Blessing in disguise.

So I've gotten used to work, well, I say got used to but technically I've only been at work for 8 days in total but I actually really like what I do. It's not even about the fact that I'm actually finally a legit doctor or wtv but I actually look forward to going to work everyday and don't mind staying in later just to finish up the jobs or help out some nurses with patient stuffs. 

It's amazing how you never know if you can do something, but once you do it, you can't see yourself doing anything else. And being on the island, to be honest, I wasn't really happy about it when I first found out. In fact, I was devastated. But now, I really think it was a blessing in disguise. God really does work in mysterious ways. 

Found and made some really good close friends, explored the beautiful island on weekends I have off, and also just being in such a lovely hospital working with friendly helpful staff really makes me feel so stupid for thinking that coming to the island was some sort of "punishment" and what not. Well, I'm really enjoying the fact that I don't have to study and feel guilty if I don't anymore. Enjoying the weekends off where I can truly enjoy and go out and be happy and carefree. 

Some pictures from the past few weekends on the island. It's seriously so happening in Summer! Something happens every weekend! Doubt it'll be like this in winter though, but I'll survive. LOL.

At the Shanklin Chine.

Fireworks to mark the end of the annual Cowes Week, one of the world's longest-running regatta.

Second biggest event on the island after Cowes week, the two-day annual Garlic Festival. Turned out so much more fun than I expected!

Garlic pic just because it's a garlic farm! So many types of garlic I never knew existed.

Even managed to try archery for the first time ever. Did quite well for a newbie I'd say :P

Listening to the instructions closely. So close to getting a bullseye!

Country side driving. No wonder so many people in England choose to retire on the island. So beautiful.

In awe of His creation. What a beauty.

So yea, His ways are definitely not my ways. They're so much better. So thankful that I'm on the island now. Sure, there will be ups and downs, but He's brought me this far, He'll continue bringing me further on. Eternally grateful.

xoxo, elvyna.

Finally a doctor!

So after 6 LOOONGGGG years and all the hard work + money + time, I'm finally a doctor! Woohoo! Can't believe it has finally happened! What I set out to achieve in 2008 has finally come true. Feel so giddy and surreal now thinking that I'm actually officially a legit doctor. Time really flew by all these years. 

Still slowly accepting the fact that I am now going to be responsible for treating people and taking care of them. Hope I don't disappoint! Anyways, it's been a while since I updated, what with the whirlwind of events like graduation and being back home for holidays and stuff so here are a couple of pictures to update whoever still reads my blog! Teehee! :D

Praise the Lord I graduated! Couldn't have done it without His grace and all the prayers from friends and family. Grateful and blessed.

xoxo, elvyna.

Plateau.

So today's just one of those days where I'm not feeling all too great about myself. Didn't go in to the hospital for ward rounds today but went in a little bit later to study in the library and left at around 3pm. I just feel like things are becoming so routine now with medicine that I'm not actually enjoying it as much as I know I used to/should. Also, the fact that people (eg. consultants, registrars, etc.) ignore me when I'm in the ward round isn't helping as well.

I know it's supposed to be my own initiative and everything else but omg, seriously? It's not like I haven't been trying to help the team out or do stuffs in the wards. Sigh. rant rant rant.

Medical school, oh how I loathe and love you altogether at the same time. It's truly a mystery I doubt I'll ever solve. But for now, two more weeks until I get to be home!

Looking forward to happier days (:

xoxo, elvyna.

Refuel from God.

This is the last week of my Obs and Gynae placement. Where did time go? 4 weeks, all done come this Friday. It's been such an amazing time in the wards, clinics, theatres, etc. I couldn't have asked for anything more. 

God has been amazing to me this 4 weeks. He gave me a good start to my Final Year, a good house with other Christian housemates that I can pray and do bible study with, good doctors to go under who are willing to teach, friendly people in the wards and so much more..

I'm so grateful for everything.

Spent this evening watching sermons on worship from YouTube. There are so many good sermons available online and it is such a good way to spend my evenings after a long day in the hospital. Just to unwind and wait upon the Lord and pray. Today I listened to such an inspiring talk by Kari Jobe on worship. I would really recommend listening to this.

God teach us to be people who love you and let our worship with you in Your presence be our main priority in life.

John 10:27 " My sheep listens to my voice; I know them, and they follow me."

xoxo, elvyna.

A Day to Remember.

It has been such a long day that I don't even know how to begin writing about it. I just know I have to let it out somehow though. If I had to use one word to describe my day today, it would be this: overwhelming.

