entirely my fault

he was my 2nd new patient for today.. hoping, i'll get my 2nd signature for our teaching form.. he was the last patient of the day.. yet it was already quarter to 1.. everyone was in a hurry to leave, including me coz i was so anxious to go home (after two weeks)..

i was left behind at the medicine opd.. i did my patient's prescription, i wrote the requests.. except for 1 - the lipid profiles.. i even suggested that in black and white.. damn!.. i'm so stupid!.. worse, i dont know when the patient will come back for follow up.. my only choice is hopefully to catch him tomorrow when he goes there (that is, if he decides to do those tests in the CD) in order to give him the additional lab requests, or if he already did tell the technicians to include it in the result forms.. otherwise, demerits are inevitable.. question is, for how many days?.. praying that they're the only demerits i'll be getting in my entire 2 month stay at Medicine..

wish i could turn back time..

still adjusting

i'm still having problems in terms of the schedule. it's so fast! imagine being stuck at the hospital for 32 hours. then you'll be there for another 8 hours. the following day, you'll be on duty again.. hay!.. no wonder i'm disoriented when it comes to the specific day of the week. i barely notice that it's sunday unless someone mentions about going to mass on that day. well that's something i look forward to (that is, if i'm not on duty) - the weekends are just spent 4-5 hours at the hospital.

how i wish there's a 1-day (as in 24 hours) rest for all of us. this is so physically, psychologically, financially draining.

tired

i only slept 2 hours for the last 48 hours. imagine!

man! i wanna go to bed, wake up two days from now.

unfortunately, i have something very important to do. i don't know how to call it though - work or passion?

u decide.

from duty

yesterday was our very 1st 24 hour duty.. grabe!.. ganito pala ang pakiramdam pag kagaling dun - u have this urge to crawl to your bed or anywhere you can rest your tired body.. thankfully, may double decks sa other half ng clerks and interns room.. by past 1, almost all lower beds were occupied so i had no choice but to lie on the upper beds.. ah basta!.. pagod na ako at ndi ko na talaga kaya.. so, for the entire duration of our rotation at Medicine, ganito ang mangyayari.. hmm.. benign pa ako sa lagay na 'to (since wala pang naka-deck na pasyente sa akin at stable naman ang mga VS ng mga external alternates ko) pano pa kaya pag may (mga) pasyente na ako?


off topic: my shoutbox is not working.. waah!

ganito pala..

april 15, 2005 - today is our first day at the STUH Clinical division Medicine ward.. our first day as medical clerks..

last night i started studying the cases assigned to our teams. unfortunately, i just studied 1 (Acute Gastroenteritis secondary to Entameoba histolytica). by 11, i was already dead tired & damn sleepy. i promised myself to get up at 3:30 am to continue my study. unfortunately, i got up at 4, studied some of DM and DKA. 6:30 i was at the clerks' room. ok. here we go...

teaching rounds were nice (sorry sa sobrang pagod ko, i'm running out of words but i guess gets nyo naman di ba?) though it was tiring coz we were just standing for more than 2 hours. by 10, it was our ward work - VS, lab requests follow ups, etc.

"mayday!" i got alarmed and frightened that my external alternate might be at the ER at that time. since i didn't know where she is, i went down (thankfully, i didn't had a patient) to the ER & see if she is there and needs help. well, she wasn't decked yet at the ER. but it's better to be there than to be given demerits for being absent (the rules were still weren't clear to me so just to be sure than sorry). after 3 minutes, i heard 1 of the interns say "ok na!". thank goodness! our very first mayday on the first day. at 11 am, i was already starving.

