I'm around :)

POPD Consulting Room

It seems like I haven't posted in ages! As usual been quite busy! The good news is I have just 2 days left in this ward that I'm currently in :) Alhamdulillah the 4 weeks went really fast :)

Actually I'm post-call today - don't think  I'll ever get used to calls! It's impossible to explain the post-call feeling - it's like you are just totally physically, mentally, emotionally exhausted!!

Anyway I was on call in POPD and the electricity at the hospital cut and somehow the generators didn't come on so yeah we were in complete darkness for about 1 and a half hours! Luckily at that point it wasn't that busy... so once the lights came back, I decided to go read my salaah. My day had been very hectic and I hadn't even had time to read any salaah so I decided to make use of the quiet time to catch up. Now I had to make wudhu but when I got to the room, I started having second thoughts coz the sink wasn't exactly 'wudhu -friendly' and there was no hot water ( it is currently freezing here in PMB!). So just as I was giving up on the idea, my reg opens the curtain and asks what I'm up to, so I told her I was deciding to pray. She was like so excited by the fact and began asking like a hundred questions about Islam and praying. She even wanted to know if there are Black South African Muslims. Anyway while chatting about Islam etc. she mentioned that she really admires the fact that Muslims pray anywhere, whereas they usually only pray like twice a week sometimes and personally she feels quite lost regarding religion. She believes in a Higher Power but doesn't really know whether she's Christian or believes in traditional African beliefs. She feels really lost at times and wanted to know whether I think by praying 5 times a day, things work out more smoothly in my life etc. So anyway after she left I felt so grateful that Allah blessed me with deen and has granted me peace and contentment. I felt so ashamed of even thinking of making my salaah (a gift from Allah) qadhaa that I immediately made wudhu and hit the floor!!! May Allah guide us all and keep us on the straight path, Ameen.

Another Security Guard Rant

Dropped off my friend at the hospital DQ, its 18h10 and as I approach the main hospital boom gates, I see lots of security guards standing on both sides of the road. So as I approach I consider just driving past without stopping and then I'm like no I'll stop, there's too many of them (but I hope they don't make me get off coz it's dark already)....so as I open the window, a female guard quickly asks me how I'm doing and before I can even answer or say that the boot is already open, she asks if I'm going into town coz she and 2 other guards need a lift. So I told her I'm not going to town and in the mean time I see this other guard trying to open the passenger door. I thought he's the guard checking the cars and he probably wants to check the cubby so I unlatched the door. He opens it and he asks which way I'm going, so I named the suburb (knowing he wouldn't want to go there - it's a predominantly Indian area ) and then to my surprise he jumps in and his like that's cool I can take him till a certain traffic circle. I was totally shocked and I really didn't know what to do coz this dude is sitting in my car! Anyway I drive off in silence thinking; how did I manage to be in this situation, alone with this random dude, will I reach home safely - I mean this is South Africa!! Luckily I managed to reach the traffic circle safely and he jumped off so it was fine. But seriously, next time I'm gonna lie and say I live just near the hospital.   Oh and by the way what happened to checking my car huh??

Random Pic's

So yeah the weekend's over, sis is gone back to Bloem and it's back to work from tomorrow.... the great thing is that I have just 2 weeks left in this hell of a  ward that I'm currently in :) :)

Some random pics of Thursday's function:

About....Well, Just about Everything!

Realised it's almost a week since I last posted....yep I've been very busy. Just today I mentioned to my mum, that if breathing wasn't an involuntary action, I don't think I would have had the time to breathe! The ward is just crazy (one of the interns said she feels like she's drowning!), but looking on the bright side, I've already completed a week, so just 3 more to go Insha Allah :) And there's so much to look forward to; sis is coming home tomorrow Insha Allah for a few days,                    

 Public holiday on Thursday and I'm not working,

Going to a pre-wedding function this weekend, braai + wedding + walimah next weekend. Woohoo:)

Anyway I was on call this Saturday, it was busy but Alhamdulillah it went well i.e. there was no resus, no deaths, I ate, managed to perform salaah on time and got 2hrs sleep:) There were some really sick kids though, it's so sad, and so many of them have been kinda abandoned by their mum's and their old grannies have to take care of them...I just don't understand!

Oh ja, you know I think it's an indigenous South African thing where they mix up the pronouns 'he' and 'she' and use 'she' when referring to males. Anyways I seem to be doing it the other way around (unintentionally though!) coz I often assume the kid's a male and ja, then the kid's actually a she! It was quite bad on Saturday with the one patient, coz I took the file from granny in the waiting area and went into the consultation room. They took a bit of a while in coming coz the kid needed the bathroom, so I decided to fill in all the papers. I had briefly seen the kid in the waiting room and thought he was a boy and the name seemed to confirm it, so I circled 'male' on all the papers and plotted the kid's weight and height on the boys growth chart. All through the history taking I kept saying 'he' and 'his' etc. I took the kid to the procedure room to do an ENT exam and noticed girl's shoes on 'his' feet, so I thought maybe 'he's' wearing 'his' sister's. Only when I saw the pink Barbie t-shirt under the jersey, I realised 'he' was a girl! It actually came out quite badly coz I just exclaimed "oh you're a girl?" After that I made sure I asked the parent beforehand, if the child was a boy or girl! Oh and I had to go scratch off everywhere I had male written and re-plot the graphs!

