The fun and exciting weekend is over and it's time for serious work again. Attended a morning of clinics where I saw a variety of patients from paronychia or embedded nails to gastric cancer follow up cases. Amongst them, 1 of the patient's family touched me the most. The mid 20s guy had multiple seeding of an appendix cancer all over his peritoneum of body cavity. His prognosis did not seem very good and while the guy was trying to be ignorant about his condition, his mother was crying, pleading and begging my consultant to do his best to increase his life expectancy. It suddenly got me thinking about how parents would do anything for their children and how short life is and how we must treasure every moment of our lives.

Afternoon was damn slack. I went into the operating theatre with only 1 thing in mind - the free operation room lunch. The weekend broke my budget and I was trying to save as much $$ as I can. The opertion was pretty scary at the start. The patient was given spinal anesthesia to reduce complications. But, the anesthetic drugs did not take effect and the man cringed in pain when my surgeon made his cut. OUCH! As the anesthetist increased the drug dosage, the patient cringed for a 2nd time when my surgeon, who got the go-ahead from the anesthetist, continue to exten his cut. OUCH OUCH! The local anesthesia operation had to be converted to a general anesthesia operation for patient's safety. Ooo... After 1 operation, my day was over and we were discussing where to eat for dinner to celebrate mark's belated birthday when we realised anson could not make it because he had to attend a 8 hr liver transplant operation!!

So we went to ximending again for dinner. Bought 1 bowl of tang yuan-like stuff, 1 bowl of peanut beancurd, 1 cup of bubble tea, 1 bowl of Ah Chung Mee Sua and 2 Dunkin donuts. So much for saving $$ ah. But the above costs only NTD$200 or S$9 plus. Shucks, I'm still feeling effects of the food churning in my stomach as I write this note.

Had a sudden thought about my stay in Taipei as I took the Metro today. It just dawned upon me that I am living like a rat in Taipei. Why? It seems that I only know how to get around Taipei by underground Metro only. It's my only form of transport I'm confident of getting around by. The minute you put me up on the surface, I'm totally lost with a disoriented sense of navigation and direction! How sad!

Tomorrow's laparoscopy day and I wonder what awaits me on the operating table. Am I finally going to cut up some stuff on my own? Whoo hoo!