Wolfhounds

I spent all of Tuesday and this morning dealing with eyes.
Tuesday morning was spent in a regular eye clinic, which seemed to mostly involve people who had cataracts and wanted to get rid of them, or people who had previously had cataracts and had gotten rid of them.
Tuesday afternoon was spent in eye theatre, which involved people who had cataracts and was in the process of getting rid of them.
So yeah, I saw the whole spectrum of a day in the life of a cataract.

Today was slightly more interesting as I was in an eye emergency clinic. There were patients presenting with a range from common normal age related problems such as posterior vitreous detachment and entropions to less common problems such as symblepharons and autoimmune iritis/uveitis to environmentally caused problems like foreign bodies and attacks by Irish Wolfhounds.

That"s right. This patient had asked the owners if it was safe to pat and got the affirmative. Bent down (this person was very tall) to give a pat and the dog lunged, bumping the person"s forehead with its nose and managing to get a tooth on the bottom eye lid. Luckily, no real damage apart from a bit of scarring that may cause irritation.

Gotta love the interesting stories that arise in medicine.

Ears

Just thought you"d all like to know that I think you are all disgusting.

Was at my GP placement yesterday (which is generally good fun), but a man came in to get his ear syringed. He had tried to clean out his ears using cotton tips but had only managed to compact things more. So out came the warm water and water gun. It"s really a lot of fun in theory if you manage to ignore what you"re actually trying to achieve. The wax that does come out kind of reminds you that you"re degunking someone"s ear, and not just playing with a squirt gun.

Ugh.

On Birthdays

So its been a few days since my last post, but its been busy times.

In the last week there has been: a trivia night, a birthday, a movie night, a house inspection, a sort of games night and finally, a quiet night.

I also got presents! Thanks guys! You know who you are :)

To celebrate, I"ve decided a layout change is in order. I"m getting bored of these cool blues, its time for some hot fiery reds! Woo!

Lazy day of SUPER STABBINGS!

Ah, clinics. Those little rooms where, as a student, you sit within and are expected to be quiet while the grownups are talking.
I managed to, out of sheer stupidity, fail at signing up for clinics (as mentioned previously). Oh, I did put them down in my timetable, I just managed not to write my name in the clinic sign up sheet.

Good work.

So instead, I slept in.

It was wonderful!

Wednesdays, like most Wednesdays (well, like most Wednesdays from now on) involve whatever I manage to get done in the morning, followed by my GP placement in the afternoon.

I was quite excited about my GP placement, though also a little nervous as the GP mentioned after our first session, that he would be having me helm the remaining consults. He seemed to think I was ready for it, but I certainly didn"t think so.

In order to calm myself, I decided to do some reading and revision. After making this decision, I went to the kitchen and cooked myself an elaborate pasta dish. It was delicious and I now have lunch for the next few days... By the time this was done, it was time to leave. In fact, I was late. Instead of a nice leisurely stroll to catch the bus, I sprinted and found that the bus was late anyway. Hooray for Adelaide public transport!

On arriving at the GPs, I found that he indeed wanted me to sit in "the big boy chair" and take charge of the consults. Using all my training as a Flinders medical student, I managed to look confident as I said "No problem!"

Surprisingly, it really wasn"t a problem.

Covering crazy situations from musculoskeletal causes (?tricompartmental osteoarthritis, carpal tunnel, whiplash injury) to inflammatory causes (plantar fasciitis, peritonitis, dermatitis) to simple surgical follow-up for workcover (inguinal hernia). I managed not to stuff things up too badly. Probably the most difficult was the young lady who came in with tiredness (who knows, she was tired!).

I even managed to do a few procedures, seeing as I was in charge. With an experienced GP as my personal assistant (he gave me examples on what I could tell assistants to do, such as cut things, pick up things, shine my shoes and get me coffee), I again made use of my super Flinders training and made myself appear to be a seasoned veteran, as I did my first flu vaccination.

The practice sessions at looking confident helped even more when I had the chance to do my first punch biopsy (just like an apple corer!), as well as my first suturing of something that wasn"t the refrigerated amputated trotter of a pig (oh my, its so much easier!).

All in all, a successful day of firsts.

Dreams

I don"t normally remember my dreams, so when I do have ones I remember, they are quite interesting to me.
A few months ago I had a dream that I was late for a bus, like, really, really late. In fact, 15 minutes before the time that the bus was scheduled to leave from the Adelaide Central Bus Station, I was still at home. In fact, I was in my old home that I used to reside. In Melbourne. Yeah, I was just that late.

A few days ago, I had another dream. Hold onto your seats.

It had been a long day, but work was finally over.
So there I was, walking home from work, when I noticed in the distance, an old friend running as fast as she could.
"You"re laaaate!" I called out to her, realising immediately what a Captain Obvious statement it was.
"I know!" She replied and ran past.
I shrugged and continued walking along.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a dog (a Golden Retriever if anyone is interested...) appears and tries to leap up, perhaps to lick my face, perhaps to eat my nose, who knows? I didn"t want this to happen so I fended off the dog by waving my bag at him and kept walking.

As I continued, I turned into a park, which seemed to be a shortcut home.
Another dog appeared, this time a poodle thing who also seemed to want to lick my face/eat my nose, but I was well versed in the fending off of canines by now, so I waved my bag at it and away it went.

I then noticed a scruffy little kitten, bedraggled and wet. I surmised that the poodle must have grabbed it and had been carrying it around, finally dropping it when I scared it away.
I looked around for help as for some strange reason, I had lost the ability to pick things up. It was like I had lost my arms, but I"m pretty sure I used my arms to fend off the dogs...

I noticed a cat walking by and I called pointed out the kitten to it.
The cat made its way over and started to clean the kitten.
I decided that things were alright and started to walk away, but was stopped when the cat called out. I"m not sure how I knew, but somehow I understood that the cat was telling me to stop.

I really shouldn"t have stopped.
This led to a long conversation with the cat about who should take the kitten. The conversation continued into a debate and an argument, with my main statement being that the kitten and the cat were more closely related, as they were from the same species. I even happened to pull out a magazine which coincidentally had cat family trees. The cat seemed to have a very valid rebuttal in which the cat said this was a common misconception and was simply untrue. She continued into an in depth analysis into genetics, concluding that I was more closely related to the kitten and thus, I should take it.

For some reason, I then recall the opposite page of the magazine, which went into being stuck on a boat or a desert island with a number of people. It said that one person should make a pair of headphones and share it with everyone. The conclusion statement was that this would result in only one person looking crazy.

[EDIT: As reminded by Sarah] It seems that the whole point of making one person looking crazy at any one time is so that when the food source ran out, there would be a definite choice on who to eat. Obviously, the crazy person.

I have to admit, I slept pretty well though.