Wednesday, February 11, 2015

A Book Review

I know. I know. I do not want to talk about it. Right now, I do not want to use the words "It's been a while," at all. Let's pretend the last couple of years did not happen, all right? Hello? Anybody there?

Looks like my only reader (my cat) has left. Sheesh. Cats ARE selfish.

So.

Ahem.

I am now Dr. Adorable Pancreas, almost M.D. A bit like House, but without the limp. Residency training has been a roller coaster ride, and right now, it feels like the ups will never make up for the downs. I know I have become a better doctor, but its price was my humanity. (You know, that sounded a lot less melodramatic inside my head.) My sense of humour has lost its edge, my writing skills *hysterical laughter* have declined, and I now have some extra fat around my tummy. Oops! That last one just slipped out. (We are still DINKY, thank you very much. Ongoing grand nulligravid, and all that.)

I have been wanting to review this book for a while now. Compared to this one, Four Dozen Plus Two Shades of Ashen, or whatever it is called, is a literary masterpiece. Bella the Vampire Stalker has more personality than the protagonist in this book. In fact, I am still not sure who the protagonist is. Just when you start to think that maybe THIS guy is finally the hero, he dies at the end of the chapter, or is left with a horrific, incurable disease. This nightmare runs to over 3000 (three thousand!) pages, and at the end of it, you just want to shoot the author, but the guy is just as famous and respected as Chetan Bhagat that you do not even have a snowball's chance in hell. I am, of course, talking about Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine, which is perhaps the most authoritative book on Medicine.

The first chapter talks about Patient and Illness, and you think that Patient is the hero, and Illness is the bad guy's gang. But, no. There is another, God-like guy, called Physician, who steps in and saves Patient, or at least keeps him from getting killed. You would think that Patient would go down on his knees to Physician for saving him from yet another fatal attack by the Illness gang, but then you find out that Patient sues Physician after the gang member is subdued. I thought Physician would get his own back by stabbing Patient in the liver, but that does not happen, either. Physician will "consciously monitor and control his behavior so that Patient's best interest remains the principal motivation for his actions at all times." Physician, as you can see, is quite obviously an idiot.

The next few (and by few, I mean seventy-five) chapters talk about the different ways in which Illness attempts to murder Patient. You learn that Illness sometimes infiltrates Patient's own family, and at times even lives in Patient's own home. Patient, who, frankly, is a bit dim, continues to cavort with Illness' known allies like Smoking and Boozing, and frequently ignores warning signs that Illness is about to strike.

The final chapters (seventy-six to three hundred and sixty nine) describe the Illness gang members in gory detail. Some of their activities are well across the border on inhuman. Some, like Seizures while driving, are illegal in many countries, but the gang is so strong that Physician has to nearly kill Patient with anticonvulsant drugs before Seizures is subdued.

I could go on, but, to be honest, it is just one disaster after another, launched by Illness against Patient, which that prize ass Physician attempts to thwart. Illness seems to win so many times that you are forced to consider that this evil gang is the protagonist, but their activities are so vile and repulsive that the very idea makes you shudder.

In short, if you ever see this book, run, do not walk, to the nearest exit. I believe the book can sense when readers are nearby, and positions itself to fall onto the heads of unsuspecting innocents. The ebook version has additional chapters on even more monstrosities of Illness, so, just, be careful.


Stay away. Far away.

Monday, August 19, 2013

The Legacy

My niece is five-and-a-half years old. Her brother is barely three.

She speaks with a clarity well beyond the capabilities of most eight-year-olds. He! speaks! like! this! with! exclamation! points!

She hates school. He hates going to school, and then refuses to come back home in the evening.

My niece has to sleep on my bed when she visits us, and snuggles up to me in her sleep. She follows me around all the time, and is thoroughly convinced of my awesomeness. She's not all that fond of my husband, and has frequently expressed her resentment about how he took me away. In fact, she once told a friend of mine that my husband beats me up (and that she has seen him do this).

