Hi there

Yep it's been awhile.

I'm starting up blogging again, because the sheer weight of ideas and posts I've written up makes my computer want to go on a diet. I'll be nice and publish them slowly in bite sized bits.

I've also decided to shift the direction of this blog. Back during undergrad, I was a feisty and angsty little EMT, unsure about life and what was going to happen to me.

Well I got into medical school. Yeah, no kidding. Crazy, huh?

It is a fantastic med school, where I am having a TON of fun. Of course I study all day now and that's all I do, but boy do I have random tidbits to share. (Someday I will gather enough of this tidbits to be a useful doctor. Perhaps.)

For example, did you know kittens can cause acute carpal tunnel syndrome? Yeah! So there are these things called tendon sheaths, that surround the connections between your hand muscles and your hand bones. When you play with kittens, they will inadvertently poke your with their sharp sharp claws, creating microscopic holes in your hand. Germs can get into your tendon sheaths from those holes, and spread back all the way to the carpal tunnel of your hand near your wrist.

The thing is you won't notice these kitten inflicted microscopic holes at all!

Crazy huh?

journal entry from my interview days 11-3/5-08

He was one of my hosts when I was on the interview trail. Well, I wish. But my host looked exactly like him. After I landed in Seattle...the elevation unsettled me a little bit. I am used to completely flat land, no surprises anywhere. However, I really like how it rains/drizzles a lot- it reminds me of Scotland, one of my favorite places in the world. Also, the lights dotting the mountains and the soothing expanse of lake surrounding the school is breathtaking.

So Mr. Krasinski, we'll call him, had the coolest apartment I've seen so far. He and his down-to-earth girlfriend shared a lofted space; again I grew up in one place my whole life and only recently started to travel, so the little things are wondrous to me.

After some small talk about the school, my host presented to me a flyer about the I-1000 proposition up for vote election day tomorrow, and gave me a key to his house and told me to make myself at home. Wow. I could only hope to be as hospitable as these people were if I could become a med student.




The next morning, we took the bus to school. COLORS! The fall here is so beautiful!


The bus is actually really really good. We arrived at school, the 2nd largest federal building after the pentagon. I didn’t believe it at first until I was actually inside. It’s a maze. Seriously.

So the admissions office has a freaking lounge just for applicants. This touch blew me away at first, but when I realized UWSOM didn’t interview batches of 60 once a week like some other schools, it made more sense. There was only 7 of us total that day. I loved it! I got to know all the other applicants who were just really fun, and our tour guide was great and showed us some great views and was pretty chatty as well.

The presentation was alright, so was lunch, and the med students as usual were great. The staff were superb, and walked us around themselves. Now the interview sucked. Role playing? Three interviewers on one interviewee? What the heck? They even played good cop, bad cop, and pissed off cop. Let’s say I have had better interviews. I left the room feeling like the whole trip had been fun so far but was a waste of money. The second interview was so much better. It was just one on one and we had a great time chatting in her office. Good thing my host let me look at the proposition up for the vote.

After that I had time to burn, so I sat in a neuro-ethics class. It was alright, big lecture of second years reminded me of my high school all over again. Next I just wandered around the undergrad campus. It is gorgeous, and I would have a ton of fun running these trails.



Near the end, I met a couple of retired professors, of dentistry and forestry. They actually gave me some good tips on photography, and we walked the trails, talking. I am so lucky. From the slums nearly dealing drugs to the hallowed halls of academia…it is a dream come true. Here I was in a suit, strolling with men who had risen to the top of their fields about photography composition and healthcare, when some of my childhood friends are in jail. This election day so many dreams are coming true.




The above pic was from a house party that my next host brought me to. It was possible to most fun I’ve had all semester. She drives a transformer:



Seriously! She wrecked her car, but her husband who was a surgery resident welded a new back end on. It’s hilarious! Anyway, we showed up at the house full of med students and just had a great time relaxing. Homemade brownies, pizza, drinks. I had to add that the yes, the rumor is true. The hotter the med student, the more likely they are married already. Hahahaha.

So my second host actually had an entire bed and room ready for me. Wow. This is just amazing! A huge window overlooking the lights of Seattle, chocolate on my pillow, what more could I ask for? All too soon it’s time to fly back home.

Ethics is fun

Hands down. I have a great prof who is energetic and funny enough to make the 3 hour lecture come completely alive. He jokes about insurance companies, makes great analogies, and doesn't create a stressful class environment at all.

