You know a stethoscope has two parts; the bell and the diaphragm? The bell is the smaller one, and likewise, diaphragm is the bigger one in size. Both of these have latex attached to them, to ensure either the diaphragm or the bell adheres perfectly to human’s skin.Please note; without this latex, you wont be able to listen to anything.
Get it?
Anyway, just like hair gels to boys and lipsticks to girls, stethoscope to me is like a life-long companion. I have to bring it anywhere, because you never know, just in a split second, your consultant may ask you to listen to a heart murmur and diagnose it straight away.
Ok, most of the time, my stethoscope has been serving me quite good. Well, not until recently.
When I was doing my stint in Stroke Week, I was asked on numerous occasions to listen to heart murmurs. Weird thing was, I couldn’t listen to anything at all. To be confused which murmur was which, was a fairly normal thing for a student like me. But to not be able to listen to anything at all when I put my stethoscope on a patient’s chest was undeniably very strange, don’t you think? How could my stethoscope go dead on me, when I just bought it only a year ago?
It was even confusing, when sometimes; I could listen to the heart sounds but odd thing was, they were on and off. It was as if, they were playing peek-a-boo with me. One second, it sounded like..lub dub lub..then eerily quiet…then the next second, the sound came back again. Annoying? Tell me about it!
So, it’s been awhile this problem with my stethoscope bothering me. Every night, I listened to my heartbeat, and I freaking couldn’t hear anything. It was either I have too much earwax in the ear canals or my heart err….stops doing it’s work. I am pretty sure neither of these is the case here. I kept staring at it non-stop, inspecting from front to back, side to side but unfortunately failed to figure out the reason why it failed on me.
Until one day, I was clever enough to compare it to my friend, Hannah’s stethoscope. And here’s a reason why..
Ohh rupa-rupanya slama berbulan-bulan, telingaku mendengar melalui stethoscope yang tercabut plasticnya itu. Confirm laaaaaaa tak dengar ceh!
Thank God, I can only buy a spare part from MediSave, imagine buying a new stethoscope altogether! Terbang 60 pounds ku (=__=)’
p/s : I cant wait for Paeds! I cant wait! Cant wait!
p/s : Swine flu jab’s finally taken its toll on me. Currently having temperature. Mummmmmmy, I want more PCT!
