NZ #2: city of sails

that's what they call auckland. because there's a harbour with lots of boats.

other than that, it's much like any other. the main street is preparing for christmas,

there are street performers....

& people are quite friendly.

but i find it refreshing that people can just proclaim the Word openly on the streets.....

& you definitely know you are in NZ because this is bungy country. like you get on this 3-seater...

which is attached to 2 elastic ropes...

then, they release the catch & it's up, up & away....
















and no, i didn't.

NZ #1: the vacation that almost wasn't

this is what i did in preparation:


1) bought air-tickets 10 months early - there was a MAS promotion & we grabbed them, literally!


2) having ample time before the trip, we changed currency whenever the rate was favourable.


3) asked around/checked blogs on travel tips; since this was going to be free & easy, i had to plan the destinations & duration of stay within the time-frame of the vacation.


4) check-out the accomodation & car rental rates for best offer. i paid online for the apartment on the 1st & last day of the trip. for the rest, i booked as i went along so that our travel route can remain flexible. in NZ itself, the free AA accomodation guide was fantastic & most have freephone numbers.


5) since i was going to drive, made sure my m'sian driving licence was valid & my own GPS was loaded with NZ maps. you could rent a GPS with the car rental for NZD12 a day, but why pay extra?


6) bought travel insurance  for a hundred ringgit plus per family, just to cover the unexpected.


7) as it was summer, brought sunscreen lotion & shades.


this is what i should have done:


1) as peak tourist period only starts in 2nd half of december, after the school term ends, should have gone to car rental personally to choose the vehicle. instead, i booked thru the phone & they could only confirm the class of car, eg. family sedan, either nissan or toyota. i had expected a toyota corolla but got a nissan sentra instead. although it was a 7-yr car, it was very well-maintained. they even offered free pick-up & drop-off within the city.


2) i underestimated the size of NZ. although i had not planned on going to south island, the north island was still huge!! we covered 2000km within 7 days & even then, only visited half of the island. in the end, 3 days in auckland was probably a day too many.


finally, we almost have to cancel. 3 days before we were due to leave, we were told one of the girls in the boy's cello class had chicken pox. a day before departure, the boy had a slight fever & he developed little skin lesions over his neck. without hesitation, i started him on zovirax, just in case it's early chicken pox. the lesions weren't typical pox & besides, i think he already had chicken pox before.


our options were either we cancelled the trip or i go with the daughter while the wife stay back with the boy.


as it turned out, he got better the next day & the skin lesions, whatever they were, subsided. i had planned to complete the 5-day course of zovirax anyway except that, while filling out the arrival forms on the plane, there was a question on bringing in medicines into NZ. in case i needed to explain it & the custom people got overly suspicious about harbouring dangerous viruses, i decided to discard the zovirax. as it turned out, those guys didn't even bothered looking into the bag.

NZ, here we come.....

**image : a crimson flower from the pohutukawa tree aka NZ christmas tree because the flowers tend to blossom in dec**

Paihia

now, that's one name you'll almost never hear about in NZ. it's a little sea-side town on the north-east of the north island. it's a starting point for those planning for the 90-mile beach.

the view is great, the apartment is marvellous.

tomorrow we go on a drive to the 90-mile beach. at the end of this is cape reinga, where the waters of the tasman sea & pacific ocean meet.

should be fun.

PS wish you all were here!!

vacation

we're off for our year-end vacation & will be back on 12th dec.

think hobbits.

houseman glut

that was the front-page headline in saturday's Star. read here


those within the medical fraternity have already known for some time that the rate at which the government is trying to achieve the magical figure of 1 doctor for every 600 people is just too fast & too furious.

establishing private medical schools at an average rate of 1-2 a year for the last 10 years has obviously lowered the qualifying requirement of the students since these schools, currently 17 in all,  require numbers to be profitable. & where are they going to get competent academics to teach the students? manipal, monash & newcastle may benefit from their collaboration with the respective home universities.

my colleague Dr L is assoc prof in one of the public medical universities in the klang valley. in his ward, there are 2 housemen for every patient & as many as 5 can go missing at any time & no one will notice the difference!! remember, it's our tax money that's paying their rm4000 monthly salaries!!

during a particular clinical teaching session, some were asked to describe how they'd catheterise a patient, ie. pass a rubber tube to help the patient pass urine. none of the housemen could give the right answer & the worse part was that none seemed interested to want to learn the proper way to do it.

when my peers were housemen, we were criticised for being young & inexperienced; apparently, you could add indifference to that list now.

at this rate, it's only going to get worse. 

