Worry for Nothing

The mock OSCE. I was petrified. Suddenly my nerves got a whole lot worse when I was asked to go and see a patient with the evil Dr who hates me and can always pick holes in my examination...

Surprisingly I did it fine. I didn't miss anything. In fact I think the words "That examination was very good..." left Dr Evil's lips at the end. Success.

Although I was dreading having him examine me I think it's worked out well because I've managed to prove to him that I can actually do a pretty good examination.

Otherwise the OSCE was pretty laid back. We went around to see patients and examined them OSCE style as opposed to proper patients. We also took a history off an F1 and did some explaining to another junior doctor. It was pretty good to have a go at it all without too much pressure, proving that we should be able to pass the real thing without too much strain.

On an unrelated note I'm getting a fancy new phone on Thursday. Ooooooh. It's an Xda Ignito. It looks very fancy. Unfortunately I'm changing my number again, which is always a bit of an effort. Thankfully with a mixture of unlimited texts and being able to keep in touch with people via the internet I shouldn't get in too much of a pickle with it.

Lily xXx

We're All the Same

Proof that most of us on our course think exactly the same. Everyone I've talked to so far this week is dying for this rotation to be over no matter what rotation subject they're in. Everyone also has the strange excitement I have with starting the new rotation. Even if it's tinged with dread because in my case it's the hardest rotation yet.

Feeling quite pleased that my next rotation is all in central London even if the hospital I'm at doesn't have the most patients in the topics i'll be covering.

Mock OSCE tomorrow and I'm bricking it. One of the doctors HATES me. To make it worse he has an input in my final mark for this rotation. Even though I know my examination stuff I get so nervous with him I'm bound to bugger up. Meh.

Lily xXx

Final Countdown...

I realise I'm making a lot of the end of this rotation, but I actually can't wait. 5 days to go and that's it.

Tomorrow I have a meeting with my consultant to discuss how well I've done, Tuesday I have a mock exam, Wednesday I have ward teaching and cannulation teaching, Thursday I have an assessed presentation and the group curry and then Friday it's all over!! Woo.

I do have to pack all my stuff back into a suitcase though. That should be interesting.

I also need to get a move on with my knitting. Madsadgirl asked how far I've got. Not much further than I was a fortnight ago. A mixture of sinusitis and loads of work has held me up. Thankfully I have the easter holidays to get back on track with it and finish it. I've bought a book on knitting socks too, so after this jumper I'm going to try to knit some socks. It takes 4 needles... that's extreme knitting!

Lily xXx

Actually Doing Some Work

The title of this post will shock most of you. Yes. You better believe it. I have actually done some work. This has been a pretty useful week. I mean productive. I've spent 10 minutes trying to think of the word productive which means one of two things. Either I've fried my brain from doing so much work or the cocodamol I've just taken might actually be kicking in.

Anyway, you'll be pleased to know I've finally got all my sign ups. Including the male external genitalia ones. It's amazing what you can learn with a pair of rubber testicles. I can now tell you how I would identify a testicular tumour, a hydrocoele, a haematocoele, a varicocoele, a torted testicle and a scrotal hernia. I am now the queen of testicles.

I also have already prepared my presentation for next Thursday. It is extreme preparation compared to what I'm normally like, but I don't want to ruin my last week on placement freaking out about this presentation.

Scarily next week I have a mock OSCE that I need to prepare for. It doesn't count for anything but it would be nice to do well as that will boost my confidence for the real thing at the end of April.

Lily xXx

Close to the Finish

Those of you who have been reading my blog for the past couple of months will know that I'm finding this rotation a little tougher than the last. It's not the content, but more the frustration of not being in my own flat. Thankfully I'm almost at the end now. Less than a fortnight to go. Hurrah!

Worryingly I still don't have all my sign-ups. The examination of the male genitalia is proving more and more difficult to obtain. As a group we had almost convinced a doctor to go through the theory on a plastic model and sign us off, but mysteriously we have been emailed that his teaching tomorrow is cancelled. Nooooo. It makes it a little stressful to be trying to get this done in the last week. On top of this we have loads of things going on in the last week. On Tuesday we have a mock OSCE exam and on Thursday an assessed presentation for our Special Study Modules.

