aaaaaaahhhhh!!!

okay. so. today has been so scattered.

I started work at 7 this morning for beam check. I just turn on the machine and warm it up and what not - make sure everything is working okay. So i get there early, just to be sure because its my first time doing the beam check on my own. I get there, try logging into the computer, the database is down. fuck. lol. its not the first time its happend, the 3 times i've done beam check with someone else we've had problems. funny that. i think i'm cursed. so anyways, i do all that i could. mostly the manual work. and eventually when the more senior staff got in, they managed to get everything working okay. so our day started off a bit rocky.

at 10:30 I had a bunch of prospective interns come in to take a tour of the department. i show them around, answer a few questions - was perhaps a bit too honest, but oh well. once that was done i went back to clinical work.

so. i'm supervising a student. i probably shouldn't be supervising since i'm technically not a real person at work - i'm supernumerary and still essentially training. but oh well. if my superiors feel confident in my work its all good. my student - nice girl, a tad bit slow. okay maybe not a tad, REALLY SLOW. we've gone through everything with her, quiz her on techniques, rationale, the basic stuff really. she still doesn't get it. shes enthusiastic and good with the patients but has no idea when it comes to the technical stuff. we try and get her involved in the treatment but all she does is just get in the way or take incredibly long. we thought we should get her involved with breast patients - simple technique, simple set up. it would normally take us 10 minutes to treat a breast patient, with her, it takes us 20-30 minutes. so shes chosen a breast patient for her procedure study. she performs the treatment and we assess how she does. she has been practicing on this one patient. unfortunately, today the patient asked us if it was okay if the student had no part in her treatment. and the thing is, she has chosen the easiest breast patient to do, all the others are harder to set up and are more complicated. sigh. i wonder how this girl is ever going to learn. shes enthusiastic, good with the patients, bit quiet - her heart is in the right place, just her brain isnt... oh thats too harsh.

the staff i work with think i'm doing a good job with her. i'm the most patient person with her, the rest just get annoyed and take over. i do try, but i'm not sure how much more i can take of it.

clumsy

i've never been clumsier or blessed with such bad luck in my whole life.

within the first hour at work i managed to break 3 things.
- crashed a computer
- tore off rubber buttons from the machine (i wheeled a stool into the bed)
- broke a CCTV that we use to watch patients on the bed (i just looked at it...)

the first two things weren't that bad, the third thing meant we couldn't treat patients for 15 minutes. they sent me to tea while the tv got fixed. They fixed it, and as i came back from tea, i came around the corner and the TV broke again.

My colleague told me that i should probably just do paperwork for the rest of the day. I hesitantly agreed.

After lunch, I continued on the paperwork. lesley asked me to treat one patient while carol went to tea. it was my first patient for the afternoon. we treat one field out of 6 and then the machine just stopped. whoops. some big fault with the machine we couldn't fix. we had to get the engineer down to fix it and treat the patient on the other machine.

just my luck.

all by myself..

all by myself.. i remember many karaoke nights screaming it at the top of my lungs. fun. don't ya just love asians?

anyways. alone now. in bed, sore back, tense shoulders, same old same old. watching sex in the city before bed with the rest of them. we started talking about love, life and what not. nothing serious. being alone is my fear. i surround myself with such loving friends, but how long will that last? and is their love enough? people tell me i'll find love, or rather love will find me. but it hasn't happend yet and not likely to happen soon. doesn't matter. i'm at a point where i am too lazy [scared] to love. theres always that lingering thought that i'll just fuck up my next relationship, i shouldn't even bother trying. i start to think i can't make anyone happy. its not like i don't want to love; i just don't want to disappoint anyone.

i'm either going to turn into an old single man or just settle for someone out of convenience or for financial stability. who knows.

i'm just coming down.

onesixone

coming down now. slowly. need food, im tense all over, emotionally fragile - or rather, emotionally flat. should really get out of the house but its too late to do anything. wasted my day in bed cuddling a gorgeous girl. god bless her.

last nigth was pauline's birthday. great night. chocolate buddha for dinner; by the end of dinner i resembled happy buddha, all i needed was someone to rub my belly. the company was great. warm, friendly loving people.

when we finished at chocolate buddha we hiked over to workshop. sipping champagne and beer straight out of the bottle on swanston st. you have to love joel's energy.

workshop was great. but was too wasted to really take in the atmosphere. 2 beers, sake, yager shot, 1 stella, champagne and beer was starting to get to me. i held myself up, didn't appear too trashed.

a group of us left workshop for onesixone. it was hot. we hid in a corner and dropped a bit too much. i was a bit paranoid about how the night would turn out, but it turned out great.

