home stretch!

...well, sorta.  one week of studying, psychosocial final project thursday, pharmacology exam friday, endocrinology exam monday, research and statistics exam tuesday, clinical laboratory medicine exam wednesday, and EKG exam thursday.  and don't forget the 8 hours of lecture i have every day next week as well.  :)  oh, and also, you should know... we have spent the last 6 hours of lecture in gen med solely on diabetes.  and there's much more to come.  oye vey.  i'm feeling much better than i did last week though.  everything feels do-able and i think i will make it out of there not only alive and kicking, but hopefully with some A's under my belt.

i am really looking forward to my week off though.

the other news of the day is that i got a little more information about overseas rotations.  apparently i can do an entire elective rotation in belize!  it's a month long and costs 1500, which doesn't sound too bad to me and it would be a fantastic experience.  the other thing i want to do, is a medical mission trip that is in january to guatemala for a week.  so those are both very exciting.  i need to start saving.

near-drowning.

so about a month ago (around the time i wrote that last post) i was treading water.  good pace, constant motion, keeping my head above water.  now i'm pretty much attempting to half-float, because my arms and legs are so tired from treading and letting my head bob up and down above the water, taking gulps of air.  it's not that the information is difficult.  it's fairly straight forward. some of it's pretty complicated, but i get it.  it's not even the fact that there is so much information... it's really just that it does. not. stop.  it's like each test is a huge pile on our desk of files to go through in the "in" box and we never get to the bottom of that file by the time the test comes, so we just stick the rest in the cabinet and move to the next pile that has grown tall since we've been studying the previous pile.  and the process continues.  so there is always the pile thats right in front of us that we are chipping away at, but the difficult part is that not only do we never reach the bottom of that pile, but there's a whole cabinet of other files that we never go to next to that, and not only that, but behind that cabinet is a whole closet full of files that we are never going to get to look at.  ...at least not this year.  *sigh.  and i'm not doing poorly.  i'm doing fine.  i'm just tired.  we are in the home stretch though.  5 more exams, two weeks and then break time.  the problem is that i don't think that my week off is enough time for me to feel rejuvenated enough to come back and tackle another quarter.  i need at least two.  oh well, gotta do whatcha gotta do.  hunker down and keep treading.  the low point of my day today was when i got out of my car in the starbucks parking lot and my 300 flashcards from pharmacology fluttered out across the asphalt.  the high point was after this when i said that i hated pharmacology and rachel replied, "well, it could be worse... you could be married."

hahaha.  okay, to explain that last part... we were discussing today about how everyone that isn't going to grad school is getting married, and at least we got out of having to deal with that for the time being.  ;)

it's official.

med school ate my life.

want to know what i did today?  got up at 5:45.  worked out.  showered, ate, ran to class.  sat in a chair for FOUR hours and soaked up knowledge about valvular disorders.  ate.  studied pharmacology for 45 minutes during my lunch hour.  sat in that same chair again for FOUR MORE hours, 1 and a half of which was about statistics (during which i studied cardiology) and two and a half of which were about shock.  went home.  ate.  went to starbucks.  studied for four and a half hours until they kicked me out.  came home.  studied for an hour.  cleaned my room.  danced around for like 3.25 minutes before i got exhausted.  decided to blog before i hit the sack.

typical day.  the people at starbucks, panera, the library, and soon to be caribou coffee all recognize me, i recognize them, i know who works what nights at starbucks and what kind of music they like to play.  i also know who makes which lattes the best.  i have certain places i sit in all of these locations and i rotate through these locations pretty much on a daily basis.  it adds a little spice to my life.  

it's okay though.  work hard, play hard.  it's just been one of those "work hard" streaks for the past... week.  friday i get to play after my pharm test.  ...and then spend the rest of the weekend studying for the test i have on monday and the two other tests i have on tuesday.

oh, and ps. pharm sucks.  so many different drugs all with crazy foreign names.  yikes.  and i'm highly doubting i will remember the names of these drugs when i'm actually practicing.  especially since we're learning the real names... which no one actually uses.  //shrug.

off to bed.

intense day.

53 out of the 62 people in my class are female.

we spend around 7 or 8 hours a day in class with each other, 5 days a week.

seeing that almost everyone one of us moved here from somewhere else, after school, we often hang out with other also.

...i'm wondering what it would be like if we weren't all on birth control, and all of our cycles synchronized.

eek.

lovin it.

i really am loving PA school.  i could eat this *ish for breakfast.

i think that i'm going to make an awesome PA.  i really feel confident about it and about all of the knowledge i'm attaining and skills i'm learning.  i want to do so many things.  i am so glad i chose this profession, i think it's perfect.  i get to do everything i want to do, get to be elbow deep in the medicine, like i wanted, and still get to switch around and work different types of jobs and in different fields so that i can get a little taste of whatever i want.  AND i get to have a life.  don't get me wrong, i LOVE medicine.  LOVE it.  but i don't want it to define me.  i want to do other things too.  i want to hang out with my family and my friends, go on vacation, have hobbies, maybe even volunteer here and there.  and i love that i can still do that with this job.  i think it fits me really well.

