Hospital life part 1

Dear Blog,

its been a while since i have chatted with you. mainly because i've been busy. things happening to family members, mom relapsed TB, grandma CAP, dad sprained right hand....the list goes on............

life in clinical pharmacy has been good to me...its a hard station but i'm loving every minute of it. its the only station where i can see a multidisciplinary team work together for a patient's health and wellbeing. just today, i observed a femoral cath insertion in a man who is in need to urgent HD. sure i suffered from N&V and LOA after that, but watching the process is just an experience you can never forget. this reminded me of my attachment at the PA Hospital during my fourth year undergrad study. My preceptor Saira arranged for me to observe ECTs being performed. I still remember being in the operating theatre, cold and numb, watching a few houseman, MO and specialist induce seizures in depressed patients who undergo the procedure with hope that one day they can get better.

Experiences like this sometimes make me rethink my decision of not pursuing medicine years ago. it made me wonder if i have made the right decision. at the time, i was naive, i chose to have a happy family instead of being alone. But now, despite not choosing medicine, i am still alone and unwanted. The one person tht i thought i was going to spend the rest of my life with left me and took along a precious family member i never got to know and love. i made my decision when a doctor (specialist and CEO of a private hospital)said that female doctors have troubled private lives. i mean, look at adeline yen mah the author and main protagonist of falling leaves. But, there's always an exception to the rule isnt there?i'm sure many of you female docs out there who would disagree with this "specialist"'s statement, but naive little me 5 years ago believed him and choose to forsake medicine.

Speaking of things like this make me wan to do an ECT on myself....yes...i suffer from depression dear blog, and sometimes i feel that i can nvr rid of this terrible illness for my whole entire life. all i can do is keep practising what i have learned in CBT and continue to be compliant to my medication.

when i think of my attachment at PA hospital, i remember the best preceptor i had, Karl, he was a wonderful talented, knowledgable and most importantly kind and considerate boss. Karl was one person i had to take my hat off to. i remember our experience in BIRU, where we visited a patient with TBI. This poor 36 year old lady suffered TBI 2` to MVA. She has a short term memory of only 10 minutes and she also suffer from amnesia. every 10 minutes she asks the nurses these 3 questions 1.who am i? 2. where am i? 3. where is my husband. i remember this poor pt very well because in terms of medicine, we can do nothing for her except to sedate her with medications.i thought i'll nvr meet another pharmacist that make me want to take my hat off. but i did, my current preceptor Celine, is so good that i'll take my hat off and salute her if i could. i've learned so much from her and i hope that i will be granted the opportunity to learn more.

whoops...time to go...........havent had dinner and its 10.24pm malaysian time. Wish that i was back in Brisbane. I miss you so much Carole!!

thank you for being my listener dearest blog

Penny