A long time coming!

Alex the Gray Parrot, my animal hero of the day!

So turns out keeping a blog in Medical school is a bit impossible! Towards the end of last semester I was so swamped with studying/labs/etc. I barely had time to eat and breathe.
After a short hiatus from my studies I return to the island in March to study, retake my final and return to the States for a short break in April. If all goes well I will be back in May to start 2nd semester. My friends who are midway through 2nd semester now are hating it...they are still guinea pigs for the new curriculum and the profs have even protested against the 8 hour lecture days. Sounds brutal. Looks like the curriculum set-up will have changed when I start 2nd semester. The school is also transitioning to computer-based testing, blech. Not looking forward to this...gives me nightmares about the MCAT all over again.
Being back in Texas in the Winter has proven that I can no longer tolerate temperatures below 50 degrees. After spending summers here, Brownsville, and living in the Caribbean I have adapted to the homeostatic body temp of an exotic mammal. All immunity to the cold that I built up as a kid in the North East is diminished. *Sigh*
Today I had a visit to an Orthopedic surgeon who diagnosed my left knee problems. I had suspected a diagnosis of a lateral meniscal tear and was delighted to hear that the physician had the same suspicion. Only I could be delighted by this. I know that I will have a serious recovery period if it's true...only the MRI can tell...
If it is a meniscal (cartilage) tear, I will have a short surgical procedure, physical therapy and be on crutches for a week. Fun times. Guess this is what I get for playing soccer/sports my whole life and being a woman-->see: genu valgum. Hooray for "birthing hips". Also the doc confirmed my ridiculously, over-flexible ligaments, which also attributes to my knee issue...now I know why I sound like a human popcorn maker when I run up the stairs :D
The experience I had with this Ortho doc was amazing, it made my day in fact. I love love love talking medicine with specialists and learning from them. It gives me a chance to apply what I have learned in anatomy, in this case, and reaffirms my desire to be a physician. Unlike the average med student who has "wanted to be a doctor since childhood" *rolls eyes*, I have only started to realize my passionate interest in this field since starting medical school.
I'm looking forward to returning to the island to study with my friends and do well on the final..I have already reviewed 1/4 of the material from last semester and plan to finish with time to review for the final on April 18th. Wish me luck!

Sick...again

Spartacus: Blood and Sand...my main diversion from studying

So to prove the old belief that stress-->lowers immunity-->leads to illness...I am sick once again. Except my battle is not with a virus or bacterial infection it is once again with my self..ie. Allergies. I am now on a heavy dose of prednisone for the next 10 days, starting with 6 pills a day for the next 4 days and then tapering down the dosages. As a result I not only feel fatigued, have a headache I also have arthritic pain in my knee joints. I am officially an 80 year old woman. God, I hate medical school sometimes. It is nice to be able to go to bed at 10 pm every night though, I haven't had this sleep schedule since I was like 9 years old.
In other news, if I do make it through the next 2 weeks of hell I will have survived my first semester of medical school in the 3rd world! Yippee!
If not, well that thought haunts the back of my mind every day. In fact I have heart palpitations just thinking about the consequences. Scary!
My goal is and will be for the next 12 months to pass and earn my freedom back to the U.S.! It's a crazy goal to have, but it's the price you pay for going to school in the middle of the Caribbean Ocean.
My goal for this weekend is to catch up on the massive amounts of lecture materials that I couldn't get during my bout of illness/allergic attack. So far I have a lot of physio to do...bleh. And even more anatomy..double bleh.
These are two of my favorite subjects but the profs who taught them for the past few weeks were awful. Especially the anatomy prof. I'm convinced they hire the worst profs for this subject..which is lame considering this is the first time most of us have studied gross anatomy.
We had our last dissection on Monday of the semester! Hooray! But I have a mocktical (mock anatomy practical) tomorrow, yes, on a Saturday at 11am to prepare me for the real thing on Tuesday.
The anat practical is supposed to be cumulative (everything from shoulders to toes, literally) but luckily that's not feasible as it would take 2 days to get through with our class size.
So instead we "only" have to know everything from the waist down + heart +pleura + lungs (so all thorax). Fun times. I did get to perform the internal heart dissection which was wicked cool! Hearts are amazing and squishy too! Love it. Lungs a pretty gross though, especially because our cadaver was a smoker in life and his lungs are very large and very black. Blech.

Wish me luck on the end of this part of my journey! Hopefully I will be healthy before my exams come around! Ta ta for now!

More later...

P.