Started the day in the Obs & Gynae Labour ward seeing a patient I saw last week in Antenatal clinic. She was opting for a natural vaginal delivery but after a couple of hours, she still wasn't in full labour yet so they had to bring her to theatre for a Caesarian section. It wasn't going to be a complicated delivery and I was allowed to scrub in to assist the surgeon. During the surgery though, the surgeon couldn't get the baby out of the uterus as the mother had pushed earlier and lodged the baby's head in the pelvis. After sending out a neonatal emergency bleep to everyone in the hospital, the theatre started crowding up with Paediatric Consultants, Registrars, SHOs and midwives. After a couple of minutes and pushing and tugging (trust me, this wasn't a pleasant sight at all), the baby finally dislodged and came out but it was pale and floppy and had no heart beat.

At this point I noticed there was a pool of blood dripping from the theatre table through my Crocs and onto the floor. It wasn't like anything I've seen before. I could hear everyone just talking above everyone else. People shouting things like," The baby needs adrenaline injection stat!" or " The baby needs CPR!". It was a seriously scary experience. All the while the mother was awake and aware of what was happening and began to sob uncontrollably. To make the story short, the baby was still not in good shape when the surgeon and I visited it after the operation. I hope and pray that the baby and the parents would be fine.

Then after that, I went back to the wards and stayed with a lady who had a natural vaginal delivery. It was the first time I ever saw a natural birth and I must say, my eyes were welling up with tears and I was trying so hard not to be too emotional throughout. There's really nothing like seeing a baby being born into this world. And the emotions that the parents convey when they look at the baby's face for the first time ever. No words can describe that.

In between all that that was happening today, I had to do my first mini-CEX in Final Year. We have to do 3 mini-CEXs in each placement as part of our assessment in Final Year. This is when a Consultant or Registrar chooses a patient for you and you take a full history and examine the patient whilst the examiner is watching. Also, you've to come up with investigations and management (i.e. treatment of what you think the patient's diagnosis is). It's much more nerve-wrecking than it seems. It went much better than I thought it would though. The consultant was well pleased with what I did and gave me pretty good marks. Good start I would say.

Came home around 8pm after having not eaten anything the whole day (since 7am) because I was so busy that I didn't feel hungry. A friend came over and had a chat and boy, she told a story I would never ever forget. A story about her faith, how she found Jesus, how He changed her life and I was so inspired. It wasn't what I was expecting when she came over but it just happened. Goes to show that when He works, we just cannot comprehend the amazingness that is Him. So blessed. So inspired. So touched. So happy for her that she found Him, that she feels Him, that He is with her. I love hearing testimonies like these, it warms my heart.

All in all, it was such a long and tiring, but exciting day. Overwhelming day. I had to write it out and express it somewhere. This has been such a long post, but it has been a post from the heart. I don't ever want to lose this - to be able to feel things like what I felt today. I hope I don't lose it over time in the future.

God has just been so amazing to me in my life. I'm just so so grateful for everything.

xoxo, elvyna.

Living by Faith.

Firsts.

There are all kinds of firsts. Some good, some bad. First love, first kiss, first heartbreak. First. 

Today was my first official day of my Final Year as a medical student. I could say it was a good day, because to a certain extent, it actually was. It wasn't an intensive day as I'd imagine in my head and neither was it a bad day, the kind that makes you just want to go home and lie in bed all night not doing anything else. 

It was just a terrifying day in the sense that it suddenly hit me - the realization that I'm almost at the end of my five year journey. That I'm left with this last stretch, which would be the longest and most trying year of my medical school journey. 

To become a doctor.

To be honest, that wasn't what I wanted to do on my first day stepping into IMU, but somehow, over the years, it has grown on me. It has grown to be so much a part of me that now, I can't see myself doing anything else but that in the future. 

I need this.

Just one more year to go. I need to work hard, push myself, stay motivated, give it everything I've got, because this is it. What I've been aiming to achieve since the first day of medical school. This is what everyone's been watching me do all these years. It all comes down to the final year. The final exam. The final push. 

Praying that God'll lead me and bring me through this year. Perseverance and faith. Got to keep pressing on, keep holding on no matter what. It's not going to be an easy year, but I have faith I can do it. By His grace and by His strength, not mine.

xoxo, elvyna.

You and me, always between the lines.

Some pictures of the AMAY-ZING food I had in London last weekend when I went up to leech visit my aunt (:

Amazing soy sauce roast chicken.
Prawn dumplings.
Siu Yuk! (:
Chilli Fried Black Pepper Squid (:

Looking at the pictures above are making me salivate and my tummy rumble. It's almost dinner time.

It has been one of the most stressful days ever for me as my abstract was due in today, Orthopaedics end of attachment exam and presentation filled my morning and I had to go to the labs to get a spleen and incubate it over the weekends! Everything turned out pretty well though. Better than I expected in fact.

