Balingian

Roughly 60km from Mukah lies a small town that is full of juxtapositions and contradictions that it truly epitomises the spirit of 1Malaysia: no matter rich or poor, we both can live together.

On one hand, there are old wooden kampong houses like this dotting the riverside; this one looks as if it’s on the verge of jumping into the cool inviting river for a swim.

 

On the other hand, there’s these big factories so modern that it looks like a foreign body being wrongly transplanted here due to someone mistakenly interpreting the Sarawak map wrongly.

 

Balingian looks and feels like a sleepy hollow, with its row of 1960s wooden cowboy style shop-houses right by the river- an exact carbon copy of other little towns in Sarawak right to the ubiquitous Chinese temple. Occupants were seen lounging on wooden chairs, reading newspapers and bantering with their neighbours.

There’s also a new bazaar, but it bore semblance to a dead town – concrete buildings that had more swallows around it that humans. Most of the shoplots were unoccupied or closed – the one ones open this Sunday morning were a couple of coffee shops.

However be warned, despite its another-village-next-door unassuming facade, Balingian is literally an underdog powerhouse - home to a Metal factory, Aluminium factory and Coal factory. The polluting impacts of these factories on the pristine village are stuffs of urban legend – stories of dying yellowing trees and shrouding smokes that lives up to Balingian’s Chinese translation - 万里烟 (Ten thousand miles of smoke) filled coffeehouses chats in Mukah. Yet to my disappointment, throughout the whole road to Balingian, the only scenery greeting me were green trees and clear air.

Besides these factories, there are also some high class condominiums puncturing the continuous roadside greeneries. But instead of serving as dwellings for humans, these are condos for swallows.  Bird nest is a huge business around Mukah. But i did wonder how does the caretakers and builders and villages living in dilapidated wooden houses with attap roofs nearby felt about their high class neighbours living in brick and concrete condos… Such was the difference between the haves and have nots…

This is Balingian’s Health Clinic.

Some patients having hypertension and diabetes follow-ups here had to go all the way to Mukah (to see me) for their medications because they do not have any pharmacy dispensers here. From today onwards I guess I won’t give them any more IOUs after seeing the distance they had to cover and the obvious lack of public transport. I guess this is called going down the field to step into the shoes of patients. =)

Working in a pharmacy: a day’s journal

7.40am Reached the pharmacy with half cup coffee in hand. Switched on the lights, air conditioner  and computer. Glanced through the to-do list today. 10 items. Put a star on the urgent ones. Started to pore through the financial reports from pharmacy store. Found discrepancies. Again. Sigh.

7.55am A staff came in to give an idea on how to reduce the amount of waiting time at Out-patient pharmacy. Quite interesting. Happy that they are really thinking innovatively to solve the persistent problem.

8.15am Reached male ward for ward round prep. Scanned though patient’s medication chart and profiles. Two  interesting admissions last night. One was nephrotic syndrome. I adored kidneys. Made a note to clerk it later.

8.45am Met up with a few sectional heads to explain the non-drug expenditure report that HQ requires then to fill. My style: preferred to go through with them thoroughly with real time examples – way better than just throw the instruction paper to them.  Reward: they sent it in in the afternoon even though deadline is 3 days away.

9.15am Back to out-patient pharmacy. Started dispensing to patients from out-patients clinic. Today was diabetes day. Quite busy.  One patient had high blood glucose level despite on high dose insulin. Suspected non-compliance. Roped in to counsel. Re-teach technique and stressed on the importance of taking the shots on time.

10.30am Out-patient crowd thinned. Back to the ward to catch tail-end of ward round. Queried doctor on plan for some patients. One patient was going home with a newly prescribed MDI Salbutamol. Sat down with patient to do bedside counseling. Went through asthma in layman’s term with him – used the blocked pipe analogy. Demonstrated three times before patient fairly competent.

11.00am Another bad news. The weighing scale is broken! Called HQ. Can’t buy another one at the moment because its too expensive. Oh no….

11.15am Back to office intending to do some paperwork. Doctor rang for drug info – answered the query. Staff came in saying a patient is reluctant to inject IM Provera, due to fact that prior injection resulted in prolonged fever. Went through case notes, found out the previous injection was IM Lucrin. Confirmed correct medication was ordered with doctor, then assured patient while personally escorting her to see the nurse administering the injection.

11.40am Patient newly started on Humapen requiring counselling. No prior experience but very willing to learn. Went through the whole gamut with her: what is diabetes, why need to treat, the goals of treatment, what is insulin, how to prep pen, how to inject, where to inject, what to do on sick days and detection and treatment of hypoglycaemia. Took a full half an hour.

12.15am Returned to office desperately wanting to finish the items on “to-do” list. Called some wards to tell them their Diazepam had expired, better come and exchange. Indented the drug to them. Packed some dangerous drug (DD) tablets that is low on stock. Prepared the specifications output report for admin. Did counselling statistics – 37 patients counselled thus far these 2 months, on the right path to hit the 200 target I set for this year. 

1.00pm It’s Lunch time! Went home to have a healthy meal of chicken breast fillet salad with French dressing.

