Minggu ke-3 Ramadhan 1436H

Alhamdulillah, dah nak masuk hari ke-21 Ramadhan 1436H. I am writing this at the hospital at around 430am. Will have my sahur, some light munchies at around 530am nanti. Doakan no patients come in until handover time, yo! InsyaAllah.

This is my 6th of 7 night shifts, and 3 more shifts to go until cuti raya!!! Sad because leaving to this place, which has been good to me, but I'm very excited raya!

Sedih sungguh dengar lagu raya & tengok iklan-iklan raya in between patients tonight. In fact, I have been doing it since 3 malam yang lalu. Pagi-pagi around 6am lepas sahur around Subuh time ada rancangan Ramadhan on channel 31. Aku tak berpeluang nak tengok of course, while doing night shifts so far. Other than that kat sini takde rancangan Ramadhan, iklan raya, rancangan raya, apa-apalah yg berkaitan. So feel nye kurang sedikit. Tambah-tambah lagi waktu puasa yg pendek, & orang-orang sekeliling tak beberapa memahami. Ada some Muslim groups & masjid-masjid yg buat solat Terawih with their buka puasa + moreh. Those yg tak berkesempatan to join, buat sendiri je kat rumah with own family. Kena sendiri proactive & kuat.

Persediaan raya hmmm... takde kot from here. I will probably buat some kuih later on, after puasa la kot. Some friends will be sitting for their specialty exams around hari raya time and again around raya haji nanti, so tak berapa meriah sangat this year.

Oh ya! I wouldnt know my patients Muslims or not kalau tak pasal nama or the way they dress themselves. There has been a few times when some names yg aku tak recognize, to my surprise tapi they wish me selamat berpuasa & ask me if ubat mata/ telinga will affect their fasting. Banyak nama yg aku tak kenal from Turkey, South Afrika, Eastern European, Rusia, China sana, dan lain-lain. Nice. Kalau bukan bulan puasa, from my observation so far, kind of difficult to recognize diorang tu Muslims or not. Tapi bulan Ramadhan, it brings all these Muslims together. Pakai tudung or not, janggut or not, tattoo or not, modern tradisional, practising or not, semua are connected somehow. It is a nice feeling. Bulan berkat. Alhamdulillah.

And Alhamdulillah, so far Allah swt permudahkan my Ramadhan. Semoga di akhir-akhir Ramadhan, Allah swt continues giving berkat, kemudahan, kekuatan to all Muslims as well as others. Take care all.

2 Minggu Dah Ramadhan 1436H

Alhamdulillah dah day 14 of Ramadhan 1436H. Alhamdulillah jugak tahun ini so far I feel agak tenang berpuasa. Maybe kat tempat kerja ramai yg memahami. And sebab buka puasa agak awal, cuaca yg sejuk bangat, so tak terasa sangat puasanya. Cuma sometimes in the morning rasa nak minum tea & coffee while I'm at work or studying at home. 

I am starting night shifts tomorrow night. So agak best, coz boleh makan minum non-stop sampai la agak-agak pukul 5 pagi for sahur, then makan lagi sampai pukul 6 pagi. Hehehe. Then pukul 745am handover, then 8 pagi dah boleh selamat blah dari hospital untuk membuta, etc. And bangun sebelum pukul 5 petang untuk prepare buka puasa which is currently at 512pm. 

Hopefully dengan keberkatan Ramadhan, my final week of night shifts at the Eye & Ear Hospital wont be busy & semua rakyat jelata Victoria sihat walafiat tak perlu hospital tengah-tengah malam buta. So that I will have enuf time to study, bookkeeping, hal-hal training, etc, something useful for myself & work. InsyaAllah. 

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Today I am thankful for:

1. Had more than enuf sleep. Ahaks! (Sampai headache dah ni).

2. Made some dessert. Sagu gula melaka. Cuma nye takde susu/ santan to eat it with. Hafta wait for hubby balik rumah time Isyak nanti. 

3. Had some time, even though only a little bit, to read stuff on ophthalmology. Call me nerd. If I get to study only one tiny aspect of medicine & it sticks in my head, I am very happy already =)

Minggu ke-2 Puasa

Hari ni masuk minggu ke-2 Ramadhan 1436H. Hari ke-8 kita berpuasa, well, at least here in Melbourne & in KL too. 

Alhamdulillah, everything is going well. Kami bangun sahur around 5ish am, with whatever leftovers from the night before. Today buka puasa is at 510pm. Aku dah 2 hari off days, so lepas Subuh tu unfortunately membuta sampai Zohor. Ahaks. So not productive. Semalam terlajak tido sampai sebelum Asar hence pening kepala. To avoid me being nonproductive so aku merayau ke Chadstone mall. And left just after buka puasa. 

