There were lots of things I wanted to write about here, but I seem to have forgotten them all!
Working full time now, and am very proud to have my own in-tray, complete with my name sticker on it! Makes me feel very important;)
A few things.
Saw 2 cases of "white-coat hypertension" on file. Its interesting. I had read about it in my physiology book, but never thought that you would actually see it on an official report.
And a puzzling one:
"Patient lately had a spontaneous pregnancy and delivered a 3yr old baby boy"
There was much amusement when one of the doctors today told us that another (female) doctor had suggested to the female GP' that they do each others smears for convenience! Needless to say the idea wasn't received with much enthusiasm...
Absolutely knackered..... I have also eaten my way through 1200kcal of peanut butter in the last 3 days. Piggy!!! But man, it is truly the best peanut butter in the world. No added oils or crap, just peanuts and a touch of salt.....mmmmm......
Just got a booktoken in the post for a vet survey I did ages ago! Woo, I'm in the money! I think I might just buy Half of a Rising Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.....or something else...ooh the possibilities are endless! ;)
So I woke up at 5. Very very not like me! Nearly there though! Trying to get in some last minute cramming, but not doing so well.
Digestion......some of it is interesting, some v boring. I've been looking at the teaching schedule for medicine, and it looks like I won't be covering digestion until 3rd year, which means I'll defo have forgotten all this by then!
For anyone else studying digestion, here is a really good link (vet or med)
I will officially be finished vet school FOREVER!!!!!
I am so excited.....and a little sad. There's some stuff I am really gonna miss.
Lis goes home on tuesday :( I'm really going to miss her nutty presence over the summer.
And now, I should really get back to revising.......histology is gonna bite me in the ass tomorrow.
Oh, Q for all you scientists out there. So, in the neonate, the gut is permeable to whole proteins for a short amount of time to allow absorption of immunoglobulins from colostrum. How does this apply to HIV? Because, as far as I knew, the latest guidelines on breastfeeding in HIV+ mothers, was that exclusively feeding breastmilk in the first 6months gave quite a good chance for the baby to not contract HIV (obv better if getting ONLY formula, but this is where that option is not available). Does anyone know how HIV is not then absorbed? And how are the immunoglobulins not degraded by gastric secretions? I'm afraid I don't know much about this, so any enlightenment would be much appreciated!
Here is the saga of my battle to photocopy our histology notes that I misplaced.
1. Chose double sided printing some weeks ago. Got half way through scanning in the 57 pages and the stupid machine ejects my card, deleting all the already scanned in stuff. Whatever, I gave up, and left it.
2. Getting closer to the exams. I'll try again. Scanned in 24 pages, then decided to print and put more money on my card. Stupidly, I ejected the card before printing. All lost again.
3. 58 copies on my card. Every f****ing page carefully scanned in. Print. Sit back, relax, and WHAT????? You are only printing half pages????? And now all my money is gone????
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!
I think I'm going to give up, and just be resigned to failing any histology questions.
How I suddenly came to pondering on it is that I was studying my digestion notes, and reading about CFTR (cystic fibrosis transmembrane receptor). For non medics:This receptor allows tiny channels in your gut wall to open and let water out. Fine normally. Unfortunately cholera produces a toxin that paralyses these channels, preventing them from closing. Result: massive diarrhoea, dehydration, and death if untreated.
So far, so unpleasant. But the really interesting thing is that cholera may have caused cystic fibrosis to evolve. Here is a link that can explain it better than I.
Anyway, I was just sitting here thinking how fascinating it all is. That a condition as devastating as CF can come about through a modification to help fight off another disease. I wish more of my lectures had interesting side notes to them!
Q: The link I put up says that historically only heterozygous carriers of the CF gene benefitted from a decreased susceptibility to cholera, because homozygous carriers had CF and didn't live long enough to get cholera. But, in this era of modern medicine where people with CF live a lot longer, what if someone with CF was infected with cholera? Would they be completely immune to it and develop no symptoms?
One hour to go till my PBL exam, woot. I wonder what its going to be like....
The course I am going to in September is PBL based, which I loved the idea of, until I actually did PBL. Here, In vet, it absolutely sucks ass!!!! One of the main reasons I hated it was that the groups were so unresponsive. You couldn't have prised an idea out of them. I remember on the first day I was so excited, I was all like "yeah, now we finally get to get all House-ian"....and then......silence.....
Group facillitator: Any ideas what this might be?
