Imagine not being able to walk from the age of 5 when you could run and skip before turning 2. Imagine losing your older brothers before you could even understand why they’re gone. Imagine breathing becoming more of a conscious effort than a natural automated process. Imagine that as you lose your ability to walk, you suddenly realize they’re slowly becoming deformed. Twisted. Hard. Joints no longer a smooth movement. Imagine that all you could really do is lie on your bed and sit up. Imagine your parents knowing you will face the same fate as your brothers in a few years. All by the age of 11.

He’s an adorable boy sadly inflicted with a horrible genetic disease. Duchenne muscular dystrophy. He only had two older brothers and both of them succumbed to the this disease’s fatal complications in the recent months. This boy was tested positive even before he showed any symptoms at all. Out of 7 children, 3 of them positive, 4 were negative of which 3 are daughters. 1 lucky younger brother. Negative. Safe. Their parents’ only surviving son. This boy had come in with simple pneumonia. Nothing big. Nothing too serious yet. Who knows when his respiratory system may give way. At least he’s not on oxygen support yet. But soon he will be. Soon he will pass on. Not yet, their parents hope. Give him a few more happy years.

My ward houses general paeds and is partially a specialized neuro ward. All kinds of neurological diseases. Meningitis. Encephalitis. Severe epilepsy. Dravet Syndrome – never even heard of it. It is a rather sad field to be in. Sometimes these are never curable. Sometimes the simple ones are. But most of the time, you’re seeing children lying on their beds with a tracheostomy. Neurologically different. But I guess that’s what life is. It’s a God purposed thing. It is through these things that we realize that He alone is perfect.

Not us.

We’re messed up human beings to which only Jesus can save.

Physical death awaits all of us – it’s just a matter of time. How one lives the life after can be changed. With one decision.

Got to head to work now. Will write more later..

Blogging is such a great tool to quickly access the moments the writer has captured into words in one particular cross-section of time,
… very much like an online diary thing.

I knew I really wanted to write again in dedication to the moment to which my age technically/biologically/legally changes – present known number plus one.

Little had I realize upon looking back that I had actually penned birthday thoughts on my blog in a biennial pattern. Today would be the third post written in succession to the last one two years ago. You’ll find them in the archives (October 2005, November 2007).

Time flies. Literally. Soon enough it will be another two years.

I told myself not to sound sappy.

Yes. It’s the big 2-5. It is HUGE, isn’t it? No plans on hiding my age there, you would have known if you read my past birthday posts anyway… although the growing number is starting to make me shy and quite uncomfortable. Too many reasons behind that to get into.

Y’know what would be interesting? To write to future me and perhaps the Lydia-ten-years-older could get going on some answers.

Dear Future Lydia,

Hey. What’s up? Does that term still sound applicable in your time? Btw, you look great for your age. Keep it up.

I’ve got a ton of questions for you…

Are you still all into that must-keep-yourself-thin? What’s your weight now?

What about your hair? Is it still long? Did you radically make a change somewhere along the line?

Are you still afraid of lizards? It’s ok if you still are. What about cats? How do you feel about them now?

Please tell me that you’ve already learn to swim properly and maybe went scuba-diving at least once!

What about family? How’s mommy and daddy doing? I hope you’re taking good care of them and making sure they’re seeing a good doctor when they’re ill. Don’t pretend you’re all that smart y’know.

Are you married yet? Dating, at least? Seriously?

Are you wiser now? Making better life decisions?

Oh Oh! I hope by now you would have at least seen the Aurora lights and maybe the Grand Canyon? Do you travel a lot? Have you gone to more countries in the South East Asia region, other than Singapore? Did you make a trip to visit your adopted daughter? Have we adopted anymore children?

Please tell me you still dress up a little and that you’re physically fit to still wear heels on nice occasions.

How’s church? Still going on strong, I’m pretty sure. Nothing can be against it when God’s on her side!

