Sorry for the delay, folks

I've been mucho busy... Just finished my Ob/Gyn written exam less than 30 minutes ago and whew, I think my heart is still racing... I have my oral exam in about an hour... But I think the written exam went fairly well, I'm thinking maybe a B... Hope I'm not being too optimistic :)

I just sharpened my first wood pencil in I don't know how many years. Can't go wrong with the original. It had stamped on the side, "Knowledge is the enemy of disease." Yeah, baby.

I have much to regale you with, as in my blogging absence, I've made two trips to London, celebrated Chinese New Year, avoided Norwalk virus like the plague, and attempted to open a UK bank account.. my venture into getting a credit history here.

So til that time comes that I can update you, so long and farewell my faithful friends. lol.

I plan to celebrate tonight!

Update 2

Monday, February 1, 2010

I discovered that while I may not be all that into surgery... laparoscopy and laparoscopic surgery is amazing. When I saw the first images sent by the laparoscope onto the screen, my jaw nearly dropped. My first thought was that the human body is a beautiful thing. Seriously, exquisitely beautiful. It was like a National Geographic special. I had seen images online before, but I just thought they were computerized renditions and that there was no way it was that clean and put together inside our bodies. I don't know what I was expecting, but having only ever really seen drawings of internal organs, or images from surgery where the picture is marred by blood and other fluids, or organs after they have already been removed from the body... I hadn't really grasped what the human body looked like from within. When everything is where it should be, living, working.. and you take a peek inside... words aren't enough. I think I was in love, lol. It's just so incomprehensible seeing the liver, uterus, fallopian tubes, omentum, vessels, etc all in their proper place... it was like being let in on a great secret. Like someone said, "peek-a-boo" and opened my eyes to a never before seen wonder. Even better than the magic school bus :)

I was able to scrub in and assist in an laparoscopic oophorectomy for a torsioned ovary. Viewing it inside the body and comparing the greatly enlarged, hematogenous, necrotic ovary to the normal one only inches away was like, wow. Then watching the removal of this ovary with an 11cm cyst from a 1cm hole in the abdomen was incredible. Now that I can get into :) It really is as others say, like playing a video game. Soooo cool.

I also attended an infertility clinic. Seeing all these couples coming in looking for some hope to have a child made what I had seen in the labor & delivery ward all the more precious. Despite how often I see and hear laboring mothers suffer and cry that never again will they put themselves through that experience, I can't help but think of all the woman who are desperate to be in their position.

Witnessing these laboring women has made me wonder whether or not I will still want 5 after my first. lol. They say that your memory of the labor is but a distant faint image once you behold your baby for the first time, but I know many that would beg to differ. I've met women who were so traumatized by their first labor experience that when they found out they were pregnant again, they cried for days. It is hard sometimes to distance yourself emotionally from what the patient is going through so that you can have a clear clinical focus. Then of course there's the weight of having all the knowledge of everything that could and does sometimes go wrong...

Another heart wrenching scene is bearing witness to a mother's guilt and pain in terminating a pregnancy that was a miracle in and of itself since she had been sterilized twice and still gotten pregnant, but the pregnancy turned out to be positive for a Down's baby. Just her waiting in the ward for the medication to take effect and her body to expel her baby, I don't think it's something she will forget for a long time. And the guilt of another mother going through the same knowing that she works with mentally disabled children. How hard is that? I mean, the heart break such news must have been to them, and the subsequent internal turmoil they must have had to reach such a decision. I can't even begin to imagine it. Especially if they had begun to feel the quickening within them.

Today, Thursday, February 5, 2010

I went into town and donated blood today. I have to say that I quite enjoy donating blood. I'm not really sure what exactly it is that I like, but I like knowing that I'm giving of myself to help another. I like watching them insert the needle and watching my blood flow through the tubing into the bag. I like trying to see how quickly I can fill the bag. I'm a pretty fast bleeder when I try, so I feel a sense of satisfaction when I can fill my blood bag before others. Is that morbid? I dunno, it's weird but I enjoy it so I do it whenever I have the opportunity.

