I don't know why I always seem to think that adding on to the stress pile so that everything happens at once is a good thing. You'd think that at this age I would have realized that that is a terrible approach. I am pretty much a stress ball during my everyday life, so when things start to pile up I should really be actively seeking steps to reduce the stress, not add to it.
Case in point, we have been looking for a new apartment. We extended our lease again to month to month, and the plan was to move at the end of April, thus avoiding moving at the end of March when I was gone all month, and avoiding moving at the end of May which would be three days after I sit for my boards. See? I kind of reduced stress by planning it that way, right? Anyway, true to form, I hadn't realized how much it was stressing me out until we made the decision to not move right now. PHEW. Seriously though, in retrospect, I don't really know what I was thinking trying to sign a new year long lease before even knowing where and if and when I would have a job. Sometimes I just plow on through and don't think about things like that. And then other times I talk to my mom and she helps me see the error of my ways.
So we are no longer moving, and it feels amazing. Too many large life changes are looming just around the corner, there is no need to add on to that. So for now we stay put. Our money saving compromise is to buy a couch though. I think we are rapidly moving towards the end of our futon days. Those days have been long and plentiful, and while they worked for what we needed, I think the time has come to say goodbye for reals. And though I also know that we will probably never be the type of people to easily drop three grand on a sitting device, no matter where we are in life, I think we can find a compromise at ikea that should serve its purpose well.
Also, It is FIFTY degrees outside. Spring is definitely in the air. Doughnuts and a tromp through the woods with the pups is in order.
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Friday, March 28, 2014
I got marginally better!
And with that, I seriously am done with surgery. I moved home last night after watching an emergency abdominal surgery on the sweetest seven year old girl. Obie and I packed up what little belongings we had and pointed our car in the direction of Portland. It was actually a great drive, I could see the temperature rise on my car thermometer with every hundred miles, and by the time we pulled up outside our home we could see grass and people walking around without jackets, even one guy in shorts! I think spring is finally coming to Maine! Looong time coming, and I am not even sad that the entire weekend is forecast for rain, because this brown grass needs some hydration, this house needs some serious cleaning, and I need some serious studying for my boards.
That is until Sunday, which is already booked as a double dinner date with my brother and his girlfriend, followed by going to see Wes Anderson's newest film The Grand Budapest Hotel, which I am beyond excited about. Should be an excellent end to the weekend before starting up in Family Medicine on Monday! Gotta keep moving on!
Sunday, March 23, 2014
I know this is your first time, but you need to be better, ok?
Well, sorry that last post was a little depresso. I think this never ending winter has finally crawled into my bones and died, add that to the combo punch of everything else, and there you have it. BUT GUYS, Friday I finally heard back from two of the places that I submitted applications to! Prior to that it's pretty much been resounding radio silence all around, punctuated only by very intermittent rejection form letters. Super psyched for these two places and the possibilities, but I don't want to jinx anything so I'll write more later if anything comes to fruition. Fingers quadruple crossed please!
Which brings me to surgery. This rotation has been a jumble of conflicting everything for me, so it's hard to untangle it all in the form of explanations. I've seen some seriously cool things, and I've actually done some pretty amazing things as well! I feel dumb constantly, and trip over myself both literally and figuratively on a daily basis (although bonus to me for only contaminating myself in the OR less than a hand full of times!). I forget to breathe when I am at the operating table cause I am terrified of messing something up catastrophically, so I'm not sure surgery is the specialty for me as breathing seems pretty important. I've gotten a teensy bit better with time, but there hasn't been a whole lot of cases recently so I often feel like I've slid right back to square one. In any case, here are a couple of things:
1. I got to watch a c-section the other day. IT WAS AMAZING. I haven't ever seen a baby come into this world yet, and I have to say, I was quite impressed. I had my doubts that a baby could fit through such a small incision, and I had moments of extreme fear when he didn't cry instantaneously, and then I may have teared up a bit when the father came and cut the cord, but man when all was said and done, HOW COOL! I also accidentally turned into the photographer for one couple when it became apparent that the dad might pass out if he stood and watched for much longer. I felt pretty honored to help document such a momentous occasion for them, and I probably snapped like a hundred photos. Better too many than not enough, right?
2. I also got to watch a few cataract surgeries. Really not the surgery for me, but still very cool. I mean, how could it not be, you are slicing the eyeball open with a diamond blade and sucking around and replacing a lens. Very badass, and very uncomfortable to watch. Turns out I don't like to see sharp things in eyeballs, it's extremely disconcerting, plus it's really strange that the patient is awake the whole time. And it amazed me that they would still move their eyes around. If ever there was a time to hold still, it's when needles are in your eyeballs. Hold still like your eye sight depends on it....