& that's putting it mildly.

today is black friday

when the colour black is used to describe something, it's usually not good.


like black widow, the female spider that eats up its male partner after mating.


or, black death, the bubonic plague epidemic that wiped out half of europe's population in 1350.


or, black money, a scam where con artists attempt to fraudulently obtain money from a greedy victim by persuading him/her that  piles of banknote-sized paper in an envelope is really money which has been dyed black (e.g. to avoid detection by customs).


or, black monday, 19 oct 1987 when the american stock exchange lost 22% in a single day. that event marked the beginning of a global stock market decline, making Black Monday one of the most notorious days in recent financial history.


or, black friday. in september 24, 1869 there was a financial panic in the United States caused by two speculators’ efforts to corner the gold market.


but today, the friday after thanksgiving day in the US is also called black friday, a name originally given by the Philadelphia Police Department in 1966. "Black Friday" officially opens the Christmas shopping season and it usually brings massive traffic jams and over-crowded sidewalks as the downtown stores are mobbed from opening to closing.


over the years, the importance of the consumer spending during this period has become important to the sale figures for the retailers, & crucially adds to the bottom-line. it could turn a lacklustre loss-making year into one with bulging profits. hence, the terms "in the red" & "in the black."

however, black friday is only applicable in the US. over here, every & any occasion can be used as gimmick sales - new year sale, mid-year sale, year-end sale, opening sale, renovation sale, stock-clearing sale, closing-down sale.....

the list is endless.

raw nerve

someone sent this to me & i thought it struck a really raw nerve.

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
 Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931

thanks CT, for the email.

she's back......!

the girl came back from cambodia yesterday. since i finished work a bit early today, i took a "short drive" down to the Little Red Dot to catch up with her.


we just had enough time for a steak dinner....

and some ice-cream after that.

& i told her - i missed her when she was away.

flown the nest....literally.

except for class trips, the girl has never gone on vacation without us & neither have we gone away without the kids.

so, it was a totally new experience that she went on an overseas trip with her schoolmates today. i posted on this earlier this year. (read here)

as concerned parents, it's difficult to let the young ones go but we consoled ourselves that this would put her in good stead when she eventually leaves for varsity in 3 years' time. moving around with her group of schoolmates, i know she will not be alone & more importantly, she's God's child & will be under His care.

what did get me worried (a bit) was that when i tried to call the hotel reception in siem reap, the guy could hardly understand me & i don't think i speak bad english either. this is supposedly a 4* international hotel in the town centre.

we do really look forward to her return next week.

full circle

my 1st camera was a canon SLR which was purchased in the 80s.

it served me very well till the affordable compact aim-&-shoot cameras made their debut in the late 80s. after that, i had a olympus digital camera which developed a problem with the shuuter-release button while on vacation. the dealer told me it was cheaper to get a new one than to repair it. i then got a lumix which i still use & i liked it for the 10X zoom. read here.

then i caught the bug - the dSLR bug. so, after months of mulling over the nikon D90, i took the plunge & joined the crowd. but it wasn't the D90 i got.

yeah, it's got zillions of pixels, image-stabilizer & superb image processing but personally, as far as photography is concerned, i have turned a full circle.

expatriate

that word generally gives a good impression. like someone specially recruited from another country,  who is well-schooled, highly-qualified, an expert in a chosen field of profession & certainly generously remunerated. like a CEO of a well-run corporation.

but that has not been my experience with those i've encountered of late. i considered them expatriates only because they are foreigners & are paid better than the locals. however, the similarity to my earlier description ends there.

their attitude to work is generally lackadaisical, they shun responsibilities, teamwork is an alien concept (pun definitely intended) to them & they are certainly not top performers in their chosen field of work.

unfortunately, they are here to stay, just like their fellow workers who are in construction, cleaning & domestic help services. as long as there remains a void left by the locals who seek their fortune elsewhere, as long as there is a desperate demand for their substandard services, they will continue to torture be around for some time to come.

so, i grit my teeth & try to bear with it.

pound of flesh

i would say, it's been a difficult year for the girl. away from home, living with friends & not family, taking bus to school & trying to cope with a  high-strung education system.

given the trying circumstances, i think she's done remarkably well & she knows that, too. that's why she's come out with her year-end wish list. starting with this pair of nike sneakers....

the list includes a swatch & some clothes. i jokingly told her it's that time of the year again to take that pound of flesh from me.

seriously, i shouldn't complain. there's still no sign of an iPhone, iPad or dSLR on that list.

yet.

