Congrats Yat and Syahril

My old housemate had been blessed with their fourth child - first daughter - yesterday, and conveniently it was at the hospital right next to the apartment. Both mother and daughter were doing handsomely well - although the same cannot be said about the Dad :)

Yat had some labour pains Sunday and came over to the labour ward, only to return after a couple of hours, but in the evening, her water broke and the contractions were coming thick and fast. A quick midnight dash to the hospital ensued.

Anita was waiting for them to call when they arrived but she fell asleep by the windows. We got the news that the epidural was already up the next morning, and after breakfast, Anita and myself joined Syahril for breakfast at the hospital.

Yat delivered just after lunch and we returned again to visit later in the evening. The baby was fast asleep, unliked Idlan and Irfan when they were born - incidentally at the same ward.

They would likely stay for another day at least, and will definitely visit them again after work today. After all it was only a 5 minutes walk next door.

Extra Coverage

We have been strugling with broadband coverage in the house lately since our main router is almost 4 years old. And then our wifi extender gave up on us last week. I tried dragging my old P1 router from Gombak but the signal inside the apartment was too weak. No joy!

Time for an upgrade.

I went for a new router first - a Linksys WRT1900AC - and should things worked out OK with the upgrade, I would decide on an extender later. So far, the signal in our bedroom from my study appeared to be steady but it could be more stable.

The new router also allowed for a 5GHz transmission, extending the signal further. But despite the upgrade, the signal at the dining room was still too weak. With the 5 GHz setup, I noticed that the upload speed was cut down.

Maybe I needed to do a bit of tweaking to get things really moving. Suffice to say, setting up a network was not my strong suit.

Weekend at Nexus

Lately, my weekends had been taken up by Pharmaceutical events. It appeared that they had been taking a hiatus during the Ramadan months, and now it was payback time. Added that to the wedding invitations and other commitments, my weekends seemed to be full lately.

Today, it at Bangsar South, at a venue called Nexus to be exact. To be honest, Anita was more familiar with the place, and it was only a five minutes drive from my apartment.

The event was an update to the European Haematology Association meeting - which I did not attend - back in June, covering a wide range of malignant haematology subjects. The Saturday program started from 8 am, which I had to miss due to my clinic. I joined the "party" after lunch, just in time to catch the afternoon case presentations. Tomorrow would be a half day do, followed by lunch. This was followed by the MSH Council meeting and early buffet dinner at the serviced apartment cum hotel next door - called Capri - where the outstation delegates stay.

I may have to start my ward round early since the topic looked rather interesting. Then it would be a quick outing with the boys since school term would start again next Tuesday. Another long day tomorrow.

Group Lunch

My good old friends from my UK days came over to the apartment today for lunch. Sad to say that today being Friday, my clinic finished late and I had to rush to the mosque. On of my friend was at Pantai Hospital next door for ante-natal check-up, and since the wait was long, stopped over at our place.

Word got out that she was coming, and Anita decided to cook and invited everybody else over. Great fun, but they were all but done by the time I reached home after my afternoon rounds.

It looked like it would be another week for my friend, failing which she might have to have induction for the baby. All of us were holding our collective breath!

A Day in Putrajaya

I spent the best part of the days today in Putrajaya being immersed into the new Dengue treatment guideline. Certainly there is a fight shift in the treatment algorhitm compared to the last guideline from 2009.

It creator looked neat on paper, easy to follow but my main worry was the input mainly came from the Government Doctors and I worry that they may not under stand limitation of these guideline in the private setting. The practice guideline which they talked about was more on the clinical part, and as a hospital maybe SJMC may need to modify some of the nursing pathways to accommodate. Patient placement in the ward is one of the issues, as the paying customers were more keen on the size of their rooms rather than the monitoring level which the nurses could provide.

The fluid resuscitation regime appeared more systematic, with emphasis on oral fluid intake. Criteria of admission may not apply to Subang as most of time patients were admitted on their request. I was about to ask about whether the Private hospital can be more selective on their admission but that was going to be thorny issue.

I was not able to attebd tomorrow's chapter I was afraid since I would be having clinic. The topic tomorrow appeared more ICU and inpatient orientated, which was more relevant to my practice. Clearly plenty to catch although my current practice did not differ much from the gist of the discussion. At least the need for platelet transfusion was laid out as I still think that there is too much pressure to transfuse either from lack of knowledge, fear if impending deterioration as well as pressure from patients and their relatives. I felt that we a plus have a poster at the Casualty spelling out that platelet transfusion does not cure dengue. The recent drama about papaya leaf also did not help matters.

On the whole, a fruitful day.