Sunday, May 27, 2007

Fraser Wanders

The end of another rotation, that means another one-week break. What's a guy with itchy feet like me to do? How about finally getting over to that island a stone's throw from Hervey Bay - the World Heritage-listed Fraser Island?

Being the world's largest sand island, the network of roads on Fraser consists entirely of sand tracks. The only way to get around the island is by four-wheel-drives, which is how most people visits the island. Not owning a four-wheel-drive myself, renting one would be the only option; but I was looking to see the island on the cheap. Looking for a less cash-intensive way to do it, I found the Fraser Island Great Walk. The walking trail connects a few of the fresh-water lakes and camp grounds. Perfect! It was odd, though, when I told people I was going on a hike to Fraser, I got some funny looks.

With minimal planning, James, a mate of mine from Brisbane who was also interested in doing the walk, and I caught the ferry across to Kingfisher Bay Resort on Fraser. Within forty minutes of leaving Hervey Bay, we were walking up the trail with our backpacks laden with camping gear and food supplies for five days.

The tranquil trail cut through the jungle-like forest; sunlight streamed through the canopy, darting around on the thick undergrowth. The compacted sand underneath our shoes gave way slightly as we pushed up the slopes and down the gentle hills. Around us, the rustling leaves and birds calling played in stereo. The cool air blowing in from the Pacific, filtered by the forest, lost its salty heaviness and felt refreshingly clean.

The inviting water of Lake McKenzie

Lake McKenzie

A miraculous phenomenon on Fraser are the perched fresh-water lakes dotting the island. Sand-filtered, the lakes are so low in nutrient that very little grows in them. Without any organic debris in the lakes, they make the perfect swimming holes. We camped by Lake McKenzie for a night, arguably the most famous of the perched lakes. With crystal-clear fresh water fringed by the whitest powdery sand, Lake McKenzie is one of the biggest draw cards on the island. Hordes of backpackers and package tourists arrive on four-wheel-drives in the middle of the day. The beauty of camping right by the lake was that, in the early morning and late afternoon, the lake was all ours.

Dingo warning sign on campground fence

Campground by Lake McKenzie

Dinner time

James and I soon developed a routine: breakfast, swim, hike to the next lake, set up camp, swim, cook dinner, have tea and shoot the breeze. Repeat the next day. We had the good luck of full cooperation of the weather: clear skies with a daily highs of 25 degrees Celsius and lows of around 12. At the end of the four-and-half days, we completed a round trip of 75 km, and the blisters on my feet could testify to each meter - nothing a little bit of prophylactic taping wouldn't be able to prevent the next time.

Rest stop by Basin Lake

On the ferry ride back to Hervey Bay, all I could think of was which weekend would be good for a trip back.

Sunrise at Lake Benaroon

Threatening clouds over Lake Benaroon - just a false alarm

Walking over the dry half of Lake Boomanjin

Wangi Sandblow with the Pacific Ocean in view

Footprints on the sand dunes

Reeds like these grow around the lakes

Colorful reed stalks

Break on the beach of Lake Birrabeen

Waiting for the ferry at Kingfisher Bay Pier while rain pours over Hervey Bay in the distance

Friday, May 18, 2007

Two Down, Eight To Go

Yay! Another rotation is over! My exam this morning marked the end of the surgery rotation. All of a sudden I found myself with free time and no studying waiting to be done. With a week off until the next rotation starts, what am I going to do with myself?!


I live only twenty minutes away by foot from the beach, but I haven't gone there in a while. So after lunch, I decided to get on my bike and ride down to the beach. I wanted to do some reading, but most of the books on my sagging bookshelf are my med books - the last thing I want to open today and for the next week. So I stopped by the local library and checked out a non-med book.


Every time I go to the library browsing for a good book to read, I invariably end up in front of the travel section - whether it's travelogue or travel guide, I always end up checking out a few of them. Now, armchair travel normally just doesn't do it for me. But when traveling is not possible at the moment and is not even remotely on the radar, I'd have to live vicariously through other people. So I picked up Greater Nowheres: Wanderings Across the Outback, a book about a couple of journalists driving across the Australian Outback in pursuit of the deadly salty - the salt-water crocodile.

Then I sat on the beach and started to read the book until the sun set. Not a bad way to end the day.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Friendly Fire

It was just another day in the operating theater, anther lap chole. I scrubbed in with the surgeon. My role was, again, to hold retractors and cut sutures, etc., which I didn't mind. I've always enjoyed assisting surgeries, no matter how minor they were.

