March 31, 2007
Stress and Immune System
It's been a while since I wrote. I don't have a lot of wisdom that I've accumulated to share with you, just a lot of snot in my head. I've done this empirical study so much - actually it's only an observational study - that I know for a fact now that final exams area damaging to one's health. Every break I get, I spend the first bit of it very sick. This time, it seems to be worse than usual. At least we just studied the endocrine system and now I know why one's immune system takes a dive under stress (the hormone that mediates long-term stress, cortisol, inactivates your immune system in order to do other things like keep your heart rate up or build up your liver stores of energy for when you really need it). So anyway, I just took my morning shower, and now I am going back to bed!
February 26, 2007
Beer Before Noon
I just finished a hellish exam this morning and made a beeline, with two other classmates, for the brewery across the street from school. Such joy! I've never had such an urge to drink beer before. Except after manual labor. This means that nothing much has changed, really, from my life as a firefighter to my life as a med student.
February 14, 2007
Fan Mail
I received some fan mail today. I was floored. It was very nice.
You might be thinking, "Yeah, right... fan mail? Where would you have fans from?" This just strengthens the assertion I make in my blog subtitle, that I used to be the object of public adoration. It also strengthens my intermittent confusion at why, exactly, I gave up a great job with great pay and great time off, just to be poor, disrespected, underestimated, haggard, frustrated and stressed. If I remember correctly, the original idea was to become of a more scientific mind. So I decided to analyze what exactly qualifies a piece of mail as fan mail. After some thought, it seems the criteria that a piece of mail must meet in order to be differentially diagnosed as "fan," rather than "normal" or "junk" are:
1. The recipient is a publically known figure.
2. The writer is a person, not a marketing computer program.
3. The writer does not personally know the recipient.
4. The writer has a positive impression of the recipient, based on outside information.
5. The writer makes a one-sided effort to contact the recipient.
6. The writer shares his/her stories and feelings.
7. The writer may hope for, but does not necessarily expect, a response.
The letter I received was from a new office employee at the fire department. He is from Irvine, so when he happened to see my name attached to an Irvine address, nostaliga and curiosity combined to culminate in him sending me fan mail. He says he has never met me, but has my new Firefighter I training completion plaque (it takes years to complete the on-the-job training) sitting in limbo in his office, since he cannot deliver it to me at a firehouse anymore. He says he hears firefighters mention my name from time to time, and it apparently adds to the intrigue about this mysterious figure with the interesting last name who went off to med school in his hometown.
It is a nice, handwritten letter. It is quaint that someone out there would hear good things about me and feel compelled to write a letter by hand. I actually sent some fan mail of my own a little while ago, even though it was by email (which is much easier to do, so unfortunately not as meaningful). I spotted my old shoulder surgeon's name in a magazine around Christmastime, honoring him as one of the top doctors in the Bay Area. I felt nostalgic and somehow inspired to congratulate him, so I looked him up online to send him a quick email. I told him how well my shoulder held up in the drill tower and since, and that I was now a medical student to become a doctor just like him. It was a very one-sided letter, but I thought it was nice. And now I have my very own fan mail, similar to my message to my surgeon. It certainly made me feel fuzzy and warm inside that my old co-workers say good things about me, and that I am gone but not forgotten. Maybe what we all need is to send fan mail to people from time to time, and hopefully get fan mail of our own every so often.
You might be thinking, "Yeah, right... fan mail? Where would you have fans from?" This just strengthens the assertion I make in my blog subtitle, that I used to be the object of public adoration. It also strengthens my intermittent confusion at why, exactly, I gave up a great job with great pay and great time off, just to be poor, disrespected, underestimated, haggard, frustrated and stressed. If I remember correctly, the original idea was to become of a more scientific mind. So I decided to analyze what exactly qualifies a piece of mail as fan mail. After some thought, it seems the criteria that a piece of mail must meet in order to be differentially diagnosed as "fan," rather than "normal" or "junk" are:
1. The recipient is a publically known figure.
2. The writer is a person, not a marketing computer program.
3. The writer does not personally know the recipient.
4. The writer has a positive impression of the recipient, based on outside information.
5. The writer makes a one-sided effort to contact the recipient.
6. The writer shares his/her stories and feelings.
7. The writer may hope for, but does not necessarily expect, a response.
The letter I received was from a new office employee at the fire department. He is from Irvine, so when he happened to see my name attached to an Irvine address, nostaliga and curiosity combined to culminate in him sending me fan mail. He says he has never met me, but has my new Firefighter I training completion plaque (it takes years to complete the on-the-job training) sitting in limbo in his office, since he cannot deliver it to me at a firehouse anymore. He says he hears firefighters mention my name from time to time, and it apparently adds to the intrigue about this mysterious figure with the interesting last name who went off to med school in his hometown.
