Doctor follow-ups

I went to see my doctor again today, it was another follow-up and I was surprised when he told me that the next visit onwards he would not charge me anymore. I was pleasantly surprised but thought that it is actually very fair, otherwise what is there to keep the doctor from giving continuous follow-ups even after the patient is well already. But then it occurred to me that he had already charged me a bomb already so far so it's not exactly a big loss for him to give me a few extra free visits..Nevertheless it's better than nothing and at least now I can go for the appointments without the apprehension of another whopping bill.

Efficient bonding..

I was thinking, after all this time being single for so many years, endlessly chasing...well not skirts but pants in my case, I do feel somewhat tired. I mean yeah it was and still is fun, but after the endless parade of one-night-stands and tiresome hunting, I feel like I want more of a connection. Maybe not necessarily a boyfriend, but someone who can fulfill the needs of a boyfriend. I guess some people would call these people fuck buddies, but I prefer the term part time boyfriends. People who come together when they need each other to fill the need for some loving or care and then go their separate ways, no strings attached, no fuss no muss. It's better that way because you get the benefits of a relationship and emotional well-being when you need it, without all the negative drama that comes with a typical relationship. Actually, ideally I think people should just all get together if and when they feel like it and love each other in whichever way they want, be it sexual, emotional or intellectual, it is much more efficient that way and removes all the expectations of obsessive monogamy where the problems start when a person expects a monogamous relationship, and suspicion and jealousy come into the picture, which leads to arguments and suffering. Totally unnecessary.

Back already, so sad...

Everytime I come back from a holiday, especially a nice one like Bangkok, I feel particularly sad. Of course everyone will be sad that a holiday is over, but I just can't help but compare lousy Malaysia with a fantastic country like Thailand. Yes I know every country is different, ut why shouldn't we all take a leaf from someone, or in this case, some other country. The Thais have so much to offer. It is a beautiful country with beautiful people, such delicious (and cheap!) food, beautiful well crafted products, wonderful service (they take such pride in their service and kindness), most friendly people I've ever met. Modern and convenient transport and they never, ever forget their culture. Altogether a very creative and gifted people who really know how to enjoy life and yet be down to earth. It is truly Amazing Thailand...

HoLiDaY!

Yayyy! Going Bangkok for holiday today, won't be posting for several days, I hope I have a good time there, what with the riots and all, but my friends there sway it's actually nothing. Mainly confined to certain areas like the parliament bulding or whatever, well hopefully..

Perfume...The Story Of A Murderer

I have just watched a most wonderful and peculiar movie entitled 'Perfume...The Story Of A Murderer'. It is a movie based solely on the olfactory talents of a man born in the 18th century. He possesses a sense of smell so heightened, it becomes a whole new world for him. In his quest to obtain the perfect scent, he resorts to murdering innocent people.
It is indeed a compelling watch, the visuals are so stunning and striking, you can actually imagine what the protagonist is smelling. It is a wonderfully woven tale that is at once magical yet believable. Climaxing in a scene that has to be seen to be believed. A must watch!

21/10/08 Being 'the other man'

I wonder if it's ok to be sleeping with someone who is attached already. I'm not exactly torn about it, I feel that it's actually ok. I mean it's none of my business if the person I'm sleeping with is attached already, if he wasn't fooling around with me then mostly likely he would be fooling around with someone else anyways. But I guess there are those goody two-shoes out there who would frown in disapproval at what they would consider to be something horribly sinful. But to me sex is just sex and I'm not big on relationships so to me it's not a big deal anyways. Oh and it's fun too haha!

