Walking the path

Working as a junior doctor in the busy regional paediatric neurosurgical/neurology ward is not easy. I am involved in the day to day care of all the patients in the unit.

Arriving early in the ward one day, I noticed a few new names (i.e. new patients admitted overnight) on the board. As usual, I would walk around the wards to greet all my patients and introduce my self to the new patients (and parents).

I walked up to this new 10 year old boy, who was lying 30 degree head up, with intravenous fluid running. He looked pretty well. His mum was seated beside his bed reading her magazine.

After introducing myself, I asked the mum, “why is your child in the hospital”.

“Oh… He bangs his head”.

“Hmm… head injury” I said to myself.

“So… how did all this happen?” Mechanism of injury is always important.

“He was out playing, and he bangs his head…”

“Ya… So how did he bang his head?” Trying to get more details.

“He fell through the roof of the bus shelter…” I could not picture what she told me, her heavy accent did not help. I tried to visualize the scene of the incident.

“Bus”

“Roof”

“Shelter”

“Did he fell from the top deck of the double decker bus?” I clarified, thinking that I could have heard wrongly. Rephrasing is a good way to make sure that I got the right picture.

“No. He was not on the bus.”

Shelter… hmm… Must be the Bus Stop! But why on earth is a 10 year old child on top of the roof of a Bus Stop Shelter??? With further questioning, he actually did fell through the roof of a Bus Shelter!!

Later I read through the patient’s file, knowing that he had a small bleed into his head, which needs observation but currently not for any intervention. I did my part, checking his mental state and examine him to make sure that he did not deteriorate.

After that, I told the boy, in the presence of the mum, that he should never be on the roof top of a bus shelter. I told him to behave and don’t get into any more trouble. Obviously, that conversation was also aim at the mum, to let her know that she had failed to supervise her child and is to be blamed partly for his injury.

I don’t feel sorry for the child. I don’t feel the pain that he was going through. However, I had the duty to attend to his injuries. I care enough to warn him not to place himself into danger again. I care enough to stir up any conscience in his mum.

How much compassion do I have? How much compassion do I have for people with self inflicted problems? How much compassion do I have for someone who tried to kill himself? How about those smokers with terminal lung cancer? How about those alcoholic with liver cirrhosis? All these people had inflicted upon themselves this pain and suffering, it is the results of their actions. Can I sympathise?

I have the responsibility to give them the best quality of care. At the same time, I would like them to know that, they are the cause of their suffering. Am I being judgemental?

醉与醒

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情长优多泪暗流

举杯疗情

自酌自醉

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宝刀出鞘斩情丝

刀起刀落

情断缘绝

浪子九八年提

This was a poem written many years ago, it is a story of a broken hearted young man (teenager?). This stupid young man, Ah Niu (Nickname: The Cow) though that he really like this pretty young lady, Xiao Hong (Translated as Little Red) in his class. He would spend hours admiring her beauty.

Ah Niu, is a poor village boy, always dress in cheap shorts and t-shirt, and his infamous flip-flop. Xiao Hong in contrast came from a well off family, perfectly dress with branded clothing everyday.

Come lunch time, Ah Niu will be sitting in the Kopitiam (cheap local coffee shop) for his Chap Fan (Economical Mix Rice). Across the road, Xiao Hong will be having her snack in Starbucks (Expensive American chain Coffee Shop).

In the idealistic mind of this young man, Love transcends wealth and social status. At the same time, he knew that realistically, he could not see himself living the same life style as Xiao Hong; more importantly, Xiao Hong would never live a life of plain clothing and cheap kopitiam.

In his simple mind, he does not know if he should follow his heart (idealistic) or his mind (realistic).  So he spend his time admiring Xiao Hong from far, once in a while try chatting with her. But he was never brave enough to review his feelings.

After many months of struggling with his inner self, one day he realised that it was a pointless pursue… and he decided to move on. Move on to look for his Ah Hua (Ah Hua is a common name for village girl.)

He wrote this poem.

Drunk and Awaken

Dragging on this “relationship” is agonizing, tears silently drop.

Raise glass, drown the sorrow.

Pour it, be drunk alone.

Draw the sword, slash the entanglement

Lift the sword, slash it!

End this misery…

Note: This is a piece of creative writing (Story lah…), no drunken teenager involve, no cow being slash, no girls being harm.

Last Saturday, I was TRYING to play football (indoor). This is about the 5^th session since I last kick a ball in PE class in secondary school. It is nice to have a chance to physically kick a ball, for the past few months I was only playing football on XBOX. BTW, Pro Evo 5 is releasing next week, can’t wait!

All was fine on the Saturday, chose the right footwear, good warm up before the game. 10 mins into the game, I was running up the hall keeping my eyes on the ball. Sudden I felt my left ankle gave way (forcefully inverted), I fell to the ground holding my ankle. I knew I had injured myself. The first thing that spring to my mind was “Damn it! I am on-call tonight!!”

Some people may call this dedication, even with that much of pain; this person is still thinking about his job… others may think that this poor guy’s life is dominated by his work, even with this much of pain; he is still pre-occupied by his work, what a sad life.

It was 4 hours before I was suppose to start my night shift when I sustained my injury. I was help out of the hall, and got some first aid. Ice, Compression and Elevation. After 30 mins, I was still not weight bearing on my left. I knew I would have to call up the ward to request for someone else to come in for me. As expected, with such short notice, (and a very tight rota, every weekend off is precious.) no one could come in for me.

With lots of help from 2 friends (Thank you!)  I made my way home. Knowing that I would have no choice but to go on duty, I had no luxury to rest my injury. I took a good dose of Ibuprofen (painkiller). Not forgetting my 跌打酒Die Da Jiu (Medicated Spirit, Chinese medicine.) from years ago when nursing various bruises and injuries from my Karate training.

After many years of training in Main Stream Medicine, I still have faith in my Die Da Jiu. Even though it is probably not evidence based. I have yet to come across a double blind randomised placebo control trial on Die Da Jiu and sprain ankle. Well… at least it does no harm.

After 3 hours of rest, the Ibuprofen (and ?Die Da Jiu) have kick in, I managed to slowly mobilized my ankle, with lots of pain, I could manage to put some weight on my left foot. I drove to work, limping around the wards. Luckily one of my colleagues was very kind to offer to carry my Cardiac Arrest Bleep, I definitely could not running if there was an emergency. It was a quiet night call, which I managed even with a badly sprained ankle.

Do we live to work? Work to earn a living? Or work is my life?

It is a Doc’s Life…

Thanks to KM and YM, I have this picture. They were laughing at me while I struggle to the car…

Bruised…

Heheh…. The characters in my previous blogs are all created to facilitate me delivering different ideas If the characters sounds familiar to you, have you ponder if you have some of those characteristic in yourself?

Dennis, did I just heard you complaining? Actually I prefer to cook for 2, at least I do not eat the same thing again the next day. Hopefully, you get to put your legs up and get your dinner served on alternate days.

Tofu Egg (Made Simple) Recipe

Few eggs, lightly beaten. Add in same amount of water. Lightly salted and add some soya source. Mix well. Steam on extra low fire until solidify. If you see holes on your Tofu Egg, your fire is too strong. Do it again.

The idea of this dish is plainness.