Wounded

I really cannot take it anymore. This week has been over-eventful.

Why things have to turn out this way? Why things with good intention will be interpreted as risk and harm?

I really don’t care about what people will think of me. I really did it with good intention.

But it feels so darn awful when things get shot back in the most unexpected manner, and it’s no longer about whether you care what others think of you. Because YOU is now an understatement. It’s the identity you carry along with your name that’s involved now.

I feel really upset God L

I know I shouldn't but I really feel more awful when such things happen, You didn’t leave me alone, neither is Your grace. You once again has proven to me that I am in the right place where You can make me stronger. My heart is wounded, self-esteem crushed, confidence plunged to the bottomless pit - yet the team backed me up as if there's tonnes of spirit backing them up too. The bitter and sweet taste. And warmth.

Thank you for the thoughtful voice.

Thank you for the angry voice scolding me that you'll slap me if I really shed a tear for that matter or person.

Yet when strings of things come to me one after another, is it really not me?

And if it’s me, what could I have done better?

God have you planned all these before hand? If you haven’t then why I have to leave this country at this point of time?

God, if you could, can You ensure that I won’t get into situations that can terrorize people again?I am sufficiently frightened.

The Only Good Inside Your Heart is the Good that Jesus Brings

Good evening folks! Lately, I had the habit of listening to some old christian songs I used to have. Suddenly I came across this song and thought of sharing it here. It's really uplifting.

I think I haven't shared this with you before. I am thinking of signing up medical missionary trip sometime soon. Got this link from sharon, call it escapism perhaps, but I really hope to step out of Singapore to see how God can use me in this field. You might not know, sometimes, it's really hard to reach out when you're a healthcare professionals. A big part of your profession requires you to use drugs judiciously, and find the best treatment for your patients - if the patient wants to be treated. Of course, there will be patients who want to be treated conservatively - ie, DNR (do not resuscitate) when emergency happens.

But when you are a healthcare professional needing to treat your patients with the best therapies you can think of, have you ever thought that you're playing God? At some point of my career (3 weeks only!), I kept asking me if I really am playing God. At some other times when I am really trying very hard, making very vigorous interventions to the doctors to escalate certain therapies, I cannot see God in what I am doing but I can see myself doing what I am doing.But at times, when I really don't know what else can I give to the patient, my heart tells me to commit into our Saviour's hand.

So, being good is just a fable. Even in healthcare.

I have decided,

I'm gonna live like a believer,

Turn my back on the deceiver,

I'm gonna live what I believe.

I have decided,

Being good is just a fable,

I just can't 'cause I'm not able.

I'm gonna leave it to the Lord.

There's a wealth of things that I profess,

I said that I believed,

But deep inside I never changed;

I guess I'd been deceived.

'Cause a voice inside kept telling me,

That I'd change by and by,

But the Spirit made it clear to me,

That kind of life's a lie.

I have decided,

I'm gonna live like a believer,

Turn my back on the deciver,

I'm gonna live what I believe.

I have decided,

Being good is just a fable,

I just can't 'cause I'm not able.

I'm gonna leave it to the Lord.

So forget the game of being good,

And your self-righteous pain.

'Cause the only good inside your heart

Is the good that Jesus brings.

And when the world begins to see you change,

Don't expect them to applaud.

Just keep your eyes on Him and tell yourself,

I've become the work of God.

I have decided,

I'm gonna live like a believer,

Turn my back on the deceiver,

I'm gonna live what I believe.

I have decided,

Being good is just a fable,

I just can't 'cause I'm not able.

I'm gonna leave it to the Lord.

I have decided,

I'm gonna live like a believer,

Turn my back on the deceiver,

I'm gonna live what I believe.

I have decided,

Being good is just a fable,

I just can't 'cause I'm not able.

I'm gonna leave it to the Lord.

I have decided,

I'm gonna live like a believer,

Turn my back on the deceiver,

I'm gonna live what I believe.

