bigger than the both of us

Stuck in my head : 

"It's a question of  you

It's a question of  me

It's a question of figuring out what it really means

It's a question of  love

It's a question of  time

But I know it's the most precious thing that I'll ever find.

It's in you...it's in you.

So come on, come on, we can go anywhere

Come on, come on, we can do anything

Come on, we can be anywhere."

- Anywhere, Axle Whitehead -

Up in the clouds

Start of a new week, can you believe I've been in Hobart for a week already?!

Anyways, I've recently had the chance to experience the highs of Podiatry - when your patients start to heal and get better! Last Friday we had an Ulcer Clinic, and almost allll the patients that I saw had ulcers that were healed or on their way! :) It had been weeks and months that the clinic had been seeing the patients for their ulcers, so imagine the relief and joy that was emanating from the room when my supervisor looks up from the patient's feet, and goes "OMG! You've healed!!" Sooooo satisfying it was, writing ------HEALED------  on an ulcer assessment form, instead of filling it up with details of wound progress.

And TODAY! Oh my gosh, today was EPIC FUN! We didn't have patients in the afternoon, so Helen (our supervisor today), thought it would be a good learning experience for us to do a mock ingrown toenail surgery! Royal Hobart Hospital's pretty hardcore with this, everyone's trained to carry out Gold Standard procedures. So that's what we did today :) Fully gloved and gowned up, complete with facemasks, booties, and surgeon hats, Hannah and I had the time of our lives learning how to do partial and total nail avulsions.

Hannah & I after our big toe surgery. :) Lovin' it!

After that we were both pretty hyped up and had the sudden craving to eat cherries, so between us, we finished half a kilo of cherries for dinner tonight. :)

brr.

I just had the COLDEST shower of my life. Actually, make that two of us, Hannah and I. (I'm pretty sure we're in the same boat, from the sound of her screaming in the shower every few seconds. :P) The hot water in my unit has only just decided to die on us.

So here I am, with a million thoughts running through my head, like "Where did all the hot water go?!", and "Don't tell me there's a quota on hot water?!", and "Gosh, it would be pretty mean of them not to tell us there was a quota on hot water!" and "I hope it's gonna come backkk I can't live without hot waterrrr" and "hmm, maybe we could use kettle-boiled hot water.."

Then I turn on tv and A Current Affair is showing flood-struck Queensland, with interviews of people drained and crying, overwhelmed with emotion and loss..and I feel selfish. Here I am whinging about no hot water to shower with, while these people can't even take showers. They have no homes, and it's not like they're the only ones in the evacuation centres - imagine how long the queue for a shower would be, if shower facilities are even available, that is.

I feel really sad for the people of Queensland. I hope our sister Methodist churches there are okay. God bless Queensland. =/

calling Dr. House

Today was not as epic as I would've liked it to be.
1. No maggot therapy after all, poor lady suddenly started gushing blood out of her wound, so the nurse decided that maggots was just not gonna happen today.
2. 3/5 of my morning patients were a no-show, and the other 2 were late, so I didn't get to do much.

However, today was abit of an emotional one. Had a patient who had only JUST amputated all five toes on her right foot a couple of weeks ago, but was told today that if she doesn't heal up she would have no choice but to have a below the knee amputation. The reason why she couldn't heal properly - nobody knew. It wasn't because of her blood supply, nor was it due to infection - she was just in a plight where her immune system's just sort of attacking her own body. It was uplifting to see her still being able to smile, and joke around about being able to decorate her post-operative shoes and stump with wedding ribbons, or paint her wheelchair a different colour to match the dress that she would wear during her daughter's wedding in a month's time. But when the vascular surgeon spoke those dreaded words, there was the usual awkward silence (you know the one that usually follows bad news), and there was just such an obvious drop in mood in the room...and then the tears started to flow. My patient was upset.

