thoughts at 1730h

Just finished self help not long ago… yay! Two out of three sessions then I’ll be done for the year! ☺

Had my clinical placements this morning, was asked to interview a patient about his Gastro-intestinal history cos I didn’t have a go at interviewing the last time… so I found myself on the “hot seat” beside the patient. Tongue-tied. Sigh. My mind was pretty much blank. Patient was rattling off about how his pain started, how he drove himself to the hospital after the pain subsided, after he felt better after vomiting, etc. I was ticking off certain parts of the history that I was suppose to obtain in my mind, and sort of got stuck lots of times. I wonder how I passed my ICM assessment last sem.

And then I tried not to look like an idiot, basically. Haha.. not really that bad but I felt like an idiot. Ah wells. I shall be better next time. It’s difficult how to be 100% with the patient, when I’m not prepared, and just, okay, I got to do it there and then. Something that comes with loads of practice I guess ☺

So we got to palpate the patients today on top of inspecting their abdomen. We have this patient with a history of gall stones, and he experienced the same pain again, so he’s in hospital once again. And… of cos with this disease, his epigastric (around the diaphragm) area feels sore upon light palpation. And it’s quite painful to watch him whince when our tutor touched that area. –sigh-

And then we got to a tute room in the hospital. We talked. And were told, that this patient whom we talked to a fortnight ago, who had fluid retention in his abdomen area, who was on ventilator, who had a bit of jaundice, who found it hard to even walk 50m without getting breathless, died on Saturday. He died from internal haemorrhage due to blockage of one of the most important veins in the body which returns blood from the intestines full of absorbed nutrients to the liver which is suppose to carry it to other parts of the body. This blockage is due to liver cirrhosis. Hence in order to get the blood from the intestines to other parts of the body by bypassing the liver, the other blood vessels in the gut are being used. And the one at the oesophagus burst. He vomited blood. And he was taken away.

Well, I don’t know the person. I didn’t talk to him much either. He was just very nice to let us examine him, and chat with him. Though he was attached to the ventilator, when he talked there was this sparkle in his eyes. And yes, I do remember the way his eyes looked.

He was only 50+.

Was talking to weiyong about it. He said it’s part of life. Yea. of cos. Death is. That’s the only certain thing in life, I remembered him saying that. It is, but even when I don’t know the person, just a brief 20min interaction, there is this tinge of sadness. I can’t put words to it. I am not mentally severely upset. I am just feeling that sometimes, or rather, in fact, life is very vulnerable.

On a lighter note, I apologise for not updating regularly. Been busy with loads of school work… assignment readings, catching up with lectures (which is lagging now. Severely.) and doing tutes, and getting the choir together, and other acts of cos. The last thing I need now is (as it JUST happened) a huge irritating fly in my room. Stupid. But it flew out *phew* and stupid eddie ran away instead of helping me get rid of the fly. Talk about young unmanly guys. Haha. Thanks to Yingyi who helped to excite the fly by missing it after trying to whack it with a bundle of newspaper… cos it just flew out of my room! Whee~!

Basically, I’m very happy with my life now. Other than work which is taking quite a toll on me, I’m emotionally healthy.. ☺ haha.. I can’t believe how early I’m actually coming back to Melbourne next year. Sigh. ☺ but yay! Family holiday!!! Yay!!! ☺

So! What is stigma? And why is an awareness of it important in medical practice?