blackpeanut.com

The story below can be merely fictions. Read at your own risk.

Scenario 1

In clinic during one day.

Patient : Doctor, I got pain on my left arm.
HO : *Look at x-rays* Uncle how long ago you had this fall? Your arm last time was broken la..
Patient : That one 20 years ago.
HO : Ooo. 20 years ago until last year no pain? Now only pain?
Patient : Yealaa, don’t know why this year start pain. Sometimes so bad I kenot take things, kenot work.
HO : Ohhh..
Patient : Last time I can carry 2 gas tong at one time, now can only carry one!
HO : Wah uncle, I can only carry half. Haha.
Patient : *Very serious face* Doc, I think I wanna apply for OKU lah.
HO : *Amazed* Why?
Patient : Because I kenot work sometime due to the pain.
HO : Uncle you know OKU is what or not?
Patient : I know laaa, I need help. I got a lot of responsibilities.
HO : Uncle you need to be cacat to apply to OKU.
Patient : Yakah?
HO no2 : Yeala uncle, if we do a BKA on you, take off your leg, then you can apply for OKU.
Patient : *Serious face, kept quiet*
HO : *Sigh*
Patient : Nevermind laa, I still want to try.
HO : Uncle! You understand or not, you are simply not eligible for that! You got all 4 limbs on you!
Patient : I know, I just want to try… Give some face lah.
HO : *Sweat*
HO : This is your TCA paper. See you in 6 months time. Bye bye.

Scenario 2

HO : Uncle, how is your left leg?
Patient : All right all right!
HO : LOL.

Scenario 3

8am in the morning.

HO : Boss nak buat round?
MO : Habis? Jalan jalan?

Scenario 4

A boy with laceration wound with nail hanging at the edge of his finger.

Patient : Kena jahit ker doctor?
HO : Yeala, abis tu takkan nak biar berdarah jer.
Patient : Habis kuku macam mana?
HO : Jahit la.
Patient : Kuku boleh jahit ker?
HO : Hehe *wink*

I think a lot of none medical field people will think that it is quite impossible, but weirdly, it is quite easy to accomplish.

Scenario 5

HO : Patient on backslab.
MO : Apsal on backslab pula?
HO : Errr…. (after 1 minute).
MO : Apa la kau ni. Nak back slap? Disappointed.

Even thou being an Ortho houseman has relatively better working time, I still think that their on-call is perhaps, the more taxing one.

You got lotsa ridiculous things, and you will be surprised by what people can do.

My friends always listen to me rant about the bad sides of being a doc. I think it is very normal. Because nobody will rant about the good things kan?

But good things are meant to be kept to ourselves. As I’m a person who likes to complain.

Patient comes in middle of the night with a fractured arm. Why? Because they were running around at the taman permainan. When? At 2am midnight. For what? God knows why.

Patient comes in middle of the night complaining about leg pain. Why? Because they have bad controlled diabetes, giving them bad diabetic foot, and with lotsa slough and discharge. For how long? Pain for almost 2 weeks already. Why not get yourself admitted in the morning or afternoon or even the evening? Blink blink. Why must you come to hospital in the middle of the night? God knows why.

Patient comes in with a fractured finger. Why? Mat rempit.

Patient comes in with a fractured femur. Why? Mat rempit.

Patient comes in with a fractures humerus. Why? Mat rempit.

Why am I getting busy? Mat rempit.

It was so bad, that everybody who comes in at night with the age of younger than your middle age looking man, if they have a helmet with them, they are mat rempit.

This is what Malaysians like to do. Generalized thinking.

Whoever can ride a bike is a mat rempit.

At the same time, you will found out that actually a lot of people suffer the same back pain like you do.

A patient said to me yesterday

‘Aiyo, doctor, pukul 3.30 pagi you pun kena kerja ka? Kesian kau’

What can I say?

*smile*

If I’m to write my own case history, it would look like something like this.

