I babble, I ramble, and I rattle

Attended Faizal’s wedding reception on Sunday. Faizal was my schoolmate in both primary and secondary schools. His house – right behind Hanie‘s house -  is a mere 1-minute walking distance from my own house.

BG asked if I could take a picture of their silat gang so I obliged.

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It wasn’t long before the newlyweds arrived and it was welcomed by a silat performance by the groom’s friends.

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It was quite a long show and it was also quite a hot day so I was more than grateful when the bride and groom finally made their way to the house.

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Another type of traditional performance ensued. This time, it was an ensemble of kompang and gendang.

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They then proceeded with the menepung tawar tradition. I was getting restless and none of my ex-schoolmates were to be seen. I thought many people said they were going???

As usual, I was simply too lazy to ‘fight’ with the other photographers in the vicinity.

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Disappointed, I left the place and proceeded to another appointment that I’ve made with my PMC friends. Chaon and Zack came down from Kedah for the weekend so a meeting with them was in order. I was a bit late (no, I didn’t get lost ) but they were still at Pavillion KL when I arrived. Dolly, Ila, Maz, Julie and Cheme were there too.

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Nope, we didn’t do much. Apart from updating each other with the latest gossips concerning our PMC friends, all  we did was took lots and lots of pictures.

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It was good to see them again.

For more pics, please visit my GALLERY:

1. Faizal’s wedding pics

2. Meeting at Pavillion KL

Went to watch Papadom with Mae and BG yesterday.

It was my first time paying to watch a Malay movie (heck, I’ve even watched Chinese movies at the cinema ) and I was not at all disappointed. It was a good show. The lines are spontaneous and stupidly funny (stupid being the operative word)… and the storyline not too bad (some scenes don’t really make much sense – e.g. how can best friends not recognise each other’s handwriting? – but don’t let them spoil your mood, so just ignore them and enjoy the show, ok?)

I’d say it is the best Afdlin Shauki’s movie so far.

It is definitely at least 5x better than G-Force.

Chaon and Zack are in town today! Woohoo! Am planning to meet them up later after my friend’s wedding reception if I can make it in time.

13 October 2009… Our department organised the 5th Basic Surgical Skills Workshop.

We started with the basic of the basic… scrubbing and gowning technique, led by the OT sister.

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Even our HOD took part in the workshop by making sure his house officers really know how to gown properly.

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That was followed by basic suturing skills session, something similar to what we had at the Episiotomy Repair Workshop a few months back

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My surgeon’s knots (repeated so many times I lost count)… Neat, huh?

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Everyone was deeply engrossed with their tools.

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But the most interesting and exciting group of all was the one lead by Dr Paran, who wouldn’t let me join their group unless I agree to pay a tuition fee. That table was the venue for Dr Paran’s private tuition on basic sutures and knots. It was so funny to see him confused because the house officers were confused as to what he was teaching.

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The highlight of the day was the tendon repair and bowel anastomosis session (we used real tendons and bowels from cow, I think) when we had to cut the tendon and bowel into two and stitch them up again.

The orthopaedic surgeon actually complimented my tendon repair (finished it in 10 minutes!) and said that I should be doing that once I go to orthopaedics.

As for my bowel anastomosis, my HOD was almost impressed by it (he was giving everyone his evil laugh upon finding leaks in their anastomosis – he tested it by running tap water through the ‘repaired’ intestines)… until he saw a leak somewhere else and in triumph, screamed, “Bowel perforation! Iatrogenic!” and gave me his evil laugh.

Anyway, we had a great time despite the fact that me and Farah had to skip lunch to help Eugene (who was on call that day) in the ward. Too bad it was only for a day.

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Nuni with full tummy is (almost always) a happy Nuni.

Hence today, it was a happy day for me as I attended the hospital’s Deepavali-Aidilfitri celebration.

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Our menu included satay, lemang, rendang, laksam, nasi himpit (with kuah kacang or kuah lontong), mi kari, mihun sup, mihun tomyam, mi goreng, rojak buah, dadih (the one we stole from SOPD yesterday), ABC, cendol, sugarcane juice and many more.

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My friends from department of general surgery…

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The aftermath…

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I had so many helpings I lost count.

