Back to muar

After a whole week of recupperating from illness, its time once again to go back to the land of otak-otak. I’ll be spending new years in Muar this year because in Johor, New Years is not a public holiday =( Speaking of public holidays, i’m working tomorrow on Awal Muharram from 1pm-9pm. Just me and 2 dispensers. Gonna be a challenging day.

In other news, it feels great to be back on my feet again. Falling sick sucks, and I think I lost about 3kg worth of muscle mass =( Nothing a little workout + whey protein can’t help.

Recently I watched two good movies – IP MAN (pronounced ‘yip mun’) and YES MAN (pronounced ‘yes man’). Kungfu lovers, IP Man has way exceeded my expectations. Go watch it. Yes Man stars Jim Carrey at his best, I would rate it 7/10 though. Still an entertaining watch. So what are you guys waiting for?

Chinese New Year is coming! 26th and 27th January, don’t forget these dates. For me, balik kampung shouldnt be that difficult as kampung is only 20 minutes drive from my place in Muar T.T

So to everyone, Happy New Year/Chinese New Year, Gong Xi Fa Cai, and drive carefully this festive season alright ?

Merry Xmas ’08

Khaiyong.wordpress.com would like to wish its readers a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year!

P.S I’ve almost achieved t 100% recovery =)

All I want for Christmas… Is a body temperature of 36.9C.

Once again, I find myself waking up in a puddle of sweat.

For the past 5 days, I have been struggling with Acute Tonsilitis. The inflammation of the tonsils. My throat is so inflamed that each time I swallow my heart beat goes up a few notches instinctively to face the excruciating pain that awaits me. This is particularly annoying as we as humans tend to swallow our own saliva every few seconds to keep our throats moist.

Thankfully, somehow I have managed to condition myself to minimize this reflex swallowing action.

Things get worse at night, especially once the effects of Panadol™ wear thin. My body starts to shiver despite the extra jacket and the next thing you know, my hand starts trembling so fast, like a drug addict, deprived of his coke. With shaky hands I force 2 pills down my throat, bunker up in bed and pray that the night ends quickly.

Antibiotics, Pain Killers, Grandma’s Secret Concoction… I’ve tried it all. As a pharmacist, I strongly believe that if theres a drug for a disease, it can be cured. Even though its my 5th day battling the scourge, I’ve complete faith that I will be better soon. I bet my job on it.

Muarrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhhh

Im sacrificing my beauty sleep to make this blog post. See how determined I am? *hint hint* Anyways life’s not as interesting as night shift but stuff still happens nevertheless. So far i’ve been scolded by a doctor, a patient and a pharmacist. There goes all my dignity lol. But i’m glad there’s great people there who still look out for me. Cheers to you guys. So what sort of entertainment do I have in muar? Many have asked me this question. Well, Mondays and Wednesdays are reserved for basketball, and recently the muar pharmacists have a new hobby – Badminton, which happens on Tuesday nights. I still suck but I hope to improve in due time. Other days we just go out and try good food. I normally sleep at 12am after watching Forensic Heroes with Mr Tan (prp tan) and Miss Tan (also prp tan). So yeah, lifes pretty simple and mundane but I still get to go back to KL on certain weekends so I still get the best of both worlds. Good nite!

Night Shift Part 2

Ok i’m too lazy to continue with day 1. Haha. So it was my second night at the hospital. I’m getting better and better at this. I now know where the suppossitories are kept

Kak Nap has been exceptionally helpful in teaching me the ways of the pharmacy. I feel abit guilty for making fun of her in my last posts. She tested me on brand names/generic names of the commonly dispensed drugs. She was like a teacher to me and to be frank i’m gonna miss working with her.

Anyhoo, about 6am last night a security guard came and informed me that a bus accident had occurred along the North-South expressway. I prepared the Tramadol, Prolase and Paracetamol as I braced myself for the blood-soaked patients. I rushed to the A&E  to check out the scene. It was like a medical drama out of a sudden. All the on-call doctors, physician assistants, paramedics, and staff nurses were summoned to the A&E for briefing . They brought beds from other wards as they knew the A&E would be filled up.

Then the victims arrived. The hall was filled with relatives of the victims. All I could hear then was screams of anguish and cries of sorrow. The medical staff were quick to provide relief to the victims. But as much as they tried, the death toll went up. Later on at the pharmacy, the cries of the victims could still be heard echoing in my head.

Life is so fragile. Everyone, please drive carefully wherever you are. Think of your loved ones. This is a public service announcement from khaiyong.wordpress.com.

Night Shift – Part 1

External hard drive filled with movies – Check.

Water bottle – Check.

Four Hour Work Week – Check.

BNF – Check…

The parking lots were alot more empty than usual… I comfortably shoved my car into the nearest parking space I could find. The scene was quite different compared to the usual. The building was dimly lit amidst an already dark and eerie town. People clad in loose green pyjamas could be seen sitting on the benches, wondering when they could leave this place and go back to their lives.

I made my way to the outpatient department to get the keys. There were only 2 staff members manning the whole department. The metal rails of the counters were already half closed as I entered. There i bumped into Kak Nap, my partner for the night. She gave me funny looks as she passed me the keys to the satelite pharmacy. I shuddered at the thought of working alone with her, as she has been rumoured to have a liking for young boyish pharmacists.  “I shall NOT bend down to pick up medicine”, I thought to myself…

And so night shift began. It started out with filling emergency supples for ward patients. I’ve done this before during my tagging session in Ward Supply, so I thought it was gonna be a cinch. The nurses waited impatiently as I sheepishly keyed in the details for labels to be printed. Kak Nap looked on for awhile … until she couldn’t stand it anymore.

