WAT A WEEKEND!
Hey all~ haf stopped blogging a while. haf been very busy...
1) watching FULL HOUSE - actually finished it in 3 days... it's amazing.. i dunno how i can sleep at 1-2am.. and waking up at 7... ha ha... It's SOOO good! what a show!! let me put some photos here soon...
This is the "house" that they live together as enemies:
MORE PHOTOS ON: http://chinese.tour2korea.com/02Culture/TVMiniseries/full.asp?kosm=m2_5&konum=1
2) steph & Sam's bday @ sofiaz. It was a nice turn out. i can't believe you people didn't share the meal.....they are MEGA meals! If you were meds - you'd know HOW to pay the least at Sofiaz. We always pay around $5 when we go to sofiaz! very smart consumer! (tight-ass. .$_$ kekkee)
3) baptism - yeh! go irene and Steph.
To Steph - You've been a Christian for a very long time - a lot longer than ME! I guess you're like me - fully devoting ourselves to the Lord at the beginning of Uni. It's so good to start our Med Life and CHristian Life together~ It feels like we're walking hand in hand towards becoming a doctor and also a woman of God. Just so fantastic to see you so enthusiastic about water baptism today. It might seem to be a big change - for you're not saved because of baptism. You're taking a step of obedience - taking a step that naturally comes after believing in the Lord. *obedience* - is such a key to a close r/ship with God. Thank yoU steph - for sharing this important moment with me. Keep growing! bring out the joy within you - and be a witness to those around you. Tell them what Jesus has done in your life!! Offer them a free gift of eternal life. CONGRATULATIONS!
To Irene - I still remember the day when you became a Christian. I didn't know how to react. I guess at that time, I wasn't all that devoted to serving God. I only just said the Sinner's prayer few months before you. It's so incredible how God works! Who would ever guess that you'd get baptised at My church and it was *I* who signed your application form as "cell leader". You have such a pure faith - it's more unshakable than I imagined. It's so touching to see you boldly explaining to friends how God has helped you through tough times. So inspiring to see that you are always hungry for more! You want a closer relationship with God. And unfailingly - God showered His love upon you at baptism(s!). Keep reaching out for Him. He says "draw close to me" - even if it means driving 1 hour every wednesday and Sunday! God sees your effort! CONGRATULATIONS!
"Full House"
I'm watching this korean show called "FULL HOUSE" about these 2 enemies living together and now they're slowly realising their affection for one another. ha ha.. HOW TYPICAL of an ASIAN drama!
but i like it. it's funny to see them fighting over everything but deep down inside, they're falling for each other day by day...
Reminds me of LONG VACATION - the jap drama.
ANyway, the girl in Full House is absolutely beautiful... Like.. seriously everything about her is beautiful - on the outside. not sure about her inner beauty. but anyway... Let me put up a photo here...
i've watched 4 out of 16 episodes on one night.. ha ha... from 7:30pm-1am.. WAHAHA... I will press on to finish it ASAP!
Inguinal Hernia
this is gonna be short. well a tiny baby had inguinal AND umbilical hernia. and the anaesthetist asked me to describe the ANATOMY OF INGUINAL CANAL. Mouth *dropped*. I'm meant to look it up tonight... watever.. haha...
and poor baby.. he had to do an epidural anaesthetic. which requires flexing his whole body in an uncomfortable position and then poking thru a needle on his spine. OUCH. and triple ouch! because i think they did it at least THREE TIMES! (coz they couldn't get to the CSF fluid...)
Poor baby. he was crying so hard. turning blue at times... thats the most horrible thing about being a doctor!
ANYWAY, I got the pleasant job of feeding cordial to the baby. It works quite miraculously. He'd just stop crying. and once the cordial is gone, he cries again. and the cycle repeats.... Actually the cordial stopped working after a while.. i mean c'on! Lumbar Puncture HURTS!!!!!!!!!!
Breast Implant
Yep. Steph and I saw a breast implant today. All you do is cut a hole and stuff a circular jelly pad inside. didn't take long really. I don't think it was symmetrical though. the surgeon blamed it on the rib cage...
