Block 7 Week 9: If it makes you happy...

I guess it's no secret that I've been in the dumps in a serious way for the last few weeks. I don't want to do anything that remotely looks like studying or learning. I just want to curl up in bed and watch Grimm episodes and eat carbs. Some of this has to do with impending board exams, and the rest is probably separation anxiety because the HB has been out of town SO VERY MUCH lately. He's going to freaking HAWAII the week before block break WITHOUT ME. Yes, salty, that's me. 

So today I thought I'd write a post about things that make me happy, because there are quite a few things on that list.
First, when I'm all bummed and my friends come over and play cards and make me laugh. Last night, Mikey and Ezra and Dottie came over and we ate twizzlers and starburst and oreos and ice cream and played cards until LATE. We laughed and goofed off, and it was AWESOME. Sometimes your study buddies turn into family, and that's pretty nifty.

Next, CHEESE! You guys, I love cheese so very much. It's good all by itself, or on a cracker, or melted and smothering a tortilla chip. Cheese is a friend that has NEVER disappointed. I feel like food is going to star in a major way on this list.

Fat babies. OMG guys. My grandsons are so adorable, and the little one is all chubby and squishy and he loves cuddling. The older one is easily placated with cheese (just like his Bubbie), and he says the most hilarious things. I wish I had been able to relax and have fun with my littles like I do with my grandies. But I was too worried about being the perfect mother and I had no chill.

HIKING! I have never been an outside person. Mainly because I was fat and out of shape. I'm still kinda fat and out of shape, but not as much as before. I discovered that I REALLY don't like going to the gym and working out on a machine with a bunch of other hamster people. I like to be outside. We have this awesome park that has lots of great hiking trails (and biking apparently; I discovered this when I was almost mowed down by a couple of eager bikers), and I would go there EVERY DAY if weather allowed. However, our weather has been iffy here lately, so I haven't been as often as I'd like.  But this is definitely on my list of happy things.

PEEPS (See I TOLD you there's lots of food)! Easter is my favorite time of year, mostly because of peeps. I like to open the package and put it up out of sight of my kids until they get stale and then eat them. Yeah, I know, pretty sick, right? They are so yummy! It seems like everyone has deep opinions about Peeps. I'm definitely in the LOVE department.

OH LORD WOULD YOU LOOK!

My HB. I have a major league crush on that dude. I've loved him since I was 11 years old, and I ain't stopping now. Or ever. He is stuck with me FOR LIFE. Poor guy. He doesn't seem to mind though; I guess I'm pretty charming or something. Or maybe he's hanging on until I'm a doctor so he can be my Trophy Husband. We're both OK with that.

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SO we had our standardized patient last Tuesday, and that was INTERESTING. You'd think by now I wouldn't get all in a dither about this since I've done it every block since the first one. But I get so dang nervous! Another dumb thing I did was get a gel manicure on the Friday before. So I have these fake nails that I'm not used to, and I'm expected to type my notes on the encounter in nine minutes when I can't even spell my name with these durn things on!

I went back today to review my note, and it's a mess! Typos galore! I think a toddler might have done a better job. I seriously hope that I pass. Yes, it's that bad. But I feel like my patient experience went well. I hope the grader agrees.

Well, I guess that's it for this week. Two more weeks in block 7!!! 

Block 7 Week 8: I just want to wrap up in a blanket on my couch and play video games

So there's this motivational speaker guy that I follow on Facebook. He's really awesome. He was born without any arms or legs, and he travels around and speaks and writes books and is generally a great dude. I see his posts and they are all like, don't let your problems slow you down, turn them into stepping stones or some kinda flowery language like that. Most of the time, I'm all like, yeah dude, let's get it! But not today. Today, I want to go home and get under the covers and pretend like I don't have SP tomorrow.

I know I write this blog and I'm always like, hey, I'm so blessed to be here, and things get hard, but you just have to work hard and you'll get there. And most of the time I feel like that. But today. UGH. Blame it on Daylight Saving Time (if I ever get a straight answer on who thought it was a good idea to start a Monday an hour in the hole, Imma dig him up and kick him right in the butt), or Monday, or the fact that we are starting week 9, or any number of bummer things that are going on. It's just that this is a hard place to be. I don't want to study or practice for my standardized patient for tomorrow.

