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.

Pleased.

It turned out to be one of the best Mondays I've ever had in a long long time. 

Got a mini-CEX form signed off by a gastroenterology consultant and his feedback for me is that I'll definitely make it, definitely pass medical school and become a doctor because he said with some people you just know, and I'm one of those people to him. He said I'm way above what he would expect from a medical student in the way I communicate and talk to patients.

Those were the most encouraging and motivational words a consultant has ever told me since I started medical school. And obviously, he gave me really good marks on my examination. After that I went to the Acute Medical Unit (AMU) for a while to try and get some clinical skills signed off before I head home.

The FY1 there was so friendly and nice that he got me to do an Arterial Blood Gas (ABG) for the first time ever, even though I warned him that I haven't done it before in my life. He talked me through it and watched me do it. Amazingly, I was calm and wasn't shaking all over like the first time I ever put a cannula in :/

I hit the bone though when I put the needle in and the patient said it hurt a lot. Ooops. After wiggling it around a little bit more, blood start pulsating into the syringe and I was so relieved and happy! (: The FY1 said I did really well for a first-timer and even asked me to continue taking the patient's bloods to run blood tests on. Did a cannula as well on a lovely old lady who was slightly confused.

Was a very productive day, and to end it, I came home and exercised! Exercising and just getting my sweat on does make me really happy so no matter how tired I am, I try to squeeze it in to my daily routine. Attempted the 1000 rep challenge but only managed max 500. Not too bad for a first timer I guess. It was so intense I was dripping and drenched in sweat once I was done.

Happy days like these make me feel so contented. Thank You God for answering my prayers (:

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.

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.

Breathing in snowflakes.

At the end of a bad day, there's nothing I look forward to than to just get home to the comfort of my bed and wallow in self-pity. Sometimes that's not the case though, as I've learnt.

Take today for example. It was a pretty "meh" day at the labs. A whole day's worth of work wasted when the data analysis machine displayed the most rubbish results ever. So I left for home in a 'not-so-great' mood.

The journey home though, was an interesting one.

1) I met a lovely old man who insisted I took the last seat in the bus but I counter-insisted he did instead. He finally sighed and sat down but was still facing me so we ended up having a conversation about how the weather's so cold and how we thought the bus driver was trying to kill us all with his driving. He even gave me a pat on the back when it was his stop to alight the bus.

2) Winked at a little girl with a pink scooter in the bus and found out she couldn't wink when she started blinking at me intensely instead. Her smile sans her two front teeth only made her all the cuter and made me laugh to myself.

3) I got off at the interchange deciding to walk home instead of letting the bus take me all the way. The cold wind against my face, the little puffs of smoke coming out of my mouth everytime I expired, the sky turning a dusky blue orange with hints of stars behind the clouds. I was just in awe of everything. How it was one of the prettiest things I've seen, how I should be thankful that I'm warm and bundled up although it was so cold, and how, put simply, that I'm breathing and alive.

Suddenly, my day didn't feel as bad as it did when I left the hospital. I guess sometimes it's just about making priorities and looking at things from a different perspective. I must've been so busy lately that somehow I just forgot about all the little things that used to make my day. I mustn't forget, not ever.

Thanks for the reminder God (:

xoxo, elvyna.

It's like wishing for rain in the middle of a desert.

In a blink of an eye, January is gone. We're 1/12 into 2012 but where did all the time go? Time is flying by so quickly it's scary.

Scary knowing in a few months time I would have to be done with lab research and present in front of consultants at the 4th year conference.

Scary knowing that I'll be in my final year of medicine come June.

Scary to even think about graduating as a legit doctor in 2013.

*sigh*

But you know what? Baby steps. It'll all work out in the end, it always does.

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.

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.