couchpotato

Now you may already think I'm nuts (I probably am).  Just heard this story from my mum, and I really need to TELL you about this.

Many years ago, my mum's clinic partner (i.e. the other doctor that works at her clinic) had a patient with mastoiditis, which is an infection in one of the spaces in your skull.  Things turned out nasty and this patient, who was only a kid then, had a stroke.

This left him unable to use at least one hand and his legs- he became wheelchair-bound.  At this point, the doctors could not do anything.

His mother and himself fell into depression after this, and for many years, they prayed and prayed, attended healing meetings, but he was not healed.

Now he is a man about 18, and was still wheelchair-bound.  His depression was worsened when his much beloved grandmother (his mother's mother) passed away.  

You may be able to guess what happened...

One day he had a vision of his grandmother, and a bright light shone.  He was told to get up and walk.  And after this vision- he found that he could move his hand!  

And now the mother reports he can walk.  My mum's clinic partner got a phone call recently from this patient's mother, hence I have to GOT to share this with you.

How good God is, and how present is this God in our lives!  

couchpotato

If every minute of your day mattered to you, I beg you, please do not read this entry.

I had greatly desired to continue maintaining my veneer of supposed maturity, intelligence and insight into the things that I thought were worth writing about.  Hence my silence for a few months, because I felt nothing was worthy to be entered into this blog.

Bah, humbug.

I suddenly had a recollection of a mildly amusing tale that happened to me about a week ago, and thought I'd like to share it with you.

So I was in KL, at a hotel, taking the elevator up to our rooms on the 28th floor.  It was after one of those shopping conquests, where my family and I (maybe largely me, heheh) were carrying up the spoils of our battles in the crowded shopping malls of KL, and it was a reeeeally hot day if I remember correctly.

Me being me, I slumped onto one of the walls of the elevator, taking a snippet of rest as the elevator whizzed upwards.

Suddenly, the other couple in my lift started gesticulating wildly towards me.

Wondering what was the matter, I stood up straight.

And there I realised- I had accidentally pressed a myriad of buttons on the elevator as I wisely chose to lean on all the buttons of the elevator.

Frantically trying to press on the buttons again and again, my friends, does not 'un-press' the buttons you press on the elevator.  But that was what I did.

Anyway, needless to say, my family and the other couple spent the next 2-3 minutes having the elevator doors open at random floors again and again and again.

I was so thankful that the other couple were staying on a lower floor.  They were quite nice about it, thankfully.  My cheeks were burning from the embarrassment as one of my sisters gleefully declared this incident as another feather on my dunce cap.

So the moral of the story is- my friends, please be nice to those apparent morons who make inconsiderate mistakes and thus inconvenience you.  These 'morons' are more often than not very ashamed of the mistakes we have made and rely on your grace to get through the day. 

Trust me.  I should know.

couchpotato

So it's ONE Friday finally when I'm free-er, with no OCF running late into the night or the odd occasion that tends to crop up from time to time.

I think one thing that has been on my mind a lot is 'chasing my dreams' (whatever that means) and trusting God for the future.  It has FINALLY sunk into me that skimping by with the least amount of work to get semi-decent results is not the way to go.  Life demands more than that, I really want to work hard and fully savour what life has to offer.  I say 'I really want to' because I know how often I miss my targets.  Which is another thing to work on.

Sometimes I get caught up with wanting to be in the future, where I presumptiously assume that life ahead will be 'better'... *harps playing*

I'll have my model career, swishing around CONFIDENTLY in my body-hugging designer suit , as a consultant with 5 registrars, 5 residents and interns and 5 hapless medical students trailing me around, hanging onto my every word, willingly lend me their precious pens in full knowledge they'll never get them back, giving me sickly sweet smiles in hopes that I will approve of them and allow them to climb step up on the wobbly hierarchy ladder in medicine, and they fighting to do the worst menial tasks ever, e.g. inserting catheters (to make people pee).  Maybe I'm describing myself now as an overly anxious-to-please-everyone medical student.  Haha!  Oh, and my patients will rave about how awesome I am, and everyone will greet me with a reverent nod or a timid wave when they catch my eye in the corridors.

And of course, have my model family, with my oh-so-amazing husband who is crazy over me (the term is 'whipped', haha!), with my 2.5 children (whatever the ideal national average is), in this really tastefully-appointed home with every comfort I want.  And be able to balance my work life so wondrously and have time to raise my oh-so-perfect children in their private kindergartens and schools because I will only give them the 'best'.

Not to forget, I will be active in my church, I will love God the way He should be loved, I will change the community I am in, I will develop my hobbies and passions- I'll travel, write poetry, play music, sing, record, cook, run marathons, do charity, read all sorts of books...  I'll do missions in far-flung desperate countries, I'll be a leader in my community, voicing the opinions of the people.  I'll do this, I'll do that.  

These are not bad things.  Checklists aren't all that bad, but do I need to tick off all the boxes? 

Is this what I really want?  A Barbie-like future seems very tempting but... plastic.  

What do you fight for in this life?  Who are the people you admire for the way they live their lives, and why?

couchpotato

I think I'm getting the hang of this.  I do like living life.

couchpotato

So clinical school has just begun for us 4th year meddies.

'4th year meddies' scarily suggests that we are quite along our way in med, but at least for myself, I still feel almost like a 1st year med student.

Clinical school has been a unique experience for me.  I quite like how my group is a random mix of people, everyone is getting to know each other again.  

Usually I feel very uncomfortable in the first few months of being in a new environment.  Funnily it's not as bad this time.  I hope it gets better.

I see this phase as a rite of passage to adulthood.  The thing about medicine is, that things are more certain, that's what I think anyway, and partly why I chose medicine.  And yet there are many uncharted territories that lie ahead.

It's amazing to see how much initative people have.  The people in my small group are all very gifted in their own ways, I hope to learn a thing or two from all of them.

Very hopeful and optimistic about what is to come.  Hopefully I don't annoy too many people along the way, but more than that, I am so ready to be on the way to becoming a full-fledged doctor!