The Times, They Are A-Changin’

Well a couple of weeks ago I got accepted into the hospital I’d applied for as a first preference for next year.  In that respect (and in many others, too) I’ve been quite lucky.  I always get placed where I want to go.  But this one is for 2 years, and it’s not on the Gold Coast where I’ve lived most of my life.

Granted, it’s not very far away from the Gold Coast, at least geographically.  However, if I’m to use the dirty word ’socioeconomic,’ we’re talkin’ about a whole new world.

Since the placement is for 2 years, and involves every weekday, I’ve decided to move there.  Everyone has strongly advised me against the move, but since most of these chirpers have never even been to the place, I’m ignoring them.  I actually studied there for a year previously, and found the place refreshingly un-pretentious.  I think I’ll like it there.

It’s exciting times, since it involves a life renovation – new hospital, new house (and it will be a house, not an apartment), new roommates, not to mention the prospect of a dog and a whole new social arena that will bring the new interactions that I’m craving.  Of course, the shadow of my failed exam and the unpredictability of the real estate market (selling our house) stretches across the prospect of this large change.

If I fail the supplementary exam that the school has offered me – which I won’t – then my life remains pretty much as is, except that I’ll have to find somewhere else to live on the Gold Coast.  Still, the idea of failing this exam positively stinks of stagnancy – repeating a year of uni and staying on the Gold Coast.  Passing the exam brings fresh opportunity that I’m really looking forward to.

I’m talking in circles, here.  Maybe I should focus this loopy, repetitious stream of thought into a mantra, of sorts…

The times, they are changing for the better.

(oh, and like girls get a new haircut when they want to change their lives / themselves, I’ve given my blog banner a revamp.  It’s a scene that – in real life – has always inspired me and given me a sense of empowerment.)

Red Earth

 

Sydney Harbour Bridge in the Red Dust Storm
23 September 2009

In Australia, we believe in equality.  That’s why earlier this morning, our clever meteorologists lifted a tonne of desert into the sky and dumped it over the most urban of eastern Australia, giving those of us in the cities a taste of the Australian Outback.

Okay, so it was a freak low pressure system somewhere out west.  But still. 

I sat in my armchair today watching the red pictures of Sydney flash up on the screen, and glancing out my own window at the clear blue sky.  They said the dust would reach Brisbane (1 hour north of me) by noon, but as the time went on, a murky yellow cloud started creeping into my window.

Now I’m at the university, staring out the window at a blanket of red.  Everything is monochromatic red, which is really disorienting and quite spectacular.

Gotta love global warming.

Gather, My Friends

For I have a story to tell you.

Today, today.  What an interesting day today has been.

I woke up feeling terrible, not exactly able to pin-point why, I just knew I needed the toilet.  My head pounded, my stomach churned – I felt as though there were chemicals in lieu of blood.  6:30am, and the alarm was set for 8:00am.  Not a perfect start.

PBL and report back.  Paediatric management.  God, I love paeds, but I feel so exhausted just sitting upright.  My wonderful knee is clanking away like a cranky ratchet.

I log on to discover I have pissed off the nation’s  family doctors (hello, my friends).  I can’t find my suit for the ball tomorrow – oh, and I find out that I failed my neuro and musculoskeletal exam.

I’m sure my new GP friends who read that are in complete ecstacy.  I, however, have never failed anything before.  I always thought it might be a load off to finally not have to wonder what that failure might feel like, but no – I don’t feel like a load is lifted.  It feels, well, like failure.

Anyway, I’m getting stuck into the scotch which seems to be quite an adequate mood stabiliser, and I’m wondering why this was never brought-up in the neuro block.  And then I realise that I failed that block.  Scotch may well have come up, how am I to know?

Do I want to use the excuse that I had lobar pneumonia and fever of 38.9 during exam week?  Yes, but I know that’s not why I failed.  I don’t study, that’s why.

So basically, today was an interesting day.  A back log of bad karma, perhaps?

Oh well, back to the scotch.

Bad Medicine

Our school tries to push the general practice route of medicine.  Sure, we all understand it’s a ‘better lifestyle’ (which is totally dependent on your outlook, I think), but they’re trying to tell us that general practitioners or ‘family doctors’ are dynamic and intelligent and hardworking with their fingers in different pies, or – to use a different finger metaphor – on the pulse. 