It is a nice, handwritten letter. It is quaint that someone out there would hear good things about me and feel compelled to write a letter by hand. I actually sent some fan mail of my own a little while ago, even though it was by email (which is much easier to do, so unfortunately not as meaningful). I spotted my old shoulder surgeon's name in a magazine around Christmastime, honoring him as one of the top doctors in the Bay Area. I felt nostalgic and somehow inspired to congratulate him, so I looked him up online to send him a quick email. I told him how well my shoulder held up in the drill tower and since, and that I was now a medical student to become a doctor just like him. It was a very one-sided letter, but I thought it was nice. And now I have my very own fan mail, similar to my message to my surgeon. It certainly made me feel fuzzy and warm inside that my old co-workers say good things about me, and that I am gone but not forgotten. Maybe what we all need is to send fan mail to people from time to time, and hopefully get fan mail of our own every so often.
January 27, 2007
Football
I was a wide receiver for Powder Puff Football yesterday. Granted, I haven't been working out in months and months, but muscles I didn't know existed (because we haven't studied them yet in anatomy) hurt. I've never played football before, and I can't throw the ball to save my life. But I can run, and I can catch, and I sure am big compared to the other med school girls.
Powder Puff football is when the girls play football and the boys are the cheerleaders. My class had a great turnout. A couple of my classmates came dressed as white trash, complete with "Mom" heart tattoos, cheap beer, John Deere caps and cutoff t-shirts. Some of the boys came out and coached us for an hour before the game. Now I know what a "buttonhook" is, as well as a "flag," "post," "five and out/in," and "the option." At one point, I was going deep to catch a long pass, and ended up getting turned around because I wasn't positioned on the field to watch the ball as I ran. I fell very ungracefully on my rear, and I was running so fast, I kept going and did a reverse somersault, like a tuck-and-roll, then my shoe fell off to boot! It was lotsa fun. I have an increased appreciation of football, now that I've played a little bit of it. I also finally figured out why football games take so freakin long! It's because men cannot contain themselves from arguing over every little sorry detail and just play the darn game.
But man, do I hurt. Showing the youngsters that the old lady's still got it has its repercussions.
Powder Puff football is when the girls play football and the boys are the cheerleaders. My class had a great turnout. A couple of my classmates came dressed as white trash, complete with "Mom" heart tattoos, cheap beer, John Deere caps and cutoff t-shirts. Some of the boys came out and coached us for an hour before the game. Now I know what a "buttonhook" is, as well as a "flag," "post," "five and out/in," and "the option." At one point, I was going deep to catch a long pass, and ended up getting turned around because I wasn't positioned on the field to watch the ball as I ran. I fell very ungracefully on my rear, and I was running so fast, I kept going and did a reverse somersault, like a tuck-and-roll, then my shoe fell off to boot! It was lotsa fun. I have an increased appreciation of football, now that I've played a little bit of it. I also finally figured out why football games take so freakin long! It's because men cannot contain themselves from arguing over every little sorry detail and just play the darn game.
But man, do I hurt. Showing the youngsters that the old lady's still got it has its repercussions.
January 21, 2007
Creepy Thoughts Caused by Anatomy
I'm feeling prolific today. It's because it's 4:38pm and I'm trying to study. I know I get antsy in the afternoon, and that makes it hard to study, but I try to anyway. And then I end up cranky because I stayed in all day, didn't do anything fun, and yet didn't get anything learned. I do best at night and in the late morning. Too bad class is at 8am, always at 8am. The American Disabilities Act people should look into Circadian Rhythm Discrimination for those of us who perform best at night, but are rather dull at other times of the day. So that is why I'm writing a lot today, instead of studying like I should be.
Anyway.