Even spent some time chatting with the specialists from O&G who commented that I looked more cheerful now. Truth was, I looked cheerful because I had lots of food… Not because of where I work now (I think I enjoyed O&G more than I do general surgery)

In the afternoon, we had to attend the needles & sharps injury workshop organised by the occupational health department because they think that we are the culprits who contribute to the alleged ‘rise’ in the number of incidence of needles and sharps injury in the hospital.

If you ask me, I’d say it is unfair to put most of the blame on us because of the following reasons:

1. The numbers are just about the same as with the number of injuries among the MOs before we came in to the hospital. If you look at the statistics, suddenly there’s no injury among the MOs since we came in. If previously there were 1-2 injuries in a month involving the MO, after that there was 1-2 innjuries monthly involving the HO (and obviously zero for MO). Did anyone look at the stastistics this way? Obviously not.

2. I know for a fact that there have been a lot more incidences among the staff nurses (and MOs too) but they went unreported. Whereas once a house officer accidently pokes himself with the needle, chances are he’d report the incidence (because he’s still new and naive and scared of everything). So, instead of criticising and giving us a hard time because of this matter, our effort to report such incidences should be praised.

3. According to the talk, almost 40% of the total number of incidences involved those with <1 year of working experience… Why? Simply because the junior ones tend to be ‘bullied’ into doing the procedures involving sharps. Don’t you think so? Even among the house officers, the seniors tend to make the junior ones take blood or set the IV line most of the time. When I first started my posting in general surgery, I was made to do all these things too because the seniors (in that department) thought I needed the practice. Little did they know I was more experienced than them (I couldn’t be bothered to brag that I’m officially HO #16 in that hospital, hence way more senior than they are).

Ok, that’s too much digression. Back to the seminar…

Demonstration on setting an IV line and taking blood for culture & sensitivity…

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Followed by another demonstration on normal blood taking as well as intramuscular, intradermal and subcutaneous drug administration.

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When the staff nurse asked for a volunteer for the injection demo, we all immediately shouted, “ALEX!!!”

That was fun. Thanks, Alex. You’re such a good sport with all your spontaneous acts.

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The final session was on hand washing and the use of alcohol hand rub.

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By the way, I caught someone sleeping during the first part of the seminar.

* I don’t blame her. It was a boring lecture. She wasn’t the only one sleeping. I too, almost fell asleep at that time but managed to find something to amuse me.

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Our specialist, Mr Ramesh is being transferred to Hospital Muar and he bought us fresh prawns from Tanjung Karang; which he gave to one of the staff nurses at the clinic (SOPD) to cook… Hence today we had free lunch there.

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We had puddings too! But we didn’t know that the puddings were meant for the Deepavali-Aidilfitri celebration tomorrow. The staff nurses did call us to go and help ourselves with the puddings but what we didn’t know was we were not supposed to take those in the cute little containers! Sorry…

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By the way, have a look at this operative procedure report… The OT staff nurse had a hard time trying to find out who Dr Nonie was (they needed to find me to order the HPE for the omentum on the computer)!

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I was on call that Saturday. In fact, I just finished doing a wound debridement (HUGE bedsore wound with widespread necrotic tissue… poor lady) in the medical ward at 1am when I received call from my MO to meet him at the lobby. He wouldn’t tell me why. Turned out there was some ‘festivities’ going on there!

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All ranks of the hospital staff were there… but I was the only Malay around. I sure looked out of place there.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t resist helping them out a bit (hey, it’s fun stuff! ) before being called to the ward again.

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I heard that they managed to finish the project by 4am (they started around midnight).

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Happy Deepavali, everyone!

Two months ago, when I was in O&G, I’ve had the experience of being part of the ‘organising’ department for the hospital monthly meeting.

This month, it is the Department of General Surgery to ‘organise’ the meeting… Unlike last time, this time I had to go up the stage with the rest of the HOs to join the choir and therefore I don’t have any interesting pictures from the event.

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That aside, it was Suhaimi’s birthday on Sunday (he’s my ‘scandal’ at work ). We had a chocolate cheesecake from Secret Recipe that morning.

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Before he could blow the candle, Suhaimi was called to attend to a patient so we had to patiently wait for him to return to cut the cake (I was post call and I was hungry!!!).

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We managed to embarrass him by singing the happy birthday song loudly.