BULL. SHIT.  General practitioners are lazy morons.

I go to the doctor surgery today, which has had an unfortunate computer issue and the system is down.  For forty minutes, the doctors and staffers mope around like lost little souls until one of the doctors says “we could probably do this without computers.”  Grrr….

I get into the room, he asks me what’s wrong.  Stupidly, I’m wearing jeans and shoes when I’ve gone in to see about a knee problem – now he’s going to make me take my pants off.  But no – he deigns to touch – no, poke - my knee (through jeans, of course) with ONE finger before writing a pathology form for blood tests.  He hands me the handwritten form. 

The lis of tests reads: LFT, C reactive protein (that reads more like creatinine, protein), ESR, Full blood count.

“Um. I’m sorry, what are you testing me for?”  I ask.

“Rheumatoid arthritis,” is the doctor’s response. 

“Okay,” long pause. “Shouldn’t you have written Rheumatoid Factor on the form, then?”

The Gown & Glove

A couple of weeks ago we had the Red Party to raise money for FJN+, another charity organisation that helps those living with HIV/AIDS in Fiji.  Apart from the fund raising, the night was a lot of fun (and debauchery that saw me kissing more girls but sadly no boys).

The only downer was the next morning – a saturday – we had to front up to hospital and ‘learn’ how to gown and glove – basically scrub in – for surgery.  Of course, almost none of the other hospital groups have been as lucky as mine in the sense that we’ve already spent a lot of time in surgery, so we already knew how to do it. 

Quietly and with heads lolling and bobbing, we stood as they talked us through the process.

“Any questions?”  The chipper nurse would ask.  She was met by a wall of silence.  Her smile falters a little, but she soldiers on, teaching this skill to a room full of standing corpses.  After the 1 hour 40 min tutorial on how to wash your hands, put on gloves and a gown, we were led through a corridor back toward the changerooms, and therefore freedom to go home and melt onto the couch.

To the left of us were empty theatres that we could see through observation windows (nobody does surgery on a weekend), but we were surprise when we passed one theatre with a large team and a slab of human on the table.  After about 10 minutes of us standing around and watching the surgeon prep the patient, he stopped what he was doing and came to the door to speak to one of our nurse-tutors.  He was inaudible, but the nurse turned to look at us and said “All of them?”  The surgeon nodded, and then the 25 of us were told to put on masks and caps, because we were going into….

Surgery 12:  Laparascopic appendicectomy.  Clean and quick – byoi-tiful!

During the surgery, we were asked incredibly simple questions such as ”what artery supplies the appendix?”  There was, of course, more silence from the student body.

“Aw, they’re in awe!”  One scrub nurse coos. 

After a quick beat, somebody in the student population pipes up, sounding as rough as guts: “Nah, we’re all hungover, ay.”

What an awesome day.

Angus

It might seem incredibly quick, but I already love Angus.  I know he loves me, too – on that point I’ve been practically assured by all accounts.  I’ve been told he’ll have tunnel vision – eyes just for me, which I’m very happy about.

The only thing is, Angus hasn’t been born yet. 

He’s an Australian Kelpie pup, beautiful and energetic.  I’m hoping to meet him in the next 6 months, and welcome him into my new home and life. 

I’m gonna be a daddy!

Sleep is for the Dead

It’s 3:41am and beyond the sudden inability of my eyes to focus on anything, I’m not all that tired.  I’m wired.  Thinking about so much, stuff that’s exciting, depressing, and intriguing…all coming out in a jumble of fractured thought.

Exciting.  My life is about to change, again.  Not right now, but there is going to be a change.  The house is on the market, we may need to move.  Then, the pre-clinical phase of med school is drawing to a close, mere weeks away, and the clinical years (x2) will see me at a hospital away from home, and I’ve chosen to move there anyway.  It’ll be new roommates, new town, new everything.  Am I sure about the decisions I’m making, and the ones being made outside of my control?  No.  Is it exciting?  Of course.  Go with the flow.

Depressing.  His bilateral pneumonia, and the heart failure.  Respirator.  Oxygen saturation too low.  With the cancer.  And the MS.  Is it PCP or similar?  If so, goodbye old friend.  He’s circling the drain.