Me: Tarve is wearing glasses
Dean: Yeah, he wears glasses all the time...
Me: Shit yeah... i'm fucked.

Music was great as usual. Shame i had to leave early because of a headache. i think i drank too much water. oh well. ill slow down next time.

will blog more later.

tears..

i got the most amazing intern assessment the other day. all positive, plenty of 'O's (scale of U - Unsatisfactory; S - Satisfactory; E - Excellent; O - Outstanding). Yippee for me. Lightened my mood.

Yesterday, one of our patients passed away. For days she missed treatment, our nurse came up to us and said "she's knocking". I gave her a puzzled face and she explained that she was 'knocking on God's door'. Its somewhat comforting knowing that she is in a better place. She came to us in a poor state - obviously had lost lots of weight, frail and emotionally ill. She had a loving partner, who would ring in for the days she could not make treatment and explain her situation. I had followed her from the very start when she came into the department. CT scanned her, planned her treatment and then treated her.

Today, one of our patients finished treatment. She is absolutely lovely. She was one of the patients who you could have a laugh with. The staff would have competitions as to how tight we could tape her thigh - I won. She was with us for a good month. Today she brought her family in - her husband and young son. So cute. The kid rocked up in a t-shirt with "My Dad rocks!" on it. He was so shy. We had to dim the lights and we asked our patient if her son was scared of the dark, she said he would be fine. We dimmed the lights and the kid BOLTED! I lost it. I couldn't stop laughing. Once we finished, she started tearing. She gives my colleague a hug, looks at me and goes "come give me a cuddle..". I told her to leave before i started crying.

8 months in, the warm fuzzy feeling just as strong...

sigh

so. i got a patient changed. she is a young paediatric doctor of some sort. really pretty. when i met her, my first impression was a strong, rational woman. i looked up to her. i think she is amazing. she is still working, taking time off work to make her 10 minute appointment with us.
i mentioned to her that her doctor had requested a plain film x-ray to verify her position. she asked why we weren't going to do it the normal way. i told her it was due to limitations of the machine and we couldn't see appropriate anatomy.

i walk away to do other stuff. i come back and notice she is already on the bed, crying. she thought her doctor was looking for something, like things had gone bad. it stirred emotions. for the first time i didn't see her as a doctor, i saw her as a patient. she seemed so vulnerable.

the moment of irrationality surprised me. but it shouldn't. i can't expect anyone going through what she is going through to maintain a level of rationality. i am glad i wasn't in the room with her. i would have lost it.

i still look up to her. she is still fucking amazing. her insight on medicine and children makes me reassess how i would approach my paediatric work.

holiday..

so. dean is playing holiday again....

movin'

so. my life is a bit of a mess (literally). half my crap is at parkville, half my stuff is at bouverie. i have to be out by monday. need to organise steam cleaners. fuck. i do that now.

i'll get it all done. hopefully. i don't know what to do if i cant. arghhh!

meanwhile, sydney?? should i make the move? i shouldn't get ahead of myself, but i need to be prepared (omg such a control freak..). what happens if i don't get a job in melbourne? if i don't, sydney here i come! but the thing is, i think i will get a job in melbourne. my boss said to me yesterday that there is one definite grade 1 position available at my current department. she added that she thinks that i am really good. my supervisor quickly added "yeah but we think [the other intern] is really good too". So i don't know what to make of that. anyways, back to the point. so i guess i'm confident of getting a job in melbourne, which means i really don't know why i want to move.

maybe its family. i've had this urge to be around family. its a stability thing. there is no way i'm moving to adelaide, so i guess sydney is the next best thing. my sister isn't even there. and she could possibly be moving to melbourne.

maybe i think i need a change. melbourne is bored of me. i'm not bored of melbourne. its spring and everyone is finding love, and i'm left behind, all alone. not that its a bad thing. but i'm not finding love/meeting new people in melbourne.

need to think. going to clean.

i need to move stuff out of my apartment before i can start thinking about moving to sydney. baby steps...

oh, our auto-mo-baby is fixed.

a touch of spring...