The thing that a lot of medical students will tell you about this undertaking is that you have to pass on a lot of fun things that the rest of the world gets to do while you are becoming a doctor. And most of the time you can tell yourself that it will all be worth it when you are living the dream. But I read an article this morning that pretty much just dumped a truckload of sand on that idea. This is the article: Sleep Deprived Docs Disclose Hospital Horrors. To sum up, the ACGME (that's who is in charge of medical education in residency after graduation from medical school) approved a return to 28-hour shifts for doctors in residency. The article discusses some anecdotes of doctors' experiences after a long call period. It is scary and horrifying.

See, as a medical student, there are some things about our education that are kind of a drag. Like sometimes an instructor of a particular class might not be presenting the most up-to-date clinically-oriented information, and we get frustrated. Or maybe I did bad on an exam, and it makes me feel like I'm not working hard enough. The rigors of the first two years sometimes wear you down and you just feel in the dumps. But you tell yourself, hey, we are so close to clinicals, and getting closer to graduation, then residency, and then being a "real doctor!" However, it's really hard to look forward to the next step when it looks like what these interns are experiencing in that article.

It doesn't make sense to me that anyone thinks it is a good idea to have a sleep-deprived intern practicing medicine. If truck drivers don't get enough sleep, they cause 60-car pileups on the freeway.  If a physician doesn't get enough sleep, the attending smacks him on the butt and sends him into the ER to work up the next patient. What does a 60-car pileup look like in an ER? Or in the NICU? I don't think I want to know. I certainly don't want to be the intern responsible for a bad patient outcome simply because I fell asleep while I was supposed to be working up a head injury.

I'm really sorry for the bummer blog post today. I have to remind myself that this path I'm on is a calling for me, and I'm not promised that it will be fun and rosy when it's all done. All I know is this is what I'm supposed to be doing. It would be a lot easier if I was sure that spending all this time becoming led to something better than what the doctors in that article have experienced. It would make it a lot easier to give up being with my family and blanket-wrapped video game times. And not all days are like this for sure. It's just today kinda sucks.

Block 7 Week 7: My Motivational Playlist

I started getting the idea for this blog post this week, and I wanted to make sure before I dive in that everyone who reads this doesn't misunderstand me. While I might whinge and moan about how difficult medical school is, I do not want anyone to think that I am ungrateful for this opportunity. I talk to a lot of people who are smart and qualified who have not been accepted into medical school. These are people who probably look a lot better than I do on paper and in interviews. So I do not want to give the impression that I am not content with where I am. The other side of that coin is that I want to be real. A lot of people live their lives thinking that at some point in the future, they will find "happy." If I weigh a certain amount, if I get into this school, if I drive this car, and if I can wing my eyeliner just right, I will exist in this place called happy. I won't lie, there is a special satisfaction that comes with getting that eyeliner winged perfectly.

But at the end of the night after wowing the public, ya gotta wash that stuff off, right? Otherwise you wake up in the morning looking like an SVU victim found in an alley.

So that kind of happiness is temporary -- but that's another blog post for another time. Having said all that, let's go.

Some days I can't find the motivation to get in the car and do the same thing all over again. When school first started, this was not a problem. I'd get up at 6am, take a shower, get dressed in my snazzy new business casual attire, and hit the road like:

Fast forward to block 7, and it's more like:

ESPECIALLY on test days. I have spent the better part of two years (which isn't really a long time, is it?) getting up, getting dressed, and going to class. We sit in the same chair next to the same people and listen to other people talk about (and show gross pictures) of disease processes and sometimes even some normal stuff. A few days a week, we come in and take exams. It gets monotonous. Becoming a doctor pretty much sucks up all the hours in a day, and that stretches into weeks, and months, and years. I think I understand why a lot of doctors get salty about their patients consulting Dr. Google after spending so much time learning the ins and outs of the human body so that we can treat them properly. 

So what do you do to keep your head on? Well, it takes some extra work and time (which are things that aren't plentiful), but it can be done. One of the things that helps me is music. I LOVE music, and I have some pretty varied tastes in that area. I have a Spotify subscription, so I like to make playlists. I have a playlist for just about everything. I organize them according to artist sometimes, and then I have some that are specific to situations. Then I have my starred playlist, which is huge and always growing. It's just songs that I've come across that I like. Most of the time I just set that one to shuffle, and I'm good. HB teases me that I don't have any music from this decade on that playlist, and he's pretty close to right. So then I have this one playlist, and it changes a lot because I find new stuff to stick in there and I get tired of some of the older ones. It's called I Don't Want To. I think it was originally called Monday, but the new descriptor is more fitting, because it doesn't just happen on Mondays. I think every song that gets to be on this playlist so far has been an upbeat tempo that just gets you moving, but also has lyrics that motivate me. "Don't Bring That Trouble" by Needtobreathe has been on there for a while, and I don't see it getting retired any time soon. "Unstoppable" by Sia is a new addition. I don't want to put down a complete list here of songs, because I think it's a good idea to find your theme songs to populate your Motivational Playlist. 

