Plate o' Shrimp

Cows on the Beach this morning

Without their people. Checking out the fancy resort next door. Talking. Bringing their kids. That is all I'm saying.

posted by Sa @ 7:26 PM 1 comments

Can I just say..

Thumping base from some sort of event at the Spicelands mall... NOT helpful

Brightside: CocaCola still comes is the tall skinny thick glass bottles here. Stays cold much longer. and why does it taste better?

Okay music to study by is downloaded. I am returning with my book to my room where I can study at my desk instead of on the floor.

posted by Sa @ 2:25 PM 0 comments

It is just so lovely today..

The ocean, which I STILL can’t swim in is that amazing blue. There is a nice breeze, the birds are swimming Charlie and lovely-lou the pot hounds are napping on the beach and I am trying to lock my self in my room, blast the AC and work out the innervation of the abdomen. The autonomic nerve system is my friend! Midterms start a week from Monday with microbiology. Last night I gave myself a last night out, had dinner with Molly at de Big Fish, grilled swordfish with garlic butter, fries and veg for not much and Molly treated because I cooked dinner the other night. Still later I met Nichole and Sheri at la Boulangerie (Pizza pasta gelato espresso pastry) and had a nutmeg gelato. I could have gone to a local sports bar with the girls, but opted for a DVD on the laptop.
But the taste of freedom hasn’t done me much good, I want more. I was up and studying by 7 and on campus by 8:45—enough time to witness a professor and a security guard get into a screaming match, the prof (who was a Caribbean man of African descent) basically accused the guard of being on a power trip and harassing the students. The guard said he was doing what he was told to do. I kept my mouth shut. I went to a mock Anatomy practical at 10, was on the 10:50 bus back to Grand Anse and did my grocery shopping (My bread from a local bakery has a label that reads “Ideal Bakery, satisfying your needs for 15 years” Who knew it was so easy to get my needs satisfied in Grenada☺ )

I came home, cut up a chicken had lunch..... now it is almost one.. where did the time go.. ? Two hours of study time GONE. I think that way all the time. Things like showering, grocery shopping cooking and laundry become annoying because they take up time. And now I am blogging instead of studying.

Anyway, my wall of pictures/postcards and mail has grown by one letter and one photo-- from Larissa. Thanks for the mail! I must apply myself now, or at least go out to the hall and sign on the Internet so I can post this

Ciaoder, friends
(that is pronounced “chowder” and is a contraction of ciao and later for the ignorant and uniformed)

posted by Sa @ 1:14 PM 0 comments

Ain't Missbehavin'

So—
My bad behavior continues. Today I was scheduled to lead a small group biochemistry discussion in a room in the library. The security guard at the door asked for my id and then pointed to the bottle of ice tea sticking out of my bag saying “are you bringing that in here” I told him I was but that I was not going to consume it, stopping short of telling him I had brought my lunch and it was all packed in my bag. I asked him if I needed to throw it out and he replied that I could bring it in but that it was a $400 fine (EC I hope) if I was caught drinking it. Jeeze! I live a twenty-minute bus ride away! What am I supposed to do.. buy lunch or subsist on water until I get home?!

SO then the small group which I VOLUNTEERED to lead. I know a little something about small group study. Just a little. My group of 8 was pretty quiet, with only 4 of them actually making eye contact and only 2 or 3 of them actually speaking. Some young women only talked to each other in whispers and were reluctant to join the larger group. Anyway, as I tried to guide people through the case people were giving one-word answers and most of my attempts to redirect were falling flat. The group had been complaining about “another” extra activity close to midterms. I could have been more patient but became fairly brisk-- if I didn’t receive a response to one or two leading questions I’d fill in what wasn’t answered and move on. SO I got through a 50-minute case study in 35. And then the two quiet women stayed and asked me some questions. The professor organizing the small groups, who is a good lecturer and who produces the clearest and most concise lecture handouts, is notorious for being somewhat cranky. He won’t start lecture until everyone is seated and quiet and often chastises the class for this or that. He came into the room after I finished with the group and asked where everyone was, and when I told him that we had finished the material already he got angry. After making a nasty comment he left. The two young women then thanked me for staying and going through the material because they “never would have felt comfortable speaking out in the group.”

Small group learning is really useful but it is not perfect. Forcing people to participate in a small group is a little like compelling someone to have fun. If they don’t want to play they won’t play. I got the cynics through in the material efficiently and engaged the people who wanted to spend more time. I did a good job dag nabbit, but left feeling like I had misbehaved again. I would like to lead more small groups, and I am afraid that the cranky prof running the show will just look at how much time I spent and cross me off the list.

