CPR

I have finished the first 2 rotations of my clinical training programme for the past 12 days. They should consider renaming the course from CP3 to CPR as I am literally dying. I had a bad experience with this hospital about 5 years ago and I am glad that it was not repeated this time. In fact, I am so happy that I never bumped into my ex-preceptor haha..

I thought I would be able to enjoy the time away from work, from scolding people, and from getting scolded. Doing the same thing (clerking cases) everyday is also driving me mad. One bad thing about being a perfectionist is that I want to quickly get everything that needs to be done. The thing is, writing SOAP notes for hospital cases is very different from my past experience with SOAP notes. I am used to just pure chronic or pure acute cases. In pure chronic cases, I just need to assess current therapies, treatment goals, and find targets are not met and how to adjust the therapies to meet the goals. In pure acute cases, I just need to choose a therapy to recommend. In hospital, the cases are always mixed. Especially for those already discharged, am I suppose to discuss the acute problems which were already solved? Or am I suppose to discuss the chronic problems which may not even be related to the thing that caused them to be admitted in the first place.

I tried to clerk about 15 cases but only less than half turned out to be okay: some are too similar (UTI cases), 1 is incomplete because patient was discharged and the case notes were already archived, some are too complicated for me to join the things together. Finding interventions are also not easy as there are so many things that I don't know or I have already forgotten. To be honest, there are a lot of things that I memorised but forgotten after not using it for the past 2.5 years. Of those things that I use daily and remember, they are sort of outdated now as I don't follow the latest guidelines. Bleah...

I guess clinical thing is just not my thing. In the future, I will not consider anymore clinical stuff be it PharmD, Masters in clinical stuff, residency, or whatever. Clerking case etc is just not my way of learning. Ultimately, I don't think I really gain a lot of benefits from this. I don't expect anything extraordinary and I am hopeful that I can get at least something useful and applicable for my daily work. It does not seem the case. In hospital setting, treatment is done aggresively because the goal is to discharge patients as soon as possible and as healthy as possible. At times, I feel that they are just following guidelines to treat the disease but they do not consider things I normally consider at chronic setting: compliance, pill burden, cost, etc. Starting diabetes medications, including insulin, for 90+ or even 100+ year old? Keeping cholesterol medicines although the LDL is already 1.1x? Bleah.. I just cannot agree with these kind of things lo...

Tomorrow I am back to my normal work and I hope things will be good. Although I highly doubt it as there are a lot of work and emails pending for me to clear already T_T

Fresh start

January is (almost) over and I am proud to say that I am able to stay away from fast food, bubble tea, and potato chips for the whole month!! Yay!! It is not only to stay away but I was not tempted at all. Even LINE dolls promotion from McD fails to tempt me. I have to admit that I am quite tempted for the Valentine's dolls set though :p But I read news that McD allows customers to donate the food. Anyway I shall see how good the dolls are because I think the official dolls from LINE store are still better: more cotton. Haha..

2015 also becomes a fresh start for my money management. I have always been interested to sign up for OCBC 360 account since last year. I did not do so because I thought it was troublesome to ask my company to change my bank account. I was also sceptical about meeting the other 2 requirements: 3 bills per month and $400 spending per month. I did not want it to be an excuse for me to spend.

I am soo stupid. I always thought credit card payment to other bank will not count as bill payment and I assumed so. I was wrong. That means I can easily meet the 3 bills with my income tax, phone bill, and credit card payment. Dang! The worst is, after checking my spending for 2014, I spent >$400 on my credit cards every bloody month. So yes, I could have earn close to 3x of interest from what I received last year. That is very very sad. But I guess it is better late than never. Ironically, once I have this account, there is very few things that I want to buy which means it is going to be difficult to meet the $400 monthly spending now. Haha.. I have stopped pre-ordering toys, especially the big ones, as I am literally running out of space in my room. I shall be good and help my sisters or my mothers do their online shopping then. Haha..

Oops I forget that February is also CNY. I am waiting for Kinokuniya to have their member sales as there are a few books that I want to buy. I guess I will meet the $400 for February after all. Lol.. I hope I don't spend so much and I can remain away from fast food, bubble tea, and potato chips.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

In the midst of the busy-ness of my hospital attachment, I am so glad that I am able to use the last free movie ticket that I have to watch this. Honestly, without the free ticket, I will not watch this as the reviews are kinda mixed. In addition, I watched The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug when I was home and that was quite underwhelming.

