I had an excruciating experience at the medical centre on Tuesday.

Was there to draw blood as a sample for review before my full medical checkup prior to ORD. There was this Private and Sergeant. The Sergeant was like showing the Private where to locate veins and the correct position for the needle to be poked. Unfortunately , I was the live model. Nevermind I thought innocently , because the Sergeant will be the one attending to me later.

To my horror , the Sergeant asked the Private to take charge of the needle and draw blood from me. Seeing my sceptical expression , the sergeant assured me that he will be around to supervise and will take over if anything goes wrong.

"Ai Zai " , I told the Private , who looked like it's his first time drawing blood.

He nodded and proceeded to locate the correct vein to poke. Perhaps assuming he had found the right position to poke , he pierced the merciless needle into my left arm. He failed in his prediction.

"Eh , where hah? I can't seem to find it.." He was fumbling over his mistake and became panicky. As a result , he left the needle dangling on my arm for seconds !

Holy shit. I thought. The Sergeant took over. I expected the second time to be successful. However , I was wrong again. He was no better than his junior and had to sought help from another medic. He even had the cheek to tell me not to worry because the other person is the most skilled here. Then why do you exist ? To think you are a Sergeant and you perform no better than a Private. I was very pissed.

"Paiseh" , said the Private almost apologetically as he handed me my bag after the blood drawing session.

Paiseh ? You don't say paiseh to me after screwing around my arm. What if you destroy it , are you able to compensate my arm back? You bloody hell can't.

I am disappointed with the medics' maladroit handling of the whole blood drawing procedure. The vacillation and sloven work by these group of people who are supposed to save humans' lives are disturbingly alarming.

I reflected this incident to my fellow colleagues and they were like what the hell. I learnt from a fellow ORD personnel in my unit that he too , was poked at least twice before getting his blood drawn successfully.

"Your arm won't be destroyed as there are no nerves on the area where we are supposed to poke the needle in. Actually , irregardless of what rank , there are still chances of people missing the right position. You can't say they are buay zai. " a medic friend of mine told me as I shared with him too. He thinks that the way I stigmatized the whole incident has a suspected smell of prejudice and biasness.

No doubt my arm won't be destroyed. But what about the disconcerting fear they instilled in me ? From having no fear of the needle until when I see the slapdash way they handled stuffs made me scared. I disagreed with his point that irregardless of rank , there shouldn't be any aspersions casted on the personnels' skills if they did not succeed. Indeed , to err is human. However , there is no excuse in covering up if there is no succession upon the first poke. Just like we crane operators. When we buang or brush against something , say for instance the antennas of the ship when we operate the crane , we duly accept our skills are not up there yet. This is no joke , especially when there is a high amount of risk involve. Same logic applies here and patently , this is a case of dereliction of their duties. What if war really breaks out ? In view of that possible scenerio , can we afford to have 3 medics fumbling around and taking their time to try to succeed in blood transfusions when there are other casualties screaming for attention ?

I shudder at such thought.

I sprained my left ankle. :(






The ankle rebelled on Thursday evening while on the way home from camp. Much to my chagrin , it hurt so much that I was practically limping. I suspected that the root of the problem is because of me walking too fast most of the times , especially at times to catch the bus/train (but I will never run , because it is just not me). My left leg seems to be more vulnerable to injuries. I had pulled my left hamstring before in a freak incident. Though my sister helped me alleviate the swelling by using medicated oil , I still decided to visit the chinese sin-seh the next day. Not exactly how I wanted to spend my off day , but it's better to let the expert completely assuage the pain on my left ankle.

I returned to camp on Wednesday after a combination of leaves and offs since Christmas Eve. My fellow colleagues and juniors were like "wah , going to ORD soon le."

"1 more month to ORD.." 1 of my colleagues said , smiling at me.

"And 2 more months for you" , I grinned back.

"You don't talk to me in this tone ! " He said , pretending to be worked-up.

This colleague of mine can be really funny at times. Humourous and full of quirky antics. A good speaker and carries himself with confidence all the time , and he has an ang moh look (because he is a mixed blood) so naturally he tends to generate more interest from others. He likes to disturb those who ORD later than him , always saying that "when you people are at orchard road holding hands with girls , I am already holding rifle and digging trenches in jungles."

I haven't tell him that while I was holding hands with girls in orchard road , he is already in the army , but I will still become Mr Tan earlier than him proclaiming himself to be Mr Xie.

Hilarious to the maximum indeed. I was grinning like a Cheshire cat the whole day. Think I will become a smiling buddha on 6th February.

Excluding the remaining offs and leave to clear , I still have exactly 14 more working days to go.

6th February 08 !!!!!!!!!!!!