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.