Second opinion

My lil' sis recently fell sick while we're at a relative hometown and we had to bring her to the local district A&E. It's not easy to see your family member lying in the sick bay attached with IV drip etc. while puking her guts out every 3omins and looking miserable.


Eventhough you knew it's just a simple food poisoning still you can't help but requesting extra blood tests.

"Err Dr Subra, perhaps we should order an amylase just TRO pancreatitis"

The young doctor look at me and gave his 'Oscar's -- Damn! You're a brilliant, how come i didn't think that diagnosis before -- best actor' look in his face.

I tersengih macam kerang busuk. But I can gauge what he had in mind would be more like "Yeah! yeah you're right ah BTW why stop there, you sure you don't want us to do a CT abdomen or diagnostic laparascopic surgery too while we're at it"


It's an always an art that a doctor has to master when one's going to another hospital and volunteer to participate in the whole management. You want to help out coz you're concern but at the same time you don't want to appear as being intrusive which may offend the attending physician.

(some smart-arse city boy doc is peeing in my A&E marking his teritory...huh!)

To cut long story short - my sis was fine and indeed the blood test showed nothing serious. A couple of litre of saline afterward she's discharged fine & dandy.

To the Jempol A&E crews... you guys were fantastic! And to the doctor sorry If I peed at your shoes that night :)

Lastly I wanna wish all of you fine people Happy 2008!!

*TRO - to rule out

Death by chocolate

I reckon the best dessert in town so far would be this 'ape ke bendanye' cool soothing ice-cream that melts slowly on top of a warm brownie cake - Ahh I forgot the name.

Absolutely gorgeous!

Too bad with the rate of its melting process - you have to devour it relatively quickly before you end up with only a cake with cream base on your plate.

So Bakerzin got it right after all - the taste linger on your palate a lot longer than a-similar-looking dessert from Vincenzo @ Bangsar which ironically pricier.

Kitchen confidential - revisited

My post on 1st May http://drfrappucino.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html where I briefly mentioned Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain (actually all I did was put a photo-cover of the book which I actually borrowed - but hey I did read it okay) was noticed by the TV-series DVD distributor based in USA.

{Oh yeah baby! Apparently 'Kitchen confidential' was turned into TV shows by the creators of 'Sex in the city'}

So the very nice lady offered to post me 'the complete series DVD-box set of the show' all the way from US for free. She thought I might wanna see it and perhaps mentioned in my blog if i want to.

Without hesitation I said yes... and a package arrived prompty 1 week afterward. I must say - I was thrilled by the whole thing.



Obviously they got the right recipe for a hit-show: the idea of some wacky and funny character (+ sexy ladies) in a 'steamy' setting of a fine-dining restaurant was wicked to begin with.

I thought the show was brilliant, alas too bad it was ended albeit prematurely by the studio maybe due to poor rating.

Know what? Honestly I think it's a lot better that Sex in the city (not that I watched the latter)

Dessert anyone?

Escape from Pangkor

It was supposed to be a 2 N and 3 D beautiful vacation. The plan was perfect. Even Danny Ocean would be pleased. Left KL with my favourite road trip CDs and head straight to Lumut and a ferry ride to Pangkor Island.

Within half and hour of arrival I got myself a nice deal at Nipah Bay Villa RM95 per night for a bungalow chalet (King size bed, hot shower and astro)

... and rented a

motor kapcai, while acting like a foreign tourist.

Lepaking at Nipah Bay beach while eating grilled corn and listening to MP3 was brilliant.

However when I got back to the chalet --- I realized my wallet was missing!!

"Damn where’s my wallet?? Arghh!!

Stay cool. Gotta stay focus".

I went to the receptionist. No one had found a wallet. It’s already 7.50pm, the sun had set.

I borrowed a chelait and went back to the beach, even trailed my route back to every stall I dropped by.

With my broken heart I head back to the chalet.

1001 questions invaded my tiny puny mind, and it’s not even income-tax season yet.

“ Shoit I got no cash with me. Who’s gonna save my sorry ass now?”... How am I going to pay the ferry fare? And whatabout the RM50 penalty for losing the carpark ticket at Lumut... Peehh how to pay for food?"

Knowing I have nil in cash, without hesitation the chalet owner gave back my room deposit even I haven’t checked out yet. Since I told him I have to return to KL the next day – he happily refund my 2nd night room fee in cash (even earlier I paid via credit card).

Gosh! He even offered to cook me dinner if I haven’t had one yet.

So with some cash to help me going, the very next morning I jumped on my bike and head back to the jetty and greeted "Good Morning" to everyone I came across!!

Once I reached Lumut – even the carpark jockey lemme out for without paying the lost ticket fine... Fuhooo!

To the owner of Nipah Bay Villa En. Sabtu and his staffs.

Thank you so much!! And highly recommend this place to everyone.

1 night chalet = RM95

Grilled corn = RM2

Missing wallet: IC, driving license, cash = big headache

Help from stranger = priceless

Goosebump!

Tingg!

I walked out of the elevator on the 6th floor heading toward the ward. This will be about 7am every day. As I'd have expected, he is sitting on his favourite chair outside the ward.

This man in his early 40's medium built has been hanging out in the ward lobby since the last 6 monhs - even from the time I started out in this new place.

I came across him at any random hours of the day or even in the wee hour of morning.

Who is this man?!

He's not a hospital staff. Never wear any kind of uniform. Unlikely to be patients' relatives coz they would come & go with patients which rarely warded up to 6 months.

I asked around but nobody seem to know or noticed this guy before.

Curiosity finally got the best of me at 1am one early morning when I happened to share an elevator with this mysterious man.

"Excuse me, I noticed that you're always here in the hospital... err are you visiting someone"

Stupid! I can hear my own carotid pulse slaping my neck. What if he took out a chain-saw from his back-pocket. My mind ran amok.

An awkward silent passed between us.

His voice was crisp and clear "I scout around for dying patients, hoping to sell casket to the families".

A faint of smile cracked at the corner of his right lips.

Padan muka aku, feel like an idiot whereby Mr Curiosity just killed the cat in the lift with a candlestick.

To be or not to be?

A 66 year old woman heart disease, diabetes, hypertension with end stage renal failure and bilateral above knees amputation collapsed while having her regular "3 - 4 hours a day, 3x a week for the rest of her life)" dialysis.

The paramedic were called in and quickly intubated (LMA) her, and she ended up in ICU.

The 'morning-after' had lotsa docs debating wheather intubating her and put her on life-support was the best course of action.

After all here is a person who have multiple chronic medical problems with no legs, now in semi-vegetative state depending on a life support machine.

Question:
Is it necessary to prolonged her life in this sort of manner?

or should the gung-ho emergency personnel let her slipped away peacefully following natural course of life & death.

Whadayexpect?

Last night a 40 year old lady with no past medical problem presented with fever, vague abdominal discomfort, painful small joints, hair loss, mouth ulcers with reduced blood counts (pancytopenia) and raised liver enzymes.

Guess what, here is the list of blood investigations & etc. that were ordered by the on-call team:

1. RP


2. Blood culture


3. FBP


4. ESR


5. RF


6. ANA


7. dsDNA


8. C3, C4


9. AFP


10. CEA


11. CA 125


12. CA 19-9


13. LDH


14. Coomb's test


15. Serum iron


16. TIBC, Ferritin


17. B12


18. folate


19. UFEME


20. USS Abdomen

...and those are just the beginning. Trust me!

Morale of the story: You don't get sick.. you dont get prick ( and stay away from those ciggies will ya mate)