I think my supervisor was really strong, she must be quite used to it. But I had to leave the room for a bit, I was overwhelmed by such a strong feeling of sadness..I teared. She wasn't even someone I knew or had seen regularly!! I can't possibly imagine what it would feel like if I had gotten to know this person on a more personal level and had been treating her on a regular basis.

But I guess this just comes with the entire package, it's something I'm going to have to be able to deal with. I do pray that God will grant me the strength and wisdom to handle situations like these, and I do thank Him for these little incidents that pop up every once in a while, that serve to remind me of the fragility of life and how blessed I am. Truly, I am blessed. :)

Of cookies and giant teddies

The Jumbuck (Hannah had the honour of coming up with a name):

Tuna in oil, Tuna in chilli oil, Egg, Cucumber, Tomato, Rice.
Mix, mash and fry. 
Add heaps of salt if you don't intend to sprinkle salt every 2 seconds while ingesting.

That was dinner tonight. Plus orange mango juice. Would've taken a picture, but we were both tooooo hungry.

I blame it on our cooking skills the absence of a rice cooker (we boiled rice in a pot =/), cooking oil (so we improvised with the tuna), and the fact that other backpackers were trying to steal our stove and our pots (RAWR we were there first! *scaryAsianface*). Seriously.

Well, at least it was edible! As to digestable, let's see what happens tomorrow. ;)

Ah, the perks of living away from the comfort of home!

In other news, it was my first day at placement today at the Royal Hobart Hospital - I fell in love with the Podiatry Department at the hospital, as well as the ginormous teddy bear sitting in the lobby.

Biggest Teddy Bear in the world! :)

Everything in the Podiatry department was heaps organized, and I have never met a friendlier bunch of podiatrists. I took an immediate liking to my supervisor, Pam. She's awesome. Not one bit like those supervisors who stare at you with beady eyes and grill you with questions and before you're even up to answering it halfway they shoot you down with comments or cut into your explanation with more questions. Maybe it was because Pam offered us cherries (I absolutely love 'em! *nomnom*), or absent-mindedly exited the lift on the wrong floor and thought that Pathology had shifted to a whole new floor (LOL! imagine our confusion in the lift). Either way, she really is going out of her way to make our placement a real good experience, so thank God for that! :) I'm finding it really funny that all the podiatrists in this hospital are ladies. Maybe that's why things are so neat and organized! Lol.

Saw a couple of new things today - an abdominal hernia (with an ingrown toenail) and a quadriplegic (with a fungal toenail). The quadriplegic became as such because he was dunked by a wave while surfing a year ago. He sustained injuries and fractures to his lower spine, which resulted in him not being able to move his body from his head down. At first I felt really bad for him, but when we went to see him, he seemed to really be on top of things and it seemed as if he had really come to terms with his situation, so good on him! :) However, we did come across some notes that mentioned some unpleasant neuropsychological incidents - but that's only natural, I guess. He also has a really cool software program on his iMac that allows the cursor to move according to his head movements. We were real fascinated and stayed about a minute or two to watch him work his lappy. Simply amazing, technology nowadays! 

Hannah & I - All smiles in front of the Royal Hobart Hospital!

I've forgotten how wonderful it is to be staying so near your workplace - me staying in Tazzy for two weeks, it's so totally making me relive my Tuart days! =P Workplace just 5 minutes away, having to buy my own groceries and cooking my own dinner..lol. But the only difference is I still try to wake up early to do my Daily Bread. :) To be honest, I do miss the comfort of home (awesome shower and cooking facilities and my BED! ><) but I'm not homesick. Yet. Ask me again this time next week, I miiiight give you a different answer. Or I might just cry without saying anything. LOL. Nah, I kid. I'm a pretty tough cookie, I think.

Anyway, this tough cookie needs her rest now - tomorrow looks like a pretty intense day, where I shall be attending the Ulcer Clinic. Fingers crossed, no fainting episodes! :)  Also, Hannah and I might get the chance to witness maggot therapy - I'm 100% sure it will freak me out and make me all squirmish. But no matter, I have already decided that tomorrow shall be epic. :)