Intoxicated

I was in the gynae ward this afternoon, looking for a case of vaginal discharge to be presented during the bedside teaching session tomorrow. When I was busy rummaging through the stack of case notes, suddenly, I sensed someone strangely familiar standing in close proximity to me. I raised my head.

It’s Dr. Teh.

Immediately, my mind was a blank and I blushed. I ogled at him for a few minutes, during which my lungs hyperventilated, my blood pressure elevated and my heart pounded hard.

His facial skin is flawless. He has such an angelic and enthralling smile. It makes me feel sort of…intoxicated. I always fantasize about being the nurse who silently tags along him whenever he does his ward round.

Well, disappointingly, I don’t think he recalls my introducing to him previously anyway. He’s in the ward looking for a patient with ruptured ectopic pregnancy on whom he’d be performing a unilateral salpingectomy (removal of Fallopian tube).

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Time flies. My current posting (O&G) will end soon after the end-of-posting exam next week. Again, I’m having the pre-exam syndrome with a spectrum of symptoms ranging from apprehension, anxiety, compulsive eating, obsession with sms-ing, breathing difficulty to mild insomnia. A lot of stress, certainly.

However, the motivational and encouraging sms-es William sends me every now and then do assume a substantial role in soothing my soul and alleviating the pressure I’m facing. He kindly requested me to express my gratitude to him officially and openly. So, thank you lo, Gor. =p

A bird unable to spread its wings

RW: Hey, we saw your car outside the mall.

Me: You did? ( Trembling…)

RW: Faster tell. Who did you go out with?

Me: What the hell?! You guys saw me with him…no I mean her? ( Sweating profusely)

TB: Nope. Feels like you don’t have lunch and dinner with us that frequent anymore. Who’ve you been going out with?

RW: Yaya. Are you seeing someone?

Me: It’s a guy. Don’t ask. (Heaving a sigh of relief…)

TB: Nah!! Liar! We aren’t kids. How can it be a guy? Faster tell. Who’s the girl? Do we know her?

RW: Be careful. Don’t let us catch you.

Me: Catch me if you can.

The perpetual interrogation I have to deal with drives me up the wall. The fact is, it’s a guy I’ve been going out with. I seldom mingle with my straight friends, who’re basically anti-gay, on weekends.

The sight of 2 immaculately dressed guys with meticulously waxed hair watching movie together on a Saturday night often suggests they’re a gay couple. That’s the likeliest differential diagnosis it invariably leads to. And definitely, when I’m out with my gay friend, bumping into my homophobic straight friends is the last thing I want.

I study in a small town where chancing upon my friends in a cinema or mall is something that occurs all too often. I avoid going to places they frequent. I park my car at secluded areas so that they don’t know my whereabouts. I’ve got to be very alert and vigilant every microsecond, with my antennae raised and prepared to vanish and submerge into the crowd anytime when a familiar face appears.

My personal space is being encroached upon and my freedom enormously restricted. I feel like a bird with a pair of beautiful wings but unable to spread them. A bird held in captivity admiring the exquisite beauty of the vast blue sky from inside its cage.

Damn. I daren’t think of what the consequences will be if they find out the so-called “girl” whom I’ve been hanging out with is in actual fact a GUY.

Straight guys can always gloat over the girls they date. And I never get to brag about the guy I go for movies with. A discrepancy between being straight and bent.

WALL-E

It’s a love story between a somewhat obsolete robot and a sophisticated robotic probe.

WALL-E’s initial dismal attempts to hold EVE’s hand is a portrayal of how sweet falling in love can be, even among robotic beings.

EVE becomes temporarily comatose after having discovered the sign of life on earth (a seedling plant ) which symbolizes the possibility that mankind could someday return to earth. The fact that he adamantly clings on to the belief that she’ll wake up and that he goes to great lengths to protect her deactivated body, touched my heart.

Then, EVE is retrieved by the spaceship which sent her. WALL-E follows her and embarks upon a journey to outer space, uncertain of what lies ahead and awaits him. His willingness to sacrifice and unflinching determination to win her heart, made me want to fall in love.

And the final scene of their holding hands together, caressing each other’s head and kissing (via electrostatic discharge) was really heart-warming. It made my heart smile. It dawned on me how beautiful love could be.

Is love as simple as holding hands and being there for him whenever he needs you?

Can love ever be so simple, and yet so genuine and sweet?

Could he be the one?

I got to know a gay pharmacist recently. A friend’s friend. He practices in a remote town located in the south eastern region of Sabah. I tried to cajole him into getting transferred to the hospital (HQE) in which I’m doing my postings. HQE, a tertiary centre, is the largest hospital in the state where complicated cases are referred to. And I was delighted to hear that he’d had that intention in mind for some time.

Will he be turn out to be the gay companion whom I’ve always been looking for, someone who I’d call my boyfriend?

Living in a city so sparsely populated by gays, I do feel lonely at times. On top of that, I’ve been celibate for 4 years. But that’s not the main point anyway. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that something beautiful will happen. I’m not going to mess this up.

That inevitable issue

Mom: Hey, my friend’s daughter is studying your uni too. She just entered1st year.

Joe: Who?

Mom: Neh…That one ar. Our ex-neighbour’s son’s cousin daughter. Tall and pretty one ar. I sms to you her number tomorrow.

Joe: Huh? For what? Don’t want la.

Mom: Contact her lo. Why? You got a girlfriend already?

Joe: Ermm….No. Busy ma. No time kao lui. Didn’t you just come back from China? What did you buy?

Mom: I bought……..