3. My surgeon, who incidentally looks exactly like Doc from Back To The Future, has this habit of whistling. Which is fine, and good, cause hell I am a whistler by nature too, but I can't actually tell if it's coincidence that he just happens to be whistling when he needs me, or if he is actually whistling to get my attention/get me to get up from my desk and walk with him down the hall. It's odd. He whistles, I leap up at attention. I'm basically Oliver in scrubs. I also respond to Hey, Student, Elsie and sometimes Julia or Other Julia. Luckily she also gets called Other Elise, so we both feel disregarded equally.
4. My first day in the OR I wasn't wearing glasses so I had to wear the special mask with a plastic shield thingy attached. It kept fogging and sticking to my face, and I couldn't see anything so when I was asked a question I had to maneuver my face into the oddest angle just so I could peep through the one segment of my mask that wasn't fogged over. I thought to myself that I was going to bomb surgery hard because I couldn't see anything to answer any questions correctly, but afterwards the scrub tech told me I just had my mask on backwards so the plastic was plastered to my face.....she told me that if I didn't want to look like such a student, I could try wearing it the other way. So now I do just that, but my fumbling fingers and alarmed facial expressions probably still give me away.
5. When you are first assist during a surgery, they tell you that your job is basically to anticipate what the surgeon will want next, and then you will be in sync. That's difficult to do when you don't really know the surgeon though. Today I thought I was actually getting better at reading him, but then when he shrugged his hand a certain way and I reached out to grab the retractor I realized that in fact he was just stretching his neck, and I was just awkwardly kind of holding his hand. Incidentally, the title of this post is what one of the surgeons told me when I was thrust into driving the laproscopic camera for the first time. Up is down and left is right, and it rotates 30 degrees blah blah blah...and I basically sucked hard. He gave me the boot after like ten minutes, during which I don't think I took a single breath. It was a good day.
6. Surgery seriously hurts your body. It's like wonky positions all the time forever. Why we have not evolved to a more ergonomically favorable approach is beyond me. I mean, I guess I get it, literally, but still. I walk down the hall hunched over with my back all rounded out after surgeries, cause standing like a board and also leaning slightly to the right to accommodate for the patients arm jutting into my hip for hours on end is really not the way to make sure you are correctly aligned. I seriously don't know how people do it day in and day out. That and the whole breathing thing, I'm practically a misshapen corpse holding a retractor in one hand and a suction in the other.
SO, that was still kind of hodge podgy, but it's the best I could do. Surgery is weird. Here is a picture of me hiding in the locker room. That is all.
Which brings me to surgery. This rotation has been a jumble of conflicting everything for me, so it's hard to untangle it all in the form of explanations. I've seen some seriously cool things, and I've actually done some pretty amazing things as well! I feel dumb constantly, and trip over myself both literally and figuratively on a daily basis (although bonus to me for only contaminating myself in the OR less than a hand full of times!). I forget to breathe when I am at the operating table cause I am terrified of messing something up catastrophically, so I'm not sure surgery is the specialty for me as breathing seems pretty important. I've gotten a teensy bit better with time, but there hasn't been a whole lot of cases recently so I often feel like I've slid right back to square one. In any case, here are a couple of things:
1. I got to watch a c-section the other day. IT WAS AMAZING. I haven't ever seen a baby come into this world yet, and I have to say, I was quite impressed. I had my doubts that a baby could fit through such a small incision, and I had moments of extreme fear when he didn't cry instantaneously, and then I may have teared up a bit when the father came and cut the cord, but man when all was said and done, HOW COOL! I also accidentally turned into the photographer for one couple when it became apparent that the dad might pass out if he stood and watched for much longer. I felt pretty honored to help document such a momentous occasion for them, and I probably snapped like a hundred photos. Better too many than not enough, right?
2. I also got to watch a few cataract surgeries. Really not the surgery for me, but still very cool. I mean, how could it not be, you are slicing the eyeball open with a diamond blade and sucking around and replacing a lens. Very badass, and very uncomfortable to watch. Turns out I don't like to see sharp things in eyeballs, it's extremely disconcerting, plus it's really strange that the patient is awake the whole time. And it amazed me that they would still move their eyes around. If ever there was a time to hold still, it's when needles are in your eyeballs. Hold still like your eye sight depends on it....
3. My surgeon, who incidentally looks exactly like Doc from Back To The Future, has this habit of whistling. Which is fine, and good, cause hell I am a whistler by nature too, but I can't actually tell if it's coincidence that he just happens to be whistling when he needs me, or if he is actually whistling to get my attention/get me to get up from my desk and walk with him down the hall. It's odd. He whistles, I leap up at attention. I'm basically Oliver in scrubs. I also respond to Hey, Student, Elsie and sometimes Julia or Other Julia. Luckily she also gets called Other Elise, so we both feel disregarded equally.