***

“Biar Kak buat la, Khaiyong fill medicine.”

And then it hit me. I didn’t know what I was doing. Things weren’t as easy as it seemed. I quietly stood aside to let Kak Nap take over the job. The labels came out so quickly I felt ashamed to even call myself a pharmacist. I filled the medicines in and the nurses went and their way, silently giggling at my noobish-ness. To make matters worse, I didn’t really know the layout of the satelite pharmacy. Many a time I had to ask Kak Nap where the suppositories were kept (praying hard that it wasn’t in the lower shelves).

And so the night went on. It started to rain heavily. The banging thunder made me wish I was at home cuddled up in my bed. I’ve dispensed to several patients wrapped in bandages soaked with blood. We get alot of motorcycle accidents this time of the hour.

Suddenly, the computerised dispensing system went haywire. We called up one of the senior pharmacists and I was told to go the the Ward Supply building where the main server was located. Kak Nap asked if it was okay if I went alone as someone had to man the pharmacy. I immediately agreed – to try to make up for my noobishness earlier. Little did I know that there were many stories of that place at night…

One night in Queenstown (Bandar Maharani)

Today starts my night shift so I had the whole day off.  I’m all alone this weekend so I decided to do some exploring around Muar on my own. Discovered a basketball court and 2 cybercafes near my house tee-hee. Who ever said Muar was ulu??? Oh wait, it was me. My favourite chap fan stall was closed today so i had to eat oily chicken rice =(

This week has been more exciting than the past. Made some new friends thanks to another friend so things are gonna be more exciting now at least.

Monday evening- Basketball

Tuesday evening- Badminton

Wednesday evening- Basketball

Thursday evening- Cook at home

Friday evening- HOME

Doesn’t sound too bad eh? Hope so. Come to think of it, life in Muar ain’t that bad. I guess my only complain is the lack of social life here. I have foreseen it a long time ago as the only people we see everyday are us pharmies. =(

Here’s a list of interesting food I’ve had so far since coming here:

-Otak-otak

-Teo Chew watery porridge

-Famous Ikan Bakar

-Famous Asam Fish

-Otak-otak (yes ive had too much of it)

-And one more dish that is actually Pan Mee but called something else.

Later at night there will be only me and one pharmacy technician. The pharmacy technicians here and well experienced and they know alot more than us PRPs so I will be counting on their guidance if anything.

Can’t wait for Dec 12…

Weekly news

Times flies in a blink of an eye and here I am again yet again on another Sunday morning. I’m currently based in the therapeutic drug monitoring department, where I mostly test blood samples for toxic drug levels in patients and advice doctors on what to do >.< I 360 degree turn from my previous week in the outpatient department. Next week will be more of a challenging one as I will be working on the weekends as well. I have been lucky enough to be selected for the night shift (9.30pm-8am) after just 2 weeks in the hospital as compared to some of my colleagues who have been in the hospital for months. Night shift meaning I will be manning the satelite pharmacy station in the wee hours of the morning, responding to emergencies, demanding nurses and werewolves.

Before i forget – Some rather sad news for me. I will be celebrating Xmas and New Year’s eve in Muar as both fall in the middle of the week and its quite senseless for me to come back as I have to get to work at 8am the next day. One of the perks of being a pharmacist i guess.

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Random snippet-

Definition of ‘Rx’

Rx: A medical prescription. The symbol “Rx” is usually said to stand for the Latin word “recipe” meaning “to take.” It is customarily part of the superscription (heading) of a prescription.

Another explanation for the origin of Rx is that it was derived from the astrological sign for Jupiter which was once placed on prescriptions to invoke that god’s blessing on the drug to help the patient recover.

Taken from medicine.net

I think the next time I will be back in KL would be the 12th of December. See you guys then!

Muar, land of otak-otak.

I’m now working in Muar, Johor. It has been an exciting week for me, albeit a tiring one. From buying furniture to exploring the single-laned roads whilst navigation through hoards of motorcyclist who think they own the road, my heart is still in anticipation of what awaits me in this year ahead.

To cut a long story short, I’m currently staying a couple of minutes drive from Hospital Pakar Sultanah Fatimah with 3 of my IMU classmates. We go everywhere together, from playing mahjong to shopping for mirrors in Wetex Plaza, I feel grateful for having such good company with me.

Last week I was assigned to the Outpatient department, which involves tasks such as prescription filling (basically taking medicines from the cupboard), counting tablets, making syrups *wink phekjoo* and dispensing. I usually stand from 8-1pm in the morning busy filling prescriptions as it gets rather busy at that time. After lunch, I usually have a go at dispensing. There’s alot of room for improvement, but the Kakaks have been kind and helpful in assisting my learning process.

The best part is, since I’m in Muar town, I get to go back very often. Most of my colleagues are from KL and we can carpool to go back KL for cheap =) So that way I get the best of 2 worlds!

Well, thats my story for now. By the way, I bumped into the infamous Namewee while eating at some Medan Selera in Muar. Checkout his latest Muar Love Song.

Random

… Less than 24 hours and 100 pages to go. How the hell am I going to pass this paper? My hearts beating like mad… I can’t afford to fail this or the consequences will be dire. I take a sip form my third cup of coffee and suddenly… I wake up.

Sometimes I keep forgetting that i’ve graduated