So sometimes when you're feeling rather like this:

Don't do this:

Make a playlist, and walk into class like this:

No, it won't change the monotony of medical school or make you a better student, but it might just help you get through another day of I Don't Want To. And eventually you will cross those off your list and get to better days.

Block 7 Week 6: Strange things are afoot at the Circle K

Not really, I just love that quote from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. I have to say that second to The Princess Bride, Bill and Ted is one of the most quotable movies of my teen years, maybe ever. I am an unabashed aficionado of dumb movies, and Bill and Ted is one of my favorites. I think I learned more history from this movie than during all of my high school years. Shhhhh... I know. 

I guess you could say that strange things ARE afoot, though. Now that we are nearing the end of our two years of desk travail, I am feeling a little overwhelmed. I'm trying to fit in board studying, regular studying, life, exercise, family, church, and all of the usual things we have to juggle. I've had some difficulty with the board study, though. Honestly at 8pm I'm falling in the bed like it's midnight. Yes, I'm taking my vitamins. I just feel like there aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done, and even if there were, the last four or so just aren't good for studying. My brain hurts!

So what's new in week 6? Not much, just more of the usual. We had a huge push of Clinical Medicine Psychology this week, and I am reeling with all of the possible mood disorders and psychotic diagnoses that are out there. We had our exam this morning, and I think I did OK. I know there are several students in my class that have been excited for getting to this subject finally, and I'm glad they are having a good time. I think I hit my peak in OB/GYN. 

I'm starting to get really excited about moving back home for clinicals. I love my house and my neighborhood and the idea of getting my chickens back! I will miss the proximity to town, however. It's nice to be able to hop in my car and get to Kroger in five minutes or less. My kids have really gotten used to being close to town, and they can get to their various sports practices quite easily where we are. So there's definitely pros and cons regarding the move, but I really think the pros (CHICKENS!!!) very much outweigh the cons (NO CHICKENS!!). Yes, I based my entire decision on the ability to keep chickens.

But seriously, we all have our coping mechanisms. My son (first year med student) bakes. How he bakes! Breads, cookies, you name it! I can always tell when school is getting heavy, because the house fills with yummy carb scents. I'm not doing as well with coping, because I tend to drown myself in online shopping. (Have ya seen my leggings collection? OMG!) But one of the things that really keeps me from floating away into panicky feelings is chickens. Before medical school, I had 15 fluffy feathery friends that ran free in my back yard. They were quirky and sassy, and just sitting in the backyard watching them seemed to drain all stress right out of me. Also, EGGS! The fresh eggs were definitely a plus. I'm currently replacing my chicken angst with a lizard. He's pretty much just a naked chicken. Here's a shot of Muerte:

But he doesn't lay eggs. I'd rather he didn't, actually. But it's really fun to let him run around the house, and watch him eat superworms. He gets excited about worms and crickets, y'all. REALLY excited! So he's my indoor pseudo-chicken. If I could put a vest on him and call him my service animal, I would take him to school every day. 

Speaking of service animals, we have a service dog that visits our school on mornings that we have exams. His name is Hodges, and he's a sweetie. He pretty much just wants to play tug-of-war with his toy, but I love seeing him on test days. One of the students in our class is conducting a study about interacting with Hodges and possible reductions in stress before exams. I'm not sure if I feel any differently about my exam after visiting with Hodges. But it's nice to play tug-of-war with him anyway. 

I guess that's all for this week. Stay tuned next week for post-mortem after our OMM final and practical.

Block 7 Weeks 4-5: Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads...

So the big news dropped on Friday; our assignments for third and fourth year, that is. I was very pleased to get my first choice, and I'm even more excited that we get to move back HOME! While I have loved my time here, and I love the house we currently live in, I am so excited to get back to MY house. I miss my yard, and my neighborhood, and CHICKENS!