4. My first day in the OR I wasn't wearing glasses so I had to wear the special mask with a plastic shield thingy attached. It kept fogging and sticking to my face, and I couldn't see anything so when I was asked a question I had to maneuver my face into the oddest angle just so I could peep through the one segment of my mask that wasn't fogged over. I thought to myself that I was going to bomb surgery hard because I couldn't see anything to answer any questions correctly, but afterwards the scrub tech told me I just had my mask on backwards so the plastic was plastered to my face.....she told me that if I didn't want to look like such a student, I could try wearing it the other way. So now I do just that, but my fumbling fingers and alarmed facial expressions probably still give me away.
5. When you are first assist during a surgery, they tell you that your job is basically to anticipate what the surgeon will want next, and then you will be in sync. That's difficult to do when you don't really know the surgeon though. Today I thought I was actually getting better at reading him, but then when he shrugged his hand a certain way and I reached out to grab the retractor I realized that in fact he was just stretching his neck, and I was just awkwardly kind of holding his hand. Incidentally, the title of this post is what one of the surgeons told me when I was thrust into driving the laproscopic camera for the first time. Up is down and left is right, and it rotates 30 degrees blah blah blah...and I basically sucked hard. He gave me the boot after like ten minutes, during which I don't think I took a single breath. It was a good day.
6. Surgery seriously hurts your body. It's like wonky positions all the time forever. Why we have not evolved to a more ergonomically favorable approach is beyond me. I mean, I guess I get it, literally, but still. I walk down the hall hunched over with my back all rounded out after surgeries, cause standing like a board and also leaning slightly to the right to accommodate for the patients arm jutting into my hip for hours on end is really not the way to make sure you are correctly aligned. I seriously don't know how people do it day in and day out. That and the whole breathing thing, I'm practically a misshapen corpse holding a retractor in one hand and a suction in the other.
SO, that was still kind of hodge podgy, but it's the best I could do. Surgery is weird. Here is a picture of me hiding in the locker room. That is all.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
nada mucho
So there hasn't been much to report around these parts lately. I've been trying to write a post on surgery, but it just isn't coming together. It's hodge podgy, and not in a good way. There's lots to say, but it just isn't bursting forth in the right way. If I can remedy that, then you can look forward to hearing more from me about rotation 7, surgery edition.
Mostly though, I have more or less acclimated to the swing of things once again, and only have a few weeks left to go. We've got a giant snow storm brewing outside, with predictions ranging from 4-24 inches. They aren't too good at pinning down exacts around here. What I do know is that unfortunately I will brave whatever is out there tomorrow because I have a Nissen Fundoplication surgery first thing in the morning and it's my first one. I shall be there no matter what!
I spent the weekend with JP in Bangor, Maine's second biggest city. It is right about halfway between Portland and Presque Isle, and also happens to be where I spent the first half of rotation 6 (in the ER). The long drive all the way to Portland is a little brutal for a two day weekend, and JP happened to have a ride, so we met up!
It's funny that this portion is rapidly turning into the hardest part of school thus far. It's hard in drastically different ways than the rest of the program has been, but really difficult nonetheless. It's the drag out portion, the last two months of bending over backwards for the world, and enduring long separations from my family. It's the tail end of my patience with having to forgo the parts of my life that I really enjoy, like biking and cooking, and having basically any interests outside of learning medicine. The past two years have flown by, but I feel kind of like I budgeted my life out for 22 months of hell and now I am existing in months 23 and 24 and it's not easy.
That sounds ungrateful, and I know it. I'm just tired. Over it all, not ready for the real world but simultaneously just ready to say EFF IT ALL, just bring it on already. But maybe that's the Elise-that-doesn't-have-a-job-yet talking. It's easy to say that I'm done with school, and infinitely harder to say I am ready for life. Cause the truth is that I am not ready, or at least I don't feel ready, and I don't know that I will be. I'm not sure anyone ever feels ready when launching themselves right out of a PA program, but I know I can't do much more of what I am doing now, so I might as well leap myself into the next phase. Sometimes I think 24 months is not nearly long enough, and other times I think thank god it's only 24 months, otherwise I would die. Maybe I am just circling back to the desperate weird time warp of the first summer semester. Full circle is a good sign, right? Right.
So, that's where I am at. Which means you get a random collection of unclear patterns and thoughts. I bounce from calm to clammy to elated. It's a freak show up in here.
Mostly though, I have more or less acclimated to the swing of things once again, and only have a few weeks left to go. We've got a giant snow storm brewing outside, with predictions ranging from 4-24 inches. They aren't too good at pinning down exacts around here. What I do know is that unfortunately I will brave whatever is out there tomorrow because I have a Nissen Fundoplication surgery first thing in the morning and it's my first one. I shall be there no matter what!
