Yay! All the written papers are done. No more late night studying (or early morning studying) trying to memorise pages to pages, papers to papers. 
I woke up at 5am this morning having a gut feeling that I'm not pretty confident with the second paper. The exam only start at 2.15pm. Honestly I'm not pretty confident for the 2nd paper. I feel that I can't memorise all the details and when I did go through the past-years questions, there're all random and quite hard.
Neway, the exam venue is not in the usual med school. It's in Tamaki campus, 45mins away by bus. We waited for the bus at 12.53pm. and it was late 20-25mins!. I was so nervous that I might not make it to Tamaki campus in time. While waiting at the bus stop, the weather changed from sunny and fresh to gloomy rain. It was cold but still bearable. I guess my mind was still thinking on 3 causes of pancreatitis rather than how in bad shape we're if we are really late.
When the bus finally come, there was a set back about the tickets. The driver accidentally charged Nurul twice. The solution is simply really, I can pay Nurul for the ticket instead but poor driver getting all confused and flustered. I think we delay everybody about 5-10mins.
Finally we arrived in Tamaki. We had to run from the bus stop to the exam theater. As expected, Paper B is harder than Paper A. The question of causes of pancreatitis is in there, but I still can't remember the answers. huhu.. And yes, there're random questions.
Oh well, I did my best. I'm going to have a rest for the day and tomorrow start preparing for the OSCE.  | deluded | Oct 12, '08 6:28 PM
for everyone |
I feel that I'm in the worse shape of my life. It's funny when I actually compared what I've drawn with the real photo of me... It doesn't look look THAT bad (the real one of course). Drama queen---> i ammissions:-need to fix my body-need to pass final exam*thinking reasonably* need to stop feeling stressed out
grilled pumpkin, mushroom and red capsicum with poached egg
+ a piece of toast
+ delicious hot cup of coffee
= divinely delicious   I had a great raya this year. Suprisingly I managed to get a new baju kurung raya from mom. Its red in colour and has a new trend, songket fabric (see picture to the right). I love it!  If only I have a matching tudung with that. I decided to wear gold selendang to match the golden pattern on the fabric.
The other best thing about raya is the food. I managed to cook 2 different rendang-rendang ayam and rendang daging. But i think my rendang ayam tasted better. I even celebrate with lost of friends which is quite surprising since I thot I wud be busy. However, i managed to steal a few hours celebrate raya: lunch at Flat 14 with the boys and other juniors (where I share my rendang daging) and dinner with my IMU classmates, the girls at Mt. Terrace (where I share my rendang ayam with). I'm glad that I didn't have to cook lots of different things this year. And yet still still manage to eat other raya food: kuah lodeh, kuah kacang etc.
 Rendang ayam: before Rendang ayam: after Rendang daging: before
(2 periuk sbb kena masak utk 18 org  )  Rendang daging: after
It was a pretty small celebration compared to Raya back in home country but its fun to experience raya abroad. I'm also happy to be able to practice my culinary skill cooking rendang. Its my 3rd tries for rendang ayam and it's my first time cooking rendang daging. Each rendang too about 4-5 hours but it is still manageable since I have prepared the paste the day earlier. (I'm also happy that I can do some reading in between cooking while waiting for the gravy to thicken) Thank god for having such a helpful housemates who were eager to help. I managed to bake 2 type to raya cookies and managed to tapau lots of raya cookies from the others-cornflakes cookies, choc chip cookies and also honey cornflakes cups. I spend the last few days munching on them while studying. yumm!  heee...
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Its my last week of neurology, the last attachment of the year. Final exam is 2 weeks away, and I do agree its pretty nerve wrecking. I have started studying a wee while ago (actually 2 months ago, taubat! not to do last year's mistake ever again) and till now I'm still not very confident.
Oh, i have also handed over my last case history of the year this afternoon. It's a pain and I really don't want to do it. I'm supposed to pass it up last friday but due to raya and its excitement, I has convinced Heri to lets make up our own dateline, which conveniently after the weekend.