When the world laughs at you 2

Hello world, how have you been?

Truthfully, things have not been that good for me in the past 2 weeks. Just wondering, do you find it harder to find God’s grace in the midst of trials or when your life is “smooth-sailing” and monotonously stable?

Anyways, this is already my 3^rd week as an inpatient pharmacist. Today while I was taking train home, I was quite astonished to see my reflection on the MRT train windows. Such a haggard me. Suddenly, I feel as if I’ve blend into the working world. I used to think that I’m different from the other working adults who have been working for years, BUT I realized that I was wrong, I look exactly like any of them, and I dislike it.

Since last week, my ward load has increased from 1 to 2. I have been handling 2 wards and just yesterday, I hit the highest number of beds. Just to put things in perspective, there is no correlation between the number of beds I am handling with the competency or what so ever. It is just natural for inpatient pharmacist to handle an average of 2 wards.

But I think I have not been handling my life well. Last Friday, a sister in my fellowship group shared something that happened in her life lately and a statement she made then really brought me back to reality. She said “when the spirit is right, everything will become just so right”. I guess I am just experiencing the absolute opposite of this statement, that is when the spirit is not right, everything will become so wrong.

Things have been so wrong lately. I don’t know why. Guess which pharmacist had to report 2 e-HOR in 3 weeks? ME! Yeaps, 2 medication-related errors happened in my ward these 2 weeks and even though I wasn’t the one doing it, I am the one who has to face the score when such things happen because I am the ward pharmacist. Actually I didn’t feel things were so wrong even when the e-HOR took place, because I know that errors happened and one happened during a public holidays when the discharges at the main pharmacy was like horribly enormous; and another one happened just to remind us to be more alert to the multiple strengths medication in the pharmacy. Didn’t blame anyone, just that, I am so wow-ed by the frequency of such things.

And I also don’t know why, I seem to have an intrinsic mechanism that attracts all the weird cases to my wards. One Bangladesh patient came in because of fits and it was found that there’s worms in his brain. Rare case for AH but I got it man. Bought in the medicine for him because AH doesn’t keep so many of such medication and in the end, before he’s even completely healed, the employer wanted him to be discharged because of the bills. It took me a couple of phone calls just to persuade the employer to agree to pay for the treatment for this patient and to come down to collect the medicine. Not cheap I have to acknowledge, but it’s necessary. At least he’s willing to buy 2 weeks supply of the medicine, instead of 1 month as prescribed by the doctors.

One day, suddenly I received a call from the ward saying my consultant wanted to PERSONALLY administer IV tensilon to this patient. Tensilon is a medicine used to diagnose myasthenia gravis. It’s an exemption drug, ie not registered in Singapore, hence no hospitals will stock up this item in their pharmacies.. We only kept 1 vial but it was used up the day before, for the same patient -_- SO SO wasted. Wilson helped me to call TTSH, SGH, NUH – ALL of them had 0 stock. I was darn panic that morning, I shouldn’t be. L

Another case - patient needed midodrine for orthostatic hypotension. Again, this is not a usual drug and hence we don’t keep in AH. Oh, first time in my life to come across EBA –Epidermolysis bullosa acquisita also.

Imagine doing all these and reviewing the patients in your wards at the same time. It is so so difficult L It shouldn’t be, if I have time. But it seems like everyday I get to encounter this kinda weird weird stuff and at the end of each day, I really get a real big mental block.

Many times, it felt as if the weight of the whole world is on me. I have been asking myself, why am I so jaded these days? Why do I always look so tired and I seem to have lost the joy that I used to enjoy?

And it’s until Friday that I realized why I am the way I am.

You know, the spirit is not right from the beginning. I have been handling things myself and my mind has always been running too quickly, or trying to think about solutions or how to carry my points to this doctor or that doctor. Things have not been mad. But the severity of the un-mad things has been magnified when the spirit is wrong.

