Conversing with Life: June 2005

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Declaration of love

I paid the highway people to put this up. You can too, at http://atom.smasher.org/pack/

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

It's for your own good

A new elderly patient came in today. She's presented with generalised malaise and poor appetite. She was noted to be uncommunicative 3 months ago and also exhibited weakness on her right side during that time. She's a diabetic with bilateral lower limb amputations. Functionally, she's ADL dependent. The provisional diagnosis was of sepsis resulting in the malaise and poor appetite. There is also suspicion of a stroke due to her right sided weakness and loss of verbal communication. We ordered investigations, namely blood cultures, blood count and electrolytes.
Throughout the clerking, you can see she was not comfortable being in the hospital. She shook her head incessantly as if that was her way of telling us she didn't want to be in the hospital.
We took blood from her, with restraint of course. As i held her down, she struggled. And boy did she struggle. She's amazing strong on her good side for an elderly lady, she must have tried to shake me off at least 20 times, tried to bite me about 6 times and shook her head a million times.
I felt horrible holding her down but if i didn't she would definitely have prevented the blood from being taken. I kept telling her that this was for her own good, and that we needed to do this so that we can treat her. I suspect she didn't buy it.
"If patient refuse treatment, can we still continue?" I asked that to my friends. Kwanghow said this depends on whether they are mentally capable of making a sound decision. "How do we know they are capable?" "The abbreviated mental test?"
As much as i didn't enjoy the incident, i think i will face this again in the future.

Monday, June 27, 2005

Geriatric Giants

Immobility
Incontinence
Impaired cognition
Impaired feeding
Instability

It's been a good day at the geriatric wards. My first days are always good, then it's just a downhill ride. I resolve not to let that happen this time.

"You need both sunshine and rain to make a rainbow." Anon

I will weather both to make my own rainbow.

Sunday, June 26, 2005

The last stretch

School starts tomorrow. Year 5, the final year.

Trepidation: fear of the unknown future.
Anxiety: unsure of my own abilities.
Hope: that everything will work out fine.
Will: to improve and become a better healer.
Luck: please shine on me this year.

Friday, June 24, 2005

I've done it!

As of 7.45pm 24th June 2005, I have finally managed to load music onto my blog. Days of trial and error, hours of surfing sites on web hosting and external linking. I finally found the music code and with some improvisation, managed to put my music up.
I'm so happy.

At the moment, I have managed to put up the following:
(1) tag board (somebody please tag me!)
(2) site counter (presently 99 hits, all from yours truly)
(3) my pet hamster from bunny lab. please click on him to give him his daily dose of running.
(4) countdown bar from daisypath. counting to that special day.
(5)mood indicator. (now you can see if i'm depressed or manic)
(6) finally the audio bar! (i'm really excited...)

Beautifying the blog

I'm trying very hard to put audio into my blog. I've managed to upload the link into my profile but I can't seem to get it to play when the blog is loaded.
Sigh...

Pachelbel's Canon in D

I chose this piece because it always soothes my mood whenever I'm ruffled. Close your eyes and revel in every note.

Monday, June 20, 2005

Work in Progress

I'm shifting blogs, from friendster to blogger. Been wanting to do something more with my blog, so hopefully this turns out nice. Do visit my previous blog for earlier entries.

My Previous Blog at Friendster. Entries from April to June.

Tackling life's issues: as a final year medical student trying to figure out how to juggle family, relationships, studies and sports.