19/10/08 Massive allergic reaction

Something terrible happened yesterday. I'm still recovering from my sinus operation so there's still some bleeding and infection in my nose. After going for a follow up visit with my doc I went to have lunch and I had prawns in one of the dishes. I remember I also had prawns on the day I had the allergic reaction that led to my gout and had massive allergic reaction in just a matter of hours. Yesterday was the same thing, sudden continuous nosebleed and fever.
I guess for some reason after the op I became allergic to prawns again after not being allergic for so long since my young teenage years, it's scary. I thought oh shit! It's happening again and didn't know what to do, luckily it went away after a few hours, most likely due to the stronger antibiotics that I was taking already. Sigh, imagine 2 pieces of prawns can cause such a horrible result, so scary, makes you realize how fragile our bodies are and makes you think about paying much closer attention to everything you eat.

17/10/08 Money is the root of all evil...

It is an age old adage 'money is the root of all evil' and I do believe it is true, now more so than ever. Society is at a downward spiral of materialism and the pursuit of wealth that almost every decision we make is motivated by financial and selfish gain: How do I benefit from this? How do I gain from this? Money has erroded our basic humanity and morality.
We live in times of zero accountability, lack of responsibility, superficiality, underhanded deception, corruption, collusion and outright cheating. The list goes on. Now I'm not saying that money causes all this, so does power, sex, anything that people want more than and above other people. But money will get us all that we want, just depends on how much money...The poor want to get richer, the rich will never get enough. We have become bitter and money is everything. Has our society come to such that without money we find no motivation to do anything worthwhile?
Will it and has it come to such that doctors won't take care of patients unless they can earn and earn a lot from them? I hear in America they're already ditching people who can't pay by the sidewalk. What have we become as people, can we still hold our head up? Have we become so shameless and thick skinned? Can we blame them when the world we live in encourages that kind of behaviour, not just in the medical industry but everywhere else? Nowadays everyone and everything has a price.
Whatever happened to decency and just helping people for the sake of it? It is sorely lacking nowadays. Even friends can betray you at the drop of a penny (well, definitely more than a penny, it's got to be enough money right?). I personally think it is our financial system that encourages that behaviour. Yet it is impossible to remove it as the world would grind to a halt.
So it is that the machine must be fed and we all march to our doom. The future does not look good for man. The end result is clear, our path is wrong and our ideals are in the wrong place. The inevitable end is that humans will destroy each other through greed and apathy.

15/10/08 Gout!

I found out I have gout today. After intense swelling and pain from my left foot (where 50% of gout sufferers experience it, specifically near the big toe) I went to see a doctor in the evening when I finally couldn't take the pain anymore, and lucky I did cause I thought it was due to a normal sprain. Apparently the cause of gout normally is due to eating purine rich food and having too much stress. Well, I can guess where the stress came from, probably my sinus surgery last week. And I do love to eat meat and salty food that is purine rich apparently. I'm just hoping there won't be a repeat performance from the gout because it could mean a more serious problem. People who get it may get it once in awhile or never again or if they're unlucky, very often. So now what I've got to do is: eat a balanced diet, lessen stress and exercise (which I do regularly under normal circumstances).

13/10/08 What is the world coming to...

Some people, actually a lot of people in my opinion, are just cold and heartless. Worst still, some people pretend to be all nice and caring to get what they want and then when they do, they drop you like a hot potato making you feel used, at least be gracious and responsible when you let the person down. Don't just not reply calls and text messages suddenly, that's just rude. I'd rather they just come out and tell me even if it's mean rather than hide behind a smiling face and made as if they were sincere when they were not, it really hurts the most.
I won't go into specifics because this can be applied to anyone and anything, though the situation that happened to me involved something of a personal nature, it is still painful to be used, as I'm sure everyone will agree. I just hope that I'm wrong about religion and God or a higher power and people like that will be rightfully punished. I'm not saying I'm a paragon of virtue, but some people just don't know their limits and don't care at all about other people but themselves.

12/10/08 Expanding tea flower

My friend drank an interesting tea yesterday. The tea itself wasn't the most interesting part, it was that instead of leaves, it came in a whole flower and once put in hot water, expands itself. My friend's tea pot was transparent so it was somewhat amusing to see the flower slowly opening up as if it was blooming. After drinking the tea we felt so sad to throw the flower away lol!

