seriously mate...

Last night was my last 'on call' ever in this hospital operating theatre, soon I'll be moving out to a new place.

However, my sentimental kodak-moment during the last operation at 2am was interupted when the surgeon decided to play his favourite collection on Window media player.

To my horror it was none other than the dreadful The best of Hanson, starting with its gayish 'Mmbopp'.

Has the world gone schizophrenic... a male orthopaedic surgeon listening to that crap!

If it was me I'd play this piece... a nice powerful ballad from My Chemical Romance.!

(oh BTW, for those of you who haven't seen the clip can click on the Youtube --> right side panel).

When you go
So never think I'll make you try to stay
And maybe when you get back
I'll be off to find another way

When after all this time that you still owe
You're still, the good-for-nothing I don't know
So take your gloves and get out

Better get out, While you can

When you go
Would you even turn to say
"I don't love you Like I did Yesterday"

Sometimes I cry so hard from pleading
So sick and tired of all the needless beating
But baby when they knock you
Down and out
It's where you oughta stay

And after all the blood that you still owe
Another dollar's just another blow
So fix your eyes and get up
Better get up, While you can

When you go
Would you even turn to say
"I don't love you Like I did Yesterday"

Well come on, come on

When you go
Would you have the guts to say
"I don't love you Like I loved you Yesterday"

******
Next tuesday will be my last 'ICU on-call'.

Which will also mark my last official duty at this hospital which I've grown fond of these past 2 years.

Two years eh! Time flies.

Anyhow according to the old tradition, usually it's 'all hell break loose' on your last day . I think that's what the TV folks refer to as 'Season finale suspense ending'... Hahaha!

** Sigh**

Dengue! revisited

Once upon a night.

All ICU patients were stable. So I went up to surgical ward on the 7th floor to do a quick follow up on a newly discharged patient. The elevators on the east wing sometimes went cookoo late at night.

"Dang! the lights are not working again, this is just what I need... alone at 12am, inside a dark hospital elevator" I chuckled nervously.

Suddenly my handphone went off Justin's SEXY BACK tune.

It's the ICU. "Doctor, turun cepat ke ICU, adik Nizam berdarah keluar dari ETT... restless!!"

Aiyayayaya! It's the dengue shock case.

Nizam is your typical high-achiever Malay boy from Cheras who's also in his school's hockey team. A decent lad.

As I reached the 7th floor, I hit the button back to the ICU floor.

"Double Dang!! another trip in pitchblack darkness"

Yaikkks! I almost jumped out of my skin when I feel a soft tap on my left shoulder. I moved my back against the wall. Wadefak was datttt?

*****

"What happened?? He was okay 20mins ago" I asked the nurse who's looking after Nizam. She gave me the "YOU'RE THE DAMN DOCTOR... YOU TELL ME!" look.

Smart arse!

After taking my own pulse and practice my speed-yoga. My eyes running amok over Nizam and the ventilator trying to fit the jigsaw puzzle together. Blood soaking his bedsheet turning it into dark crimson shade (nice colour hmm.. D'Oh stop it!!)

"...well Holmes, it looks like most of the blood came from his mouth and his breathing tube. So the bleeding must have originated from his own lung, huh the clotting system is screwed big time. And a blood clot must have blocked the tube hence the ventilator can't generate enough pressure to ventilate him - Eureka!"

I felt like patting myself on the head and say Good Boy! --> Now do something about it!!

I grabbed a laryngoscope and shoved it into his mouth. Sure enough a blob of blood clot was blocking the end of the tube and to make it worse the tube was at the tip of the vocal cord which is as good as being dislodged.

A double whopper! We gotta do something fast or he's gonna die!

"Quick get me sux 100mg " I need to paralyse this boy again before i can re-intubate him.

It took 4 people to hold him down as he was coughing up blood and restless at the same time. I wait until the paralytic drug kicked into action before I use the scope again to look inside his throat but my view was blocked by a pool of blood hiding the vocal cord.

