I was shadowing an oncologist yesterday. I sat in with him as he did his consultation and followed him around for CT planning for radiotherapy. It was a short two hours but it was definitely fruitful. I saw this lady in her 60’s who was on her third radiotherapy treatment for breast cancer. This was the first time I saw anything like that. It was unilateral and the breast had many nodules surrounding it. The nodules and the adjacent regions were all erythematous. Most of them had punctum and some of them had pus. Scabs were formed due to the radiotherapy. It will probably be something that I will remember for the rest of my life.
Then it was breaking bad news time. Another lady had bone metastases from a primary lung tumour. She suddenly fell when she was standing. The oncologist reckoned that the metastases had caused the bone to snap and the fracture caused the fall. It was something hard to grasp as this lady appears to be really strong and had the idea of being well in a couple of months. It was great that her daughter was there with her. It was even greater to see the love they had for each other. It was a rather emotional moment for everyone there.
Time spent in oncology department was generally great. Everyone was very friendly towards me (you do not get that very often when you are a medical student). Also, the consultant actually remembers my name after 1 week of not meeting me. How wonderful is that? It is definitely not easy for Caucasians to pronounce Yi Wei, what more remembering it. It means so much to us, medical students when they call us by our name (well, at least for me). It was a great experience….
Wednesday, 17 January 2007
Tuesday, 16 January 2007
First Friday in Inverness....
It has been a week since I've updatted this blog due to the inconvenience of internet access. However, I had jot down things that had been happening and I shall just upload them to the next few posts
Firstly, let me give you a brief description of where we stay. It is a 5 minute walk to the hospital. How great is that? There are 32 of us and we are all placed in a portable cabin called Scotia cabin. For a cabin, I would say it is reasonably posh. We have a small room that has cupboard, table, two chairs, and of course a bed and a lamp table.
It is in the shape of an H.
The 2 long rows consist of 16 bedrooms. The middle consists of 2 common rooms and two kitchens. Well, there are many Asians here. When social time comes, the Asians dominate one row and the Westerners dominate the other. However, East meets West once in a while, but not very often :P
So, that’s where I am staying now… Pretty fun I would say. The disadvantage is that we have no internet access. So I can’t update my blog as often as I would like to
The 2 long rows consists of 16 bedrooms each. The middle block consists of 2 common rooms and two kitchens for the two rows.
Last Friday, 12th Jan 2007
Friday… It is a very interesting day today
This morning, was the first time I went to the Hospice in Inverness. It was a very nice place with friendly people around. All five of us ( Sam, Sufian, Elaine, Rama and me) were watching a video clip that explains what happens in the last seconds of someone’s life. Of course, they got the information from people who had a near death experience and in the end, survived the threat. As you would have heard before, people usually say that they see a tunnel of light leading to Heaven. In the clip, it explains this; there is hypoxia in the sensory neurons of the eye and this causes the excitation of neurons and synapses in the brain. The brain interprets it as sparks of light occurring and then the information is sent to the motor neuron through the optic nerve. And this is then seen as a tunnel of light being surrounded by ‘twirling colourful tunnel’. Apart from seeing a tunnel of light, people often experience a sense of euphoria in the last seconds of their life. This experience can be reproducible by using a space centrifuge that creates G force. Apparently, in these circumstances, chemicals are released and this leaves people with a sense of happiness.
