Ode to Tendy

Dear Tendy Leong,

It's been 3 months since you've gone. How are you in tendy heaven? I bet it's good up there, with no more patient tendons to hit. Are you lying on a fluffy cloud strumming harps? Oh wait, can tendon hammers strum?

We've had some good times, you and I. Running wild on the wards, whacking every tendon we can get my grubby hands on...sometimes even doing the Babinski on some unsuspecting patient's foot when no one was watching (gently, of course). Occasionally you'd be tapping some med student's forehead to check for a 'brain reflex' - mine being absent all the time :(

Do you remember the time at the airport when I was bringing you back to Melbourne from your birthplace? When they stopped me at the gate after imaging my bags? Oh, the suffering you had at the hands of that fat lady!!! Her grubby paws using you to hit her knee while she was standing up - like duh, how's that gonna give her a knee jerk?? And mistaking you for a weapon?? Hello??!

The good times ended when that Lee Weiyong dropped you on your head and broke your neck :'(. It wasn't ever the same again without you around, Tendy. I mean, life had to go on, and eventually (like after 2 days) I got a replacement but the point is, I mourned you for 15 whole minutes! (and told everyone I met that day how Weiyong the tendon hammer killer murdered you). The new tendy (Tendy Lee) is functioning pretty well though, I actually used him today on my long case patient in exams.

Anyways I hope you're doing well, and don't worry about the broken neck and all, I mean, after a bit of sticky tape you look just as good as new! (Aside from the fact that you can't hammer people's tendons anymore, as a tendon hammer LOL). So take care up there, and don't miss me too much!

Love,

Omega

That Sleepless Night

Okay, so I got tired of explaining to everyone what happened on 'the-best-sleepless-night-everrr!!' so I'm just gonna write it up here (probably also to refresh my demented brain sometime in the future).

So there I was, dawdling along in my room, absolutely unproductive at 11pm at night last Thursday (April 9th) when my pager beeped. Squealing with too much enthusiasm*, I snatched it up and proceeded to return the page. And voila! It was a page from the transplant coordinator at the Austin looking for a med student.

* With regards to my enthusiasm, no, I was not overly-hyped because I was paged (I was excited the first few times I was paged, but after the 10th one you just sorta go 'geezz, another one?' and sometimes you get the 'phantom pager syndrome' where you think it is ringing when it's not. And picture this scenario : Pager goes off in a room full of medical students + interns + residents + registrars. EVERYONE checks their pagers simultaneously, only to have one apologetic (or not) person walk out to return his/her page. Multiply this by 5 times in one hour. Annoying much??!)
Aaaanyways getting back on the topic, so I was excited because one other student have had this midnight page in the past so it was all systems go once the page arrived *

So to cut the long story short, she was looking for a Gen Surgery/GI student and unfortunately (for all of them, but fortunately for me YAY!) none of them paged back. She told me of the impending liver transplant scheduled at 8am the next morning, and told me I could rock up if I wanted to, and rang off. I sat there mulling over this piece of information, and wondered why didn't she say anything about the organ harvest. So dengan muka yang teramat tebal I rang back, and asked if there was going to be an organ harvest somewhere, and if I could go. She said yes! (lol sounds like I proposed).

Then started my (almost) midnight journey by train (it's surprising how many passengers Connex has at midnight! ) to the Austin to wait for the transplant harvest team. I couldn't stop yakking on the way: almost talked the ears off my housemates at home and called my mum and friend on the way to the hospital.

We flew by PRIVATE JET to another state from a private airfield (lol funny story the surgery registrar asked if my enthusiasm was due to the organ harvest itself or the private jet) but honestly speaking, the plane ride wasn't all that great. Seats were roomy, yes and with leather upholstery! Only 4-5 passengers plus the pilot and co-pilot who also doubled as air steward. It was an interesting experience, but not particularly enjoyable because somehow smaller planes make a whole lot more noise, and for some strange reason the floor under my legs heated up while we were many thousand miles above sea level. 1) Didn't do a lot for my confidence, and 2) freaking sauna on my legs does not feel comfortable!! Plus I always have difficulty sleeping on planes, hence my dislike of night flights.

2 hours later, we arrived and rushed to the hospital, changed immediately into scrubs and started on the operation. The deceased person (shall I call him/her DP) lay on the operating table, looking as if merely asleep. Many strange thoughts were running through my mind at that moment: Is he alive?Brain dead but not dead dead, would he be able to feel anything? Did he knew his organs were about to be harvested?

At that point the exhaustion (from lack of sleep + noisy plane ride + leg sauna) sort of took over my brain, giving me a detached outlook as if I was looking in from afar. I was slightly surprised at my detachment though, cos here we were cutting up and removing most of the major organs from a real live dead person and I was not in the slightest bit sqeamish. I caught a whiff of the odour from the body cavity; an interesting mix of blood and I dunno, body cavity juices? Wasn't particularly offensive till about more than 18 hours later when I was sitting in the cinema, the smell of popcorn wafted over and my nose just went !!!!!!!!! Exact same smell!!!!!! (lol maybe my olfactory nerves were playing tricks on me, but please, don't feel like you have to stop eating popcorn LOL).