If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! matt 7:11

elections

no, i'm not going to write up about the political kind currently going on in galas & batu sapi.

i'm referring to the upcoming elections in church for officer-bearers for next year. quite unlike the political manoeuvering that will culminate in the polls tomorrow, the one in church is very much more sedate. no, none of that name-calling, back-stabbing & character assasination stuff for the nominees. in fact, it's just the opposite - we have difficulty getting leaders to rise up to serve in the various ministries.

that's probably because we have a unique problem - there is a whole generation of 25-45 year-olds that virtually doesn't exist. most of the current office-bearers are above 45 & almost all have served several terms already. some have expressed intention to step down but there's just few people in their 30s & early 40s to take over.

until such time when this generation of young people aged 25 & below is groomed to to fill existing shoes, we'll just have to make do with what we have. i've been privately expressing my own opinion, sometimes rather bluntly, concerning people who should be standing up to be counted instead of being just pew-warmers & space-fillers.

Someone Up There must have heard me because the potential leaders i mentioned eventually accepted nomination for the various posts. while i was wondering at this turn of events, whether i may have spoken harshly too soon, or have failed to see the hands of God at work, i found out the bitter truth in these words :

Fools find no pleasure in understanding
but delight in airing their own opinions.
prov 18:2

i now bow my head in shame.

near-perfect weekend

no doctors i know ever relish doing on-call on weekends, regardless of remuneration. myself included.

but although my time is largely determined by the whims and fancies severity of the patients' illnesses & i can't get away from that, it doesn't stop me from making a wish-list of a perfect weekend on-call :

1) all clinical work completed by evening;
2) no need to be called out to hospital after 12 midnite;
3) uninterrupted sleep till the next morning;
4) able to attend church on sunday morning;
5) have dinner with the family AND.....
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6) get to watch all the important Premier League games!!

last weekend, i only missed out on one dinner with the family. can't really ask for more!

**after some thought, i realised the term "perfect weekend on-call" probably doesn't exist - can spending time on-call in hospital over a weekend be considered perfect??**

vengence

we all know about the tragic accident involving a bus near genting just last week. 7 killed & 17 others injured, including the driver. today, he admitted to not even possessing a valid driving licence while adding that the brakes on the bus weren't working. it wouldn't surprise me that all fingers will now be pointed at the bus owners. why did they employ a driver without a licence & why did they use a bus with faulty brakes?

you could say it's bad luck. 13 years driving without a licence & if it weren't for a bus with faulty brakes going down a slope, he'd still be driving a bus with someone you know or love in it. or, you yourself could have been in it.

a lot of things around us would have passed by unnoticed if it weren't for a twist in events.

if the cost overruns of the PKFZ weren't discovered, we would not have known about the shady land deals & other financial irregularities, costing the public billions of ringgit.

if it weren't for the financial crisis of 2007/8, bernie madoff would still be happily ripping millions off innocent investors with his ponzi schemes.

however, herein lies the difference...

from his hospital bed, the injured bus driver has publicly apologised for his transgression. he will probably be charged for dangerous driving, driving without a valid licence & perhaps even manslaughter, punishable by a jail term if found guilty.

madoff also made a public apology in court before he was sentenced to a 150-year imprisonment last year.

however, the perpetrators of the PKFZ fiasco have neither apologised for misleading the govt nor expressed remorse for squandering public funds. they are still walking free.

In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them for the eyes of the LORD are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good. deut 32:35, prov 15:3

dǎo gào

that's mandarin for "to pray."


i was examining a patient last nite for surgery today. she has terminal cancer but looked surprisingly cheerful. while explaining what she would undergo, i noticed she has a bible by her bedside. i asked her if she was a believer, to which she replied she was. then unwittingly, i asked if i could say a prayer for her before the operation, to which she happily consented.


that's when i realised she is mandarin-educated & i've never gone beyond a smattering of mandarin in my everyday life. i decided to call up the mandarin-church pastor to ask for some pointers & interpretation. as i recited the prayer with him, he mentioned that i was not all that ready but i told him i just needed to do it.


so, i've never dǎo gào till today. & it wasn't fluent, some words had the wrong intonation but it was obvious she was pleased that i managed to say a few words of encouragement for her. that's the least i could do for someone who seemed to face her future with the confidence of God.


after surgery, my parting words to her was zǎo rì  kāng fù.*

*speedy recovery

green cars

before i bought my current altis this year, i had seriously considered a hybrid car. despite a 50% reduction on import & excise tax, i decided that the toyota prius at RM175K & honda hybrid at RM129K were both still overpriced.


the recent budget has proposed a complete abolition of these taxes beginning next year, thereby reducing the price of these green cars to RM128K & RM100K, respectively. i'm already thinking maybe i'll change in a year or two. although i may be unconsciously reducing carbon output, i'm more aware of the fuel savings involved. after all, don't expect the price of petrol to remain unchanged in the long term & all indications are that it'll go up rather than down.