came 12-1, we were all relieved to have our lunch. 1-2 pm, i was so drowsy, sleepy & already tired. clerks' hour finished at around 2:30. immediately, i helped my teammate w/ her patient. i was surprised to see another patient (at the same room w/ my teammate's but on a different bed) intubated w/ mechanical ventilator. supposedly that patient should be at the ICU. i asked the CICs why he's there. they said there was a DNAR (do not attempt resuscitation) order from the patient's wife. 30-40 minutes after, we heard a shout - "mayday!" i wasn't surprised to learn that it was that particular patient who was having cardiopulmonary arrest. since i wasn't part of the mayday team that day, i went back to the clerks' room.

after 20 minutes, i learned that the patient expired. the wife was crying hysterically for she lost the only breadwinner in their family. i felt sorry for the wife and their kids.

our team wasn't "on duty" for today (tomorrow, we'll be). but i left at past 6 coz we fixed and rearranged our cabinets and organized them.

this is just the 1st day.. i wonder what else will happen..

anxiety.. nervousness.. uncertainty.. fear

tension within me is starting to build up, uncertainty arising, fear of what is and about to come and happen in the next 12 months. tomorrow is our orientation - clerkship orientation.

from there on, it's all up to me, my clinical skills, my relationship with my patients, my decision making. my career will take on another course - from classroom to hospital wards, from professors to patients (& their families), from made up (or hypothetical cases) to real life situations, from make believe to reality, i'm now dealing with the real thing, i'm handling real lives. making mistakes is part of learning but it should be based on my academic level, not on the level of a freshman medical student since i'll utilize what i've learned for the last 3 years. and not to forget time management. i know i'll be bombarded with 3 (or more) patients coming in all in 1 moment, doing my history taking and PE in a limited time, submitting tons of paperworks within strictly 24 hours i doubt if i'll have time for rest.

it's really all up to me. to us, students. this is for our own good! we chose this path. deal w/ it.


Good luck and God bless to all of us members of UST Faculty of Medicine & Surgery Class 2006!

enrollment

another busy day for me for it was our last day of enrollment..

i planned to enroll in the afternoon, hoping that the line will be shorter, processing will be faster - everything will be a breeze. by 10 am, i texted 1 of my friends asking how it was going. she said it was a big mess coz the computer system broke down and almost all colleges were in the admin. fortunately, some have already finished w/ their enrollment. i hastily left for school at around 10:30. i arrived there 12 noon. tsk tsk! oh well, might as well get busy fixing my stuff at my new dorm.

by quarter to 2, i was in line w/ my friends at the Main Building. after an hour, we were almost done. we just had to wait for our registration forms since they were gonna encode it. we were told to wait and get back at 4 pm to claim our own respective forms. patiently, we waited while we saw some of our classmates (who was at school in the morning) claim their forms. getting anxious and irritated (coz what we were waiting for was just a half sheet of paper from the Accounting office stating we have been officially enrolled for the 1st quarter blah blah blah), we attempted many times asking for our forms but they weren't still done.

after waiting for 1 1/2 hrs., it finally came! thank goodness! we made a run to our admin office, hoping that someone from the admin was still there to accept our forms. luckily, we got there just in time. i was surprised that what she claimed from us was just that piece of paper which kept our enrollment time long (yeah, that half sheet of bond paper from the Accounting) as financial proof. i'm just glad that my mission for that day was done - to enroll myself.

from now on (till i graduate next year), i'm officially a medical clerk. yikes!

very tiring day

last night i planned to wake up at 6:30 am today to fix my things for the transfer of my things from my old dorm to the new one. i set that at 8 am, we'll be sorting out those that i will still use, and those i don't need anymore. unfortunately, there were problems all the way from the beginning - i woke up at 7:20 am, and we left Las Pinas at around past 8.

i could say that my tito had a difficult time transferring my things (especially on carrying that heavy furniture all the way to the 4th floor, with no elevator). he just didn't compain about it coz he said he wanted to help me on moving. it took us more than 4 hours packing, placing them in big boxes, carrying some appliances. we were all exhausted, starving, thirsty, dirty. we ordered take-out from McDonald's at around quarter to 1 and we all ate like pigs (haha!). we decided to leave Karenza Place at quarter to 2 but we still had something to buy on our way home - grandma's unicheck strips (for her blood sugar monitoring). luckily, i purchased it in less than 10 minutes. finally, it was time to head home.

