"till death do us apart"

What an unpleasant day today.

She and him are good friends for a life time.


He was admitted to the hospital.

The team says,

"Neither of them have any families in Toronto. We are her family."

"We should help her out in house chores like cooking and preparing meals. It's going to be hard for her."

Saturday morning, she called up one of her friends, crying, "He is leaving me."

So he left, and she is left alone.

I can't believe this. They were so in love with each other, it must be really really hard this sweet lady, our d/c nurse.

Everybody was so stressed out for the whole day, surprisingly, including myself, who has just known her for 3 weeks.

Work was off early, but I didn't wanna go home, went shopping instead. It's a pain in the ass when I wanted to pick a decent pair of shoes. When I finally hopped on the bus, couldn't take a nap which is the weirdest thing happened ever.

Finally home, wondering where to ventilate the blue in me, DD's name appeared on my phone and it finally was released, so as my tears. Thank you so much. Thank you DD.

Placement Week 3

It has already been three weeks. I can't believe time flies this fast. It's so sad.

The inpatient setting came as a surprise. However, it's better that I didn't think too much and just focus on what I am supposed to do. And I believe it works out well, at least until now.

There are a large varieties of patients, some really cocky, some really nice, some really chatty, some have language barrier. However, they are all awesome people and able to carry out a conversation. Sometimes we chat on more than S/E. Sometimes they need more encouragement for mobilization.

My job here is to be part of the regional geriatric team, to decide if the patient is safe to go home/rehab centre/long term care. In the mean time, I take the responsibility of keeping up the activity level of the patients while waiting for their medical condition to be more stable. Seeing the patients improve everyday under my care, no word can explain the satisfaction I have keep down there.

Thanks to Ms Poon from QM, who taught me the proper cough stimulation to trigger a good cough to avoid uncomfortable suctioning.

I feel very comfortable working with this team here. The nurse practitioner, the d/c nurse, the OT, the MD incharge, the residents, the dietitian, the recreational therapist, the PT assistants. They are all very nice and helpful. And luckily I blend in very well, thanks to my supervisor Joanna who brought me into the team.

For a very very long time, I haven't found this kind of passion of being a physiotherapist.

I have been told that physiotherapists can make a change. But in here, I experience it myself. I do make a difference in somebody's life.

I am already sad that this placement is already half way thru.

Sunrise

Met a friend

Did my first individual transfer today, with an osteoporotic lady. She screamed all of a sudden, which freaked me out. But Joanna, my supervisor, was so confident that nothing had gone wrong with the transfer. Thanks sooo much for believing in me.

It was a slow day today. The highlight of the day was the lunch with Edwin. He hasn't changed much except the fact the he started running a while ago.

Why is everybody doing marathons these days? Running is so freaking boring. I've run, but after the first or second time, it has already been a drag for me.. what is it going to end.... are we there yet??..ugh...

Anyways, he admitted that running was damn boring. But he said that people are actually fun to hang out with. So, point taken. And we all know that it's a healthier lifestyle.

He's such a nice friend. I would love to see him again, on court may be...

Placement con't

It's my third day of placement, and I already started to do documentation. It's electronic documentation!!! How neat!! They adapt this DARP format instead of SOAP which is going to take some time for me to get familiar with.

The first day was basically orientation. I have already met all of my patient by Tuesday and treating them on Wednesday. That was quite a bit for two days. Besides seeing patients and treating them, I sat in a board meeting and a family meeting. This is making me so excited and I love what I am doing here.

The supervisor is very very nice. We are like buddies than "teacher & student" which I think is amazing. Because only in a relaxed environment, I can ensure that there is learning going on. We've talked about learning objectives today, that I would like to provide a more holistic treatment plan for patients, and raise the awareness of the roles of other team members.

Really... Thank God for bringing me here.

Last night I went to a new volleyball friend's house. She made Indian food. It was delicious. Oh my God, the rice, the chicken and the yogurt thingie were unbelievably tasty. I've gotta learn some Indian cooking myself. Yummy.....








On tuesday morning, like really really early morning, my phone rang. Stupid cell phone, the alarm ran off again. I took it out and tried to turn it off. It was actually a morning call from Jersey. What the heck?! The first thing he said was "Wow you're up already?!" .... I was like... 'why would you call if you don't think i am up???' That was a surprise in the morning :) and I appreciate that.

First day of placement

I was f-king late on the first day because of the stupid train. Well, i missed my train.

But the orientation was great... just needed to get my chest x-ray done and blood test because it was too long ago that I had my vacinnation.

So case type: I totally thought I was going to do outpatient geriatrics. It ends up to be Geriatrics inpatient.

Therefore, I am pretty screwed because I did not have my mind set to geriatrics inpatients. I should have brought my notes from Queen Mary Hospital, those were very very useful. Damnit.

Otherwise, the working environment is actually very friendly. My clinical educators are very very nice. At least they didn't yell at me when I was late on the first day.

Will have more explosure tomorrow in the ward and stuff because we actually work closely with other allied health, including OTs. Allied health is named as health disciplines here.

I am exposed to the very important coffee shops in the hospital. Pretty sure I will rely on them for survival LOL.

Will update more when I know more.

My last relaxin weekend

Before the first day of placement, I had a reverse 6 vball tournament on Saturday. I played 6 whole games, without libero. It was an exhausted weekend but I won a VOLLEYBALL!!!! Met some really nice people too. Richard set really nice balls for me and we talked quite a bit. Lisa and I just kept talking nonstop when we were ref-ing. And she invited me out for dinner as well. Skyler gave me a ride home, omg... i lived far, so we kept talking nonstop as well. So besides playing vball, I talked the whole day on Saturday. Geez, since when I turned myself into a chatterbox.

Sunday was an amazing church day. We were celebrating Chinese New Year, so we had lunch together. Met my good old friends and young kids from the youth group. Some of the remember me and wanted to play vball with me. So funny that my name's actually attached to vball. This day ended with a buffet. The buffet itself was nothing special but, BUT, the CHEESECAKES were the most amazing thing on earth. In addition to the traditional New York plain cheesecakes, they had cherry cheesecake (which i am not very fond of) and MANGO CHEESECAKE which was a heaven on earth. OMG.. I had two slices of them and for once I didn't care how fattening they were.

Gotta get prepared for tomorrow's placement. Right my first day of placement!!!