Now at UMMC Casualty

It certainly has been a hectic morning. He had a fall in the toilet leaving him with a massive bruise around his left eyes. Arranged for Dad-In-law to come to Casualty while I raced to get my Mum, sending her to Pantai to keep Anita accompany for the day. I left after Idlan woke up and had his breakfast and inhalers.

Irfan was much better this morning. Dr Azam came to review and was happy with his progress. He is likely going to be allowed home tomorrow.

Dad finally arrived at Casualty at around 9. His blood pressure then dropped needing resusciatation. Thank God he responded well to initial treatment and it soon became apparent that he has had internal bleeding. The bleeding has caused his pressure to drop causing him to be dizzy.

While in the toilet this morning, his blood pressure dropped so low that he lost conciousness. He was about to do his business but the next thing he remembered was he was already lying on the floor with a sharp pain on his left eye and left side of the face.

He still managed to pick himself up and went back to sleep. When he woke up later that e realised he was not able to open his left eye. It was shut due to severe bruising and swelling. His vision was still OK however. That was when I was called.

To cut a long story short, it was again his warfarin causing his blood to go too thin. He has since lost blood through his intestine. At the moment he was having blood transfusion in Casualty as well as antidote for the warfarin. Luckily his brain scan was clear with no internal bleeding. It could have been worst.

This poster made my day!

While walking back to my ward after a quick bite for lunch, I walked past the main foyer. Yes the one past the main Pharmacy underneath the tunnel walking along in front of Secret Recipe - previously Delifrance. There was an exhibition there about rare diseases with poster educating people about them. However, the translation of Rare Disease into Malay was rather too literal. Read it yourself .......

Kuala Kangsar, Here I come!

It was a tiring journey straight from work to Kuala Kangsar last evening. In fact I slept most of the way, then straight to sleep again upon reaching here. Friday has always been busy for me, with the quick ward round before starting my clinic. The clinic usually run straight through lunch, when I sheepishly made my exit for the Jumaat Prayers. I also sometime needed to come back after prayers, or worst still had to create a fuss in order to go for prayers.

For yesterday, I had to something extra since Habibah had to leave early and Edmund still in Klang. I also had to give a tutorial to the Oncology Trainees after which I had to run back to perform some procedure in the ward. Luckily I did not have to do the driving. We had the family driver doing that.

Morning walkI had an early dinner on reaching home. We were stuck in the jam however getting into the PLUS toll plaza at Jalan Duta. Once that was done, we only did one toilet stop. By the time we reached Ipoh, both Idlan and Irfan were asleep. We finally reached Kuala Kangsar at 10.45. Unpacked, then I went straight to sleep, and only woke up during the Suboh athan this morning.

Breakfast timeFather-in-law and his morning newspaperPuan Anita had to do some business this mooring, so I was at the kampung home with my two boys and maid. Still planning what to do for the afternoon. I was keen to drive up to Penang but I was not sure if the boys can cope. We will see to that later. In the meantime, I had been reading the first few chapters of 'Superfreakonomics'. It was part economics, part satire, but very sharp observation on the things that happens in our life today and why certain things happened so. There was a part explaining that prostitutes are more likely to sleep with a policeman than to end up in jail, all pretty common sense stuff but interesting read none the less.

Time to chill with the bookIt's Superfreakonomics Time!Will keep everyone updated with our plans for later. Penang sounded a good idea ….

The Daytripper

Picked up some pau for the nurses on the way backMy Father-in-law was feeling much better from the transfusion and currently there was no sign of any ongoing bleed. Puan Anita and the rest of the group left for Kuala Kangsar yesterday for today's doa selamat. After checking up on my father-in-law, I decided to surprise everyone by making my way up there. I set off at around 9.45. Managed to catch the tail end of the kenduri at around 12.15. The road was clear and the weather was fine.

Spot where the kampong house was located - Sg Chempias, Kuala KangsarEveryone was surprised when I turned up unannounced, especially Idlan. The boys spent the night at the kampong house and really enjoyed it. They did not even visit the resort. We just checked in and out. Everything went well until Idlan got freaked out by the number of people turning up for the kenduri. It was certainly more than expected. Luckily we did prepare extra food. Some of Anita's cousin's came up from Kuala Lumpur for the kenduri, so was plenty of the neighbors. Got to meet and introduce myself to them. Idlan was calmer when I turned up. Anita did some shopping and decorating on the house the day before. She also bought a TV and DVD player so that the boys can watch their cartoon. They already started asking about their Wii. May be next time we bring it up as well. I din't have time to snap away though. One of our cousin brought his dSLR and was given the picture detail.

After clearing the place, we had to rush back to KL as my mum-in-law wanted to take some of the kenduri food to my dad-in-law. Luckily he was only due to fast from tomorrow afternoon. I left the kenduri at around 2.30 and reached UMMC by 5.30. It was starting to rain by then, but the traffic was still light. I had some dinner earlier on and is now pretty knackered. Might as well call it the night! 'The Last of the Mohicans' was playing on the TV this very minute.

Happy Holidays!

Wishing my patients and friends Merry Christmas for those celebrate it, and Happy Holidays for those who don't. I noticed this rather festive banner in front of the Palliative Ward and it hit me that tomorrow will be a holiday. 

When I was working in the UK, Xmas was the time when I was definitely on call since I'll be covering my colleagues who were celebrating. The actual Xmas Day was usually quite but the days leading up to it and the days following were usually among the busiest in the year. Relatives would send their parents and oldies to be admitted while they enjoy the festives period and at times it felt really sad that the system has been manipulated somewhat.

The days after Xmas were usually busy for the right reasons as patients tended to stay at home during the Xmas and came to hospital right after. They tended to be more ill by this time. I used to hate this period. Luckily I will be having the weekend off. Will be traveling tomorrow to Kuala Kangsar for a couple of days, having a look at Puan Anita's house there which was just been built. Will blog from there then. Again, Happy Holidays.