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KRUPDATE!!!!

14th July, 2008. 9:31 pm. day 1, status: alive, happy, tired

so today was my first day on the VA general service - my very first rotation ever! I've been super nervous about surgery because it is the one thing I really have no familiarity with, and so much can go wrong, and there's so much to be pimped on or yelled at about. (for those of you wondering, "pimped" is med school jargon for: verbally targeted with a series of questions aimed at "testing your knowledge" but sometimes succeeding only to make you feel stupid and make your attending frustrated).

yes, i was pimped today. a lot! my day began at 530am. i met with the chief resident and various other members of the team - and off we went on rounds. a lot of the patients on the VA service are, as you would imagine, older gentlemen, often smokers and drinkers, with a lot of fairly bread-and-butter complaints: hernias, random lumps and bumps to be biopsied and removed, lots and lots of GI-related stuff like colon cancer, gall bladder disease, pancreatitis, etc.

I actually had a really good day! I ended up scrubbing into two operations, and then we rounded again, and then off I went to lecture. I got home around 6pm, so it wasn't as long a day as I was expecting - but tomorrow may be longer, because I've got to be there at 5am in order to pre-round on my very OWN PATIENT, then we're in clinics all day. I'm not really sure what that entails. As for pimping: I'm deathly afraid of it. My brain just seems to go numb in those situations, but I didn't do too badly today. There were certainly a number of things I didn't know, but everyone who was asking questions was reasonably gentle about it, and didn't make me feel dumb even when I didn't know things. I don't know if that was just because it was the first day or whether that will be a trend. We'll see.

So, yeah. Its 9:40, which probably means bedtime for the girl who has to wake up at 4. :)
PS: FOR ANYONE WHO IS CURIOUS: no, I did not pass out. And my head is completely lump-free.

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5th June, 2008. 11:07 am. hello

so i've not posted in a long while, and i've not really been in close touch with humans (besides the ones i can't avoid like john and my family) for a while. and i'm feeling like a crazy isolated bean with whom no-one can really empathize (yes, yes, i know that isn't true, but please let me indulge in feeling self-pity. if there is any point in my life when i'm entitled to guilt-free self-pity, that time is now).

my birthday was great - i took the day off from studying, and we went to the zoo. for the record, i'm living in DC with john, and the zoo here is not only amazing, it is also FREE. so, we went to the zoo, and then got rained on, which was okay because we got to see tigers :) and then we went shopping, and it was victoria's semi-annual sale, and realistically - what could be a better birthday present than that? and then finally, we hung out with kudzai, who is living in DC now, and got a dessert entitled "the dysfunctional family" sundae. i asked the waitress why it was named that, but she had no clue. perhaps the mystery is better anyway.

so i've been studying a lot recently. not as much as i'd like to be, and not as focusedly as i'd like to be, but i'm getting better daily. what has been frustrating is that I can't join a library unless I can prove i'm officially a resident, which i'm not, and its really hard to study in coffee shops for various reasons. they're loud, people can be kind of obnoxious, and everytime i find a new one, i also find people studying for step 1 there. its creepy, actually.

yesterday i took my first real practice test. not a full-length, just a four-hour long test, but i did better than i expected (note: not good. just better than i expected) and today i get to learn MS/CT anatomy and physiology in great depth, hoping also to find time to do another set of questions and to review some happy endocrine stuff as well. I find question blocks frustrating: sometimes I'll do well (and by "well" I mean, I'll get something in the sixties) and then immediately afterward I'll do badly (forties?) and I can't seem to find any consistent progress. Hopefully as I review more systems this will change, but lord knows. In any case, enough procrastination. June 27th fast approacheth! Must go to starbucks.

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5th April, 2008. 2:58 pm. back!

so yesterday, rachel asked me why i wasn't celebrating national poetry month by posting a poem a day, and i realized i hadn't even checked my livejournal in months and months. thus, here i am. and i will post a poem today! in other exciting news... i just found out what my rotations will be for next year; i'm really looking forward to getting out of the lecture halls and into the hospitals! which is not to say i'm not terrified, i absolutely am...there is something suddenly so REAL to having dates and rotation assignments set.

SURGERY: from july 12 to aug 19, i'm going to be doing general surgery, then from aug 19 to sept 26, i get to do plastic surgery and anesthesiology.
MEDICINE: after that, from sept to dec, i'm on internal medicine, and i don't get any choice in what i'm assigned to do...
NEUROLOGY: From Jan 10- Feb 17, I'm doing Stroke plus another service which I will be assigned to later
PSYCHIATRY: From Feb 18-March 27 I'm doing addictions (my first choice!) plus another service which I'll be assigned to later
OB/GYN and PEDIATRICS: these'll go for the rest of the year, until mid-june, and I don't get much choice in what I end up doing... I know there'll be some delivering babies somewhere in there :) And then, yay! Some time off! And perhaps john'll move to Nashville :) :)

I'm really excited to be looking ahead to the more clinical parts of medical school. FOr now, here's a poem!