Pretty much the biggest news going on right now outside of clinical rotation assignments is BOARD EXAMS. Yeah, we have to pass the big Step 1 before we are allowed to do our rotations. Everyone is carrying their well-thumbed copies of First Aid everywhere they go, and you can see people scribbling notes in them all the time. I have a really cool schedule for board study, and sometimes I even stick to it. Next block is 24/7 boards boards boards. *sigh*

I kinda hit a wall this morning right after my pharmacology exam. I was getting in my car, and saying bye to a classmate. I caught myself saying, "Enjoy the rest of your day, I'm going home, and then I'll be back tomorrow to DO. THE. SAME. THING. ALL. OVER. AGAIN." This medical school thing ain't easy guys. You kinda get used to it, but sometimes you stop and ponder the lather, rinse, repeat-ness of it, and it gets OLD. We sit in lecture all day, we go home and eat something, then we study study study. Sleep, get up, repeat. I'll just say I'm super looking forward to clinicals next year. The monotony is wearing me out.

Speaking of worn out, that's my middle name! By about 8 at night, I am so absolutely pooped. I feel like I've aged a hundred years since school started. After attending class, trying to get in some exercise, and studying (if I can stay awake long enough), my energy is gone. I think maybe I need to up my vitamin dosage or something. I'm feeling kinda like this guy: 

Anyway, I guess that's all that's going on with me right now. Hopefully next week I'll be more interesting, right now though, I'm going to bed. Good night!

Block 7 Week 3: Five by Five

Ah yes. We couldn't have a blog without a little Buffy, right? I never could quite figure out what Faith was referencing exactly when she said she was five by five. I guess it was her way of saying everything's OK. Or maybe not. She wasn't exactly OK, was she? I kinda get her though. I find myself saying I'm OK a lot of time when I'm not exactly sure that I am. I'll think I'm OK, and then I'll have a mini panic attack while I'm trying to nail down a pathway or cascade in cell bio. Yeah, we have our cell bio final tomorrow, and this is not my best subject. So my brain will start cramping and then I panic because I don't want to remediate cell bio. We always jump to the worst conclusions don't we?

We are trucking along here in block 7 now. We only have one more block left in our pre-clinical education. Then it's time for boards and clinical rotations. This block includes hematology, dermatology, and lymphatics. People will come up to me sometimes and ask if I'm almost done with medical school. Haha, no. But it has gone very quickly, especially second year. First year seemed to drag out indefinitely. Then this year started, and ZOOM! I feel like I've learned a ton, but then someone will ask me a question about a condition, and suddenly I'm like, oh. We haven't really learned that yet. Or worse, we will have learned about it, but maybe not the particular aspect they are wanting to know about. For most illnesses, we get clinical presentation, a little info on any kind of genetic goof-up if applicable, and drugs that treat it and their mechanism of action.  If it's a bacterial infection, I should be able to tell you if the bug is gram negative or positive (in theory), which really doesn't tell you much about the disease course or what you can expect. It does help with the kind of medication that might wipe it out though. I'm hoping that kind of info will be more clear in clinical rotations. 

Sometimes it seems like medical school is asking a little more out of me than I want to give up. Especially when something fun is going on, and I have to once again bow out and go study. Like right at this moment, my family is at my house eating nachos and chicken wings and watching the Super Bowl. Now, I'd rather eat crickets than watch a football game on TV, but I love a good excuse to get family together and eat junk food and hang out. But here I am studying for my exam tomorrow and feeling a little meh about it. I try to comfort myself with the fact that it will be over and I will be a real doctor, but that seems really far off from here.

Yeah I will deal with it, thanks. A really awesome lady told me one time that a lot of medical school involves holding my nose and getting through stuff I don't like. I think that was her reasoning for enduring organic chemistry in undergrad. So here I am holding my nose. But it's not all bad. We get to do some really cool stuff. Every Friday, we have early clinical experiences, and a lot of those have turned out to be really cool. Last week, I was assigned to shadow at a local EMS station. So I went to a firehouse and waited for them to get a call. Unfortunately, they didn't get any calls while I was scheduled. Or probably fortunately for the community. I never quite know how to feel about when I don't get to observe something because I know it means that nothing bad happened on my shift. Does that make me a bad person? I'm just sitting there on their couch like, I'm ready!

So I guess I need to get back to studying for that exam. I'd rather sit here and blog and do just about anything else, but in the morning I'll be sitting at my seat wondering why I wasted so much time. Tomorrow after my exam is over, I'm going to take a huge nap and maybe make some leftover nachos and watch some TV. That is, if I can remember how to operate the microwave...