10/10/08 Prince Court Medical Centre is bad!

This is my first day back from my ordeal, i.e. my sinus operation. It is yet unknown whether the operation is a success as it is too soon to tell. Since I haven't written for several days then it's alright for me to make this a long one, because there's A LOT of things I must write about my experience there..
I feel I must clarify my statement above about this entry as it is not the centre itself that is bad (that would confer some sort of supernatural presence to the building) but the staff that serve there. They were undoubtedly very friendly but the fault lies not in their social skills but in their unprofessional conduct.
I will now list out the various things I found to be unbelievable in how so-called medical professionals can allow themselves to commit:

1. My doctor estimated the bill to be around $6-8K in total. When we got the bill on the day we left, it was nearly 14K! I wonder if that's the reason why doctors are never around when you get the bill, cause they would get too many questions about the unreasonable charges! You get vague categories such as:
Consumables. Like what? I'm sure they're not talking about food because that should be included in the room charges...then again I wouldn't know cause it's so vague...Another one is Equipment, nursing care. operating theatre..Jeez! I wish the doctor would've told me that we have to rent everything from the hospital, funny he should neglect to mention that since the cost of that is nearly the same as what he's charging for the operation itself!
Maybe because after they know you have insurance they don't care because the insurance is covering it, but there is a LIMIT to how much insurances cover! At least we have the bill, hey they didn't even want to give us a copy until we insisted on it! They said it wasn't necessary and they would just send it straight to the insurance company. So if they were to bill us equivalent to the cost of a house we wouldn't even know about it! And insurance companies don't make a habit of coming back to tell you how much your bill is...

2. I had to go see my doctor everyday, from my ward. So they'll have someone wheel me from the 4th floor to the 3rd floor where his clinic is. Now, seeing as it takes just a few minutes to get me down there, why is it he usually makes me wait at least an hour, once it was nearly 2 hours to see him?! I know his business is good but shouldn't priority be given to in-patients like me who just finished an operation and feeling like shit, to be made to wait so long? Can't he time it such that I just have to wait few minutes once I'm there? Worse, I usually see people go in who arrive after me!

3. In order to see inside my nose he has to insert stuff and do stuff that are inevitably painful. Not ONCE did he offer me a tissue when I had tears rolling down my cheeks due to the pain or even when I had stuff dripping from my nose, I had to ask for it!

4. He forgot about the medication he prescribed me...TWICE! Luckily I remembered and asked the nurses to check with him. Once, even the nurses showed their frustration with him! On the second time, because it was late, and because he forgot my medication, I went to the clinic (which was after all, one floor down) to get it from him, they couldn't even get a hold of him because he had left for god knows where, and they had the gall to ask me to go to the pharmacy to get it myself! And on the way there, I saw him chit chatting to someone at a lounge area...

The nurses:
1. If you stay in Prince Court, pray that you don't have any problems or accidents in the middle of the night. Because the nurses will NOT come to check on you at all until the next morning when they have to give you medication. It doesn't mean that if the call button for them is there they don't have to do their jobs!

2. If you stay in Prince Court, pray that you don't get an unexperienced nurse attending to you, over the course of a few days I have had young chick nurses who don't even know how to inject antibiotics properly or even use the ear thermometer properly! I had to tell the nurse that the thermometer didn't even touch my ear..

3. The nurse/pharmacist who came to give me my antibiotics when I was discharged, forgot to even write down or tell me whether it's to be taken before or after food.