My nephew hardly ever speaks to me. He prefers the company of his Gran or the dog or the cat or the idiot box to mine. But if I am in the bathroom for more than two minutes, he starts banging on the door, calling my name, starts, and promptly ignores me when I come out.

My niece wants to be a doctor when she grows up. She's  not old enough to know any better, but she's been saying that from the time she could talk. She knows where her heart is, and can listen to it with my stethoscope.

One of the nephews's first words were 'plane! plane! plane!' and he wants to be a 'pilot-tu!' when he grows up. He has promised to fly his Gran around the world once he achieves his life's dream. And the other day, when she casually asked him when he's going to become a pilot and take her on the world tour, he replied 'dottor ayittu!' (after becoming a dottor!).

Kids!

A long time ago

Monday, June 11, 2012

Romance, He Wrote

LOCATION:
A beach lit up by the full moon, breeze blowing in from the sea.

CAST OF CHARACTERS:
A lovely young doctor with antiquated ideas about love and romance, despite being married for over a year, and to a curmudgeon at that
A curmudgeon, doing a poor imitation of a human being
Crabs (the marine kind, not of the itchy variety)

SCENE:
The lovely young doctor, hereinafter referred to as Pancreas, and her curmudgeon of a husband, hereinafter referred to as Curmudgeon, or Mudgy, are having dinner.

Pancreas: Look, Mudgy, it's a full moon tonight.
Mudgy: Hmm. [continues wolfing down his chicken]
Pancreas: The beach looks AMAZING, don't you think?
Mudgy: Hmm. [continues wolfing down his chicken]
Pancreas: Let's go for a romantic moonlit walk on the beach.
Mudgy: Hmm. [continues wolfing down his chicken]
Pancreas: Holding hands, OK?
Mudgy: Hmm. [continues wolfing down his chicken]
Pancreas: Yay!
Mudgy: Do we have any more chicken?
Pancreas: No, you ate it all.
Mudgy: Oh. OK, I'm sleepy. Good night.
Pancreas: What about the romantic moonlit walk on the beach you promised me?
Mudgy: What? When?
Pancreas: Just now.
Mudgy: I didn't do anything of the sort. I was having my chicken. Too bad there isn't any left.
Pancreas: Aww! Mudgee! Look, it's lovely outside.
Mudgy: Dammit, woman, the beach is not going to run away, it's going to be there tomor-
Pancreas: MUD-GY. YOU. ME. BEACH. NOW.
Mudgy: *shrugs* Whatever.

At the beach
Mudgy: Hahaha! The tide is in! There is no beach! Hahaha! Now, let's go back, you can make me more chicken.
Pancreas: We can sit on this bench right here.
Mudgy: Hmph!
Pancreas: Look at all the constellations.
Mudgy: Hmm.
Pancreas: Ooh! Did you see that huge wave?
Mudgy: Hmm.
Pancreas: All the crabs have come out! They're running all over the place!
Mudgy: These ones aren't good for eating. Very little meat inside. But the ones deep in the sea are delicious, with lots of garlic, and onions. Mmmm!
Pancreas: MUD-GY.
Mudgy: What did I do now?
Pancreas: Can't you be a little romantic, for once in your life.
Mudgy: Well, all right.... LOOK! LOOK! DO YOU SEE THAT? *points at dark shape in the sea*
Pancreas: What? What?
Mudgy: A mermaid! Carried over the waves, over the tides, looking for her lost love!
Pancreas: Aw! Mudgy! That's so romantic!
Mudgy: She's HOT! Hey! Mermaid! Over here, baby!
Pancreas: MUD-GY.
Mudgy: Just kidding!
Pancreas: You're SOOOO unromantic.
Mudgy: Of course I'm not unromantic. Do you know what I would do if a huge whale came up and told me that it wanted to have you for its dinner?
Pancreas: What? What?
Mudgy: I'd tell it to be my guest, of course!
Pancreas: ...
Mudgy: But then it would choke on your bones and die, and then you will get arrested for whaling. And I'll FINALLY be free of you. Muhahah- OUCH! OW! OWW! STOP! STOP! OUCH! I'M SORRY! OUCH!


