Insomnia

I'm tired. I know I am. I fell asleep on the sofa, wrapped in blankets while I was trying to watch episode 3 of Lost.
Decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to take some painkillers and hit the sack.
Except, my mind had other ideas.

I couldn't get comfortable, my shoulders, lower back and feet hurt, and my brain just wouldn't switch off.
Which would normally be fine - except for the last two days I've been up at 5.50AM having had little sleep. And this happened last night too. After parting company on Skype, I browsed the net till 12, then went to bed.
Where I lay staring at the inside of my eyelids until 3AM, feeling sick and trying to get comfortable.
Yay for 'under 3 hours sleep!'
Looks like it's going to be another one of those nights.
The body is very willing, but the mind, well, you know..

Animal Testing (post written at 12.15pm in a notebook)

Ok, I am aware that this post has the potential to be contraversial, but I stand by my opinions and am prepared to defend them as I see fit.

Currently I'm doing a day's home care for a wonderful lady, who is now asleep in her chair. The 12.13 news headlines have just been on, and I'm angered to hear that animal rights activists have written to all small shareholders of GlaxoSmithKline telling them to sell their shares, or risk their personal details being published on the internet.

Let me say this now: I have tested on, and dissected animals in my academic career. For my biomedical sciences BSc it involved laboratory bred rats and tissue from guinea pigs. My laboratory has a home office licence, and the animals were reared and sacrificed humanely, following approved methods.

The laboratory work I carried out was never optional - it was part of my degree and for research. Therefore, I am in no way ashamed of having tested on animals.

Individually, whether we agree with animal testing or not, certain (but not all) mammals share similar biological mechanisms and functions with humans (cats for example cannot be used for testing toxicity as they break down drugs differently), and the only way to prevent chemical injury to humans is to test on a biologically similar system.

How are drugs ever going to improve if we don't test on animals?? Just because humans are used in the testing process, doesn't mean animals (or tissue from them) haven't been used first, or even that animal testing should stop.

Many drugs do not make it through early stage animal testing due to dangerous or undesirable side effects - yet without animal testing, it would need to be trialled on humans!

Admittedly, as we have seen in recent news, not all animal testing can indicate problems in humans. Interestingly, Thalidomide also successfully passed animal testing, although having never been tested on pregnant animals.

Imagine all the products we would be without if not for animal testing?

-- Contact lens wearer?? You'd probably still be cleaning your rapidly disintegrating lenses in tap water.

-- Asthmatic?? Forget that nebuliser or inhaler.

-- Headache?? We'd still be chewing toxic willow bark

-- Diabetic?? You'd be in big trouble.

As a woman who wears cosmetics and perfumes (i'm not including personal hygiene products here), I do not agree with vivisection for the beauty industry, because, despite the opinions of some of my peers, beauty products are not essential for day-to-day life.

Do I really need to elaborate?

I am aware that Huntingdon Life Sciences (linked to GSK) is currently being targetted over claims of alleged 'animal cruelty', but the issue of animal testing still annoys me from time to time. I mean, digging up dead grandmothers is really low.........

Obviously animal rights activists don't need pharmaceuticals.

I believe Dispatches on channel 4 is discussing this next week.

Early starts

I have two of them this week. Today and tomorrow I have to be up at 5.50AM in order to be on the other side of the world* for a patient** who I am caring for.
This particular patient is very sick, and even my limited knowledge can recognise this. Is it selfish to hope that nothing bad happens while I'm there?
Anyway, I need to put some socks on and leg it out of the door.


* It might as well be. In reality its about 20 miles on public transport.
** Bugger. Service user! Must recite mantra more.

Battling the proverbial demons

Since a couple of people have asked, yes I did eventually go and see Silent Hill.
Much to the amusement of my companion, I hid behind my hands for quite a bit of the film. I was watching, honest, just from behind my fingertips (it seems less scary that way!).

Horror films are weird for me. I'm fine with slasher movies where a person kills other people, but introduce ghosts, aliens and demons, and we have me taking a keen interest in the floor!

Silent Hill had the potential to give me bad nightmares, kind of like 28 Days Later did. Happily, the film was good, I was forced to actually watch it, and I didn't have nightmares. Reccommended to all, unless you don't like gore. It's a bit nasty at the end.........

Feeling Old

*warning: self centred whinging session below*

I can't help that I'm 22 and feeling old. I know I'm not, and shouldn't, but I do. (If that makes sense.)

The past few weeks have been painful. Since the end of March I've been nursing pretty much constant back pain. In contrast, the rest of my joints, which used to hurt more, have been sorted by taking diclofenac, but not my back or my neck it appears.

I've been feeling pretty shit to tell the truth, as online friends will vouch for. I've cried more than I ever have before, my sleep's been disturbed, and I'm feeling distinctly rough. It hurts when I breathe and moves up and down my back like a yo-yo. Add to this the permanent smell of Deep Heat that follows me around, and I feel anything but 22.

The problem is, I can't pin point anything that causes it to hurt. It isn't aggravated by manual handling or exercise (in fact it usually feels better for an hour after the gym), and carrying things don't bother it. Sitting, standing and lying down all hurt, and the most company I've had in the bedroom department comes from a scooby doo hot water bottle. If it weren't for the fact that I need to vacuum, I would have seriously slept on the floor last night.