I have been so occupied with things that I forget that He is with me and I can draw strength and wisdom from Him. And why do I have to make myself so tired and worried when He is the one in control and things have not been bad for me, not in the past, not now, and it won’t be in future. The only thing that’s changed is the intensity and frequency of matters that I have to deal with – seems to have increased. But I realized that actually, I don’t need God to give me wisdom to handle them.

Above all these, I really need to seek God and have the right Spirit first before I even start thinking about the problems/ situations. Why is it so hard fix my eyes on the unchanging ONE when I am surrounded with so many things that are changing?

Sigh.

When the world laughs at you 1

Laugh back at the world.

Yea, what happens when the world seems to be laughing at you? Laughing at your ignorance, your insufficiencies, your inertia to know about what you should know... what will you do?

CM once told me that when that happens, just laugh back at the world.

Just some updates...

My siblings and I have just bought a house last Saturday. It's at Punggol, Edgedale Plains. Not "bought", cos we haven't paid the full sum, but we offered the buyer and got accepted. So now we are in the midst of doing the procedures at HDB and bank sides. Will be moving in November.

I was a little overwhelmed actually. We have been viewing houses these 2 weeks and often, the houses are either too inconvenient, too old (and thus needs excessive renovations), too expensive etc etc etc..

But when my sister and brother saw this house, they really wanted it so much, despite it's beside LRT, no MRT. They actually called me while I was at work, to ask me if we can invest in that house. I was quite shocked that they made up my mind so quickly. It took my brother 1 week to buy an iphone, but few hours to want to get that house. And because of that, I know this is the house that the God has provided for us - for it's extremely hard to please my brother and if he really says yes, it really is good I believe.

This house wasn't my first choice. For many reasons, (1) It's far from work and 2-3 times a week I need to be work at 730 or 8am, it means I have to wake up very early to travel. To both Yishun/ Queenstown. (2) It is a bit higher than our projected budget (3) I still think we can wait for better offer.

But my brother actually took the effort to convince me. You know, this is the first time I saw him seriously hoping I will nod my head. Suddenly nothing became more important than this. Hahaha. So I agreed, we made the offer, and the house is ours, if we give our downpayment neat in September.

It's really a nice house. 3 years old, minimal renovations. I see the point, every reasons to buy it, although it's not my most favorite. I know I will grow to like it, it's just a matter of time. I felt quite bad when I told people that my siblings like the house (discounting the "me" in the statement). I know I shouldn't . Sigh, silly me again. It may had given ppl the impression that I am forced to buy the house. Really felt like slapping my mouth when the words came out!

I will grow to like the house. This is the house that is given to us after many prayers and searching. And I should stand on the same side as my siblings.

In fact, there were many struggles over these few days, especially after the decision has been made, contract signed. The down payment of course. Never in my entire life so far my bank account has 5 digits. But I need to get ready a 5 digits sum by September. Not only me, my sister and brother too.

I know I should have expected it when I said I wanted to get a house. The financial issues, the expenditure etc etc... they are all important considerations. But I simply chucked them behind me thinking they will be settled in the most natural ways if God really wants to give me a house.

Then the questions came to me..

"How are you gonna settle the 5 digits sum? Credit-line? loans?

How come you don't know what's your CPF contribution?

How come you don't know these don't know that?

How can you be so ignorant when you're now working already?

You don't even know how bank loans work, the interest rate etc etc.."

I was quite upset when such things were shot at me. I know I should check all these before I happily declared that I wanted to buy a house with them, but many times, when I checked the bank websites, I simply cannot understand the ? per annum thing etc etc.. I know I shouldn't make excuses but I really don't know how CPF contributions work and I know being a 2 weeks old PR is a good enough reason for me to must know all these.

I also know that I had the smallest role to play in the entire buying house game that we're dealing with but I just don't know how. I don't want to say "God will provide" words like these because it has become a "cheap grace" in your eyes.

SIGH.