mysterious tubes

i'm just so amazed that i'm able to upload photos onto my blog. Isn't it amazing?? It's a major step for my IT skills. Took some photos during a "tubes-and-drains" session during my surgery posting. But as i was too busy taking photos, i didn't take good notes and have no idea what are the names and function of these mysterious tubes. Can somebody help?

I suspect the above tube is a Sengstaken-Blakemore tube because it has 4 lumens. But i'm not sure. Hope i'm not making a blunder here. Otherwise pinakin and wendy will have such a good time laughing at me like the antibiotics episode.

I have absolutely no idea about this tube. It kind of look like a sword except it's plastic and prob will never kill anyone.

post-christmas

Had christmas eve dinner at my cousin's place this year. The food was so delicious i couldn't stop praising her the whole night. There were 2 types of pasta, roast chicken, parmesan cheese from parma, parma ham wrapped in melon, cheese fondue, chilli crab, tiramisu and of course the usual turkey. Haven't had so much for a long time. After tonnes of food, some booze, and lots of gambling, christmas finally came. And went.

This is my little niece, estelle. She's such a pretty little thing! Her eyelashes are naturally curled upwards. I can't even get that effect with my eyelash curler and mascara. When we sang christmas carols, she'll put her hands together like "gong xi gong xi" and bounce up and down.

I still have lots of christmas photos to share but i don't have them in my computer yet. Had lots of fun going for the christmas parties and giving and receiving presents. School is going to start again tomorrow. Really dreading it, i'm not sure how i can get into the study mode again.

tired or wired

arts central has a very interesting show on tv tonight. they do experiments like which kind of food gives you most gas and weird stuff like that. I especially like the tired or wired section. it's quite useful for me. they got 2 guys: 1 has not slept for 2 days. 1 has been drinking energy boosting drinks for 2 days. and got them to do 3 challenges.

the first challenge was a game of snap. wired (who drank all the energy drink) kept "snapping" wrongly. tired, although slow, was able to do it accurately. so tired 1 wired 0.

second challenge was a game of balancing on a big ball while balancing a tub of water on their head. tired won again.

last challenge was how fast they could park a caravan. this time wired won. so the final score is tired 2 wired 1.

I could not sleep last night, had an irriating throat and cough. was extremely tired this morning and while driving to school, for the first time, i almost fell asleep while driving!! it's quite a scary feeling because i could hardly keep my eyes open while manoeuvring the bends of PIE. So the experiment proved that lack of sleep really retards driving skill.

they have another experiment called fat or thin. last week they proved that if you were stranded in sea (from a shipwreak) the fat person could float longer than a thin guy. this week, they showed that if a thin guy was stuck in a blizzard, he'll have less damage from the storm than a fat guy.

Quite an interesting show!

the best time of the year!

I absolutely LOVE christmas! The shopping, the christmas carols, christmas trees, light-ups at orchard, feel-good christmas movies and all the parties!!

Don't feel like studying at all until after christmas! It's such a chore, i much rather walk down orchard, go shop, wrap my presents..so much to do but so little time! Was flipping through the papers today and found so many good deals!

There's a sale going on at leng kee road. According to the advert, " sensuous, flowy, elegant evening and cocktail dresses to entice you. 50-70% off!" Aiyoyo!! so near where i'm at now but i don't need these kind of clothes. But I still want to go! Wendy you want to go? Hehe. Ask you now in case i forget tm.

Victoria's secret and gap warehouse sale starting tm! Up to 90% off!! They only allow a maximum purchase of 10 bras per customer! Quite strange, but the sale must be so good until people want to buy more than 10 bras. Why do they need so many anyway? it's at 326 havelock road if any of you interested. 10am to 10pm. Ending on sunday. If any of you want to go, CALL ME! I also want to go!!

Digital photo 4R @ 20cents! Need to develop photos fr my india trip, birthday parties, all the gatherings... i need to develop about 200 photos.

and lastly, richard clayderman is coming to town! He'll be having a concert at the singapore indoor stadium on the 17th of dec. Don't think i wanna go for his concert cos the tickets are quite expensive. I rather use the money to buy the music sheets and practice playing the songs myself. Haven't touched the piano in ages man.

Wanted to go for the michael bolton's concert last sunday but couldn't find anyone to go with me. Somebody even said i very "auntie" to want to go to his concert. You know who you are! Hehe. The review for his concert was quite good. He sang all his hits and mingled with the crowd. Absolutely love his husky voice! Aiyah, i guess i'll have to settle with his cd. I like to blast his music and sing-along while driving. My dad once saw me driving and singing (from the road) and he said i looked like a mad woman. Haha. Don't care!

The sad part of this christmas is my siblings and my mum might be going on a road trip with the rest of my extended family. They're going to rent a mini-bus and drive to malaysia. Wish i can go! But how?? Exams coming, only have one week break. (school starts on 27th dec btw, and i only found out this week!! Thought the hols will last until the new year.) And they're scheduling loads and loads of lectures during that week. Currently i'm trying to make my sis as guilty as possible so she won't go for the trip and can accompany me for christmas. So bad right? My brother won't care about me one, he'll surely go and leave me all alone. Cold-hearted man....sorry not man...boy.

anyhow, i still love christmas! If nobody pei me, i shall have to find my own entertainment. But I will surely NOT touch a single book or any piece of paper that day. i rather lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling than study.

Merry christmas everybody!!

rain and diarrhoea

today is a cold and rainy day. So nice to sleep. Altogether i took about 3 naps and night is not even here yet! Kept getting woken up by the colicky abdominal pain. Kind of reminded me of that day.

It was also raining and i was having pain and diarrhoea. It was very dark and shu fu, but i wasn't able to sleep cos needed to go to the loo ever so often. It was as though i was shitting pee. Just loose watery diarrhoea without any formed stools. The comforting words i got were," so poor thing." and got a hug.

Today i was told by my sister not to vomit onto her bed. So nice.

shut up. Just shut up.
shut up. Just shut up.

catchy tune

the medical marathon

this whole journey is like a race.

In the beginning, when everyone was at the starting line, we were all excited and ready to run the race. Everybody thinks that they are the best and has the stamina.

The beginning of the journey was tough. Struggling with every single new word and phrase. But it got easier with time. Slowly, we started building momentum and sometimes even get a high from the new experiences and knowledge. Sometimes, the going gets tough and we wonder why we're doing this. But everyday we are getting nearer to the finish line, each step is a constant struggle, but step by step, we'll get there.

Some will drop out because of the hard work, some will drop out because of injury. But most of us will hang on because we're in the middle already.
Just because.

It is nearing the end of the race. After a long hard fight, the finish line is almost here. Now is the time for the final sprint. Those we trained hard previously will be able to last till the end, those who didn't will still reach there, but with lots of hard work and perseverance.

It doesn't matter if we finish first or last. As long as we crossed the finish line, no matter how long we take, as long as we get there.

d.e.a.t.h.

I've encountered a few deaths in my short career as a medical student. I remember the first time was during my first posting. I walked into a room full of people but everybody was very quiet except for the, "one and two and three and....clear....". i was quite stunned then, didn't have any role to play in the resuscitation but i still felt quite useless standing there.

i met a lady during my posting at A&E. She's quite young, probably 30+ years old, with a history of heart disease and has a pacemaker/ defibrillator. She came into the A&E very sick. As the staff were busy resuscitating her with cpr, defibrillator etc, she suddenly defibrillated herself with her own defib. Despite all our efforts and her own defibrillator, she still didn't make it.

Yesterday a patient died in the ward. He was quite young too, probably 50+. The strange thing was during the ward rounds in the morning, the doctors were discussing what to write as the cause of death in case he dies. I thought that was very depressing but i know it's necessary. There is no point waiting until death itself then rush to find a diagnosis. The relatives will be very upset because they will want to know the cause. Once during night call and there was a very sick patient in the ward, the doctor-in-charge of the case was telling the doctor-on-call that in the event that the patient dies, everything was written in the case notes and he just has to follow everything in the notes. I don't know if the patient survived the night. Always be prepared i guess.

Today i found out a patient i saw a few weeks ago died recently. He was a nice guy, i remember him even though i only saw him for a little while.

