My Spiral Into Insanity
I have been expecting something like this to happen ever since I began my five-year-long sojourn in medical school. To have the first drops of insanity irrevocably taint my soul as the silently malicious spread of irrationality threads its way into the very core of my mind. What I was not expecting, however, was the long delay in any outward manifestation of this metaphorical “cancer” in this transient shell we call the human body, a mortal cage for the immortal soul. But I have finally witnessed the alteration of my perceptions of right and wrong by utterly illogical thoughts, a stream of caustic impulses burning away my unconscious cognitive processes which finally cloister in a fetid pool with the remnants of fallen principles in the darker recesses of my mind. The darker recesses of my mind, which I would rather pretend did not exist, but an alternate dimension of thoughts that I acknowledge freely and stumble into occasionally. What other explanation could there be for my dream this afternoon of using human intestines as a skipping rope while playing with two Ewoks? Perhaps I should lay off on the afternoon siestas. Or not eat any croissants before taking a nap. Or stop thinking longingly of
kuey teow kia during Gastrointestinal Dissection Practicals.
P.S. – You did not read any of this. Really.
P.P.S. – Updates (a proper entry, not the psychotic babbling that I try to pass off as an entry today) will be delayed as I am trying to get up to speed on yet
another SSC.
P.P.P.S. – I am still thinking longingly of
kuey teow kia.
Chronicles Of The Flying Carcinoma
I've almost achieved legendary status in my Integrated Learning Activity group by doing something so insidious during our dissection section that the mere mention of it should never be allowed to taint humanity - but I'm going to write about it here anyway. For the faint-hearted, this is your final chance to click on the tiny little "X" at the top right hand corner of your computer display if you're a conformist and you use Microsoft Windows (for the "rebels" who use a Mac, the little red circle on the top right hand corner of the screen should do it) and back away from reading all about it. I will also make it very clear that I DO NOT, in any way, condone the reproduction of this event nor do I encourage the use of it as inspiration for others to pioneer a "see-who-does-the-most-digustingly-interesting-yet-morbidly-funny-thing-during-dissection" competition, "star search" or even, Heaven forbid, a reality television show.
The date on which it happened was last Tuesday, the 7th of March, 2006 Anto Domini. Like many insidious events before this, it had a pretty inoccous beginning, although the weather that day bore portents of a terrible event in the making. The skies were overcast, chilly winds were making leaves dance and a dawn drizzle gently shed its delicate tears onto the cold sidewalks. To be completely honest, I enjoy bad weather and I'm actually in a better mood the worse the weather gets - but for sake of dramatization, I'll just pretend that I saw bad omens in the weather. Dissection practicals were held that morning in the Dissecting Rooms as always, although the session was briefly interrupted by a fire alarm. We usually hear the fire alarms go off during dissection practicals since they test the fire alarms every Tuesday - so we didn't pay much heed to it at first.
However, when the fire alarms persisted, we were chivvied downstairs to the evacuation assembly area by our demonstrators. Once there, we spent around 20 minutes shivering in the cold in our lab coats and speculating whether there really was a fire or not before being allowed back into the building. It's really ironic how they test the fire alarms to ensure our safety, but doing so makes our response to the fire alarms less urgent - if a fire occured on a Tuesday morning in the Biomedical Science Building, would the five minutes we spent listening to the fire alarms ring thinking that they were just testing the alarms have cost the entire Half Class A their lives? Anyway, after getting thoroughly refreshed by our little jog down the stairs, we returned to the Dissection Room and proceeded with our work.
Since we're currently in the Gastrointestinal/Liver Module, our to-do list that day was to cut open a cadaver's abdominal region and observe (read - cut out) the abdominal viscera. I did most of the cutting that day, and it all proceeded rather smoothly until we reached the small intestines. There, we found a small and anomalous lump embedded in our cadaver's mesentery. True to Group 1's Doctrine of Dissection -
if it's unknown, slice it out and we'll find out what it is, or not - I duly sliced it out and passed it around to my group members. When we showed it to our demonstrator and asked her about what it was, it turned out that it was a lymphoma - cancer in one of the lymph nodes of the mesentery. One of my group members took it and removed the layers of connective tissue covering the surface until she finally had a hard, spherical object.
We were even more puzzled about this than our initial discovery of the lump. It was so hard that even pressing a scapel onto it could only just scratch its surface but not cut it into half - we thought carcinomas were just lumps of tissue! Our demonstrator came to our rescue again, and she told us that sometimes carcinomas can become calcified, which is probably what happened to the lump that we were then passing around. When it reached me, I took it in one hand (since one of my gloves was removed after I was done dissecting in order for me to hold my pen and write) and gave it a gentle squeeze between my thumb and forefinger to see how hard it was. However, to my utmost horror, it slipped out of my fingers and shot upwards like a slippery melon seed. I could only stare in disbelief as it arced upwards, stayed suspended in midair of a couple of femtoseconds and hurtled downwards with a vengeance.