so. the car is dead. and mercedes is charging me $4000 to resuscitate it. dean and i considering adopting a new auto-mo-baby. we were going through the options of rainbow auto-mo-babies and we have decided that japan will be our next garage of choice. you can really tell that this is blog is being written by dean.

anyways. dead car. is getting fixed tomorrow, getting it done cheap - not fixing everything. will see how long it will last. but been dreaming of new cars to get. something second hand and cheap. yaris?? fiesta?

dean : black and tinted windows. hot.
andy : sunroof.
dean : alloys. lowered.
andy : fucking asians.
dean : fluffy toys.
andy : fucking asians.
dean : fuck you.

what i really want is an is250. hot. black, leather, sunroof. dreaming.

we also have to adopt a new washing machine. its going to be so pretty. what is with my whitegood fetish??

br-br-broke...

my car is broken.

tired

tired. just got back from market. spent a whole 30 mins there. most expensive beer i've ever bought.

I finally found a park, and then headed into market. paid for entry and then caught quan leaving. he was heading back to a friend's house with some other people. one of my ex's friends was with them. was not keen on hanging out with them. i've had enough of my ex for the night. the reason for me going out was to get away from tim's issues, i wasn't particularly in the mood to socialise with one of his friends.

anyways. spent 15 mins outside market in the cold telling quan that he should go have fun and forget about me. he kept on insisting that i was lying and that i should hang out with him. i was really intent on staying. i thought there would be more friends inside. turns out they had left. great.

ran into derek, mark and james. derek was very chirpy and chatty. i asked him if he had spoken to tim lately and he said he hadn't. i told him he has been really down lately. he told me tim was my problem because i am the most current ex. sigh. tim isn't my problem. but somehow i do feel i owe it to him to keep him going and get him back on track.

the intense phone call with tim was laced with "andrew, i love you". i stupidly, yet very hesistantly lied back saying i loved him too. dean is right. i shouldn't lie. i should have replied with "i know, and you know i'll be here for you..." or something like that. after making the friends i have now, i wonder if i ever loved tim. the love i felt for tim doesn't compare to the love i feel for my friends now.

i'm lost again. its been a crappy end to the night. not because of the whole market fuck-up. its because of tim. he is sucking me back in. like a big whirlpool of ugly emotional badness. i told him outright, that i don't have the strength to fight his battles for him. the only thing i can do is encourage him to seek help, and even that is taxing enough. the stubborn mule that he is thinks he is beyond help, that the pain is too much. and then i wonder about a post daniel made not so long ago about when we visited watson's bay.

bye bye bouverie...

fuck. home now. the bye-bye-bouverie barbeque just finished up. it was the sweetest gesture. thanks ;-)

it didn't start out so well. it was raining, a boy forgot his boyfriend and had to go pick him up, the meat wasn't cooking and i was practically falling asleep. but it turned out to be an awesome wholesome family night in. quan was in a frenzy of cooking while everyone sat and chatted.

ok ok. have to stop blogging there.

just got off the phone with the ex. now i'm feeling ARRRRRRRGH. Gets me all agitated and what not. shit i shouldn't have to deal with, but have to because if I don't no one will. in no mood to sleep. must go out. will go join quan.

will blog later.

stay hungry, stay foolish...

*click*

down

tired. down. excited. confused.

okay. mainly confused about the mixture of the first three feelings. long day at work. don't know why i am down. confused about that as well. no need for a reason i guess. excited about sydney. everyone around me is getting into it. love it. it will be hot.

just need to hug something.

sigh

difficult day today. understaffed, late staff and long meetings meant that i was a bit overworked. it was okay, i could handle it. it wasn't until the end of the day that i had enough.

he was a new patient, and today was his first day. I walk out to the waiting room and introduce myself. He replies with "how long does a man have to wait around here?" in one of those angry tones. I apologised for our tardiness, but we were only 10-20 mins late. As part of the first day chat we show the new patients our control station and explain how we can control the machine from outside and watch them at all times. He snapped at me saying he didn't care and just wanted to get on with things. I felt small.

I was working with my charge. We get the patient to lie on the bed and we set him up. He refuses to lie still, always moving his arms, making it even harder for us to get him in the right position. It didn't help that he was a large man. Halfway through we had a bit of trouble with the bed and had to slide him across. The bed was really high. I kind of hurt my shoulder.