Further in the clip, they show a true story of the last moments of a patient who had a large inoperable tumour in his abdomen. He was told that he had a ‘time bomb’ in his abdomen and he can die at any time. He took it in a positive way and tried to enjoy every single moment he had left. At the time he passed away, the doctor looked upset and yet no tears were shed. I do not think I mentioned it earlier, but the GP has been taking care of this patient for years and has had such a good relationship with him. I thought about it for a while and I thought hard. I remember the time when my uncle passed away right in front of me. It was approximately 3 years ago when I was sitting for my end-of-semester exams in semester 3. Everyone present cried except for me. It is not because I had no tears to shed, but it was because I felt that nothing could be done if I were to cry. My grandmother was devastated. My uncle and I brought grandma out and gave her some water to hopefully calm her. This is not the first time I had not cried when faced with death. Well, I would say I am quite an emotional person, it is whether I make myself free from all my responsibilities or not. I feel that I am to portray an image of a strong girl in my family, possibly that is the reason why I do not allow myself to feel weak and vulnerable. I met this patient with SLE last year and she had a medical history that fits at least a 2 sided A4 paper using New Times Roman text of the size 12. I felt so much for her and I made an effort to visit her as much as I could during my posting which lasted for a week. I made her a paper bird to wish her well before I left. I appreciated our relationship and felt much difficulty when it was time to leave. What more if she were to die…. I do not know if I could have coped with that. I debated with the lecturer that morning saying that it is very difficult to care so much for the patient because it is almost like putting yourself in a vulnerable state. You allow yourself to get hurt and who is to blame but yourself. And another thing is, when I told Sam last time that I got so involved with my patient, he told me that I should be fair to all patients, if I practice medicine that way, I am bound to be unfair as there will be some patients that you can connect with better than the others. I think it is quite true. Oh well, I suppose too much of something is never good…. That’s my conclusion
:p
Friday evening
We played table tennis in the evening. Ian brought with him a small set of the game comprising two small table tennis bats (slightly bigger than my palm), the ball and also the net. I played, and it was not surprising that I totally sucked at it. Then my friend, Hui Sian came along. She tried playing. Well, how should I describe this…. She is a very strong girl, and you should have seen her playing against Ian… Ian was practically dodging the ball which was hitting him. It was sooo funny….
Friday night
Later that night, we went out for the celebration of Highland 2007. This was the first time Inverness had this sort of celebration. This was indeed a spectacular night. Although I had to admit that it was extremely cold. Firstly, there was a choir performance, then it was a Scottish song (don’t really know what it was but they were all wearing kilts and playing bagpipes). There the prime minister gave a speech and finally was the launch of Highlands 2007. With that, the fireworks began. It was by far the best fireworks I’d ever seen in my life… Oh, I forgot to mention that the celebration was at the bridge. There were also fireworks on the water. It was amazing. Good job, Inverness!!! It almost makes the one they had in Aberdeen look pathetic...
After that, it was street party TIME!!!. There were monsters on the street. It was really fun because all the monsters looked so real. It was as though we were all in a movie. It was like War of the Worlds starring Tom Cruise. It was very much like that. There were some praying mantis look-a-like monsters, some dinosaurs, some funny looking creatures with sagged faces and also masked men on ostrich like creatures. Hahahah… was just so entertaining…
These are some of the pictures...
Firstly, let me give you a brief description of where we stay. It is a 5 minute walk to the hospital. How great is that? There are 32 of us and we are all placed in a portable cabin called Scotia cabin. For a cabin, I would say it is reasonably posh. We have a small room that has cupboard, table, two chairs, and of course a bed and a lamp table.
It is in the shape of an H.
The 2 long rows consist of 16 bedrooms. The middle consists of 2 common rooms and two kitchens. Well, there are many Asians here. When social time comes, the Asians dominate one row and the Westerners dominate the other. However, East meets West once in a while, but not very often :P
So, that’s where I am staying now… Pretty fun I would say. The disadvantage is that we have no internet access. So I can’t update my blog as often as I would like to
The 2 long rows consists of 16 bedrooms each. The middle block consists of 2 common rooms and two kitchens for the two rows.