we got our dermatology tests back today.  i looked up my number and looked next to it and saw that i got a 79.  my reaction was a little disappointed because i thought i did a little better than that, but overall i was okay with it, because i felt comfortable with the knowledge i had gained and that i could treat someone with a skin condition... but then i looked again a minute later and realized i was looking at the wrong number and i had actually gotten a 97.  i'm not going to lie, i felt better then.  :)  haha.  but really i've noticed a huge change as far as my study skills and test taking.  first of all, i don't stress much at all.  there's moments here and there, but overall its just steady going as it comes and not too worried.  i think part of it is that we have at least one test every week, often two and sometimes three.  so it's difficult to stress out about one in particular, because there's always another around the corner.  the other part is that no one is like looking at my report card.  i don't have to get straight As to make sure i get into such and such program or school.  which is SUCH a nice feeling.  now the only reason i strive to get straight As is because i want to and because i know i can.  and the material i'm learning is interesting and applicable.  i'm learning it, because it's going to help me treat a patient in the future, not because i have to get suchandsuch grade on the test.  i like that so much better.  and it's somehow helped me review the material in pieces on a regular basis, rather than in one huge chunk before the test.  it's pretty stress free, just slow and steady.  after all, slow and steady wins the race!

white coatedness.

today was the first time i got to wear my white coat.  rachel and i went to the VA hospital to do a comprehensive history on a patient.  he was a vietnam vet and chatted with us about his life for about 45 minutes.  i figured i'd let him talk a bit, since it's not like we had other patients to see and he seemed to be enjoying himself.  i definitely got a VERY comprehensive history.  he took two tours of vietnam and lost his hearing because of a bomb explosion and was riddled with bullets all the way from his lower left leg up through his abdomen and left flank.  no good.  he also bragged for a bit about his big truck that could got 150 mph and was a "chick magnet".  i felt pretty spiffy when i left my apartment in my white coat with my IDs dangling, but once i got to the hospital i just felt regular.  i guess that's good, but much less exhilarating.  ;P

in our interprofessionalism class today we actually had a pretty good chat.  it was the first time i felt like we were getting some insight into each other's positions.  we each shared about why we chose are particular profession and we got into some good discussions and interprofessionalism -- how it is today, how it should be and what could be the potential benefits or problems with it.  we also chatted a bit about how health professionals are viewed on TV, and what kind of qualities should be in a health professional.  as far as the interprofessionalism, what it came down to is pretty much we really need to be more knowedgeable about what each other does.  so that way we know what we each can do for a patient and what we can't, and also to help us have a little more humility and not to be afraid to send a patient to get more help from someone else, rather than trying to handle everything ourselves.  //shrug.  will it all actually happen?  unlikely, but maybe one day...

back in action.

hello, hello!

so due to popular request... i've decided to try to remember to blog on a fairly regular-ish basis.  :)

we are a month into the fall semester.  so far so good, but when i stop to think about it, it is a little overwhelming.  our first gen med unit was neuro... so basically in two weeks we learned everything we need to know about neurology to practice medicine.  weird, right?  i mean don't get me wrong... it was intense.  we had between 2 and 8 hours of neuro everyday for those two weeks.  after neuro was derm (which we were tested on today).  a week and a half of nausea-inducing pictures.  eek.  and now we're in the midst of cardio.  so far, i've decided i don't want to do neurosurgery, and i definitely don't want to work in dermatology, despite the fact that everyone raves about the hours and pay.  neurology itself is okay, but i wasn't in love or anything.  

the other classes we are taking are...

research and stats (ugh).

medical documentation (ugggh).

(fortunately both of those are only once a week).

psychosocial -- which i like.  we start each class with a medical related story or poem and watch a lot of movies.  most of the work we do is reflection, so that appeals to my social science/psych interests.

complementary medicine -- pretty interesting.  so far we've done acupuncture/chinese medicine, massage therapy, chiropracty and tai chi.  and the class enjoyed tai chi so much that we've decided to incorporate it into our weekly routine, having a course in it every wednesday morning before class.  :)

pharmacology (eek.)

EKG (piece of cake).

clinical lab medicine (merr...)

interprofessional healthcare teams -- the idea behind it is good, we get together with students from all the other programs (MD, podiatry, physical therapy, path asst, clin lab, psych...) and we have to work on a project together and discuss various things, including the current system of health care.  but in reality, it ends up being kind of a joke and a waste of time.  i don't think we are really gaining any interprofessionalism through it, which is supposed to be the goal.  pretty much most of the school still thinks that as PAs we can't write prescriptions, probably can't diagnose, don't do any surgery, and some of the med students were even surprised that we "actually got cadavers to work on in anatomy".  oye vey.  we've got a lot of work ahead of us...

so there you have it.  nine classes.  wow.  most of them are only a couple credits though, besides gen med and pharm which are the big ones.  gen med mostly.  i am thoroughly enjoying gen med and going through the different areas of medicine.  i find myself actually enjoying lectures.  and i love that everything is so directly applicable to what i will be doing (starting in less than a year!) as well as in my personal life.  i've already diagnosed my family with a handful of skin conditions.  i'm sure they're appreciative.

so yeah, overall... it's great.  intense, but great.  we have class technically from 8 - 5 everyday, but in reality we usually have at least one day that don't have to come in until 10 and one or two days that we get out by 3 every week.  i have to say that thus far, it's not nearly as difficult as i was expecting.  although i feel like i'm losing touch with everyone outside of the 61 kids in my class that i see everyday... i am completely able to handle the work load without freaking out, and still able to take a break and have fun a couple days a week.  work hard, play hard.  :)

thats enough for now.  i've got to save stuff to talk about later, seeing that my day-to-day is pretty much indistinguishable from week to week.

el fin!

round one: check!

i'm officially done with 1/4 of my didactic PA schooling... well, time-wise.  they definitely cram in a LOT more classes during the year.