however, at above RM100k, these green cars are still beyond the reach of the masses. i guess this is where proton will join the hybrid bandwagon. Onn Yeoh, in an article in today's Sun paper, suggests the government do more for the environment, by lowering road taxes for these cars & offer special parking in the city. i wonder how the petroleum companies will respond to this proposal, considering these cars consume significantly less fuel.

my colleague Dr L won't be too happy, though. he just got a Prius in June.

worship

in sept, i made the decision to lead the worship, for the 1st time, at today's service.

for a start, i have to choose a sunday where my Care Group can support me as musicians & back-up singers. actually, it's odd i just mentioned that, because in my CG, only i can play the guitar & another, the piano. since, i'm leading, i won't play, so it's just down to the piano. i wanted it solely to be the CG's effort.

after that, i needed to select the songs that i'm familiar with, because other than the pianist, the rest of us (myself included!) are largely tone-deaf!

then, there must be a time for all of us to avail ourselves for practice, which was narrowed down to yesterday afternoon.

so, why did i take it upon myself to go through these aggravations?

well, i've been asked to worship-lead several times before some years back, but each time, i've turned it down, giving various excuses. then when i re-read the gospel where the angel appeared before Mary to foretell the virgin birth of Christ, all she said was:

"I am the Lord's servant, may it be to me as you have said."  luke1:38

if she, though not yet married to Joseph, was willing to shoulder the heavy responsibility of carrying Jesus, i reasoned that leading worship would be also a responsibility a (true) servant of the Lord would not chicken out from refuse. for the record, it went much better than expected. was it because my prayer went like this...

"even though we may not sing with the voices of angels, we praise from our hearts & may it be a sweet, sweet sound to Your ear?" 

When you feel impelled to help fill a need, when you are inwardly driven to serve – listen to those thoughts. You don’t want to miss God’s call. (Cindy Hess Kasper)

euthanasia (or be careful what you ask for!)

Last night my wife and I were sitting in the living room chatting about things and life.

Then we talked about living and dying.


I said to her, “Dear, if ever I end up in a vegetative state when you are alive, please never let me go on like that, being totally dependent on machines and liquids from a bottle. If you see me in that state, I want you to disconnect all the contraptions that keep me alive. I'd much rather die.”

Up went my wife from the sofa, with this lingering look of admiration towards me.


She then proceeded to disconnect the TV, the Cable, the satellite dish, the DVD player, the computer, the cell phone, the hi-fi, the IPod and the Xbox, and then went to the fridge and threw away all my beer!!

thanks, YO, for the email.

instead of thinking of dying, why don't we make our lives count by pledging our organs instead? read here for a quick Q&A on organ donation. even better, sign up online at the National Transplant Resource Centre website.

for the record, i've been on their donors' list since 2001. hope to get someone off dialysis, ventricular assist device or gain sight when my number finally comes up.

what about you?

hype

for some unknown reason, today seems to be a good day to get married. other than being an easy date to remember the anniversaries, i fail to realise the significance of the number 10. i doubt if that will guarantee happiness for the couples or success for the marriages.

i wonder, if these so-called auspicious dates were more common, would they eventually be accorded the same hype of the current valentine day & mothers' day celebrations, where the people who really benefit are the florists, gift shop owners & restauranteurs?

anyway, what i will remember today for, is the good news that the trapped miners in Chile will be rescued in a few days and the PM finally proclaimed that the malaysian chinese should not be described as "kaum pendatang."

lets see which will come true.

a car workshop analogy

i've owned several cars, some 2nd-hand, since i started working 25 year ago. each time i sent the car to the workshop, parts were changed with minimal hassle & i have very few grouses with the workshops. that, perhaps, is because i make it a point to send to the dealers' workshop.

how would you react if you sent your car for a part replacement in the morning & sometime at noon, the service guy phoned you & told you they didn't have that particular part? remember, they made that appointment with you on the premise that they will get the car fixed.

how would you respond, considering that they've literally taken your car apart & then found out that the spare part was not in stock? & to rub salt into the wound, they enquired if you'd settle for an inferior part?


so, you are wondering - where's the analogy here?

well, how about this.....

you go for an operation in a private hospital. the surgeon opens you up. the assisting nurse tells the surgeon they don't have an essential piece of equipment in stock. then she asks the surgeon, would he mind modifying his procedure to accomodate an alternative but inferior device?


this, of course, is only an analogy of a hypothetical event.

everything in moderation

just as we were ranting about 3-in-1 coffee, today's papers came out with a report, with an advocate for healthy living no less than the CAP. (read here)

they offered good advice except that i disagreed with the part about soya milk & fruit juices being healthier alternatives. these drinks that come in packets actually contain a lot of sugar as well. 3 brands of soya milk have between 20-22g (= 5 teaspoons) of sugar per 250ml packet while a popular brand of fruit juice has 18g of sugar per 250ml serving, all of which i have at home.

however, i don't drink these everyday - at most, probably twice a week. but that's the issue - no matter how sweet or salty, everything in moderation is fine, including alcohol. even that super-sweet ice-kacang or cendol with gula melaka is ok, if consumed in moderation, which i would arbitrarily put as about once a week at most. even better is soya milk or freshly squeezed fruit juices without added sugar.

however, i thought CAP's suggestion to the health ministry to take action on this matter was ridiculous. the govt can't even stop people from cheating & killing each other, how are they going to stop people from consuming heaps of sugar?

i can only think of self-discipline.