PSSSRFTTT!! -- the suction catheter screamed like a burst old tyre.

BINGO! The enemy was in sight. I changed the breathing tube in one swift motion. His heart rate suddenly dropped to 30/min.

"Quick someone start CPR!"

Nora 'the feisty 90kg' Intan, a very reliable staff nurse jumped into action and start pumped away the boy's chest with all her might. Cracking noise of adrenaline & atropine ampoules being broken filled the night.

3 minutes passed...

"We got a rhythm...!" someone yelled almost sounded like heaven!

I'm so overjoyed that I almost yelled "Do the hustle!" duh da duh da duh da duh duh da!!

That night we all stayed next to his bed correcting his clotting problem like nothing else matter. True enough, that night nothing else did matter.

*****

2 weeks later a smart-looking young man on a wheelchair accompanied by his parents visited our ICU. He brought some pulut kuning for the staff.

From a distant I knew right away that it was him.

We almost lost him that night...
... and boy! That was a close one.

Here's looking at ya kid

I went to No Black Tie for the 1st time 2 nights ago.

The place had a 'cool' feeling to it. Lemme see, in ala-ala casa impian wordings "the moody noir ambiance was dominated by low-key lighting creating deep shadows, fusing the feelings of melancholic, loneliness and entrapment".

Something like Bogart's Casablanca in technicolour... and yeah minus the beige trench coats (oh stop it u silly romantic sod!)

Did someone just whispered "Play it again Samad"?

It was May13 and the showcase was on 'unity' to commemorate that incident which happened phew!... 38 years ago. A mixture of live poetry reading intermixed with guitar acoustic gigs.I can't make any comparison to any other shows alike, because I was pretty much a virgin (Oh be gentle!) to these artsy-fartsy.


But in a nutshell it was all right, despite the fact that a BoB Marley's hair wanna be dude took nearly 20mins reading a newspaper excerpt and a guitarist who mumbled his way through 3 songs. Someone gotta be honest with him, y'know for public sake, to please improve his p-r-o-n-o-u-n-c-i-a-t-i-o-n (macam aku punyer baguss sangat kui! kui!).



Exceptional pieces include a voice over poem by Lisa Zahrin (darn one sexyy voice - too bad she wasn't there in person -- potong stim betoii!) and a new talent called Otam who has a deep husky voice as if you put Gary Moore & Louis Armstrong into a blender... HAHA! I shit you not man... this thin Malay boy can strut his stuff like a Motown veteran.

Encore!!

Faded jeans

I was having a good time on one of my postcall morning, browsing some of the new arrivals at Borders, while thinking about that cold frappucino. A bit of melaram wouldn't bite so I decided to don a crisp white shirt with my favourite black tie and black pants.

Heheh I was pretty cock-sure that in that piece I could easily be one of the cool Reservoir Dogs, Vincent Vega or at worse Keanu's Constantine. Until out of the blue came a sweet soothing voice...

"Uncle.. mane nak cari pensel yang tak payah sharpen tu eeii... hmm ada jual ke kat sini?"

I looked up, a young teenage girl was staring at me looking a little lost.

D'Oh!! My vanity just head-south on a last bus to Sante Fe.

I politely told her to try the Info counter.

Ah my logic tells me perhaps she's not from around the neighbourhood and weren't aware that staffs wear maroon coloured shirt. Another classic case of a chalk and cheese.

But the fact that she called me uncle was another thing, do I look thattt old?? For crying out loud I just turned 31.

Haha! A short trip to the gents was indeed a refreshing session. It was a weekday morning, hence the gents was as quiet as a wormhole. So I took my own sweet time and study the reflection in the mirror.

The horizontal crease on my forehead becoming visibly darker. My rough skin had seen better days. The dark lines beneath my eyes had jammed its foot across the front door about a year ago and now refuse to leave. The old man in the mirror threw a faded smile back at me.