anatomy was a lot of fun and i definitely realized how incredibly applicable and useful it is in any area of medicine, or even just in your personal life.  it's pretty amazing to me that i could point to any spot on anyone's body and say exactly what is (or should be) in there... and most likely i've also seen what it looks like too.

studying medicine, or really any science, is so intense.  everything is just so... PERFECT.  everything fits together exactly right and is shaped or formed in an exact way so as to complete it's purpose in the most efficient way possible.  amazing.

our last anatomy exam was monday.  the rest of this week we started gen med.  we learned about genetics, imaging, infectious diseases and a general intro to clinical medicine and had a test on it all today, which wasn't too bad.  they just wanted to give us a jump start on the fall.  it's supposed to be pretty bad.  i can't wait!  this past week was so interesting learning about all the different diseases and processes.  so i'm sure it will only get better.  it blows my mind that less than a year from now i'll have all the education, as far as classroom stuff, that i'm going to get before they're putting people's lives in my hands.  eek!

my roommate moved in last week also.  i think we'll work well together.  she's really easy-going, and she didn't hesitate to switch stuff around in the cupboards in the kitchen and the bathroom to fit her stuff in, which i like.  she just moved right in.  it's a little bit of an adjustment going from living alone to having a roommate again, but i'm sure it will be fine.  the hardest part is just having to remember to close the door when i go to the bathroom now.  ;P

i've got a week of nothing to rest up and get ready for the craziness in the fall.  it should be fun.  eric is coming on tuesday and staying for a week so we have lots of fun things planned.

hurray for a week of no worries!

the most traumatizing lab yet.

ugh.  so i have officially decided that i don't think i want to donate my body to science.  at least not for an anatomy lab.  

gwen has been reduced to a pile of rubish.  last thursday was definitely the most traumatizing lab yet.  we're on the pelvis.  so basically what we had to do is saw off one of gwen's legs... and if that wasn't bad enough, it was the way we had to do it.  so we turn gwen on her side and lift one of her legs up in the air... so not only is that an awkward position, but then guess where we have to saw.  yeah, you guessed it.  my group hands me the saw, seeing that i'm always the one that loves to do the sawing and whatnot.  but not this time.  no way.  i gave the saw to a different group member and helped hold gwen still.  basically we had to saw up between gwen's legs... in order to hemisect her vagina, bladder and uterus... up through her pelvis and then across the side of her lower abdomen... subsequently removing one of her legs and half of her pelvis from the rest of her body.  eeugh.  so barbaric.  none of the bodies even look like bodies anymore.  it's just piles of skin and organs.

one more week.

the anvil.

so its been a while since i updated, and this story happened at least a week ago, probably more... but it's worth sharing anyway.

so in lecture we did the ear, and basically they said we could attempt to chisel out the canal and whatnot, but it's doubtful that we'll find anything.  the canal and the ear bones (you know... hammer, anvil, stirrup [malleus, incus, stapes]) are inside a large bone of the skull and so basically you have to be able to hit it just right to get into the canal... and even if you do that, the ear bones are so small that it's doubtful you would find them, especially before you crush or lose them.  so... knowing all that... we were done with everything else, so i figured i'd give it a whirl.  i ended up having to take gwen's entire ear and canal (embedded in skull) off separately... and then work at it.  i chiseled and chiseled and finally... TADA!!  we could clearly see the canal... the concha... and... the anvil!!  (originally i thought it was the hammer, but i'm pretty sure it was actually the anvil).  so exciting.  one of our TAs is obsessed with the ear -- she loves it.  so i thought i would show it to her.  so here i go walking... ear in one hand... tweezers holding the anvil in the other... and BAM.  dropped the anvil.   i go "no, no, no!" and drop to my knees.  subsequently me and two of my lab mates are on our hands and knees on this nasty sticky cadaver floor looking for this ear bone.  grr.  and we never found it.

the end.

awe.

so the other day... i was looking at our brain, and well, seeing that it is mostly mush on the inside, my finger slipped through it at one point and when i pulled my finger out, there was a chunk of brain mush on the end of my finger.  i looked at this chunk of matter and all its grotesqueness and my immediate realization was -- this piece of tissue on my finger holds thought.  isn't that a crazy realization?  like that little chunk of mush that was in my hand held memories of this woman's life, and thoughts and muscle memory type pathways and all that jazz.  how weird is that?  

blows. my. mind.

moving forward.  we dissected the face and into the temporal space yesterday... lots of arteries and nerves to check out.  and then today was fun.  we took a saw (plan old hand saw), mallet and chisel, and sawed a wedge out of the back of the skull, and then visualizing the pharynx we cut straight down through the center of the skull... like right down through the middle  of her eyes, down her nose, through her front two teeth and then through the tongue and bottom of the jaw. so we literally have two sides of her face/skull.  awesome.  it was so cool to be able to see the structures from the different views.  unfortunately this also now means we had to find all the arteries and nerves and muscles that we couldn't see from the outside.  but we found them, and it was sweet, i have to say.  :)  so that was fun.  renewed my interest in lab a little bit.  although it was pretty... disconcerting.  not to mention the fact that all that careful dissecting we've done for the past two weeks seems like it's pretty much obliterated now and i have no idea how they're going to tag stuff for our practical.  

test is wednesday.  now until then = studying.  bleh.

i can't wait until 4:00pm on wednesday.  :)

today = best day in lab so far.

