Loving my body.

I stepped on my weighing scale and realised that I gained 3 kgs in two months. And I'm okay with that. Im okay with that Im okay with that Im okay with that.

Its taken so much for me to be able to be say that and mean it. I've been preaching self love and acceptance for a long time, but in all truth, I'm far from mastering the art.

Growing up, I always wanted to be thin. Not slim, not fit, I wanted to be stick thin, but I never really did anything drastic about it. Sure, I dieted here and there, but never hurt myself for it. My parents made sure I ate my meals and being in a government boarding school, your meals are scheduled and you eat when your friends eat. But last year, a lot of things happened and as a result, I got really sad. I was the type to skip meals when I was stress, but this time, it was different. In hindsight, I did it all because a lot of the time I felt very ugly. I wanted some sort of validation that I was beautiful. The person who I turned to for this validation turned out to be toxic for me, and I pushed out pretty much everyone else. I tried to seek validation from somewhere else, so I turned to my weighing scale, and as a result, changed the way I lived my life. I started with eating less, which turned into eating less frequently, which turned into not eating at all. I got obsessed with measuring my body and weighing myself, and told myself ' If you lose one more kg, you will be beautiful'. I timed how long I could go without food, and kept telling myself, ' You want to be strong right, you can go one more hour'.  I got to a point where I wouldn't eat or drink anything for days and completely lost the ability to enjoy food.

I got what I wanted. I lost 10 kg in a span of a month, I got the thigh gap I wanted. Everyone was telling me how much thinner I looked, everyone noticed and a lot of people we're complimenting me for it.

But here's what I also got. 

Since I didnt eat and I had very little energy, so I spent a lot of my time sleeping. When I couldn't sleep, I would go about life in zombie like trance. I didn't laugh with my friends much, didn't feel excited about anything. I just didn't have the energy to be happy. I also didn't have the energy to do anything. I got tired after walking for 15 minutes, my legs would feel like I had run a marathon, and because of that, I despised going out. I remember walking around with my family, and had to ask them to stop every 20 minutes so I could sit down on a bench to rest, because I would feel like passing out. I couldn't participate in anything without my body hurting. My back ached constantly cause I had nothing but bones to support it and my knees always felt like they were giving out. I sacrificed genuinely enjoying time with my loved ones to be skinny.

My body punished me for the lack of nutrition; my skin broke out so bad, my acne scars took longer to heal. My hair started to fall, and my once thick mane became wispy thin. And the thing is, you don't get healthy immediately after you start eating healthy again, and I'm still paying for my not respecting myself with bad skin and really bad hair fall. My stomach got so used to being empty, every time I tried to eat a proper meal, it would reject it and I would get really bad tummy aches. My friends tell me now that while I was going through all that, I didn't look beautiful and thin, I looked sad. Some people made it a point to make sure I knew that they thought I was not beautiful, and I got a lot of anonymous comments telling me that I look disgusting. I remember vividly a comment that went something along the lines of, ' You might be skinny now but you are still fucking ugly. You can't change that, you look so sick.' It got to my mind too. I entered a vicious cycle where being sad made me starve myself, and starving myself made me sad. Every time I ate, I would feel guilty. Every break down I would have, my mind would respond by saying it my own fault, and that I do not deserve my next meal. 

Who doesn't deserve to eat?

I know I am not the only person out there who has been unhappy with their body, and I know I'm not the first or the last person to make unhealthy choices based on these internal conflicts. But if you are thinking about/ already are hurting yourself to achieve your body goals, hi, this is for you.

Please take my word for it, it is not worth it. Your body is a vessel that was made to protect you, and every single part of it has its functions, yes, even the lumpy bumpy bits that you don't like. Your organs have to go somewhere and darling, they need protecting. Your mother spent 9 months of her life, thats like giving up a whole year, to make that body. Someone invested that much time to make it what it is, you owe it to your mother to take the best possible care of yourself.

You should never feel like you have to lose weight (unless you are severely obese and it poses a risk on your life or something along that tangent). Do not let anyone, even yourself, feel like you need to be smaller than you already are or that you have to change your body. If anything, body types are all a hype anyway. One moment Kate Moss's stick thin body frame is in style, and the next, everyone wants Kim K's booty. Don't worry too much, your body wasn't made to be a hype. Your body was meant to take care of you, and be taken care of. Cherish it, respect it for what it truly is. Plus, who wants to be a trend anyway, you are the only person who can be you. Isn't that cool? So embrace whatever you are, no matter what shape or size you happen to be, literally none can work your body the way you do.