Today, just before the day ended, another patient died. It was quite unexpected as he seemed quite well this morning. Ok, not well as in walking around-talking-and-laughing kind of well, well as in not febrile, does not seem to be too sick. He was bed-bound with multiple contractures and speaks only malay. Everyday when i have to draw blood from him, i'll ask him with my limited malay," apar kabar?" (dunnoe how to spell, sorry) and he always says baik.

don't get the wrong idea that people drop dead all the time in the hospital. More people die in the hospital than anywhere else because people are sicker there. But there are many more patients who recover well and go home.

i guess the moral of the story is you don't know when you are going to die. Anyone might die anytime due to some freak accident so, we must live life to the fullest. Even though everyday is so busy and there're always so many things to do, stop and take time to smell the roses. Look at the colour of the sky. Taste the sweetness of the ice-cream. Feel the soft and nice smelling pillow.

life is not THAT bad.

moral education

just watched the most recent episode of survivor. i had high hopes for the blond guy with curly hair and the blond girl. Both of them thought that jaime (the guy with the big mouth and no class) should go, both thought that they should follow their heart but yet when it's time to vote, the million bucks blinded them. Of course one million dollars is a lot of money, after taking away tax, after paying off your loans, you won't even have enough to buy a decent house (at least in singapore). So disappointing! Like the girl said, you can eat when you get home but you won't have another chance to do what you're doing in survivor. Similarly, you can earn the money from your 5-minutes of fame when you go back home but you can't undo what you've done, especially not if you did it in front of national televisioN!! I know survivor is not a game about morals, that's why richard hatch won, but at least you can still leave the game with your head held high.

Here's one good moral i learnt from my moral education class.

PICK UP YOUR LITTER!

ward 44

the first thing i noticed when i stepped into the ward was that the curtain of a certain bed was drawn. It caught my eye because it's exactly the same scene when i went to that place when my grandfather passed away. I can't remember if it's the same ward, it might be a different level, but it's the same hospital, same ward layout, same bed. then when i saw the patient there, he looks almost the same as my grandpa. Ok, i might be exaggerating. He doesn't have the same face, but he has a tall built, you can tell that when he was young, he probably was quite well-built but the toll of whatever illness he has has reduced him to skin and bones. He just layed there, not moving with a tube sticking out of his nose. I couldn't help but kept looking in that direction everytime i walked pass that cubicle.

I'm not upset or anything, just have this nostalgic feeling. I just remembered that when my grandpa first went to hospital after he fell down, he was in that bed but prob a cubicle further down the ward. It was then when he started hallucinating and said that there were things on the ceiling. I think that was the last time i had a real conversation with him. I remembered asking him if he knew who i was, he said," Of course i remember you otherwise there'll be something wrong with me!" That night he suddenly collapsed and had to go for a craniotomy for a subdural bleed. It saved his life but he was not the same after the op.

today is the first day of my student-internship programme. I like this new system because it shows us what kind of work we'll be doing as housemen after we graduate. At least now, when we are blur and don't know what to do, we can always call for help from the friendly HOs and MOs. It might sound strange, but when the nurse came to me and told me that bed X needed blood culture and bed Y needed a plug, i felt happy. For once, we are not the bane of the hospital. We have a role and can actually do something.

It's nothing like studying for the exams. I don't think the textbooks can ever prepare us for anything like that. I might hate this kind of life after my nightcalls, but i'm enjoying every moment now.

I'm not a superwoman

i used to think medical school was easy. seriously. haha. that was when i was still young, ignorant and did not realise the importance of having a good foundation. During the first few years, i did not study very much. just enough to get by, only cheong when there was a test or exam. Luckily i managed to scrape through.

i have survived 4.5 years of med school, have 4.5 more months to the FINAL MBBS. 4545! quick buy 4D for tomorrow!

now i finally realise why people say med school is hard. yes, i totally agree, it's super duper hard. you need the memory of a gigantic computer, the skills like tiger woods in the golf course, the compassion of mother theresa, and the ability to not sleep like...hmm...everybody needs to sleep!! it's not even humanely possible! and when you think you have studied enough for a topic, listed all the important topics that you have to know, someone will come and tell you that you need to know more!! argh. when is enough?? you think that by going to the wards from monday to friday, early in the morning till late in the afternoon, go home study your ass off, you can relax a little during the weekends. WRONG! everybody else is at the wards clerking more patients, hospital hopping so that they can see everything! where do they find all the energy?

Conclusion: you need to be not human to survive med school without having a mental breakdown.

Mike the Chicken

10 september 1945 Mike was supposed to die. his owners chopped off his head but he was still moving around as though nothing happened! his owners decided to keep him alive by feeding him through his open esophagus and he was able to live for 18 more months before choking on his mucus and died.

i'm not trying to be mean to medical students but today while i was in the wards, all the medical students looked like headless chickens to me. and i mean it literally. i almost laughed out loud. i was in the crowd of students and prowling the wards for our preys and i suddenly realized i don't know what i'm doing! but yet trying to look all-knowing and intelligent. I think i'm just generalizing, i'm sure everyone of them out there know what they're doing.

Do you think Mike knew that he was headless?

why i wanted to be a doctor

after surviving 4.5 years of medical school, i realized that i've been caught up in the world of books and knowledge. the more i study, the more i forget why i wanted to be a doctor. i realized that the empathy and compassion that i feel for the patient decreases as there is an increase in the knowledge i acquire. why then do we want to know every little bit of detail? Is it really important that we know about the million causes of a rash? Or is it more important to remember about the psychosocial needs of a patient? how many times have we felt better just by stepping into the doctor's office even before the doctor prescribed any medication?

i had a very inspiring tutorial this week. a classmate asked the doctor how is it that he can continue treating HIV patients even though it is a disease largely caused by the patient's sins. the doctor asked him instead, how do you know that the patient with HIV is a bad person? we all know that HIV is spread via unprotected sexual contact with a person with HIV and we are quick to label these people as sinners because they must have visited sex workers or are just plain loose. even then, is a person bad just because he has done wrong in one aspect of his life? is a person good if he's a virgin?

i guess the stigma of HIV started when the infection started appearing in our midst. the earliest group of patients were the homosexual males. HIV is then associated with promiscuity. I am guilty of it myself. I've often thought to myself, the patient got this disease because he visited sex workers even though he has a wife and children, he must be a bad person. I am wrong.

villagers in rural China contracted it because they donated blood.

young girls forced into prostitution because of poverty. their customers refused to use condoms.

22 year old girl got it from her boyfriend.

wife contracted it from her husband and spread it to her newborn.

a chronically ill patient who requires numerous blood transfusions got it from a tainted packet of blood.

a man who tried to stop a girl from committing suicide was bitten by her. She is a known case of it. will the man get infected? what will happen to his wife and kids?

good luck bad luck

my right lower eyelid has been twitching non stop today. Since the id test is around the corner (on friday to be exact), i decided to waste time and google about the significance of this event.

for the females:
1. top left eye lid twitch; means fortune (little or lots).
2. lower left eye twich; you could be crying later.
3. top right eye twitch; FOOD..treats coming your way.
4. lower right eye twitch; always a bad sign.

Bad sign! probably means i'm going to do badly for this test. but well, i survived microbiology, i think i can survive this. *fingers and toes cross until cannot uncross*

for the male, if the upper right eye twiched, it means fortune and vice versa. any lower eye twiching is not a good omen.

the medical people has a name for this condition. Forgot what it is called. They attribute it to stress, lack of sleep and caffeine. It's a completely benign condition. Nothing a little botox can't cure.

erratum

sigh

made a mistake in my previous blog. can easily correct the mistake so i won't look so dumb but, well, i won't so you all can continue laughing at me. luckily i'm not a doctor yet or i'll kill someone with my terrible antibiotic-skills.

rocephin is NOT gentamicin. it is ceftraixone, a 3rd generation cephalosporin. gentamicin is gentamicin. Don't know what's the trade name. bactrium is trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole. augmentin is amoxicillin and clavulanate. arhkjghlkjsa. sjoiejoigj. shjekjhsoiekjjkjskljdf;lkjsadkjf hfjerot sjehtpskr kshdjtciemnwsndlijf jshruf;sidkjfn dufnspwjf kdhfidsmj ksjikfnzkjjfmd

Don't understand? me too.

i hate bugs

currently doing a 2-week posting at infectious diseases. sigh. it's really one of my most dreaded subject. when i'm with the rest of my classmates, i can't understand what the heck they are talking about most of the time. it's quite funny actually. it's as though i'm watching a movie in another language. seriously. the words used in this field are unpronounceable and unspellable. and they don't even sound like english.