I must commend the Brits or at least those here in Winchester on their fervor in donating blood. There were a lot of people who came to the blood drive. They even had appointments to donate. It was the busiest I had ever seen a blood drive. People just kept coming in the door. It was quite heartening to see so many people desiring to donate. It wasn't even like it was Christmas and people would feel compelled to do something charitable. It was just donating to donate. Kind of public healthish too and that's just great :)

Update

Friday, January 29, 2010

This day was horrible. Like downright awful. So bad it made me cry... twice... In front of two different consultants no less. So for those of you who know me and my opinion about crying... it was that bad. I mean, I've gotten over it now, so I can talk about it with a blasé attitude, but that was a pretty miserable day, and that kind of translated to the stress I've been under since.

It started out well enough. I went to theatre that early that morning and was able to perform my first vaginal exam and speculum exam, so that was cool. I feel that my fingers are too short to really be all that effective, but maybe it's just my technique. Even with me feeling like I was pressing my hand as deeply against the pelvis as possible, my fingers barely grazed the "bump" that was the cervix. I couldn't get in deep enough to actually manipulate the uterus, but I was able to palpate one of the ovaries :) I was told that since the patient was nulliparous, her uterus was still pretty high up which probably contributed to my difficulty. But I think that unless my fingers miraculously lengthen I'd be pretty useless at VE's on nulliparous women. Guess Obs & Gyn is out for me, lol.

I had a one-on-one teaching session with Mr. Olujide on menorrhagia, and that went well enough until the end. Sometime in the middle of our session, he asked if I wanted coffee and went out to make some. While he was out, his phone rang 3 times, and I thinking that it might be important since it rang that often in such a short period of time went to look for him. I ran into the husband of a patient who's history I had taken and had a little chat with him about how his wife was doing. While I was out I saw my preceptor, Mr. Louden, walking down the hall. At the same time, Mr. Olujide was also coming towards me, and I went to him and gave him his phone. Mr. Louden came up and said he was supposed to have been doing my mid rotation assessment that day. This was news to me, as when I had checked the schedule at his secretary's office the day before, I had seen no such appointment. I expressed my surprise and He said he had to talk to Mr. Olujide, so I went into the office where I had been having my teaching session. However, they were standing only a few meters from the open door to the office and I could pretty much hear everything they were saying... Mr. Louden expressed his concern about my missing so many days of the posting and his doubt and "puzzlement" about this "induction" thing that I said I had to attend, and other stuff to which Mr. Olujide agreed and said he would talk to me about it. I got the impression, they thought I was making up this induction thing and was just skipping days. They both did not sound pleased. After hearing all this, when Mr. Olujide got back to the office, I asked him if I was in trouble. He said, not much, but yes and we would talk about it later. Of course after that moment, I had a hard time focusing on the teaching and was just dreading the end of the teaching session.

When we came to the end of the teaching and moved on to the topic of my performance thus far, he asked me how I had been doing and what I'd been doing. When we came to what happened that miserable Wednesday afternoon in Scan, I stopped talking because I couldn't really talk about it. I had no desire to go into what happened, but I guess just thinking about that afternoon brought all the feelings to the fore and on top of my nerves about the fact that I was in trouble... my lips started to tremble, I couldn't look at Mr. Olujide and every time I started to say something I felt my eyes well up. It was pathetic. To make matters worse, Mr. Olujide asked me what was wrong and his being nice about it was what tipped me over to full out tears. *sigh* I'm sure my stressing out and exhaustion didn't help my restraint in the matter, but I find it so much harder to be composed when people are being nice than when they're being mean and stern. He discussed things I should be doing to improve matters and gave me some pointers. Then he brought up two Biblical analogies about Joshua, and that just made me cry again because he wasn't just being nice, but also offering up biblical and spiritual support which was even more unexpected. He also said that the particular consultant with which I had such a miserable time with did not like students working with him and that even the SHOs and and other residents who were sometimes assigned to him, he wouldn't let them do anything.

After that, I attempted to compose myself, went to the restroom and washed my face with cold water, took a couple deep breaths before heading over to see Mr. Louden. I asked if I could reschedule my mid-core assessment as I didn't realize it was today, but that it would be fine if he wanted to continue with it that day. Then was pretty much a repeat of the conversation I had with Mr. Olujide. In addition, he asked me to clarify why I missed the days I missed and detail what I had been doing each day that I had been in the hospital. He said that I couldn't afford to take any time off during the day to do reading and that I had to make sure I was doing something each AM and PM session. He said that he had asked around about me and none of the consultants had really seen me or even knew who I was. No one had really seen me working in the hospital and as far as they knew, I hadn't been there. This is exactly what I had been afraid would happen and I guess that showed on my face because then he said, "Oh you look upset, don't be upset, what's wrong," then reached out and touched my hand. I lost it again. Sheesh. I'm so weak against people being nice. lol.