PS. i also wonder how effective are the gory pictures on the cigarette packets in deterring people from smoking?

just one bag

last week, this 48-yr-old man was admitted to hospital with a bleed in the brain. he had been referred from another private hospital in another state that didn't have neurosurgical services. the nearest govt hospital with that service is 150km away. 

when he came, he was already unconscious & had a tube inserted into his windpipe to assist breathing. he was wheeled into the OT after the initial CT scan & the blot clot removed. however, the brain damage initially sustained from the bleed will be permanent. previously, he had hypertension that was not well-controlled.

when he was sent to ICU after surgery, the wife accompanied him. it was already 4 am. what touched me most was that, all she had with her was just one bag.

presumably, that's all she could pack in the short time between transfer from one hospital to another. can you imagine what it's like to live on just one bag? presumably, she would have to go back home after a few days for change of clothing & see to her kids. maybe also to draw more cash.

it does sadden me a bit when the govt couldn't provide essential medical services in the big towns & patients have to be shunted from hospital to hospital for treatment. especially when billions are spent on submarines (that will unlikely see combat) & a controversial hydro-electric dam (that is currently being treated like an orphan).

today, we just certified this man brain-dead. that means, even though his heart is still beating & blood is flowing through his body, his brain has permanently ceased to function. his wife will take him home this evening.

on another sad note, my son's piano teacher just passed away last week after suffering from a similar bleed in the brain. she also had uncontrolled hypertension. (read here)

may their souls rest in peace.

well, we can't change govt policies but what we can do is to better take care of our health before it deteriorates. go for that medical check-up, esp if you're over 50. include an endoscope, ECG  & (for women) a pap smear.

you don't really want your spouse to accompany you to hospital with just one bag.

over-rated?

we had to make a day trip to mersing & so took the opportunity to have breakfast at the famed kluang station coffee shop.

yes, the same one that spawned many other kopi-tiams throughout the country.

the same one where a couple had their breakfast before saying their matrimonial vows.

we had the works - nasi lemak, half-boiled eggs, toast buns & the trade-mark coffee, the latter being smooth & very "kaw."

but seriously, i probably won't be able to tell the difference between this & other brands of kopi-tiam coffee.

like the moon-cake, could this also be over-rated? don't know if it's over-priced because my friend paid the bill.

had a brief chat with Chang, the proprietor whose grandfather started the business. he's really a hands-on guy - making sure the coffee is prepared the way his father taught him. perhaps that's why business is flourishing.

overpriced

i strongly feel that mooncakes are overpriced.

i bought some recently because my daughter loves the snow-skin types, & since she's hardly home these days, i "manja" her a bit la. they averaged RM12 apiece.

now that the mid-autumn festival is over, maybe i'll pop into tesco or jusco to see if they are pushing out their stock at discount prices.

but i still won't take any for less than 30% off.

that's just the way i am. never pay for more than it's worth.

unless, it's to pamper the girl.

still paranoid?

i posted recently about owning special vehicle number plates.

"Car registration plates bearing ‘MCA’ can’t be reserved", says today's Star.

i can't imagine that it's really true - people actually want to have a MCA plate because they are a member.

i mean, it's not like you've done overall great service to the community.

it's not like you've greatly improved the general living conditions of the people. 

it's not like you've gotten to the bottom of possibly the biggest scandal the country ever faced, with some of your senior members allegedly implicated.