With the cliff-hanger ending of The Desolation of Smaug, it is pretty expected that The Battle of the Five Armies will open with Smaug destroying the Laketown. Sadly, in less than 5 minutes, Smaug is expectedly dead by the black arrow shot by Bard the Bowman. After that, all the boring part comes. Legolas and Tauriel departs for a place that sounds like "Gundahbad" to me for a reason that I can't fathom until the end of the movie. In the mountain, Thorin gets crazy over the jewels and the dwarfs spend half the movie to search for the Arkenstone while Bilbo is in a dilemma whether to surrender the Arkenstone.

Wealth and riches drive people mad but it makes a bad plot for a movie. Bard leads Laketown survivors to the mountain to get the promised part of the treasure as he helped the dwarfs on reaching the mountain. Add in the Elven King who also wants to get an elven heir loom hidden with the treasures. Yes, he is willing to send an army to fight over a necklace.

It does not make any sense to me that a handful of dwarfs dare to declare war. Or perhaps, it is weirder that such a large number or elven army and man do not dare to invade the castle straight away. I am sure it is to give time for the dwarf army to come. Lol. In the midst of their fight, the orc army arrives as they also want to claim the treasures. Thorin gains his sanity and decides to redeem himself by going after the orc's leader (is his name Azog or something?). Legolas and Tauriel are back to announce that there is a second wave of attack. But they are too late as Thorin, Kili, and another dwarf already went to the orc's camp. The climax of the movie is the fight between them vs Azog and another orc and end with the dwarfs and orcs' death.

You may wonder now, the title has 5 armies but so far we only have dwarfs, humans, elves, and orcs. Where is the 5th army? I only find the answer when I google it. The 5th army is the eagles that comes last. What the...

How do these eagles come? They are informed by Gandalf. One 'exciting' part that I did not mention is the fight of Saruman (he used to be a good guy), Elrond, and Galadriel to rescue Gandalf from his capturer. The battle ends with Galadriel going zombie-mode to chase away Sauron's eye on the sky. Come to think of it, it is just a CG fight against computer-made soldiers but I don't know why I think it is exciting to watch.

Despite my limited knowledge of the Lord of the Rings universe (as you can tell from how I don't know the characters and locations names), I still find the movie enjoyable to watch. I was expecting that I would be checking my watch as the movie runs for 2.5 hours but the movie was able to hold my attention throughout. Of course, it is less intense and exciting compared to Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The movie was released 6 months ago so the fact that the cinema was still 80% full when I watched it shows that people enjoy this movie and it is a success. I still will not buy the DVD to re-watch it though. Haha.. I own The Return of the King because I think it is that good. Haha...

What's up?

Wew.. only 1 post so far in January. I never thought that catching up with my work and continuing with my study would be taking up so much time. For the past week, I have been away at a hospital for my attachment. I had PTSD thinking about it as it is the hospital whee I had all the bad experiences as a student a few years ago. I am so glad that the preceptor I am following this time is much nicer than the one I got a few years ago. I still have another 1.5 week and I really hope that I don't see the ex-preceptor that I hate.

I was expecting that I could relax since I am away from my usual work, from scolding people, and from being scolded. I was wrong. Haha.. Okay, honestly, the stress is less but there is still stress, a different kind of stress. I am not stressed over my lousiness as I know there are so many things that I don't know. In fact, my aim for this attachment is just to clear whatever I need to submit, not so much about the learning itself. My eyes are very tired as I am sitting in front of the computer the whole day. I don't mind working hard as long as it is not wasted. But out of the 10 cases that I clerked, less than half will actually be useful. Haiz.. Many of the cases are too simple or they are of the same/similar disease. T_T After reaching home, I have to continue tidying up the slides or replying my work emails. Pity my eyes.

Things still don't get better after my surgery. I am badly constipated again. Haiz.. This time I don't have any antibiotic to blame. I don't know if it is because I don't dare to push the shit out or if it is because I only take cereals nowadays for dinner. One thing which I am very sure is that the output is much lesser than the amount of food that I eat. So what happen inside my intestines sia? I even bought lactulose and dulcolax and they don't help. Sigh.. After taking dulcolax, I only have water coming out instead of shit. To make things worse, my right side is rather painful since last night. Of course what happened had happened. Worry also does not help anything but I am just hoping that the mesh does not get dislodge inside or something.