I'm pretty excited when I actually started to write the case report last night because 1) its the last case history I have to write this year and there's no more after this. Yey! 2) the patient that I write on is interesting. I wished I could share it with my Cikgu English. Sadly he didn't mark my case report. I guess I would only share the story about my patient with the consultant who'll mark it instead.***************My left wrist still hurts especially when I move my thumb. My hand become weaker because of that. I can hold on things without feeling the pain. I cant do my dishes properly, I can even hold the pots while cooking only with my left hand. The pain has been there for 2 weeks now. I wonder when will it go away. *sigh~~* 
Painful wrist=weak hand=feeling annoyed 4 days (-ish) to Raya
3 weeks to Final exam.. (still studying hard, not prepared)
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I'm attached to the Neurology ward now. Its been a week. I love neurology ward as the patients usually have lots of physical signs for example, droopy lips or slurred speech or even the dramatic paralysis of half side of body due to stroke. Some would have subtle sign like, this guy in room 4, he looked pretty normal from afar, but he's actually got a small stroke to the part of brain which control the speech area. So when u actually talk to him, his speech doesn't make sense at all. Even to a simple question "where are u now?", he wud answer with babbling of words that doesn't make sense. But he understand u perfectly well. If u ask "are u in hospital?" he wud nod excitedly. Imagine if u're in his shoe.. u can understand people perfectly but u can communicate no matter how hard u try. U cant speak, even if u can, the words doesn't come out rite. U cant even write. (the same part of brain control writing) He got expressive aphasia. it amazing how ur brain works. I cant still figure out the complexity of it.
Working in the neuro ward, I've seen a case that pretty interesting. This 68 year old Cina Peranakan lovely lady presented with sudden weakness of the limbs-arms and legs. She also has mild fever, itchy rashes all of her body and no sign of stroke. Her brain scan shows nothing sinister. The scan of her spine though, showed these non specific lesions of the spines. To cut the long story short, she's already been in the hospital for 2 weeks and she become progressively worse. She used to be able to walk eventho slowly or with much effort, now she don't even have the strength to bring her legs up off the bed. Poor lady! The sad thing about her is the doctors doesn't know what have caused the weakness of her legs. her arms is slightly better now. Its mind boggling to the neurologist that exactly the disease-is it cancer? some sort of infection to brain/spinal cord? Was it some rare disease of the spinal cord?
She had all the scans repeated 4 times to see if there's any new lesions and heaps of blood test. we even poke spinal column and aspirate some fluids out. All the test does not explain any cause or identify any disease.The other day, she told me that she's pretty frustrated with her legs "Ini kaki x berguna". I understand that she's become more fed-up with staying in the hosp not knowing what going on. Even, we the neuro team, is frustrated. At the moment we just treating her with medications (meds for disease that we don't even sure is the diagnosis..but just give her something to make sure it's covered) and even plasma exchange (pump ur blood out and filter it thru a machine and put it back again-sort of like washing machine of the blood. It's to remove any toxin, and antibodies that may attack the spinal cord)
I feel sad for her because, sometimes the treatment to make patients feel batter thru this uncertainty make patients feel worse that before initially. There's also the risk of side effects of the medications.
Being a exmalaysian(she's now kiwi), she wud try to ask me how am i doing or where in msia i'm from in Malay language during ward round. I guessed it wud be nice to find a familiar face. She speak good malay and i wud describe it like a pure malay. She told me they're peranakan. Ah, that's explain it.
The other day, me, heri and nurul was waiting for our teaching and we lepaking at the sofa in level 8. then, this chinese guy heard us conversing in malay and he approached us "org malaysia ke?"