25/c/male

Premorbid : nil

p/w -
fever x 1/7, low grade, a/w arthralgia, myalgia, no chills and no rigors.
cough x 4/7, productive, minimal greenish sputum. on & off since last month.
sorethroat. lost of voice.
no SOB, no orthopnea, no PND.
no dyspepsia, no dysuria
BO+PU normal

PMhx - nil
PShx - nil
Family history - not able to assess since no voice
Social history - HO in melaka GH. Known contact with PTB patients. Known contact with possible H1N1 patients.
Drug hx - not a fan of medications.

o/e :
lungs clear, air entry equal.
cvs - DRNM
abdomen - SNT
cns no abnormalities.
throat - injected, no enlarged tonsils
no regional LN palpable.

Ix - FBC, Busec, throat swab c+s

Refused for H1N1 throat swab as pt scare of hospitalization (I’m already ‘hospitalized’ what). Refused for blood C+S. Refused for CXR as patient is not keen for radiation, lazy to go to xray room. Sputum AFB and C+S not seen because pt could not cough out the sputum.

Imp : TRO Pneumonia. TRO H1N1. TRO PTB.

FBC taken by Dr. Gan - super painful.

Gan.

FBC - 146/13.5/295/43
neutrophils increased.

Given T. Augmentin 675mg tds, T. PCM 1g tds, Thymol gargle.
T. EES still on the way.

2.1.2010 and I’m already sick!! Only 3 more days to end posting. Duh.

My new year resolution?

I don’t know. Quite empty lah.

If anything, I hope I can be richer. LOL. And other things will come after that. Haha. Next month no oncall, how to be rich -__-”

Had been analyzing why am I so miserable nowadays.

I think it is in the blood.

I hope for a cheerful year next year. And hopefully, it comes from deep inside :)

And so I wish for you, my blog readers, for a better coming year.

Raising sun from the highest spot I can get to in the hospital at 7am in the morning one 1.1.10

A day to summarize what the heck happened to me during 2009.

From January onwards until June, practically it was all about getting out of med school lah. Winter holiday also didn’t go travel. Stayed at home back in Volgograd, Russia.

I don’t really like winter, but nobody could resist those white snow. Especially when you have smaller size housemates where you can throw them around in to the snow, or just hit their face with some. Other than that I do like it when it snows and at the same time there is sun shine. It feels like in fairy tale (I’m not a girl). It is refreshing I would say.

Waking up for school wasn’t easy. But 7 years of staying in Russia made it pretty possible. Especially when the house do not have proper heating system mid winter, I would practically wear 1 t-shirts and a sweater to bed, and practically did not move my head even for an inch because the other part of the pillow under my head is so cold. We find coffee in the morning super refreshing. And even more refreshing if there is breakfast waiting and it doesn’t need to be prepared by myself *hint hint*.

The whole 7 years boils down to this moment.

The day of me landing in Moscow Sheremetevo is still damn fresh in my memory. The stupid Aeroflot plane would land with lotsa sound on the runway, and in my mind, all I think was ‘Shit, I’m all alone now’. Little that I know that dark fella with 2 piercings on his ears would become my buddy (Sarchit) who is sitting just right in the front row. And that I would be seeing his dark face for 7 freaking years.

Anyway, graduating is good, as it marks the start of an even bigger nightmare. LOL.

But no matter what, 7 years abroad (since I was 17), I think it is time to go back to my homeland. It is my tanah tumpahnya darahku anyway.

So, gone are the days I chill out with my housemates and my house’s parasite (which is most welcomed from time to time when she doesn’t come in emo). We would spend hours in front of the table stuffing in something we called steamboat, which would last from 6pm till midnight or even worse, god knows until when.

Gone are the days I wear casually, and walk like ah pek up and down of that Russian city. And gone are the days I still manage to be somebody interesting try to be as interesting as possible. Gone are the days I stupidly put my feet into that Volga river.

