Stockholm

I'm going to go on vacation one day and just decide to stay there. I seriously considered it this weekend.

Day 1: I've been planning this trip for ages and like most of my vacations it had an ulterior motive. Namely run a marathon. But, I love running so it's okay. I technically had class on this day (Friday) but I decided to take the whole day off and my  flight left at noon, so it was well worth it. By the way it only takes around an hour or two to get from Poland to Stockholm!

So I got to Sweden and I had to take a bus into Stockholm. It ended up taking around 80 minutes from the airport that I landed at to central station. During which time it began raining. How unfortunate.

From Central Station I headed to the olympic stadium where the marathon packet pickup and start/finish was. I got all my stuff and had some sort of cold pasta dinner. The day before the race is never very exciting.

Due to the rain I decided to just go find my hotel which as per usual meant getting lost in the underground. I sorted myself out eventually and got where I needed to go. I have to say it was a good thing I got a travel card for the t-bahn otherwise I'd of been using tickets left and right trying to figure out where I was/where I should be during the course my trip.

My hotel... umm, it was nice. It was cheap, possibly the cheapest one in Stockholm which isn't saying much as it is one of the most expensive cities in the world. But, it was locating in a not so great area. There were these two long, dark tunnels near the t-bahn exit that went under the highway. They were very creepy. The hotel itself was nice though, I got upgraded as well because the overbooked so my room had a personal sauna (not that I ever used it...)

Day 2: I ate breakfast at the hotel and since the race didn't start until noon (pretty late by marathon standards) I had quite a bit of free time before heading to the start. When I got to the clothing drop off I decided I needed to go to the bathroom and did the ritual that every female marathoner has participated in - standing in line for 45 minutes while watching men just walk over to the nearest tree.

Luckily I made it to the start on time (unlike in the past few races...) and then the gun fired and we were off.

I don't have too much to say about the beginning of the race, it was pretty uneventful and my times were right on where I wanted them to be. I could have done without running over the giant bridge but whatever, the views were great, and it was perfect weather for a race.

And then at mile 20 I hit the wall and I hit it bad. All of a sudden everything that I had eaten that day decided that it no longer liked the idea of being inside of my stomach. I vomited every other mile for six miles, it was so bad that I couldn't run in fear that it would just start up again.
Obviously from a medical stand point puking this much during a marathon is not such a great thing so I kept trying to force liquids into myself, BAD idea.

I was on track to finish in four hours. Obviously that didn't happen.

Anyway, I made it to the finish line, got my medal. I was feeling pretty good about myself as I took the timing chip off my shoe and then another wave hit me again. I made it to the porta johns just in time, but forgot to lock the door. Some poor woman opened it while I was mid heave and I have never heard anyone scream so loud. Goodness lady, it's only partially digested food, and anyway at this point it was mostly liquid.

I slowly made my way back to the hotel. Luckily I only had two more episodes after that, once on the t-bahn (no worries I had a bag) and once on the walk from the t-bahn to the hotel. Remember those creepy tunnels, well while I was between them heaving up anything that was left (which admittedly wasn't much) a fight broke out in the tunnel I had just left. So I'm there puking my brains out and there's two guys trying to kill each other- you know just a normal day in the life.

I spent the remainder of the evening befriending the toilet and sleeping.

Day 3: I woke up feeling 100% better than I had the day before I was able to eat and drink for the first time since the race (though my stomach still wasn't impressed).  Unperturbed and defiant I decided that I was going to see the city dammit regardless of whether the rest of me was going to cooperate or not.

I headed downtown and found a book store to pick up the traditional Harry Potter book. By the way Swedish Harry Potter covers are AMAZING. If they didn't cost nearly $30 a piece I'd of bough all of the books!

Next I went to the old town and had a look around and decided to check out the Nobel Prize Museum. Honestly, I really wasn't impressed. They have a few neat things but for the price and time I could have went to the Vasa Boat museum and saw something that was actually interesting.

After all that I spent about an hour trying to figure out how to get a bus to Skansen which I probably could have walked to quicker. In the end I found it! Skansen is a park that's set up to look like what Swedish homes and businesses would have looked liked a few hundred years ago. They also had people in period costume and I got to see some folk dancing which was really neat. They even had kids dancing and it was so cute!