It wouldn't have been so bad if it landed on a floor - it would have been embarrassing, yes, but it wouldn't have been a thing that everyone in my group would probably remember forever. The flying carcinoma, however, landed in my group's demonstrator's HAIR. OMFG. Since I was standing behind her, she didn't know what had happened. There was a moment of dead silence when everyone in my group stared at me with their mouths agape. I was equally shocked as well and could only reach forward and removed the lump from the demonstrator's hair with trembling hands after a couple of seconds had passed and I was done staring in disbelief at what had transpired. The abrupt silence told our demonstrator that something was wrong and she turned around to see me standing stock-still, wide-eyed and staring at the lump in my hand.
Apparently she didn't realize that something terrible had happened. She looked at me, then looked at everyone (who were still deathly silent) before asking "Is something the matter?". As if a spell was lifted from the rest of my group members, they burst out in side-splitting laughter in unison. I decided to break the bad news to her since it was my fault and I told her what had happened and that it was all my fault, it was totally unintentional and I was really truly sorry. She took the news rather well - she just laughed and asked if I had removed all of it from her hair. I replied in the affirmative and took a piece of tissue paper to clean the landing zone of the carcinoma for good measure. She then assured me that it was alright and that she washed her hair everyday anyway, so it was no big deal. Amazing. If it had happened to me instead, I'd be placing my head under the nearest washbasin and spend the next hour scrubbing my hair.
We then proceeded with the rest of our dissection practical with no other major mishaps. After dissection, some members of my group looked at me and said "YC, YC..." before bursting out in laughter. Hahaha! Well, it was my fault after all, so I accept all ragging and jokes resulting from this incident with absolutely no hard feelings at all. However, they didn't take the mickey out of me as much as I had thought they would...thankfully! Anyway, I hope that this incident hasn't put off the demonstrator from having our group again for our next dissection practical - she's really good compared to our previous demonstrator and I hope she stays as our demonstrator. What have I learnt from this event? To not squeeze carcinomas with two fingers ever again - goodness knows where it's going to land the next time!
Let It Snow...
So much for my expectations of a snow-blanketed Sheffield after returning back here from the sunny equatorial lands of Malaysia. Besides some heavy snowfall around Boxing Day, there hasn't been any snow here all winter - are the Gods of the weather trying to mock me?! No snow during winter?! What dastardly turn of events has befallen humanity? I have this nagging feeling that they are, and I bet that they're probably laughing somewhere in their God-world, reclining on God-couches, conversing in God-speak and laughing while pointing at me, an infestimally small and insignificant object to them on a tiny Life-bearing orb of earth, water and air suspended in the infinity of the Universe. Everyone's been saying that the past winter has been one of the mildest in ages - there has hardly been any snow and the weather has more or less been rather nice! Looks like the tag "jinx to snowfall" that has been pinned on me won't come off so easily.
However, in a truly unexpected turn of events, it snowed last Friday, on my last day of the ICE module! I was going down to dinner with my group of friends when we suddenly noticed that it was snowing outside - we didn't really give it much thought since we thought that it would just snow for a while and stop, characteristic of the type of snowfall we've seen all winter. After dinner, we noticed that it was still snowing, which is rather odd since it is unusual for it to have snowed for that long. Even stranger, still, was the fact that it was snowing even more heavily! I went out to savour the rare occasion and met Hsin Yu at the door, who was even more excited at seeing snowfall than me - so much so that her exuberance drew the attention of people who were coming out of the dining hall. Tommy joined us a few moments later and joined us in our impromptu celebration of snowfall (yes, this sounds dysfunctional...but forgive us since we rarely see snowfall).
We had a took some pictures, had a brief but intense snowball fight and generally just messed around with the all the snow lying around since there was enough snow fell to make a layer of snow on the ground. As I was stupid enough to trust Jian (a Singaporean guy doing architecture who also lives in Halifax Hall) to just throw snowballs at my legs since I was drinking from a cup, I received a snowball in my face at point-blank range. Efforts to retaliate were futile as he was already doing a 100m dash from me. After a while, the area outside the main entrance of Halifax Hall resembled a warzone with 2" spherical snow projectiles hurled indiscriminately at anyone within firing range with varying levels of accuracy - it wasn't uncommon to get hit by a snowball that was aimed at another person! We went back in after a while to celebrate Jun Xue's birthday by going on a
Lord of the Rings movie marathon - we watched the entire "extended edition" trilogy in a day. I've never watched three movies in a day, much less at one go, but it was fun nonetheless! No excuses for forgetting what happened before! Hahaha!
Here are some pictures!
Hsin-Yu and myself, just outside the main entrance of Halifax Hall. She was on her phone screaming "It's snowing! Snowing!". Pretty scary. Hahaha!
Hsin-Yu and Tommy enjoying the snowfall! The snowfall was getting heavier and heavier, and by the time this picture was taken, it actually obscured some shots taken!
Hsin-Yu and myself again. As you can see, she was pretty excited about the fact that it was snowing - but I don't blame her! I guess I was pretty excited about the fact that it was snowing as well! Haha!
Tommy and myself posing for a picture in the oh-so-pretty scene of falling snowflakes.
