Disclaimer: Today’s pictures kinda suck and they are not a true representation of my photography skills.

Two main things!

(Okla technically the caption should read “Ho Wai turned 22!” but I thought it sounded weird at the point of me photoshopping it so whatever la)

The pic above was obviously not meant to look like that la I don’t know what happened. But anyway I think it looks kinda nice (*insert cheesy pseudo-cheem philosophical musing based on photo*)..

I notice that I don’t use my camera during outings (eg birthday dinners) - I think I work better with unanimate subjects. :D

—

Now for the other main reason for this post:

I witnessed a CABG on Sunday!

I don’t really know what else to say because I don’t want to bore everybody with the details - this I can say though - it took me one day to fully get the smell of burnt flesh and fat out of my head.

I also think that surgery is an art (this sounds like something Chong Bing would SO totally say *eyeroll*) and although there are few things cooler than possessing the ability and confidence to cut somebody up and know what you’re looking for and fixing it - I think I am cut out to be an internist. HAHA.

(The surgery is like waaaaaaaaaaaaay cooler than I’m making it sound - seriously. Imagine being witness to the entire process of attaching new blood vessels to somebody’s heart: from the cleaning of the patient to the harvesting of the (great saphenous) veins (from both legs) to the first incision to the sawing of the (sternal) bone to watching the patient going on the heart-lung bypass machine to watching the surgeons putting ice and cold water in the space containing the heart to stop it beating for one hour to seeing the surgeon miraculously suturing the veins to the heart seamlessly to them closing the patient up again so well that the scar is (for the lack of a better word) insignificant…)

As Atul Gawande (author of Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science and Better) wrote in Complications:

Not everyone appreciates the attractions of surgery. When you are a medical student in the operating room for the first time, and you see the surgeon press the scalpel to somebody’s body and open it like fruit, you either shudder in horror or gape in awe.

I kid you not, that paragraph was running through my mind as I stepped up onto the stool at the head of the operation table. I hoped I didn’t end up shuddering - I was rather surprised that the one syllable that summed up my feelings as I saw him cut through the patient’s skin was “meh” (yet another word I don’t even use under normal circumstances -_-)

The other thought that refused to be ignored was the suspicion that the patient was in a state of anaestethic awareness ala the guy in Awake (I haven’t watched it yet) and was feeling every single cut. The thought was quickly extinguished after realising that there was no way the patient would manage to survive the things the surgeon was doing to his body…

I was also momentarily disturbed by the way the surgeon seemed to treat the patient like a slab of meat. I AM IN NO WAY DISSING THE SKILLS OF THE SURGEON - who was remarkable btw (he managed to finish 4 grafts in 57 minutes!!!!!!!) - I guess the human body is less fragile than I thought it was. It’s like how most of us were brutally horrified when we first saw the way paediatricians assess the Moro reflex in infants (OMG WHAT IF THE NECK SNAPS!? *halfhearted laugh*). In the same vein - HAHA pun semi-intended XD - OMG you should’ve seen the way the chest tubes were inserted. O_O

ANYWAY I have also come to uncover another one of the reasons I am in med school: (this might make me sound like a megalomaniac but this is MY blog so there.) There is an inherent need in me to find out the way things work. You can live with not knowing how a laptop functions or being totally ignorant about how many species of butterflies there are (LOL @ Kwan :D) but you cannot live if you do not know how your body works.

(Technically you CAN live without knowing how your body works - that’s the reason doctors exist)

I don’t really know how to put this clearer without coming off sounding like I have a God complex: You (I) will have most of (hopefully) the answers to the questions that really matter. That, and the habit of always being in the “know” (being in the science stream does that to you - now I’m sounding elitist. wth.) and not wanting to have to back down and submit to the mystery that is the human body.

The strongest reason for me being in med school initially was that there was nothing else I’d rather do (as opposed to wanting to do medicine with a passion) but I’m glad that things are sorting themselves out day after day and I wake up every day knowing and believing with more conviction that I belong here. :)

HAHA okla I believe that I have gotten my point across. I will hereby stop sounding preachy (amen, lol).

—

I never say things like this - EVER - and this will be the first and last time:

You are too good for me. *sad smile*

That’s it then - goodbye. :)

—

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand I’m done!