for example. "blah blah blah....gentamycin...blah blah....rocephin...blah blah....aminoglycoside.." all these 3 words mean the same thing!! why can't they just call them by one name so that no one gets confused!! gentamycin is the generic name of an antibiotic. rocephin is the trade name and aminoglycoside is the class. this is the simplest example of the complicated world of antibiotics and infectious diseases. i don't even know if i spelt those words correctly or not. how to prescribe medicine next time?!!

and why can't they give us free parking? we pay so much every year and where do all the money go to? they should print all lecture notes for us and give us free parking at every hospital!

inspiring tutors

prof loong (neurology, nni)
attended his legendary weekly tutorial today at nni. what can i say. he has taught so many people, including people who are senior consultants today already. everytime i attend his tutorial, i'm always amazed at the way he simplifies things. and neurology is not simple at all! he's like a walking dictionary of neurology.

prof rajendran (anatomy, nus)
he was my first prof and taught me the anatomy of the upper and lower limb. anatomy to me is a very boring subject because it's all about memory. but he was able to explain it in a way that's easy to remember and it actually made sense! and his tips-lecture right before exams were priceless! without them, i probably wouldn't have gotten by anat so easily.

prof biswas (o&g, nuh)
such a nice tutor. when you ask him one question, he'll give you a whole tutorial. even though he was so busy, he made sure we had enough teaching. even if it meant we had to sit at a corner of the clinic near the pantry while he sees us in between patients. he made studying o&g so easy because everything's so practical. the best part was he was my examiner during the end of posting test! i'll never forget how he so kindly help me with the 7-point glucose monitoring part when i was stuck when the other examiner asked me how to monitor diabetes in a pregnant patient. i think he's my favourite tutor of all. his tutorials were always a joy.

dr umapathi (neurology, nni)
he doesn't allow people to take notes during his tutorials so i can't really recall what he taught me during my time at nni but i remember that although his tutorials can last for hours, it's not tiring at all. he was very engaging and made neurology (yes, the boring neuro) exciting!

dr teoh (medicine, nuh)
he's the tutor who taught my cg how to examine patients in the proper way. even up till today, we're still using his method of examination. without his help, i can't imagine how my clinical skills will be like today. not that i'm very good now but i guess it's passable.

there are still many other nice doctors that i met during my clinical years like dr razmi, dr sanjay, dr sujai, dr rao, the whole geriatrics team like dr wong and dr chong. all very willing to teach and so nice to us. my current tutor now is an excellent tutor. although he's quite scary because his expectations are very high, i've learnt a lot from him even though it has only been a week. everytime after a meeting with him i will have the sudden urge to read the entire harrison's so that i can keep up with him.

if your heart is in your dreams, no request is too extreme

my sis just came back from a major shopping spree in Bangkok. although i was super jealous (the whole of friday while i was in school, i kept thinking...oh she's at the airport now. she's in the plane now. she's at bangkok shopping now) i got some fabulous presents from her. so not that bad lah. after going through her packed suitcase until 2am this morning (she went with an empty one!!) i've decided. I'm going to bangkok! Yeah!

Here's the catch. i need a shopping partner. i'm looking for somebody who LOVES shopping. Doesn't mind walking for the whole day so we can see everything! Don't want to go siteseeing because who has the time!! there's too much to shop. and somebody who loves thai food and doesn't mind eating by the roadside.

but i also want to go to hong kong to visit disneyland!! absolutely love disneyland man. was reading the classified just now 5 days disneyland fun!

• 2 nights at deluxe habour plaza resort city
• 1 night at disney's hollywood hotel
• 1 day disneyland admission ticket
• 1 night at concourse hotel

at only $599!! ok. it's not exactly very cheap, but definately cheaper than going to other disneylands. and the food in hk is heavenly too!

can't really decide which country i want to go more....shopping? roller coaster? tom yam soup? mickey mouse? ARGH!!

my father suddenly told me yesterday that i'm not allowed to leave the country until after my exams are over. he must have guessed that when i see my sis come home from her holiday i'll definately want to go for one myself. and he is right!! i'm not exactly the perfect daughter i guess. how many trips have i gone already without telling him. luckily he doesn't read my blog or he'll kill me!

and lastly. i think my kitchen skills are deteriorating. tried to make jelly today but failed. don't know why the thing didn't harden. I followed the recipe exactly! 500 mls of water, add the powder to hot water. too bad.

buffets and balloons

today's the last day of the geriatrics posting. had a mini mcq test, wasn't that bad. then we had our usual end-of-posting outing. we went to the sakae buffet at wheelock place and had lots and lots of food. and while we were eating, some very funny poems were composed..

can't remember all the poems that the rest composed already! will add them later...here are some of my amateur attempts at rhyming

today i'm eating a buffet
i know i can never be like faye (as in faye wong)
she's so slim
my my oh-so-thin
but who cares, i'm the queen!

haha...i know i'm supposed to rhyme with the first line. but can't think of anything that rhymes with buffet..

jinnie suggested a balloon theme..so here goes

up goes the balloon
just like the man on the moon
the balloon goes pop
the space craft drops
reminds me of a macaroon

i know the last line doesn't make much sense, but i think it's quite funny. my poems are not like eugene's..nothing eloquent or anything. they're written just for fun.

oh here's one of my old poem. one of my favourite!

there was an old lady in ward seventy-two
she had so many visitors, it was like a zoo
the nurse was mad
the doctor was crap
and they lived happily together after that

and last but not least, today is my bro's birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIU JUNHAO!!

donuts and milo

i love donuts. not just any kind, but the really old-fashioned sugar-coated ring donuts. especially those at the bottom of the pack with one thick layer of sugar all over it. yummilicious! ate one for dinner and another one right before watching america's next top model. so ironic. But how do you resist donuts and milo when your stomach is rumbling?

an excellent history

what an eventful day!

went to watch the medicine play this afternoon and i'm truly impressed. Everyday after school, i feel like a walking zombie already. Don't have enough energy to do anything except sleep or watch tv but yet, these people still have the energy to rehearse and prepare for the play. It's truly amazing! How do they do it? The play was very enjoyable. even though like wendy said, there were some unanswered questions like why did angeline break up with bernard?...i still think it's a job well done.

the story was about the medicine class of 1995 going for a reunion in 2005. i wonder what my cg mates will be doing in 10 years time. here are some of my predictions..

kok pin and yvonne: married and living in their own home with 2 children. kok pin and von will be doing medicine, probably still in public service (even though kp always say he wants to be a gp).

nathan: married to vanni and have 1 child. Vanni will probably be a housewife looking after nathan and their children. while nathan will be bringing in the dough. nathan will prob be doing surgery, still in public service.

pinakin: married to an indian bride. 2 children. A gp with some outside business.

wendy: probably still looks the same as now. married with 1 child. Doing medicine in public service. on her way to becoming a dermatologist.

shirlynn: doing medicine. might be out of the country.

kelvin: doing medicine. still the same as before.

me: doing surgery in public service. still looking for mr right.

went to shop around after the play and while walking along beach road, we saw the soldiers marching towards padang and saw the parachuters (are they called parachuters?) parachuting towards padang. wish i have tickets to catch ndp live! but sadly, i'll have to watch it on tv just like every other year.

today we were shown some videos on caregivers for the chronically ill. It's very touching to see old couples still living together and caring for each other. In sickness and in health... how many of us will be lucky enough to find someone we care enough to marry? how many of us will be happily married? will we be lucky enough to find someone to care for us even when we are sick? suffering from dementia, unable to care for ourselves, unable to recognise the people around us, will our partner still care for us?

And how about our children? you see so many elderly being abandoned in the nursing homes and hospitals because they are too caught up in their lives. i'm guilty of it myself actually. My grandmother is living with me now. I hardly talk to her even though we live under the same roof. Although i try to talk to her like telling her i'm leaving the house, call her to eat when i'm having dinner, i don't have long conversations with her...

my dad, the inventor

throughout my life, my dad has always been inventing strange things. Weird smells and sounds in the middle of the night are common occurrences at my house. I remember once, he used to boil lots and lots of water, trying to find a way to boil water faster than normal until strange smells started emitting from the kettle. It got so bad I had to stuff cloth at the door to prevent myself from suffocating.

my dad has a new invention. everytime he tells me of his brilliant invention, i get very nervous because it usually is very strange and extremely expensive. This time however, is quite different. It actually sounds ok. I'm quite excited to see the outcome of it. If it succeeds, good for him. At least he'll have something new and exciting in his life. If it fails, hmm...at least I still have a roof over my head. And i'm starting work next year.

ilizarov

Remember the British girl who wanted to be taller so that she can fulfill her dream of becoming an air stewardess? For anyone who wants to add some height after all your bones have fused i.e. stopped growing, other than wearing really high heels, the only other way is to saw your bones, keep the ends apart with a fixator, lengthen the gap by 1mm everyday, endure lots and lots of pain, spend tones of money, and wait for your bone to lengthen in 9 to 12 months.

