A F F I L I A T E S |

P R O F I L E |

E N T R I E S |

the sound of waves,
lapping the shore.
just like the songs you used to sing.
the gentle breeze,
caressing my face.
reminds me of you.
i see the sunset,
with your head on my shoulders.
your hand in mine,
we would have been so happy.
together.

today, i did two things i never did before.
1. successfully draw blood from a patient (with abit of help from a Doc)
2. secret. ;) lol.

ahh. CSFC is ending. i hope OSCEs will be easy. time to read some Talleys.

today, i attempted to draw blood from my first patient.
unfortunately, i missed the vein and caused much pain.
i really feel quite bad. argh.
i'll work harder tmr. =x

i see mirrors in your life, my life, his life.
our lives are but mirrors of each other's lives.
everything so painfully coincidental.
the things we want to achieve,
the neverending to-do list.
the way we forget to smell the flowers
or watch the sunset.
to live today for tomorrow.
is that what we really want?

affected and affection.

so how did our family bond on Mother's Day? we went to our grandmother's house the ENTIRE day like nice filial grandsons, granddaughters and good lil children. my grandmother is a funny old woman. she asks the funniest of questions, and the best thing is she KEEPS asking them.

a typical convo goes like:

"what's your name again? i cant remember."
"i'm Reuben!"
"oh you're Reuben! so tall already... last time i saw you you were still..."
(laughs)
"whose son are you?"
"i'm HER (points to mum) son"
"oh okayy..."

well repeat that conversation every 5 minutes and thats very much how we spent the entire afternoon to evening. of course it rotated. among her 3 daughters and 1 son, and her multitude of grandchildren. we got our fair share of entertainment. bursting into fits of laughter everytime she repeated the same questions over and over.

its not mean. we were engaging in family bonding. and if you dont know, i think her Alzheimer's is actually quite severe. i told her my name, and within 3 minutes, when she got distracted by the TV, she forgot my name. and i even promised her 2bux if she remembered. somehow my grandmother is very motivated by money.

but i really remember the days when her memory was still intact. she loved us grandchildren very much. every time we went to her house, she'd give us money before we left. and mind you she wast rich. but she'd always dish into her wallet for $10bills to stuff into our hands as we left the door. as time went by and she had less money, $10bills became $5 and subsequently she stopped giving altogether. but it wasnt so much the money that i cared for. on hindsight, it was an expression of her love, in her own little way.

she cooked very nice food and we looked forward every chinese new year and mother's day to taste her cooking. her most famous dish of all time was sichuan veg soup with pork. her sichuan veg was always the correct saltiness and spicyness. apparently it comes with skill cos you need to soak the veg in water for the correct amount of time. too much and it'll be bland. too little and it'll be too salty. hers was always just right.

though when asked how many children she has, she replies with a "forget already". sometimes i wonder if you'd feel a tingue of sadness if your mum one day eventually forgot about all the times you've spent with her. the memories of your childhood, your teenage years. i think it hurts most when you actually start to think about it. then it slowly sinks in. that someone so close, whom you've spent the first 25 years of your life with actually doesnt remember you anymore.

as her grandchildren, we can only make what remaining years she has comfortable. my mum always tells us to go visit our grandmother every now and then. i really cant imagine how it feels. how my mum feels. because she has a Mother, and she is also a Mother. i will probably never understand.

my grandmother may not remember us, but i know behind the empty shell, she remains a good cook and a person full of love in my memories.

thanks for bringing us into this world. we are who we are, because you were there for us. to all mothers, happy mother's day.

it's been ages since i last visited the Mandai Zoo. so long that i think it has been at least 10 years? i dont even how the entrance looks like.

us Singaporeans arent really all fanatic about our zoo anyway. we're too grown up to bother about smelly 4-legged creatures roaming their pathetic enclosures, too temperature-sensitive to stay in the sweltering heat for hours, but more importantly, these animals have lost their appeal and we just dont have that time or wish to spend the effort. we're big boys now.

in the recent week due to the H1N1 pandemic, medical students like me were barred from the wards, in a bid to lower visitor:patient ratios and hopefully contain any undetected swine flu cases. now that they realised they've been over-reacting with elephant guns, the alert has been lowered to Dorscon Yellow, and we'll be going back to the wards, finally.

i like the wards. because i think i learn more in a day there than staying at home mugging my textbooks. i like talking to people. getting to know their condition. trying to diagnose through a history before taking a peep at the casefiles and seeing if i actually got it right. most are nice people, only the one or two who are sick and irritated and just blast you with much hokkien the moment you step within 1 metre radius (i kena before).

the wards are where clinical meets theoretical medicine. in our quest for knowledge, O how noble we medical students are, we scramble from ward to ward, bed to bed, patient to patient. we want to auscultate the best atrial fibrillations, heart murmurs, hear the sexiest stridors and palpate the lumpiest of breasts. we want nothing but the best to aid us in our future glorious career and a headstart into our consultancy.

but its easy to get distracted though, in this rat-race-like quest, and to forget that medicine at the end of the day is helping people, making a difference in patients' lives.

more often than not they were mere conditions to be learnt, exciting objects of auscultation or a fresh victim for me to hone my physical examination skills on. ward42 bed13 is a mitral regurgitation. ward 41 bed29 is an acute AMI. it never really occurred to me that every patient in the ward is someone. a fellow human being.

i remember there was this 60sth year old man. he had a heart condition known as an atrial fibrillation, which meant that his heart beat was very irregular. at that point in time all we wanted was to wake him up and listen to his heartbeat. he was very nice, he allowed us to auscultate despite looking very sick and tired.

at that point, the only thing that i could think of was how does an atrial fibrillation sound like? what kind of pulse does he have? can i do a physical examination on him? what else can i learn from his condition? with all those questions bombarding my brain, i forgot to listen to my heart, the soft voice of empathy and love.

maybe it wasnt as bad as i thought his condition would be. but still, it didnt feel any different going to the zoo. "mummy, bring me to the elephants! i want to see their long noses and their big ears!" how different does that sound from "let's go find an AF case, i want to hear his heart sound and feel his pulse"?

its hard having to learn with the brain and feel with the heart. both at the same time. but its definitely something i think i've gotta learn. to look at patients with empathy. the softer side of medicine. the art of medicine.

looks like the orange is gonna turn lemon yellow or leek green soon. which probably means us plankton at the bottom of the medical food chain hierarchy will slowly be phased back into the wards. this week has been slow, scattered with a few useless trips back to school. but time passes quick and its time to start reading the browse and talley's and begin consolidating stuff for CSFC.

CSFC doesnt feel like school. it feels like i'm having a little break interspersed with exciting trips back to NUH to talk to ppl (patients, fellow med students and docs + nurses). i actually like this kind of life. im not studying very much, maybe not as much as i should be, but i think its about time to strike a balance.

have been planning for my japan trip WHEEE! which is finally gonna materialise after so blardy long. gonna spend roughly 14 days there and this is MY FIRST TIME!! im very very very eggcited. and i really cant wait. although i do wanna be good at csfc. guess i've to be a tad more hardworking.

i went bowling at SICC today. and OMGAWD. for the first time in my life i got a score above 100!!! 140sth. cant remember the number. but its a good start. if i ever drop out of medical school i can still be professional bowler. AHHA. =D choy!

its time to sleep early. my gucci eye bags are showing. urgh.

when all the pillars you've invested your time in come crashing down,
would you look back and wish you never gave up that one pillar that stood by you all this while?

castle on a cloud

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reuben.
21.august.1988
leo.

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