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Happy birthday, Suhaimi.

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Anyway, something interesting from the ward…

We referred this elderly gentleman for chest physiotherapy (he just underwent laparotomy)… And (one of) their aim is to restore good sexual health?

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Oh, yes. It’s Yi’s birthday on the 13th. Happy birthday, Yi!

I just found out that Mama’s friend, Pak Din passed away on 10/10/09.

He was a professor in botany from UKM specialising on parasitic plants and the one responsible for our weird interest in searching for Balanophora (read HERE & HERE) at Fraser’s Hill. He was also the one who took Mama, Ba’ah and Kona to go searching for Rafflesia (read HERE, HERE and HERE) some time ago.

I was hoping that one day he’d take me too but I then started working and his health began to deteriorate (he had cancer). I really wished that one day I’d have the opportunity to join one of his jungle trekking activities in search of some weird-looking plants with an equally weird-sounding name.

I guess that wish will never be fulfilled.

Al-fatihah for him. May he rest in peace.

p.s.: Ba’ah, when can we go Balanophora hunting again? I miss birdwatching too.

It was at 6.20pm (according to the clock at the nurses counter)  on 30/9/09 when I thought I was going to faint.

Yes, I too felt the tremor due to the earthquake in Padang yesterday.

I was post call… An extremely bad call… At 10pm I only had 12 patients in my ward (female surgical). By 2 am, I had 25 patients!!! 5 of them were admitted within 1 hour! And guess what? NINE of them were males (we had to allocate the 2nd class rooms for male patients) and FOUR were kids including a 1 year old boy.

I looked like shit, as Eugene (a fellow PMC junior who is now my colleague in the surgical department) can attest to (he was telling others that they should’ve seen how I looked at that time) . If only he saw how I fell off from the bed when I managed to sleep take a nap for an hour (I slept on one of the unoccupied acute beds – ‘admitted’ myself to the ward under psychiatry & wrote my name in the list of patients ). It was a sight to behold.

Anyway, I was post call on Wednesday… our grand ward round day.

Half dead, I followed the round which started at my ward. I was not thinking straight at all.

Earlier on, when Venilla came to the ward, I talked to her as if she was Anu and was totally loss when she started saying she missed her old ward (she is now in O&G). Then only it registered to me that she was Venilla and not Anu.

I was also caught (by my colleagues and the staff nurses) staring at the computer screen with a blank look and wasn’t doing anything for a prolonged period of time. I even created new words (one that I can recall now is ‘bladah’ when I wanted to say bleeding and berdarah at the same time) and was getting weird instructions and questions from others (when they said something, I would hear something completely different but don’t worry… I made sure I got the right message from them).

So, when the round was cut short due to an emergency case that our consultant had to attend to, I was more than happy to sit in front of the computer again. As I caught myself staring at the computer without really registering what I was seeing, I felt my seat sway sideways.

I looked at my colleague sitting next to me, doing her report (who was also on call with me the night before… she was the one – with the MO, of course) admitting all the patients from the emergency department) and said… “I’m so exhausted I feel like fainting.” She replied, “Yeah, me too.”

Then the staff nurse who was doing her work on the laptop opposite the nurses counter looked at us and surprisingly asked, “You felt it too?” By then our other colleagues who were doing their reports elsewhere (we have 3 laptops in the ward as well as two other desktop computers in other rooms in the ward) also came to the counter to ask us the same question. The tremor could still be felt at that time.

Excitedly, two of us were crazy enough to insist that we went to the 8th floor (our ward is on the 5th floor) just to experience it better. Unfortunately, by then, the movement had stopped.

I managed to finish work by 7.30pm and really thought of going to spend the night at my uncle’s house which is much nearer to the hospital than my own house. FORTUNATELY I decided to go home because it turned out that Ba’ah needed me to send him, Mama & Kona to the airport this morning for their 8am flight to Vientiane (yes, another holiday for them!).

Left home at 5.30am this morning… sent them to the LCCT-KLIA and went straight to work. Was stuck in a bad crawl along NKVE due to an overturned trailer. Needless to say, I was very late for work today.

Oh, the consultant (who was on leave when I started my surgical posting and only returned to work while I was in ED) thought I was a new MO in surgical.

Very sleepy now. Till next time.