That’s how our conversation veers away from its main topic whenever the inevitable issue of whether I’ve got a girlfriend arises. I either give her the excuse that I’m simply too busy with my studies or that my school is teeming with girls who’re ugly geeks that only worship their textbooks.

I’ve always been bugged by the question of whether or not to come out to my parents. I wonder, if I should ever divulge the astonishing and darkest truth about the person they’ve raised for 21 years as a beloved offspring, that’s me. I spent my adolescence, during which my straight friends thoroughly enjoyed by courting and flirting with as many chicks as they could, contemplating and pondering on the thought of telling my mom the truth.

At the age of 15, after numerous hopelessly unsuccessful attempts of degayification, I wrote a 3-page letter which would reveal the hidden truth about me. It also included a detailed explanation of what being a homosexual involved and a guarantee that I’d still be the same child whom she’d always loved. However, the letter ended in the rubbish bin as I didn’t have the courage to hand it to my mom.

Even until now, I feel extremely pressured the moment my mom asks me why I haven’t got attached. Occasionally, she has the tendency to compare me to my elder brother, Derek (not KH), who started seeing someone as early as in high school, making me feel like exploding. All these create a great deal of tension which mercilessly diffuses into the already very hectic life I’m leading. I can’t even get a dick, let alone a pussy. Aih. Pathetic.

And I guess Derek knows I’m gay. I was 13 then and wasn’t aware of the fact that the pornographic websites that I visited would leave a trail. Yes. I didn’t delete the history. He once gave me a subtle are-you-gay? hint to which I responded with a I-don’t-get-what-you’re-trying-to-say look. Well, till today, he hasn’t said anything about it. And hence, I pretend as if nothing happened.

Anencephaly - baby without brain

At last, the baby boy was out. No cries were heard. The liquor was darkly stained with meconium and he’s obviously cyanosed.

“Do you want to take a look of your baby?” enquired Dr. Ng in a very nonchalant manner.

The mother shook her head incessantly without demur, her eyes tightly shut. A sign of refusal.

The baby was diagnosed with anencephaly at term, much too late for termination of pregnancy to be carried out. Anencephaly, a developmental defect associated with folic acid deficiency, literally means “no brain”. It refers to a condition in which there’s partial or complete absence of the skull bones, the meninges and the cerebral hemispheres of the brain.

The baby looked grotesque and horrendous. He had a froglike facies. The part of the head above the eyes was completely missing. In addition to shallow orbits and protruded eyes, he had a cleft palate and lip.

He was basically left to die, slowly and agonizingly. Neither suction nor neonatal resuscitation was done, attributable to the fact that anencephaly is known to be incompatible with prolonged extrauterine survival, and most fetuses die within minutes to hours after birth.

It didn't take me very long to notice the presence of respiratory effort, albeit very minimal. He was gasping for air with all his might. The wheezes were clearly audible. I placed the diaphragm of my stethoscope on his chest and did an auscultation. His heart was still beating, very rapidly as a matter of fact. And his lung sounds were abnormal, of course.

Despite the fact that the entire world had given up hope on him, the innocent baby portrayed the unwavering determination and desire of an organism to survive, even under circumstances that don’t allow it to, till it heaves its last breath. That kind of touched my heart.

Giving birth to a baby, an otherwise blissful occasion, turned out to be an awful event to the mother who’d have to bear the immeasurable pain of mourning the death of her beloved child. And I believe that till the day she dies, never will what happened on that particular day be obliterated from her memory.

Kiasu-ism

Kiasu-ism is an attitude rampant and deeply entrenched in our society. And needless to say, my school isn’t spared from its invasion too.

If you’ve watched Grey’s Anatomy, an interesting drama series revolving around the action-packed lives of a group of enthusiastic surgical interns fatigued by ward work, I’m sure you wouldn’t forget an unforgettable character – Dr. Yang, an American of Korean descent. She, apparently, is no demure woman. Her passion for and devotion to her job are clearly depicted by the way she talks and walks as well as her frantic and desperate attempts to scrub in on any surgery available. I find her a little self-centred and annoying at times.

Well, unfortunately, I do have course-mates who bear a striking similarity to Dr. Yang. They’re overzealous for knowledge and being the know-it-alls whom the lecturers salute and their classmates hold in high esteem. Their lives, I suppose, are pathetically governed by the motto of getting the best grades and outshining the rest. They beseechingly want to be ahead of others in whatever they do.

Sometimes, I find it hard to compete with such intimidating people, who’re easily identifiable by their bookish and kiasu appearance. Being late for lectures means I’ve got to sit at the back of the class where the slides aren’t clear enough and the voices of the lecturer barely audible. When new textbooks arrive, I’m usually the unlucky person who receives one with a few pages crumpled up or torn. Many a time, when I spot an interesting case in the ward which I feel like clerking, the patient declines to be examined, complaining that he’s been approached too many times. When the examination questions are leaked, you don’t expect to get any tips from them.

Admittedly, I’m not really a brilliant student, but not to the extent of being academically-challenged, of course. I mean, they’re people who score A’s and talk about distinctions, whereas I’d be jubilant if I manage to scrape through. You see, passing a subject isn’t at all a child play, particularly in a school with the passing mark fixed at 65%. In other words, if you get a B- or worse, it simply means you’ve failed. And you’ll be retained during the year break when others are happily vacationing in their respective hometown.

Co-existing with kiasu people really tires me and makes me feel bullied at times. It has sort of prodded me, to some extent, into becoming mildly kiasu as well.

Surviving in med school, it seems, does entail a certain amount of resilience and assertiveness.