May 2009
31 posts
4 tags
“Child; sweet child. I have a knife. I have my sword. I did not come across the...”
– from ‘The Princess Bride’ - William Goldman
3 tags
5 tags
From 'Angels In America' (Tony Kushner)
Harper: In your experience of the world. How do people change?
Mormon Mother: Well it has something to do with God so it's not very nice. God splits the skin with a jagged thumbnail from throat to belly and then plunges a huge filthy hand in, he grabs hold of your bloody tubes and they slip to evade his grasp but he squeezes hard, he insists, he pulls and pulls till all your innards are yanked out and the pain! We can't even talk about that. And then he stuffs them back, dirty, tangled and torn. It's up to you to do the stitching.
Harper: And then get up. And walk around.
Mormon Mother: Just mangled guts pretending.
5 tags
Stranger things
47 year old Patient with Narcissitic Personality Disorder (unofficially diagnosed by me a few months ago, but since then officially diagnosed by the psychiatric team when he turned up in hospital last week) comes in dressed in a fluorescent beeny and rock and roll outfit.
Patient: (talking about a nurse in the hospital)....You could tell she was the 'Wuthering Heights' type. Brawled her eyes out when I was talking to the doctor about my ex and I though oh god, here we go. She was hooked. Afterwards she came up to me and said all this shit about how nice it was to see me and sappy stuff. And I was going, hang on it's not like I was telling it to the registrar on purpose to make you cry or anything. What kind of stupid thing is that? She was drawn to me like a moth, I tell you. I mean, it's not my fault that my abs are so great, and I have these large painful erections all the time. I have to take drugs to keep them down. I'm so well endowed. I've had more women than most men can have in their life times. They're just drawn to me! I've slept with hundreds of gorgeous women. Models, famous actresses... even when I was on holiday, all these foreign women kept cracking onto me. I was like, my God, have some decency. They just wouldn't stop. And I tell you, it's because they're attracted to my incredible brain and my guitar skills and voice. I mean, I am pretty smart. It's not just the body. I don't have a job now, but I mean, I've beaten so many young bastards at scholarships, so I can do it again and get a degree anytime. But here was this woman...this nurse!...was just crying her eyes out over my story.
Melissa: =_=
Dr. Lampel: So what was the nurse? Like Catherine? Who was the other person in that anyway?
Melissa: (quietly) Heathcliff.
Dr. Lampel: Do you know Catherine? And Wuthering Heights? Ever studied it at school?
Melissa: Yes.
Dr. Lampel (to patient): Do you think Melissa's a bit of a romantic too?
Patient: She's a romantic. But she uses pragmaticism to try and stamp it out, put it away.
Melissa: *surprised*
Patient: That's right. I may be narcissitic, but I can know people.
Patient: I can also tell you think I'm a nutjob.
3 tags
Updates from medical school
1 week ago
So I woke up this morning with a strange feeling. It felt like the time I had the car accident and got a large haematoma on my upper lip, stretching it like a balloon. Except this time it was everywhere. My lower lip throbbed, as if I had shingles.
I tried to lick my lips and found they were replaced by Angelina Jolie’s.
What? Angioedema?? No way!! How could I have angioedema?...
4 tags
5 tags
Quiet Times Dido
Some things do resonate more...
4 tags
Woman, 34, loves too much.
We all build castles. Sometimes they’re made of sand — They fall down, be we keep trying to pull them up.
Even when it’s insane. Even when it seems like we should move further inland — use rocks instead. Use mud and mortar~
It’s not that we’re stupid. We know the universal laws, and still we choose to battle on at the seafront. We can see the waves that come;...
6 tags
3 tags
It's official
Daniel Adams’ girlfriend is the luckiest girl in the world.
Here he is, here
3 tags
Corridor diagnosis
Chuan Tai: Actually, I think of what Dr. Narayan said in the past about his friend in some US hospital who knew a lot of stuff but didn't get recognition or something, until the day he diagnosed a collapsed person with dissection in the corridor and saved his life.
Chuan Tai: You remember the story, Mel?
Melissa: Oh yes. The corridor diagnosis story.
Chuan Tai: Sometmes when I walk the corridors of the hospital, my mind is always going what I will do if someone collapses in front of me. Then I think of what Dr. Narayan says and start smiling...
Chuan Tai: And sometimes some of the visitors and patients will smile back at me as if I'm smiling at them.
4 tags
7 tags
“When they’d given up for good, you kissed the dark and there I stood....”
– from ‘Ghost’ - Daniel Adams
And I’m so grateful :) So, so grateful.
5 tags
4 tags
For no other reason...
..than to say, “Tuesdays are the best days ever(!)”; and that I hope your day is going well.
STUDY HARD BEEN AHN. :) Don’t sleep too late again, ok?
3 tags
3 tags
Exhausted, but healthy
Saturday: a horrible day spent in and out of clear consciousness. Just when I thought I was ready to suffer a week of nasty cold virus (the one that pretty much KOed Renny last week), I woke up Sunday morning and was pretty much cured!
I LOVE MY IMMUNE SYSTEM!
Ahhhhh so happy!!!! a;dkja;slkdjf
7 tags
5 tags
7 tags
Before Iphigenie
June 17, 1784
My letters will have shown you how lovely I am. I don’t dine at Court, I see few people, and take my walks alone, and at every beautiful spot I wish you were there.
I can’t help loving you more than is good for me; I shall feel all the happier when I see you again. I am always conscious of my nearness to you, your presence never leaves me. In you I have a measure for...
2 tags
4 tags
“I have loved to the point of madness; that which is called madness, that which...”
– Francoise Sagan (1935-2004)
2 tags
6 tags
Entropy
Maybe it’s because it’s late at night, or because I am tired — I have been thinking too much again.
At the crux of this are my Tuesdays: Tuesdays are an alien day of the week during which I seem to, by some miracle of physics, have an abundance of time at the community mental health centre. Clozapine Clinic doesn’t start until 11am, and is the most mundane thing in the...
4 tags
Tuesdays in Psychiatry
Bob Marley (singing): No woman no cry...
Psychiatrist: Do you think it's true?
Melissa: Probably not.
Psychiatrist: I agree.
4 tags
8 tags
3 tags
6 tags
Gratitude
Saturday morning, Leo and I cut down the tree in the back yard. Or rather, he stood on the red ladder sawing at its branches while I watched beside the porch in Alex’s oversized grey sweater (which I love!).
There must be a version of the perfect yard, the perfect house somewhere, and this house was it. A comfortable, homely place with a large yard and a Victorian playhouse and sandpit left...
2 tags