The same above-mentioned patient had this horrible productive cough and little through the history taking I saw the granny hand her a big Nola mayonnaise bottle - I was like huh? I was not impressed at all when I realised why she was given the bottle - she was uhm... collecting all her coughed-up sputum in it! Gross!!! So every time she coughed, she opened the bottle and... oh well you get the picture, I'm not going to go into details but I don't think I'l ever look at a mayonnaise bottle the same way again! 

Actually lots of the kids had nasty coughs and I actually ended up with a sore throat today after being coughed at yesterday. If I never had the TB bacilli in my lungs - highly unlikely, this is SA! - I definitely got them yesterday! I think I finally understood why a lot of the doctors say that at Edendale TB is personified - I really saw it 'walking around'!

To end off, my mum says such things at times! Recent conversation with an aunt....
Aunty: " Shame but Sabeehah has to work so hard. It's not easy for her huh? Shame she could have done something else..."
Mum: " Oh there's nothing shame about it, everything is hard! And Alhamdulillah she gets double reward, coz she'll get rewarded for helping sick people plus she gets rewarded at month end in her bank balance!"
Oh mother!!

Comforting Myself

Today was just one of 'those' days. I just could not wake up this morning and after pressing the snooze button for the hundredth time, I finally decided I'm just not gonna go for the morning meeting. When I eventually woke up I just kept thinking why do I have to put myself through this? I literally dragged myself to work today and as soon as I got there I realised it was gonna be a long day!

Our reg was post call so the other intern and I were left with all the ward work and I don't know what happened but the consultant was on a roll today so it was like every patient required something; bloods, urine cultures, stool cultures, lumbar punctures etc. etc. So we worked together, skipped lunch and  I eventually managed to finish at 18:00p.m. (normal working day is till 16:00). While walking to the lab to drop off some specimens before going to my car, I felt really sorry for myself and kept thinking why am I doing this? It's just so weird coz in medicine you can't really put off tasks till the next day - things have to be done coz people's lives depend on it! And as the intern doctor you can't exactly just pass on unfinished work to anybody... so ja.....And then the walk to the car - I didn't realise it was dark outside already and I had quite a far walk to my car. [In any other place (besides South Africa) an evening walk would be quite pleasant.]

Anyway while driving through Edendale hoping I reach home safely - Edendale is not the best place for a woman to be driving alone at night - I had Allah Knows by Zain Bhika playing. The following words really struck me "When you carrying a monster load, and you wonder how far you can go, just remember no matter where you are, Allah knows" When I heard this I was like how stupid can I be, obviously Allah knows what I'm going through and He will never put me through something He knows I won't be able to handle. So I just said Alhamdulillahi Alla Kullee Haal, I mean things could have been worse, so why am I feeling so despondent and being so ungrateful?
I've become a doctor through the will of Allah and Insha Allah I'll be rewarded for my sacrifices. May Allah guide and help us all, Ameen.

Totally Random

Went to The Royal Show today. I went after like 8yrs and I've already made up my mind..... I'm not going next year!! Overall I was totally unimpressed; the animals were cool though - I want a miniature horse!
I was actually quite tempted to buy a white Angora rabbit, but then Amr will get jealous;)


By the way I just had to take a picture of these rabbits - reminded me of Arab style make-up ;)

I love ym kood ;)

Was just going through some things and found some stuff I had written/drawn as a kid. I laughed my head out so thought I'd share it!

It's a bit embarrassing but hey it's good to laugh at yourself, right?

Work of art

Uhm, What language is this?

Translation: I love my book Sabeehah

Translation: I love to paint in the book

 Aww!!

1st Month Over

Yep I can't believe I've already completed 1 month in Paeds. So from Monday I'm going to another ward that's reportedly much more busy! Anyway since tomorrow's my last day, I'm taking some treats for a small party for the little one's. It so amazing and sad - some of my patients were there before I started and are still gonna be there for at least another month. I mean, can you imagine staying in a hospital away from home and your family for so long?

I really like one little boy in particular, he's so adorable but I feel really sorry for him coz he's so sick. Just yesterday he wanted to know from me when he can go home. So I was like when you get better. Then he looks at me and says when am I gonna get better? I looked at his small sad face and was a bit lost for words because to put it bluntly I wonder if he ever will get better - Stage 4 HIV, Disseminated TB, Marasmus - you get the picture? So I just told him I don't know and as kids do he started again with "but when am I gonna go home? I miss home!" It's just so sad, so cruel... this small body has to suffer because of his parents.... even today I had to take bloods from him (again!) and it's really difficult because he just simply does not have veins! So while I'm preparing he keeps asking how much am I gonna take and is it gonna hurt. He tries to be really brave and walks confidently with me to the procedure room but gosh when that needle goes in, he screams like anything and keeps shouting "No dokotela, no dokotela" and I don't know what to do because on one hand I have to get the blood but on the other hand it's like tearing my heart to hear him pleading with me to stop. I just wish they'd develop some other means of getting the results we need from processing blood samples!

I promised to give him chappies before we started so when it was all over and tears dried and I'm busy discarding stuff, he looks up to me and says "Doctor you said you'l give me chappies and can you please make me a balloon from the glove?"