The Pensieve

On Tuesday, my poor CG had to go down all the way to the hospital in the west for our tri-monthly ETT assessment, which they informed us of barely 24 hours in advance (thank-you-very-much), thus ruining the illusion that we could take a free half day off from the monstrously long ward rounds…

As R put it, ‘the joke was on ourselves in the end!’

Anyway, a discussion transpired between two students right after one of them finished the ETT study…

A: Hey, weren’t we supposed to use 10mls of water to inflate the ETT balloon?

B: Water? No what, I thought it’s air?

A: Really? Then… hmmm….

B: HAHAHA the water is for your urinary catheter la!

A: OOPS! I told the examiner I used water lei… haha… Anyway, later when you go in, remember it’s 4mls of air, 4 mls only hor!

B: Really? I thought it’s 10mls air?

A: Apparently not… oh, 10mls is for urinary catheter!

later in the afternoon…

A: so how was your ETT?

B: i forgot to inflate the balloon leh!

A: …

the mystery of the ‘uneven balls’…

A: hello, my friend, who is an insurance agent wants me to ask you what is the name of a certain operation…

me: oic, what was the operation for?

A: erm, it was for uneven balls?

me: uneven balls?!?! (a thousand pictures of various conditions flash thru the mind… things like cryptorchidism, chronically retracted testes, inguinal-scrotal hernia, and even the transilluminable hydrocoele!!! but wait a minute, don’t all guys have so-called uneven balls?)

A: ya… so what do you think that op was for?

me: er, uneven balls sounds really unspecific, did the doc say what condition he had?

A: erm, i dunno…. only we know that it’s uneven balls so have to do operation…

me: ok, hey wait, your friend’s an insurance agent right? the guy is doing a claim for his operation? he’ll need a medical report from the hospital for it rite… the name of the operation and the condition should be in the report rite…

just right after i said i was going to have a break till saturday, i decided i couldn’t resist the temptation anyway… so i’ve decided to BLOG! it’s a good sign though, it means i’m feeling chirpier…

worked out a good way to maintain my emotions on a baseline not-too-happy mode.

here’s what u do, you keep yourself so busy during the day and return around dinner time, then u go around to have your daily gossip with your mother/father/dog/cat/reflection in your mirror or you could go for a walk/jog/crawl/run… all that exercise will give you a high that sustains you till right before you sleep. to prevent that high from going over the top, which is almost always associated with a crash, you should listen to some utterly sad song. try ‘and so it goes’ or kd lang’s cd, shed a few tears or cry bitterly until u feel kind of sleepy. then go sleep.

you’ll wake up feeling not too good and not too bad the next day… and so the cycle repeats itself.