To make things happier, I will post some J-pop videos. It has been a long time since I am following latest J-pop. Having said that, it does not mean that I am updated to the latest things as well. Lol.. Sometime last year, I predicted that AKB48 would slowly lose popularity with so many familiar faces graduating in 2014. I am obviously wrong because they are still hitting 1m+ singles. In fact, their Labrador Retriever single hit close to 1.8m sales in total.

Although I am glad that they are still singing pop, rather than rock, songs, I still think their songs are too generic nowadays. The tunes sound somehow similar to their previous singles. Of course the good thing is that if people like their previous songs, they will like the new songs too as they are similar. Sadly, this lacks of creativity also extends to their video clip. As you can see from the Labrador PV, all their summer songs are simply girls in skimpy bikinis dancing on the beach. Bleah... And the dog is not that cute so that is another minus point. Haha...

Their single after that is Kokoro no Placard and the concept behind the PV is exactly the same as Koi Suru Fortune Cookie. A part of me feels that it is a nice approach to have them dancing and shooting videos with normal people who may be their fans too. Another part of me feels that it is too fake. After all, these extras are paid or something to do this. Do it one time makes it feel good. Repeat it and it invokes more of the latter.

Their latest single is Kiboteki Refrain. I am quite excited to see the PV as their graduating members like Atsuko Maeda, Yuko Oshima, Mariko Shinoda, and Tomomi Itano are appearing as cameo! Hooo... AKB48 official youtube channel will only put the PV a few months later so I shall just wait. Song-wise, I don't really like it. Lol...

I can't be bothered about Sexy Zone anymore after they are only featuring 3 members. It gave me a hope when I saw this video. I have never seen it previously and it was only uploaded 2 weeks ago. Is this something new?? Hmm... I miss their old songs so watching this is kinda nostalgic. I think they should hire the songwriter for Hey! Say! JUMP. HSJ's more grown up songs still retain the HSJ cutesy feel from their younger days. That's what makes them remain unique. I guess it does not help that Sexy Zone members don't really have unique voice. Generic voice + generic music makes them fall into obscurity like the most of Johnny's Associates boybands.

Happy New Year 2015!!

Happy New Year 2015!! I'm know I'm late. Lol.. I am usually 'high' when it is near Christmas and New Year but this time, everything took a back seat because of my surgery. Although there is a 1.5 weeks delay, I still must do what I usually do at year end and new year: looking back at the past year and my hopes for the coming year.

Considering health aside, I have to say 2014 was a year full of blessings for me. Work is always stressful but I am glad that I had the opportunities to do external things like being involved in Singapore Pharmacy congress and SEA Games 2015 planning. Despite the disappointment in the previous year, I felt very blessed that my decision to continue with the project paid off with winning the first Sustainability Award for my company. I really did not expect that and it was a huge relief, pride, and happiness that my hard work was greatly paid off. Near the end of the year, I was offered to do a clinical training. I am not interested in clinical things and I know that no way I will pass the interview even if I want. But now, the chance was offered in front of me and I decided to take the challenge. I also "broke" my limit by performing/dancing at company's D&D. Dancing is not something that I will ever consider but I did it although until now I still don't dare to watch the video. Haha..

I was a lot less anti-social in 2014. I went to Bintan, I went cycling, I participated in Spongebob Charity Walk, and a few outings with old friends who came to Singapore.

Now comes the bad part. Something is actually worse than health: my spiritual life. I sort of stopped going to church for the past 6 months. Yep.. it is kinda ironic that when life is going smoothly, I will just forget about the One behind it all. I honestly think that the hernia thing was a red flag from God asking me to stop, look back, and return to Him. Although all seemed lost, I still have to be thankful that I decided to get a health insurance earlier this year. At least the surgery did not really cause me financial disaster.

Talking about money, I destroy myself financially with my own spending on toys etc. Every end of the year, I feel that I spend way too much. But when I really count all the dollars and cents, I discover that my spending increases exponentially year-by-year. Sigh.. I think I spent about double of my 2013 spending.

For 2015, my hope is just to be healthy and happy. Fuck work as working hard also does not result in me getting higher bonus or better performance review. So I might as well focus on my health and well-being first. I also want to cut down my spending and save up. I am literally running out of space so I will definitely be forced to stop buying. In fact I am already not pre-ordering several figures that I will definitely pre-order if I don't have any space issues.

I am trying to lead a healthy life and I vow to avoid fast food, junk food, and bubble teas for a start. I will limit Starbucks (high sugar drinks lol) to once a month too. Haha..

