"Please, DON'T FALL OVERBOARD!" - Mom

That was the last bit of advice my mother could get out as our connection was breaking up last night. Of course I won't try to fall overboard on our boat trip......but God forbid this happens I pray I am as lucky as the father in Grenada who drifted on his mini hobie cat for two nights almost to Venezula. We are leaving this AM to head south for the Tobago Cays on the chartered sailboat. There is a captain/skipper who will take care of the sailing. I hear the crossing over from St. Vincent to the Grenadines can get really rough so hopefully all will be calmer for us today. I am greased up with sunscreen and the plan is to not get burned. Well if something does happen and we don't return by Sunday evening, please do send a serch party for us!!

While I am doing this my sister, HB, is going to have her labor induced. This will be her second child, another boy! I only wish I could be there to see him but I will have to wait till July. This will make me an aunt to five.

My mind is on vacation

Exams ended on Monday and I have been in recovery since then. It was rough leading up to them and only having a weekend to basically cram for Pathophysiology was way too short. Good news though, they are over with and onto the last round in the Caribbean!!!! After the exam on Monday, a bunch of us went to lunch and then Brisbane Beach. The waves were outta control, I stayed in the calmer section (the part you can see in the picture) to keep my hair dry for my haircut later that afternoon. I did some major cutting, 4 inches. It is wonderful to have the length gone (see pic below)!


Today we had an exam review where we can see what we got wrong on the test and take our time to analyze. In theory this is educational but my mind was not working it is already on post-exam vacation and I didn't seem to even remember stuff from the first test on Friday (Pharm). It actually gave me a headache just looking at it!! Hope the knowledge stays in some part of my brain for boards.

We went to the hospital on Tuesday for our OB/GYN rotation. It was very interesting. First we saw tubes being tied and then the second surgery was a massive ovarian cyst. I definetly could sympathize with the patient. This is the same surgery I had in 2002 to remove the cysts in both my ovaries. Thankfully mine were much smaller and my ovaries could be resected. This patient had one massive ovary about the size of a cantalope. It was enourmous. I know how much pain it can cause. Towards the end of the surgery I started to feel faint and had to leave the OR before I passed out.

After class today JZ, JC and I went to check out the leeward side of the island. Was a crystal clear day to sightsee. It took over an hour to get to the Pirates of the Caribbean set. The views there were amazing. This is where they filmed Pirates 1, 2 and 3. I could tell why they picked that place it was breathtakingly beautiful (the second and third pictures in this post are from the set)
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On Friday myself and four others will be leaving for our sailing trip to the Tobago Cays. I am so excited. JZ and I are cooking some chocolate chip cookies and cupcakes right now
In a hour we will be watching the much anticipated LOST!!! I am addicted to that show. My only two shows are that and Grey's Anatomy.

After an intense weekend marathon of studying (actually cramming) for my Pathophys exam, I am ready to give up the fight and surrender. I can't take it anymore! Thankfully come Monday afternoon the test will be over and I can take a week off (well not really....). Some friends and I are going to be sailing around the Tobago Cays next weekend. I can't wait!
Back to studying for the last few hours that I can manage.

He cracks me up! He keeps doing this!

The new roommate! He needs a name!

I think I am starring in my own national geographic series! Coming back from a post test lunch I saw a huge neon green iguana walking down the road then just in front of our driveway there was some mongoose like ceature running across. And as always there was something in my bedroom! This time it is one I dont' mind having around, a lizard (a good sized one!). I hope to keep him to eat all the other bugs. He is entertaining himself in front of the mirror thinking his reflection is another lizard.

The Pharmagology test was ridiculous in my opinion. I have to hope my guessing skills were at their prime. No time to worry about that....now it is onto cramming in as much Pathophysiology as I can by Monday!

Wish me luck, say a prayer or do whatever you think can help me do well on my Pharmacology test on Friday and my Pathophysiology test on Monday! As always, I am cramming in as many last minute facts as I can and can't wait for this exam period to be over with!

The KMC library. Also known as the place I will be living till exams end on Monday. That is JC in the background and my set up by the orange gatorade. Normally it is full of people but when you get there at 8:30 AM on Saturday this is how it looks!

ants

Since January I have killed the following:

• Black Army Ant (just now in the bathroom)
• Fire Ants (biting me 5 or 6 times while I was sitting at my desk)
• Sugar Ants (used to be crawling up and down the wall)
• Flying Red Ants (occasionally flying out of the light socket above my mirror)

Who would have thought there could be so many types of ants crawling around on an island much less in my bedroom!!!

Update: Came home at lunch to find fire ants crawling out from under my bed!

Saw this on campus and had to take a picture to share.

THANKS MOM!