1.50pm Back to office to read up some articles on nephrotic syndrome to make sure patient is managed correctly.Dalat Hospital (a small Hosp nearby) called to borrow Potassium Chloride mixture. Gave them three litres in exchange of loaning their weighing scale. Agreed. Problems solved with mutual benefits.

2.30pm When to pharmacy store to go through the report with the staff there in detail, to find out the source of the discrepancies. All the figures made my head spin.

3.00pm A visit to the inpatient pharmacy. Taught the staff there how to use a min-max thermometer – newly acquired to ensure better management of cold chain item.  Collected all February scripts to scan through for prescribing patterns.

3.30pm Afternoon ward round. Went to 3 wards: Male, Female and Paed. Go through new cases in male and all cases in female and paed. Only found a small problem, doctor indenting methyldopa as metformin. But nurses were alert to it anyway.

4.15pm  Paperwork, paperwork and never-ending paperwork. Rearranged the mountains of paper on my table. Filed noted items. Printed out notice for the next Continuous Professional Development (CPD) presentation. Aimed to do twice per month so that every staff can collect more than 30 points per year. Its next Monday and I will be presenting. Sigh… need to go home and prepare. 

5.00pm Yes! Time to go home. Managed to finish 5 items on the to-do list. 50 percent…not bad. Did a new one for the next day. 5+3 = 8 items =(

My days had been action-packed like this for the last month. Anyone interested to be the only pharmacist in a district hospital? ^^

沐胶点滴2

沐胶没买珍珠奶茶，只好自创：

看起来不错吧！味道也跟商店卖的平分秋色。

不必鼓掌。

因为珍珠是古晋买的，稍微热水烫10分钟就行；奶茶是3合1。

但这 apple crumble 的确是我做的。 =）

最近工作有点忙。好多零碎的事要解决，新方案要实行。老板娘走后，一人做二人分量的工的确有些措手不及。但真的学到很多新的东西。

一个月前拍的药剂部全家福：

老板娘的感恩晚宴之美味佳肴：

我的最爱- 生鱼片：

药剂部新创意：回收药物箱。

我为他取名 “bujang ubat”. 不知为何砂劳越的鳄鱼都喜欢名为 “bujang xx”.

就这样，2011 年过了六分之一。

Kuching revisited 古晋重游篇

Going to Annah Rais longhouse is fast becoming an annual ritual.

This was March ‘09:

March ‘10:

“Changyang if you are reading this, where’s the pix? =)”

February ‘11:

But this time we are more adventurous, even attempted successfully  to cross this rickety two-planks-wide (narrow would be a better word) bridge.

Perhaps it had to do with the destination at the end: a cool refreshing river, which was too inviting to resist on a hot blustery day.

Or was it false courage from the Tuak?

With a surplus of adrenaline steering our decision-making, (and also clouding the route identification skills of a certain Kuchingnite), we decided to go to this place next:

A beautiful, peaceful place to relax. Look closer and you will see pink lotuses floating serenely.

Look closer still, just beneath you feet and you will see

 

Yeah, its a real crocodile. And not only one, but thousands of them, because this is Jong’s Crocodile Farm.

 

Tell all your macho friends, we farm crocodiles here in Sarawak. Aren’t we brave?

Besides these places we also cover all the usual food and drinks and city walks which I think I had written about in previous years.

But we do did something out of the ordinary, thanks to KY’s Padini card. Half price member’s exclusive discounts are too hard to resist, especially if someone has The Card.

 

We may be at the wrong side of twenty, but we are still young at heart =)

CNY 2011

New Year card I drew using paint this year.  Specially for anyone/everyone who dropped by here. Wishing you all – all the very best!

兔兔高升，兔年行大运！

Mukah news

You know you had diversified too much when you are a post office and you don’t even know how much it costs to send a snail mail from Mukah to Melbourne.

Post office Mukah very canggih (advanced). There I can settle my sesco (electricity) bill, telekom (telephone) bill, insurance bill, even top-up my Digi (handphone) line. And the fellas there do it efficiently. But then when I asked for stamps to send snail mail from here to Melbourne, the fella who served me go “Errrr…..nanti ar…tunggu sekejap…”(please wait) before hollering “boss!”  =.=’’’

Hello! Isn’t the post office supposed to be the expert in posting letters???

Mukah doesn’t have much of a new year mood. I think mainly because there’s no shopping malls where you can pull all the senses and sights of CNY together and showcase them in a contained space. 

All you will see here are sparse splotches of red in front of sundry store selling made-in-China cheap wares and the occasional blaring of CNY songs from VCD vendors. Haih..

Anyway still got a couple of shops selling lokam. The bright orange colour exudes so much CNY feelings that I couldn’t resist buying one whole box and share it with the hospital staffs last week. Just to spread a little bit of CNY feel around. Being here, I seriously don’t feel that CNY is just one week away. 

A lot of the guy staffs here called me “Boss” (coz my ‘rank’ higher) but most of the female staffs called me “Boy” (coz I look young and adorable?). And officially from last week I am literally the new “Boy Boss” of the pharmacy.