And even if you want to lose weight or tone up, there are healthy ways to do that. You can exercise and eat better. It'll make you feel great too (not that I know la I'm a lazy bum). So please please opt for these methods. It is not fun nor necessary for you to have to put your body through so much pain to look a certain way.

And if you are already in that vicious cycle, reach out to people who genuinely love you. Stay away from people who are insensitive and think its funny to use your insecurities as jokes. These people are toxic, and disrespectful. Instead, surround yourself with people who make you feel like the more weight you gain only means that they have more and more of you to love. Go see a therapist, it helps a ton. Spend one day eating somewhere with light but delicious portions and fall in love with eating again, its not easy but you can get there, trick is to not go head first and down a steak. Fall in love with salads and soups and light meals. If you know anyone who is struggling with things like these, be there for them and surround them with love and positivity. Remind them about qualities that you like, and try not to focus so much on their bodies. Be the person to take them out for a light, nice and delicious meal!

Eating disorders are something almost everyone doesn't understand. While its a fragile, heavy topic, it is one that must be addressed and will truly only get worse if left to be. I hope that with sharing this, its shed some light to the actual gravity the issue. While it is a problem, its ultimately one that is entirely possible to overcome.

At all times, remember you are not your body. You are a soul, you have a body. If you are to worry about anything, it should probably be how beautiful you are on the inside.

Love, 

Mirr

Drugs, lube and wet paint

My first day as a trainee pharmacist today!

My god it was tiring. Like seriously, lesson number 1 :

If you are gonna be working as a pharmacist at a hospital, wear comfy shoes. Not even normal flats, that won't do, I was practically dying in mine by the time 5 pm came around and was hating myself for not wearing my birkenstocks. Really, birkenstock level comfort, nothing less. Don't even think about heels, this goes to future Mirr. If you have a date after work, put your heels in your bag or leave them in your car, but damn girl, you don't wanna be standing up and walking around from 9 till 5 in heels. 

So pharmacist hardly sit down. Which is a relief because I absolutely hate really dislike the idea of an office job, sitting down and facing documents and computer screens. But Imma tell you its so tiring, like, so so tiring. And this is just me; I spent the day arranging the new stock and helping pack up prescriptions for patients, which required a lot of walking because hoho, you don't even know how many cabinets there are. So much respect for other jobs that are more physically demanding, contraction workers and the likes, you have all my respect, tabik spring!

Lesson number 2 :

When they say get to know where everything is, GET TO KNOW WHERE EVERYTHING IS. Caution, this is not a drill, I repeat, THIS IS NOT A DRILL.  Because sooner or later, you're gonna get a bunch of labels handed to you, and you're gonna regret not properly getting to know the system of drug arrangements. I spent more than 15 minutes getting my first prescription sorted, and I was incredibly nervous because just this morning I read about a doctor who got sued for false prescription. When I was done, the pharmacist I was helping out said 'Faster next time girl, we don't have all day.' Memorise where everything is if you can, because it helps, it makes you a bit dizzy looking for drugs all day, especially if you're doing more looking than actually finding. (I saw more drugs than people today, whoopee, sneak peak into my -InsyaAllah- life as a drug dealer)

Now if you don't know where things are, lesson number 3 is :

Ask around! Sure, everyone might be looking at you a bit weird because you're the new girl who picked out shoes more based on aesthetic value than comfort, but everyone knows you don't know where stuff is yet. My funny story of the day is that, while sorting out the stock, I could locate where almost everything was except for one thing; Durex Jelly aka, lube. And, for some reason I was shy and quiet today, plus I didn't wanna tap someone on the shoulder and go all 'Excuse me, where does the lube go?' so the new girl was walking around with two bottles of lube in her hand, not knowing where to go with it. A nice staff member pointed it out eventually, but man that was embarrassing.

Lesson number 4 :

Your handwriting matters! My handwriting is not the best and I never thought it affected anything very much, but thats far from the truth! One of the pharmacist was teaching me how to read prescriptions, what certain things mean, and he jokingly said ' Later, when you do your degree, sign up for that extra course that teaches you how to read doctors handwriting' because its true, its horrible, and it makes life so much harder. (Note to self, improve your handwriting!)

All in all, I realised that pharmacist are way way busier than I expected them to be. Patients appreciate if they get their drugs on time, so everything is on rush. Also, the pharmaceutical industry isn't as profit crazy as critics make it out to be. Theres a whole system for refunding and cancelling orders, and patients don't even need to request for it. If you are an in-patient, and you don't take the drugs that are prescribed to you for whatever reason, we will automatically reverse the charges, without you even knowing it. 