Okay story getting too long, so what the surgeons did was to carefully dissect out the required organs and asked me a whole ton of anatomy questions out of which I answered ONE correctly (Ding! Surgeons =1, Omega =0 ). The coolest thing was that I was allowed to cut the heart out! Slash went my blade through the aorta + pulm vessels. Surgeon 1 joked " Your 15 minutes of fame! Who else did a cardioectomy the first time they scrubbed in??" and Sam's "You flew across the states to rip a guy's heart out!"

Sad bit: I left my beautiful bangle in the scrubs pocket! And forgot to take it with me when we left!! TT_TT bye bye bangle....

And we flew back to Melbourne, scrubbed in immediately for the liver transplant and I observed a bit before going off. By that stage I was zombie-like with no sleep for the past 30 hours, but the surgeons were still going strong ( they've had 2 other transplants that day, and have had no sleep other than cat-naps for almost 35 hours). Tried to sleep in the common room but nopes, brain was overworking so attended the rest of the day's classes and went home for a nice dinner out on Swanston and Aliens vs Monsters, 3D! (Super ex, but was a great movie :D:D)

:) So concludes my 40 hours without sleep. The day after, I slept til 6pm Hohoho.

..................................

So there I was sitting in the chair in the Supervisor's room again.

After a one-week hiatus, I must admit I was kinda looking forward to getting my work bombed with red marks again - it's addictive, you know?

And so I was asking him questions about the comments HE inserted into my 'Results' section before he flew off last week [ some analyses which HE suggested we include. And even though I had no idea why it should be included (doesn't make sense, perfect waste of space) I added it in like the dutiful good kid that I am. ]

So while he launched into a full-scale lecture on how we shouldn't clog up our thesis when it should be clear and focused for the sake of the examiners, yadda yadda yadda so this are our main aims yak yak yak don't confuse your readers bla bla bla, my mind was exactly like :


Supervisors. Heh.

I'm in love.......

with amazing designs and illustrations!!!

The commencement of the era of antibiotics - look here

Birdie stitches - look here

Absolutely beautiful designs that I spent the most of the night browsing (and not writing up my thesis, may I add!)





:(



I wish I was talented at art.







P/s: Changed the blog's template, lost all my widgets. Sorry kids, will attempt to link you all once again when blogspot's in a less foul mood..

What's worse than stepping on dried possum poo?

Stepping on

SQUISHY WET, RAIN-RECONSTITUTED dried possum poo,

that's WHAT!!!






*%$^$#@@!&*!!!!!!!!!!!

DIY : Oatmeal Facial for the Modern Metrosexual Man

Dear readers,

Welcome to the new year 2008! As with every beginning of the year (well....this year anyways), we, the production crew at c'est le blog d'Omega will usher in a new chapter of the blog with a brand new section on DIY tips!!!


And for our first ever DIY tip of 2008, we bring you

"Oatmeal Facial for the Modern Metrosexual Man"

Firstly, we have our specimen, all tied up in his chair.

The next step is to mix the purifying concoction that has been 'proven' to clear clogged throats, induce laughter and lots of yelling from the specimen.

Recipe
1 large egg, beaten
100g of flour
50ml of tap water
A handful of rolled oats

Method
1. Combine first 3 ingredients, mix evenly.
2. Spread a generous amount of mix all over face
3. Gently pat rolled oats all over face
4. Leave for 10 minutes.
Within that 10 minutes, point at, laugh at, take photos and videos of, the SPECIMEN
5. Wipe face clean of facial
6. Run away laughing, leaving specimen taped to the chair with a pair of scissors just within reach
7. Secretly video specimen trying to escape.

Happy New Year 2008!!!!

Sorry yaaahhh super belated post *grins*

I promise I'll try to update more often..

Anyways, it's 2008!!!!!! And I'm older :( though not necessarily wiser

Notice the new look for the blog? I figured I've had so many new clothes it's time for my bloggie to have new togs as well...

*clinks champagne glasses*

Here's to a MARVELLOUS year ahead!!!!

The Song that's Bangin' Around in my Head

HOOK ME UP



I'm tired of my life.
I feel so in between.
I'm sick of all my friends, girls can be so mean
I feel like throwin’ out everything I wear
I'm startin’ over new,
Coz I’m not even there.

Sometimes,
I wanna get away some place,
But I don't wanna stay too long.
Sometimes
I wanna brand new day,
Try to fit in where I don't belong

CHORUS
Hooooooooook hook me up.
I wanna feel the rain in my hair.
Hooooooooook hook me up.
Where should we go I don't even care.

Anywhere is good enough.
Hook me up.
Hook me up.

I like the lights turned out,
the sound of closing doors.
I’m not like other girls,
who always feel so sure.

Of everything they are,
of what their gonna be.
Sometimes I'm just a girl stuck inside of me; of me

Sometimes i wanna disappear some place,
but I don't wanna stay too long.
Sometimes,
I'm feelin’ so alone,
Tryin’ to fit in where I don't belong.

CHORUS

Anywhere is good enough.
Hook me up.
Hook me up.
Anywhere is good enough
hook me up

Their gonna crash and burn,
I'm gonna find a way,
Nothin’ left to say

CHORUS x 2
Anywhere is good enough
hook me up
Hook me up
hook me up