And I kenot be that bad ass now because I got MOs to scold me. I got seniors who will kena me kau kau. I got Boss who would fire me at sights with lots and lots of medical questions. And I’m just right at the bottom of this food chain, and the best part is, I’m not even the food, just some discarded not needed HO. Wakaka.

Gone are the days I play guitar, play harmonica, play card tricks, play flying cards, recording stupid mtv and video. The only thing I’m still doing now is taking pictures. And other than that I’m a pathetic workaholic who works from 6am till 7pm and still go oncalls from time to time.

Every HOs life is like this la, I got no complain. That’s why I like to show off when I can finish my thing early and cabut home early early.

So after July, it was 3 months of intense holidaying which now I think back, no big deal also la. Just traveling around Malaysia. And on 16th of September I started my HO life in Melaka GH. And now still stuck here, hoping that my first posting will be over soon enuf without much problem.

What I got to say about this past year?

Hmm. Lotsa ups and downs. U-turns and red lights. Minimal green lights. LOL. Lotsa rocks and winding roads and it wasn’t all that easy after all.

And I found myself getting more and more miserable, and more and more irritable.

Because of my job? I don’t know. I am memang not an optimistic.

Anyway, hope that next year would be better. And hopefully life doesn’t ends at 2012. And hopefully more interesting things could happen and I would wanna jump from macau tower if possible this coming year.

Any wish for 2010?

Hmm.. Superbike? Okay laaaa… Motor license first.

Even thou I’m currently on leave. I woke up at 6.30am this morning. I guess the long 3 months training had been doing me some good. And I found sleeping for long hours makes me more tired, instead of replenishing much of my lost energy.

Today was spent eating breakfast at home, going for a movie (Sherlock Holmes) with my brother, tea (ice-cream and chicken chop, ya i know, pretty heavy) with Cyrena, dinner at home with family and at night for some beer and alcohol at Ah Gui’s birthday (yea yea, that guy was born on Christmas eve).

Even thou on leave, my mind kinda wonder how is that person taking over my place is performing. I wonder whether she could finish her job early and go home for Christmas eve. I wonder whether there are a lot of patients in the ward today. Hmm.. I should stop thinking about work, at least for some time.

A lot of friends that meet me back home ask me whether I have adapted to my job.

I wonder what should I say.

Adapting to the environment and job seems to come fast. Because there are some other more frustrating and important things to take care of.

The job by itself is demanding in term of time and attention. It gets worse if you get a ridiculous family member or a ridiculous patient.

Take this special case for example.

There was this patient who got admitted but due to all beds are full, was placed quite far away down the ward.

The family of the patient demanded for first class as they are entitled to, but was put on hold because all the beds were full. On the first day, the nurses have to restrain the patient as she was found getting down from bed and occasionally almost fell down and bump over things, but when confronted and explained, still refused to stay in bed. The next day, when the son saw his mum all tied up, was furious and almost barked at me, who at that time know nothing of that for doing so.

A lot of explanation was given. And after that because he was strongly against it, we apologized for doing that. However, based on the story told by the nurses, her mum wasn’t fit to walk around and it is better to be kept on bed.

The 2nd day, she fell from the bed, and later on was restrain by the nurses on bed. The son who found out the second day, almost yell at me that morning.

Yea she fell. And I think she fell because we didn’t restrain her. We kinda let that happened because we listened to him. And yet we are to blamed?

He said that we should have keep an eye on her all night long.

He said that we should have check on her from time to time.

He said that we should have put her in first class.

He sounded so righteous, so filial, so concern about his mum.

So I proposed something.

“Why not one of your family member stay back and look after your mum. One person is allowed to stay over, sometimes even two.”

He kept quiet.

He said ” I know… that’s what we can’t do.”

Yea.. so much of being concern and filial.

The daughter gave an even more ridiculous excuse “I can’t do it, I have dinner tonight”

And I bet everybody there has an excuse in mind.