Last Friday, 12th Jan 2007
Friday… It is a very interesting day today
This morning, was the first time I went to the Hospice in Inverness. It was a very nice place with friendly people around. All five of us ( Sam, Sufian, Elaine, Rama and me) were watching a video clip that explains what happens in the last seconds of someone’s life. Of course, they got the information from people who had a near death experience and in the end, survived the threat. As you would have heard before, people usually say that they see a tunnel of light leading to Heaven. In the clip, it explains this; there is hypoxia in the sensory neurons of the eye and this causes the excitation of neurons and synapses in the brain. The brain interprets it as sparks of light occurring and then the information is sent to the motor neuron through the optic nerve. And this is then seen as a tunnel of light being surrounded by ‘twirling colourful tunnel’. Apart from seeing a tunnel of light, people often experience a sense of euphoria in the last seconds of their life. This experience can be reproducible by using a space centrifuge that creates G force. Apparently, in these circumstances, chemicals are released and this leaves people with a sense of happiness.
Further in the clip, they show a true story of the last moments of a patient who had a large inoperable tumour in his abdomen. He was told that he had a ‘time bomb’ in his abdomen and he can die at any time. He took it in a positive way and tried to enjoy every single moment he had left. At the time he passed away, the doctor looked upset and yet no tears were shed. I do not think I mentioned it earlier, but the GP has been taking care of this patient for years and has had such a good relationship with him. I thought about it for a while and I thought hard. I remember the time when my uncle passed away right in front of me. It was approximately 3 years ago when I was sitting for my end-of-semester exams in semester 3. Everyone present cried except for me. It is not because I had no tears to shed, but it was because I felt that nothing could be done if I were to cry. My grandmother was devastated. My uncle and I brought grandma out and gave her some water to hopefully calm her. This is not the first time I had not cried when faced with death. Well, I would say I am quite an emotional person, it is whether I make myself free from all my responsibilities or not. I feel that I am to portray an image of a strong girl in my family, possibly that is the reason why I do not allow myself to feel weak and vulnerable. I met this patient with SLE last year and she had a medical history that fits at least a 2 sided A4 paper using New Times Roman text of the size 12. I felt so much for her and I made an effort to visit her as much as I could during my posting which lasted for a week. I made her a paper bird to wish her well before I left. I appreciated our relationship and felt much difficulty when it was time to leave. What more if she were to die…. I do not know if I could have coped with that. I debated with the lecturer that morning saying that it is very difficult to care so much for the patient because it is almost like putting yourself in a vulnerable state. You allow yourself to get hurt and who is to blame but yourself. And another thing is, when I told Sam last time that I got so involved with my patient, he told me that I should be fair to all patients, if I practice medicine that way, I am bound to be unfair as there will be some patients that you can connect with better than the others. I think it is quite true. Oh well, I suppose too much of something is never good…. That’s my conclusion
:p
Friday evening
We played table tennis in the evening. Ian brought with him a small set of the game comprising two small table tennis bats (slightly bigger than my palm), the ball and also the net. I played, and it was not surprising that I totally sucked at it. Then my friend, Hui Sian came along. She tried playing. Well, how should I describe this…. She is a very strong girl, and you should have seen her playing against Ian… Ian was practically dodging the ball which was hitting him. It was sooo funny….
Friday night
Later that night, we went out for the celebration of Highland 2007. This was the first time Inverness had this sort of celebration. This was indeed a spectacular night. Although I had to admit that it was extremely cold. Firstly, there was a choir performance, then it was a Scottish song (don’t really know what it was but they were all wearing kilts and playing bagpipes). There the prime minister gave a speech and finally was the launch of Highlands 2007. With that, the fireworks began. It was by far the best fireworks I’d ever seen in my life… Oh, I forgot to mention that the celebration was at the bridge. There were also fireworks on the water. It was amazing. Good job, Inverness!!! It almost makes the one they had in Aberdeen look pathetic...
After that, it was street party TIME!!!. There were monsters on the street. It was really fun because all the monsters looked so real. It was as though we were all in a movie. It was like War of the Worlds starring Tom Cruise. It was very much like that. There were some praying mantis look-a-like monsters, some dinosaurs, some funny looking creatures with sagged faces and also masked men on ostrich like creatures. Hahahah… was just so entertaining…
These are some of the pictures...
Saturday, 6 January 2007
Going to Inverness...