My abstract was submitted an hour before it was due (albeit me going over the word limit-that's an issue for another day :/), I ended up getting the highest marks in the whole attachment for the exam (thank You so much God! I'll never do last minute studying again) and the spleen is sitting happily now even as I type in the incubator.

Things DO turn out well when I trust. Trust me, I was praying so hard last night I think I jammed up the prayer queue to God. Ahhh. Time to wind down and relax with a barbeque with friends tomorrow. Can't wait! (:

xoxo, elvyna.

I spy with my little eyes..

Started with my one week Ophthalmology postings this week and honestly, I don't like it. The eye is just something I'll never specialise in EVER and there's just so much to know and learn in one week before my exam on Friday. sigh. What a busy busy week :(

xoxo, elvyna.

Blood donation.

Finally donated blood for the first time in my life after being rejected everytime I tried to in previous years (due to medical reasons). Was a really painless experience and now I know what it feels like to be at the receiving end of the needle instead of usually being the one inserting it into patient's arms. I know many people donate blood all the time and it's the usual thing for them to do but for me, it's not always that I get a chance to do something like this. Feel so proud of myself today, because for once since becoming a medical student, I actually feel like I am THAT much closer to saving a life.

Donate blood at a blood bank if you're fit and healthy! You never know who might need it and who's life you can save! (:

xoxo, elvyna.

Love is waiting till we're ready, till it's right.

Life for me has been pretty routine of late. Library, meals, showers, sleep, placements. That's all I do, but then again, exams are pretty close, in about a month and a give or take couple of days. I'm actually getting quite nervous about exams approaching so soon, since I heard it's like EOS 5 and OSCE in IMU. Not something I would love to go through again, the number of panic attacks it gave me last time.

But I guess it's different this time, being away, taking a major exam in a totally foreign country with none of my usual study buddies or family to just pray with me. It's gonna be extra tough but that also means I've got to be even tougher! So studying in the library for 12 hours a day won't be as fun without people from IMU, so everything will seem tougher when I don't understand something, but I'm sure I'll make it through this time, just like every other time before this, because whenever I start losing hope in myself, He never loses hope in me and surprises me beyond my wildest imaginations just like He has for every exam before this.

I've just got to continue to have faith in Him and commit everything into His hands. I'm saying all this now while I'm still sane from studying, maybe in a couple of weeks, if not days, I'll start going crazy doubting why I'm doing medicine, questioning God and all, but well, hopefully reading this post and remembering all that He's done for me would continue to fuel me on this long journey ahead.

It's not easy. But hey, anything worth fighting for is never easy, is it?

xoxo, elvyna.

Sometimes you forgive people simply because you still want them in your life.

Jason's Paediatric book I borrowed for my attachment. Visitor sticker from Shepherds Down School (school for disabled children)

Went for my disability school visit today. I don't think I can find words to describe how I felt when I saw the children in my class. I was assigned to sit in on the ages 7-11 class. The kids in this class were disabled in a way, some physically and mentally, some had autism, one had Down's syndrome but ALL had difficulty communicating and speaking. It was really heart wrenching to read through their medical files and see how life turned out for each one of them since birth. The initial pathology they presented with never went away, instead, it either got aggravated or added on with some other disease.

If only I learnt sign language properly, or Makaton, I would probably be able to communicate (somewhat) with them. But then again, almost all of them had Profound Mental Learning Disability (PMLD). An 8-year old kid from the class scared me a little when he suddenly came up to me and put his hands on my face and touched it while blinking his eyes vigorously. I learnt later from the teacher that that was his way of communicating and reacting to things. I gave him a hug (before he pushed me away though but it was worth it while it lasted).

Learnt and saw a lot of rare cases today as well : Lissencephaly (where the brain is totally smooth instead of having ridges), West Syndrome (epileptic disorder in infants- this 10 year old kid in the class had to wear a hard helmet as he would have drop seizures at any time of the day, up to about 5 times a day), Angelman's syndrome (mental and physical retardation, constant smiling and happy mood)- btw, Colin Farrell's son was diagnosed with this, etc. Lots of reading up to do!

It made me feel really thankful (not saying I'm only thankful when I see children like that) that my brother and I were born normal and healthy, reaching the developmental milestones when appropriate and being able to communicate well in a social setting.

Today's visit was truly an eye-opener. Made me consider specialising in Disability in Children. Ah well, we'll see where life leads.

Just realized this post is so medical and well, not my usual kinda stuffs, but it really touched me in some way and I thought I'd like to share it with you guys!

Dinner tonight for Southampton International Medics Society (SIMS) handover to new committee. Did I say? I'm the newly elected treasurer of the society! (:

xoxo, elvyna.