According to my tutor (I'm currently doing orthopedics), he said that growth hormones won't make you taller once your bones have fused. It only makes your nose bigger, forehead protrusion, gives you pituitary tumour, diabetes and all sorts of other things. The only way to grow taller is using the ilizarov technique of bone lengthening.

A little bit of trivia. The method of such lengthening was discovered by Dr. Gavriil Abramovich Ilizarov in 1951. Not everybody who goes for such operations is for cosmesis sake. People who have non-union fractures, bones deformed by polio can go for ilizarov. Also people who are born with shorter stature like achondroplasia and Turner's, can lengthen their bones too.

And short people like me. My tutor actually told me (three times!) during his clinic that i should consider going for the operation. Yes, i know i'm not exactly the tallest person, but don't need to remind me right? I don't want to suffer the pain of the operation, that's why i'm investing my money in pretty heels and torturing my feet. I think that's why I have plantar fasciitis.

Do you believe in the supernatural?

Some of my family members went to a chinese medium sometime this week to "call" on the spirits of my grandmother and grandfather. Quite an eye-opening experience. But of course, being the busy-bee me, I was unable to make it because of SCHOOL.

My aunts heard from their relatives that this particular medium from china was able to call on the spirit of one of their relative who passed away not so long ago. They claimed that they were able to communicate with him through the medium. My sister also has a friend whose friend went to call on the spirit of his father. And the medium was able to tell them that the pendant that the father was wearing was given to him by someone and the pendant had an evil spirit on it. Thus, he had a premature death because of it. Hmm...how much of that is belivable i don't know.

So, that bright and sunny morning, my sis and cousin and aunts went to look for the medium. In the fully lit room, with the windows widely open (so unlike the dark and dingy room that we all expect) they managed to summon a spirit.

First up, my beloved grandmother. Although it probably wasn’t her because she said that she has 9 children. So unless she had an illegitimate child that none of us knew, wrong spirit!

Next up, my grandfather. All was well until “my grandfather” said that he needed a watch as we didn’t burn him one when we cremated him. Sounds quite true and logical right? I don’t think so. While we were preparing his clothing for him, the caretaker asked us to remove his watch otherwise the battery in the watch will cause an explosion when we cremate him. (Remember Gerald Tan from urology telling us about the pacemaker causing an explosion?) So, unless the watch my grandpa was wearing was extra special, my guess is everyone who was cremated went without a watch. I don’t know how many people in Singapore are cremated compared to buried, but I think there’s at least a 50-50 chance of the medium getting it right.

Should people go for such stuff? Is it real? What if it's real? What if the spirit tells you that he is suffering in the netherworld, what can the living do? What if the spirit that you summoned is an evil spirit and follows you home?

I'm a skeptic on such stuff. Don't really believe it, but don't dare to don't believe it. That's why I hate scary movies and stories, what I don't know won't hurt me, I think...

psychiatry

school has finally started. I'm currently doing a posting in psychiatry. Even though I'm quite sure I won't want a career in this field because i don't really understand all the abstract thinking like the the theory of the mind...I still think this field is a very important part of medicine.

Many lives are affected by psychiatric illness, not just patients themselves, but also their family and friends. It is very foolish of Tom Cruise to say that psychiatry is a pseudo science. What does he know about psychiatry anyway? Just by reading up stuff about the history of psychiatry doesn't make him an expert. What's up with him this year?

the power of persuasion

wanted to post a picture but as usual, i can't log into hello. so irritating.

was shopping with my sis today and went into celia loe with the intention of browsing only. The sales lady was so enthusiastic and friendly that we ended up trying almost all the clothes in the store! She kept throwing clothes at us, then told us how to wear it properly so we look chic and cool. Spent more than an hour in that shop and of course, ended up spending lots of money. Argh! Feel so guilty. I'm spending my dad's money like there's no tomorrow and I'm not even working! Ok, my new resolution is...spend less time shopping, study hard and graduate. Earn some money so I don't have to sponge off my parents and give them money so they can spend it like how i'm spending theirs.

Mr Phua Chu Kang

Just came back from watching the story of pck - the musical. My favourite part was when the feng shui man played by Sheikh Haikel performed the catchy rap on Chu Kang's fate. The song and dance sections were nicely done too. However, i didn't really appreciate the jokes made during the show. Just like I don't really like the jokes in the tv show. But I also don't like Mr Bean so what do i know about humour anyway. There were people in the audience laughing at the jokes...so i guess it's just me. The story was going a little too slowly but now I finally know how old Singapore is. Happy 40th birthday singapore! Just like Mr Phua Chu Kang.

Mobil is having 26% discount on their petrol! Unbelievable! Was driving down east coast road when I saw the sign...plus the numerous cars waiting to get into the kiosk. After waiting quite a while for my turn, I finally managed to pump some oil into my car. Then whilst waiting to pay the bill, the entire system of the kiosk went haywire. The funniest thing of the night (probably funnier than the jokes in the musical) was the lady at the counter announcing via the microphone," Everyone stop pumping petrol! Sytem hang! System hang!" Or something to that extent...can't really remember it already. I was quite amazed that everybody was still waiting patiently and nobody lost their temper even though all of us were stuck at the kiosk. Couldn't pump, couldn't pay, couldn't leave. Maybe it's the night temperature...so cooling and shuang and with nothing else to do in the night. Maybe it was the amazing discount that made everyone happy.

By the time I reached home, my soya bean milk from geylang had curdled. The you teow had become cold. The soya bean curd was still delicious though.

beauty

now that I've been home for so long, don't really have much to write about india. So, I shall change the theme of my blog. It's going to be about....me! yes, I know it has always been about me...but now, it's me as a final year medical student. No longer the carefree, lots-of-free-time-elective-student-me.

bought some new shoes the other day and wore the colourfu urs shoe today for cai's ballerina shoe bday party. Although the shoe is very pretty, it was super painful. Now i have a big bubble on my feet. gross. All for the sake of beauty.

Wanted to go on a diet to look beautiful for the new school year but guess what?! I went to eat swensen's today. Argh. The swensen's at marina square is having a very good offer because it just opened. For a dollar with every main course purchased, you can get unlimited ice-cream. Isn't it great? I had a total of 4 scoopes. yummy yummy. Don't regret it actually. So what if I'm getting fat? So what if I'm not pretty anymore?

Reflections

The timetable for my final year in med school is finally out and I'll be starting the exciting year (yeah) with psychological medicine (double yeah). I wonder how my trip to india will affect me as a medical student and as a doctor. Hopefully in a good way. Seriously, I don't think my time at St. John's has affected me much. It's almost like a posting at any singapore's hospital except I was more slack and spent less time at the hospital. However, the time spent outside the hospital and travelling around india probably has a greater effect on my life.

For example, I've learnt not to take things for granted. Just normal and simple things like brushing teeth. With every mouthful of water i take into my mouth, I am reminded that Singapore's water is so clean that we can actually drink from the tap. Never ever try it in india! Or you will be rewarded with lots of trips to the loo. I used to think that staying at an expensive hotel is the best way of travelling, but I have been proven wrong. The places we stayed in like the hospital annex and the cheap places we found whilst travelling were all extremely comfortable and made the trip much more enjoyable.

The best part about spending money overseas is seeing the faces of those I bought presents for. It's really fun and makes me very happy. Bought a shawl for myself in india, quite expensive and nice, but yet I don't get the same feeling as I get when I look at it compared to the feeling I get when I gave masala tea to my family. Wish I bought more gifts for everybody.

I'm glad I chose india and had the bunch of friends with me there. I can't imgaine going for the trip all by myself. I got the chance to know everybody a little better. Sometimes too well. haha. I'm really happy I got the chance to see India. Even though we did everything on a small budget, I enjoyed myself tremendously and got to see most of South India. I think everybody should pay India a visit if they have time. It's near enough, value for money, and lots of things to see and experience. Especially Kerala...think it's my favourite place there. Now that I'm back in singapore, I'm in kind of a nostalgic mood. Everything now seems so real and year 5 is really happening. Sigh.