It's 11.47pm now...
Everyone in the flat is busy packing.
Everyone except for me.
Taxi is coming at 1.30pm to bring us to Forresterhill and we are all leaving to Inverness at 2.00pm by bus.
Shal is still packing her stuff, bringing 2 huge luggage and one laptop bag
Sam is bringing one HUGE black bag, another huge backpack and another laptopbag
I have four bags... One huge bag, and another 3 small bags.
3 people and we need a taxi with 6 seats.
Hahahaha...
There won't be any internet access in the place we stay... Sigh... I suppose it is good in a way ler. Can study better...
I will still be able to update this blog ler, since there is internet access in university. I won't expect it to be so often of course...
:P
Hahahahah... Sam just came into my room and told me that Adeline is suppose to follow us as well
So that's 4 of us in the 6 seater cab...Hahahaha... That's good... Save money... ;p
Shal wanted to bring 4 kiwis to Inverness. I told her to share it out. She explained that she was too lazy to skin it. I, of course, voluntereed to cut it and skin it. Hihihi...Then I saw sam talking on the phone with nothing else to do... I asked him, and he says yes!!! Hahahah... So there, he's in the kitchen, preparing kiwis for all of us. Shal's reply was, she was surprised that I actually said I was going to skin the kiwis... she thought that things have changed... Well, I suppose some things don't change... Yi Wei's LAZINESS...:P
Everyone in the flat is busy packing.
Everyone except for me.
Taxi is coming at 1.30pm to bring us to Forresterhill and we are all leaving to Inverness at 2.00pm by bus.
Shal is still packing her stuff, bringing 2 huge luggage and one laptop bag
Sam is bringing one HUGE black bag, another huge backpack and another laptopbag
I have four bags... One huge bag, and another 3 small bags.
3 people and we need a taxi with 6 seats.
Hahahaha...
There won't be any internet access in the place we stay... Sigh... I suppose it is good in a way ler. Can study better...
I will still be able to update this blog ler, since there is internet access in university. I won't expect it to be so often of course...
:P
Hahahahah... Sam just came into my room and told me that Adeline is suppose to follow us as well
So that's 4 of us in the 6 seater cab...Hahahaha... That's good... Save money... ;p
Shal wanted to bring 4 kiwis to Inverness. I told her to share it out. She explained that she was too lazy to skin it. I, of course, voluntereed to cut it and skin it. Hihihi...Then I saw sam talking on the phone with nothing else to do... I asked him, and he says yes!!! Hahahah... So there, he's in the kitchen, preparing kiwis for all of us. Shal's reply was, she was surprised that I actually said I was going to skin the kiwis... she thought that things have changed... Well, I suppose some things don't change... Yi Wei's LAZINESS...:P
And this is the already skinned kiwis.... Thanks to Sam... :P..
Friday, 5 January 2007
Happy New Year....
This new year's celebration was indeed the best I've ever had. It was a rather simple celebration but it involves great people. I was back in Malaysia and celebrated with my family. We had our
uncles, aunties and cousins over at our place for barbecue. Dad brought out the karaoke set after a very long time. I definitely have to admit that I did not really helped much with the preparation of food. In the admidst of preparing food, my sis, Yi Hua and I picked up the microphones and started singing. Hahahahah... Yeah... Yi Wei singing. Not a normal sight at all. We sang songs from Westlife and Michael learns to Rock 
albums. Though the songs are not my favourites, it was still good fun. Never realised how much I missed singing. Went out of tune a couple of times... not like I really care. Apart from that, shared jokes with my cousins and we all had good laugh. We played Pictionary after that, and I suppose it's not surprising that my team lost ( having Yi Wei the girl with limited vocabulary does not help ). But it was still amazingly fun.. yeah... even the losing part...Let's sum up the events that happened in Yi Wei's life in 2006
Went to Aberdeen in April
Broke up with her boyfriend two weeks later because was uncomfortable with him being so close to his housemate ( who is also a very close friend of mine)
Told him not to tell her that the break up was because of her thinking that her close friend is just being close to him like she does with everyone. Does not want her close friend to feel guilty
Heard rumours about them doing *stuff* even before we broke up
Obviously smart Yi Wei didn't believe any of them just because she trusted both of them.