He told us he just arrived in NZ 2 days ago and he's from kulim. he's here because his mother is in the neuro ward. He also has the same malay accent, so i thot must be Mrs. L son. he's also frustrated that the docs doesn't know whats going on. I do understand that patients and their family feels the frustration. But imagine us, the other side of it, its more frustrating to know that there is a sick person in front of us, but there's nothing we can do to help coz we don't hv the enuff knowledge about it.(or maybe we could nt find it yet)
I find it interesting to talk to the patient and her family. its my first time talking to malaysian with baba heritage. they looked very much chinese but the culture is so much malay-the language, the slang, the food. have i mention that they're muslim. Her son keep asking me when it is the solat time. Its funny too when he mentioned, he cant puasa since its too cold in NZ (and his father wasn't very fond of that).Sian auntie and family have to raya in the hosp. Maybe i wud bring some rendang since i have to go the hospital from ward round anyway. (grrr.. have to work on raya day.. so sad~)
I wonder if the blood test that we had sent to overseas (USA and australia) wud yield an answer. I wonder if she wud get better next week. most patients didn't mind staying in the hospital for weeks and weeks as long they know whats going on or they have been diagnosed with a disease. I often imagine what if the same thing happen to me. I wud feel depressed and keep asking 'why me?' maybe i wud be angry because the doctors are so stupid they don't even know what's going on. maybe she feel that way. but spending time talking to the patient, I know now that she's not angry, she's just frustrated having not recovering as fast as she expected. she wanted to be a home attending to her garden in front of the yard. she wanted to cook laksa for her hubby and wanted to sent her 2 lil grandchildren to the kiddies rather than lie awake on the hospital bed, feeling sluggish and doing nothing. She feel bad that her husband has to leave work and come to the hospital to attend her everyday. I try to console her that nothing is her fault and it is okay to take part of the 'sick role'.
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Its daylight saving time again. I still feeling confused this year and I've lost 1 hour of sleep. huhu.
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Can't wait for raya. Has been done lots of shopping to make rendang. Need to go to asian market to buy serai and more stuff
Yesterday I was happy that finally I've done my Rheumatology case report and finally its out of my sight. One down...another one to go!
Last night I tried to sleep early coz I have a Pain clinic to attend to this morning and it starts at 8.30am but i have to go catch the hospital shuttle at 8 which means I have to leave my really cosy house at 7. 40ish. Leading me thinking, "Oh shit, I have to wake up early tomorrow".
But there's no problem, it's Ramadhan month and i usually sleep at sahur time nowadays (4.30am) hence I would probably get 1-2 hours of sleep before and I get up again to go to work. I spend about 10 mins thinking on how wud I change my biological clock (again!) and decided to just hop on the bed and try to force myself to sleep.
This morning, everything is going according to plan (I slept for 3 hours after 1-2hours of tossing and turning-->eat sahur-->rest to avoid reflux-->sleep again for 1 hour) except I was 1/2hour late on schedule. Everybody running late, so I just think-what the heck.
Upon arriving to the reception, i announced my arrival to the nurse clerk over the counter and expecting that she would show me the correct consultation room. However, she's being soooo bluurrr, i've wasted 1/2 hr waiting on the lounge, having a bad feeling.
Then, she finally showed me the room and I waited, and waited for 45mins. I've guessed everyone is running late but no THIS late. I was frustrated having to wait for another 15-20mins. I looked up my schedule.. yup, Pain clinic from 8.30 till 1pm. and I have tutorials at 1.30 in Auckland Hospital and coming back again to Greenlane Hospital for another one at 4pm. Since, it's apparent that I have a full schedule ahead, I grabbed my handbags and leave for another hour or two of extra snooze.
It has been a long day today. I just wish I didn't get out of my snuggly bed too early this morning, but what is done can be undone. ( I hate that!) and yup! Pain clinic is such a pain.  (Puteri Zatil's state of mind is in between lala-land, being so sleepy and thinking what could be worse that than no studying tonite) I have mixed feelings at this very moment.
Started with feeling surprised that I managed to woke up for bersahur at 4.40am, yesterday(I stayed up late only to sleep around 2.45am). I was woken up by the delicious smell of Maggi (must be from Ida bersahur) instead of my alarm. I ate 2 pieces of toast and egg. I feel contented and happy that I didn't miss bersahur hence solat subuh (at the right time). It took me quite a while to go back to sleep and i managed just fine at 6am.
From surprised, I feel annoyed being woken up by the fire alarm around 7.30am. The alarm was soooo loud, my eardrums nearly exploded. (hehe exaggerate skit). we have to do all the fire precaution stuff. walk down from level 8 to ground. while walking the alarm stopped. me even see there's one ridiculous girl walking down trying to escape from fire with handbags and one small cary on bag and even biscuits. haha.. funny.
Its not so funny when u're all grumpy trying to catch as many small sleep as u can and there's fire alarm disrupting ur sleep and that's what happened to me.