Home sweet home

I'm finally home! Took a nice long shower, the jets of water from the shower head felt a little ticklish. Haha. Never noticed it before, but after bathing for 2 months with a pail and a bucket, you can't help but notice things like that. Although I always yearned to be home when I'm in india and always making numerous plans, I'm feeling quite lost right now. Don't really know what to do at this moment. There are so many things to be done, so many people to meet yet I feel like I'm missing something...kind of a strange feeling because I've been with the gang 24/7 for the past 2 months and now everybody is back home. No more group discussions on where to go, no more going for dinner together. Strange.

Kumily Thekkady Periyar. They are basically the same place. Kumily is the town where the bus drops you and has lots of nice homestays. Thekkady is probably the road from Kumily to Periyar. And Periyar is the wildlife reserve. Spent 2 nights there and stayed at El Paradiso. A lovely homestay runned by Mr. Babu. Surprisingly, I managed to get a few stuff done there even though I was with Melvin. Both of us are probably the slackest or some say the laziest people in the group. We did the usual boating, cycling and trekking. Although we didn't see any tigers or elephants, we managed to see 2 huge bisons, giant squirrels, monkeys, deers and leeches. Yes, leeches. Yucky creatures they are. When I first saw them, I thought they were earthworms. I thought leeches look like huge slugs that are red in colour but they are surprisingly small and skinny. They climb onto your shoes when you step into wet areas and climb up your leg to literally, SUCK YOUR BLOOD! super gross. Found a few on my shoes, thought i was safe but lo and behold! I saw a leech just above my right knee. Of course, being the chicken-hearted me, I completely freaked out. But the nice guide, Mr Sakkeer, calmly and professionally burnt the leech off with the light of his cigarette. I still have a small red patch on my knee where the leech was. It's not painful at all, just a cute reminder of that day. Do you know that by putting tobacco powder on your shoes and socks, you can prevent leeches from leeching onto you? Amazing right?

Here's a little advertisement for Mr Sakkeer in case anybody wants to go Kerala and needs a guide for trekking. We went for a 3 hour trek into Periyar. Took the less-used route, sometimes there's no route even. Just walking blindly into the bushes with all the leaves blocking your vision. We also walked along elephants' trek. The path taken by the elephants when they climb up the mountain. Not as easy as walking along path made for humans, wonder how the elephants keep their balance with their big feet and huge body. Tiring when I was there but now, looking back, I'm glad I made myself wake up to trek. We ended the trek at Mr Sakkeer's house and he kindly offered us delicious ginger tea. Altogether, Melvin and I pain Rs300 (S$12) for the trek. Quite a bargain. Other people were offering us Rs300 per person. But if you go during the peak season, it'll probably cost much more. I have his email if anyone needs it. =)

...

Took a long nap just now. Was a little disorientated when I woke up. Can't believe I'm back in my own bed. haha. I'll be going for a BUFFET later! Yeah! Even though i still have diarrhoea and colic, I'm still going to gorge myself silly.

I survived the train in the general cabin!

Today is THE day. My very last day in india. Just reached Bangalore after suffering 7.5 hours of arduous and tortuous ride in the 3rd class cabin of the train. Dunnoe where to start! overall, it's one of my worst travelling experience ever! To get home tomorrow morning, i started my journey at 7pm last night! That's about 36 hours of travelling just to get home! My whole body is aching now. Even my poor fingers are aching, so won't blog much today. The trip to Periyar was wonderful. It's a beautiful place with very friendly people. Cheap and clean rooms with cable and hot water! I definately recommend those who are going to Kerala to visit Periyar. Will talk more about it in my next entry.

Got a plane to catch! See ya guys soon!! Wo hui lai le....

God's own country

Kerala, also known as God's own country is a beautiful place. Better than Goa i think. Spent a day on a slow cruise along the backwaters then spent another day and night on a houseboat. It's sort of like a chalet that moves along the waters. And i slept on the top deck that night, fell asleep whilst looking at the numerous stars in the sky. Pity, didn't see any shooting star. Think i'm blind. Kok pin and von saw 3 that night. WHY??

Now i'm currently at fort cochin. It's a laid back place, almost like a more-developed pulau ubin. All of us rented bikes for the day and cycled around the island. It's really putting our biking skills to the test especially for yvonne cos she made me fall down ONCE! cos she crashed into me and she had so many almost-accidents. Haha. Don't worry, we returned the bikes already and von still has all her limbs on her. She's safe, so DON"T WORRY - to the relatives of von. She's coming home soon!!

Tonight all of us will be going to watch a Kathakali dance, a traditional Keralan dance. They use natural pigments to paint their face. Don't really know much about it but I'll be going to see them get ready for the performance and then perform.

We're staying at the Wilson's homestay at fort cochin. It's a steal man! Super cheap rooms but extremely clean and comfortable. I'm paying S$2 a night. Amazing right? The people there are all very friendly and sociable. Spent the night talking to the receptionist called Xavier. If u read her world April 2005, the journalist came to Kerala and wrote a short piece about Fort Cochin and she mentioned the place i'm staying in and Xavier.

ok. enough for now. Coming home in 6 days.....yeah!....not so yeah cos have school...but still yeah!

going home soon I am

Time really does fly. It’s the last week of posting for all of us at St. John’s. I’m currently doing one week of posting with the plastic surgery team. My impression of plastic surgery (before I joined the team) was totally skewed by nip/tuck. The show portrayed it to be a field all about beauty and cosmesis. But it’s not all like that at all, at least here in India, don’t know much about other countries. It kind of overlaps with the orthopedic field in Singapore. They deal with the usual burns, rhinoplasty etc. But they also deal with things like hand injuries which would have been in the hand surgery department in Singapore under ortho. They also do maxillofacial injuries which they have tones of because of the numerous road traffic accidents around.

I went to watch some surgeries yesterday and it has been one of the most exciting experience in India. Started early in the morning with a repair of the tragus of the ear due to some deformity. Not terrible exciting…but wait. There’s more to come. Second op was open reduction internal fixation of a fractured mandible. They started by putting multiple wires between the teeth and did something like braces which screwed the teeth together. In the midst of everything, it kinda looked like a horror movie because of all the wires sticking out of the mouth. Hard to explain in words.. Anyway, the highlight of the day was this patient with 30% burns all over her face and upper body. They did a surgery called tangential excision. Sounds quite benign right? WRONG! They use this instrument that looks and behaves a lot like the potato-skin peeler. And they peeled the burnt skin layer by layer. It was quite bloody with the blood dripping down the sheets all over the floor. Normally they would have done skin grafting at the same operation but the patient presented too late so infection has already set in. They will be doing the skin graft tomorrow, quite excited to watch it. It’s quite sad looking at burns patients because they must be in lots of pain and the road to recovery is very very very long. All the skin grafting, skin peeling and physiotherapy. Not to mention the scars.

All of us will be going to kerala for a week with a german elective student, manuel. Hmm..dunnoe how to spell his name. Anyway, hope it’ll be fun. It’s the monsoon season already so there’s lots of rain with the regular lightning and thunder and the fallen trees on the road. Hope it won’t rain so much in Kerala otherwise all our plans will be ruined. And after that, going home soon i am! Super duper excited. Can't wait to sleep in the comfort of my bed. Dumping my clothes to my maid to wash...haha...sorry tess. And waiting for food to be served to me. Watching tv in my PJS. And eating all the buffets!!

And last but definately not least, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOAN! hope you like the birthday card that me and von sent you.

Don't think i'll be blogging anymore in india. Will continue when i'm back in singapore. See ya guys soon!

Safe, healthy and alive

Having a lazy Tuesday afternoon today. Supposed to continue ward rounds but the weather is so hot and I’m feeling quite yucky so decided to skip the rounds and come to the internet café instead. Everybody is safe and well in India. So DON’T WORRY! We are not venturing very far these days because I think we’re all very tired of traveling and seen most of the stuff we wanna see already.