So today kena masak sikit because not only lauk dah dihabiskan masa sahur pagi tadi, but also because I am working over the weekends. Tak tau lagi nak masak apa. Dah kuarkan beef, and I hafta finish the mushrooms & butternut pumpkin & the thickened cream secepat mungkin. So mebbie menu hari ini ialah beef stew, mushrooms & pumpkin soup, roast potatos, fennel & orange salad, and mebbie some sort of nasi or mee or pasta to add up the carbs. Yup, we love our carbs & protein! =) Tengoklah nanti macam mana jadinya. I will only start cooking after Isyak kot jap gi or kalau rajin after Maghrib. 

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Today, I am thankful for:

1. The not-so-cold winter day, that we got some sunlight even though it was only for a few hours. Alhamdulillah. 

2. I got enough rest at home, even though it hasnt been productive. Alhamdulillah.

3. We have food at home, even though I dont always have much idea what to cook. Alhamdulillah. 

Salam Ramadhan 1436H

It's the 4th day of Ramadhan 1436H. Alhamdulillah, it has been smooth for us. 

It is winter, so puasa this time agak senang. Buat masa ni Subuh is aound 601am, Maghrib is around 508pm. Lebih kurang 11jam 7minit je puasa. Nak buka puasa too festives pun tak sempat if it is hari kerja sebab waktu buka pun sebelum kerja habis. Sampai rumah cukup-cukup makan utk solat Maghrib. Well that is if kerja office hours la. Kat sini mana ada balik kerja pukul 3pm for Ramadhan mcm kat M'sia. So it is always dinner lah. And sahur will be the big breakie before work. 

I still remember the time when we had to puasa during peak summer here in Melbourne. Subuh lebih kurang pukul ~3++am & buka puasa ~9pm, dlm 18 jam jugak puasanye. Agak mencabar la jugak, Summer yg panas kering, sana-sini org buat barbeque coz org sini asalkan ada matahari je mesti nak buat bbq, and iklan makan & minum di tv. Fuh! 

Petang semalam kami played a bit of badminton around 4pm-5pm. Yg lain-lain tu agak active jugak, but me like always, kurang tenaga, kurang semangat, kurang stamina. Masa main tu rasa mcm terbayang-bayang je katil. Haha. Tapi by the time habis main, dah nak berbuka puasa. So kami pakat minum air kelapa dlm tin beramai-ramai kat luar badminton hall tu. Then singgah (a.k.a. crashed) rumah a friend makan dinner. Hehehe. 

And pagi ni ingat nak drive to halal McDonald's near Dandenong. Tapi dah masing-masing malas. Tambahan pulak aku masak laksa kedah malam semalam lepas balik dinner from that friend's house, ada lebih lagi. Makan tu je la. Maybe esok kot bila-bila when dah takde makanan boleh la pergi. 

Selamat berpuasa Ramadhan 1436H. 

Happy Fathers's Day

Happy Fathers' Day to my father & now my brother in kL. 
Mothers' Day was last month, but to me everyday is Mothers' & Fathers' Day!

Abah & mak, mi padre y madre, the greatest gifts Allah swt gives us. No words can describe how much we appreciate & love you. No deeds can ever repay what you have done for us. 

Semoga panjang umur, murah rezeki, sihat, tenang, bahagia & diberkatiNYA di dunia & akhirat. 

To my brother, now you know what being a father is all about. Treasure the journey & hope the experiences somehow make the link between you & abah stronger. 

Take care. 

Kasut Free =)

Seronok hari ni dapat kasut free from 'mak angkat' aku, sorang nurse in charge kat hospital baru ni. Woohooo!! Kasut Sketchers Go Walk tuuuuuu!!

Takde la dia belikan aku kasut baru sepasang. Dia dapat hadiah dari orang, tapi kaki dia gabak so dia kasi kat aku. Tak kisah la dia dah pakai sekali, tapi dia kata dia pakai with socks. Tawakal je la dia takde kudis ke herpes ke. Kakakaka.

Aku dah pakai dah pun balik kerja tadi, walking all the way merayap kat city with my boss & my friend makan lunch kat Hotaru Japanese restaurant (yg makanannye agak mengeciwakan). Sedap la gak pakai. 

2 hari lagi nak Ramadhan 1436H here. Selamat menyambut Ramadhan yg mulia ni. Semoga kita semua diberi kesabaran, kekuatan & tabah & mendapat keberkatan berlipat-ganda dariNYA.

Take care all. 

Pengorbanan Kali Ini

Drama queen betul. Heh.

Okay, last night I had to through away my whole work attire (except tudung) to the bin. My top, pants, socks & shoes. They were cheap on clearance ones, but still I threw away my work outfits. All into the bin.