No wonder I easily feel tired these days.

Mundane no more

Today is gonna be a busy yet unexciting post-call day; just did a C-sect at 3am, birds chirping happily on trees, babies crying for no good reason in labour room... y'know the usual suspect.

It's not even 8am and yet I've already fumed by couple of errand, things to do for the Master's registration:


1. Open up another bank account for the scholarship (why they insist on CIMB beats me)

2. Giving myself another shot of X-ray radiation -- should be ok since I quit ciggie yonks ago

3. Donating my urine to some lab rats (some ppl wanna know wheather I'm using heroin on a social basis)

4. Getting my vein jab for blood sample


If I got time, maybe I hit the Curve for that lovely venti machiato / books and drop by at the new apartment just checking on few things just in case my contractor screw-up (again) the renovation. I just want to get it done and over with before June.



"Told ya I hate the cornice - it looks like a circumcised glans" I remark nonchalantly.

"Aiyaa it's a working progress boss, you just have to wait and see the final product" He sighs.

"I dunno man, looks like I have a dick hanging down from my ceiling - shall I call it sextine chapel then?" (laughing away silly)

"Best consume before.."

Days went by so hard and fast i could hardly sit down and take a deep breath. The best thing in life is left for dead so they say, taken for granted by many and in the end forever forgotten...

...like those 1 cent loose change you got from KFC outlet just because a single plate is sold at RM7.99 per meal - without soda.

(Psstt! One three-piece Extra Crispy dinner plate has 15 grams of freakin' trans fatty acid, which is more than a person should have in one week)

And yeah those faces we met everyday in ourlives, families & friends, how many of those would still be alive and stay with us say 6 or 12 months from now.

Tip of a day:
If you have a chest pain, and you think it's likely to be a heart attack (Hint: more likely if you have a penis AKA male species, buncit-ier, smoke like a chimney, darah manyak tinggi and kincin manis).

Remember these easy steps, they could save your precious little life:

1. Crush a 300mg aspirin. Chew It! Works twice as fast than swallowing or drinking it. Never leave home without it.

2. Get someone to drive you to the nearest hospital ER. Forget clinic kicik2. Coz they will end up do an ECG (if they have one or remember to charge it the night before; yup just like your expensive handphone) and call an ambulance anyway. The last thing any GPs would want is a dead man in their clinic.

3. If you collapse, pray that the good fellah next to you just had done a CPR course last weekend.

If all fail, at least smile... all living things will expire one fine day anyway.


**Arkh I found out that they're sending me to GHKL for the 1st 2 years and then the remaining 2 years in UMMC.

Kembali ke sekolah

Having bought 3 non-fictions last week is a new personal record, considering reading isn't really my die-hard habit (the last book I read was the Da Vinci Code 3 years ago). Perhaps this is another sign of a manic phase in bipolar disorder eh? Not bad huh since Hemingway also had it.

I really should stop these urge of buying them everytime I hit those bookstore... at least until I finish those that I've bought.

Also a friend is nice enough to lend me Kitchen Confidential, which come to think of it was my first time borrowing a book from another person.

Notice how the 2 top titles fall under the self-help genre. HUH! Does this means I need help in some areas of my life?? - sure I do!

I don't mind paying RM70 for them either... HAHA! If only I could find an affordable qualified shrink (psychologist mind you! Not a psychiatrist) in town - anyone out there? No seriously.

Nah I don't attempt to do book review here simply because I neither have the mental capacity to do it nor plus the fact I'm nowhere finishing them yet.

On another note, I just got a letter from the MOH and the university saying they've approved my application for the Masters program, which starting this June.

This is a big thing for a schmuck like me to finally has that long shot at climbing the food-chain. And in order to be one of the big fish, this old boy will have to go back to school @ one of the University Hospitals for another 4 years. Which is ironic as the old saying goes "a specialist knows more about fewer things".

Four freaking years?... Have mercy!