#MondayMotivation

#MondayMotivation

Every new day is another fresh opportunity to be better, to be wiser, to excel at whatever we choose to do!

Only recently it felt like the future was so bleak! Jeez! But with every passing day it’s become clearer why things had to happen the way they did and continue to happen, and with that a new sense of purpose and drive!!

Birthday 2018

*sigh*

For the first time in my life, I feel so unprepared for this day. I’ll explain.

Usually I have goals for every year leading up to today. And I’ve always accomplished them all these years. So today is usually kind of like the celebration of those accomplishments.

But not today.

On comebacks!

It’s been an insane period this 2018 until recently. From prepping for camp in the Northern part of the country ( where I never expected I’d be posted to) to redeploying to a whole new area for me and then working in this rural hospital with all the dynamics that come with it...

Whew!

I’d truly forgotten how healing writing and blogging and research is for me, and even for some of you. Again, I’m sorry for disappearing.

HEY!!!

So it’s been over six months since I posted anything on the blog! Omg!!🙈

LASSA IN LUTH ---> THE FACTS!

Two deaths from Lassa fever have been recorded at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) alright.

The first was a pregnant lady who presented at the emergency with excessive vaginal bleeding. The second was a guy who also presented with bleeding though per rectum.

July 11 was my birthday.

It's pathetic that I'm doing this post almost a month after🙈🙈🙈 See my life!

But it was a beautiful day🙂. I worked almost all day, but friends visited later in the evening and we had whipped cream cake and a few drinks. And I got a pleasant surprise even though it was almost a week after, but I forgive you *blushing*

I'm just gonna drop some pictures here. Enjoy!

THE SIMPLE THINGS

 I miss my simple former life.

When the most challenge I had was passing exams. When I could decide to not go for lectures for a day and just get much needed sleep. When I chose whether to go home on many a free weekend or just hang out with friends.

When I had at least four meals daily (Yup I'm like that). When I'd visit friends in their rooms in the hostel, chat all evening, plan for events we'd attend.

SICKLE CELL DISEASE.

I am going to be very direct with this issue.

I have just completed my rotation in the department of medicine and fortunately/unfortunately I was specifically in the Clinical Haematology/Oncology unit. We deal with blood issues in people, in a nutshell. And the one blood disease that cracked past my hard emotional exterior and deep into my emotional core, is the Sickle cell disease(SCD).

SCD is a group of inherited blood disorders. The commonest type is the Sickle cell anaemia(SCA),

SAVED🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

 So this happened almost two months back...

I had just finished evening rounds at about 11:30pm and was returning to my room to retire for the night, praying that I wouldn't be called back to the wards for anything. Got to the floor of the building and met about three weirdly dressed suspicious-looking men whispering to one another in Yoruba. Mine isn't so good so I'm just gonna write out their conversation in English.

"Where are the others?!"

"They said they are on their way here already"

"They better hurry. It will soon be midnight as we planned earlier"

My piloerector muscles jumped immediately and I felt the blonde hairs on my skin rise!

I'M BACK!!!😃😃😃

                                                                           

So I've been in this crrraaazzzzyyyyy unit I'll talk more about later, where I totally lost any other life outside medicine. I have passed through some crazy postings during my houseman-ship year here at LUTH, but this was on another level!

Mother's Day 2017

Yesterday was Mother's Day. And it sucked, for me. Big time!

For many reasons.

My mother is late. Has been for five years now. My beautiful mum....

And then on top of all that, I was still ill. After almost two weeks of running unending tests and taking endless meds and injections and being indoors without working! Because I was practically forced into sick leave!! Which was the reasonable thing to do by the way. Now you know, I can be a workaholic.

SUBSTANCE ABUSE.

We'll call him Michael.

I was in my fifth year of medical schooling when I first saw him. It was an unusually uneventful day at Federal Neuropsychiatry Hospital Yaba where I underwent a large part of my Psychiatry posting. We,  my classmates and I, we're deciding among the patients on the ward who to present to our teachers for the end of posting examinations.