We were talking about euthanasia and assisted suicide today. Oh boy. It was a nice break from the madness of midterms though. I have to dive back into my intensive paper writing now. 12 pages down, 38 left to go!

On a unrelated note, I was doing another special event the other day, and our contact was this jolly tia. Anyway, she showed me some great music- Piano Vines is the band. They aren't signed, but wow it is a breath of fresh air whenever I listen in.

Sigh. Time to pick classes soon. I really want to take a year off, and just have fun learning about photography, economics, guitar. I don't know if I will be able to. This is essentially my 5th year. Do I want to take another? If I can take more classes with my ethics prof, that may be a deciding factor.

Well today has been the most amusing interview yet. I was at UT-Houston today, walking into the building at 7:30 am. Aghhh. But it was a really early start because they reserve 3+ hours for their tour. It easily blows every other interview tour out of the water.

The Texas Medical Center. Biggest in the world, so big we were jumping on charter buses to get to all of our destinations. I had three hilarious tour guides - at the children's center they were jumping on the seesaws and playing with the toys. We saw open heart surgery- through an observation dome at St Luke's that was very similar to the one in Grey's Anatomy. Memorial Hermann is just so...nice compared to everywhere else in Texas. The new rec center, apartments, ANATOMY labs...wow. It's pretty impressive.

I love how there are McDonald's in the Heart Institute. Same at Parkland, above their path labs.

Songs stuck in my head all day:

The Rapture: No Sex for Ben
TI- Whatever you like
Nickelback- Gotta be somebody

You know, I've always wondered.

This is such a good song for those living the life of a medic.



Human- The Killers

I did my best to notice
when the call came down the line
up to the platform of surrender
I was brought but I was kind
and sometimes I get nervous
when I see an open door

close your eyes, clear your heart

cut the cord
are we human or are we denser
my sign is vital, my hands are cold
and I'm on my knees looking for the answer
are we human or are we denser

pay my respects to grace and virtue
send my condolences to good
give my regards to soul and romance
they always did the best they could
and so long to devotion, you taught me everything I know
wave good bye, wish me well

you gotta let me go
are we human or are we denser
my sign is vital, my hands are cold
and I'm on my knees looking for the answer
are we human or are we denser

will your system be alright
when you dream of home tonight
there is no message we're receiving
let me know is your heart still beating

are we human or are we denser
my sign is vital, my hands are cold
and I'm on my knees looking for the answer

you've gotta let me know
are we human or are we denser
my sign is vital, my hands are cold
and I'm on my knees looking for the answer
are we human
or are we denser

are we human or are we denser

are we human or are we denser

<3

Interview

I had my first med school interview last Friday! I drove down to the beach, through the traffic, to just barely make it in time for the social. Heh. That totally did not happen.

I met up with a MSII that I was bumming a place to sleep with, and he introduced me to the joys of Geometry Wars II on Xbox live, and some horticulture on the side. It was fantastic.

We ended up watching Flight of the Conchords and assorted stuff on his amazing TV, in his amazing bachelor pad. Life was pretty sweet- his own place, miles of beach outside of his window, a drive up and down the coast to class...I could imagine myself studying away in this paradise.

Anyway, the next morning, I dressed up and walked down to my car. Huh. The battery is dead. I guess I shouldn't have ignored the insistent beeping the day before. The rest of the day was actually pretty pleasant. Three people from my school was there, and 3 more from my highschool. Woahh trip down memory lane, while everyone else freaked out about the upcoming interviews.

Fastforward past the engaging conversations, past the presentations and tours. I can't believe I am at this point, an interview down, several more to go. When did life become this...weird adventure? It is the only I can really describe it. I have gotten to the point where many people from where I grew up would call me a workaholic, but what I see is a mini-quest. How much homework can I churn through in a hour, how much cell bio can I pick up, how many patients can I transport this shift, how much inventorying can I do in a day, how much life can I really live in this lifetime? I had gotten to the point where I would motivate myself to breeze through unpleasant tasks by warping my own perception of what was fun. Where was the real fun? It became a guilty pleasure, hidden away in a schedule that was in need of 25 hour days. My Meg Cabot books, sitting in a library just plowing through all of the teenage fiction books that I skipped when I was actually a teenager because I was too busy with the "regular" fiction.