I wouldn't be too worried about the mock OSCE if I wasn't convinced that the doctor examining the examination station hated me. He thinks I'm awful. To make it worse I'm sure I'll get all flustered knowing that and start feeling the patient's head instead of their tummy or something.

The good thing about the teaching tomorrow being cancelled is that I now know I have a free day. I can put this to good use, trying to get my presentation done and perhaps trotting off to do some examinations in preparation for next week.

Unfortuantely being up this late I'm not sure how early I'll be up. I made the mistake of napping this afternoon to make up for a broken night's sleep and now I'm worried that I'll be up half the night. I guess if I can't sleep I could start the presentation properly now, but blog browsing seems like a much more attractive way to spend the early hours of the morning.

Lily xXx

Weekend Antics

I realise this is a little beyond the weekend but I had such a nice weekend that I thought I would share it with you guys.

Friday night was spent travelling up to London and generally just chilling out in the flat. This was because I had to get up relatively early on Saturday morning. One of my best friends was back from spending 7 or so months travelling the world. As a joint welcome back and birthday celebration we decided to go to The Boxwood Cafe, which is one of Gordon Ramsay's restaurants. Now before you all worry that I spent my whole student loan on one lunch it was actually quite cheap. For £25 we got an amazing 3 course menu. It started with lovely warm bread and butter or tarmasalata. Lucky for me everyone else hates the stuff so I got all the taramasalata to myself. Yum yum yum. We then all got a "complimentary starter" of a little cup of cauliflower, apple and walnut soap. Delcious. I then had a cured ham salad, a lovely tasty mutton pie with the best savoy cabbage I have ever tasted and finished off with a sticky date pudding and proper homemade custard. Mmmmm.

As the weather was gorgeous the boyfriend and I then decided to have a stroll through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. It was so romantic. We held hands and just strolled for an hour or two being generally very mushy. The perfect way to spend an afternoon. Before we got the train home we popped into a pub to watch the last 10 mins of the rugby and have a little drink. On the way out I demanded that we went to M&S. The boyfriend rightly said that we have loads of food at home, but still I insisted that I wanted to go even though I wasn't sure why. It must have been a crazy female sixth sense because standing outside the shop was a friend from Wales who'd just been to visit London for the day. What a coincidence!!

That evening the boyfriend and I had some pasta for dinner and lots more romantic mushy cuddling.

I was dreading Sunday. Mother's Day. Certainly not my favourite day of the year. I went with my Dad to leave my Mum some flowers. Lovely purple and yellow tulips. I even managed not to cry. It was a huge effort and involved putting on lots of eye make-up before going out as a deterrent to just bursting into tears. Even though I felt pretty down I decided to go out with the boyfriend and his family for Mother's Day lunch, which was certainly the best thing to do. I had a really nice time and another yummy lunch too.

Overall what I expected to be a really miserable and upsetting weekend turned out to be one of the best weekends that I have had all year.

Lily xXx

Nightmares

Does anyone have a good solution for stopping nightmares?

I've suffered from nightmares for years and years. It's pretty normal for me to have 3 or 4 nightmares a week at least. In the few weeks run up to Christmas it had gone down to about 1 a week and I thought I'd solved all my problems, but yet again it's getting silly.

In the past 2 weeks I haven't had one night without a nightmare and for the 6 weeks before that I'd started having them pretty frequently again. In fact my nightmare on Saturday night was so bad that I made the boy get out of bed and turn all the lights in the flat on while I just sat in bed panicking and crying. Thankfully the nightmares the last couple of nights haven't been that bad. The main problem is not how I feel immediately afterwards, but how tired it makes me in the long run.

I've tried not eating hours before bed, cutting out dairy products, cutting out caffeine. None of this has made a difference. Does anyone have any nightmare stopping tips? For the next week I'm going to try timing when my nightmares are and if there's a pattern setting the alarm for 20mins or so before to see if briefly waking up sorts me out.

Lily xXx