Then Michael walked past us.

We stopped talking and turned to follow him with our eyes. At about 6feet 2/3inches tall, INCREDIBLY "yellow-skinned", with just the right body build and this...spring...in his step, he was a gorgeous guy!

CLUELESS...

It's just truly funny how much

You get to know people

Especially when you need their help

And they turn their backs on you

Plenty excuses

You're saddened 

And you feel so alone

7 EXCITING VAL GIFT IDEAS FOR HER!!!

Alright menfolk get in here!

So I just remembered tomorrow is VALENTINE'S DAY! *wink* *wink*

And if you're in my shoes and only just realized this today, then you have less than a day let to make tomorrow come together for her! "Her" because usually most women have a better sense of intuition when it comes to buying men gifts than the other way around...

Anyways the stores are all filled with val hampers containing all sorts of goodies and restaurants are advertising very expensive dinners for two at "slashed" prices, lol. Indeed!

That's all good and wonderful if you can afford it even in the current biting financial climate in our country Nigeria. But if you can't (and that's okay believe me!), here are some cheaper, more sensitive, very thoughtful and practical gifts to get your beloved girlfriend, wife, mother, sister or daughter tomorrow that'll still make their day:

10 LESSONS FROM 2016 TO APPLY IN 2017!!!

2016 was a life-defining year for me. I became a medical doctor, finally. Became more open minded about people, places. Things! Made new friends, gave up very old harmful friendships. Lots of disappointments and blessings intertwined. Lost a best friend. Had...have a new one.😊 Travelled, learned to start enjoying my own company the most. Got a job and started to become fully responsible for myself.

So straight to lessons learned:

REST ON, BEAUTIFUL ONE.

I lost a cousin today.

She was so young. So beautiful! Always smiling whenever you met her. Full of life! She had this glow about her like all the time! The future for her was limitless!

I got a broadcast message on one of the what's app groups I belong to, about financial donations for a certain person suffering from Leukaemia to go for bone marrow transplant abroad ASAP because she had less than 90 days to live.

Then her picture was posted. My beautiful cousin!

I couldn't believe it! Started calling my siblings and some other cousins. No one knew anything about it. Was still dialing phone numbers of other family peeps when another broadcast message came in on the same group.

WORLD AIDS DAY...DECEMBER 1ST!

Thelma, we'll call her. Dark-skinned beauty she was! Talking and laughing with a relative seated next to her. She couldn't have been more than fifteen years of age. Eyes so huge and white and so full of life I could not help but wonder what she was doing on the paediatric ward of the hospital I work in...

"Dr. Ohanusi please set Thelma's IV line. The one I did yesterday has tissued." My colleague bellowed from the other end of the ward.

I looked through her case note to be sure that was all I needed to do for her at the moment, and then I saw it. A list of her routine medications. Zidovudine! Lamivudine! Nevirapine!

!!!

HIS BLACK SCAR.

A huge black scar on his thigh
He refuses to give any explanation
Thinks I've let it go
Ha! He SO doesn't know
Or maybe he does
And is only hoping
That this one time
I'll let this defeat be mine

OCTOBER WAS DEPRESSION AWARENESS MONTH!

So October was DEPRESSION AWARENESS MONTH...

I thought the blog would have been open by then and I would have done justice to the topic, in writing at least, but October was a veeerrrryyyyy busy month. Shaa better late than never.

In my personal experience almost every one has gone through at least one bout of depression in their adult life. Depression is, simply put, a mood disorder involving persistent, pervasive and sustained low mood that colors the psyche of an individual negatively. Some definitions says if someone has this for two weeks or more then they are depressed(see!)

WELCOME! FIRST POST!! YAAY!!!😁

Hi people!

So the blog is finally up and running, yaaay!🎉🎉🎉🎉🎈🎈

Wanted it to be perfect, but also realized that I'd never just START if that thought continued. So...this is better! This way we, you and I, help grow the blog together!!! I am sooo excited! Haha!