Musings

An hour of break before Cardio-vascular histology lab. My last class of the week. (:

A requirement for Med 2 is taking a Mantoux test. Remember those jabs we took back when we were in Primary 6? The 1st jab on our arm which determines whether or not we have to take the BCG jab? Yeah. I took it on Tuesday and the nurses are supposed to have a look at my reaction to the antigen. And there IS a reaction! The reddish patch is quite big, and it got itchier yesterday. I don't know if it's a good thing or not, but I hope it is. As Wikipedia states,


A standard dose of 10 Tuberculin units (0.2 ml) is injected intradermally (into the skin) and read 48 to 72 hours later. A person who has been exposed to the bacteria is expected to mount an immune response in the skin containing the bacterial proteins.

The reaction is read by measuring the diameter of induration (palpable raised hardened area) across the forearm (perpendicular to the long axis) in millimeters. No induration should be recorded as "0 mm". Erythema (redness) should not be measured.


Okay, so yup, the patch on my forearm is hard, and I've got erythema! Maybe I'm immuned to TB after all. Haha. Well, of course I am immuned! I obediently took my BCG jab when I was 12! After histology lab I'll have to pay a visit to the nurses to look at my gross forearm. Hope it's fine. The bigger the induration is, the better. But at the same time, it can't be too big. Mine's quite big. Definitely more than 10mm.

I still remember those 'tips' we hear from our seniors back in Primary School on how to escape the BCG jab.

• Whack your forearm like mad until it turns really red. The diameter of the patch will get larger.

• Eat seafood and it'll get bigger!

I had seafood for 2 days, and my patch got much bigger when I had fishballs on Wednesday. Janice thinks that it's because of the seafood I had that made that area for itchy. Oh well, everything will be told to me in an hour and a half anyway. I'm getting all fidgety and all. And I've taken BCG. Geeeeees.

During yesterday's Comm Skills tutorial, I presented my interview to the whole class, after all the cant-bear-to-look-at-myself and oh-gosh-i-sound-like-a-retarded mentality. Something I thought I can improve on - Asking more open questions so the patient can tell me more about his/her condition. Other than that, while transcribing my interview by hand, I realised that asking questions without stuttering is NOT easy. Oh oh oh! And I've counted 30 'um'-s in my 5 minute interview! -.-

Having been here (NZ) for almost 3 years hasn't exactly changed my accent. And I've been having a little bit of difficulty trying to form sentences with perfect English, especially if I speak with the locals here. Okay, maybe only when I was filming my interview. I'm could be really nervous then. Haha. It's true that I speak English rather than Mandarin (my mother tongue) at home, but I guess the English I'm referring to is actually Singlish. Looks like I've got to stop speaking in Singlish for awhile, or else my interview with my patients will sound super stupid.

This morning I was browsing through Wikipedia in search of the Mantoux test and suddenly thought if I could find anything on Singlish. Haha. And YES! And there's a really looong article about it. Gees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singlish

Go have a look. I was laughing while reading about it. I doubt most Singaporeans ever realised that we structure sentences very differently as compared to the rest of the world. Imagine how they will understand us. Imagine how my patient will understand ME.

Mummy and Jonathan's coming over in 8 days' time!! I've been counting down since a month ago, and the day is drawing near. But I wonder what Jonathan would do when he's here. And my mum too. Janice and I will still be studying our butts off for our mid year. Hmm. Let me ponder about this for awhile.

Oh man! Great great news!! My friends from Stream B just came out of their histology lab! (their lab's an hour before Stream A. And I'm in Stream A) That's only 20 minutes of lab! Sweet as. My weekend is gonna start earlier than expected. Yahoooo!