or at least pretty far up there.  so today we learned the skull... and then basically there wasn't much to do in lab, they said we could start taking the skin of the face if we wanted to get a head start and we could check out the brains if we wanted -- which are sitting in buckets in the back of the lab.  each cadaver has already had an incision made around it's skull and it's brain was taken out before we even saw the cadavers.  except... gwen!  so we thought it was done, because her scalp was definitely sawed around her head, but we were wrong!

so i pulled her scalp forward over her face (gross, i know) and we were going to take her skull cap off... which should have more or less just lifted off like everyone else's... all clean and whatnot.  and we can't find the incision!  our skull is still completely in tact!  (shock and awe)  so... remember how i told you that gwen had all this trauma... and definite head trauma/surgery -- staples up the side of her scalp.  ok, so under those staples, on the outside of her skull -- massive clotting.  so much blood.  under that -- we think she fractured her skull around her pterion -- point where a bunch of the sutures come together, right around your temple -- weakest part of the skull (we learned this today, fittingly).  so, apparently they didn't take her brain out, because they figured it was probably too messed up anyway and wouldn't be good as far as structure and whatnot.  so what did we do?  we took it out!  i got to use the bone saw to saw around her skull (so much harder than you would think! it was a thick one) and then we chiseled the cap of her skull off to reveal -- BRAIN!  hurray!  she also had a fairly neatly sawn out circular piece of her skull where i guess they tried to do rapid brain surgery to repair her either epidural or subdural hematoma (it was difficult to tell -- but we learned about those today too, fittingly).  they didn't put the piece back very well, so i'm guessing it wasn't looking good from that point on, although they did put in a nice little metal piece to keep the little bone window attached to the skull.  

anyway.  so skull cap off.  and we can see the brain!  it was excellent.  okay, i guess thats not true.  really, the brain sucked.  the anatomy professor came over and said "yeup, the technical term for that is what we call 'brain pudding'" -- nice, right?  :P  but yeah so pretty  much the outer portion of the brain was fairly intact... but the inner portion was pretty much moosh.  it was pretty sweet to be able to dig through it through and look at the structures that we could see, not to mention to be able to see what the actual trauma caused and whatnot.  

the smell was horrible.  it was mainly from the bone saw kind of burning through the skull and all the bone dust in the air... but all in all, an excellent day in lab.

spending a lot of time in airports lately.

last weekend was my little sister's hs graduation party.  it was great to see my family, i miss them a ton already.  :(  we also had a ginormous slip and slide which was tons of fun.  then wednesday i left again for florida to visit eric for the 4th.  we mostly just vegged out and relaxed which was nice.  we saw a couple movies -- Wanted and Hancock.  both of which were pretty straight forward and simple plots, but still good.  for the fourth we floated down ginnie springs on an air mattress and then had a little picnic and took a nap.  and of course we ate at dragonfly (YUM) and visited Ward's market before i left, where i got some granola for my smoothies and some fresh avocados.  mmmm.  i've got one left in my bag right now that i think i might break out on the plane to enjoy.  :)

this upcoming test (next wednesday) has sooooo much information on it.  ugh.  i have a feeling it won't be going so breezy this time.  but i'm really buckling down this week and i have a free weekend coming up to use to study too.  this week we're doing the face/head which is supposed to be crazy detailed and difficult.  uggh.  and then we have the entire abdomen, the back, the nervous system in general and the upper extremity on top of that.  the upper extremity was a lot harder than i expected... mostly nerve-wise.  but i think once i go through it a little slower i'll be fine.  

there are always some interesting people in airports.  ay ay ay...

i miss everybody.  at least i have this exam to distract me.  and my birthday is the day after my exam!  yay!  come visit.  :)

construction workers with medical education.

i forgot!  the awesomest part about yesterday and getting to the spinal cord -- not only did we get to use the bone saw, but we got to use a "bone" chisel!  granted, we called it a "bone chisel", but i think that was really just to make it seem less barbaric.  it looked like a plain old chisel to me + a mallet.  minus all the gut juice on it.    .....was that too much for you?  hah.  but it was pretty cool.  i'm always the one who ends up doing the work and jumping in when we do the bone crushing type work.  although i've pretty much figured out that general surgery is not for me (too long and tedious -- soo frustrating!), the bone stuff is still in the picture.

flip-flop.

in lab, we've been doing a lot of flipping and flopping of organs and bodies.  we moved to the back and worked through the muscles and down to the spinal cord and then today we moved back up to the front and followed the brachial plexus and arteries down into the upper arm.  things are starting to get pretty smelly (if you can imagine them being worse, seeing that despite the first day or two i don't even notice the constant stink of cadaver on my classmates and i anymore), but it was pretty neat.  we learned some interesting things that corresponded in lecture about various nerve damage and how it presents itself in different ways.  i'm excited to start learning about clinical stuff and the actual applicability of everything we're learning.  i feel like i've spent so many years learning abstract things that were hard to put into real life and now i'm finally learning the exact things i will be using and doing for most of the rest of my life.

amanda and i woke up at 5:15am today to workout.  it was AWESOME.  we lifted (legs) and then i ran two miles.  after the hour plus workout, i still had time to take a cold shower and make a strawberry banana yogurt granola smoothie.  yum.  i've felt really good all day and much more awake and alert.  the plan is to continue with this 5 days a week.  and since i'm getting my workouts done in the morning that means anything that i do later in the day is just bonus exercise!  woot.  feels good.

tomorrow i head back to CT for my little sister's graduation party.  yay!  it should be lots of fun and i'm excited to see everyone.

