the perils of

So I guess my Clerk's Notes series will have to come to an abrupt end, seeing as I am no longer a clerk. Very happy about that! I also get a perverse glee thinking about all the wrongdoings I committed in clerkship that went unsanctioned / unnoticed, like coming in late on certain days or case write-ups that I half-assedly crammed. I was supposed to start internship yesterday at the Toro Hills Health Center. Sadly, I've been put out of commission for a while thanks to this weird viral illness I've contracted. Nobody can say for sure what it is but Doc Sio suspects German measles. As such I have to wait for my horrid rash to subside before I can even think about returning to work. Which sucks big time. There are so many exciting things happening at the health center this week. I was supposed to be part of the first batch of Ateneo interns to ever  rotate there, and here I am sitting pretty at home, waiting out a stupid rash. Been marathoning Gilmore Girls  on Netfli...

       There's something about this weekend that is making me absurdly happy.        Maybe it's that my duty schedule is permitting me to sleep in on a Sunday. Or maybe it's that the busy street near my condo is closed to cars, and is currently populated by only happy families riding bicycles and stupid teenagers trying to show each other up with skateboard tricks. Wow listen to me, calling teenagers "stupid" and openly resenting them as an age group. How grown-up sounding!        Maybe it's that I had the time to go out and get a decent breakfast (pancakes, a sausage, and some iced coffee from McDonald's in case you were wondering). Or that afterwards, I got to watch Gilmore Girls on Netflix while simultaneously practicing watercolor painting.        I think the magic of this weekend really stems from me finally having the time and space to just work on being  myself . See, my rotation...

I interrupt my Clerks Notes series to talk about something... happy. See, yesterday I went on a really great date with a really great person. He came dressed in a grey Ateneo shirt and a cool dark green jacket. We bought separate tumblers of popcorn, and I got cheese, and he got sour cream, and by the end of  Murder on the Orient Express both flavors had mixed into a cheesy chivesy powder on our fingertips. I loved the movie. I really liked his jacket too. So we went to the store he had bought it from, and they carried the same jacket in a lovely rose color. As I tried it on, anxiety started to creep in. Is it too soon to get matching jackets? Is he okay with matching? Will we look ridiculous? "Can we be matchy, or would that be weird?" I asked him outright. "We can be matchy," he replied with a sweet smile. And so we were matchy. And it's weird because I've never been matchy with anyone before (anyone aside from my sister that is). But it's also ...

       Just came from my first duty in VKMC, a government-owned tertiary-level hospital near where I live. For the record, VKMC is a fake name that I'm using for confidentiality purposes (I just googled it; there is no such thing as a VKMC in the Philippines [at least as far as the first page of the search results shows]).         Anyway. We'll be rotating in VKMC for three weeks under Obstetrics-Gynecology, a particularly special rotation known for making interns out of clerks. The hospital is notorious for being a "baby factory," where hordes  of pregnant women come to expel tiny humans out of their bodies. With two or three mothers sharing a single bed, you're watching over at least 30 patients at any given time, but this number differs depending on who you ask. Some will say they've done 100 patients at once. Some 200. Some 15 (which is pretty believable given the  Pseudomonas outbreak in the hospital some months ago that...

     Just ended my Rehab rotation a few days ago, and it was definitely a lot more laid-back than the other rotations I've been in. On our last day of Radiology in [private hospital]. This has nothing much to do with Rehab but I just wanted a comparison pic of what it's like to be in a private hospital. So cushy and nice. (Also I needed a nice photo for the thumbnail for Facebook.)      On our first day at [insert name of public orthopedic hospital], we got to try out the paraffin wax bath, which made our hands warm and glazed, like a Krispy Kreme doughnut.      Later on in the week I spent a whole day in the Spine Ward with my group. It was honestly... kind of gross.        Okay before you judge me as being maarte or elitista, hear me out. In this public hospital, they do not throw away gloves after using them. Because patients are too poor to afford new gloves, nurses usually wash and rewash existing ...

> Subjective       Umm... What the hell just happened.          My two months in Internal Medicine is up and I hardly got to document it. Heck, my last post was about the one day off I got. Looking back on everything that's happened between now and my last entry, I have so many regrets for not writing sooner.        I'm sorry.        I've been saying that word a lot lately, more often in these past two months than I've ever said my whole life.       I say it to almost every doctor I work with, right before saying something I shouldn't even be sorry about.  Sorry doc, may I just ask a question? Sorry doc, may I get an initial read? Sorry doc, our patient in 4A still has difficulty breathing even after nebulizing.  These are the "light" sorry's; I throw them out indiscriminately and they carry no weight. They are a mere concretization of my place in the hospital hierarc...

> Subjective Today marks the first day I haven't set foot inside a hospital since clerkship started. Seriously. Thank you to [hospital name redacted] for giving us clerkies the holiday off! Woke up at 8:30 AM today.  Felt so strange not having to get ready in a rush, not having to drag my body some place it doesn't want to go.  Literally went "mmmmmmmm" as I buried my head in my pillow and went back to sleep. Had a slice of mango cake for breakfast. Mmmm WENT CRAZY OVER THE LATEST TAYLOR SWIFT VIDEO . (Zombie Taylor is the best Taylor.) Walked to Ayala the 30th from my condo (in the blazing noontime sun. But I didn't mind because I'd spent all my afternoons on hospital floors, never knowing what the sky looked like at any given hour) Peaceful sushi lunch at Genki Sushi. Although I felt pressured to eat fast and leave because my single butt was holding up space at a table meant for 6.  Stocked up on foot deodorant :| Marathoned Orange is the New...