A Little Bit Too Late

"You are the doctor, if you cannot help me who can?" She said that repeatedly.

Her creatinine is 800 plus, dialysis is her only option.

Her doctors told her, but she refused strongly.

"Aren't there any medications I can take?"

"Didn't you say there's medications to prevent my kidneys from worsening?"

"You told me to control my diet, I had been doing that.. can't you just give me any medications?"

A little too late. Another case of a little too late.

Diabetes for many years.

Poor, bad sugar control for many years, except 2009 with extremely good control...

I wish I can cry for her, I wish I can tell her that "yes we have this medication, here take it"

I'm not sure how many doctors and nurses had seen her in these many years of diabetes treatment.

I'm not sure how many had tried to tell her earlier that prevention is better than cure.

I'm not sure how many of us had sometimes looked into her record and said "she's not going to change"

I'm not sure... really.. and it's scary cos maybe by the time we want to go that extra mile, that extra minute to see if we could touch her heart, engage her to do something for herself in the earlier course of disease, it's a little bit too late.

I had celebrated a miracle earlier this week, an Indian man with inferior AMI, defibrillated 7 times. Yes 7 times, and survived. I ended the week of regret from this lesson I learnt from this 52 year old auntie. She's younger than my parents. And I can only pray for her.........

Year 2010... some thoughts

It's so funny the beginning of Jan 2010, there's nothing much listed in my calender.

Nothing to look forward to... in terms of nursing.. no huge projects.

Since 2005, one thing led to the next and there was so much anticipation and expectations for the next year.

Graduation from APN course. Getting Married. Going on Honeymoon. Doing APN internship. Completing 12 case studies, quality project, research projects and conference presentations.

APN Exit interview. Switching Organisation.

Now.. things start to slow down. Suddenly, it feels so empty... not sure if that is a good sign.

But it sure feels different.

Year 2010. Some thoughts on what I might jus do.

Personal

Handmade cards and sent out the cross stitches I had done.

Learn pop piano formally (still considering)

Lose weight... well who am I kidding... jus start exercising 1 time per week

Nursing

Really... I need to start reading, writing and stop bitching.

Aim to write to ADES Newsletter, Singapore Nursing Journal.

Do a proper quantitative research project related to Diabetes, with a good sample size.

Not sure but some thoughts for comparison near the end of the year.