What I have figured out I think is how not to fall asleep in afternoon lectures. Even the days I didn’t feel completely drowsy, I had been unconsciously tuning out more than I liked. We have about 4 hours of lecture each afternoon, and I was getting up at 5am, and studying almost straight through until lecture time. A couple of days ago it occurred to me that if my ear wasn’t getting better, perhaps I needed to start getting closer to 8 hours of sleep a night instead of 5 to 6. Then I remembered something my friend and former employer T. told me about how meditation could provide the same benefits of sleep in about a 3 to 1 ratio. So the last couple of days, I have been getting 7 or 8 hours of sleep. I found a little tree on a cliff overlooking the ocean. (photo at left) I sit there and eat my lunch.. just eat no books or flash cards in front of me. And then I just meditate for ten minutes, and observe the restless parade of thoughts going though my head. Yesterday an ant bit me on my ass, but I sat. And I was awake and alert all though lecture, went back to my room, ate dinner and hit the books for another 4 hours, no constant noshing, not restless fidgeting with my computer or room. I just hit it.

When I respond best, the most efficiently to the stresses of med school, it seems like I don’t have time for my old dysfunctional stress habits.. I just need to be too efficient. Doesn’t mean I have dropped all my bad habits (being a former British protectorate the cookies are McVitties and the chocolate is Cadbury—and don’t get me started about the Grenadian produced organic dark chocolate---- oh my freakin god) But I haven’t had a bit of alcohol since I came and I am more and more aware of what I eat and why I eat it and how I feel afterward. Granted those are lessons I have learned before, but I am learning them again. Now if I can just talk myself into times for walks until I can swim again…… ☺

posted by Sa @ 6:37 PM 0 comments

Busted

It is Sunday, yet all us first termers were invited to a mandatory financial aid meeting on main campus. Breakfast was provided in the form of an insulated lunch bag filled with yogurt, fruit, a bagel and a juice box. The yogurt was French... I got apricot but my friend got prune.. not a lot of prune yogurt in the US. But I digress. Now I know there is no food allowed in the library, but I had the damn bag with me, I forgott my water and so I took out the juice box and drank it. And did not hide the evidence. about 20 minutes later I was kicked out of the library by a security guard who threatened me with a fine and said.. "It's posted right here, can't you read this?!" He wouldn't even let me put the lunch bag away, I had to take it out of the library and put it somewhere else, and since I don't live on the main campus, that meant I would have to leave campus to put it away. I snuck the offending bag into the histology lab to finish studying where the internet is fast, but it all just ate time.. which I have very little of.

I am such a criminal...

We are getting into the thorax and abdominal cavity in anatomy.. much cooler then memorizing the endless nerves and muscles of the hand. I got to pick up and carry around several human hearts, one which had a tripple bypass. And I got to feel what hardend arteries feel like-- which are very hard like there is rock or hard plastic inside.

Now on to Embryology, the only class I got an A in on the unfieds..:-)

posted by Sa @ 2:33 PM 0 comments

All hands on deck

This is why people hate doctors

So I am in the student health clinic for the third time because of this stupid ear infection. I finished out my antibiotic on Sunday and woke up Tuesday with a small but noticeable earache and a sore throat. I went into the clinic and spoke with a doctor who looked in my ear and said that he thought it was just a secondary viral infection of my throat near the estuation tube that was precipitated by my antibiotic use. But I knew he was wrong, I just never really felt 100% and I told him that. But he gave me a prescription for something to gargle with and sent me on my way.
This morning (Wednesday) it is worse.. and has gotten progressively more painful all day despite taking 600 mg of ibuprophen every six hours. I now have referred jaw pain as well and I am just mad.

The hard thing is that the doctor I spoke to yesterday probably was not really wrong in what he recommended to me. He did look in my ear I can’t and he saw signs of healing. Over prescription of antibiotics does cause serious problems, ones that I had already begun to feel. I had been fighting a yeast infection the entire time I was on antibiotics. Yet I am angry because I know my own body and I knew something was up.. and because I don’t have the time to be sick. I am missing another lecture today and that just pisses me off. But I wasn’t very insistent with the doctor I saw yesterday—would I have been more so if I hadn’t been a medical student here as well? How should any doctor respond to a patient saying—but I just know something is not right, when evidence suggests a different course of action?