Group: *SILENCE*
Me: "Um well, maybe we should research whether it could be x,y,z.......*trail off into embarassed silence*"
Group facilitator: "OK, good, so who wants to do what?"
Group: SILENCE
Facilitator: "What do you know about X?"
Facilitator: "Anyone know anything??"
Me: mumble mumble mumble *shame*
Group: SILENCE
Now please don't get me wrong, I'm not bitching complaining that nobody knew anything, I mean I didn't know anything either for any of the cases that weren't equine. It was the complete lack of ideas, or motivation that pissed me off. Would it have killed them to open their mouths and throw something out???
So, I'm really, really, really hoping that the med students are going to be more enthusiastic. Or that they learn to be. I'm guessing they will, 'cos the course is mostly PBL. And I'm hoping its going to be more structured than what we had here. Another problem I think is that you can't really do 99% traditional lecture format, and then just throw in some PBL for the hell of it. PBL requires a serious time and learning effort to work, and when you're trying to cram reams of facts at the same time, and have no interest in "self-directed learning" I don't think its good.
So now, 1/2 hour till my PBL. We get given a case and have 2hours to research it.
According to my schedule it says "pick up case material in the Monaghan Room"
Saw two very good programmes last night, both Channel 4's unreported world series. The first I had taped a while ago, the other last night.
The first was on Zambia(always close to my heart) and the DRC, and how the Chinese are the new colonialists. The exploit the copper and cobalt mines, raw materials that they need to fuel their booming economy. And with the price of copper at an all time high, they are rolling in it. On the one hand, this is partly good, local workers get jobs that were lost when the government shut the mines down, and it boosts the economy. Except that they treat the workers like crap, pay them a pittance, and have little regard for their health and safety. We saw children climbing down tiny holes to dig out copper ore for 50c a day. And this all boosts the Chinese economy more than the African ones. So we have a new colonialism, even as countries are still destabilised from the effects of the last one. Such a pity, and so hard to do anything about. Who cares about the poorest of the poor? No one.
The second programme was on Zimbabwe, another tragedy. The journalist reporting was fairly afraid for his life for most of it, and all his filming had to be secret. Mugabe is running a dictatorship and no one is stopping him. The reporter met a group of women who had been protesting peacefully about the lack of schools. They were arrested and beaten. They were kept for 3 days in an outdoor pen, no food. And their children were kept separate from them. And these were not even politicians! Anyone suspected of being from an opposing party disappears. Inflation is up 3000%, and the cost of maize has rizen 600%. People are starving. But Mugabe doesn't care about them, as we saw when he demolished many townships. Why is the international community doing nothing? One whisper of oil and nuclear weapons and America hot shots into Iraq. But starving people? Immense human suffering? Not interested.
Its all just so infuriating. Who decided that these peoples lives were worth less than those us in the west?
Check out this, its a group of people from inside Zimbabwe writing about what is going on.
Ok, so I should be sensitive about the patients in the practice and the things I read. And I am usually. But today I read something that made me laugh out loud.
When I open a patients file to scan stuff in, I see the last transaction that was made, and sometimes these are consultations. I can't help but cast my eye over them.
Today, the locum had put in for someone:
"Lactose intolerant. In a moment of stupidity drank 4x bottles of flavoured milk."
I'm sorry, but I thought it was pretty funny. I mean, everyone has their weaknesses, but 4(!!) bottles? As expected, severe diarrhoea was the result, and there was little the dr could do about it.
Kinda made my morning anyway.
Today I got trained in on The Desk.. So now I answer the phone, sign in appointments, and take payment! I'm kinda doddery and slow at it at the mo, but hopefully I'll improve (god help me if I have to give change...)! It was a fairly slow day, unusual for a Friday, but it meant that we all got to have a good natter. They make me laugh so much...
On a grr point though, the stupid bus didn't turn up when I'd made the effort of getting up early. Next time I'll sleep in.
(Please note that I treat all the files I handle with the utmost respect for confidentiality and dignity of the patients. Today was just kinda special....)
Two down!!!! And one was the worst, Cell and Metabolism. What was freaky was that the exam actually went pretty ok. A really, really, bad sign for me. Whenever I think I have failed something, when I feel that every word I wrote on the paper was a mistake, and that my standard was way below the others, I inevitably come out just fine. But when I think "hmm..that was pretty ok, in fact I aced that!" I almost certainly get a D. Which would be fine, I'd be quite happy with a D. I just don't want an E.... Ok I'd better shut up about this before Lis hits me over the head with a shovel and tells me one more time it doesn't matter because I'm leaving.....I know.... ;)
So Espanol tomorrow evening, and then it'll be three down!! Woot!