I mean, I have tablets for it. Wonderful tablets that, while they don't stop it during the day, they do knock me out sufficiently to ensure a good night's sleep. There's one slight problem though... It's not just a good night's sleep; it's usually until 2pm the next day as well. 14 hours sleep a night is a little bit excessive, but it's what my body craves if I take the 25 mg amitriptyline each night. I wasn't getting any work done while I was taking it, so I stopped. This was also the tablet responsible for me sleeping through all my morning lectures at university - to the amusement of my peers and the annoyance of lecturing staff.

Unfortunately, the general concensus of the GP is that I should be taking at least double (50mg) per night. I dread to think what I'd be like if that happened. Rip Van Winkle springs to mind.

I feel a little depressed when I think about my doctor's appointment looming this week. I know what will happen before I go. I'll cry. Snot and tears will flow freely and again, I'll be fobbed off. No doctor has ever examined my back or my neck. They presume it's the same thing that's wrong with my knees, hips and ankles. A fair enough conclusion, I thought. Except that the treatment that works for one doesn't even touch the other.

Is it wrong to want a diagnosis?

My logic is telling me: 'if you know what's wrong with you, you can start finding things out for yourself'

But I seem to have baffled people. I have the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis (including the family history), but without the blood results to confirm it.

I can't help but wonder how I'm going to cope at medical school* if this carries on...

This post was brought to you with the help of a shit night's sleep, back pain, and the assistance of Wikipedia.

*and yes, that did look vaguely like a decision didn't it?? Let's just say it's in the lap of the gods.

May the fourth be with you

I don't know about everywhere else in the UK, but the weather here has been barmy all day. Thankfully I had a valid excuse to leave my flat and get out into uni and into town - walking all the way.
The only thing I really like about sunny, warm weather is the excuse to a) wear sunglasses and b) look good in them. So I did. I shouldn't have bothered taking a coat out with me, because I ended up carrying it all the way there and back.
I'd even had enough forethought to take my camera with me, and managed to get some beautiful shots of the trees in blossomm and some lovely old buildings in the sunlight.
Unfortunately, it has been rather windy here today. But not in an unpleasant way. Without the wind it would have been truly unbearably warm, but the wind just complicated things slightly. I'd washed my hair before leaving the house, but hadn't dried it properly. The wind took hold of it and made it into an untangleable mass of waves and tousles that I'm not brave enough to comb. Still, it has volume for a change!
I've had yet another dozey moment today. I decided to pop somewhere via the local trains, and managed to get on the wrong train for the wrong destination, and only realise this when the first stop wasn't mine. It was in completely the wrong direction. Ooops! I did feel a bit of a tit getting on the first train in the opposite direction, but I think the sunglasses helped pull it off....


(The title?... if you don't get it, I'm not explaining)

A momentous occasion

The time now is 01:02:03 on 04/05/06
A momentous day (but since blogger doesn't show seconds you'll just have to trust me)

A healthy start to the day

Whoever said that breakfast was the best start to the day?
Personally three arguments while laying in bed is much more fun. Because I simply love being woken up by the telephone to start with, never mind having to wake up fast enough to defend myself.
Apparently I'm not devoting myself enough to my dissertation. From people who don't live here, and who have no idea what I'm doing.
Right.........

It's a love / hate relationship

Love:
- Customers in the bar who say 'thank you' when I glass collect from their table.
- The satisfied feeling of having been to the gym and getting a shower afterwards.
- Cheap public transport. How else could I get from university to the other side of town for 60p return?!
- My colleagues in the bar. We support each other and can have a laugh while working hard. How I'm going to miss them when I leave.
- Being a volunteer with the elderly. It's a really nice feeling to do something worthwhile and not get paid.

Hate:
- Customers in the bar who pick fights with the staff. You won't win, I promise.
- The tall, toned, tanned beautiful women who strut naked around the changing rooms. Put some clothes on for goodness sake.

- Smelly people next to me on the bus. I can only hold my breath for so long...........

- Some of the customers in the bar. Don't tell me how to do my job, I've been a barmaid, in this bar for longer than you've been legally able to buy alcohol.

- Being skint. It sucks not having a student loan.

How to get into medical school

I think it's fair to say this is going to be a rant. Don't say I didn't warn you.

It's fair to say I didn't find this article myself, but the opinions are mine alone (although they reflect the opinions of others in my situation).

Please read the article linked in the title. It regards a mother's efforts to get her twin daughters into medical school.

I'm angry. I'm very angry. Admittedly, I may have been prodded a little in the direction of medical school, but my parents supported my personal wishes. I did work experience because I wanted to, and my enthusiasm after shadowing for 2 days shone to my parents. I attended the MedLink and MedSim conferences because I begged to go. Again, I couldn't be silenced afterwards.

This mother trivialises the admissions process of applying to medical school by making it all about money. Apologies if this sounds offensive, but I wonder just how much her little darlings have to offer to medical school when they eventually get there. The words 'pre-programmed' springs to mind. It sounds, from the article, that the ladies in question have been groomed to answer the questions as the admissions tutor requires, without thought to their own opinions, and it annoys me.

My recent university interviews have been painful to say the least. I got into debates so large that a JCB wouldn't have been able to help me dig my way out, yet I got a place. My opinions may have been wrong, but they were just that, opinions. My personal thoughts that I could support if challenged.

Yet I have always gained offers on all three attempts to gain entry to medical school. Even when my predicted grades were down and I shouldn't have even been interviewed, I was, and I got a place.

Maybe I've never applied to the really elitist medical schools, and my integrity and determination has shone through. I guess I'll never know.

All I can say is that I hope I never end up at medical school with these girls, least of all meet their mother. I don't think I could contain my anger.