Freedom at last

So after a whole week in hospital, one new drug and I'm out with a supply of it. Sadly I have to go back in 6 weeks time to have a camera inserted down my throat (which I am really not looking forward to) but if the short term problem is solved then I can cope.

I've had my eyes opened by the whole hospital system. It's very different being a patient when you work in a hospital, and you realise just how much patients are kept out of the loop. I've come to realise that, as predicted, some consultants are wonderful, and some are wonderful tutors and have a less humane bedside manner. Equally, the junior doctors are the ones who actually seem to know what's going on. This is just based on my own personal observations. Remember, whatever you write in the notes can be read by patients;  I requested to see my notes for my admission while I was in. I did laugh when I read:

"O/E Knitting"

Hence the knitting for distraction from pain! It's very easy to be two-faced to a patient and write something different in the notes, but it's not massively difficult to request to see them as the patient.

The nursing staff were superb, and I was very lucky to have been placed on the private ward because I was staff. A favour that saved me many more sleepless hours than I would have had on a bay.

All in all, it's been a very low week physically. I've slept very little and been poked and prodded by every variety of doctor and nurse. I think any shred of dignity was gone when one of the staff nurses I work with a lot did a 12 lead ECG on me and I ended up laying bare chested in front of her.

I hope the tablets work, I have a month to find out, and if not, then who knows. Fingers crossed...

Knitting for distraction part 2

Knitting for distraction 2
Originally uploaded by merysjones

Of course now I'm really bored. I'm still in hospital, but now I've finished my socks.

The very definition of boredom.

Knitting for distraction

Knitting for distraction
Originally uploaded by merysjones

Well, as you can gather from my previous post, I'd not been well. By the time I had blogged that one I had spent the night on the Medical Assessment Unit and been discharged with painkillers and no diagnosis.

I did genuinely *try* to do a night shift on Thursday night, but it ended with increasing amounts of pain and me having to go home. I spent the rest of the night awake on the sofa taking painkillers and struggling to get comfortable. Friday morning I went to see a GP who readmitted me. That's kind of where the story lies at the moment.

I've been in since Friday and spent most of that time knitting for distraction - hence the picture. Sadly, in about an hour I will have finished a pair of socks and have very little to distract myself. Guess that just leaves expensive trashy telly then!

Back to work

I've been away for just over a week, doing something that I do every year. Yet this year was different; no resits, no coursework to resubmit. No stress! Or rather there wouldn't have been if I hadn't gotten ill. Still not quite sure what's going on, but if you've been following my Twitter feed you may have a fair idea of what's been going on. Equally, if I've asked you for your medical advice (and probably ignored it) then thanks for your help.
Tonight I'm back to work for my first shift back and I thought I'd leave you with this photograph.  I've discovered that arterial blood gases hurt. Hurt a lot. And in future I will not dig around in my patients' wrists when I'm struggling (thanks for that random doctor in the North West!)

And yes, as you will notice from the above photograph, I do have amazing veins...

Designer changes

I'm bored. And because I've got nothing better to do, I'm going to update the blog layout. This means goodbye pink flowers, and hello, well, possibly more pink flowers.

I shall see where the mood takes me.

Watch this space - literally.

help with spam

Ok kids,

You guys are all in the know. How do I stop random spam messages, in Chinese from landing on my comments. I don't want to make comments moderated and even so, they still have Blogger accounts anyway!

Any ideas?

Scary times

I just had cause to put something in my diary for one year's time. Outlook informed me that this was the first Wednesday in August - in 2011.

With any luck (and a lot of hard work) I should have more important things to worry about at that time, since it might well be my first day at work as a doctor.

Now that is a scary thought.

And so it's back to the real world

It's all over! Eight amazing weeks of elective is done and I'm back to working nights at my hospital as a HCA.
I'm sure last night I irritated the hell out of the staff nurses I was working with, as I was struggling to switch back into HCA role and was concerned about a patient.

It's made me realise more than ever that I made the right career move. While I'm sure I would have been happy training to be a paramedic in the short term, I think I would have still eventually made a transition to medicine at some point.

So basically, I need to work my arse off for the next 10 months until the end, and hopefully everything will come to fruition!

The final throes

And so the last week of my elective is upon me. It's incredibly hard to believe that I've done a whole 7 weeks so far and only have 4 days left to go.

I might not have travelled the world, but I've had one of the most immense times of my life.

I loved staying in London, and am eternally grateful to the BMJ for putting up with me for 4 weeks, but I feel more attuned to Liverpool. So much so that I would quite happily consider packing up and moving up here after my foundation years. Maybe it's just the Northerner in me, or maybe I would be happy working in London doing emergency medicine - who knows yet?

I've learnt so much! From the BMJ viewpoint, and although I haven't really shown it here since, I feel that my writing style has matured a great deal. I've become much more interested in health education and health media and am more interesting in keeping abreast of public affairs with regards to medicine.

And practical skills wise - I CAN SUTURE! HURRAH! I've gotten much better at cannulation, even though the equipment is different to what I've been taught on, and I've actually done some catheters as well.

The staff in the hospital have been truly superb and I'm very thankful to them all.

Plodding through the puke

The Liverpool phase of my elective is so far going swimmingly. A&E seems to appeal to my incredibly short attention span and love of things always being different. I've only gotten bored when there've been no patients - and that's quite a rare occurrence.

I worked nights last week and this week I have twilights. The variability is suiting me as I can happily sleep through the daytime, and the mood of the department and its clientele changes with the setting sun.

And while I've been to Liverpool before, I have only visited, never lived. The city has changed a lot since then, but it's very vibrant and multicultural. It also seems to appeal to my love of having everything easily accessible. It even has an underground, although I haven't used it so far.

All is good, in case you haven't guessed.