Stress-ometer

Meters form an important part of anaesthesia. Monitoring, monitoring, monitoring... that's what we do every day... hell, no... every MINUTE the patient sleeps. (dunno why... suddenly i had a flashback to the time when i was appointed the class MONITOR in Pri 1... sheesh! maybe Someone-Up-There has tuned and set my life from then on...)

Anaesthetists are obsessed abt monitoring the BP, pulse rate, urine output, temperature, oxygen saturation, central venous pressure, respiratory rate, tidal volume, airway pressures... and the list goes on and on.

I have just found a new monitoring system for myself... the stress-ometer! guess what?? it is a permanent meter cos it's part of my body even! it's free of charge! it's usually very accurate (although sometimes affected by confounding factors).

TADA!! it's my acne-prone face!! haha!

No stress... no pimples. Lots of stress... lots of pimples. i think u can even do some calibration and extrapolation and voila! just count the number of pimples and u've got the absolute stress level i'm facing.

Haha! this entry is definitely inspired by a horribly stressful week... and now my face looks like a wreck! I can so imagine my dermatologist frowning disapprovingly, "great... grr... now we're back to square one!"

gosh! last week was definitely one of the most stressful week i had! I had to handle cardiac anaesthesia for the 1st 2 days of the week. Being completely new to this sub-subspecialty, i had LOTS of reading to do! I got home at 8pm on monday and 8.30pm on tuesday, cos the premed rounds were soooo complicated. sick patients with sick hearts... what to do...

I also participated in the Advanced Trauma Life Support course on thurs and fri. For the uninitiated, we had to finish reading AND assimilating a thick book so we can pass the practical and mcq test at the end of the course. At the start of the week, i felt so torn... to read cardiac or atls... ARRGGHHH!! Well, i survived and passed the course! So now i'm ATLS certified for 4 years... haha! The course was really fun actually and i din regret signing up for it at all!

next is the Singapore Dragonboat Festival 2008 on saturday and sunday! Everyone trained really hard for this race. The anticipation and expectation to do well was there hovering in everyone's mind, including mine. It was considered one of my serious "maiden" row in a 10-crew women's event. (the previous rows like charity row, aljunied grc race were all nothing of such standard) Competitiveness is the very nature of the sport. When on the boat ready to race, the adrenaline tap is turned on at full blast and the message in the mind of every single member is the same "I want to win!"

I must say i had the best experience outta the festival cos I had the chance to be both rower and drummer. I not only had the chance to feel the desire to win as a rower but also see it in my fellow teammates when i drum. The wonders of unity and teamwork were so beautifully displayed in all our rows! I'm so proud of u, PLK paddlers!

And that marked the end of my horrendously busy but extremely worthwhile week. Hai... only to start off this coming week with a THICKER book to study cos i've another course coming up this weekend! (Fundamentals of Critical Care Support course!)

I think besides the advice from my dermatologist to stay out of the sun and water-sports, i need to learn to schedule my stressors more carefully so as to keep my stress-ometer reading as low as possible eh?