fun times.

so since the last anatomy test, all i've been doing is having fun.

the test went really well.  A's all around.

tuesday night after the test i had a party ("post-exam happy hour") at my place.  it went really well.  most of my class showed up, we had a good time, were in bed by 12 or 12:30 and up for class the next morning.

this week we did the abdomen.  bleh.  it's smelly, messy and unorganized.  and our lecturer speaks in monotone and reads off his slides.  ugh.

i was surprised by the spleen.  i thought it was kind of  a squishy organ like the pancreas, but it looks more like a kidney.  it's pretty solid.  i think it might be my favorite organ so far.

it's cool how everything is so compartmentalized and everything.  and it blows my mind how all of our cells differentiate and form these organ structures and these systems.  i'm not even going to try to wrap my head around that cause my mind will just blow.

friday night a bunch of the girls from class and i went out downtown and stayed at meganne's mom's place.  she lives in lincoln park in a ritzy little apartment.  friday night was pretty fun, but there was the typical problem with group dynamics and people wanting to go different places.  amelia and i ended up  opting out of the last bar and strolling down the street for some late night munchies.

saturday. was. awesome.

we woke up, got dressed and went exploring.  stopped at a starbucks and urban outfitters where i picked up my new favorite adventure pack and a little hat.  meganne wanted to go to the zoo so we headed that way.  we ran into the farmer's market which was Huge!  it was great.  i'm definitely planning on heading back there.  then we walked around this cute little lake where they had paddle boats and these big old swan boats which were hilarious, but adorable.  we walked through the zoo which was really impressive, ESPECIALLY for being completely and totally free.  i love chicago.

at this point the group split up and rhonda and amelia and i took off for more adventures while everyone else headed back home.  we hopped on a bus to the loop and ended up walking forever to this street festival.  the festival was alright.  i had some really good shishkabobs and a very refreshing miller lite.  at this point we started heading towards wrigleyville.  we ended up taking pretty much every color of L train possible in numerous different directions, but we made it.  eventually.

we met amelia's friend who was in town for a bachelor party at one of the bars.  we ended up staying at the rooftop of this bar for most of the night.  it was a very intimate crowd as everyone had been drinking there pretty much all day, so by the end of the night we pretty much knew everyone.  it was very good times.

we met our friend terra at another bar to say hi and made our way to evanston and the metra station to catch the last train leaving the city for the night.  rasheed scooped us up from the station, we stopped at taco bell for fourth meal and crashed for the night.

it was super fun times and we ended up getting to see most of the city.

today is clean-up and put life back in order day.

elbow deep in notes.

nothing exciting here.  studying all day today and half the day yesterday.  the other half of the day was spent sleeping until 12:30pm and then lounging by the pool -- soooo nice out.

friday night the plan was to grab a couple beers with a few people to take a break from studying.  and then home and to bed early so that i could get an early start on studying the next morning.  instead there were more than a few beers with about 15 people -- out to cubby bears again.  i can't really complain though, it was good times.  and amelia and i even got to play the drums on stage.  we were excellent, i must say.

tried wildberry cafe for breakfast this morning.  it totally lived up to its reputation and whoever comes to visit me, we will go there.

come visit.

el cuello

so the last two days we've been doing the neck.  and what a pain in the neck that is.  (har har)

seriously though.  wednesday was the most frustrating day in lab ever.  there are SO many teeny tiny little vessels and nerves all crammed into this tiny space.  very slow tedious work, and not really more than one or two people can be working on it at a time, so there was lots of thumb twiddling and wandering around looking at other cadavers and whatnot.  today was better though.  yesterday i was somewhat overwhelmed with all of the vasculature and whatnot, but today i felt like i had a much better handle on it.  it's weird how stuff seems to stick so much easier in anatomy.  i think it's kind of like once you learn the language, everything just makes sense.  this is called this, because it's here and does this and connects there, type of thing.

lets hope that works out for me for the test.

everyone has kind of paired off and formed their little cliques -- most often the first people they met in the class, but it is a much more cohesive and friendly group than say bms or the med school kids.  everyone still hangs out and chats with everyone in class and at lunch.  i guess it's kind of weird and early to make observations/generalizations like that when i think about it, but it feels like we've been here for months.  i have a solid group of people that i like, but i'm still feeling my way around trying to get to know some other people too.

it's amazing how much of a difference a pot for my plant and two pillows on my couch makes.  amazing.

back to studying.

quote of the day: "med school ate my life."

kickin ass and takin names.

so i pretty much destroyed my first exam.  granted, it was only a medical terminology exam.  but i did destroy it.  i was the first one done (not that that means anything), and i'm pretty sure i got close to 100%.  so that definitely was an ego boost and a good start to the year.

i also went to ikea today and bought a ton of stuff for my apartment.  i've started unloading and it's looking much more homey and less bare.

on top of all this awesomeness, i also worked out last night!  i'm wicked sore, but it feels oh, so good.  and after the workout derek and i went to jamba juice and i had an amazing berry smoothie with organic granola on top.  wow.  hit the spot does not even describe it.  i'm definitely going to buy some granola and add it to my... what's that word?  forte... borage... something that sounds close to that.  add it to my daily routine of food and after-workout-smoothie making.

i am definitely feeling an upswing.  i'm just listening to some beth orton in my apartment and feeling good.  it feels like i've been here a lot longer than i have already.  and it's crazy how social my PA class has been.  i feel like i've known them so much longer than barely over a week!  i'm really impressed how well everyone has been with getting large gatherings together and being really social and outgoing.  i really think it has to do with what kind of person the profession draws.  i love it.