My mom is wonderful. I just recieved a package from her of homemade chees-straws, cadbury eggs (minis and regular!) and thin mints. The thin mints are from SH my little girl scout. Now the hard part is not eating it all at once or else I will be needing bigger clothes sent to me!
We had a hospital rotation today, waited an hour for the doctor to show up then went to the district clinic next door to find him seeing patients there. We were able to interview and examine a patient even thought he said he would sign our card and let us go for our troubles. It was an interesting case since they dont' know what the lady has. Left us to speculate what it might be.
Anyhow, less than two weeks till my second round of exams and my motivation is zilch. For the last two days I have gotten barely anything done and need to get cracking. I am on top of my work thankfully and just have to go back and cram all the details in.
Less than two months to go!!

WHAT!

We had our first surgery lecture today. It was pretty boring, learning about wounds and sutures. Up until.........the doctor showed us a patient with a deformed hand caused by keloids had reconstructive surgery to make his hand look normal. This required a massive skin graft. Warning to those who might get queasy (yes, LR, that means you!).
The way they did the graft was to remove the skin on his hand up past his wrist (about midway up) and then lifted up the skin on the patients stomach and placed the hand under the stomach skin. Another graft was placed on the stomach to cover open areas. But the hand remained attached to the stomach!! It was then covered in some sort of cast or wrapping (not exactly clear on that part). During the recovery process the patient reported that maggots were in the cast/wrapping and were itchy. The doctor said this wasn't a problem, because the maggots will eat up the debris (actually a benefical thing!). The doctor also mentioned that you can't get maggots under normal circumstances but once they are there, its ok. After 6 or so weeks the cast/wrapping was removed and the hand cut off of the stomach and it looked realtively normal. I am not clear on when this procedure was done, but I presume a LONG time ago and probably in Thailand (our lecuturer spend 7 years there around the time of the Vietnam War). The poor patient. I don't think I could handle maggots living on me much less my arm grafted to my stomach!

ipod

I got a ipod nano about a month ago. I love it! The battery life is about 5 times what my mini had. I can go almost three days of studying before I have to recharge it. The fiasco though is that I have had trouble getting the songs I want on it. So initally I added a bunch I thought I wanted. I ranked them on the nano and was going to delete the ones I didnt' want. So this AM I plug it in to do some updating and with the click of the wrong button, I erased all of it. All 984 songs (except for 24 of them). Needless to say, here I sit trying to reload my ipod and I get to start over again with ranking the songs, since it has lost my previous ranking. GRRRRR. Too bad Apple hasn't come up with a way to transfer these rankings and playlists from one ipod to another and from computer to ipod. There are programs on the internet that you can download to do this, but right now I don't have time for it.
Not much else going on here. Julie and I went to an early St. Patty's Day party on Friday put on by our SGA. There were hardly any students there, most were at home studying. It was entertaining though, they had Karaoke. Definetly was worth seeing. The club downstairs had its own dj but it was empty and everyone that was there was outside listening to our classmates attempt to sing.
Today will be a full day of studying. Once I get my ipod geared up, I will be heading to the library to learn as much as possible so I dont' have to get stressed later. Only two months to go till I am back in the states and four months till I can take a break from studying and relax! Till then you know where I'll be......the library.

published

I got word this evening that my biochemistry research at University of Richmond was finally published in the Biochemistry Journal. I had to go back and read about what I had done and won't bore you all with the detials of the project. It is exciting that it was finally deemed worthy of printing after all these years! If I get a link to it I will add it, but as of now, I don't think the article has been offically released.
We had hospital roations today with the urologist (had two patients, one with curvature of the penis and the other with bladder cancer) and tuesday was internal medicine (patient with severe abdominal distention due to neprotic syndrome (basically peeing a LOT of protein 0ut)). This evening we had night classes for the second time this week. It was an SGU grad and ER doctor from Williamsburg, VA. He made the time fly by in lecture. Too bad he only had four hours of lecture and can't come back and make other things more interesting.
I am also proud to report that so far (knock on wood) I have not seen another spider. I pray this remains the case for the next two months!
Another note, my dad has sold his house. The home I was raised in and for my dad it goes back even further back than that. For those of you unfamilar with it, there is no central heat or air just fans and gas heater in the hallway for those cold spells (and YES, they do have them in North Florida!). I think he might have one of the only houses without central heat or air, not too many still exist. So many memories of my mom and dad heating my clothes up at the heater and bringing them to my bed in the morning so I didnt' have to get up and put on cold clothes. Marshmellows in the fireplace, Zip lines in the backyard, being dragged down the uneven brick patio by the dog, the creeking of the wood floors, raking the yard, camping in the backyard, hammocks, sitting at the table till I finished drinking my mik and so many many more. My Dad has decided to move out and move in with his two older brothers into a house they all own. I imagine it will be an adjustment for all of them, but I think they will enjoy each others company. Perhaps they can revert back to their childhood activities of egg fights and pancake flipping contests. Even though I have not lived in that house for many years, I will miss it. I am sure who ever buys it will simply tear it down to build something bigger and better. Thankfully I have my memories to keep.
Ok, must go put the freshly washed sheets on my bed so I can get in my bed for some sleep!

