immunity

I think exhaustion must be like developing an immunity to a disease. It takes time, and you feel worse before you feel better.

My immune response doesn't seem to have a long term memory, I fear. I am truly shattered, and wondering how in the hell I coped with this last year, and wasn't dead.

It could be that this time last year I wasn't taking amytriptyline and co-codomol before bed. It seems to have a nice effect of a full night's sleep (unless noise prevails) with the side effect of being monged until around noon the next day. Hence probably while I feel so god-damned shattered.

It could also be that this year's first years are particularly noisy - I haven't really decided yet to be honest. They decided to roll the kitchen bin around the corridor last night, simply because one chick wanted to try barrel running (you know where you run backwards while standing on a cylinder to get it to roll forward). I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when she hit the wall at the end of the long corridor.

It could just be, that at 21 I feel like an old woman, and not just because of my dodgy joints. I feel really old compared to the freshers - and I damn well look it too.

It could just be that I'm a moaning myrtle.

M

freshers

they're here, and I hate them already

ick

From looking at my timetable, apparently today I am doing something interesting with sputum (that's phlegm to the uninitiated).

Sounds like fun


M

relaxing weekend pt 2

Having seen what my new students look like, i am going away for the weekend. Normal service will resume when I return from Wales.

Strangely, having welsh family (hence the name), and being part welsh, I have never been. I feel it is time for a change.

Merys

Entrance of freshers to halls T minus 4 days

and now for something completely different

Today, instead of examining blood, we examined faeces. I suppose a change is as good as a rest...

M

Funny onions

I've had a pre-student weekend away, back to reality today. It's really odd when I go home for a weekend. My body seems to forget where it is, and if I wake up in the night I jump quite a lot. It's also the time when I sleepwalk the most....

Back to reality with a bang. I've got to give a 5 minute talk this week to my peers and staff. I am allowed no OHP or PowerPoint, and the subject is myself. Needless to say I am not going to mention this blog. Giving talks to random strangers doesn't particularly bother me, giving talks to people I know ...... a whole different ball-game. At least I'm not as bad as Leela, my best friend; she shakes, goes green and has, at one memorable moment, run out of the room and threw up over a balcony. I laughed, but I did feel sorry for her, poor lamb.

I also have a 1500 word essay to write, as well as preparation for a lab-exam (more microscope work).

Being at home is fun, but everytime I come back to reality, I do so with a bang. At least my dog has the ability to humanise things. As soon as I got home on Friday night, he leapt at me until I got on the floor with him, to which he bit my ear and licked my glasses.

It's good to be appreciated

M

Square eyes

Yet another day of the joyous microscope.
It got to the point today where I couldn't tell if I could see red blood cells, or if the light was making my eyes get spotty. It turned out to be the latter.

It's gotten really windy here, and with all the doors banging outside my flat, I'm beginning to get a bit spooked.

Might just drag the TV into my bedroom tonight and distract myself prior to sleep. Mind you, if I want a really fast slumber, I could always read my notes.

It may be time for me to call it a night soon, all I've done today is learn to turn on a computer and open a file (I humoured them, for my own sanity). Thankfully tomorrow I have the morning off, so I can sleep in for a change.

Birthday soon

Hurrah

Cross Eyed

I have spent almost all day looking at blood smears down a binocular microscope.

I swear my eyes are squinty

M

an uncomfortable silence

It's been a very long day.

I had one of those hospital appointments today. You know the type - the one where anyone you make eye contact with does one of two things:
a) averts their eyes rapidly, or
b) looks at you with complete sympathy.

You know, putting a camera up there, it just ain't right, or fun, or pleasant... unless you're the doctor doing it. I bet that's fun.


M

A Series of Unfortunate Events - Part 2

I feel it is time to continue where I left off.
So, if you are sitting comfortably, then I shall begin;

I promised that I would reflect upon my work experience this summer, and perhaps explain a little bit about it.
Since I have, yet again, been unsuccessful in getting into med school, I felt it would perhaps be prudent to explore alternatives that would keep be happy, and occupied.

I blame Tom Reynolds for this.

Before I realised that I wanted to be a doctor, I wanted to be a paramedic. To this day I am not sure why. I think it might have been the flashing lights, fast driving and over dramatization by television. Nevertheless, that was what I wanted to do. Around the age of 12 or 13, I have no idea what changed my mind, but it was medicine all the way from then on. It may have been that we had family friends who were doctors and therefore who influenced my young mind. I really do have no idea...

Anyhow, as I previously mentioned, the NHS job had the advantage of making me eligible to shadow two paramedics across two 12 hour shifts, from 7am to 7pm. The experience was honestly astonishing, and I really surprised myself. I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. I guess that when you build something up you expect it to fail.

There wasn't as much to occupy me as I presumed there would be. In fact, across the period of 24 hours there were only 4 jobs, and 3 were all on the same day. The days were long, very tiring and yet I loved every minute of it. Never have I read and watched television so much in two days. Yet, when a call came in I found myself smiling, much to everyone else's amusement. They promised that it would wear off.....

It was this experience that means I will be applying for a paramedic science degree as a back up for medicine. I think that whichever path I choose, beit medicine or the ambulance service, the only difference is the money. At least the ambulance service will keep my Lara Croft instincts (read: thrill seeker) honed.

I'm sure Tom Reynolds will disagree with me here.... Feel free to comment..

M