Hsin-Yu insisted that I had a picture of myself with snowflakes all over my hair and jacket...hahaha!
From left - myself, Tommy and Su-Ann.
Jun Xue is in heaven - check out his blissful expression! Looks like this year he got particularly good "presents" - who wouldn't want to be flanked by two pretty girls?
Group picture of everyone after our barbaric snowfight. No animals (especially furry rodents such as squirrels) were harmed in the tactical maneuvers undertaken in our epic battle.
Hsin-Yu was adamant about making a snowman, but with the amount of snow that fell was just not enough to manufacture anything else besides snowballs. However, she went ahead anyway and made a
chibi snowman. Looks like she's munching it.... Poor snowman.
P.S. - Finally checked my grades for the Critical Analysis SSC! I got a "Good"! Hahaha! I'm perfectly satisfied with that - my presentation skills aren't top notch anyway! Now just two more to worry about...
P.P.S. - I forgot to thank Hiromi for cooking me lunch last Monday! Thanks a lot! It's been a long while since I had a proper lunch, and it certainly made my week! Hahaha!
P.P.P.S. - The ICE module is finally over! No more commuting to Doncaster at the break of dawn each day! But it was a pretty interesting experience nonetheless - I got to visit a place I had never been to before and to meet new people and to talk to them. However, my wallet has suffered much the last week...I think it's time for some serious scrimping and saving!
YC In The Big City
Attachment Week Two of the Intensive Clinical Experience module is currently underway - just two more days to go and I'm home free, only to run right into the jaws of another two SSC assignments. My first week of attachments was done in the Respiratory Function Unit (RFU) of the Royal Hallamshire, so it was basically a straightforward affair. Walk there each morning, report in, watch a few spirometries, use the pulse oximeter, watch the technicians set up the CPAP and BiPAP machines, shadow a few doctors around, walk around the rounds for a bit and then trundle back to my room. Simple and clean. In addition, the staff over at the RFU were extremely friendly and didn't ask us to stow ourselves in a filing cabinet while they did their work whereas my partners were the metaphorical Hermione and Ron (which amused me to no end), so I more or less enjoyed the experience.
So far, Week Two hasn't been quite that enjoyable. I was posted to the Doncaster Royal Infirmary (DRI) for my second week of attachments - which wasn't even in Sheffield. When I first saw my second attachment's location, the first thought that ran through my mind was
"Where the hell is Doncaster?". Perfect. Just perfect. To get posted to a city I've never been to in my life, located 40 minutes away by train. Travelling there really kills. In order to make it for my report-in time of 9am, I have to wake up at 0600, catch the No. 30 bus at 0707, walk to the train station and catch the 0741 Bridlington, reaching Doncaster at 0820, walk to the city centre and take the No. 82 to the DRI, hopefully reaching there at 0845. And I don't get to eat any breakfast either since the dining hall opens at 0745 - my breakfast to date has consisted of a couple of biscuits washed down with water. Add bitterly cold and windy mornings to that and you get the ideal crap beginning to a day, akin to the ones I've been having.
My experience there has been rather sedate compared to my previous attachment. Since I'm attached to an Orthopaedic Ward and all the patients in it are post-operative or under-observation, nothing exciting happens at all. However, it gave me a really interesting insight into the life of nurses. Contrary to popular belief, their care of the patient does not terminate once they leave the bedside of the patient or even when the patient is discharged. For example, a doctor merely signs a discharge form in order to discharge a patient whereas a nurse has to ensure that a patient has adequate care after he/she is discharged and if not, arrange for Crisis Intervention Teams, social workers and district nurses to care for the patient, arrange transportation, ensure that the patient's family knows of the discharge and even procure equipment that the patient will have to use at home. Pretty intruiging stuff - I never knew that! Despite that, however, things are still generally slow in the wards I've been in - so much so that sometimes I find myself bored.
Hopefully the next two days will be more exciting - I'll be attached to the Fracture Clinic tomorrow and Ward 6 (a medical ward) the day after. Can't believe I haven't seen any surgery so far! Some of my friends have seen really cool stuff like neurosurgery and keyhole surgery, but the most interesting thing I've seen so far is my lung function test's results. In addition, all that travelling each day is taking a huge toll on my mood (and my temper as well). I leave each morning grumpy and arrive back in my room late in the evening grumpy AND tired. No surprise then, that I'm helluva moodier the last two days. Won't be surprised if my temper snaps - it'll be the first time in quite a while, and it won't be pretty. Damn. And I thought I was making progress on my temper. Seems like this isn't the case after all. I'd better work harder in cooling down my hot temper.
P.S. - I just reread this entry, and it seems extremely disjointed. Goes to show how my mind works when it's tired. This entry is then, truly, senseless ramblings about my life.
P.P.S. - The Critical Analysis SSC results are out, but I haven't been to the Medical School to check mine (they're posted on a low-tech noticeboard when we have a high-tech webportal that the Med School incessantly implores us to use). Just haven't had the time - might go tomorrow if I get off early.