When they closed up and kicked me out around five o'clock I went back to the old town and found a place to eat (the only time I ate out- I made sandwiches the rest of the time). And then I bought a few post cards and a Pippi Longstocking doll for my niece.

Day 4: My flight didn't leave until the afternoon but since the bus ride was so long and it was a Monday I decided to catch the bus at 9:45 a.m. I got to the airport with time to kill and ended up sitting outside reviewing patho phys and drinking a latte.

After landing back in Poland I had to do the flight of the bumblebee to a class which started the same time I landed. Luckily, the airport isn't too far out of town!

Trauma Surgery =-)

I'm sure every medical student feels like this at some point, but I feel really bad actually vocalizing it. Sometimes you want to see the worst diseases and the worst injuries, you even hope for them. Trauma surgery is one of those classes that REALLY makes you think this way. Car accidents, bike crashes, stabbings, burns...they have it all. And hey I'm not picky. It's not like I want anyone to get hurt or sick, but I'd like to see them so I know what they look like and how to treat them.

In all seriousness though, these patients were some of the sickest I've seen yet. They were also some of the most interesting. They were just your average, everyday person until one day something terrible happened that changed their life forever. What's scarier is that they could be anyone: you, me, your parents, your friends, ANYONE.

Some of the worst patients were the ones with burns or who had to have amputations. Most of them seemed in pretty good spirits, but a few seemed really down. It's the first time that I've seen the immediate result of an amputation so it was kind of surprising and educational at the same time. The surgeons motto here is, "if it can't be made to work 100%, cut it off." (Well, no one never said that directly, but it was implied).

The Doctors who taught us were really great. They really knew their stuff and were more than willing to help us out if we were interested in something. I think that's really important here especially, if you show that you're interested and treat the teachers with respect, the class is 10x better and you get to see way more. I don't think some classes have learned that yet though. Then again some teachers are just bad no matter how you swing it.

The best part by far was that I got to scrub in for my second time ever!!! It was on a broken elbow, I'm not sure how they broke it...but yeah. That was sort of the funny thing about the class- it's technically called trauma surgery and there was trauma, loads of it- just nothing that needed immediate attention. In the end it was primarily old lady's with broken hips and people who did something stupid and ended up with a broken leg/arm, the sort of stuff I'd typically expect an orthopedic doctor to deal with. When I asked, they said that they are trained as either orthopods or general surgeons and then become trauma surgeons. I guess that kind of makes sense.

Class technically ended on Wednesday, but today I went in to observe a procedure (medullary nailing of a fractured trochanter) and I'm going in tomorrow to do a night shift in the emergency room!

Needless to say, I'm kind of having a blast!

Project Barcelona

I've been off the web for a while now and FINALLY I can tell you what exactly I've been up  to!

In case you were wondering no I was not in Barcelona. But, most of my family thought I was going to be! Instead my step mom and I organized a plane ticket and I headed home for a week and a half! My dad and grandparents were both shocked. =-)

My sister and I

It took almost 24 hours to get there and back (normally it's only 10 if that total). I had a 9 hour layover in Munich on the way there and then again on the way back in Frankfurt. I found a corner with a nice chair and slept for most of it, but my legs kept going to sleep so I had to keep switching positions.

My dad wasn't nearly as shocked as my grandparents, but he kept patting me on the shoulder like I was going to disappear or something. I surprised my grandparents by walking into the exam room acting like the vet when they went to give their dog a rabies shot. It took about 10 seconds for my grandmother to realize what was going on.

My sister knew I was coming so she came down and met all of us at my grandparents house. She even made me a cake, because incidentally it was my birthday. She also gave me a set of scrub tops which she embroidered "Dr. DiaryMD" on the front (obviously my surname was there instead of DiaryMD). I can't wait to graduate so I can wear them!

My Dad lives in the DC area so when we finished visiting my grandparents my mother came down from where she lives and her and my stepdad went downtown and explored all the smithsonian museums we could possibly cram into one day. After they left my grandparents decided to come and visit and so I spent time with them and my dad, and step mom.

Just a boat going down the road!

My dad just sold his boat so we also went down to the marina so he could have one last look-over at it. (I thought he was going to cry). He's moving (again) and where he's going is too far away from any bigger bodies of water so he had to get rid of it. On the way out of the parking lot we came across how exactly they move bigger boats in and out of the water. It's pretty neat!