I'm just so relieved, no more guilt about being a slacker!
Better get down to the 'ol physiology of digestion then.....haha....
(pic is of "happy face" crater on Mars, cute huh?)
Its the morning of two of my exams, Metabolism and Animal Husbandry. Going to put in an hour of last minute study, but really at this point, im f****ed. Which is ok.
My favourite moment is just before the exam. People always ask me why im so happy. Well, theres nothing left to do about revising, its too late, its time to just sit back and take it. And I haven't taken it yet, so I can't feel crap about what I wrote. So its the perfect moment of limbo, and I find it strangely soothing.
As usual, simply fabulous!!! And I mean fabulous! For those who don't know what that glorious European institute is, click here!
I missed the first contestant (Bosnia-Herzegovina), but after that I think I can give you a fairly good run through of the acts that stood out.......Haha.
First up Spain, and what better than a wildly gyrating boy-band clad in white lycra to start things off? Classic Eurovision style! The song was rather disappointing though....
Finland were the next band who stood out. A fierce goth-like singer gave a hearty rendition of quite a rocky number, and it was actually (please remember I'm judging by Eurovision standards here) pretty damn good. I had it down in my top 3.
Ah, F.Y.R Macedonia,pretty girl in a slinky dress, and a poppy song. Also in my top 3. Had a high-quality Eurovision sound to it, I thought it might be just the ticket.
Serbia were, BRILLIANT! A short, rather butch lady, dressed in a man's suit, with her all female (dressed in army uniform) backup singers. Not a promising sight, and not very EuroGlamour, but she could actually sing. Very well. Beautiful voice.. I marked her down as my favourite.
France. Oh dear. If it wasn't the scary bald man in the all pink suit with the toy cat around his neck, it was the strange fact that the singer appeared not to be French. He didn't have a French accent at all...... It was most bizarre. A lot of countries seemed to be going from the traditional "English lyrics=votes" idea, to having most of the song in their language, with the final verses in English. Fairly effective compromise, and an interesting trend. But the French song was dire beyond belief.....
Oh Ukraine. You truly entered the spirit of Eurovision. Picture the scene: a rather large bald transvestite, wearing extravagant make-up and sunglasses, with a formidable chest, in an all silver glittery shiny costume, the crowning glory of which was an enormous silver star attached to his head. Just beautiful. And he had two exuberant back-up dancers in all silver uniforms. It was in one word, spectacular! Here he is.....in all his glory.
Ireland was a hideous embarrassment. Dreadful Celtic themed crap, with some awful woman who could not hold a note, in a ghastly "I am a poetic but poor peasant Irishwoman, whose soul roams free upon the mountains, and whose spirit is entwined with the Celtic mysteries" type outfit. It was so shaming.
Britain didn't do much better, and it was probably, thanks to its inappropriately sexual nature, the most embarrassing song. The theme appeared to be Mile High Club, with pretty girls and overly camp cabin boys strutting around in luminous blue outfits. The cabin boys kept making suggestions such as "would you like something to suck on?" while holding a mock boiled sweet. The song seemed to be some vaguely patriotic dig. It almost seemed Empire, the refrain being "We're flying the flag, all over the world". Pretty terrible and very questionable in its messages.
Romania did its song in numerous languages, and as Terry Wogan said, it did seem "a desperate attempt to win votes", but it was actually a very good performance, and the Romanian "Frenchman" sounded much more French than the real one.
Bulgaria. A bit banshee-wailing-on-speed-with-drums-thrown-in-for-good-measure. Quite interesting though, and a nice "Europe we love you!!!" at the end.
Kenan Doglu sang for Turkey. Funny, 'cos he's actually one of their biggest pop stars. The song was ok, good and dancy, and he had some bellydancers which livened it up. Ironically though, they were all British.
Russia were definitely on the Tatu side of things, with 3 girls in nun-outfits singing saucily. Not great though, although bloc voting was probably going to put them in with a chance.
Sweden did a lovely David Bowie-esque number. Lots of glam rock.
Another thing that I love about Eurovision are the strange video clips they put in between the songs. This year features were heavily snow and children orientated. But some of them were downright bizarre, like the kid snorkelling in a puddle, or Moomin and Santa playing chess.