There are 39 patients, 3 staff nurses at night, 2 Housemen.

And there is 1 mother, 6 children.

Do the math. How much can we do as care-provider?

And until now, none of her children stayed back to look after her. They would continue to complain and demand and complain again and demand for more. But they never take care of their mother. If she is weak until she can’t hold her own cup, then the children should be there to feed her water.

So much for wearing a happy wesak day t-shirt.

Boo-yah.

Anyway, I should start writing more optimistic things since the end of the year is coming. Looking forward for a more productive day tomorrow!

It was a fine day.

The following conversation took place at a nice post call Tuesday morning with a patient.

Me : Dulu makcik kerja apa ya?
Pt : Dulu saya kerja kat jabatan perdana menteri..
Me : Ohh.. dah lama kerja ker?
Pt : Oh, sejak kecik lagi, u tak tau ker Prime minister you tu adik saya..
Me : -__-”

Me : *Cough cough*
Pt : You dah kahwin ker belum? *Smile*
Me : Belum ler makcik, saya kan muda lagi.
Pt : Saya dapat rasa you nak-kan keluarga la.
Me : Huh? Apasal pulak?
Pt : Saya kan dapat membaca apa yang you tengah fikir tu. You jangan takut, saya faham. Biasa laa kalau nakkan keluarga.
Me : -__-”

Me : *Cough cough*
Pt : You kena ambil ubat dari jabatan pertanian lah.
Me : Jabatan pertanian? Apsal pulak? Bukan ker dia orang tanam sayur-sayur, pokok getah…
Pt : Tak le. Tu la, you dah pandang rendah pada jabatan pertanian. Dia orang bikin ubat lagi kuat wooo..
Me : -__-”

Me : *Cough cough*
Pt : You tak tau ker suami saya kerja kat canteen kat bawah tu. Ni semua yang kita makan ni dia la yang masak!
Me : Oooo. Yea ker?
Me & Pt : ……..
Pt : You tak tau ker suami saya ada dua identity. Dia ada muka yang lain tapi hanya saya tau jati dia itu.
Me : Ooo.. Macam James bon?
Pt : Bukan, itu orang putih, kita orang melayu.
Me : Ooo.. Macam perisik?
Pt : Ahhhh Betul!

Open the case sheet.

Known case of - Schizophrenia.

But all patients share the same interest, be it you are mentally healthy or not.

Pt : Eh doktor… bila saya boleh balik?

*See I told you so*

Me : Kenapa nak balik? You duduk sini dapat makan makanan yang suami masak apa?!
Pt : Eleh. Balik rumah pun boleh makan..
Me : Tak sama la. Balik rumah you kena masak, cuci pinggan, tak relax la. Duduk sini relax sikit.
Pt : Eh, kalau malas cuci pinggan jangan jadik perempuan lah!
Me : LOL *sometimes PSY people have quite nice logic.*

Since today, the ward is full of neologism.

Belas love - belas kasihan

And suddenly everything got something to do with all of our prime ministers.

Pt : Dulu Abdullah nak tanah saya, tapi saya tak bagi. Itu kan hak milik jabatan betul tak?
Pt : Kalau tak dapat nak insaf, saya pun tak tau la nak tolong dia macam mana…

And bear in mind, she speaks english too! But that would be another post…

Apart from this schizo, the other attention seeking one is also worth mentioning.

Pt : Doktor, I got shortness of breath.
Me : (Pt not tachypnic). You don’t look breathless also. You are not breathing like *this* (as in I imitate the breathing*
Pt : *Imitating the same thing* Now I’m having shortness of breath.. huu haaa huuu haaa..
Me : What else you feel?
Pt : I think I got palpitation! Is like I’m having extra beat.
Me : Wait ah… (Pushed the ECG machine and did an ECG)..
Me : Auntie, all looks the same with the previous ECG leh..
Pt : If you don’t trust me then I can do nothing lah (piss off face, not tachypnic anymore, forgot to imitate d i think).
Me : No Auntie blablabla… trying to explain myself.