& it's not like your president has a squeaky clean image.

so, if i were a malaccan, & i want a new vehicle now, i would:

1) retain my old number plate, or
2) register the vehicle in another state.

is it not a possibility, however remote, that in a moment of anger & madness, people would scratch or hurl stones at such vehicles?

or, again, am i just paranoid?

am i paranoid?

a lot of things that happen around us are really no big deal, unless perhaps when we try to think too much into it.

like at the pizza joint. we were for dinner the other evening during the fasting month. it was about 7.15pm when we ordered. the other patrons were mainly muslims. what i noticed was that they were also served dried dates in little packets to break fast with. we didn't get any.

like at the petrol station. i usually self-serve & that's fine with me. but i noticed many times that the attendants will clean the windscreens of the other cars. but not mine, unless i asked them to.

is this preferential treatment on the small scale? a result, perhaps, of a spill-over effect from the affirmative action on a national platform?

or, maybe i'm just paranoid?

maybe that's why malaysia day & 1malaysia just doesn't ring a bell with me.

presumably, another one less datuk?

seriously, i don't really know the true function of the council of datuks. presumably, one role is that they vet through possible candidates for the next round of awards, which they don't seemed to be doing a good job of, given the current spew of events where datuks have been deemed to have screwed up not carried themselves with decorum.

after the PKFZ fiasco, where 2 selangor datuks have been instructed not to use their respective honorifics, presumably the council will now be very busy recommending the revoking of these awards, since one of them has been implicated in the brutal murder of a millionaire.

presumably, the bar council will have to do likewise.

another one bites the dust.

but life goes on much the same for most of us, even as another one is alleged to have tried to bribe a sultan with hari raya goodies.

school break

like most parents, i always look forward to the school holidays because that's when the girl is back home. unlike the last school break in june when i had been quite busy, this time, maybe because of the combined effect of the chinese ghost month & the muslim fasting month, i had more free time with her. she has done quite well in her chemistry paper &, over another ice-blended coffee, she confessed that she may want to take up chemical engineering now, a far cry from her previous career choice. read here

but i don't think it was the chemistry result that prompted her towards this new ambition. her friend who lives in the neighbourhood scored straight As in the recent A-level exams & has gone to the univ of california in berkeley to do chemical engineering. & my daughter has made it her life ambition to study in an overseas varsity. (i tried to reason with her that singapore can be considered "overseas" but she's not buying that - too stressful, she says)

ah...kids, what do they know???

the new school term starts today & i shall miss her much.

*she doesn't read my blog, so i can safely reveal here one of her many weaknesses -  she often shares her deepest secrets over ice-blended coffee, which means CB & SB will be assured of my patronage for many years to come!!**

taboo?

melaka just issued the MBY motor vehicle registration plate.

i can imagine members & leaders of a certain political party queueing to register their new vehicles in a public display of loyalty when the next set of registration numbers are opened in a few months' time. come to think of it, they probably don't need to queue because the road transport dept which issues the numbers comes under the ministry of transport.

& guess who's the tai-kor in the ministry? i suppose one call to him will kau-tim everything.

i also wonder if the party president would bid for the #1 plate? he'll probably be the sole bidder because i doubt if anyone else would want that number, in case the vehicle be mistaken as belonging to someone who was made notorious through an illegally produced DVD & whose private life was dragged into public scrutiny.

talk about taboo number plates.

what if....?

this young lady was seen by a GP a month ago for some psychiatric disorder, possibly schizophrenia. however, she developed a febrile illness after that & was admitted to general hospital for a week without getting better, probably because the diagnosis couldn't be established. her mother took her out of hospital to seek treatment from a sinseh (traditional chinese medicine man) but she became unconscious at home that evening.

she was rushed to this private hospital & resuscitated.  my physician colleague did some blood tests & accurately made a diagnosis, which could explain why she had prolonged fever & why she fell unconscious at home. she was put on life-support machine in the ICU but failed to regain consciousness after a week. a CT scan of the brain revealed early brain damage.

a young lady will be bedridden for the rest of her life but a lot of questions remained unanswered.

what if......the GP had explained the side-effects of the anti-psychotic medication?

what if......the doctors at GH had made the right diagnosis & instituted the appropriate treatment early?

what if......she had remained at GH & had been immediately resuscitated when she fell unconscious? would that have prevented the brain damage?

given the current public uproar over our healthcare system, this post in NOT about whether govt hospitals or private hospitals are giving superior service. the former have received criticisms over substandard care, poorly trained doctors, long queues, etc. while the latter, escalating & hidden charges, unnecessary tests & procedures,  etc. (there's a private hospital in perak affectionately known among local circles as The Great White Shark for obvious reasons)

some time back, the Min of Health suggested co-operation between the public & private hospitals for the benefit of the people, but like all else, it's No Action, Talk Only. perhaps too much politicking during the recent party elections.

in the meantime, we await our uncertain fate.

chewing gum

we keep chewing gum in the car for days when we need to drive long-distance. the boy saw the last piece & asked if he could have it. i allowed him & instinctively told him not to swallow it.

instinctive because i remember when i was his age, i was told the same thing, & also that if i swallowed chewing gum, it would get stuck in the bowels & an operation was needed to remove it. it was all the more horrifying because i actually swallowed one accidentally.