We went to Mother Theresa home last weekend. It’s an orphanage for children with multiple disabilities – both mental and physical. They accept children who are abandoned or from very difficult backgrounds and provide them with food and shelter as well as physiotherapy. The children are kept there for as long as they can fit into the beds, then they’ll be transferred to some other homes. The children are very welcoming. From the moment we arrived, they all came towards us, held our hands, played with our watches and brought us to the playground. It’s really quite an eye opening experience. They are so open and warm….Looking at them, I can’t help feeling sorry but at the same time, I feel quite glad that they found a place to stay. I think all the sisters and the volunteers are doing a great job.

After visiting the home, we went to a big shopping complex called Bangalore Central at Residency road. It was their 1 year anniversary and they were giving out lots of freebies. At the entrance, they were giving away free ice-cream and bottled lipton tea. It was unlimited so being the kiasu Singaporeans that we all are, we stayed there for a while. Inside, they were giving away free makeovers (I’m sure wendy will love it!) and 25% discount for food.

Lastly, I stepped on cow dung on Sunday night on my way home from dinner. In my previous blog, I mentioned that there were many cows roaming the streets in India but I forgot to say that there’s dung everywhere too! Fresh dung, dried dung, not-so-big business and big business. No trip to India is complete without stepping on a pile of cow’s shit! The experience was not as horrendous as it sounds. It felt kind of spongy with lots of air in the middle. Probably it’s fart mixed with the stools. Haha…And (I think) it’s not that stinky either. I couldn’t smell anything unlike if you stepped on dog’s poo, the whole world will know. So yeah! My experience in India is almost complete.

the indian way of life

India is a very interesting place. Very different from what I'm used to in singapore. So here's a list of the weird and wonderful of india...

1. Yummilicious tea! almost every morning, I'll go to the canteen and order a cup of tea for 3Rs. They serve it in small metal cups and they form a layer of "skin" on top if you leave it long enough. Very delicious.

my favourite meal of the day is breakfast. Love the dosai, khara bhath and everything indian and oily. very different from the usual roti prata, chee cheong fan and meefen that i'm used to in singapore.

2. Everything is super slow mo in india. Think nathan. So i'm also getting into the slow-mo act. Normally I'll spend half a day in the wards. Most days we go for ward rounds. It's kind of similar to singapore except they spend a longer time with each patient and allow them to ramble on and on about they stories. The doctors don't seem to be in a hurry to end their rounds. Don't know what they do in the afternoon cos I've never stayed there long enough to find out. haha.

Just a note about the rest, no everybody is as slack as me! So to all the relatives of my classmates like yvonne, your child is not slacking. Don't worry. The rest go for tutorials and lectures with the local med students every afternoon. Yvonne, kok pin, pinakin,and clara are doing a project with the paeds department on the patient profile in St. John's. They've been spending numerous afternoon working on that. Kudos to them!

3. Movies in india. Do you know that they have intermission in the middle of every movie they show in the cinema? It's kind of weird cos i dunnoe wat to do when there's a 10 min break. And by the time the movie starts, i can't remember what happened at the beginning already. There are lots of hindi movies showing here but they don't have subtitles so it's a little difficult to watch them. My last movie was XXX. erm....very action.

4. No toilet paper! Indians use water to wash up after they use the toilet. Although some shopping centers have toilet paper in their loos, most don't provide any. When travelling, we have to bring our own rolls and really ration them. They are quite costly here. They sell them here in individual rolls rather than the large packs they do in singapore, probably because nobody uses them except for the odd foreigners!

5. Peeing in public. The guys here like to stay facing the wall (along the pavement in the middle of the street) and pee! it's quite a cultural shock for me. When you walk down a path next to the road, you'll be greeted by the occasional smell of ammonia that's oh-so-interesting. They don't care if the rest of the world is passing by behind them. I guess if you have to do it, you have to do it. The funniest thing is that i once saw a urinal in the middle of the street. No, it's not a toilet, just plain urinals (albeit without flush) but yet nobody uses them!! There were still people peeing right next to it!

6. Cows. You can see cows along with people and vehicles along the street. They seem oblivious to the passing crowd. here's a riddle. why is the cow in the middle of the road?

Ans: Because it's jealous of the zebra crossing.
2nd answer: Because it's tired of jumping across the moon.

hee....i enjoy corny jokes like that.

7. Chinese food. They sell the usual staple of fried rice, wanton soup and fried noodles. They also have funny naming food like steamed momos (dumplings), chopsuey (prob crispy noodles), chicken lollipop and chicken 69. Haven't figured out what those are. Love to eat chinese food when i'm feeling homesick. It's not the same but beggars can't be choosers right?

ok...long blog. Clara and Jinnie have abandoned us and left india! Clara's continuing her elective in singapore and jinnie is going to china for some exchange. hope she can catch her flight to china tonight cos she missed her connecting flight this morning. Nathan's in tamil nadu so now left the 5 of of. Which will be the 5 that'll be travelling to kerala for the last week.

There's a meningococcal outbreak in Delhi and it just killed a young man yesterday i think. Read it in the papers just now. Delhi is quite far away from here so i think it's ok. but nathan's going there on thursday. hopefully everything will be controlled by then.

My bro just scared the hell out of me by saying that something terrible happened at home but nobody's injured. wanted to kill him!! Never ever say such scary things like that to somebody who's so far away from home. Turns out that somebody banged my car from the back. Chey! i knew my car was going to be in trouble without me to protect her. =) So i'm not that shocked. ok...school again tomorrow! surgery again.

what happens in goa stays in goa

hi people!haven't been blogging for a long time because I've been really busy. This is the start of a new week of posting. Am starting general surgery for 2 weeks with nathan and melvin. Did 2 days of community medicine last week. It's a posting where we had to take a van/bus out to the outskirts of bangalore and visit the people living in the rural areas. St. John's has a hospital called Mingalur hospital runned by their post-graduates and interns. It's fully supported by staff from St. John's although there are no full time nurses posted there. It's very interesting because after graduating from St. John's, the post-graduates must serve 2 years in the rural areas before getting their post-graduate degrees at St. John's for free.

Went to Goa over the weekend. It's a beautiful place with great beaches facing the Arabian sea. The waves are never ending, and there's always a wonderful sea breeze. The most interesting thing (i think) was the trip there and back. We took a 16 hour non-aircon sleeper coach from Bangalore to Goa. I've never taken anything like that in my entire life! It's a bus full of double decker beds on both sides. Quite comfortable if you are not feeling nauseated. I slept the entire way back this morning. It's a great and cheap way to travel.

I spent lots of time lazing on the beach. Did parasailing for 400Rs for a few short minutes but i think it's worth it! Super duper fun! Nathan went for jetskiing too! Did a small black henna tatoo on dolphins on my right ankle. Other than that, went to some night clubs there. The most interesting one is Club Cabbana. (dunnoe how to spell). It's up on a hill with swimming pools, couches and beds everywhere. Beautiful place. If u are visiting Goa, do check it out!

I think many things happened in goa but what happens in goa stays in goa! haha. sorry for the suspense. but i just had to add it in. actually nothing much happened lah...dun let your imaginations run wild! going for dinner soon! feel like eating california pizza kitchen!!

Clara's birthday!

Saturday was Clara’s birthday. We celebrated it by going to Lalbagh garden in the morning. It’s one of the many gardens of India, but it can’t be compared with the Botanical gardens in Ooty. Nothing much there I think. Can’t even remember what I saw there already. Haha. We then proceeded to Bull’s temple. It’s has a bull carved out of a single granite and it sits in the middle of the temple. Quite interesting. There was a small playground near the temple and we had tones of fun taking funny photos and playing with the swings, slides and see-saw. Just like the good old days. We ended the day by going to the famous Sunny’s. It’s a nice restaurant that’s recommended by the guide book and other elective students here. I had a really good piece of steak which cost me only abt S$12. Although expensive by india’s standard, it’s quite a reasonable price cf to Singapore.

Saturday was also SWYKE’s day. It’s the day designated by swyke to hang out at some desert place (started with cheesecake at Hilton) and bitch about guys. We had it since JC days and this is the first year we didn’t meet up on 30th april. So sad. It’s partly my fault cos I’m in India, but the rest are also everywhere around the world. Kat is in US and Yuwen is in China. Poor wendy, still stuck in Singapore because of electives.