The last case that I saw last night prior going home was an epistaxis (nosebleed), a young professional who has been living with anxiety, which is causing their very high blood pressure & each time this will lead to a nosebleed. X came before my shift started & saw my boss, had their treatment & went home. X came back just before I finished my evening shift with blood pouring out of her nose. 

Normal practice is that I would put on my disposible protective gown & gloves (which are removed once you step out of that particular cubicle) and cover an epistaxis patient with some blue +/- gown, +/- cover the floor with some blue, get the suction ready, etc. It is an arterial bleed, yes, but that extra few seconds of keeping the area safe does make a big difference. So those were what I did anyway with this particular patient.

But of course X didnt bleed when I was attending them. No source of bleeding in either nostrils, other than the obvious 200/120 blood pressure. During the observation, I had to attend to another young hypertensive emergency that already had bleeding & swollen retina in their both eyes that we had to transfer out of the Eye & Ear hospital. And of course, X had to bleed massively while we were doing that. 

On the way to grab a new set of protective attire, X had to cough, cry, stress out. And in turn more blood gushing out of X's nose in response to the climbing blood pressure. And that was when some blood splattered onto my lower half of my front. Sheeeeeessshhhh... So much fun! 
Threw away the attire at home, and yes, I deserve to be a drama queen. 

I dont fully blame patients when this things happens. Orang kata apa guna jadi doctor, hey, kalau takut darah, kencing, tahi & all those disgusting bodily produce. 

Think about you as a patient, mesti u ada sket2 pandang slack kat doctors yg lepas pegang u dia terus basuh tangan, "macam aku ni geli sangat!". Well, think about this again, you as a patient, the doctor dah lepas pegang pesakit lain kat cubicle/ katil sebelah yang u tau ada penyakit u anggap geli or lepas exposed to some darah, phlegm, etc, tanpa basuh tangan terus periksa u. Best tak?

Healthcare is not only about caring & managing health, but also is about prevention. We as healthcare professionals should as much as possible not spread germs, also as much as possible to actually protect ourselves from contracting any diseases. Not worth it at all. In a controlled situation, a little extra of these simple efforts make a very big difference. Of course in real disaster, sometimes you cant avoid it. And nowadays we can actually afford that extra 1-2 minutes to simply grab a pair of gloves/ goggles/ gown. Based on these experiences, I always make an effort to have at least a pair of gloves in my pocket, bags, car, etc coz you will never know.

I dont really have to dwell into it much, just think of the basic. Setiap healthcare professional akan dilatih very basic: DRSABC for any clinical situation. And to me, the first 3 principles can be applied to any situation too.

D= Danger. Avoid, remove any danger.. SAFELY!
R= Response. Check for response.
S= Send for help. 
A= Airways.
B= Breathing. 
C= Circulation.

Yes, and yup, last night memang aku dah jadi a drama queen, tapi at home lah.. Takde kerja la nak meratap bagai kat ED sana nun.. hehehe.
Hopefully doesnt happen that often again. 

Karipap Sedap

Kat sini biasalah overseas students/ temporary residents akan masak-masak once in a while untuk duit belanja tambahan sket-sket. Especially bila time perayaan. Aku tak pernah lagi buat, bukan pasal dah banyak duit tapi pasal malas & takde masa. Especially now dah kerja sambil in training.

One of my friends make karipap once in a while. And given that our group of friends are mostly busy and kurang kerajinan nak buat this kind of thing untuk masa-masa kecemasan, we always order the karipaps from this friend. Alah, apa salahnye tolong kawan, dia bahagia, kita pon bahagia makan karipaps sedap ni. Aku & hubby selalu sangat order from this person, especially when I am working arvo shifts. Senang bawak bekal +/- breakie or sahur. (Nampak la kemalasan aku sebagai orang paling skillful memasak kat rumah ni.. ahaks!).

So the other day I brought a few during my arvo shift. Unfortunately while I was having them during my dinner break, the code blue was called. So I just left the karipaps on the ED bench, thinking and hoping I would come back to them lepas code. One of my ophthalmology bosses stole one of them when I was gone attending the code. He actually said to me before I left to the code that I shouldn't be leaving my yummy food lying around 'coz someone a.k.a. him might just steal them, afterall he says he lives to eat karipaps. Hahaha. During the code, he quitely came to me ingatkan apa rupanye mintak kebenaran to pinch one of the karipaps. Alahai... kesian dia. Aku kasi je la, walaupon dah agak sejuk & agak burned coz aku lambat keluarkan dari oven. So technically he didnt steal my karipaps. Hahahaha. 

Oh well, rezeki lagi for my dear friend whom I cant thank enought for sacrificing their time & energy making & jual the karipaps. 

Winter Chill

It is mid- June. It has been a very cold winter. In fact winter came a bit earlier than winter itself. It has been persistently lower single digit every night & frosty early morning. The sun comes out late morning for a few hours, at least kinda giving hope to the otherwise gloomy day. Winter officially goes on until 31st August, so we have a long way to go still. Sigh...