Intriguing.  There are all these random things.  The knee that is deteriorating quickly.  The sudden sinus problems, the itching eyes.  All the joints that creak and crack.  The other symptoms….strange.  Not even 25, yet.

Dogs. Men. Sex. Politics.

Need sleep.  But sleep is for the dead.  I’ll sleep when I’m dead.

My Girl

Taken on that Thursday night, drunkenly. Linked to full-size

On Thursday I called my good friend up to see if I could cook her dinner, as I hadn’t seen her in a long time.  We met about 5 years ago when we were both volunteering for the university in our first week, and have been good friends ever since.

During the intervening 5 years, Dea – a name meaning goddess – spent most of her time either in a relationship or pining after one of our friends, Zac.  There were, however, a few drunken occasions where she would slip up and kiss me, or say something like “I’m going to marry you one day,” in a slurry Afrikaans accent.
Just putting it down to being drunk (as inevitably she was at these times), and being gay enough to not want to provoke more of the same situations, I never really acknowledged her.

Until I came out, that is.  We spoke about how we feel about each other, and when we were honest, we decided that there was something strange between us, only in the sense that it’s a connection outside of our individual norms.  Of course, this is (paradoxically, or perhaps ironically) completely normal, but still strange to experience.

I joke that she’s a gay man trapped in a woman’s body, which she finds mildly annoying, but in all honesty it’s a simple explanation for how I could actually love her the way I do (and why I’ve kissed her more than all the men put together!).  Sure, it’s not the kind of love that is required for a romantic relationship, but it’s a hell of a lot closer than I could ever have imagined with a woman.
We can even see ourselves with kids, and have tentative plans for the future, depending on our circumstances at the time.
This is all compounded by the fact that my family loves her, and her family adores me.

It’s all a situation that I feel I should want to shake off, but I don’t.  I kind of like it, this quirk in the system.

Montage

“Adrian Vince Castelli thinks we need a montage,” was my facebook update at the end of last week.  For those of you with awesome taste in movies, you’ll recognise it from Team America World Police.  Basically, it was all about how you can cover some long and boring shit if you chop out the process and keep the progress.  And throw in some music. 

The reason I thought we needed a montage is because study week – this week – was coming up, and I just didn’t feel up to the task.  However, today I managed to turn off the non-believer part of my brain and came up with a study session that was essentially like a montage – short, painless, gainful, and with a soundtrack (iPod.).

I’m not so disillusioned that I think this puts me ahead.  I know I only made up for the last two days which I essentially wasted. 

At the same time I’m so jealous of the dentistry students.  They get like, five years to study the mouth.  I get three minutes to cover all of neuro.  Bah. 

So my point is, well, we need a montage.  I’d love another one tomorrow.  I mean, come on – even Rocky had a montage.

Esoterica

 

Exams loom yet again.  The stress-bliss cycle begins to swing in favour of the former, and I’m so tired.  I feel strung out and overextended and all the other descriptives that lead the mind to see that I feel like too-little peanut butter spread thinly over the toast.  And isn’t that a trip – the mind…

Neuro exams.  In all their forms – neuro exams.  The physical examinations and the Exam (capitalised and all) that combines neurology and musculoskeletal medicine will be here in a mere fortnight or so.  I know I’ve survived exams before and that same knowledge should prepare me for more of the same, but this time is a little different.  It’s neuro.  The esoterica of medicine.  The foreign language within an already foreign language.  It’s a dialect that isn’t hard to master; the language of neurology just has a lot of words to it.

So I’ll forget the world you all live in and lock myself in a box.  And in that box I will look at Lhermitte’s sign, and debunk that old myth that the basal ganglia is conceptually and spatially simple, and learn the dermotomes and myotomes and plexuses before I turn my attention to the anatomy of the bones, and every bump of every bone and every fibre of every muscle and tendon and ligament and fascia whilst attempting to remain sane and gain the brain to pass the last and most agonising stretch of uni left. 

And maybe then I’ll come out on the other side of pre-clinical student-hood as a socially questionable but academically able clinical student. 

We’ll see how it all plays out.  For now, bed.  Tomorrow, I stick my fingers inside hearts.  Not human, and not alive, but hearts nonetheless.