Sunday was very exciting for us. We went to Nathan’s friend’s sister’s wedding at St. Patrick’s church. It’s kind of like a typical catholic wedding/mass in Singapore except the bride is in a white sari. Quite a cool experience. The hymns and songs of worship are similar to Singapore, it’s like everybody speaking the same language even though we’re so far away from each other. After the wedding, we went to Brigade road for some shopping. Bought a cute little chess set for 90Rs (100Rs about S$4) even though I dunnoe how to play chess! Haha. Lastly, we went to the Jayamahal palace hotel which is still under renovations. It is managed by Pinakin’s grand uncle so we all got a yummy dinner for free. It’ll be opening at the end of the month and room rates are 3000Rs per night. It’s a private palace converted to a hotel. The best thing was, it is owned by a King from Gujurat and he was there yesterday to oversee the renovations and we got to see a glimpse of him. Couldn’t really see his face very clearly cos it was quite dark. Don’t know how many kings are there in India but according to Pinakin, there are many because everybody in India behaves like a king! =)

We had dinner on a lawn next to a fountain with colourful lights. Fireworks was going off in the background. Mosquitoes kissing our feet. It’s quite a romantic place. A perfect place for a wedding.

In case you all start thinking that I’m slacking because I’m supposed to be India to study and not sightsee…you are right! I’m totally slacking and I’m getting good at it. I can lay in bed all afternoon doing nothing and feel really happy and satisfied. Haha. I’m enjoying the moment because I know when I go home, it’s going to be work work work all the way! Today is Monday again and I just started a 2-day posting with cardio-thoracic team. The people are really nice and they are very willing to teach. They made us present chest x-rays to the entire team. So I just said some crap and hope it makes sense. =) They don’t have any surgeries this week because all the big shots are on leave so fortunately unfortunately for us.

blackout

hello everybody. thanks for reading my blog. since my last entry, i've been quite sick so the indian experience hasn't been too fun for me. Felt a little unwell on monday night, and will sleeping that night, had chills and rigors. so, i knew a fever was coming. Learnt from the tutorials here, there are 3 types of fever. continuous, intermittent and remitting. Didn't go to school on tuesday, and stayed in bed the whole day. everybody is very nice to me. Sweet little yvonne put all sorts of med, water, hello panda and chocolate chip cookies beside my bed before she went to school. felt so touched. =) and everybody asked about how i was and came to visit me in my room after their lessons. and melvin made milo for me. The worst part about that night was there was a blackout at St. john's! Was having dinner (yucky tomato soup at the canteen downstairs) when it happened and i left halfway to get back to bed. Had to walk up and sleep in darkness. The good thing was i couldn't see any cockroaches that night. haha. It might be the food we ate, Nathan and Melvin vomitted too.

Went to school this morning even though i vomitted and had numerous diarrhoea last night. so poor thing right? Left halfway cos felt like i was going to blackout any moment. While the tutor was teaching us about mitral stenosis, i suddenly felt like a black sheet of cloth covered my eyes and mufflers were put to my ears. Strange feeling. So i quickly excused myself in case i fall flat on my face. Melvin said i looked green, and Jinnie said my lips were very pale.

ok. enough of my sickness. feeling better now after taking tonnes of medications. Just had wanton soup and bolognaise at the food court at forum (shopping mall). Wanted something familiar so that i'll feel better. I miss katong laksa, satay bee hoon, dim sum and porridge!!

Best day so far

Today is the start of another new week. Will be doing one week of cardiology starting from today. Went for ward rounds this morning and had quite an enjoyable time. Saw cases of mitral stenosis secondary to rheumatic heart disease, aortic insufficiency etc. All the patients have beautiful murmurs and thrills to examine. The doctors in cardio are very pro teaching, quite a stark difference from medicine.

Just came back from our weekend trip a few hours ago. We arrived at Bangalore at 3.30am after lots of bumps, cold wind in the face, and butt flying off the chair. We reached Mysore on Monday, didn’t like the place very much because they have very persistent hawkers who like to harass girls like me who look so obviously like a tourist. We went to the maharaja’s palace which was very pretty and grand, but the locals say taj mahal is way better. We traveled up to Ooty (a hill station) on Saturday, it is a beautiful place. The weather is excellent and the people are nice. That day has been my favourite day in India so far. Went to this lake (in the middle of the hills, dunnoe how it’s possible), and played bumper cars and Viking. The funniest thing is the guys are all so scared! Nathan, who so bravely purchased the tickets, backed out last minute when the ride was starting saying that he ate too much for lunch. He gave his ticket to kok pin who was equally scared. Pinakin wasn’t that brave either. Haha. It’s really quite hilarious. Bought lots of tea back home (ooty is famous for tea), and bought cute little Indian outfits for my little cousin and nephews. Haven’t bought anything for myself yet, surprisingly.

On Sunday, we went to coonoor, it was ok. The weather was still great, but nothing much to see. I have to talk about my bathing experience in Ooty! On Sunday morning, everybody had to wake up at 730 am to get hot water to bathe. It’s really cold there and they boil water using firewood on the roof for us to bathe. So it’s really precious and stressful. I bathed first and I was so worried that Yvonne won’t have any hot water to bathe all throughout my shower. It’s really one of the most stressful bathing experience man.

weekend getaway

today is wednesday. Went for ward rounds as usual and joined the medical students for a bedside tutorial on central nervous system. The tutorials are about the same as singapore's except for their accent and the fact that they speak really softly. Patients here are really cooperative and nice, but too bad i can't clerk them cos can't communicate with them. I only only auscultate and palpate =)

After our trip from puttaparthy last weekend, we haven't been doing much sight-seeing. Played pool last night at this pool place which felt like a sauna because the air-con was down. Nathan discovered this juice place that sells delicious fruit juice which is an instant cure to my constipation. They sell the best cheese sandwich there too. It's a triple decker, toasted bread with melted cheese and butter in the centre. they don't have any seats at the shop so we all have to stand outside with all the houseflies and enjoy the meal. Maybe it's the environment and all, but everything tastes so good there. The best part is all is within walking distance to our hospital.

Booked a weekend trip to Mysore and Ooty just now. We'll be leaving on friday morning at 630am (it's a public holiday here so we are not skipping school, although i dunnoe wat holiday it is) and will be returning on monday morning at 5am. Which will then be followed by another week of school starting on monday itself. We are keeping ourselves really busy here.

what the hell are you wearing?

today is sunday. went to puttaparthy yesterday to see Sai Baba. Took a 4 hour bus ride there which was surprisingly enjoyable. We started the day at 6 am. The weather was very cool in the morning and we took at non-aircon bus. I think the best part of the trip was the bus ride. haha. anyway, reached puttaparthy ard noon and we went to the ashram. It's a big compound where Sai Baba lives and has a hospital, museum and some prayer place. We joined the darshan (like mass in catholic church, prayer seesions in mosque) and the guys and girls were separated.

So, 4 of us girls joined the queue to get into this big hall. we had to queue in rows and the ladies in front of the row had to pick a number which determines how near u sit near Sai Baba. My row was number 5 but i had to sit right at the back of the hall like some outcast. Getting into the hall was quite an experience. They let us in late so when Sai Baba went into the hall, we were still outside. Everybody started squeezing and pushing. Luckily they were all women. Then suddenly, 2 young girls will molest ur legs to check for what i think is weapon. then, we have to pass the metal detector, and get further molested by this fierce lady. This is because indian ladies like to keep things near their breast so...you know...they have to check. haha. When she saw us, she shouted, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WEARING?" haha. so paiseh. everybody was in saris but we were wearing tshirt and long pants. I was wearing a black t-shirt and my green darw string pants. Quite conservative by my standards already. But i felt so exposed when i was there.

We ended up right at the back of the hall, apart fr everybody and guarded by the people working there like we'll do something wrong like that. Sai Baba comes out twice a day in this red golf cart-like thing and the devotees come fr all over the world just to see him. He supposed to interview 10 devotees for something while everybody just sit ard and wait. We had to catch the bus back that day so we left after seeing him go round in the golf cart.

hmm...feeling sick today. have sore throat, cough, running and itchy nose, grumpy, headache and nausea. weird symptoms right? maybe it's homesick.

tomorrow is monday again. I kind of like school more than the weekends. The medical students are very very nice. They gave us lots of information on where to go ard Bangalore, and invited us to their hostel. Everybody speaks very good english so communication is not a problem.

spent too much of internet time already. think i have lots of spelling and grammer mistakes but no time to check. don't laugh at me.

till next time!

day four

today is day four of my 8 weeks in india. I'm sitting at an internet cafe at forum (a shopping centre near St. John's). Everything is so new to me. Even using internet in the internet cafe.