Okay that’s what I called myself anyway. My boss got transferred. So now I am at the helm steadying the ship and avoiding the icebergs while waiting (hopefully) for a new captain to come abroad. Felt so weird being boss to a group of people much much older than me.  I went for my first department heads meeting today – and yay I was also the youngest around. Really makes me feel twenty-six is so far away...

以身作则

放工时分，我饮着一杯冰冷咖啡，满足的迈向家而行。

“哇，你天天叫我别多吃糖，竟然自己喝甜水？”

突然从侧面传来一位老兄的声音。

这老兄蛮友善的，偶尔会在药剂部领药时与我交谈。我记得他因为他不只个子高大 - 血压胆固醇体重血糖也很高。

我也常常劝他，多照顾饮食，多运动，药一定要准时吃。

这次糟了。本人犯法被扑。

我很想对他说，其实糖尿病四大因素为基因压力过胖不运动，并非多喝甜品。但这不是重点。

成为药剂师，不只配药要精灵，也要懂得成为病患者的鼓励资源，学习的好榜样。

要劝人一周运动150分钟多吃菜少吃肉，自己要能做得到才有资格劝。我相信这一点，不然真的可以被称hypocrite了。

最后，还是得笑眯眯的‘认罪’，然后尽快闪开话题，把焦点转移他身上。话谈中发现他血糖最近有改善，乘机多给他称赞鼓励，让他也笑呵呵的离开。

下次喝咖啡要躲在家里喝。

乡下点滴

好久好久没有静静坐下来收拾心情写写部落阁了。

我在这小镇常常闹纳闷，无聊， 叽里咕噜埋怨多多，但不知为何却不善用这多余的时光分享生活点滴心声。 可能没心情吧。

这几天，天空好像失恋了，乌云密布， 倾盆大雨陆续下了好几天。 有云儿逗它笑，也是偶尔的两三个时辰， 很快它又转换回阴蒙的心情。可怜的人们得受天的气。

一眨眼，半年了。我也渐渐习惯了木胶的缓慢生活节奏，懂得在宁静中悦赏淡淡的海浪声；在空闲当儿观赏点缀绿田中的鸟儿。我习惯了一个人生活。

一起床给自己一个鼓励，上班时给病人一个笑容。傍晚时分，沿着海岸跑步，陪着散发出温和热光的太阳走下山。晚上互联网成了寂寞者的饮茶室，连续剧是暂时迈进梦想迷幻世界的良伴。我的日程如盖印一般，日日复日日，日日似日日。

但在这期间，我相信我是有成长的。陌生的环境制造了许多新鲜的经验，让我大开眼界。在这乡下所得到的领悟我相信是后日可取的。新的一年，我要学得更多更好。我要掌握药剂界的所有一切，成为一级等的药剂师。不要紧，再熬多两年罢了。。

Trip up north (2)

As much as I had heard about our friendly neighbour Brunei Darulsalam, I had no conception on how it looked like. Does it resembles Singapore? or Malaysia? or a unique place by itself? Well, at last now I got my answer.

I guess it reads “Welcome to Brunei?”

Bandar Seri Bagawan was a 2 hours car-ride away from Miri. The main reason we went there? To eat the famous Escapade Sushi!

So-so from the outside

But classy inside! And the sushi… is just so scrumptious and fresh.

Other places we visited include this very golden museum. Most of the exhibits here are gold plated and no photos allowed. This is what they call oil rich…

As rich as Brunei is, there are also people living on wooden water villages where their main mode of transport are water taxis aka sampans and speed boats.

A magnificent mosque in downtown Bandar:

A shopping mall

And a six-star high class hotel

My favourite pic of the day: dolphins dropping by the hotel adn swimming towards the horizon. Hope you liked it too.

Trip up north

The last time i was in Miri, it was a 3-hours space filler enroute from Kuching to Mukah. But this Oil Town impressed me enough to warrant a longer ‘official’ visit.

So after the New Year trip to Sibu, Miri became the destination of my 2nd trip.

This is a bird’s eye view of Miri atop Canada Hill. Miri is quite big and it felt like Kuching away from Kuching. Only that it is hotter.

The colourfully decorated trees along Jalan North Yu Sheng, one of the main streets of Miri.

Miri has a lot of beautiful beaches just a short drive from the city centre, for example this esplanade beach.

And their public parks are much more well maintained compared to those in Kuching. This pic is taken at the Taman Awam park.

This is the Grand Old Lady of Miri, which is a must-visit icon. It is the site of the first on-shore oil well in Miri. 

And here is the friendly sea-horse, the mascot of Miri city. Looks similar to Singapore’s Merlion.

Food wise, nothing too spectacular but all the same very nice. They have this nice dish called Lalapan:

And also delicious grilled fish.

And yes, not to forget about dim-sum which will put all the dim-sum joints in Kuching to shame.

Of course a trip to Miri wouldn’t be complete without a trip to their friendly next-door neighbour, Brunei. Since there’s so many photos in this post, Brunei will be up in next =).

Last of all, thanks to all my dear friends in Miri who makes this trip fun and memorable.