I had an eye-opening, tiring but great day. Oh and if my lube story isn't embarrassing enough, I walked into a wall of wet paint while looking for saline solution.

Look at that paint :(

My day was ultimately made because I came home to this. 

Now its starting to feel like Raya.

Love,

 Mirr

Internship experience : Cytogenetics and Molecular Diagnostics Lab

So what do you do when you get ill?

You go to the clinic, or the hospital, meet the doctors, maybe take a few samples. A few days later you get diagnosed with whatever it is you have, get treated, and tadaa, healthcare, so simple right? All you have to do is meet your doctor.

In truth, theres so much more to healthcare than doctors. Your sample goes through a whole series of test in pathology labs, to get that diagnosis. And sometimes, a simple test won't do. Sometimes, we need to access your genetic code to figure out what exactly is the best treatment for you.

Thats what the cytogenetics and molecular team at Pantai Premier Pathology does!

*say hiii to everyone*

I spent close to two weeks shadowing this group of scientist, and I've learned so much. I've learned about extraction of nucleic acids, that some samples require only RNA and others only DNA. I've learned that extraction takes practically ageeessss, we spent one whole day on the extraction of the DNA of a tumour from the gastrointestinal tract of a patient. Literally hours, it takes a lot of patience. I've learned so so much about polymerous chain reactions (PCR), what they're for, what reagents you need and the relevance of a 2 hour cycle of changing temperatures to basically multiply the amount of genetic information you have. I've also learned the different ways you can analyse genes, you can do FISH (florescent something something hehe forgot the actual name) where you get to see whether or not mutation has occurred by analysing florescent dots, or you can do karyotyping, or you can do sequencing, which is basically separating the DNA strands and figuring out the corresponding bases to see if any mutations have occurred. 

Basically a lot of science, don't have my notes now but I'd be happy to share if anyone is interested. Here's a few pictures of the science : 

A biochemical safety chamber. There are UV lights fitted into these to make sure its free of contamination

Kak Sue in the pre-PCR room preparing for solid tumours and Asyraf running the test for respiratory diseases (they get H1N1 samples too!)

DNA bases ! Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine and Thymine in tubes 

I also got a chance to take my blood sample and run a karyotype to view my genes and all that. 

 1. My blood! 2. Making a culture so it multiplies and all that lol 3. After approx 48 hours of incubation in carbon dioxide, it looked a bit gel like.

After centrifuging, thats all my red blood cells at the bottom. And you get a glimpse of Nas in the background *hi Nasss*

My chromosomes under the microscope after staining on the left and on the right, they found my mascara while karyotyping haha!

Anddd thats me, and my karyotype, which is also me!

On top of learning a lot of science, I also learned that scientist have to be super OCD, bleaching and wiping things down with concentrated ethanol all the time. I've learned that I know so little, even with all the 'A-level stress' I complain about. I learned that karyotyping is extremely hard and boring (except for Razak, its so fun for you). I learned about behind the scenes hospital drama, the importance of good timing, communication and overall preserving of relationships, especially between labs and doctors. 

I also learned that choosing healthcare over law feels like the absolute right choice for me.

There's so much going on in providing healthcare, and every single department plays its important and significant part. Pathologist and the people working in the labs, reading your slides and analysing your samples, are some of the most remarkable unsung heroes in the healthcare industry. Like really, nobody ever gets to see what they do. But their part is just as important as the doctors and the nurses and everybody else. 

A shout out to the team;  Aziey, Nas, Kak Sue, Afif, Razak, Sayyidi, Asyraf and Fariq. Thank you for letting me follow you around, and layaning me when I ask way too many questions. For letting me basically kacau you and teaching me a lot of things, even sitting down and printing things out and giving me lectures. For helping me confirm that this is the field I want to venture into. InsyaAllah I'll still see you all from time to time, good luck with the lab and your personal quest, you have my best wishes.

Also, I've been happy lately. Alhamdullilah.

Go and pursue what you want to do, even if its something nobody expects you to do (I still get, wait what YOU'RE NOT DOING LAW OR ECONS, lol). And don't be afraid to try new things or to apply for learning opportunities. Just send that email, worse thing that will happen is they reject you :)

My second internship is starting this Monday, at a pharmacy department in a hospital this time. Fingers crossed that it'll be just as good as an experience.

Last few pics !

Love,

Mirr