it wasn't until i was in med school that i realised the chewing gum story was just an old wives' tale. the gum is just too small & the inside of the bowel too slippery for it to get stuck. it would just be passed out after a day.

but because i didn't know it then, i waited many anxious years for my fate, an agony i certain the boy will never go through.

ah, ignorance is such bliss!!

why is there bullying in school?

i've alway thought that kids will be kids & that bullying is a phase they go through while growing up. a black eye is like having a vaccination - you get it & you move on. but it didn't occur to me to figure out WHY the need to exert violence to get what you want.

until i read today's star. (read here)

claiming to have been falsely accused of embezzlement, this brainless moron guy is challenging the CM of penang to a fist-fight to settle the issue - in the holy month, at that! seriously, how would a brawl resolve the issue?

and because kids eagerly imitate their parents' behaviour, good AND bad, this is my theory of the origins of bullying in school.

**image from the Star**

2 moons?

apparently tonite is special. the earth & mars will come so close that mars can be seen almost as big next to the moon, even though there's a distance of over 34 million miles in between. & this won't happen again till the year 2287.

the email that has been circulating proclaiming this event is actually a HOAX. read here.

the "bright star" seen near the moon is actually jupiter & it'll only appear as a bright spot.

i took this picture myself & it's just convinced me of one thing........

.......i need that dSLR!!

cello

the boy & the girl are both like chalk & cheese. she is focussed in her studies, hardworking & determined. a science student through & through.

he, on the other hard, is playful, likes to explore gadgets & work with his hands. very likely an artsy or technical sort of student.

& unlike his sister, he plays the piano because he actually enjoys it. so that's why we decide to give him exposure to a second musical instrument when the opportunity came round. my colleague has a cello teacher who comes over to teach cello to his 2 kids. he asked me if i was keen for the boy to take it up as well. since the teacher allowed a couple of trial lessons, we agreed.

we are happy that he has been looking forward to the lessons. hopefully the enthusiasm persists...

the tooth, the whole tooth....

one of the boy's front tooth fell off this morning. he asked me to check his gums, then calmly washed the tooth & put it in a container where he kept all the previous dropped teeth.

i asked him if he was going to keep it under his pillow tonite & maybe the tooth fairy will reward him. he gave me a puzzled look & asked, "the tooth fairy doesn't exist, right?"

that's when i had to come clean with him & admitted to the truth, the whole truth & nothing but the truth about the tooth fairy & how the tooth under the pillow is replaced by cash in the morning. while at it, i also debunked the myth about santa.

in church later, while the offering bag was being passed around, i asked him if he had brought any money as offering. he blew me off when he replied, "no, but i brought something else. myself !"

he's just a kid but he's definitely growing up nicely.

PS. he's never kept a tooth beneath the pillow, he's never brought any money from his coin-box for offering & i don't think he understands the significance of offering himself to the Lord.

can 2 wrongs make a right??

this piece of research just came off the press...

doctors at imperial college london have discovered that if you live with an unhealthy diet, in this case a QuarterPounder with milkshake, you can actually reduce the cardiovascular risks by taking a statin tablet (which reduces cholesterol), even to the extent of providing these tablets to go with the meals, & further justifying this by stating that it doesn't costs much more to supply these tablets!! read here.

they even defended this proposal by quoting other examples of dangerous lifestyles, like wearing seatbelts while driving & using filters in cigarettes, to minimise the associated risks.

this is like saying, drinks manufacturers should include diabetic tablets with their 6-pack sodas, or cigarette firms include chemotherapy pills in their packs.

does this sound like logical reasoning?

what this study doesn't highlight is that statins have their own side effects on the liver, muscles & kidneys. so now, instead of just destroying your heart by wolfing down fast food, you're also threatening your liver and kidneys with a chemical drug.

i think the simple (??) solution is just to abstain from fast-food/sodas/cigarettes, etc etc., or more conventionally to take in moderation & eventually to stop altogether.

because, in this scenario, 2 wrongs certainly don't make a right!!

trees

how often do you stand or walk under a coconut tree? not often, considering there can't be many coconut trees in town.

and how often have you actually witnessed a falling coconut? even less, i'd think.


so it's utterly unfortunate to have a coconut fall on your head, like this 60-yr-old lady in ICU now. she's recuperating from surgery for a big bleed into her brain but her recovery will not be complete for she will not fully gain control over some parts of her body.


trees are useful - they provide shade, bear fruits & make up part of a green lung in cities. heck, you can't have a tree house without a tree & where would tarzan be without one?


but the downside is that they sometimes topple on you, your car or house. & you really don't want to take shelter from one in a thunderstorm.


so watch out for the coconuts.

or durians.

talk about the wrong place & the wrong time.