As I stood next to the surgeon holding a retractor, he released a flap of tissue with the pair of toothed forceps he was holding and bumped against my hand. "Sorry," he said and proceeded to the next task. As I handed the retractor back to the scrub nurse, I noticed a nick in my glove. "I think I have a nick in my glove," I told the scrub nurse. "You'd better change that," replied the scrub nurse. As I took off the glove, I saw a bit of blood right where the nick was. "You're bleeding," said another nurse. "That's a needlestick incident. You'll need to unscrub, fill out an incident report, and go to A&E to get your blood tested."

That was how the rest of my afternoon was taken up by writing an incident report, opening a patient file for myself at A&E, getting blood drawn, etc. I didn't even feel the forceps puncturing my skin and the blood on my hand may or may not have been mine. The chances of picking up diseases this way is extremely small. But to follow protocol and for safety's sake, I'll be having my blood tested for Hepatitis B and C, syphillis, and HIV, among other nasty blood-borne bugs. And again six months later.

Well, I'm not going to lose sleep over it because sometimes, shit happens. Plus, I need my sleep so I can study for the end-of-rotation exam this Friday.

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Tonight's culinary experiment: pita wrap with baba ghanouj, chicken, zucchini, roasted mushrooms, and yoghurt sauce. It wasn't too pretty, but was highly edible. I made baba ghanouj with extra garlic a few days ago and the garlic flavor has definitely intensified since. Hmmm, postprandial garlic breath...


Thursday, May 3, 2007

Hand-Eye Coordination

I assisted in a laparoscopic cholecystectomy today, in other words, key-hole gall bladder removal. It was my first time driving the laparoscope camera, and it showed. My hands were far from steady, not because I was nervous, but because of my unfamiliarity with the instrument and, apparently, my bad hand-eye coordination.

You know how when you cut your own hair with a pair of clippers, you use two mirrors, one hand-held and one on the wall; when you try to move the clippers while looking at the back of your head through two mirrors, they often go the opposite you want them to go? No? Am I the only one still cutting my own hair? Okay, maybe I'm the only one. But if you do, you'd know what I'm talking about. Handling the laparoscope camera was a bit like that. Every move I made was amplified on the TV screen, so the surgery started to take on a bit of the "Blair Witch Project" quality after a while. Well, maybe that's a bit exaggerated, but I don't think the surgeon was too impressed with my camera work.

Afterwards, I had a brief exchange with a junior surgeon:

Junior Surgeon:
Do you play video games?

Me:
No, not really.

Junior Surgeon:
I could tell.

Me:
Does Minesweeper count?

Junior Surgeon:
You know what I do? I play Flight Sim.

So video games is the solution! Oh, I so wish I could go back in time to junior high and tell my mother, "No, mom, I'm not 'just wasting my day playing video games,' I'm training for my future career as a surgeon!" Yes! guilt-free video game sessions! Now, where can I find Flight Sim?

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Speaking of gall bladders, I saw a news article about a brand new approach to removing it. Don't want scars? How about let's go through a natural orifice? Hmmm, how about the vagina? A team in France performed a transvaginal "no scar" cholecystectomy, and another team in New York did another one. What'll they think of next? Removing the appendix through the mouth? Wait, that's a possibility too! Crazy surgeons.

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

The Joy of Blood and Guts

Oh, surgery! Every morning when I check the surgery list I'm like a kid in a candy store - eyeing it up and down and trying to decide which ones to see while checking what emergency cases have popped up. The ritual of changing out of the professional wards attire, the dress shirt and pants, and into theater getup, the always ill-fitting scrubs, is like metamorphosis of the caterpillar. The lowly medical student goes into the changing room and emerges as the ever-ready surgeon's assistant, sprinting to the scrub sink at the slightest sideway-glance from the surgeon. Hold up the patient's leg while he's being draped? No problem! Hold back retractors for hours on end until my fingers fall off? Sure! Suction? Slurrrrrp! Cut open that grossly-distended section of resected bowel and examine the consistency of its content? Gladly! Do I want to come in on Saturday to assist on an amputation? You don't have to ask twice!

So it's too bad the rotation is going to end in less than three weeks. It's a pretty hard act to follow, and I'm not sure if mental health rotation that follows is going to do it for me. Sigh...

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Dinner tonight: chicken and potato curry with raita