I got no idea that she suffered any mental illness until the next day.

Staff nurse : Patient semalam cakap dia nampak 3 orang kat luar tingkap tu tengah panggil dia laaa..

And I worked in the 4th floor. LOL.

Scenario 1

A lot of people prefer to take care of male wards rather than female. It can be due to A LOT OF reasons. But everything evolve in this new word that I would like to introduce.

Fren 1 : I don’t like to take care of female wards la.
Me : Why ah? Not the same?
Nurse 1 : Yeala, they come in with hypo laa, poor oral intake la, dehydration secondary to poor oral intake la.
Me : Because they are more emo?
Nurse 1 : No, it is called - Manja-litis.
Me : LOL

The manjalitis is certainly something huge. Big problem I would say.

Occasion 1
Me : Kenapa tak nak makan nasi?
Pt : Takde selera laaaa..

Occasion 2
Me : Kenapa tak nak makan ubat?
Pt : Nanti laaaa, tak de mood laaa..

I don’t know how to treat manjalitis.

Scenario 2

It is evident that people do not like hospital stays. That include me. But then, if you do not have a problem, you wouldn’t NEED a hospital stay.

They always come in today, and that night itself, will ask that golden question that can send my BP over the roof.

“Doc, bila boleh balik?”

Be it in mandarin or english or malay or unknown language, that is seriously one sensitive issue.

“Baru masuk dah nak balik?”

Sigh.

Then they would give you a manjalitis tahap agung smile.

=)

And I will spend the next few minutes explaining why she needs to stay around longer. And later on will have only 2 kind of response.

1 - piss off face.
2 - look out way and merajuk face.

Sigh.

And the next day i’ll still appear before them asking for blood.

“Aduh, ambik lagi, tak nak laa.. Sakit laaaa..”

I can only manage a subtle smile. And kept quiet, but with hands moving, hoping to draw out something before they can react to that.

You might think that dealing with a lot of women would make my communicating skill better or at least know how to handle them in the future. I tell you, you are sooooo wrong. I never understand them. Weird.

This post is specially dedicated to Clarissa, Jenna Foo & couple (your name comes second simply because claire’s name starts with the letter ‘C’, Naj & couple(third because u didn’t stay with me for 3 years, Cherrie, Cheryl (I almost forgot how to spell your name, at times, almost forgot what is your name LOL!), Manager, Wengen, Charles & couple, Shu An & couple and those people who stays there and yang sewaktu and senegara dengan you all.

This post is to tell you that both of us are healthy and happy, which can be proved by the following pictures. By the way, these were taken few days ago lah.

While you are there wearing that thick jacket, walking on the slippery roads of Volgograd during winter which hopefully this year goes under -40 degrees, we are here in Malacca eating chendol and curry laksa at jonker street. Wakaka.

Ok la, dowan to ejek you all too much. I do miss hachapuri and cutlet for like 1 second in a month. Puffffttt..

Anyway, leedwi came down to have a drink with me la.

Alcohol in Malaysia is very expensive. I so miss those bottles on top of that shelves. Hopefully the collections still go on and later when you all come back you all can throw them at those Russian hooligans who are walking on the street outside our window at night.

Next time come back only I chia ok. So… while still in Russia, be patient with the weather and everything lah. Better times will come.

This meeting was made possible by this girl above, who is crazy enuf to suggest to leedwi to come down melaka for a day.

Lack of sleep for a few days d. Update more next time. Ciao!

p/s: Winter cold ha? LOL.

Late at night and I got mood to do this, just because the next day is a holiday, and I’m a bit in the relaxing mood to walk the road alone.

Blue blue night in front of Famosa.

50mm’s power :)

Later on is a cocktail but too bad not a beer. Where are my tani kakis?!?!?!

No life :(