attitude

this cannister is part of an elaborate anaesthetic machine used to provide anaesthesia for surgery. it contains soda lime granules which absorb carbon dioxide from the patient's breath & then return that breath back to the patient minus the carbon dioxide. a recycling of gases, if you will.

soda lime contains a colour indicator which tells the user when it is already saturated with carbon dioxide (in this case, from WHITE to PURPLE) & therefore needs to be changed. so when it turns purple, the whole cannister is emptied & fresh white-coloured ones refilled. something akin to changing your domestic water filter when it turns brown.

another manufacturer makes RED-coloured soda lime which turns WHITE when saturated with carbon dioxide. it really doesn't matter which manufacturer you source the soda lime from, as long as you are aware of the colour change.

so what happens when you decide to change from one manufacturer to another? surely, you'd completely exhaust your existing stock before using the new supply, or else the colour change will be confusing, and dangerously so.

this is what happens when people get careless & therefore set the stage for a medical catastrophe.....

.....twice!!

this lackadaisical attitude happens everywhere though :

in school, when wrongs facts are taught;
in construction, when wrong angles are calculated;
on the roads, when overtaking on double-lines;
& even at home, leaving the gas stove burning with a curious child on the loose.

i seriously think a lot more things didn't get a lot more worse because of divine intervention.

btw, it's friday 13th today but do have a good and SAFE weekend!

insider tip

surgery on the body below the waist can be done under general or regional anaesthesia.

for general anaesthesia, the patient is rendered completely unconscious & largely pain-free till the surgery is complete.

for regional anaesthesia, only the part of the body below the waist is anaesthesised. the patient remain awake but lower body is immobile & pain-free. operations suitable for this technique include C-section, haemorrhoids & lower limb surgery. (read here)

if you are young & healthy, there's not much to choose between the 2 techniques but as the co-existing medical problems like hypertension or diabetes occur with advancing age, it may be (but not necessarily always) safer to have the surgery done under regional anaesthesia. this is largely due to the fact that regional anaesthesia interferes with body function (eg. heart, respiration) to a lesser degree compared to general anaesthesia.

take C-section as an example. everything else being equal, it is inherently safer for the mother to have a regional (in this case, spinal) anaesthesia because it removes the risk of having gastric contents enter the lungs, which is a possible & dangerous outcome if the mother was rendered unconscious by general anaesthesia. besides, being awake at the time of delivery provides the mother with the precious opportunity to hear the baby's cries & be bonded by physical contact.

but here's the deal - very few private doctors will tell their patients that it costs less, up to RM500 & sometimes beyond, to have a spinal instead of general anaesthesia. this is because fewer medication & equipment are required for the former.

so now you know.

PS. however i must put it on record that regional anaesthesia may NOT be appropriate in all operations below the waist. you need to discuss this with your doctor before making a decision.

running on empty

the current average life expectancy in malaysia is 74. (71 for men & 76 for women) (read here)

so any day lived in health beyond that can be considered a bonus. some call this having a long life; as an avid fan of Air Crash Investigation on Nat Geo channel, i cynically call it Running On Empty.

this 86 year-old woman was brought back to Casualty by her family, just 3 days after she had been discharged. she has heart disease, a previous stroke, was bedridden & had just recovered from pneumonia, having spent 3 weeks in hospital, 1 week of which in ICU.

in Casualty, she was gasping & was barely conscious. i explained to the family that she was very ill & recovery would be very unlikely, given her current & past medical problems. however, the family was firm that i should do the necessary for the her.

i wished they had never said that.

because unfortunately, "do the necessary" here means putting in a breathing tube into her windpipe, attempting many times to insert a cannula into a vein but succeeding only once because she had dainty blood vessels. in the end, we had to proceed with CPR because her heart had stopped. in the process, we used over 20 ampoules of medicine & broke a couple of ribs from the vigourous compression on her frail chest.

all in vain.

i wished they had never given the instruction "do the necessary" because i knew she was already running on empty but i was duty-bound to provide a service i had been trained to do.

i wished they had said 3 other words instead, like maybe "make her comfortable" or "make it painless". masterly inactivity would have provided a more dignified end to a long life.

may her soul rest in peace.

and 3 more were added...

we had a baptism yesterday. actually, there are 3 souls saved but the event was different.

i've witnessed baptism by submersion in a baptism pool in church & at sea, but because both were either inaccessible or impractical, we had it at a brother's house with a swimming pool. yet another sign of the changing times.

but, surely it doesn't matter where it's done, whether in River Jordan with John the Baptist, or in the desert with Philip, as long as the heart is transformed. yesterday, there was much rejoicing in heaven as it was on earth

i'm certain the Father is well pleased.