Author Archives
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Pre-Omicron Festivities
Namtab Pots and his partner Paul From The Future have done the unthinkable and watched a movie in the cinema. It was originally unthinkable because they are some of the most cautious people I know, having obsessively protected themselves from… Read More ›
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In Tacky Culottes
When I was admitted into the internal medicine residency program I enumerated in my head all the diseases that I no longer had to learn and memorize, stashing such exam committee darlings as Kawasaki disease, placenta previa, and comminuted fractures… Read More ›
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And Ooh, Shots of Remy
The last movie I was trying to watch in Netflix was something called Sparkle, the final movie of Whitney Houston, which also stars Jordin Sparks. It was released sometime in 2011 or 2012, the most chaotic years in my life… Read More ›
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Friday Mojito
So many things to do today, so I started going on rounds at 7am. Patients were still asleep. I was contemplating on waking one patient up, but he seemed fine. Back in med school we were tasked to get the… Read More ›
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Day Off Prowling
Was walking around the mall and I still could not believe how many kids were running around, eating, playing, and so on. I realized that I never had to contend with kids in toy shops for more than a year,… Read More ›
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Mrs. F
Times like these I wonder what my elementary history teacher, Ms. F, would think. She taught us history back in 1990 and 1991, which was just 4 years from the events of EDSA. I remember her telling us about the… Read More ›
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Before I Knew It…
…weeks have passed without me having written something. Usually I am unable to shut up. This is bad. The last time I neglected writing regularly, back in 2014, it took me years to write again. Not that there’s a lot… Read More ›
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Nights of Loneliness and Despair
We had a hospital photo op today in celebration of the department’s 25th anniversary, where everyone was required to be in formal wear. I haven’t worn my suit and tie since 2019. It is not my favorite ensemble, the tie… Read More ›
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Happy Food
I never really dreaded Monday, nor had I really looked forward to the weekends. I used to love Mondays, in fact, when the clinics were at their busiest, and I would go on rounds and attend conferences the whole day…. Read More ›
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Melanoma vs carcinomatosis
I hate milk tea, but I always said that I would try Tiger Sugar if I ever chance upon a branch without a long queue, just to gloat that I was able to get it without effort. Then the pandemic… Read More ›
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Order in Murder
As the number one fan of the Saw franchise I thought Squid Game would be a breeze to go through, but one episode in and I decided to just scrub into the final scenes of the last episode, saving myself… Read More ›
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Kitty Pryde with Claws
In 1995, at the peak of its popularity, The X-Men books have been “cancelled”, replaced with brand new titles under the banner The Age of Apocalypse. This ran for four months. The premise: A young Charles Xavier has been accidentally… Read More ›
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Ugliness
It must have sounded like I was having a shouting match with a naked woman online, but I was just having teleconsultation with a 92-year old lola who was hard of hearing. She underwent mastectomy a few weeks ago for… Read More ›
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Conventionification
It’s ESMO time. ESMO stands for European Society of Medical Oncology, also known as, we get to go somewhere in Europe, listen to oncology updates, and get lost in the fascinating tangled trains of Europe. Not this year, of course…. Read More ›
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Spurting Lava
Corinne, a friend living in the US, called me up at 11:45 pm to catch-up on the latest miseries in our lives. I was very, very sleepy, but she sounded very worried. Her husband, Lino, has been suffering from terrible… Read More ›
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Dojo
I’ve been trying to watch Cobra Kai on Netflix, and realized that I’ve totally forgotten anything about the movie, other than Ralph Machio jumping and kicking his opponent’s face. I rewatched it, and suddenly wished I had pursued martial arts… Read More ›
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Prodrome or Whininess
Had an online meeting with members of the training committee a few days ago, and some of them had mentioned that they’d been having a lot of patients coming in for headache. These patients turned out to be COVID positive,… Read More ›
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Face-Off
While I was in Uniqlo last month (before the horrific surge), Oxalee frantically informed me that the DFA had opened slots for passport transactions. My passport had expired a few months ago, so I immediately tried to get an appointment…. Read More ›
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Ube Pie
When we were in residency training I once heard my friend Queenie mumbling to herself while staring at a piece of paper: “Okay, rounds ng 7 patients, 30 minutes, walk to social service, 2 minutes, talk to radiology, 3 minutes…… Read More ›
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Flings
While lining up to pay in SNR I saw the guy in front of me scrolling through his phone. His eyes popped out as he paused scrolling and stared at today’s COVID statistics: 17,000+ new cases! I had to do… Read More ›
Supposed Former Melancholia Junkie 