I creeped myself out the other day. I will tell you how, but first, let me give you a little background on my latest cadaver. After the Juicy Lady fiasco (see "Anatomy," 11/28/06) ended, our dissection groups were split up and we got different cadavers. My group got a big guy with a huge neck, the "linebacker" among the cadavers. After two hours of unsuccessful dissection, we were instructed to abort our body and join other groups. He just had too much subcutaneous fat and we couldn't find anything in there, barely one nerve, one vessel, even the muscles were hard to pick out. The other cadavers seemed like they just fell apart in nice, perfect layers for the other groups, and we were feeling pretty bad about our dissection techniques. The instructor told us not to get down on ourselves, and told me that even surgeons can get lost in a body if there is too much subcutaneous fat.
Now, back to creeping myself out. Once a week, we interview fake patients in small groups. The actors come to school, are told what ailments they are supposed to be portraying, and we interview them. Sometimes we do practice physical exams on them. Last week, we had a "patient" who actually had a heart murmur for us to listen to. He was a retired guy, in very good shape. He played sports for a few hours every day, and he was very fit. He was so fit, and lacking any fat, that I could just imagine how nicely his skin would peel off, how easily his vessels and nerves would emerge from the connective tissue, how cleanly his muscles would separate from their anchors. As he lay down on the exam table to let us listen to his heart, I nearly told him that he would make a great cadaver. I'm glad my social filter was on, because THAT would have come out all wrong. A few days later, I was looking at someone else's neck, and in my mind's eye I could see what was under the skin. I've never been a man before, but I understand men undress women in their minds all the time. It was kind of like that; I was "unskinning" a person while we were chatting! Now that's just weird. I'd heard of medical students suddenly realizing that when they looked around, they saw diseases and injuries, not people. I thought that was kind of hokey until I found myself mentally reflecting my conversation partner's skin to find facia, subcutaneous fat, the sternocleidomastoid muscle and the vessels of the vicinity.
I wonder if I will always see people that way, now that I know what things looks like under the skin? It's like the inside of a See's candy box: can you picture that box of chocolates ONLY in its closed state, or does the image of the little chocolates pop into your mind, because you know what it looks like inside that box? Once you know, you can't ignore what you know. The image pops up whether you try to conjure it or not. The only difference is that for some people, it's milk chocolate with a butterscotch filling, but now for me, it's muscles and fat and tissue. And that's just creepy.
Anyway.
I creeped myself out the other day. I will tell you how, but first, let me give you a little background on my latest cadaver. After the Juicy Lady fiasco (see "Anatomy," 11/28/06) ended, our dissection groups were split up and we got different cadavers. My group got a big guy with a huge neck, the "linebacker" among the cadavers. After two hours of unsuccessful dissection, we were instructed to abort our body and join other groups. He just had too much subcutaneous fat and we couldn't find anything in there, barely one nerve, one vessel, even the muscles were hard to pick out. The other cadavers seemed like they just fell apart in nice, perfect layers for the other groups, and we were feeling pretty bad about our dissection techniques. The instructor told us not to get down on ourselves, and told me that even surgeons can get lost in a body if there is too much subcutaneous fat.
Now, back to creeping myself out. Once a week, we interview fake patients in small groups. The actors come to school, are told what ailments they are supposed to be portraying, and we interview them. Sometimes we do practice physical exams on them. Last week, we had a "patient" who actually had a heart murmur for us to listen to. He was a retired guy, in very good shape. He played sports for a few hours every day, and he was very fit. He was so fit, and lacking any fat, that I could just imagine how nicely his skin would peel off, how easily his vessels and nerves would emerge from the connective tissue, how cleanly his muscles would separate from their anchors. As he lay down on the exam table to let us listen to his heart, I nearly told him that he would make a great cadaver. I'm glad my social filter was on, because THAT would have come out all wrong. A few days later, I was looking at someone else's neck, and in my mind's eye I could see what was under the skin. I've never been a man before, but I understand men undress women in their minds all the time. It was kind of like that; I was "unskinning" a person while we were chatting! Now that's just weird. I'd heard of medical students suddenly realizing that when they looked around, they saw diseases and injuries, not people. I thought that was kind of hokey until I found myself mentally reflecting my conversation partner's skin to find facia, subcutaneous fat, the sternocleidomastoid muscle and the vessels of the vicinity.
I wonder if I will always see people that way, now that I know what things looks like under the skin? It's like the inside of a See's candy box: can you picture that box of chocolates ONLY in its closed state, or does the image of the little chocolates pop into your mind, because you know what it looks like inside that box? Once you know, you can't ignore what you know. The image pops up whether you try to conjure it or not. The only difference is that for some people, it's milk chocolate with a butterscotch filling, but now for me, it's muscles and fat and tissue. And that's just creepy.
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