Still baking occasionally? Has your cooking and baking skills improved? That’s great. I’m sure they’re all delicious stuff.

What’s been good in your life nowadays? What’s about the not-so-good ones? Are you still glorifying God in all that you do? I’m sure you’re finding Him more and more precious by the day.

I’d love to know how you’re doing. I’ll be waiting here for your reply.

oh… btw. Happy Birthday.

Love,
Present Lydia

Yup. Here I am. Paediatrics.

So far.. so good. A wee bit more motivated than I was in O&G.

Don’t know why.

Although the poking children part isn’t that nice. But I guess it’s something we have to do to treat them.

Alrighty. Got to go to work now. Will write soon!

It’s over! It’s over.. finally finally over.

What a relief! It’s all behind me and in the past. Yaaayy!

What’s next?

It’s approximately 5:45am and in about 2 hours, I would be officially off-duty for the day. To be honest, I’ve never had a better on-call night than I did last night. It would be reasonable to say that it’s because of the Raya season that there are less local women in and around the area as most would have gone to their home state for the festive season. That being said, we have had our fair share of being busy since the afternoon. Anyhoo, I’m happy I got my fair share of sleep which I’ve never had before since working here in the labour room.

Many mishaps have happened since my team took over the ward for the month. I’m beginning to believe that I could actually be the Jonah one (as many of my colleagues have already speculated from the start) since a lot of these incidences happened when I’m around or that the night would be super busy when I’m on-call. Some maternal deaths, major fetal distresses and a cord prolapse INDIRECTLY (emphasis) caused by yours truly, just to name a few. Right now, I’m just looking ahead on to quickly finishing up my remaining days and heading out of the department. As quick as I can.

I think I should finish off now as a few of the staff nurses have been peeking and watching me since I started writing. Till then, ciao!

Since working in labour room, I started to develop really painful rashes on the dorsal part of my hands. The pain would feel like it’s literally burning when I used the alcohol rub or had my hands near the baby warmers. It became so bad to a point that my hands were both quite swollen and red patches appeared all over up to my wrists (if you can see in the picture). I had no choice but to occasionally cool my hands with cold running tap water.

Thankfully, with good ol’ BVC, the swelling has much subsided but unfortunately is leaving behind a horrid layer of dry skin which made my hands look like those of an old woman – dry and wrinkly.

I’ve been told it’s likely that the constant use of the sterile gloves has caused an allergic reaction.. which is probably right, since the rash only appears in a glove-like distribution. However, one clever staff nurse said that maybe I’m allergic to O&G, which I could not agree 100% more. I like that label. Allergic to O&G. Giving off an allergic reaction. Can’t stay near for too long.. detrimental to me. hehe..

Raya season’s coming up in a few days.. to all my friends who celebrate this festival.. Have a happy Raya time with your family and friends. Will be working a little more to cover for the rest during the holiday time. Am really praying that it wouldn’t be as busy as a regular day.

What a week it has been!

Seriously.

Surviving each day is like an adventure on its own. No. Wait. The adventure word gives it a fun-like connotation to it. It’s not. No way, sir. If anything, it’s the total opposite of fun. UN-fun. lol.

From dirtying my good pants with placenta blood…
…to a maternal death from uterine rupture
…to the most-distressed-of-fetal-distresses-that-I’ve-seen-until-I-couldn’t-believe-how-fast-the-staff-were-at-getting-the-patient-into-OT-that-stat,
…to hyper-hormonal staff nurses where to a point it’s getting REAAAALLLYYY annoying at how I feel they’re ordering us around…
…to…to.. can’t think of more at this late hour but I’m sure I will when I remember them…the list is definitely longer than this.

Of course not all is well and dandy in the labour room where expecting parents are overjoyed to receive their newborn babies. I’ve had the privileged of working in the high dependency ward inside the labour room and came across a case which has gripped my heart.

