It is strange to see young guys and girls in the hospital - but I saw a couple of them in a row on a Monday night while working in the Emergency Department. They had all come in suffering from terrible cold/flu symptoms in this rainy winter and swine flu scare.

Those poor souls all looked absolutely miserable, I have to say, but they had nothing to warrant admission into hospital. I did not test them for novel Influenza A strains, as the country is now past the 'containment phase' for H1N1 flu, in accordance with the WHO guidelines. So I said sorry and sent them home.

I remember thinking to myself as I walked out of the ED consult rooms - that I better not get sick after being in close contact with them!

And who would have guessed, the next morning during the post-acute ward round, I sensed an itchy throat creeping up. That very night and the following two days, my nose was running like a tap, my eyes were watering like a poor lemon being repeatedly squished, and I was madly sneezing in spasms every couple of minutes. I was practically bed-bound in a dark room, constantly feeling like tearing my sinuses out. I haven't had a cold/flu as bad as this for years!

Oh boy, how am I able to be a front-line doctor, if seeing a few infectious patients knocks me down completely for a few days and renders me weak like a kitten for a few days more?

I am at least glad I am recovering, by God's grace. Strangely I now feel like a special survivor.

It is wonderful, too, to be able to walk around comfortably without being sick.

Just back from a trip to Adelaide and Melbourne. Had a great time!
But I am now seriously shopping-mall-phobic.

I find it hard to believe too that I actually have friends whom I haven't met for 10 years -- that's gotta mean something about the stages of life we're entering!

( Some photos )

Have you ever looked around and realized that the world is just replete with promises of satisfaction? Think about it!

Blockbuster movies, parties with friends, breakaway shopping sprees, travel trips, hunting for music, chasing good books, enjoying food, and all the colorful product advertisements everywhere - do they not all target at our search for satisfaction? And the world is just full of such promises of satisfaction - that it is blinding.

Many of them are short-lived. Some of them are lies. We all know. Yet it is easy to get lost, and in the process, all we end up thinking and speaking of is about ourselves. All of this is like "a chasing after the wind", as the book of Ecclesiastes aptly puts it.

There is much more to say, but I'll stop. It actually takes some effort to think about this in the context of our personal lives (yours and mine)! But tell me what you think.

( Read more... )

( In continuation from the events described here... )

At the Nile River Explorers (NRE) Base Camp, a cliff above the mighty Nile River, 8kms downstream from the Bujagali falls, Jinja, Uganda:

( Continue reading.... )