as soon as i got home, i went straight to my room, grabbed my towel and headed for the shower room. i was so relieved to freshen up and wipe out all those damn oil and perspiration in me. i was even glad to change into fresh clean clothes. i remember i had an appointment to a salon for my hair relax. i had to go there right away so that i could be back before 6 pm (for an anticipated mass). guiltily, i left my tito while he brought down some of my stuff from the van. bad girl eh?

by 5:30 pm, i was back at home proud of my new 'do. 30 minutes later, i was getting ready for mass w/ my youngest sis. we came back quarter to 8 and i arrived w/ food prepared at our dining table. after that heavy meal, i was off again - this time to the hospital to visit my dad even if for a while. the sight of a cake from red ribbon caught my eye and i was eating my heart's content to an ube cake. burp! pardon me! hehe! at 9:15 pm, i finally bid farewell to my parents for that day and promised to be back tomorrow.

hopefully, i will be more energetic tomorrow than i was today.

agenda.. agenda.. agenda..

my first agenda today was to fix my things here at home for my move tomorrow. i called my cable tv provider for disconnection, contacted my mom's secretary for the L300 van we'll be borrowing to carry my stuff and my tito for the additional boxes.

second in line was to buy needed stuff for myself - white shoes, additional underwear, new reference books. at Goodwill Bookstore, i had to make a quick decision on whether to buy the latest edition of Harrison's Internal Medicine (worth P5500). i had second thoughts because of our expenses - dad's hospitalization, my tuition fee, incoming bills, etc. finally, i said to the saleslady "miss, ung harrison's po." my total purchases amounted to less than P8K. sorry mom.

third was to visit my dad at the hospital. i'm very glad to see he's recovering (i've observed less slurring of speech now) and even happier to know he's gonna be transferred to a private room. his neurologist said that she wants to him ambulate there and she'll order angiography and another test before she gives the discharge order by monday (hopefully). she also doesn't prohibit him on playing golf coz that's his lifestyle though she warned him not to stress himself too much. we got out of the ICU around quarter to 5 pm. i planned on spending the night there but jen was also interested. being the big sis i am, i let her stay there. so, i had plans of covering my new books, posting here and resting early. well, they had to wait coz i had a sudden agenda.

anna thought i was the one dropping jen at the hospital, so she asked me a favor - starbucks coffee frap venti size. but dad insisted that kuya lando drive us since it's already night (btw, they don't let me drive at night because of my nearsightedness). so the 3 of us drove to the hospital and i stayed at dad's room for another 1 hour while kuya drove to the office and exchanged our car with the L300 we'll be using tomorrow. at 9, i was at starbucks in festival mall, ordering anna's coffee. thankfully, i arrived back here at home around 9:40.

this was a very tiring day!

A Lover's Prayer

Take my hand and dance with me,
Before I lose my memory,
Hold me close, wrap me tightly around your arms,
Don't ever let me go.

Stay with me, even just for tonight.
'Tis a time to celebrate, a moment to remember.
In this silent room, in this safe dark, in this slice of time,
Fused at the heart and touching at all the right places,
In hearts and minds, in bodies and souls,
In rhythmic motions, in perfect harmony,
Make it known that we are one.

Give me something precious to hold,
For the rest of my life.
Deep within my heart, I'll bury
The memory of you and me

get well soon, dad!

