22nd May 2000

Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?

That's the catch phrase for the day. It's been a while since I last wrote, in that time

1) A&P have Terminated. So I was right.

2) I have met a patient with liver cirrhosis. She's young, intelligent and funny. She also has a problem with alcohol which she drinks to attempt to fix an anxiety disorder. She was discharged a while ago, and was probably the first patient I was sad to see go. Just prior to her discharge she was told she had cirrhosis and she was visibly frightened and upset. I asked her if she knew what cirrhosis meant, and she did. She said she supposed she'd just have to be good, but then she cast a look at the cup lying by her bed and said but orange juice is just becoming so boring. She doesn't want help for either her anxiety or alcohol problems. I wanted so much to talk to her, perhaps out in a park away from the hospital, just to talk. But of course, that isn't my role; I'm just a student. So I didn't. I suppose it would have been different if she hadn't been young, or intelligent, or funny. I suppose I wouldn't have reacted so strongly. I suppose it would be different if she had been in denial about her alcoholic problem, but she isn't. She admits to it. She blames her anxiety disorder, which she has every right to, and she also likes the taste of alcohol. I suppose it would be different if she didn't admit she needed help, but she does. She knows she has to stop drinking. I suppose, I suppose, I suppose. I went and played on the piano after she was discharged. Every now and then when I feel I have to, I wander off to the union pianos and play my life out on them. Usually there's an inconsiderate person sitting in MY room playing MY piano, nevermind that they booked it, and I have to wander off feeling unfulfilled and irritated. Of late when I do play the piano, it's been very sad stuff that's been wandering off my hands.

3) I was on call all of yesterday and am feeling a wreck now. While I was there someone had a cardiac arrest. It was almost like ER except two of the attending -?doctors ?nurses ?paramedics? I coudn't tell - almost everyone looks the same to me in their scubs and I don't tend to bend over and stare at people's groins to read their name badges - were completely calm, chatting and even telling jokes throughout. The woman's relatives stood in the corner of the room and observed silently. Chest compressions one two three four five. (that was my colleague, another medical student who got grabbed to do the manual labour) Breathe. That was a paramedic on the air bag. Charging to 200, all clear, wait wait wait get the oxygen off (I wondered idly if they'd left the 100% oxygen on would she have caught fire spontaneously when they shocked?) clear clear *zap*. A shudder, a jolt, (that thump sound you hear on ER is just the patient collapsing back onto the bed with, I've just realised. The electric shock is completely silent.) no she's still in VF, one two three four five, do you think you could do that a bit faster, student? Breathe, wait don't bother with the adrenaline. Call it. OK, I'll call it. And everyone files out of the room leaving the relatives standing, silent. Somone comes back in to collect them and starts comforting them. I wander back to the triage area feeling rather unsettled, and get herded off to take someone's blood.

4) Anna might be coming over here for a year! I reckon she's just getting my hopes up. She's trying to decide between Canada and England. I reckon, well you go wherever you want to, woman. Whichever country you think you'll be happier in... rolling naked in maple leaves, well who can compete with that? :) But it would be nice if you came over. I'd like that.

5) I spoke to a friend of a friend last night! It was weird. We bumped into each other on IRC. Our only previous interaction till then was a phone call over a year ago when I was trying to decide whether or not to buy her piano. She somehow recognised me. It was surreal, this stranger on IRC turning out to be someone I knew, but was still a stranger nonetheless, only 1 degree of freedom closer to me. We chatted for a bit and it was fun. She commented that I've completely lost my Singaporean accent or vestiges of it since last we spoke? I suppose I might have done; I've been here ages and in the last year since "losing" all my singaporean friends to geography I've been thinking in English since those're the people who fill my entire life from day to night now. Aiyah not true lah I'm sure I still sound sing-ah-pore-ean lar. Wah lau. That's funny too. To my ear I've not noticed any change in the way I speak. I think I sound the way I always did. My mum says I never really had a singaporean accent anyhow. I have to agree with her I think. My mum doesn't really have one either.

6) I watched Rumble in the Bronyx last night and pissed myself. I haven't laughed so much in ages. One of the worst B grade movies (Jackie Chan in English!) I've ever seen, so shamelessly tacky, with the cheesiest lines I've ever heard and the silliest effects that I had to laugh. Above friend of a friend was watching it with me and we both laughed ourselves silly, over the internet. Oh and the lead Francoise Yip Fong Wah is simply gorgeous. Yummy. My first crush *lol*.

7) I've been made an operator on the IRC channel #poetry. I'm more a watchdog than a power-wielding monarch. It's strange. I'm an operator on many other channels and a senior one at that, but on #poetry people see you wearing the @ (which is the mark of operator) and try to antagonise you, both on the main and in little windows. They rant, they foam at the mouth, they blaspheme, they do just about anything to make you kick them out of the channel. I'm a complete stranger. All they see is my @ and suddenly I'm an authority figure for them to rebel against. I wish I could reach across the net, slap them, and tell them to WAKE UP. Don't rebel against me, rebel against things worth rebelling about. Don't rebel against people of different religions, or sexual orientations, or race. Open your minds. See where the real faults in society lie, not the trivial ones, and if you must, rebel against Those. Try to change them. Constructively. Shouting and ranting and taunting isn't going to make you a better person, or me a worse person for kicking you. I rarely react, instead I try to speak to them and understand them. I want to know how they think. After a while they stop speaking to me. I've spoilt their fun. They quieten down. That's not the intention - I really want to understand what makes them smoulder so. For the same reason I want to understand why the patient I spoke of earlier drinks. For the same reason I chose medicine as a career.

Someone asked me two questions the other night, the first being what single thing about you makes you different from everyone else? I think, aside from the strange sense of humour, I try to empathise. That's all. I don't know if I manage to empathise with people, but I know I try my best to. A friend of mine was going through a rough patch with her boyfriend and came to me for an ear. Since then I haven't heard from her at all, and apparently that's due to jealous boyfriend forbidding her to speak to any males of the human species ever again for even daring to think to confide in someone else, nevermind that he's your friend, or rather, nevermind that you call him your friend. hmm. Well she was really down and I asked her to try to empathise with him, and she she how can I, then I won't be able to hate him anymore. That's really it isn't it. That's what drives the ranters and bigots on #poetry. They need to hate someone. They can't afford to empathise, that would stop them from getting what they need. I don't think that's right at all. You can still empathise with someone and understand why he/she did or said what she did, and stop hating them, yes. But it won't make what they did/said any less wrong. You can still end the relationship, because of the wrong. You can choose to forgive them. At least the hate is gone. Is that a cold-blooded impassionate way of looking at things? Perhaps. Give it a try, though.

The second question was what would be the one memory you would carry with you, if you could only have one, beyond the grave?

I think that would be a night long ago, over dinner, and of a remarkable individual I once knew, with her head bowed and her eyes closed, and her left hand reaching up to her brow to brush away an errant forelock.

I've been to see the world, and I've been to see the Queen.