I told him that this was exactly what I had been afraid would happen and that I had been stressing out about it for quite some time. I explained to him that I took that Thursday morning off to read because I had been miserable and felt like a complete idiot after the Wednesday session, though I wouldn't go into what happened. When he heard the reason for why I took that morning off to read, he said he now understood why I took that morning off to read, and it was okay. So that made me feel better that he realized what happened and it didn't really surprise him I guess. I suppose the consultant told him I was a dimwitted American who'd never amount to anything. lol. He expressed annoyance and frustration that I had missed the days for a mandatory induction. He called my student coordinator to check on it and when he confirmed my story said that it was ridiculous and unfair that we SGU students had to go through that when the Southampton students did not. He asked who he had to take this issue up with because it had seriously adversely affected my posting.

Once the story was all out, he said he understood why I had missed all those days and that it wasn't anything of my doing. However, I had a lot of making up to do and couldn't afford to miss anymore days and that going to clinics were of paramount importance because that was where the consultants would actually see me. He gave me all satisfactory checks for my assessment for which I was ever so grateful and said to let him know if there was anything or anyone that I was having difficulty with. And that was that.

After all that, I went home that evening for about 2 hours before I went back in to the labor ward for voluntary night shift. Maybe I was trying to prove that I am willing to work hard and put in the hours to make up for lost time, but I ended up spending almost 24 hours at the hospital that day since I didn't get home til about 5am the next morning.

The best thing that happened was that I got to deliver my first baby :) It was a baby girl and she came out fast! Her mother was only 5 cm dilated then just 10-15 min later she was yelling that she needed to push. After only about 3 pushes and 5 min, out came the bundle of joy. With the midwife guiding me, I got to deliver her, clamp and cut the cord, deliver the placenta and all that lovely goodness. Despite everything that happened earlier, I ended my day with a smile.

Today, February 3, 2010

I delivered my second baby today. Also a baby girl, and they even were gracious enough to name her after me :) Her middle name is Grace. Well, okay, so they had already picked out the name long before, but it's kind of a cool coincidence :) This time I was also able to give the mother an injection of Syntocinon to help her deliver the placenta.

I also went by the breast screening clinic this morning and watched a few mammograms. Sat in on an Antenatal clinic, and didn't eat all day til dinner. But I have to say that today was a good day. It was the first day since Friday that I have actually felt more at ease and not so stressed out. Maybe tomorrow will even be sunny :)

Seeing is believing

Sorry, but I've been so exhausted since Friday that I haven't had the energy or even really the will to write anything. My days currently consist of me going to the hospital in the morning, going home for lunch, back again in the afternoon, staying til the evening, coming home and making/eating dinner, drag myself to the library, go home and attempt to read, fall asleep reading, worry about not getting enough reading done, giving up on reading and collapsing in bed.

I'll try to actually have a catch up post sometime down the road, but suffice to say that I'm keeping busy.

The login I was using to access internet on my lappy at the hospital was disconnected or inactivated or something so I can no longer use my laptop for skype or other internet related things.

I've seen and done some cool stuff at the hospital, but it's pretty stressful trying to always be smiling, cheerful, and attentive and not let on that you really hope that no one asks you anything because you don't know diddly. But I do want to be asked questions because I know it helps me learn and it helps me make connections to the material I know is up there, but just hasn't been accessed in a while or not often. But I want to be asked because they want to help me learn, not because they want a means by which to judge me.

Really I feel like I'm trying so hard to make sure everyone sees me doing something productive. It's like a show I have to put on because if I just go and do the work and not pay attention to what other people are seeing or what they may be thinking, I get in trouble... not because I'm not doing anything, but because they won't notice unless I make the effort to be noticed. It's like I have to make the effort to constantly mentally shout, "Look, I'm here on the ward!" "I'm here at clinic!" "I'm here, I'm here, I'm here, and I'm working hard!" And the effort of the show is exhausting. I'm exhausted from stressing out. I just want to do the work, get the most out of this experience, and learn as much as I can. That's what it's supposed to be about... learning and growing. I shouldn't be worrying about proving myself to the consultants or anyone because my actions should speak for themselves. Unfortunately, if the actions aren't seen by the consultants themselves, they are considered nonexistent.