The administration:
I thought on my last day I'd take it easy, and maybe have lunch before I go, kinda felt bad that maybe I should leave earlier. Well, I didn't have to, in fact I should've ordered dinner as well cause by the time we checked out it was nearly 8 at night! What should have been a nice speedy discharge turned out to be a long draggy day of waiting for the doctor the whole morning until he finally deemed fit to see me during lunch time..just before my lunch came and I was so hungry too...and then more waiting at his clinic, by the time I finished with him was around 3, my food was cold by the time I got back, at least I got to eat. Then another delay because the doctor forgot to prescribe and give me my medicine and I had to ask the nurse in my ward who couldn't find him and then I had to go down to his clinic and he wasn't there and the nurses there couldn't find him, even though it was still working hours, and then I had to go to the pharmacy to buy the stuff myself and pay out of my pocket. Oh! and all this while we had asked for the bill already which they were taking forever to come up with. The bill only came after nearly 4 hours after we asked for it and their excuse was that they couldn't reach the insurance people. I shudder to think what would happen if I didn't have insurance at all, then I wouldn't be even admitted or have my surgery done...but then at least I wouldn't have to go through this atrocious experience...Pros and cons I guess...

5/10/08 Surgery tomorrow!

My operation on my sinus to alleviate my sinusitis (hopefully) is tomorrow, how time flies. Will be MIA for a few days so...sigh, not looking forward to it, when I come back there will be tons of msgs to check and all that. Hope it will go smoothly, but having been through one before I know it's gonna be quite suffering for few days after, extensive bleeding and disgusting looking matter being expelled from my nose, yuuch!

3/10/08 Plastics..

I just got back from another nite of clubbing, it was ok. But what I don't get are the people who seem so unfriendly, even though they know you, they want to look so cool or something that they just give you a fake nod that's supposed to pass for acknowlegement from their royal assnesses. I'd rather be ignored than get a really fake acknowledgement. Then there are those who just outright ignore you even though they know you and you know they know you, which makes it weird the next time you meet them somewhere else like the gym or something and start talking like as if the whole ignoring thing never happened...I mean, people just want to go out and go clubbing for fun so I don't know what is up with the attitude, if they're going to be so antisocial I don't see the point of going out to a place where the main thing is to socialise!!

2/10/08 Love for love itself!

I have to say, if you talk long enough with a gay person, the conversation inevitably turns to matters of the heart, i.e. love and relationships. And when you talk about gay relationships monogamy always comes hand in hand simply because it's a matter of much consternation among gay men and those in relationships.
I don't know when society decided to make relationships monogamous but I think we are biologically programmed to not be monogamous and to spread our seed far and wide. If nature intended us to be like that why go against nature? Why should there just be 1 person for us in this whole wide world of billions of people? That doesn't make sense.
I think too many people buy into the notion of romantic fairytale love like they see in movies and dramas that they wish their life was like that, I think it's selfish to want a person to just love you, it's possessive and obsessive. If we were secure in ourselves why would we need another person to 'complete' us and be our soul mate, if there is such a thing..
I think people will be happier and there would be less breakups and divorces and on the whole the world would be a better place if people just forget about labels like boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, whatever! It doesn't matter, we don't have to own someone for them to love us and vice versa. We should just love for love itself, if you like the person, whether it be for company, for sex, for love, anything, just enjoy each other and respect each other and experience the best in each other, don't have any expectations and issues and you remove all the drama, problems, friction and I think we will have an even better time loving the people we love. In a purer form and state and we would all be happier and more fulfilled human beings!

2/10/08 Mamma Mia!

I went to watch Mamma Mia! the movie and expected just another Hollywood adaptation of a musical but by the end was quite pleasantly surprised that it was very entertaining and moving. It started a bit slow but picked up in the second half of the movie and towards the end was quite magical and would put a smile or a tear on any hardened person's face. At first all the characters and scenery seemed trite and overly happy like as if they were high on drugs or something, but in the in end the joie de vivre manages to rub off and you are drawn into their world of a beautiful island where high drama and a comedy of error ensues. Of course the great Meryl Streep is in the movie and that does no harm but the truely delightful moments come from her 'sidekicks' Christine Baranski and Julie Walters, they're simply hilarious! Altogether a very entertaining movie that brings back the bohemian spirit and flower power!