yay.

waste of space.

long weekend, no class on friday.

thursday's lab was super tedious.  mostly just cleaning up the back of the rib cage from the anterior side, trying to ID all the veins/arteries/nerves, and then cleanin up the heart and doing the same.  inside of the heart was neat, but our heart in particular sucked a little bit.  just small and hard to see things.  so i checked out everyone else's hearts.

wednesday night i had a spontaneous pasta party which was fun.  ended up having movie night at jiddy's place.  and then thursday night there was a dinner party at blair's which was also good.  i think everyone really enjoyed themselves so it sounds like we will be doing that more often.  thursday night a handful of the PA ladies, myself, and jiddy, nathaniel and wejde all went out to cubby bear -- big warehouse-ish sports bar on top/dance floor on bottom and restaurant type of place.  it was super fun, we danced till we dropped and i have the blisters on my feet to prove it.  so that was all lots of good break the ice get to know people type of stuff.  yesterday and today there were random road trips that ended up taking forever getting lost and in traffic and whatnot.  ended up being a two day adventure until we finally got coldstones today, which i'm not sure if it was worth it... but pizza place we found yesterday was excellent.  so anyway, i'm feeling like kind of a waste of space the last few days, just taking little adventures all over.  it's been lots of fun, but i need to get real now and buckle down.  

i also watched the clinton exit speech this morning "with" eric.  the speech was actually really excellent.  i recommend checking it out online if you missed it.  here's actually the full text of the speech: https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/06/07/2008-06-07_full_text_of_hillary_clintons_exit_speec.html

tomorrow i'm riding my bike to the beach in the morning which i'm excited about.  i'm going to marinate and study there for a little bit until lunch time and then spend the rest of the day at school in and out of the cadaver lab and meeting with my study group tomorrow night.  so we'll see how that goes.

also, there was a tornado tonight.  i wouldn't have even known, except the girl that lives below me, amanda, called and told me.  so her and i and a few other people hunkered down in the laundry room for about an hour until the warning was lifted.  there was a lot of wind/thunder/rain though and some crazy lookin clouds.  the sirens were going off all over town and at the navy base too. 

good thing it's a three day weekend.

heart and lungs.

lecture is picking up.  our test is in less than two weeks, which is super quick, but good, because there won't be crazy amounts of info on it.

i've been taking all of my notes on the computer in an effort to save paper.  so far, so good.  it's working out really well and i think i'm getting a lot more down then i would if i was handwriting it.  that has it's good and bad points.

today i cut out vivi's heart.  and we pulled out her lungs too.  i would say the most awesome parts were the roots of the lung with all of the major vessels and the primary bronchi, with the biforcations and everything, and the valves in the heart.  we haven't actually dissected the heart yet.  we just took it out and checked out the outside of it.  so that's to come.  the aorta was also super awesome.  damn is that thing huge.  vivi's lungs were in such good shape, especially compared to the other cadavers around us who had diseased lungs and lungs that were all hard and black.  her heart though is covered in a pretty good layer of fat so that's not so good.  one of the cadavers next to us has scoliosis and some sort of lung condition on top of it.  one of his lungs was ginormous and the other was tiny and all fibrous and nasty looking.  it's funny/weird/scary that so many of us just go through life walking around with crazy stuff like that inside of us.  another cool find was one of the cadavers had a pacemaker.  overall it was a pretty quick lab, but with lots of cool stuff.  the muscles and vessels will definitely be the bane of my existence this summer though.

short day.  meeting at zacharias center for sexual assault.  yup still working there.  i'm doing kind of on my own time type stuff for them researching non-client cases and stats whenever i get some time.  so i'm still connected which makes me happy, but i don't have to take up study time to do any volunteering.  win-win.

i also found an excellent liquor store.  the guy was excited that i knew about and liked hoegaarden beer and recommended flat tire's skinny dip for me as well.  he also picked out two cheap but good wines for me (one white and one red).  i will have to go back there.  he was super friendly and helpful.  not to mention, he let me have a sip of an expensive but delicious wine that he was sippin on behind the counter.  hah!  

spaghetti night at my house tonight.  at least it's good motivation to get my place put together.  it's looking better.  i think the plants i bought are the highlight.  that and the cookies i just baked.  yum.

the first cut is the deepest.

so today was the first "real" day... whereas yesterday was just all smoke and bells.  or whatever that phrase is.

lecture = not as bad as i expected.  i was expecting extremely dry "this is here... this is here... this is here...".  okay, now that i think about it... that's totally what it was.  but for some reason it wasn't bad.  i think i was just kind of starved for knowledge.  we'll see how that goes from here.