So why did it happen at royal *CHILDREN'S* hospital? She's 18 and is an XY Female (gonadal dystrophy). What it means is she has no female reproductive system (like ovaries and breast etc...) but she looks like a woman. She was born to be XY (ie MALE) but the Y is not working (or something like that)... so phenotypically a FEMALE.
Poor kid... lots of social implications being an XY female... What to do?
Plastic Surgery & Appendectomy & Animal House
My AMS is getting more and more "RANDOM"!!
Firstly, I went to see a finger plastic surgery. Kinda uninteresting. Steph and I were hoping to see the breast implant listed on the schedule BUT unfortuantely, due to lack of hospital beds, it was cancelled. >< "breast implant on children???" you ask... Well, she's 18.
Secondly, we went to see appendectomy. It was way cool coz you get to see everything that's happening on the TV screen. Steph and I were guessing the real-life length of the appendix. It was actually a bit longer than we thought. I got to hold the appendix (in a jar of blue liquid)!!! kekeke... it was actually exciting... (is it worrying?)
Then we went for a free lunch. Nice bread roll and fruit platter!! I got addicted to the Honey dew. SO SWEET~ We bumped into other AMS students! Ha ha... the attraction of free lunch...
Then we went to the starlight hall again. They played air hockey:
Then we decided to check out the animal lab in the hospital (as recommended by the other AMS studnets). Thanks to Steph for making the initiative. Dora and I were a bit reluctant - unsure whether we're allowed to or not.... Anyway so we made our way into the animal house. We saw 2 piglets! 8 weeks old. SO CUTE. we gotta pat them too!! Then we saw a lot of mice and there were 13 pups!! (see picture) The mother was so protective of the pups. She picked them up (one by one) by her mouth and located them away from us. The natural motherly love is most admirable~
Then Steph and I tried to do some reading on "introduction to anaesthesia". I almost fell asleep. Brilliant steph suggested that we go play with kids in the day centre! 'YEAH!!!!!' So we went. I first kid I saw was chinese. and then his (later i found out it's a girl!) dad asked him to call me "Jie Jie" which means "elder sister" in cantonese. So cool! They spoke canto! So i talked to the 1 year old, the 4 year old and the parents. The actual patient is in the theatre and she has Down Syndrome. The anaesthetist has to jab an intramuscular injection to make her calm down and sleep. I didn't get to hold the 1 year old girl coz she is quite a bossy, agitated kid... >< I'll try again on other kids in the future...
I've noticed something about Steph. She'd call up for anything. I swear, she made about 10 phone calls in a span of 1 hour. what are they for? 1) does the library photocopier have a feeder? 2) what's the internal no. for the library? 3) when are we changing name badge? 4) sorry it's me again. do we get to keep the old badge? 5) Can we come in the animal house? (the rest I forgot...) Here are some pictures to prove it!
(yip, this time with MSN!!!)
Our department bought a new photocopier. Steph was so excited that she took a photo of it. *sigh*... and she really wanted to be the first person to use it. So she checked if it was ready every 5 minutes. Then she suggested that we just make a phone call rather than walking 8 seconds to the photocopier room. I stopped her. To her disappointment, the photocopier didn't work. Here it is:
I DO do my work - but am I sleeping in that photo?
That was pretty much my day. Bought a top from Kookai on the way home! half priced man!
Nose Stenosis & a Slack Afternoon!
The baby had nose stenosis. About 14-16days old. So they literally stuff metal rods through the nose for distension - slowly increasing in thickness as well!!! >< >< not a pretty scene. But i guess that'd help the baby to feed better. When the surgery was over, she didn't feel like breathing on her own. She was too happy with the ventilation. So we sent her to the neonatal - hopefully she DID breathe eventually...
I took the afternoon off and caught up with med friends and Toki Jap Restaurant and then Max Brenner... YUMMY~
Some Platter:
Some Waffle:
Kidney Transplant
Yip, saw a kidney transplant yesterday. From the dad to the son. It touches your heart when you see this kinda thing. The donor kidney was quite big - it goes to the front rather than posteriorly. Poor kid - he had kidney failure because... who knows why.. ha ha... I think it's due to the backflow of pressure. I didn't quite understand when the Dr. explained to me. Since it's a big operation, the anaethetist put in a lot of tubes... An epidural one near the thoracic spine. They couldn't poke through an artery - after many tries. They poked through the JVP. Some peripheral veins... Anyway, lots of tubes.
