31 August 2009

May I have this dance





Relationship is something that you can't develop with anyone you like. It is a gift that sometimes comes from the most unusual source. And when it happens you would have to nurture it, and it takes more than just a person. It takes two to make it works into something meaningful.

It is quite a bizarre experience to be able to connect to a stranger within a short space of time. The thing that bond this two people together can be in forms of shared joyful event or a painful episodes in their yesteryear.

This connection can also be developed into something more wonderful. However as life would has it, not all things are meant to be the way we sometime want them to be. Maybe if we found that person years earlier - it may have work fine and dandy But fate has it that person met someone else first, and we're just a little bit too late. Which somehow creates a sticky situation.

With that in mind I wanna share with you one of my favourite film scene.

Like Frank in this clip, given that he's not blind and he met Donna years earlier than Michael, perhaps they can be more than just a dance-partner (Sorry Charlie, you're still a baby). Because I can sense the chemistry in them. How they trust each other in creating their moves, the way their body react to each other. But circumstances has it that their magical moments last only in that short evening.

On the other hand, I would like to believe that we could extrapolate this metaphor beyond the dance floor, to dance to this life like how we tango.

"...If you made a mistake, you got all tangled up you just tangle on!"

Let's toast to life.

29 August 2009

Life less ordinary with cream



One thing for sure, fasting month always has this rather odd effect on my internal body clock. I could never go back to bed after sahur, no matter how much alluring the bed looks like at 5.50am. I would rather have a hot shower so that by 6.40am I could be sitting in an empty seminar room at the hospital looking through journals for my thesis proposal.

At 5.01pm I would retreat back to the seminar room and continue with the reading & typing. Which usually will end up with me breaking the fast with the on-call boys.

By 11 at night, I would curl up on the bed again with the air-cond breezing at 25 degrees, and Cavatina playing softly in the background.

3am: Having fun at the carnival again. A little girl dressed up in a fairy costumes gave me her lollypop. Somehow I manage to punch a clown who won't reveal his dog-balloon trick to me.

5.15am: ZZZ *^$%& ... Huh what was that?! Crap (hit the snooze button).


24 August 2009

23 August 2009

Sayang





I was on call again last night, so I made a quick stop at the emergency department hoping to have a quick chat with my old buddy whom I haven't seen for a while. We came all the way from med-school days.
Having just returned from a long holiday, you could tell from his skin tone that he'd muck about too long with his scuba stunts.

"Sorry can't talk now bro, I'm busy" Joe looked preoccupied with his patient in the last cubicle. For a man who just came back from holiday he looked like shit.

I shifted my attention to his patient who seemed to be in laboured breathing. The man is in his late 40's. Muscular and tall, rather good looking I suppose. The non-invasive ventilator AKA CPAP covered the centre of his face. The mask snuggled quite nicely to his dark brown beard. The CPAP machine is used to force oxygen pressure into his lungs to help him breath better.

"Hurm asthma, looking pretty bad here, you may need to watch for respiratory fatigue, he may well need to be electively intubated" I told Joe what he already knew.

"Yea yea! We've done all we can for now, but what I really need right now is his family's phone number, coz this guy is too breathless and tired to tell us, and we've been trying to locate his next of kin via his handphone directory" Joe's losing his cool that night.

We looked through the usual method...under each possible alphabet:


W = for wife


I = isteri


A = abang/adik/ayah

etc.. etc .. nothing useful came out.


Moments passed, before it hit me "Joe, try under S"

"Huh for what, superman?"

"Just give it a shot, will ya buddy"

True enough the word SAYANG appeared on the screen. I smiled thinking to myself this patient before us could be the last romantic Malaysian man on earth.

Joe quickly made the call and spoke to a lady who is the wife of this unfortunate chap.

"Ma'am we need to inform you that your husband is ill, his asthma may got worsen and it would be better if you could come to our hospital now"

"Well I really can't come right now, there are lotta things I need to handle at home, with kids and everything, really I can't, doctor just do whatever you can to help him and I'll come by 1st thing tomorrow morning, I promise" she ended the conversation.

Joe looked at me "So much for sayang eh"

"Hurm well maybe she lost a little bit of those sayang through out their years together " I looked at the patient, hoping he didn't hear what his wife said to Joe.

I suppose the last thing the man with 'broken lungs' needed at that time is a broken heart.