This incident may or may not be based on an actual incident. The background to the story is that Mudgy Dearest was transferred to a place where we live about a hundred metros from a beach that is NOT open to the public. We can go to the beach any time we want to, and with this mind, we hardly ever go to the beach.

The Beach. Duh!

In other news, I have managed to clear all my exams, so now I'm eligible to take yet another exam after three years of penal servitude at the Internal Medicine wards of my alma mater. Yes, Dr. Adorable Pancreas, MD, in three more years! Assuming, of course, that we win all the cases currently in court and are allowed to continue the course. It's a long story, and not one I want to talk about right now.

At any rate, the beach is still there.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Our Last Summer

Clarification: It was not summer. More like the period just after the monsoons when it's stopped raining and it starts to get a lot warmer but not the bake-you-to-a-crisp summer heat yet. Yeah, that. We need a name for that. I christen it... Monlater. I am SO clever.

All right, let's get down to the actual reason I'm sitting down here to write a blog post. This is yet another of those posts where I try to tell you (and by you, I mean, me, because I do not have a single reader left since I began to take extended breaks of a 'few' months duration) that I have exams and will write a 'proper' post as soon as they end. And by 'as soon as they end' I mean two months after they end.

Here is yet another picture of the lovely Adorable Pancreas and her wonderful husband Duodenum C. Loop. You are welcome.

Not my handbag, by the way

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Tan Tan Tara!

Amidst great fanfare and rejoicings (or more accurately, sobs and screams of "FIX IT! FIX EET! FEEX EET!"), we The Husband fixed my his laptop. You know what means, don't you? Other than The Husband Is A Genius? It means pictures, people!

Here are some from our trip to Ooty in the dead of winter. Best. Honeymoon. Ever. I looked like a homeless person, bundled up from head to foot, wearing ALL the clothes I had with me at the time, and STILL shivering like I had malaria.


View from some dam.


This is where we stayed. Point to note, bring your own radiators if you do not wish to wake up as a block of ice.


Nice and toasty in the car, with the heater going at full blast.


Basking in the sun at noon.


Wait a minute. I can hear some of you complaining that there are no pictures of us. Here you go!


Gotcha!

Take particular notice of the bony black horse on the left. I have no idea whether it ever lifted its head long enough to stop eating. Just like me, says The Husband. The horse and I have similar metabolism, I guess. Eat your hearts out in envy.

That's all for tonight, ladies and gentlemen. As a parting gift, here's a picture of Us. No, really.


The Husband is on the left, in a stripey tee. I am the nondescript tramp on the right.

Monday, July 18, 2011

I'm Lovin' It

I have been married eight months now. Except for all the prepping I've got to do (y'know, for yet another exam *sigh*), life's great. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out when you have found treasure. Yes, I am talking about The Husband. I mean, he buys me shoes without being asked, and that was more than enough to convince me that I'd struck Solid! Gold!

I sort of destroyed his laptop, (unintentionally, of course) and he was really nice about it and did not even yell at me. He did refuse to speak to me, but since neither of us can shut up for a minute to save our lives, the silence lasted all of five minutes. But, we have not got around to getting it fixed it yet, so, sorry folks, no pictures.

Someday soon, I hope to be able to write something that is more than a placeholder post. Until then, ciao.

Pancreas, over and out.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Break Ke Baad

So. Full-fledged doctor and all that. And also, found someone brain damaged enough to want to marry me, so, yeah. Got hitched too. Yippee.


And there are exams. And more exams. Because if a medical graduate wants to specialise (and I do), you need to qualify in at least one of the few million entrance tests for post graduate courses. Not that I expect to clear them this year or anything, but people keep looking disappointed when I am not buried beneath a textbook. Seriously, any kid who says he/she wants to become a doctor should have their heads examined.

Exam. Gah.