Day 43

Over a month has passed. I need to quickly write this blog so that all of you know what I am up to! I know I left you more than a week ago, before my second block exams. So I will sum up what has happened since: I learned as much as I could about the arms and the legs, I wrote the exam, and I did OK, again. I think my biggest problem in that time was allowing the stress to get the best of me, and not sleeping enough. I am trying my best not to do that this time around.

I am still plagued with stress and guilt as I reluctantly, in some ways, go to sleep at 2am. My usually 3am bedtime beckons as I try to get ahead as far as I can in the next day’s lecture. I must be crazy. But I am sure I am not the only one. I have now had a couple of run-ins with the infamous student here who scores 100% on anatomy exams. He is quiet, respectful, and never looks overly tired. He sits in the back of the class on the side. Sometimes I look to see what he is doing, but I can never quite see. Not that he is an animal in the zoo, but we all want to know just how he does it!

My mandate these days though is to do as well as I can, focus on studying learning, knowing the human body. That is my responsibility as a doctor, to know my stuff. It scares me when I have run-ins with the upperclassmen though. For instance, today, in the study room, running into a 5th semester student who is one of 35 students remaining from a class of 85. I just want to make it out of this place alive, healthy, smart and strong to take on my clinical duties. I am going to be one of those students! I have the drive! I can do it! Sometimes you need to chant it to keep you going too....
We are learning the abdomen these days, lots of relations, “The ascending colon is lateral to the coils of the small intestine, and it is superior to the ilihypogastric and ilioinguinal nerves, as well as the right ureter and quadratus lumborum muscle.” Obviously I remember this stuff. I know it is important, and I revel in the power of my mind, picturing a curved pancreas or the coils of the jejunum, the naughtly appendix which has a multitude of positions. The power of the “ectomy” in the abdomen is strong, every clinical application for an organ tends to be some sort of removal, spelenectomy, colonectomy, etc. What else is difficult? Well just about everything. We just keep on plugging away, knowledge is power and I am gaining more of it.

I have started another method, yet again, for this block, involving note-taking and reading of both lecture material and the text book. We will see how this works out too, plus, I have a friend to study with too, and he has agreed to review with me frequently so we keep each other up to date and on our toes.

Still looking for a place to live here too for next semester, I am hoping to get one over the weekend.
Interesting things:
1. I am constantly running out of food. I can’t understand if I just eat too much, I don’t buy enough – or I buy the wrong things. I had a ridiculous snack this evening that I cannot even divulge because there was just not enough available. I think the only person I could tell is my sister! Haha.
2. There is a fly that lives in my room. I am so mad. I keep on thinking I get rid of it every day and I don’t.
3. The abdomen is pretty cool. At first it seemed like such a jumble, so much fat and mesentery. Much of the inner abdominal cavity is covered by a layer of mesentery (fat), called the greater omentum. Omentum means apron in latin. Beyond this fat layer, lays the stomach, liver, small intestines, large intestines, and on and on. I think the coolest thing today was holding a spleen. It was small and grey and seemingly insignificant, yet so important. I did some dissecting today as we reached the posterior abdominal wall, dissecting out the abdominal aorta! Cool!
4. I think if I had learned latin my life would be so much easier:
a. Cecum = blind sac
b. Pylorus = gate-keeper
c. Epiploic = to float upon
I am loving this Latin. It makes everything make perfect sense. Why is the lower sphincter on the stomach called the pyloric sphincter? Well because it is the gate-keeper of the foot in the stomach, allowing only a certain amount into the small intestine at one time.
The cecum is the blind sac in the intestine. There are also a set of “gastroepiploic” vessels, which I now know mean, “floating on the stomach”! Fantastico.
I am dead tired. I want to write more and I will try on the weekend after I attempt to find lodging in Windwardside.
I witnessed a crazy lightning storm on my balcony this evening. It was quite a sight!
I miss you all at home.

xoxo