Lastly but most importantly, I hope I can get my faith back. My aim to pray 1 rosary a day already fails so I hope I can at least attend mass regularly again.

3 weeks after surgery

I don't know if it is just my feeling or the lump is indeed increasing in size. Sigh.. It is another week to go before another 'judgement' day to find out the identity of the lump and what needs to be done to remove it. Again I am worrying and getting scared although worry and fear do not help with anything.

After Christmas, I try to do daily Rosary prayer. In less than a week, I am already feeling bored. I guess I am beyond hope. I feel so distant from God that I think I am just talking to myself instead of praying. I pray for faith and it is still not given to me. Haiz.. I don't know what's going on with my life.

Christmas runaway

After 6 months away from Church, it is sort of expected that my faith is kinda dead. Add on the health problems and the surgery I recently had, it makes me feel that these are punishment from God for my insolence which obviously does no good to my dying faith. I have no Christmas spirit, I don't even wish people "Merry Christmas", I don't enjoy Christmas songs this time around, and I don't watch Christmas-themed films that I always watch annually to lift up my mood. I try to pick up my bedtime prayer and Rosary back but it is tough when I feel so distant -in fact I feel nothing- from Jesus. Pray for faith-that's all that I am asking for now.

Recently, my dreams often involve running. I am talking about physically running. I don't know if I actually want to run because after the surgery, I tell myself that it is unlikely that I dare to do any sort of vigorous physical activities because I worry that it will cause the mesh to come off. Life is ironic. When my body is still capable of running, I am so lazy to do that. Now that I think I won't be able to do that anymore, suddenly I wish to do that.

In addition to running, my dreams also come together with "superpower" to break things when I get angry and upset. I guess subconsciously, I have underlying angst/anger/frustration that I may not realise or I don't know how to channel and they appear only in dreams. Haiz... Yes I wish I have such power when I am angry in real life.

I guess I need help...

And nope, still no Merry Christmas from me this year.

Seroma

I received a reply from my doctor who suspected that lump that I have is seroma which is a collection of fluid after a surgery. Of course, nothing is certain until the doctor physically assesses it. Seroma is a common post-hernia surgery complication. On one side, I have to be thankful that I only experience this complication as there could be more serious and morbid complications. On the other side, I don't want to think on what needs to be done to settle this. I am still hoping for spontaneous resolution of the seroma as mentioned in some websites.

I received an email to offer me a complementary ticket for Jay Chou concert. Waaa... I am not a fan of him as I don't understand any Chinese word but I would love to attend this concert. I have never attended any concert so I would love to experience one. Not to mention that this is a famous Mandopop singer and the ticket is free!! Unfortunately, I am not in Singapore to be able to utilise this chance. Basket!!! Flying there is not an option. I tried to search for airplane tickets if I should return urgently to settle my seroma and very available dates for this week and the prices are also crazy. Sian.. basically I just missed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

There is this song that caught my interest whenever it is being played in shops or shopping malls. I have not been able to find the title until last night. I was quite amused to find that the lyrics actually go: I'm all about that bass, no treble. All this time, I thought the lyrics g: I'm all about the face, no trouble. No wonder I always failed to try to search for the song title or lyrics. I even tried "Buddha face". Gosh...

I guess another thing I learn is that bass is another synonym for ass. Lol..

The Book of Life

Ok let's get this done as it has long been overdue. If it is not because of the the free movie pass that I got from the Maze Runner premiere event, I will definitely not watch this. As much as I enjoy cartoons, graphics is still the most important thing for me and although The Book of Life has a rather unique art style, it is not exactly something I like.

The story takes place using Day of the Dead which is a real-life festivity in Mexico in which the living prays to remember their dead loved ones. La Muerte, ruler of the Land of the Remembered (or call it heaven) and Xibalba, ruler of the Land of the Forgotten (or call it hell) get bored and decide to take a bet on 3 kids at the city of San Angel: Manolo, Joaquin, and Maria. La Muerte bets on Manolo to be the one who eventually will capture Maria's heart while Xibalba picks Joaquin. If La Muerte wins, Xibalba must no longer interfere with the life of the livings. If Xibalba wins, Xibalba will get to rule the Land of Remembered.

The bad guy will obviously cheat. Xibalba gives Joaquin a medal which will protect him from any harm. While this medal does not make Joaquin a bad guy, it allows him to be the hero and defender of the town from outsiders who wish to attack the town. When Manolo wants to propose his love to Maria, Xibalba sends his snake to bite Maria. People think she is dead and this makes Manolo feel very guilty. Xibalba tricked him to die in order to see Maria again.