9:00 pm.. 6th april 2005

i received a call from my mom asking me to fix for her (& dad as well) clothes, bath accessories, towels, dad's contact lens kit. i wondered where are they spending the night - in a hotel somewhere for an extended, impromptu honeymoon? asking here where they were, the answer was unexpected - Asian Hospital. what happened? dad speech was slurred with accompanying nausea. holy canoly?! he's having stroke?! i began to practice my history taking skills over the phone (i'm beginning clerkship 1 week from now). thankfully, no weakness, no numbness, no facial asymmetry in the lower quadrant; he was able to ambulate independently from the car to the ER, unassisted, coherent, cooperative. still, my worries weren't over. i was beginning to think of stroke in evolution yet praying that no other manifestations will arise in the next 48 hours.

this morning, i left to visit my dad. relieved to see he was awake on his bed, he told me he underwent CT scan last night. there were no hemorrhages. thank goodness! observing him while i was there (at the same time doin my own PE), i was beginning to arrive at a conclusion that he just suffered a mild stroke - alert, coherent, cooperative, bedbound, not in pain and respiratory distress, IV line on (R), ECG leads, pulse oximeter on (R) index finger, nasal cannula (though i wondered about this since he is not hypoxemic.. nurses said it's SOP since he's in ICU. nyek!), normal mmt (including muscles of facial expression), intact sensation on both upper and lower extremities, no bilateral babinski reflex, cranial nerves intact. i'm glad to see he can sit up independently during meals and tolerate it for almost an hour. but heck, i wouldn't mind if he did it in lesser time coz he deserves to rest and at this time, ambulating him inside his cubicle will drive the nurses nuts. ambulation will come at the right time (perhaps on saturday) and when he's out of ICU.

i pray for his early and complete recovery. i love you dad! :)

Aarrrgggghhh!!!

monday night i got a text message saying "grps 1 and 2: courtesy call at the Medicine ward tomorrow at 9 am, be in complete uniform, no definite place yet but we'll meet at 2nd floor". ok. worrying that the staff will remember me for being absent, i decided to go (as if i had a choice).

yesterday morning i was there w/ less than 15 students. surprisingly from our section, there were just 2 of us. we were all standing along the halls of the 2nd floor (of the clinical div) when 1 of us got a text message and blurted out "bukas daw ung courtesy call." hu-wat?! i was sure of what i read the previous night. thankfully, the message was still stored in my inbox and read the message again, making sure of what was written. well, it was the same message & the date was right. ergo, i wasn't informed of the changes. frustrated, i went home. along the way home, my classmate texted me saying "reg, sorry wala na akong load kagabi. bukas na lang daw ung courtesy call." wow! thanks for nothing, buddy!

last night, i received a text message saying the same story (now with the emphasis on the word DEFINITE). ok fine! i set my alarm clock at 5:30 am, coz i also had to finalize my contract w/ mr singson (the owner of karenza place, my new dorm) by 8.

i woke up at 5:25 am this morning, skipped breakfast at home, & drove the car (surprisingly since i planned on commuting). aeris and i signed the contracts at around 8:30, walked to school quarter to 9. everyone from groups 1 & 2 were there. much to my (further) dismay, we had no permanent or fixed meeting room - we went from the residents staff room to the CME and back to the 2nd floor hallway almost crowding to the point that doctors, patients (& their companions) had to say "excuse me!". finally, a sight to behold - the residents came (like a flock.. err? super friends?) and talked to 1 of us. then she approached us saying "sino daw nagsabi na may courtesy call tayo ngayon?! may orientation daw tayo pero sa april 11 pa at 4 pm." huh?! you mean i went at school for 2 days, all for nothing?! not to forget i wasted heaven-knows-how-much liters of gas (considering that prices are sky rocketting these past days) for driving. i feel like kicking myself, strangulating the person who started that announcement (well, more on the latter). damn!

the new me..

at last.. a new blog.. a new journal.. hopefully, a new part of me..

this is tough, not knowing anything about websites.. i feel like a kindergarten here, asking questions (like a child) to those who are so adept among these things..

at last, a universe of my own where i could remove my mask, bare all of me (well, literally speaking) and reveal my true self (both good and bad, no pretentions whatsoever) to friends and complete strangers -- hoping, wishing, praying that i won't be prejudiced, sympathized, empathized, understood and accepted.