See-- my doctor could have prescribed me more antibiotics yesterday and made me happy, but given the same set of evidence I presented him with yesterday I would likely have made the same decision he did. People get mad at their doctors because there are no easy answers, easy fixes. And because it is not always clear what is right. We want our doctors to be able to recommend the thing that will have 100% efficacy, but our bodies don’t work that way, and science certainly doesn’t. SO we get mad. And frustrated.
*********
Okay I wrote that on Wednesday. The doctor I saw then told me that I had stopped the antibiotics too soon and gave me a new script. Only I didn’t get better. Luckily one of the anatomy professors told me that another anatomy professor—my advisor in fact, had an ear nose and throat practice in town.. so I went to see him today. He said I had a fungal infection that had gotten a good hold when all the bacteria died off. He cleaned my ear canal with something that sounded like a mini roto rooter then a mini vacuum, and sent me home with a script for anti-fungal eardrops—the same one I was using last week. I did get to go into Saint George’s and explore. The Yankee Clipper, which I sailed on 12 years ago, was docked at the carnage.

But I am tired now, and worn out from my ear adventures and misadventures. I didn’t very well on my first unified quiz, and have been demoralized by my performance. I haven’t been sleeping well because the pain meds wear off at night. I got some studying done while waiting for the doctor this morning, studied a little this afternoon, but was not nearly as productive as I needed to be with midterms so close. I have spent most of the day on my own, feeling a little vulnerable and lonely, but haven’t made that one friend yet here I can go to for support so I am reaching out electronically to .. well you.

I live for email guys--- so write.. and/or send postcards I can tack on my bare walls. Real mail is a real treat. This is an all hands on deck call for moral support. Midterms are coming, I need to be in top form and I am just tired. Thank you all in advance, I know how my friends are and I know you will be there for me. ☺

posted by Sa @ 9:19 PM 1 comments

The market

Downtown Saint George"s Where I found ellusive items today like a needle and thread and something that was supposed to be vanilla but was not. I got some very nice nutmeg tho...

And of course the ONLY place to get vanilla is at: http://www.vanilla.com

posted by Sa @ 9:06 PM 0 comments

I Suppose it is still Paradise out there...

But you couldn't tell by me. I didn't do very well at all on the unfieds, barely passing anatomy. Mideterms are in three weeks so its study study study. Don't know how much I'll be able to post from now on.
It is, afterall, medicalschool and a good one. Time to suck it up.

:-)

posted by Sa @ 7:16 AM 0 comments

Sleeping the sleep of the Just

This is Charlie the SGU beach dog, who was pretty skinny when we all showed up but now seems to be getting lots of food and attention from the Grande Anse vet and med students. She is pretty nice to humans and pretty territorial with other dogs who try to invade her teritory. She gets medical care from the local vet students-- who all seem to end up adopting local "pot hounds." There are many on campus kitties and there is a on campus spay and neuter clinic, and lots of kitten for adoption at the vet clinic. Time for me to stay strong... :-)

posted by Sa @ 12:34 PM 0 comments

Here's the ting

This morning I got off to a little bit of a rough start. I had really hoped that the pain and congestion of my ear infection would disappear overnight and it didn’t. What I got was a gastrointestinal upset that is a common side effect of the antibiotics I am taking. Still I was on campus early and reviewed some histology before histo lab. Histo lab was great, we work in teams of about a dozen students and a clinical tutor (read post doc) takes you through slides of lecture material distilling done the material to the bone and asking bunches of question. It is a great learning technique and always resorts lecture for me into a digestible form. It especially nice since our class is about 350 persons strong to get to work in small groups like this, not an uncommon experience at Saint George thank god.

Pressure is mounting. I already have one friend and classmate who dropped down to the decelerated program-- taking only anatomy and embryology this semester and taking “first term: biochem and histology next. I feel like I am still playing catch-up and not quite on my game, but I have kicked up the study to leisure ratio. Basically I study until I catch my brain making stupid mistakes then I rest. I was on the porch with my anatomy notes by 5:30 this morning.

Lunch today is a barbecue chicken sub and a ting-- a Grenadian grapefruit soda that is making my tummy very happy. Only 4 hours of lecture to go before I can hit the books again. Yeah!

posted by Sa @ 12:01 PM 0 comments

My Porch, my laundry

........and one of Grenada's finest resorts

posted by Sa @ 11:57 AM 0 comments

It’s official

It’s official

It is only 3 pm, I have an ear infection and it has already been a long day.

