Lifelong Combatants

Dear Diary,

Yay! So good to be back home. =) My feet are aching from a day’s work. You know something… I never get used to working… haha… Quite cheerful these days although I am getting a little bored because I am too “efficient”, haha… Set some clinical questions for pre-registration pharmacists. Included ECG charts, angiography and venography diagrams etc… A sense of satisfaction! Yes, I am a little “sadistic”, haha…

Furthermore, today… I actually successfully identified the cause of a massive oral candidiasis on a little 3-year-old child. The little Indian child had thick white thrush on his tongue. I was puzzled… Told the mum to administer Daktarin Oral Gel 4 times a day. Hmmm… is the child immuno-compromised? Couldn’t be… looked quite healthy. On steroids??? Asthma? So I asked the mum is her child on any medication. Presto, got the culprit! It is the beclomethasone inhaler which the child use without rinsing his mouth after each administration, that led to the thrush. Advised the mother accordingly and she was thrilled… or rather delighted, haha…

Then, there was this young lady who came with left peri-orbital oedema. Suspected that it could be an allergic reaction towards the naproxen she took for her menstrual cramps but yet she claimed that she ever took that drug without any side effect. Anyway, gave her some antihistamine…. It is always very good to be able to solve a medication “puzzle”! ;-) Previously, identified some coughing due to ACEI and asked doctor to change to ARB. Oh yes, and suspecting peripheral oedema due to calcium channel blockers… got it changed too. Yeah… haha…

However, in the midst of the “yayness”… had a chat with a former university classmate last night, and found out that she failed to enter two of the graduate medical courses in Australia. I was really surprised because I thought competition for a foreign medical course would not be as keen as the Duke-NUS GMS… besides she was and is one of the top students in our class. I was expecting her to cruise into the course without a single ripple. Sigh… her dreams shattered after so many years. I understand how she feels now. She is probably among the earliest university classmates I know well. As year 1 pharmacy freshmen, we ever went together to RELC to check out on studying medicine in Australia… at that time, we were advised to pursue our pharmacy degree first and do a post-graduate one later. 6 years down the road, both of us got rejected in our respective medical school applications. So this year 2007 marks a total new beginning after the end of our childhood ambitions. Usually would meet up with her every half a year. Should meet her up very soon. She promises to bring her car along, haha… Good!

Yesterday, nice to see my student (or rather ex-student) come to my pharmacy! =) She brought some tea from Nepal for my assistant and me. We had a little chat. She said she will join my company when she graduates if we could stop that new initiative which is threatening to make us a laughing stock in our industry. Haha… one more good reason to do my best to stop this juggernaut. ;-) In reality, whether this unpopular initiative is implemented now lies pretty much in our hands and I am really gonna do my best. Need that courage to face the “big shots” up there in the hierarchy “zillions” of positions above me, haha… ok, ok… an exaggeration. =P

You know… last week, I was planning a little surprise for someone. Did some research, some correspondence and some payment (ouch, pocket hurts, haha…). Hope she will like it when the time comes, haha… It is the first time in my life I am doing this. Okie, gotta go now. Take care and goodnight!

God Bless,

Andrew