Manolo goes to the Land of the Remembered, sees his ancestors there, and tries to look for La Muerte to find a way to save Maria because it is Manolo's "fault" to cause her dead. They discover that Xibalba is now the ruler of the Land of the Remembered and his tricks to win his bet. Manolo and his family decides to find La Muerte who is now at the Land of the Forgotten. Although it is usually impossible for souls to travel between the lands, Manolo is able to do as his Book of Life is empty. Basically it means that he is not supposed to die yet and his death is due to Xibalba's interference. La Muerte gets very angry after she realises that Xibalba has cheated and interfered with the lives of the living.

Back in the world of the living, Maria is getting married with Joaquin since Manolo is dead. The city is in danger of attack from a renowned bandit, Chakal who is the previous owner of the medal that Joaquin gets from Xibalba. To clear the mess, La Muerte and Xibalbla allows Manolo to return to live and for his dead ancestors to join his fight to protect the city. At the end, Manolo marries Maria while La Muerte and Xibalba also falls for each other.

On the surface, the story is quite simple but yet it offers a fresh plot. Despite the art style that I am not fond of, I am still impressed with the amount of details they put to make Land of the Remembered very beautiful. Well, it is the heaven in the story after all. I also love the way they use a different art style for the dead vs the living. To be more critical, however, I think the bet between 2 gods here are very petty. I mean it is kinda scary if the gods of this world also behave in this way: to interfere with human's life when they are bored.

I actually love little Manolo, Joaquin, and Maria. Unfortunately, the adult versions develop into cliche personalities. When they are little, it is quite difficult to tell who will end with Maria as both Manolo and Joaquin are nice. When they are adults, it is quite obvious that Manolo will be the one who will get Maria. However, it is really something fresh that Joaquin does not turn out to be the antagonist. That is something that people will expect from a love triangle stories. He may be irritating and obnoxious, but he is not evil or bad.

The message that the movie makers want to bring across to children, which is presumed to be the main target demographic of the movie, is that everyone's Book of Life is still empty and can be written in the way that we want it to be and the way to write is from the way we live. The message is good but the presentation is poor. I omit this part from the review but the movie opens with a group of delinquents arriving in the museum. The whole story int he movie about Joaquin, Manolo, and Maria is actually a story told by the museum guide to these kids. I find it very disruptive when the story gets interrupted with these kids asking the guide "What happen next? Why such things happened? Bla bla bla".

Let's end this with a good point: the audio. Surprisingly, I actually enjoyed listening the Latin accent used throughout the movie. In additioon, the music and some of the songs that Manolo sings are actually good and they suit well with the theme of the movie.

The Book of Life is a rare gem. I came expecting to be disappointed but I came out of the theater happy and satisfied. This is just my personal opinion but it is still not good enough for my personal taste. I mean although th emovie is good and makes me feel good, it is not good enough to make me want to re-watch the movie or get the DVD (or download it lol) or to buy the Making Of book.

2 weeks after surgery

Good news first. I am now able to get up or lie down on the bed quite freely although there is a sensation in the stomach when doing so. Previously, there is no sensation when doing those. However, it is no longer pain that I feel so that is a lot of improvement. Sleeping on my sides and on my tummy is also possible now although there is still the sensation.

I did not mention previously but for the first week after the surgery, I kept waking up every 2-3 hours to pass urine. It made me kinda worried if the surgery caused some damage to my bladder or something. The funny thing was that it was always a full bladder. So let's say I sleep at 12, I will wake up at 3am to pass urine. Then I will wake up again at 6am to pass urine. It is very weird to keep having a full bladder because I don't drink any water at 3am. Before the surgery, I never get my sleep disrupted to pass urine. After 2 weeks, this problem occurs less frequently. I am not sure if it is back to normal yet though.

The bad news is the lump on my right scrotum is confirmed. Previously my scrotum was still swollen that I did not dare to jump into conclusions. Now the swelling is gone but the lump remains. Sigh... I am e-mailing the doctor and am waiting for his reply. I read a lot of "scary" stories on the internet on what that lump could possibly be. But what I am very worried is if that is a new hernia and I need another surgery :( I have not even recovered from this one.

I was very depressed when I realised that this lump would not disappear. As of now, I am more or less able to "accept it". After all, worrying will not help anything as well.

That's all for today before I roll down to an even more emo mood...