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.