I have about 1 month left at the Royal Eye & Ear Hospital to finish my 6-month rotation, and I already feel sad about returning back to my old hospital. Earlier this year on my last day at the old hospital, I was slightly sad on to leave before starting at the Eye & Ear. But here I have already started feeling sad to leave again. I am really enjoying my time here. Sigh.. 

We ED registrars work every other weekends. This weekend is my working weekends. Am doing arvo shift, meaning I finish at midnight. Had a short breakie with hubby & a friend, then back at home. Still sleepy coz slept late last night, and woke up early for breakie today. But it's all worth it. Kinda the last breakie before puasa Ramadhan 1436H. After that mebbie will be a few weeks after Aidilftri coz most of my friends are sitting their primary exams around that time. And at the same time this is the time for our annual work application and interview for next year. Sigh.. annoying that we have to do this every single year... never ending. 

Anyways, enuf of my winter-head ranting. Have a good & safe weekend everyone.

New Rotation, New Hospital

Okay, it's been ages since I last wrote anything. And everyone knows ni semua gara-gara malas. Nak kata busy, saja mem-busy-kan body with nonsense.

It is the new working year for doctors around Australia mostly, and definitely in Victoria. We started on 2nd Feb 2015 hari tu. As for my non-ED requirements in my ED advanced training, and since I really needed a break from ED, I am now at the Royal Victorian Eye & Ear Hospital in East Melbourne, Alhamdulillah. However, my application for the 2nd half of 2015 at Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Monash Medical Centre got the silent treatment.. well, dah call banyak kali asking about the status of my application but each time they said they still looking for a full timer, instead of a 6mo registrar that I applied, so, lama-lama tu paham-paham je la memang diorang reject dah. Kalau some job recruitment usually diorang akan hantar email/ letter of rejection. Sigh... bukan rezeki la tu. Sob sob sob...

Anyways, talking about the new term, I will be at the RVEEH for 6 months until raya puasa nanti. Such a steep learning curve. Rasa macam tak tau apa-apa pasal these very specialized areas: the eye & ear. So aku banyak tengok You Tube about eye & ear especially on history taking & examinations. Rasa macam medical student balik. My colleagues with ED training background pun rasa mcm tu. Serious takut. 

The people there are very friendly and supportive. They know that the ED registrars dont know anything and they teach you very patiently, 1 small area at a time. We are probably an expert in general medical/ emergency stuff but zero in eye & ear stuff. 

So far, so good. Am not as anxious at work now. Dah buat a round of night shifts hari tu, where we ED reg cover ENT stuff, codes & the wards (dah lama tak buat kerja resident ni.. sheeshh), and the ophthalmology reg covers all the eye stuff. Scary but I went through it selamat.. Alhamdulillah. A week of nights starting wednesday night & abis wednesday a.m. the next week. Then dpt around 5-6 days off. 5 days tu sebab tak kira the wednesday yg abis nights tu. 

So I will be working next this tuesday teaching je in a.m. then seminggu arvo shift.. huhuhu... 

Beauty Deadly Sins

This is taken from one of the beauty blogs that I love so much, Musings of A Muse.
Just for fun. Jom buat ni ramai-ramai.

Each one of us must have some sort of beauty sins somewhere somehow. These are mine =)

Greed (excessive desire, esp for wealth or possessions. Tamak haloba): What’s your most expensive beauty item?
--> A perfume by Terry that I bought from Mecca Cosmetica at Myer Melbourne city. Dah charge baru perasan harga... sigh...

Wrath (vengeance. Dendam, marah): What item do you have a love/hate relationship with?
--> cant choose between a concealer or a mascara.

Gluttony (excessive oral intake. Tinggi nafsu makan minum): What brand takes up most of your collection?
--> Clinique, Urban Decay. But I have to count all that I have coz I think I have all sorts of other brands too, kinda mix & match. 

Sloth (laziness. Malas): What product do you neglect the most due to laziness?
--> facial, hair, body masks.Malas nak tunggu to remove them.

Pride (good & bad meanings. The bad one: high opinion to own's merits. Bangga diri, takbur, sombong, bongkak, berlagak): What product gives you the most confidence?
-->perfumes. 

Lust (intense desire. Nafsu): Which item is top of your beauty wish list?
--> ?botox. Hahahahahaahhaaa.. I dont even know what my wish list is at the moment. If I think I need/ want something I would just go buy them. Then regret later... sigh..

Envy (discontent of other's advantanges. Dengki): Which makeup product/look is great on others but not on you?
--> highlighter.

Happy New Year 2015

Havent written much in the past 2 years.

Anyways, just wishing everyone a happy, productive, prosperous, healthy & peaceful new year & beyond.

=)