Oh yeh the surgeon in charge today was female. the assisting surgeon was male. Same as the brain surgery I mentioned in the last blog. Go girls! We make better surgeons. ;)
I did a bit of shopping in the hospital! It's groovy! The bags are so cute! only $2 and it goes to heart foundation. Went to the toy shop with steph. SO CUTE. this elephant costs $47. so soft and huggable. even with my staff discount of 10% - i wouldn't buy it!
My locker - bottom >_< Hopefully we get the full-length ones soon!
Here's a photo of the monitor/machines that I'll be using. They test the kids' awareness in anaesthesia.
the fridge in my office:
here's Dora and Steph's office: with the Hidamari No Tami that I gave dora and the nurse bear that steph bought from the toy shop. only $5!!
ANyway, RCH is great fun!
Brain Surgery
This photo was taken - at Steph's command:
Guess where I took this picture???????????
On a less interesting topic - we saw a brain surgery today. The child has epilepsy. All other treatments have not helped, therefore a surgery approach was chosen - LOBECTOMY. removing the right temporal lobe. I thought we were told that it's not a common practice anymore!!
So much preparation before the actual surgery! The Anaesthetists poke through every artery and vein there was!!! tubes everywhere.
As the scalp was being opened up - we were like "What was SCALP again?" Subcutaneous tissue, Connective tissue, A?, Loose connective tissue, Peritoneum... What was A? I still don't know... oops... whatever. someone can correct me, maybe KAT?
And when i'm not in theatre, i did my "reading" on computer. SIF! I just went on msn and checked my email. talk about abusive use of office resources...
HA HA.... ANyway, that was my day~
Circumcision
I was in theatre again - in my funny green pyjama... Funny how the anaesthetist explains to the kids patient: "Isn't it funny that we're the ones in green pyjamas when YOU'RE the one being put to sleep?" I thought: good point!!
ANyway, I finally saw how circumcision is done! Wah..... it takes 30 mins. THat reminds me, why do you need to anaesthetise them when there's what you call "circumcision kit"? The lecturer once passed around this kit in the lecture - promoting how it can prevent HIV/AIDS transmission.
Those kids range from 3yr to 12yr. I wonder what the parents tell them. "Hm... there's nothing wrong with you but I'd like to take you to the hospital. ... and... cut something ... hmm.... when you wake up, i'll take you to Maccas! DEAL?"@_@
It's been tiring walking around hospital. Gets boring when you don't do anything and watching circumcision 3 times in a row. i mean, first time i saw it, i was like "WHOAH". 2nd time, "argh i get it now.." 3rd time, "*YAWN*...
Oh and i MSN'ed during lunch break! that was cool ... well, kinda~ ha ha...
Leaders Retreat @ Saville Hotel
Spent friday to Saturday arvo at the hotel! One activity was IRON CHEF! ha ha... Where each room was given some ingredients. WE're allowd to trade with the other teams. Each room has a nice kitchen! We made apricot and peach Pastry Puffs with Davina's special custard~
Everyone else made BEAUTIFUL dishes~ unbelievable!
That's the view at the balcony. Recognise that building?? Not europe! it's where i have exams!!
thats the function room - where we had the leaders' meeting. Learnt heaps about how to be a leader. It was a refreshing weekend - just getting back to some basics. Putting God first in whatever we do. Allowing the HS to work in us~ Hopefully we'll make this a blessing to the rest of the cell~
AMS has BEGUN!
Holiday is over! my research year at royal children's hospital has begun~
So far it has been exciting. The hardest bit is to get out of the warm, cosy bed at 7 in the morning. As soon as I get passed that, it's all good.
So whats a typical day?
