (besides throwing a fit and sinking into depression and crying all day, i mean) what would be a better choice? medicine, surgery, ortho?

coupled with all my friends choosing different things and all of us being on different areas of the results spectrum, (i believe i'm somewhere in the bottom half, sadly), it's a whole new confusing world.

clearly, i'm going to have to put in some hard thinking on this one. and i need to get myself a decent passport photo when i'm not half asleep or with hair that sticks out all over :\

ahhh, the perils of growing up! :(

anyway!
it's the first day of lunar new year so HAPPY NEW YEAR (again) one and all! :)

blisters, warts and all

i have multiple blisters on my hands right now from softball trainings, as well as corns/callosities and warts (for which i blame the boys, i have not had warts since before this year, before this team!).

the whiner in me wants to shove my hands into the face of everyone whom i meet and gain some sympathy (pathetic of me). and the masochist in me somehow tells me to appreciate the blisters, warts and all, because i'll never get them again. not from softball anyway.

i know it's my final and last last last season, but something tells me i'll have a hard time giving it up.

come sunday night, it's time to hang up my boots, keep my glove and bat and helmet.

wish me luck for sunday's matches! :)

bring in 2009!

so we've reached 2009 (and i have shamefully fallen far far short of my 2008 resolutions!)

HAPPY BELATED NEW YEAR EVERYONE! :D

this year, my resolutions are simpler (and in no order of importnance):
1) to keep off coffee (i'm pretty sure i will go right back on it once i'm post-call)
2) to pass my finals (either 1st or 2nd try, hopefully not longer! :\)
3) to work out/exercise more (my increasing weight is reason for worry. uh oh) - should i go with a gym membership or gymnastics classes?
4) to spend more time with my loved ones (super impt)
5) to spend less in light of the economic crisis - really time to rein in my spendthrift ways!
6) to get on the right path to learning to be a good doctor - in terms of attitude, teamwork, compassion, conscientiousness etc, not just in pure knowledge.
7) to devote more time to church, i have been MIA muchly this year
8) to organise my room (uhhh, this is hard. i am probably one of the messiest people on this planet)
9) not to complain and whine so much!
10) to blog more regularly and not be so boring (heh)


much love to all of you! :)