Speaking of Santa, he appreared at the end to introduce the voting. Was that not a bit odd in May??? Also, he was a very sinister Santa, his best line being "Hoo Hoo Hoo, I veesit your homes eveery Chreestmas, heh heh heh" Creepy.
To entertain us before the voting we had some death-metal cellists, a man in a bubble who hatched out wearing plastic knickers (and looking well gross), fire drummers, a trapeze artist and some acrobats. Trust the Scandinavians. And of course there was a lovely little announcement reminding us that we could get Eurovision 2007 on CD, and DVD. Hold me back lads.
Voting was, as usual, waay too long, even though they had streamlined the process slightly. And, as usual, it said more about politics than the actual songs. E.g Norway gave Sweden 12 points, Cyprus gave Greece 12 points, Belarus gave Russia 12 points, and Russia gave Belarus 12 points. It seemed we were going back to the cold war, with none of the Western European countries getting a point in edgeways. Funnily enough, Ireland gave the UK 7points, and ended up kicking themselves in the teeth, because UK did not reciprocate (Irlande, Zero points), and beat us. We came last in the end. We deserved it.
I wondered did the fact that the French point announcer was black say anything about modern France, or the changes that will come with Sarkozy. What do you think? I don't think that before now France would ever have had a black presenter.
Someone should do a song in Esperanto, that would really throw them!
In the end, Serbia rightly won, and their man-woman singer got rather over-excited. I was happy though, they deserved it. Apparently the song, "Molitva", means prayer. Not sure if I agree with that, but it was the best damn Eurovision in a long time.
Here is the winning song. (Fraid I can't get the actual performance)
My Granny is a pretty amazing lady. She was born with only one arm, and still managed to ride a bike/horse, drive, have children, change nappies, paint her nails, cook, and, well basically everything except knit or type. She was born in 1921, during the Civil War, and apparently some bullets came through the window above her cot one night. She finished school at 16, and worked as a telephone operator(how cool is that!!), because she couldn't type, which was the normal girls job of the time. She even had to give up her job by law when she got married. (marriage ban on working women, lasted until 1958, kinda strange to think about!)
She has lived through so many things. To think when she was a girl there were still trams and horse traffic in the streets of Dublin, and nobody had fridges or TV. And now she still manages, in a world of technologies which no one from her parents generation could even conceive of. The changes that have happened during her lifetime boggle my mind.
O'Connell St, Dublin 1944
So today I took my granny shopping, because her only son was coming for dinner and as usual, she wanted everything to be just right. Of course, she does tend to drive us all mad here with her fussing, but none of us understands really what things are like for her (I didn't mention she is almost blind from macular degeneration). So anyway, we did the shopping and there were great debates over whether to buy cream crackers, and what kind of veg did he like best etc. etc. Im sure she was looking forward to him coming all week.
So she made the dinner on her own, (no mean feat for a nearly blind 86 year old one armed fairly deaf lady), and then she called me over to eat with them.
From the minute I came in, she seemed very crabby. I couldn't understand it........ But, I think it was that her son was not in the best of form himself. What I think it was, was that thing, where you really really look forward to something, and you plan it all down to the last detail, and you work your ass off to make it just so. And then, when it actually happens, its just not as great as you'd hoped. It just doesn't seem as perfect as you'd imagined. And the disappointment is so horrible, that you end up being completely snarky. I felt so bad for her, because I really do love my gran, she practically raised me, and I hate to see how difficult things have become for her.
It is twenty to three, PM. I have neither studied nor gone to work today. I am entirely unproductive. And things are getting rather like this..
I am finding studying impossible, and I don't know why. Also a bit worrying considering I have chosen a career that involves life-long education. I was so good last semester, library morning noon and night, but now I can't even bring myself to go to college.
I need a serious kick up the ass, some kind of motivation! Failing and the wrath that that would incur just doesn't seem real enough. Also, I'm home alone so no one to hound me down...
Right, gonna head upstairs and finally finish those carbohydrate metabolism lectures. And then there's vitamins minerals proteins and fats to do too..... Not to mention the correct way to take a cow down......
The little buggers have got me all over my ankle!!!! At least I think it was them... Unless my cat has fleas again....
Nice moment today, Blueberry (pony) was standing at the fence looking all alert, and I wondered why. Then the new herd of cows came round the corner. Now cows are pretty scaredy, so they advanced slowly enough, burping and blowing right up to her. And then BB and a cow stretched out their necks to each other and touched noses. It was a lovely meeting-of-the-species moment. V cute. I wish I'd had my camera. Here's a pic of her looking cute in the hay barn .