lab.  our first day of cutting!  today was a lot of work.  first we did the typical "y" cut... and then some and just peeled back the layer of skin/some fat.  which was wicked hard to do w/o getting any muscle or breast tissue.  but we did a kick ass job and most of the TAs and docs told us so.  then after we were done with that, i cut her right breast completely off.  which... was a little unnerving.  i mean, i took the lady's breast!  but it's a perfect breast and i then i cut it down the middle so we can totally see all the lobules, glands, ducts and sinuses that we had just talked about in class.  i made sure to impress all of the TAs with the breast in the hopes that they would use it for our test.  i think that's kind of the goal in this game -- do a damn good job dissecting so they pick your cadaver for various parts of the test, which you will already have dissected yourself and therefore know exactly where they are.  anyway.  so then we took the fatty/fascia layer off.  cut all that away and checked out the pectoralis major and minor, along with some arteries, veins and nerves which were wicked hard to see and even harder not to accidentally cut.  plus everything is the same damn color so i'm going to have such a hard time telling these things apart on the test.  ugh.  sooo anyway... after that we get to the fun part.  i took a bone saw and sawed through the ribs/sternum so we could create a sort of little window into her thoracic cavity.  i loved sawing through bone.  so good.  i'm going to have to think about orthopedic surgery.  so then -- tada!  lungs and heart!  the lungs had little black spots on them but not many which is apparently really good for an older woman.  she probably never smoked a thing, poor girl.  oh, also, when we went deeper into the tissue on the left side of her chest wall she definitely had like partially digested dried blood in there, which i'm guessing adds to the trauma that we're thinking she experienced.  a bunch of her ribs were also broken on either side -- most likely from CPR, and we found an electrode still on the outside of her chest too.  so anyway, i squished the lungs a little in my hand and felt around them -- sooo squishy.  i love how they feel.  and by this time we were SO done.  what a long day.  ugh.  three hours of dissecting everyday.  it doesn't sound like much but i was so ready to get out of there after an hour and a half.  

we had our first day of professionalism and ethics today as well.  meh.  nothing exciting there.

also worth mentioning is that the smell did not bother me today.  even on my hands.  it was kind of comforting almost.  ...that's just weird.

day one of the rest of my life.

well.  i made it to day one.  actually day one isn't over yet, but we've got a massive break in the middle so i decided to walk home and make myself a salad.  salad with apples, walnuts and blue cheese.  so good.

lecture was quick and we didn't learn anything.  it was actually pretty disappointing.  i was expected to be trying to drink water out of the fire hydrant by now.  i guess that will have to wait for tomorrow.

now for the fun stuff.  i met my cadaver today.  i named her gwenevive.  i have no idea how to spell that.  i'm not sure that my group liked the name, but no one came up with anything else so that is what stuck.  thats what she looked like to me anyway.  i think i'll call her viv.  maybe miss viv.

she's older.  i'm going to take a wild guess and say... 65.  although it's hard to tell how old seeing that she's been dead for a couple of years.  can you believe that?  they keep them embalmed for a couple of years supposedly in some place in kansas before they ship them to us.  and she was face down so her face is all smushed.  she's pretty much the same color... pasty off white-ish dead color, from head to toe.  i think she was in some sort of accident.  she's got a massive contusion on her left upper arm, and her head has a large incision running around the ear towards the top of the skull that was stapled shut.  i'm thinking she was in an accident and had to have emergency brain surgery or something.  and didn't make it.  or maybe she just died after a routine surgery and had the bruise from something else.  //shrug.  i would kind of like to have received a short medical history on her.  or at least a cause of death.  oh well, i guess  making it up and exploring inside of her to find out can be fun too.

we haven't cut yet.  that's tomorrow.  today was lube day.  we vasaline-d her extremities, face, and genetalia and then soaked her with more preservative, wrapped her in a cloth and put her legs and arms in little bags.

my group seems like they will be on top of things.  there's 6 of us working on gwen.  three physician assistants, one physical therapist, one pathology assistant and one nurse anesthetist.

i will be smelling like embalming fluid/dead things for the next three months.  i can smell it when i bring my fork up to my mouth, and i've already washed my hands/forearms three times.  excellent.

the beginning.

i can't believe i'm here.  it's so surreal, because it's been so many years of like "yeah, one day i'm going to go to PA school..." yadda yadda whatever.  and now i'm actually here.

the ceo of our school gave an excellent speech to us yesterday.  very empowering.  about how we're professionals now, we're colleagues (and to act like it), and how the nation's health is in our hands now.  apparently Jackson once said that health was the 2nd most important thing in the world, right after morality, or something like that.  and then later they started talking about cooperation, interprofessionalism and teamwork.  which i like.  it's interesting, because for so long we're bred to be competitive.  especially being thrown in with the rest of the "pre-med" crowd.  thats how we get here.  thats how we make it.  i mean, the people i my class are 62 kids picked out of over 1400 applicants.  wow.  WOW.  you don't make that being nice and cooperative.  but what i like is that they talked about having to re-learn that process.  learning to cooperate with each other and work as a team.  because the goal is patient health and so it doesn't help if so and so aces the test and this other girl gets a C.  it's not about the tests.  it's about taking care of people.  i like that.  i hope that theme continues throughout our program.  

which brings me to the other thing.  this. is going to be. hell.  pure hell on earth.  it's like just hitting me how difficult this year is going to be.  apparently we have two to three exams a WEEK starting in August.  at least the summer is supposed to ease us into it a little bit.  on Monday we get to meet our cadavers and "lube up" the bodies.  whatever that means.  haha.  but yeah, one year of didactic before we've got smooth sailing through our rotations.  i can't believe it.  one year to learn EVERYTHING.  ridic.  completely ridic.

me encanta espana.

it seems that i've had a different blog of sorts everytime i've entered a new stage of life.  fittingly, they've all been on different servers as well.  so, i guess, here we go again!