Really, it wasn't a very eventful visit, and it was quite short compared to my normal visits. When the week came to an end on Saturday my dad loaded my oversized suitcase into the car and we all went to the airport.

I tried to get an earlier flight from Frankfurt back to my school with no luck, but the flight attendant told us that the flight was overbooked by 20 people and that they needed people to opt out and take a later flight. I volunteered and was told I was first on the list, all I had to do was go to the gate wait for the plane to start to board, then they'd call me and I'd go back to the main entrance to sort out my ticket for the next day, and I'd get to spend another day at home!

What ended up happening despite the lady's insistence that I would not be getting on the plane was quite the opposite, I did have to get on the plane. And having not said a proper goodbye because I and everyone else thought I was coming back I was obviously a little distressed.
Thank you Lufthansa!

The Future is...

I could really use another year right now.

Another year to study, another year to learn, another year to figure out what in the world I'm supposed to be doing.

How did this all happen so quickly? How is it almost over?

I'm so close to having a nervous breakdown these days that it's not even funny. People start talking about electives, or even worse residency and my heart goes into my throat and I feel sick.

I haven't taken the step yet, I do plan to. This summer hopefully, but that will be too late for almost every medical elective in the US during the fall. On top of that most hospitals only take US students anyway. I called no less that twenty hospitals yesterday and only ONE said they could take me, and even then they don't have spaces until February. The state of Pennsylvania (where most of my family lives) apparently won't let any international students do electives at their hospitals. Go figure.

So what happens with that is if I don't get it sorted within the next few weeks is that I can't do electives this Fall. That doesn't sound so bad when I put it like that, but let me clear up the consequences of all of this. No elective = no recommendation from a US doctor = fat chance of getting a residency.

Which means I'll have to take a year off, and during that year I'll have to figure out how to pay my excessive amounts of loans, AND figure out how to get a residency the next year even though my chances will be even more slim a year out from graduating than they already will be immediately after I graduate.

Basically, my future sucks. I should have just become a ski bum.

Best Day Ever!!!

Wanna know what I got to do today? Do ya? Well tough luck 'cause I'm gonna tell you anyway!!!

Day three of surgery and they let me scrub in for the (it was my first time!) to help with repairing an abdominal aneurysm on a convict! There were two massive guards with him at all times, they even stood right outside of the operating room (because there was a massive chance he was going to become violent while his abdomen was sliced clean open...*sarcasm*).

Technically I only held traction, but I was the best traction holder person in the place. I didn't get smacked in the face by the surgeon as he flailed is elbows around, I stood in a backbend position for almost two hours so the main guy had room to work and I didn't even break a sweat (it probably helps that those drugs for my back have finally started to make some progress), and best of all not once did I break the sterile field!
At the end the doctor let me help suture him up. It's the first time I've ever sutured (EVER as in l've never even seen it done before unless on TV counts).

Then I came home, I got on my computer and guess what- I passed my pediatrics shelf exam!!!

I have to go study for my next test which is in two weeks, but I have so much motivation to study now it's not even funny!

March

I had a really good day today, and this is the first time that I can say that and truly mean it. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I was going to even remotely enjoy surgery, but here we are at day 2 and so far I love it. It's funny how life surprises us sometimes.

I haven't written much on a while so I'm not really sure where to start this post off at. I've gone through a few rotations since the last post, namely geriatrics and pulmonology. In both I felt like I was just waking up each day, going to class, and coming home, never did I feel a spark. I wish I had. Right now I'm prepping for my internal med final which is in just two weeks!!! I have so much to do!

This past weekend I went to the pediatric hospital with some friends and helped hand out bears to all of the kids. It was so much fun! I now know what being Santa Claus must feel like because when we went to our last ward (otolaryngology) we essentially got attacked. I've never seen so many excited little faces in my life. It was so cute and I got that warm fuzzy feeling by being a part of it.

A little girl was even nice enough to draw us a picture. She got a giant elephant I picked out at toys-R-us! I'm glad she got it, we usually pick the kids who get the biggest bears based on who we think will appreciate it the most. I think it's fair to say that she appreciated it. It was really nice of her.  Last year we had a massive unicorn like the one in the movie Despicable Me, we searched the hospital high and low to find the perfect little girl to give it to.