Robert Penn Warren: HEAT LIGHTNING

Heat lightning prowls, pranks the mountain horizon like
Memory. I follow the soundless flicker,

As ridge after ridge, as outline of peak after peak,
Is momentarily defined in the

Pale wash, the rose-flush, of distance. Somewhere--
Somewhere far beyond them--that distance. I think

Of the past and how this soundlessness, no thunder,
Is like memory purged of emotion,

Or even of meaning. I watch
The lightning wash pale beyond the night mountains, beyond

Night cumulus, like a stage set. Nothing
Is real, and I think of her, in timelessness: the clutch

In the lightless foyer, the awkward wall-propping, one ear
Cocked for footsteps, all the world

Hates a lover. It seems only a dream, the unsounding
Flicker of memory, even the episode when

Arms, encircling, had clamped arms to sides, the business
Banked on a pillow, head

Back over bed-edge, the small cry of protest--
But meanwhile, paradoxically, heels

Beating buttocks in deeper demand. The heels stopping
In shudder and sprawl, only whites

Of eyes showing, like death. What all the tension,
The tingle, twist, tangle, the panting and pain,

What all exploitation of orifices and bruised flesh but
The striving for one death in two? I remember--

Oh, look! in that flash, how the peak
Blackens zenithward--as I said, I remember

The glutted, slack look on the face once
And the faintest blood-smear at the mouth's left corner,

And not till next day did I notice the two
Symmetrical half-moons of blue marks tattooed

On my shoulder, not remembering, even then, the sensation
Of the event; and of course, not now, for heat lightning

Is thunderless. And thunderless, even,
The newspaper obit, years later, I stumbled on. Yes,

How faint that flash! And I sit in the unmooned
Dark of an August night, waiting to see

The rose-flush beyond the black peaks, and think how far,
Far away, down what deep valley, scree, scar,

The thunder redoubled, redoubling, rolls. Here silence.

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4th December, 2007. 5:08 pm. crash and burn

It has been a while, and this is probably nothing more than procrastination, but I was looking up some old poetry I've liked and I have two poems I really really wanted to post. All you poet aficionados...curious what you think. Much love!

Ultimatum

I'm wearied of wearying love, my friend,
Of worry and strain and doubt;
Before we begin, let us view the end,
And maybe I'll do without.
There's never the pang that was worth the tear,
And toss in the night I won't-
So either you do or you don't, my dear,
Either you do or you don't!

The table is ready, so lay your cards
And if they should augur pain,
I'll tender you ever my kind regards
And run for the fastest train.
I haven't the will to be spent and sad;
My heart's to be gay and true-
Then either you don't or you do, my lad,
Either you don't or you do!

Dorothy Parker


....

Love Recognized
Robert Penn Warren

There are many things in the world and you
Are one of them. Many things keep happening and
You are one of them, and the happening that
Is you keeps falling like snow
On the landscape of not-you, hiding hideousness, until
The streets and the world of wrath are choked with snow.

How many things have become silent? Traffic
Is throttled. The mayor
Has been, clearly, remiss and the city
Was totally unprepared for such a crisis. Nor
Was I yes, why should this happen to me?
I have always been a law abiding citizen.

But you, like snow, like love, keep falling,

And it is not certain that the world will not be
Covered in a glitter of crystalline whiteness.

Silence.

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16th May, 2007. 9:44 am.

well, I officially apologize for falling off the boat with those poems. I actually really wanted to keep going but finals came up, and let me tell you - three exams in about 5 days is a painful, painful process. But at least they're over!! I'm almost 1/4 MD! (I'm holding off on the definitive proclamation until I get my grades, just to be sure). 

Since the year finished, I have: laid by my pool, consumed vast amounts of alcohol, and cleaned, cleaned, cleaned. I also flew home yesterday, and am now doing a lot of sleeping and laying by the pool here. This is the life. I'm planning to re-read all the Harry Potter books, as well as to re-read Wuthering Heights, and to read Better (Atul Gawande), while I'm here. I'll get back to Nashville on June 2, to finally see JP again - after 2 months!!!!!!!!! - and then I'll begin my summer research project. I'm also hoping to get lots of visits from people this summer (hint, hint, hint).

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21st April, 2007. 12:40 pm.

this is the first e.e.cummings poem i ever read, and by far still my favourite. I've been waiting to post it for some reason, and I post it for yesterday. I love the levels of e.e.cummings' poetry - every time I read this, I feel like I get more out of it.

 
since feeling is first 
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

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19th April, 2007. 6:43 pm.

Jenny Kissed Me
by Leigh  Hunt

 

Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in:
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kissed me.

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18th April, 2007. 9:10 pm. mayberry

If you were coming in the fall, 
I'd brush the summer by
with half a smile and half a spurn
as housewives do a fly

If I could see you in a year,
I'd wind the months in balls
And put them each in separate drawers
Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed
I'd count them on my hand,
Subtracting till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemens land.

If certain, when this life was out,
that yours and mine should be. 
I'd toss it yonder like a rind,
And taste eternity.

But now, all ignorant of length,
Of time's uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the goblin bee, 
That will not state its sting.

--Emily Dickinson

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17th April, 2007. 9:36 am.



This is a poem I loved back in high school; we read it for an english class (which was about my only exposure to poetry at the time). 

This morning, I spent a while looking through poems to find one I thought was appropriate. I looked at poems of grief, mourning, faith, hope, and all I could think was that none of them evoked the sense I wanted from today's poem. But then I came across this one. 

As much as American society can make us feel that way, we are not isolated from each other - and it is rare to find someone who thrives in isolation. We all need each other.



No man is an island
 		 
 No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

John Donne

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16th April, 2007. 7:58 am.

Young and Old
by Charles  Kingsely 

When all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen; 
Then hey for boot and horse, lad, 
And 'round the world away
Young blood must have its course, lad, 
And every dog his day. 
 
When all the world is old, lad, 
And all the trees are brown
And all the sport is stale, lad, 
And all the wheels run down
Creep home and take your place there
The spent and maimed among
God grant you find one face there
You loved when all was young.

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