Anatomy Overload

There are a lot of bones and muscles in the body. To make it worse they're innervated by different nerves, with various vessels passing around them. Unfortunately I still can't manage to absorb it all.

Over the next couple of days I am going to get myself reaquainted with my old friend... the anatomy colouring book. I'm also going to drag out my anatomy DVDs. Fingers crossed, by Christmas it'll have all sunk in, and perhaps this time I'll have a chance of remembering it a bit more for next year. I'm going to try learning things a little more visually this time around and rather than trying to memorise lists of muscles and nerves etc, I'm planning to look it up and then actively link it with surface anatomy and have a scribble over the boyf with some marker pens.

The boyf has started his OU degree this month now, so I'm not the only one pouring over books. It makes me realise how lucky I am to have tutors I can just walk up to and ask questions. Distance learning looks really difficult!

Medical Machine

This weekend I have been on form.

An essay writing, medical machine.

I've got my drafts for my special study module already done. Hurrah!

As well as being an essay writing machine I've also got some bits and bobs in the flat done. I've chosen the tiles I'm going to retile the bathroom with and have had a bit of a tidy. However my flat still looks like a bomb site, so if anyone really likes tidying please feel free to come and tidy up for me.

The next 6 weeks of my placement are in locomotion. This means I'm going to have to learn some anatomy :-s

Anatomy has never been my strong point. I try and try and try to remember it, and I still fail miserably. I need to spend the next 6 weeks working out a way to retain some anatomy knowledge.

Lily xXx

Marmite

My clinical partner and I had a horrible realisation today.

Maybe it's us and not them?

We must be like marmite. Sometimes we meet people on new firms and get on amazingly, and other times no matter how much we try certain people always seem to be stand-offish?! It would be so nice to get along with everybody.

Lily xXx

Time Flies

I can't believe how quickly the weeks are rushing by. By the end of this week I'll have finished A&E, finished anaesthetics and be halfway through this placement block.

This has kind of kick-started me into properly organising my elective. This week I need to actually get in touch with the place. I want to go to the south pacific. There seems to be a good mixture of third world medicine, very low HIV risk and a good social life.

Now I just need to get my bm in gear.

I also want to finish an essay this week and start stripping the wallpaper from my hallway. Doing the washing up could also be a start.

Lily xXx

Sleep Mumbles

For quite a while now I've been having problems sleeping. Most of that has been resolved now that I have a super comfy pillow and I make sure the doors to the room the ferrets are in is shut at night so I can't hear them.

Over the last 2 weeks I've been woken up by a new problem. Sleep shouting. I've always mumbled in my sleep which has never been a problem. It doesn't usually wake up whoever is in the room with me and I only know about it because I've been told. More recently I've been waking both myself and the boyf up, shouting out things in my sleep, more than once a night. Sometimes it's just silly things like saying hello to imaginary people, but other times it's quite long sentences at the top of my voice.

Anyone know any good ways to stop this or is it just going to be something I'm stuck with?!

Lily xXx

Afternoon Person

I've found out that I'm most certainly not a morning person, afternoon shifts in A&E even though they are much busier are so much easier to deal with. Being able to go to bed at 10 and get up at 9 or 10 instead of 6 means I'm finally catching up on all the sleep I miss.

Every weekend seems to be a drama at the moment, meaning I get even less sleep than I get when busy in the week. I'm absolutely fuming over some things that revealed themselves this weekend, it was possibly the most dramatic weekend I've had in a while. On top of all the drama I can't really talk about at the moment the boyf's niece was poorly and projectile vomitted both times we went to see her. As well as that a friend from work at home got beaten up for a bag of chips as he walked home from work. Shows what a kind of place I'm from.

Lily xXx

First Week of A&E

So it's been about a week since my last clumsy injury and *touch wood* I haven't done anything else too stupid yet. Here's to hoping that I don't get run over or something on the way to uni today.

I've started my A&E placement now. I really enjoy the variety of it, but yet again I have that horrible feeling where none of the doctors actually want you following them around. The consultant has said he doesn't want us wasting all our time taking histories and examining patients on our own as we've done over a year of that and the point of A&E is to see proceedures and how the A&E doctors tailor their histories and examination depending on the cases they see.

Embarassingly after our first tutorial the consultant pulled me to the side and told me that I was very bright and to make the most of the rotation and not let the rest of the group pull me down. I think it may have been luck and common sense that made me do well in the tutorial, but now I feel so much pressure to keep on doing well. I know next teaching session he holds I'll probably freeze up in fear.

On a non-hospital note it's been about 4 weeks since I had my hair cut and it's already grown loads. I was going to leave it until xmas to have it cut again, but I think I'll have to have it done sooner.

Lily xXx

Cursed.

Everything has been going wrong for me the past 2 days. In fact I'm a bit scared to touch the laptop incase I get electrocuted.

Wednesday I slammed the tip of my finger in the door and it's still painful now. Straight after that, in my pain filled haze, I whacked my head on a cupboard and then stubbed my toe on a toolbox the boyf left in the hallway.

Yesterday I thought my bad luck would have come in 3's so I was okay. I was so very wrong. I was knitting socks, or trying to, on quite small needles. Then I went to get a drink, stupidly leaving the knitting on the sofa (can you see where this is going?...). I sat down and then I got a text message, so I half sat up to get the phone and then flopped back down. On the knitting needle. Next thing I was in unbelievable pain and the knitting needle was a good 5cm in my left bum/hip/top of leg area. I paniced and pulled it out and then there was blood everywhere. All over my PJ's, the boyf's dressing gown that I'd stolen and the sofa. Thankfully my sofa is red. Today there's a huge bruise and it hurts to sit down. Clearly knitting is too extreme for me!

Now to make my day worse the water company have shut off the water until 4pm. Because of all of my injuries I haven't washed up for 2 days and wanted to get it done now. I also could really do with washing my hair, I hate not being able to shower when I get up.

Lily xXx