As for everything else in my life right now it's so-so. I've managed to hurt my back pretty good so that involved searching for a doctor in this place that #1. Isn't in any way associated with the family med doctors our school sends us to (they're pretty bad- not that I'm any expert or anything) and #2. I can afford. In the end I found a really nice walk in clinic where they were able to take x-rays and everything and it only cost me $60 out of pocket TOTAL without insurance. Which makes me wonder why in the world did it cost $600 for the chest x-ray I needed in the U.S. last winter??? Does x-ray film cost more in the U.S. or something?

Anyway, the doctor was really nice and even though there wasn't anything wrong with my x-ray she thinks I have a damaged nerve and prescribed me some stuff for the pain (because repeating the experience of sitting 45 minutes on a tram platform unable to move and crying isn't something I'm really keen on repeating). So far it's only helping a little, I hope it'll kick in sometime in the next few days otherwise I'm going to have a problem.

One of the hospitals we have class at- yes I was impressed too.

First Aid and the Time I Almost Died

So I'm working on getting my BLS/ACLS certification right now. My school doesn't offer any certification for either so it's all online. We do however have two very pointless classes that we have to take in our first and second years that are very loosely based around "what to do in an emergency" with CPR and the Heimlich both included. But, despite the fact that they teach us what to do, how to do it, yell at us, and call us stupid, there's no certificate at the end. So now I have to essentially do the whole thing over again, makes sense right? Well yeah kind of, because apparently even if they teach it to us, it doesn't mean we actually know what to do in a real scenario, we need all the practice we can get, and I can prove it!

Some call them shish kebab I call them death sticks.

This brings me to story time. My friend and I had just finished our "first aid" course maybe two months before the end of our first year and to celebrate we decided that we were going to grill up some shish kebabs. It was the first time I'd had steak in a while and it was delicious!

And then I got a really fatty one, and I chewed, and chewed, and chewed some more. And finally I decided it was minced enough and I could swallow. You can obviously see where this is going... I realized my airway was obstructed pretty quick. At first I wasn't at all worried, I was trying to be logical about all of it, there was no way it could be that stuck. Well it was.

After about 15 seconds I really started to panic and stood up. Still trying to be logical I took a huge drink of soda thinking it would force it down- no deal. There was no where for the soda to go except out, and it spewed from my mouth all down my front. At this point my friend realized something was wrong and she stood to avoid the "waterworks."

After that failure I started beating on my lower chest hoping to dislodge the thing myself. Obviously that wasn't going to work so in the middle of doing that I threw myself in front of my friend thinking she would do the Heimlich and save my life, because she must have realized I was choking. I was pretty out of air at this point and still trying to get the thing out of my throat, any longer and I'd be in a Polish morgue over a piece of steak.

So as I position myself in front of my friend ready for her to squeeze the hell out of me, what's my friend do? She pushes me and jumps out of my way. So much for that first aid course.

Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity but was probably more like five seconds my airway gave one final spasm and a half chewed, saliva filled piece of meat flew across the room and lands smack on my friends plate. I spent the next 5 minutes coughing and gasping for air before turning to my friend to apologize profusely for the soda and pieces of food now decorating her living room.

Of course I also asked why she didn't save me!?! Apparently, I missed the essential part of choking 101. You know, the universal sign for choking. Yep, in all my logic and even in my panic I forgot to place my hands over my throat to signal I was choking. In addition to that with all the other hustle and bustle my friend thought I was being violently ill, because choking people don't normally spew coke allover the place. Makes sense. I probably would have done the same.

What's the point of my story? 
#1. If you're choking don't put liquids in your mouth.
#2. Don't forget the international sign for choking, it's apparently kind of important.
#3. Don't EVER trust a first year medical student with your life no matter how trivial the procedure might be.

Oh, as for the ending of my woeful tale: By the end of the day I was back to full health with no long lasting damage or what not. Though I didn't eat anymore shish kebab after that. And we both learned a valuable lesson. I learned to ask for help instead of being stubborn and insisting I can do everything myself. My friend learned that just because a person is spraying their drink all over the room it doesn't always mean they're vomiting.