We double check everything and then get started. Once we had finished our verification and before we got started wtih his treatment, he said he had to get off the bed because his back was cramping. I asked if he could wait 5 more minutes. He said he couldn't. So i called for my colleague and lowered the bed. He asked for help off the bed. I said I couldn't lift him up, but if he grabbed the side of the bed and lifted himself up we could assist from behind. He refused to comply and goes to grab me. I step back and he yells "just help me will you?". I sharply said I couldn't - I need to look after my back.

He eventually gets off the bed. It was then I realised that he wasn't a difficult patient. Well he was. But his difficult-ness stems from his anxiety. I told him the actual treatment will only take 5 minutes. We get him back on the bed and realised we set him up too far to the left of the bed. We had to slide him across again.

Once we finished, I had a chat to our nurses. Told them that the patient was a bit short-tempered, but was probably due to his anxiety and will probably need pain control for his back. The nurse came back after she chatted to the patient and told us he was just as difficult with her as he was with us. She mentioned that he does suffer from an anxiety disorder and normally takes ativan, but did not take it today. Like duh. You'd think that if you suffered from anxiety, and knew that you'd be going through a procedure for the first time you'd take your medication. Sometimes I wonder if I'm working against natural selection... no, i shouldn't be so cold and harsh. He apologised for his behaviour.

If I treat him tmrw I'll make sure he is treated on time, even if I have push him infront of other patients. Having him waiting won't help his anxiety. By the end of the week he should soften up though.

dark clouds

i'm sitting on my couch, looking outside. dark clouds are rolling in as the sun sets. its beautiful, yet kinda eery. they are so dark...

my unborn child named pete...

all i wanted to do was walk home...

ate food tonight. too much. mother, i'm pregnant, your grandchild's name is pete, and he'll resemble a chicken.

lexington...

okay home from lexington, i think. drunk and tired. need sleep. have to work tmrw.

i just yelled at tim. on msn, so not really yelling, the emotion would have been lost. i told him to get his fucking shit together and get his bony arse out of the rut that its in. he is down. but reality is, his problems are nothing. so what if you don't have a uni degree. its a piece of paper. means shit all. it doesnt make you a better person. it gets you a job, and thats all, and even then, anyone can get a job. and you don't need a boyfriend to validate your own existence. i go to work and i am surrounded by people who have shit, and i mean real SHIT on their plate and they are dealing with it. it shits me when people complain to me about the crappy little things when they have no perspective or understanding of the shit they COULD be going through. i am guilty of that though. losing sight. when i am confronted with a problem, its there. its the like a brick wall and i can't walk through or past it. i get caught up on it. sometimes i need to step back and look at myself in the mirror and realise how fucking lucky i am, not matter how shitty life is around me.

sat-diy, veebs and yous.

oh my god. amazing night.

today was a drain. i didn't feel like I was up for anything. My haircut appointment felt like a chore, although i did walk out feeling refreshed. I picked up my car and went to ikea to buy shit, and then back to the city to walk around a bit more. Ended up at parkville sorting stuff out and cleaning with Carmel. God bless her. I will miss her so much. Drove out to Resevoir to pick up some clothes for Carmel and then dinner from safeway. We made a salad. I think its been months since my last salad.

Dean invited me out for drinks with Imma and Peta. Decided to do a low-key lounge-y drinks thing at Hairy. Peta is hot. I can't look her in the eyes. I really can't. A bottle of wine and a beer later I message quan and invite him along. with his suspenders and hat, he looked like a little messenger boy.

jimi lundy.

i finally get to meet the boy. nice guy, but so very quiet.

we drank more. laughed more. smoked more. photo-d more. it was like we were our own paparazzi. flashes left right and centre. of course, my photos turned out trashy. i can imagine the headlines in New Weekly or whatever:

SCANDAL! Singer-Songwriter Jimi Lundy hangs out with trashy asian, little messenger boy, hot blonde and fucked-up filos.

left for maccas. some drunkard, started yelling stuff at us. gave us shit. we gave him shit. it was fucking hilarious - "don't mess with us, we're asian, we'll stab you." ended up playing janet's new single while waiting in the drive-thru line. so fricken loud. it was like the peel in my car - except gay. but hot. and a whole lot less sleazy.

great night out. have to wake up early tmrw. fathers day breakfast with freddy and simon.

sleep sweet children. wish me a happy father's day.