It started at 6:30 when I got out of bed with a sore throat and my earache much worse feeling like I had an earplug in my right ear. Anatomy lab started at 8 am. I was feeling that sense of disconnection and dislocation you get when you have a mild infection compounded with a mild feeling of being off balance because of my ear. I tried to review quietly in some corner with one or two people, and because I was feeling a little feverish and out of it. As I did so, I kept on picking out structures and asking my fellows for conformation because I felt as if I had forgotten the most basic information—“this is the brachioradialis right? And this is the pronator teres, so we should be able to orient ourselves to find the muscles of the forearm from here” This type of vocalization seemed to draw the roaming an normally welcomed roving instructors like flies, who would look at me and ask questions. I did my best impersonation of the RCA dog, leaning my bad ear in toward my right shoulder and tried to figure out if I actually heard the questions they were asking and mumbled something that I hope sounded coherent. This happened over and over today. One of the things that has impressed me the most about Saint George is the sheer number of very well qualified and gifted anatomy faculty who are constantly present in Anatomy lab. It is not uncommon to be able to work with a faculty member for an extended period of time with just 4 or 5 other people, and to be able to ask every single question and to go over structures in great detail. Today it just felt like punishment, not just because it is hard to be put on the spot but because I was very cognizant of an opportunity lost.
I left lab at 10 and proceeded directly to the student health clinic. They were very busy and it took almost 4 hours for me to see a very nice doctor who told me that I indeed had an ear infection and gave me eardrops and a prescription for antibiotics. Somewhere in that time I had used the bathroom, failed to check before I sat down and sat in some else’s pee. By the time I left the clinic at 2:10 I was late for the second of my four hours of daily lecture and still in my scrubs from Anatomy lab and feeling less than charming because of the whole pee thing, I got on the bus to go to the pharmacy to have my prescription filled and hoped it wouldn’t be long before I got home.
The pharmacist scolded me for not having my insurance card—and somewhere in some far reptilian corner of my brain I remembered that printing out my new student insurance card was one of the many things I didn’t get to before I left the states. She asked me if I was aware I had prescription drug coverage, when I told her no, she asked me why I had insurance. I only thought “So my mother doesn’t have to sell her house to pay for my medical care if I get cancer, and because SGU made me” But I was getting a little cranky by then. Luckily or unluckily the sting of paying the full $80 EC (about $32 US) instead of my $26EC co-pay was lessoned by discovering the pharmacy carried Milky Way Midnights. For the unitiated, Milk Way Midnights are the dark chocolate version of the Milky Way and are vastly superior to their plebian and more familiar cousins. I can tell I really don’t feel good because even though I am home having stripped out of my scrubs and showered cleansing myself from the unfortunate bathroom incident, I don’t really want it. But it is getting nice in cool in my little fridge, the ibuprophen I took should kick in soon, and the antibiotics I took are happily corsing through my arteries and veins making stronger more drug resistant microbes but no doubt doing the job of kicking out this infection. For entertainment I can go hang my scrubs out to air out on the balcony where they can disturb the line of sight of the folks paying $800 US a night for their surfside room next to the crazy Caribbean medical school. It feels good to be a rebel when you are cranky.

posted by Sa @ 6:13 PM 0 comments

Swimmers Ear

Hi folks--

If I have been less chatty over the last few days, it is simply because I am getting ready for the unified quiz a week from today -- a 2.5 hours quiz that coveres every topic we have studied-- and I am fighting off an ear infection-- probably from swimming too much and not cleaning out my ear enough.

Having said all that --all is well and I need to get ready for class and to make a dash for student health services to see if they can do anything for me ear.

:-)

posted by Sa @ 6:27 AM 0 comments

Rollercoaster

Yesterday afternoon I was happier than I have been in years. Lecture was great, Dr. M a visiting lecturer from Virginia, was reviewing material and putting it all together so that those “ah hah” moments just flowed together—I remembered why I was here, why I had torn up my life and left all my friends, I found my love of science, and the knowledge that I could use, could apply that knowledge in direct service. I had also found out that a classmate of mine from Nigeria, U, is interested in the same specialty that I am—Infectious disease. I felt this sense of validation that I was in the right place meeting people who shared my interests and passions.

Then I came home. I got my email. The SGU tutoring center coordinator intimated that he wouldn’t be able to hire me over the summer. I started to worry about where I would live, how I would make $$ for the amount of time I was not in school (three months this summer). And that feeling that I am just not studying enough—will never catch up, also started to push down one me. I started comparing myself to my classmates, and was sure that they are studying more/harder/better/ than I am.
I just guttered out emotionally, started to pace around my room and look for what I could eat—which in this case was about a half box of multi grain wheat thins.

So, obviously, my old demons still haunt me. Fortunately I was able to catch myself. I watched a TV show (downloaded lost, what can I say?) but then forced—and I mean forced-- myself to go to a yoga class. It was up on campus. I took my books. I stretched and sweated and felt much better after class, studied a little—made a new itunes mix to listen to on the bus on the way home. I still feel that old shadow of depression lurking behind my eyes and in a few soft corners of my heart this morning. The sweet has a little bitter to it today. But I move on.

posted by Sa @ 8:26 AM 0 comments