I spent the weekend with JP in Bangor, Maine's second biggest city. It is right about halfway between Portland and Presque Isle, and also happens to be where I spent the first half of rotation 6 (in the ER). The long drive all the way to Portland is a little brutal for a two day weekend, and JP happened to have a ride, so we met up!
It's funny that this portion is rapidly turning into the hardest part of school thus far. It's hard in drastically different ways than the rest of the program has been, but really difficult nonetheless. It's the drag out portion, the last two months of bending over backwards for the world, and enduring long separations from my family. It's the tail end of my patience with having to forgo the parts of my life that I really enjoy, like biking and cooking, and having basically any interests outside of learning medicine. The past two years have flown by, but I feel kind of like I budgeted my life out for 22 months of hell and now I am existing in months 23 and 24 and it's not easy.
That sounds ungrateful, and I know it. I'm just tired. Over it all, not ready for the real world but simultaneously just ready to say EFF IT ALL, just bring it on already. But maybe that's the Elise-that-doesn't-have-a-job-yet talking. It's easy to say that I'm done with school, and infinitely harder to say I am ready for life. Cause the truth is that I am not ready, or at least I don't feel ready, and I don't know that I will be. I'm not sure anyone ever feels ready when launching themselves right out of a PA program, but I know I can't do much more of what I am doing now, so I might as well leap myself into the next phase. Sometimes I think 24 months is not nearly long enough, and other times I think thank god it's only 24 months, otherwise I would die. Maybe I am just circling back to the desperate weird time warp of the first summer semester. Full circle is a good sign, right? Right.
So, that's where I am at. Which means you get a random collection of unclear patterns and thoughts. I bounce from calm to clammy to elated. It's a freak show up in here.
Saturday, March 1, 2014
another one bites
My computer bit the dust. Which wouldn't be so bad, if I was a real person who actually interacted appropriately with technology. This situation actually reminds me exactly of when my phone was stolen in Belize. Everyone said, oh it's a good thing you had this installed. To which I would reply, well, I've never heard of that. Then they would say, well luckily it comes with this built in. And then I would discover that I had somehow disabled that feature. At every step it would seem that I had thwarted my self out of what would naturally have been a semi good security system or back up of sorts. Which you might think would have prompted me to reevaluate my other technologies and their (lack of) back up systems. But of course I didn't, cause those pesky pop up things always seem to crop up onto the desktop at just the moment when I realized I have ten minutes to upload a form for school or I'll fail, and so I just dismiss then and move on merrily with the rest of my life. Oblivious to my own lack of safety net. Lalalaaaaaa lame.
So, at least it didn't die the week before my practice board exam (which is this friday), cause then I really would have been up a creek. And at least it seems to sometimes randomly spark back to life a little, so there is hope that the thousands of pictures sitting on the hard drive are not completely lost forever. Lalalaaaaa, pretending that doesn't exist!
I came back to Portland for the weekend and have since acquired a new laptop with all my spare money that is just lounging around me in giant piles, waiting to be spent on all the things. It's recently actually quite starkly dawned on me that I literally have no more money coming in until I get a job. Which is unfortunate in many respects, but also unfortunate because when life goes into crunch time, bills have a way of piling up. Case in point, I registered for my board exam last week, and $500 later I am happy to say that I will be sitting for it on May 28th at 8 am. Haaaaa.
I will pause for a brief panic moment. Shhhhhhh reality.
Ok. So, that's about all I have to report. Obie and I are surviving the ridiculous cold up north, and I think the word surviving could also apply to what I am doing in terms of surgery. Yay?
So, at least it didn't die the week before my practice board exam (which is this friday), cause then I really would have been up a creek. And at least it seems to sometimes randomly spark back to life a little, so there is hope that the thousands of pictures sitting on the hard drive are not completely lost forever. Lalalaaaaa, pretending that doesn't exist!
I came back to Portland for the weekend and have since acquired a new laptop with all my spare money that is just lounging around me in giant piles, waiting to be spent on all the things. It's recently actually quite starkly dawned on me that I literally have no more money coming in until I get a job. Which is unfortunate in many respects, but also unfortunate because when life goes into crunch time, bills have a way of piling up. Case in point, I registered for my board exam last week, and $500 later I am happy to say that I will be sitting for it on May 28th at 8 am. Haaaaa.
I will pause for a brief panic moment. Shhhhhhh reality.
Ok. So, that's about all I have to report. Obie and I are surviving the ridiculous cold up north, and I think the word surviving could also apply to what I am doing in terms of surgery. Yay?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)