India is vert different from Singapore. Firstly, chinese is the minority. everybody thinks that we're from china and they keep coming up to us and say, "CHINA?" haha. the roads are amazing. there is absolutely no order at all. We travel around bangalore via auto-rickshaws which is something like the tuks tuks in thailand. It's is an experience all by itself. The exhaust from the cars and the dust from the ground, plus the never ending honking, makes india truly unique. I think i'll use the horn more often when i come back to singapore.

St. John's Hospital is better than i ever imagined. It has a sprawling campus, almost like a community within itself. It is a catholic hospital. They train doctors here to serve the community. The director told us that only 2 private teaching hospitals in India are losing money, and one of them is St. John's. This is because their graduates have to serve 2 years doing rural postings, serving their people, and after they complete that, they get their post-graduate for free.

I'm posted to internal medicine for 2 weeks. Every morning, i attend ward rounds and join the medical students for bedside tutorial. Seeing the doctors do ward rounds is quite inspirational. Their clinical skills is very good, I'm learning a lot from them. I'm having a backache because their ward rounds last so long everyday, but it's good because they spend a lot of time on one patient. Bedside tutorials are just like the ones in Singapore. The med students make us feel v welcomed and let us participate in class. Had 2 tutorials on respiratory examination. I'm learning much more exam techniques that i never knew existed. They have many interesting cases that we are not exposed to in Singapore. Some examples are, snake bite with ascending cellulitis, pericarditis secondary to HIV, TB TB everywhere...and i think leptospirosis is quite prevalent too.

I don't do much during the afternoons because, just because. =) Half a day is enough for me.

The hostel is very simple but clean. The most amazing part is we have our own attached bathroom! It's just like PGP except no air-con. I finally had my first night of real sleep because the previous 2 nights, we had to squeeze 3 in a room as they did not have enough rooms for us. It was quite a cramp, and our room looked like squatters. I'm bunking with yvonne, jinnie with clara, pinakin with melvin and kok pin with nathan. The guys rooms are much cleaner than me and von's. So weird right? haha. Can't wear slippers into their room but we just wear slipper cos i'm too lazy to mop the floor. So far, i saw 3 rats in the hostel but thankfully not in our room. The guys helped us killed 3 cockroaches and 1 lizard in out room. Mosquitoes. They are EVERYWHERE. If i walk and swing my hand, i prob can hit 2 or 3 mosquitoes.

ok. enough for now. need to go. hope i can blog more often.

argh!

my luggage can't close! and i haven't even put my shoes in yet! argh!!!!

i don't know what to take out of the luggage. maybe i should leave my textbooks at home. or maybe my stethoscope because the box is taking up so much space. or maybe i should not bring any shoes and wear slippers the entire time. I might need another luggage but then i'll look like a crazy woman at the airport. Think i won't have time to sleep tonight. So many plans, so little time!

less than 24 hours...

sorry, no photos

Going for overseas electives takes a lot of work. From getting people to go with you, choosing the country and the hospital, application, confirmation, vaccination, buying air tickets, applying for visa, packing and changing money, the process has taken months. But we are finally going. It's really the highlight of my 4 years in med school. I remember it all started during our psychomed posting at Woodbridge hospital. We were all sitting around waiting for something (can't remember what it was) and Pinakin, Melvin, von and I were talking about overseas elective. and very soon the group included Kok Pin, Nathan, Leslie, Jinnie and Clara. We didn't really have a plan, but we knew we wanted to go to India. And after tonnes of discussion, and sometimes arguments =) we finally decided to go to St. John's. So exciting!

I did some packing today (finally). One of the discoveries i made was packing with zipper bags. you can put anything in them and not worry about them spilling or getting wet. And just stack them up, everything will look so nice and neat. Took some photos of my packing and wanted to put it in the blog, but somehow i can't seem to get the hello thing working. I'm such an IT idiot. Oh dear! This means i can't upload photos during my trip. Maybe wendy can help, she always has so many photos in her blog *wink*

We had a mini farewell party last night at von's house. Had lots of fun cooking our own dinner and playing trivial pursuit. It's quite a difficult game, except when it comes to questions on science. We were all experts!

Lastly, i have to say (although elective-unrelated), i'm so disappointed with the results of this week's american idol. i can only ask, WHY???!!!

Leptospirosis

i went to mustafa centre last night. must really applaud the 24 hour concept, it's really great if u are busy in the day or just can't sleep at night. but finding the carpark was quite a challenge. had a chance to experience what it might be like in India. And i'm happy to say, it was quite pleasant! There are tonnes of things to buy and loads of frozen food. like frozen potato puffs, samosa and even naans! Almost wanted to buy everything but had to stop myself because i will be having Indian food for the next 2 months. Did i mention i LOVE indian food? people always say they lose weight when they go to India, i think i'll be the only person to gain weight. haha. who cares?!

Saw a cute little rat yesterday and i realized rats (only if they are tiny) are not so frightening after all. They are much better than cockroaches, especially flying ones! There's a rat temple known as Karni Mata temple in Deshnok, India where thousands of holy rats run rampant at the feet of worshippers. According to local legend, the patron deity of Bikaner, Karni Mata, was asked to resurrect her favourite nephew. She called up Yama, the god of death, who told her that the boy has been reborn as a rat and that all her male descendants would be born as rats in her temple at Deshnok. According to the guide book that i have, the best time to visit is during the Navratri festival in March, when the temple swarms with people (and rats!). If you are an amazing race fan, u will remember the participants going to this temple in one of the earlier seasons. And if u are in singapore, the new traveling show on channel U showing tonight at 9.15pm will show the hosts going to this temple too! Too bad it's too far away from Bangalore otherwise i'll definitely go and check it out.

For all the microbiology graduates, remember leptospirosis leading to Weil's disease, bubonic plague with it's incredible mortality rate, wiping out almost 40% of Europe's population in 1347-1350 , and some say there's a connection between hepatitis E and rats. So, for all the painful arm and painful butt that we underwent to get vaccination for hep A and B, we are still exposed to E! But fret not! hepatitis E is still very rare in humans and the connection between rats and human hep E is still unclear.

maybe i'll talk about cockroaches tomorrow

phew!

viva list is out today. didn't get any call to go for viva tomorrow so i think i'm safe. phew! this is the last hurdle to cross before i actually go to india. but even if i failed, i would have to go anyway because i need to fulfill my 7 weeks of electives. If i failed, i would have to lug my robbins and lowe all the way to india and i don't think my luggage will like the extra weight very much. so double phew!

somehow i'm not very excited about the big trip. The thought of leaving my home, sleeping on a strange bed, washing my own clothes....(i sound very spoilt right?)...is quite daunting. And the worst part is i can't even go home at the end of the day and escape from everybody if i'm having a bad day. It's not that i dislike the people i'm going with, don't get me wrong, but the thought of spending such a long time with anyone is very scary. It's like getting married! Even in singapore, when i spend a good part of my life in the clinics, i feel stifled already. And that is when i can go home everyday. I'm going to miss the daily conversations with my sis, even though i always tell her to stop talking (cos she can really talk! haha), it's always a favourite part of my day.

heard from wendy that von said that if i force her to wash her bedsheet when we're there, she'll say that i never wash my favourite pillow. that's quite true. the pot calling the kettle black. BUT! a small pillow and a bedsheet is totally different! when u sleep, your epithelial cells will shed and collect on your bedsheet everynight! imagine 2 months worth of skin!! u can roll them into a ball like ji gong and give it to others as xian dan. and u only smell and niao niao your favourite pillow. and if u just jiggle a bit, all the dirt will drop off like magic.

5 more days......

first

today has many firsts for me

1. caught in a storm at McRitchie reservoir for the first time

2. wanted to go for the treetop walk for the first time (by the way, never go on a monday because it's not open!!)

3. took public transport. although not my first time, haven't done it in ages.

4. started my very first blog! yeah!

the reason for my blog is so that my family and friends and have an up-to-date account on my trip to india which will be in 6 days time! I'll be going to St. John's Medical College Hospital in Bangalore, India on Sunday. will be in india for 2 whole months. that's the longest time i've ever spent away fr home. feeling excited but at the same time dreading it. argh! heard horror stories about girls (and guys too) being groped in public, diarrhoea after eating, tainted mineral water.....but then again I'm sure no matter where i go, there'll be interesting and scary travellers' tales.

going to miss my dose of tv shows when i'm not in singapore. luckily, i will have my favourite pillow with me.