6 legged beast

I just came home from the library, turned on my light and looked up to see a HUUUUUUGGGGGEEEEEE SPIDER! He didn't even have 8 legs he only had 6. He was soo big. I quickly yelled for the roomies to go get Luke (the handyman who lives on site) while I watched to make sure it didn't run away. That would be the worst, to not know where it went and have to attempt to sleep with him loose! So Luke came in and moved my bed away from the wall and then reached the broom up and smashed him, it fell to the floor. I thought it might get away, then Luke says "push the bed back" im thinking (KILL THE SPIDER, forget the bed!!) so we quickly did and ran to get some paper to clean up the spider (hopefully he was dead!) and Luke reaches down and underneath his foot is the smashed spider. Thank God he was home! I can handle bugs, roaches, ants, etc but this thing was "big enough to enroll in school". Two more months of tropical insects! Apparently this has been the week of the critters. I have had three different types of ants in my room. It started with three flying ants, then the always present sugar ants and just yesterday with FIRE ants that bit me while I was standing in my room. These are things I can deal with, its part of living down here, but the SPIDER, that is not what I would like to walk into my room and see, nor wake up and find. The last one was found back in January by the guy that was supposed to live in my room. It freaked him out so much that he didnt' even stay in the place longer than five minutes and never even moved in! Thankfully because I like this apt better than the first one we had. If the time frame is acurate there shouldnt' be anther one for another two monts ( I PRAY!). That will be right after I leave (hopefully). Glad I have been checking in my bed every night before I get in, just in case there are critters in there. I would hate to find him next to my pillow!

Stick up

After spending all day at the hospital from 1:30 to 10:30 PM watching non-stop surgeries, the last being multiple stab wounds, my friend RG decided to stop at one of the two KFCs downtown and grab some food. These are his adventures as told to me over im!!!

RG:we stoped at KFC for dinner and on the way in a local ran at us with a bone in his hand carved to look like a gun and he told us he was going to shoot us
RG: he was saying "i'm a fucking criminal, i'm going to shoot you.."
RG: turns out he is a looney tune...we had a security guard walk us to the car....he was waiting outside the resturant for us....peaking in the window and shit....the security guard came with us and ran him off...he jumped out from behind a column...guess he didn't see security with us...he ran him off....and told us that the guy was a mental patient
me: wow, theres security people?
RG: just KFC security
RG: yeah thank God cause we where pretty scared
RG: none of us where showing it but we where scared
RG: i seriously though he had a gun
me: what bone was it? and man, whats he gonna take?? your pd kit with his bone?
RG: well...the guard told us it was a bone...we didn't see the bone....it was something carved to look like a gun with cloth wrapped tightly around it....
RG: but he was making clicking noises with his mouth like he was cocking the hammer so we kinda knew something was not right
me: guess i will know not to stop at kfc late night
me: i'll make sure to take advantage of the delivery they offer, perhaps he is the reason why they deliver!
RG: but it looked real in the dark....i don't want to experience that again
RG: it feels good to laugh about it now....
me: since your alive
RG: HELL YEAH....you know what the funny thing was...was he was waving this damn thing around all i could think about was..."shit i don't want to get one of those damn chest tubes"
RG: "don't shoot me in the chest please"

RG: but aside form that....the day was good

If he had a blog he said he would post the whole thing but since he doesn't I had to share what I thought was a pretty funny (but scary) thing.

Another day closer to being back in the states

I had an internal medicine rotation today. It wasn’t anything too dramatic or exciting except for the brief moment when I got to hear my first mitral regurgitation murmur. That was pretty cool. The rest was the standard stuff: history, physical exam, present to doctor, listen to doctor tell you what you missed, and the doctor then telling you everything relevant to the case. You learn at lot and retain it more than just reading about it in a book. We have four rotations this week, normally there would be only two, but our group is trying hard to get as many out of the way as soon as possible so we don’t have to go at exam time. Tomorrow we have another internal medicine then surgical/urology on Thursday and pediatrics on Friday! Perhaps we will get to see our little boy from last week. Word is that he was alive and at last notice he was going to get a CT scan to try and figure out why he is still disoriented.

Other things going on here, trying to tackle the numerous packets I have gotten. I think there is at the very least 1-2 inches of notes we got on Monday to be covered in addition to the massive packet for Hematology. I feel bad for all the trees that are dying for me to learn. I should start planting a tree for every day of lecture I have to compensate for the loss.

I sent in my preference for my clinical placement. Unfortunately, I won’t know the results for a few months and even then it won’t be 100% for sure. It is up to the sgu gods to decide, but I will be on the east coast (NY or NJ). I already am dreading the cold weather and wish there was a way to start thickening my blood so I won’t freeze to death when winter arrives next fall. It is bizarre to think that I might not be living in a third world country in the Caribbean for the rest of my life!!!!