Block 7 Week 1-2: I've said my piece and counted to three...

Do you ever feel like someone is constantly trying to change your mind? I do. Most of the time, it's my kids who want to do something, and I'm firmly against it. They will reason and convince and beg and come at you from every direction to get you to change your mind. I don't mind discussing it with them, because often I'd like to make sure I'm not just saying no because it's the first thing that comes out of my mouth. But there are just some things that are not going to fly, and no amount of cajoling is going to change my mind. That's when I have to say, "NO. I've said my piece and counted to three." Usually I don't say it like that, it's just no, and that's it. But this is the scene playing in my head. (Another good movie -- "O Brother Where Art Thou?") Super quotable. Like this one:

But back to changing your mind, or being bullied into doing so. I can't. There are things that I have to constantly roll over in my head and decide if it's right to believe them or hang onto them, because the way the world is going right now keeps banging at my core values and asking me to abandon them. I read a lot, in a lot of different places. And opinions, BOY do people have them. I'll read something, and I'm like, hrm, I can see how they could believe that to be true. And then I'll read someone else's opinions, and kinda feel like I could see how someone could arrive at that conclusion as well. 

I bring this stuff up to HB all the time, because he apparently has everything figured out already. It's always stuff in these little cracks that don't necessarily fit neatly into one envelope or another. He can explain stuff really well too, but I don't always agree with him either. And he's OK with it for the most part. But you know how sometimes things just don't settle right in your head or your heart? That's kinda where I am right now. I can't turn on the TV and listen to what's going on, I have to just turn it off. 

I know I've said before that I'm not political. And I'm really not. I do my level best to not encounter politics at all in any form. Because it's not my thing. However, I'm not sure burying my head in the sand is the right response either. I am a Christian. And that can raise hackles for people, especially right now. Many people have experience with Christians who are more interested in waving a banner of all that they "won't stand for." For me, it all comes down to what Jesus said when he was asked what is the greatest commandment. 

"Jesus said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it. 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" -- Matthew 22:37-39

I heard a sermon by a really great man a long time ago about Christians and rights -- we don't have any. When we accept the call of God on our lives, we surrender any and all rights and accept what God plans for us. Early Christians were thrown to the lions and used in all kinds of activities that exploited their so-called rights. Fast forward to the 80s, where I remember people in church boycotting a company because some rumor was spread that the founder was a satanist**. Yeah, that kinda stuff happened before the internet too, people. Some self-righteous lady got in my face one day at church because I was chewing a brand of bubble-gum that she was boycotting. Same lady also told me that she was looking forward to expelling me from our Christian school the following week because she felt like my hair was too short. Throw me in the briar patch! Anyway, that went a little sideways, didn't it?

It's hard being a Christian with opinions. And it's hard to know when you should speak up and about what. I feel like God has me in the place I'm in to demonstrate his love to the small amount of people He puts in my path to influence. I'm not always good at this, because I have opinions. And I like to talk about them. My goal in life is to take those two commandments up there and behave that way. I don't want to say or do anything that would violate loving God or loving my neighbor. It's hard, y'all!

There's another story in the Bible where Jesus tells a man this same thing. He wants to be a smarty, so he says, "Well, who is my neighbor?" Then Jesus tells him the story of the Good Samaritan and asks the man which person in that story was that man's neighbor. And the man said, "Oh. The one who showed mercy." BUSTED! Jesus didn't shame him, he just said, "Go and do likewise." (ref: Luke 10:25-37) That's what I want to do. I don't want to see someone suffering and cross the street so I am not affected or inconvenienced by their suffering. Easier said than done, right?

Anyway, all this rant was just for me today. I feel heavy and sad and kinda weird about how the world is flipping upside down on me. And how people I used to look up to are applauding it. Like somehow being American makes us better than the rest of the world. Like somehow our rights can be demanded and we ain't gonna take it any more. It just doesn't sit right with my insides. It feels wrong. Surely you can reach inside there and turn it over a few times and realize it too. Love God. Love your neighbor. Who's your neighbor? Go and do likewise.

Love from me. ❤️️❤️️❤️️

** Reference for the satanist founder of P&G (also apparently P&G sued Amway multiple times for spreading this rumor, jury is still out as to whether they started it initially, but that's a funny twist, huh?): LINK