(I do realize that I usually blog about all the sad stories I come across… )

A young mother halfway though her pregnancy started experiencing symptoms suggestive of a deadly disease, which after many long days of investigations, the horrifying nightmare of the diagnosis was finally confirmed. The next difficult step was to decide what was the best solution for her and the baby given the terminal situation. It didn’t look good at all. It seems to appear that she might possibly have to give her life up for the sake of her baby. Really sad.

Sigh. Still counting down the days to when this posting will be over. In fact, everyday I keep wishing that time would pass by quicker.

36 days more (I think… not counting well in the middle of the night). lol.

Is it over already?

*peek*

No?

Gosh, everyday feels like a century long.

I’ve never been in a posting which felt like time was crawling ever so slowly by. Seriously. Every time we stop and think how much more time do we need to pay in this department, we’d be amazed that we’re still only about halfway there. Let’s see.. as of today, I’ve got 45 more days here (provided that I don’t get extended, of course). Feels like forever… sigh.

A large portion of that leftover days will be spent in the dreaded labour room… that time is inching much closer than before. When I mean it being an inch close, it’s actually starting tomorrow. Oh! The horror of horrors. lol. Don’t ask me why I feel so terrified of labour room, cuz I just am. I’ll definitely be dragging my feet to work tomorrow and with my knees trembling.

On a brighter note, I’ve been wanting to buy a pair of crocs for my month’s worth of work in the labour room since I anticipate a lot of walking and dirty stuff going here and there. No, I’ve still not bought my pair but while surfing through the main crocs website, I stumbled upon this. Wow. I am honoured. It is a pretty well designed pair, I must say

It’s been too long since I’ve been gone from writing but every time I put up my writer to attempt to write, I come short of inspiration. Work’s the usual…nothing much is different. A lot of contemplations, reflections and prayers about the future. Still, nothing much to post up to share…

…until I stumbled upon this from a blog I subscribe to.

You can read more about him here and here
or visit his official website here.

What a tear-jerking video. It’s alright to admit it.. I shed a few tears myself. It put me to shame about how I’ve always felt like I could not do much because I’m your average Jane and here is this guy, much limited in his physical ability but doing so much more in encouraging and inspiring others.

So listen to what he said.. next time you fall and feeling like the weight of the world is upon you that you just can’t seem to get back up, keep trying, keep praying. One day, you will… and you will soar.

I’ve always been drawn towards the voice of the cello. I absolutely love the smooth mellow and soothing warm tone it produces especially when played under skilful hands. If you’ve heard music which has a cello part in it, it would sound like it’s singing in a human voice.

It’s eerily beautiful.

I could only wished that I had a steady work schedule so I could slot in cello classes.. but I don’t and a cello simply costs too much. Maybe I’ll pick it up in the future – I don’t know, we’ll see.

Since I’m dwelling on the topic of picking up certain skills, there’s another skill I feel the need to pick up – to speak Burmese. We have so many foreigners coming in pregnant and giving birth in my hospital and the Indonesians and Burmese top the list. The problem with some of these Burmese ladies is that they have no command of any local language at all. Some can barely make it through with Malay language but I’ve seen more than enough who would give you blank stares when trying to communicate with them. I have to end up giving hand signals which is not easy to ask whether they are having contractions and whether the baby is moving fine in their tummy.

One of my colleagues felt the same way and has already bought the language book. We’ve tried it together and Burmese is not an easy language to learn at all. Unlike Japanese where there isn’t a tone to change the meaning of syllables, Burmese is somewhat like Mandarin with tones and stops within the word which could alter the word into a whole different meaning. It sounds a lot like Thai. Super not easy.. but it’s a challenge I feel very much strongly for, in order for me to be able to communicate well with my patients. One can argue that they should be the ones who must learn our language because they set foot on our land.. but I beg to differ because there is absolutely no harm in picking up an extra language. If we want to be better doctors, we must understand our patients in order to fully know the health problems in which they face.

I should be buying the book soon… I hope.