I drove back, and watched some live football, then went out to dinner with some good friends from highschool. We snuck into Yao Ming's restaurant's restroom, purely because we were curious about the amazing faucets. They were indeed amazing. Then back to another friend from high school who was now a MSI. Sweet sweet stuff, watching Obama give his acceptance speech.

Here's to a brighter future.

Happiness

For a couple minutes today, I was very happy.

My friend has a cute white VW convertible Rabbit. While it...converted, I felt like I was on the set of Transformers, with all the awesome German engineering at work.

We cruised back home from our dinner meeting, the warm breeze playing with my friend's blonde hair as she drove. Another friend was in the passenger seat, intently reading an article in Cell. Hahaha I felt at peace, and just enjoyed the tree lined drive shading us from the setting sun.

Classes start in half a day. It's time to rock n' roll.

Okay, I admit it, the names and the circumstances have been modified to protect. And something called HIPPA. But this place is a great way for me to vent, for me to play around with the English language, and for me to have a punching bag whenever life gets too out of hand.

Well it starts at midnight. Again. If I had traveled back in time a year ago, I would not have recognized myself.

"Ambulance One, Paramedic One, Engine One, respond to a gun shot wound, ************* address, SO (Sheriff's Officers) on scene, Map page ***."

Minutes later, "Ambulance Three, Paramedic Three, respond to same address, possible fatality, LifeFlight on hold."

I was so pumped on adrenaline everything seemed to happen in slow motion. I sprinted past the officers lifting up the yellow crime scene tape to an horrific scene. One guy my age curled up lifelessly in front of a door. Blood formed a surreal backdrop to everything, spraying the doors, pooling on the floor, soon all over our hands.

A mother empty of tears held on to her son in the middle of all of the carnage. After I made sure the other kid truly had no pulse, everyone focused their efforts on the surviving kid. Hands clamping down to stop the bleeding, shears cutting off clothing, soft grunts as we lifted him on our backboard into the ambulance.

A soft whir in the distance signaled the helicopter's arrival. Inside the ambulance, things were getting worse. The paramedic had trouble intubating because of all the blood spewing from his lungs. I slapped my hands against the open holes but blood kept coming out, getting all over my uniform, my hands. He started to fight us as his brain lost his last oxygen reserves, but the flight paramedic arrived to knock him out with a cocktail, and soon the helicopter began to start up.

The copter lifted off from the street blocked off by our fire engines, and blew dust all over the blood caked all over me. Great. I ripped off my gloves only to notice the tear. Shit. I tried to clean off the blood on my bare hands, but just as I closed the door, the latch cut into my palm.

For a moment, I looked at the cut, imagining capilaries releasing blood, flowing blood that bubbled out onto my palm.

No time to think about it, because another unit called over the radio, warning all units about the 4-5 gangsters walking down the road towards our location, murderous and vengeful.

The night doesn't stop there. Hours later, we were called back. After multiple police units had secured the scene again, a crowd of neighbors had surrounded the mother of the fallen gangster, trying to calm her down. It was chaotic, with the entire extended family sobbing, trying to dab away the blood that covered the mother.

I don't even know where I am going with this. There isn't a meaningful way for me to express what I am feeling, but with each sentence I am trying to clean myself. With my previous codes, I could build a wall, separate myself from the patient in front of me.

There was no way I could now. I gave too much of myself, plugging bullet holes with my hands, the same hands that held hands with a mother who should never have to survive her sons, the same hands that a cheerful nurse drew blood from to test for possible exposure to HIV.

I drove home in the morning, and parked in spot under a shady tree. I got out of the car, and could not take it anymore. I crumpled the coffee cup that kept me from falling asleep on the road, and pounded it against the door frame of my car. I...let the emotions wash over me, a catharsis under waving branches, until I ran out and stumbled back home.

Beginings and endings

Sometimes it is hard to tell when something starts or stops. Sometimes it is painfully clear.

During shift change, you hand off patients by rounding on each on, updating their status to the new shift of nurses, docs, etc. The old shift is dead tired, ready to leave; the new shift still sleepy- waking up. At the end of one nursing home shift, the head nurse discovered one of her patients did not have a pulse, nor any breaths.

I arrived on scene with the firefighters and medics. The Nigerian nurses at the under-performing nursing home did not know how to perform CPR. The beginning of the end for the patient that was coding. After awhile, we called it there. Time of death- exactly midnight. Beginning of a new day, the end of another.