I just made the most delicious cake.... And dead easy too! If you like a buttery, lemony sponge, then this is the one for you. My ma heard it on the radio this morning, and I was inspired.
Is it ok to know that you will always want someone that you can never have? Do you ever stop desiring them? And what do you do? Cut them out of your life because it is impossible, but at the same time never want to lose them? Train yourself to pretend its not there?
I dreamt it was my first day of Med School. And for some reason, they had basically just thrown us into the hospital to go and work. Strange. And, worst of all, I had forgotten to get dressed and was wearing my pyjamas, which wouldn't be so bad (lets face it, scrubs/pyjamas same thing), except that the t-shirt had a massive hole in the chest.....Nice. Anyway, I was able to just about cover it up with my snazzy white coat (which I noticed was my lab coat from vet).
My first proper patient was a 6 year old girl, whose complaint was that her leg had gone dead two days in a row after she had been crossing her legs. Now why a 6yr old would be crossing her legs or not know what pins and needles were, i don't know! Anyway, I seemed to do lots of doctory things like check her reflexes and take a history. And then I discharged her.
Then it all got weirder. For some reason half of my year from vet appeared, and them and my "new" year, were mixed together. And some guy was talking to us the same way on my first day of vet ("You all did very well to get here. Look around the room, these people will be your classmates for the next five years, and then your colleagues, blah blah blah) And I was thinking , "what????? Did all these people drop out of vet and into med???" And then I realised I couldn't find my stethoscope, and someone said it had been taken away because it tested positive for Hep. A&B. Most bizzarre. Its all a bit random after that...
The sunshine is gone :( And I should be studying.......bleugh.
This week I got a letter and an email from the Mexicans, which made me very happy. Man alive I want to go back....... Ma wants us to take a mother daughter holiday... Prob is, I know we'll just fight..... And I really don't want to end up half way across the world and not talking to each other.
Don't you love the way your skin smells when its been in the sun? I think it actually went up to 23C today! Almost record breaking for Ireland!
I was in work though, and unfortunately, they're moved my desk to the little room out back, away from all the lovely hubbub :(
I was damn efficient if I say so myself though. Is it sad that I take a strange pleasure from scanning?
Last day of class tomorrow. Its a strange feeling. I almost wish I'd said something sooner about leaving, its so nice not having to pretend any more. Then again, I haven't known that long.
Had my first ice-cream of the summer today! And it was goood. Then had more dinner-out-of-a-can. Things are exciting.
I'm officially a failure now! I got 38% (so close!!) on my last biochem MCQ. As it was the day after the anatomy Viva, I was considering it the sacrificial lamb, but considering I hardly aced the Viva either..... Oh well. I guess there goes my GPA.....
Last night I went to see the Skatalites with V, who managed to wangle some tickets (thanks V!). They were great! They are one of the oldest groups in Jamaica, and I think only two of the members last night were originals. There was this fantastic little old guy on the sax, man alive could he dance! And then there was my favourite, the trumpeter, tall skinny guy who I wanted to hug! And they played for TWO hours! Pretty impressive (I confess I had to take a little sit down near the end), and even the guy in the fur hat barely broke a sweat. Unfortunately, the place was packed with crusties. And the stink of unwashed white dread! Ugh, dreadlocks should be banned on white people!!! Soo GROSS! But yeah, If the Skatalites ever head your way, check 'em out!
Only two more days! And I've decided not to do the spots exam (too many rumours of it being impossibly hard), so I have all day tomorrow free! Time to make some money! Woo! Going to head home this afternoon and pick up a new prescription for my reflux. The doc thinks that since I haven't responded v well to PPI's, that it's possible I have a H.Pylori infection (this was all brought on by a course of doxycycline for malaria prevention btw. I was too cheap to fork out for the €70 per 12 days Malarone). So I'm getting some hardcore antibiotics and hopefully that'll sort the little buggers out.
Beautiful sunny morning outside, 'fraid I skipped my one lecture today. Can't wait to hit the road and get out of the city! Dublin really stinks when the temp gets above 15C, the Liffey was rancid last night.
Oh, Q, does anybody else get goosepimples and shiver when they get into a hot bath? And does anybody else get lots of freckles on their hands? I know I'm a whitey-whitey-white-white, but I don't get that many on my face (I'm not a ginge).