After a loooong queue to get into the lifts and back home, I find it difficult to go to sleep again. its hard to switch ur body just like that and I have to get up to go to the hospital at 9 for ward round. I decided to ditch the ward round and just go for the teaching with the dietitian.
From feeling annoyed, I feel slightly happy that the teaching with the dietitian went very well. It was pretty interactive, so I had fun.
I went home having the clinic in the afternoon cancelled, but I still a lil grumpy and annoyed by the fire alarm incident earlier in the morning. I heard some not-so-musical-to-my-ears news from my sister and that triggered as mixed feelings of anger, sadness, regret, anguish, depressed. 
From having all the negative feelings, I feel happier having fun making for the first kuih ketayap.
Then, at berbuka, I'm feeling lightly guilty when a junior from my Taylor's college years told me that we used to hang out together when I can remember anything. Its like that 1 year of memories wiped out from my brain.
By 8pm, I was drained emotionally. 80% of me full of negative feelings (must be collective feelings since morning). but then again, I feel so thankful before having a supportive boyfriend who know how to give me the sense of self-control. He told me to sleep the feelings off and I obliged to his advise.
I woke up at 2.30am, feeling slightly disorientated and relieved.
Now after bersahur at 4.30ish am, I definitely feel better. I'm a bit worried on what's the right thing to do later this morning.
Oh well, maybe I should sleep it off again.  teehee... It was 1.15pm when I get into the Auckland hospital support building lift. I was about to attend my renal tutorial at 1.30pm. I was a bit early but I dunno where else to go, might as well just wait there in the renal library. I entered the lift on level 4 and lift, so here I was all lone in this huge lift. I never really like the lift in the ACH support building. It move too fast and always make me feel a bit woozy just after it stop. (I have a lil fear of height and the 'woozy' feeling is the same kind of feeling-I hate that!).
Unfortunate for me, I have to go to the 15th floor for my lil tutorial which is a looong way. I hold on to the rail in the lift and all of the sudden the lift moves in this 120km/hr speed to level 6 (and passes lvl 5) and stop suddenly and go down a lil bit(with the same speed). My heart pumping hard and I tried to hold on to the rail as hard as i could. It doesn't help when the light is suddenly blacked out. Then, in the darkness with tiny weeny light from the slit on the lift  door, the lift go up to level 7 but not as fast as before and the light is switched on back. I was relieved a lil because i dun have to wait in there to be rescued in the dark but I'm a lil shocked and panicky. I tried to calm my nerves and try to press the button which says open the door but nothing happened. Then, i press the alarm bell praying that somebody wud hear me.
A woman reply and asked "Hello, What's the emergency?".
I told her that I'm stuck on level 7. After a few minutes, she told me that they'll send someone to help me and he'll be there in 20min. I tried to text Heri to say that I might be late for the tutorial but there's no connection. I make my self comfortable sitting on the floor, one arm hugging my bag and another holding on the rail. I tried to use the mobile again and text Heri and Nurule (she had sent a txt regarding the tutorial too), fortunately there's 1 bar showing lil connection. I got Nurul's text back. It pretty good to feel you are not alone even if its thru technology.
 So I waited.. and waited. The next 10min was a bit calming compared to the lift jerking around 8min earlier. Suddenly the lift moving down to level 3 in such a normal pace lift should do. A heavily pregnant lady was surprised to see me on the floor. I told her I was in there for 20mins and I'm glad she saved me. (altho I was expecting a macho man in his work jumper with huge belt around his waist. hehe.. ) I was just glad that I'm out the lift.
It took me 3mins to wait outside and took another lift up to lvl 15. On my second ride on the lift the first thing I did was to hold on to the rail as tight as I could and pray I'll get to lvl 15 safely.
For berbuka, I made myself a lovely lamb steak, experimenting my boyfriend's recipe just to reward myself for being 'quite' calm during my lift incident today. It's a surprise really, I thot I'll be hyperventilating, all sweaty and maybe cry for being all alone stuck in the cursed lift. Anyway, here's a pic!  Lamb steak with potato wedges and colourful salad.  Huuuweeee...my perut senak after berbuka. so semangat warga penghuni apartment 814 today, I've made special gourmet pizza -chilli prawn and hawaiian (half/half) for berbuka while ida was busy preparing her lemon chicken (popcorn chicken drizzled with lemon sauce) -served with rice of course. Nurul had long started to cook her fish gratin since 3.30pm. (berbuka is at 6.05pm), which looked and smelled absolutely delicious.