right now i'm in spain.  so altho this might not be the most meaningful blog... i want to share a little about my trip.  i'm not going to go into crazy detail, because i don't think anyone really wants to read that and i don't really want to write it.  so the first week i was here my entire family was here also.  we visited segovia, san sebastian, bilbao, san adrian (where my sister's plant is -- general mills) and logrono, and stayed in calahorra, where my sister has been living for the past four months.  over the weekend we visited barcelona and then everyone (except chelsea and i) left on sunday.  this week i've been mostly hanging out in calahorra while my sister works.  i've gotten to get a better feel for the community and do a little adventuring by myself, and then at night we've gone bar/tapa hopping.  basically each bar has a specialty tapa (kind of like an appetizer) that they make.  so you get one of those and a drink... chill for a minute... and then go to the next one.  it's chelsea's favorite thing to do in spain, and i like it too.  next week we are going to southern spain, so i will save that for another post.  here are some of the things i love about spain so far:

the people!  everyone is so cute, especially the old people and the little kids who are dressed to a T!  for the most part everyone has been very friendly.  people here are also very direct.  like if someone is a certain way, they just say this person is like this.  instead of worrying about being offensive or whatever.  hey, it's the truth.

besos!  kisses.  i love the kiss on the cheek greeting.  even people i just met!  it's a good way to make you feel immediately welcome.  people are also just very touchy in general.  like if you see two people (especially women) talking they are constantly touching each other.  and everytime someone comes up to you or says hi they rub your arm.  or even if they bump into you in a store.  it's kind of nice, altho a little off-setting at first?

cafe!  their coffee is amazing.  in my opinion, it's closer to what our espresso is.  plus you drink it out of little tiny espresso-like cups.  i always order a cafe cortado, which is a shot of coffee plus a dab of milk or cream.  and it's excellent.  i think my parents OD-ed on coffee the week they were here.  they had a cup with every meal and then usually one or two inbetween too!  yikes!

the cars!  they're for the most part all tiny.  and the big ones you do see, like the semi's, dump trucks and big vans -- all have the big ass mercedes logo smacked on the front!  it's weird to see a mercedes dump truck when i'm used to only see like expensive luxury cars with mercedes on them.  the van we rented was pretty sweet too.  the back side windows had the lines down the middle of them for the defroster, which i thought was an awesome idea.  those are always the windows that give me trouble.  also all the cars have screens for each window that can be pulled up to block the sun, as well as table trays that can be pulled out for each seat.

the toilets!  they usually have two choices for flushing -- one is a little flush (number one), and the other is a big flush (number two).  awesome idea.  they also have the things that you sit on and basically it looks like it just blows water like right into your anus... i'm not so sure about that.  it even has handles to hold on to on the side... like you're going to get blown off the seat or something.  

there are bike lanes -- even on most of the highways!  which i think is awesome and i wish we had that in the US.  also, a lot of people ride bikes and a lot of people ride scooters -- kind of like around UF, but bigger and more people.  the other difference is that they ALL wear helmets on their scooters.  derrr.

nutilla.  it's kind of like a vanilla pudding, but not quite as thick.  it's awesome, and i love it.

the lights!  everywhere you go -- for example, in chelsea's building this includes the hall outside her apartment, the stairwell and the downstairs entryway. it also includes every public bathroom i've been in thus far -- all of the lights are on timers and sometimes motion detectors as well.  so basically they're off for the majority of the day, and then if someone comes in and needs to turn the light on either they turn it on, or the motion detector sees them... and when they're gone, the lights turn off again.  hellooooo, why don't we do this more?

the bars!  there are bars everywhere.  but they're also coffee shops.  so basically they're coffee shops during the day and bars at night.  but they all have food too.  little tapas and little tortillas... which is really like a quish.  even at the gas stations!  which brings up the fact that pretty much everywhere you go they use real dishes/silverware/cups too, instead of the throw-away kind.  even at the gas station.  you get a coffee and it comes in a little ceramic cup -- you drink it, and give it back.  unless you specifically ask for it "para llevar" or "en plastico".

they really like their wine here.  red wine.  i'm not a huge red wine drinker.  so that's not really one of the things i loved... but i appreciate the passion anyway.

mosto!  and zumo!  mosto is apparently supposed to just be white grape juice?  but it's really good and it's the only thing ever i've seened served with ice, plus it usually comes with an orange and maybe an olive.  and it's really good.  their zumo de naranja (orange juice) is also really good.  not because their oranges are good, because spanish oranges pretty much suck, but because they make it fresh.  you order it, they squeeze it, you drink it.  yum.

windmills!  everywhere we go we see these huge windmills set up in a line across the top of mountains in the distance.  

no tipping.  i like that you don't tip at restaurants (unless it's really outlandishly good service).   isn't that what the tip is supposed to be for and they should just get paid regular wages like the rest of the world?  i'm not a waitress, so i might need some imput here.  but i just liked how it seemed more direct.  the waiters don't constantly  drop by to see how you're doing -- if you need them, you find them.  and you don't play the stupid game like oh, you're not going to get a good tip because you did this, and they don't have to like put on their happy face to try to shmooze you either.  

the light switches!  not only are the big platforms, not the little things that stick out like we have, but they are strategically placed.  for example, in my bedroom, there is a light switch on the wall not only by the door where you walk in, but also next to the bed -- so you can flip it after you're done reading without having to get out of bed!  perfecto. 

these crazy trees.  i mentioned it in my pictures on facebook, but they have these crazy awesome trees that like fuse together when they grow next to each other.  and they're everywhere!  i want to find out what kind they are.  i'll end on that note and post a couple pictures of these 4 trees in a line in the plaza here who are all fused together.  the best one to be able to see it is probably by clicking on the 3rd pick down from the top.

besos!