Hah... Found out the truth 6 months later that things happened on the night Yi Wei left
Great... That's what I call stupidity
:P
The great thing about this is that I got to know my friend's ex-bf ( were still together with her when things happened)
Gaining a new friend along the way...
Thanks for listening to all the whinings that I had...
And I finally agree with some of the things that you had told me earlier...
Love life wasn't great for me at all last year
Did many mistakes and end up hurting people
Of course in the process, being hurt as well
Well, it's lesson to be learnt. If only I will learn :P
Apart from that, I worked as a waitress for about 6 months
The work is really demanding and this is the list of work I had to do;
Wash the dishes and glasses, take orders, clean the tables, set up the tables, prepare drinks ( including wine and mixed alcohols), make tea and coffees using the coffee machine ( including espresso, cappuccino, white coffee, double espresso, machiato, black coffee, and mocha), sweep and mop the floor, prepare the bills and finally, some administration stuff as well
Got to know 2 very nice people at work
However, got helluva bad time from another person and when I say bad, it is really bad... Almost cried two times..
Hihiihih.....
But, I learned a lot from there....So, I suppose, that's good ler...
One great thing happened last year...
I learned to love medicine and now, I can finally see myself becoming a doctor one day.
I usually regret a lot of things in my life, but choosing this profession is definitely the best choice I've made in my life. I cannot imagine myself doing anything except medicine. And because of this dicovery, I think it cancels out all the bad stuffs that had happened in 2006. :P
Though had a pretty rough time last year, I would like to say thank you to those who stood by me. I really appreciate it and do let me do the same for you. Come to me when there is any problem and I will always try my best to be there for you. I think I shouldn't have to write down all te names, because I am sure you know who you are. Thank you so much...
Now, in the year 2007,
It's definitely going to be a better year.... So hopeful.... Well, it doesn't hurt hoping..:P
Life's Journey
Do not undermine your worth by comparing yourself with others.
It is because we are different that each of us is special.
Do not set your goals by what other people deem important.
Only you know what is best for you.
Do not take for granted the things closest to your heart.
Cling to them as you would your life, for without them, life is meaningless.
Do not let your life slip through your fingers by living in the past nor for the future.
By living your life one day at a time, you live all of the days of your life.
Do not give up when you still have something to give.
Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying.
It is a fragile thread that binds us to each other.
Do not be afraid to encounter risks.
It is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave.
Do not shut love out of your life by saying it is impossible to find.
The quickest way to receive love is to give love.
The fastest way to lose love is too hold it too tightly.
In addition, the best way to keep love is to give it wings
Do not dismiss your dreams.
To be without dreams is to be without hope.
To be without hope is to be without purpose.
Do not run through life so fast that you forget not only where you have been, but also where you are going.
Life is not a race, but a journey to be savored each step of the way.
It is because we are different that each of us is special.
Do not set your goals by what other people deem important.
Only you know what is best for you.
Do not take for granted the things closest to your heart.
Cling to them as you would your life, for without them, life is meaningless.
Do not let your life slip through your fingers by living in the past nor for the future.
By living your life one day at a time, you live all of the days of your life.
Do not give up when you still have something to give.
Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying.
It is a fragile thread that binds us to each other.
Do not be afraid to encounter risks.
It is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave.
Do not shut love out of your life by saying it is impossible to find.
The quickest way to receive love is to give love.
The fastest way to lose love is too hold it too tightly.
In addition, the best way to keep love is to give it wings
Do not dismiss your dreams.
To be without dreams is to be without hope.
To be without hope is to be without purpose.
Do not run through life so fast that you forget not only where you have been, but also where you are going.
Life is not a race, but a journey to be savored each step of the way.
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