I was amazed with everyone cooking special meals for berbuka. I would have guessed it is Ramadhan and what's more than just starving urself from dawn to dusk but embracing the food. For us, it's embracing special meals that we cooked ourself.
Oh, I've made myself a dessert it's butterscotch calciyum-like pudding. I ate it with pieces of mars rock-simply scrumptious. It's quite interesting. Just wished that I have snicker's nuts and whipped cream with the dessert instead..hmmmm *salivates*
|  | at Darling harbour, Sydney |
It's been 1 long month saya menghilangkan diri. I've been depressed sbb byk sgt asgmt at one time + need to study for exam during the same time frame. But i'm happy now. I had fun paediatrics attachment at Starships Hospital working with children. The OSCE (practical exam) at the end of posting wasn't that bad. To my surprise, we got the result of the OSCE straight away after the exam ends. (well, u actually need to wait for the other group to finish- There're 3 groups and i was in the 1st group) I passed! didn't get any distinction but i'm so happy. There're 5 stations, 2 of them that I'm not very confident of- 1 is a physical examination (on a doll!) which have a nasty examiner. ppffft! and another is a confusing history taking station (at the end of the 5 min time frame, I don't even know what's the diagnosis)
Nevertheless, having to pass the OSCE is pretty relieving for me as I'm pretty sure my paeds consultant would not give me a high marks-he's pretty demanding, teaching us registrar's level of knowledge.
I love paeds runs: like the one-on-one teaching, finds talking to children pretty challenging, so does dealing with their anxious parents. :-) and had fun doing a hay-wired 'systematic' physical examination on children, which 70% was merely observation.
After paeds, we had 2 weeks of lecture blocks which I had lots of tutorials (i.e more asgmt to be done) and 1 new asgmt which I managed to finish up in a day. Neurology lectures were overwhelming so does emergency medicine. I didn't go to the dermatology teaching (to my own self conscious dismay) coz i'm lazy+ tired + having a cold + we, the IMU students had to attend this 'avoiding plagiarism' course later that evening. I didn't appreciate having to waste my precious 60mins that can be used doing asgmt but time lost can be recovered. I missed my last day of lecture in my medicine degree. My class make a dress up for the day with the theme: 'What will I be when I grow up?'
I wonder if there's someone wear a brain hat - as he/she wants to be a neurologist after graduating med school. Or someone carrying Xrays everywhere (radiologist). I not too sure what wud I wear on the day if I'm there - carrying a model of a knee joint everywhere (following my father's foot step-he's a GP but his clinic pretty popular in treating rheumatologic stuff - arthritis, back pain etc. He even had patients came all the way from Terengganu to Kelantan to fix her swollen knees), or should I paste a public health's poster e.g. hand washing prevent spread of germs to follow my mum's interest in public health. I dunno.. but I know I don't want to be a surgeon.
Last thursday, I flew to Sydney to spend my 1 week spring hols. I have more reasons than just to see Zek. I want to join in the fun of Mfest. Zek has been involved for 3 years. This year, he was the chief executive producer, I want to be there to support him. I also want to see him acting as an old man in Malam Gema Merdeka. When I'm in Sydney, I also feel very much at home as the city is huge and busy just like KL. Being in a city with unbearable traffic jams and sky scrapers does alleviate the feeling of homesickness. So...here I am, in Sydney again
| ;-( | Jul 27, '08 7:09 AM
for everyone |
I'm depressed~~~ huhu...
  | Shout!! | |
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Selamat Hari Raya Haji. Hahaha. Baru Lepas Exam. Kene Amek Balek Pasal Kitorg Nyer Che Gu kat sini bodo2 belaka |
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oh.. kat previous blog entry |
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kat mana nk tgk wishlist? |
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sori kwn2! saya on hiatus..x sempat update. anybody wants to gimme a lil bit of their time. 1 hour pun jadi la... |
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there's update with my 'wish list' entry |
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Coconut cookies