I wake up and get to station around 8am. Sometimes I bump into cell people! Once we had 4 of us on the GW 810 train! that was way kewl~ Then i catch a 59 tram down to Flemmington road. Only takes about 15 mins. Then, I'll get to my locker and get changed into green gown (if I intend to go to theatre that day). The gowns are HUUGE! there's limited supply on SMALL sizes. Some older medical student advised me to put some small ones in the locker - for spare. Ha ha... GREAT ADVICE! (It sounded dodgy when Steph suggested it... ha ha... sorry steph...) And Yeh in the theatre, i follow the anaesthetist around. Talking to little children and their parents about whats going to happen to them. Then the anaesthetist puts the child to sleep either using "magic gas" (sevoflurane) or some IV drug (ie injected into the vein). It's quite strange to see people anaesthetised. You can do whatever you like to them... ha h.. I must not abuse my power over the weak... It's my goal to do some Cannulation (IV drip) during this year. I wanna fine-tune this vital skill. Slowly slowly, i'll get there!! My supervisor is nice. and he's cool. He's funny too. Reminds me of the Red Faces Simon... - just in terms of looks... actually my sup is much better looking than Simon Red. anyway, he looks after me really well. I could tell coz the past 2 AMS students have no complains. They're now employed (as a casual researcher) to work for him during the holiday. COOL HUH? I'm so lucky to have them two with me during this first week! They give good advice!! My research project is on "awareness in anaesthsia". Basically using some monitors to measure how aware they are during the time they are "asleep". I got to practise on a patient today. It's what they call a "dummy trial". The best bit is to play with little kids.. those 2, 3 year olds are SOO adorable... their smile! so innocent~ The best bit about paediatrics!! The parents are not as bad as I thought. but i can totallly understand why they can get grumpy sometimes. who would want to see their kids sick? It's quite sad to see children with serious illnesses though. like a tumour compressing the spine causing the px to become quadriplegic.. Pretty nasty... I guess the hospital desensitises you... You learn to become professional, ie not very emotional.. your mind is kinda trained to block away the emotional side of things... Anyway, I'm learning heaps at hospital and I'm enjoying it! I've only had ONE maccas meal so far! the new burger (chicken fillet) is pretty good~ I look forward to the happy meal. the pooh bear toy and ee-or... (can't spell...)... Oh i must spend more time in the starlight hall too! where all the kids play games~
Mr. Feng Shui
As I'm typing, there's this mr Feng Shui in my study room... explaining to my dad, mum and grandma how to do a make-over for my studyroom... Well it is my grandma's wish to put my Grandfather's shrine (is that what it's called?) in the house. He passed away about 4 years ago. Inspired by her friends in Europe, my grandma decided that it's best that we have those thingy in our house too... According to Mr Feng Shui, my studyroom is the best in terms of Feng Shui in my house... Why my room? out of every place in the house..... ><..... I've already got a funny fountain here in front of me and 2 buddhist statues... and now... I wish I could move out of this room... *SIGH*... Hope they don't affect me... It's so not my choice and if I refuse, they reckon I'm disrespectful of my grandfather - whom I love very much.
Mr Feng Shui has left my room - at last...
Cooking Night...
Well yes. our cell had a cooking night. it was FABS!
- begin with grocery shopping at coles - me, kat, wen and eddie
- around $50 for 10 people - not too bad
- then we went off to Josh's place
- NICE HOUSE! the kitchen was unexpectedly large (considering josh kept saying it's really small)
- Josh's room is... (comment withheld)
- So we started cooking: pasta, avocado nacho style dipping, honey soy chicken, tandoori chicken, stir-fry vegies etc...
- then we had dinner at the table with josh's brother, Dale
- wash-up while lazy ppl played xbox (keke)
- played Psychiatrist - Josh did a relatively good job. hehe
- played mafia - I was the doctor! I got killed first round? why didn't i save myself? d/t inexperience, i guess... or just because i'm so selfless that i healed cat... tho cat was mafia!!
- Cake for Cat, presents!
- OVERALL FUN RATING: 98%!
My random day...
- worked 7-10am
- walked to knox
- met up with 6 high school frds
- bought picnic food at coles
- drove up to mount dandenong mountain
- (thank goodness, there was no fog or rain as we went up)
- when we got there - it rained
- ate under shelter
- deciding what to do with the bad weather...
- drove to chadstone and SHOPPED!
- at chadstone, bumped into 4 or 5 couples - all of which from glenny high.
How random was that? LOL Just so funny. so poorly organised. i guess it's the weather's fault... but yeh it was fun. ha ha...
