I'll see you in the ICU!

tell me something I didn't know

I think it was owning my own microscope, and having a big fat "biohazard" sign on my dorm fridge, that put me over the top.

posted by sketchmonkey @ 8:28 PM 0 Comments

Bush Pilot (with English subtitles)

Ahh, as we suspected all along--this must be the answer! How the Bush Man works!

posted by sketchmonkey @ 7:02 PM 0 Comments

A hot time, in the old town

So, the night before the big "health history" paper is due, someone goes and does something stupid--and the fire alarm goes off.

I found three sources for this "fire"
The printer in the lobby was smelling like burnt plastic as 900 documents piled up in the print queue after a jam; the elevator door panel was off and I heard a rumor of "electrical fire in the elevator" and then I heard there was a problem in either room 208, 209, or 210, with firemen about to break the doors down.

So, I went down to the printer, saw it was broken (typical) and decided to send the document to myself to print out on campus--so as I was coming back up the stairs, firemen were already decended on the second and third floors telling me to get out.

I had left my rice cooker on, full of lentils, rice, and carrots--all organic, costing me a fortune; I was damned if I was going to let them burn!

So I came back and turned that off, and emailed the word doc to myself, walked calmly out of the building, amid 7 foot tall firemen.

I swear, if they don't want us to start fires, they should find a way to make firemen not be so hot in those crazy outfits, and their axes...I'm just saying.

I walked over to the Hammar building, where classes are, a block away, and printed out my document, and then came back, and ogled the firemen with all my girlfriends.

As the firemen were leaving, I said to one of them, a whole two feet taller than me "my but they grow you guys big, don't they?"

He goes "huh, huh...yeah"
I think they were more afraid of us then we were of them--all the girls to one side, looking like they were picking out puppies in a store window.

We're planning on getting a rubber tire and setting it on fire on the roof as bait.

Just kidding--we'd never do that.
That's a felony...and...that would be bad...right?

posted by sketchmonkey @ 6:44 PM 0 Comments

Wait!

Why am I wasting all this money on tuition?
I could just watch ER and get my education!

posted by sketchmonkey @ 1:42 PM 0 Comments

"I will not be able to rescue you from the depths of your Wasabi depravity"

I am in a sushi induced ecstasy! A just discovered a place on 181st between Broadway and Fort Washington that delivers! So after nearly 4 weeks of going cold turkey I am finally indulging in more sushi than you can shake at chop stick at!

It was tough for me because in San Fran, we were going to my favorite sushi spots about twice a week minimum. Then I moved out here, to the land of McDonald's, Wendy's, and sidewalk Gyro vendors, andthere was nothing I would even remotely consider putting in my face, no matter how hungry I ever got!

So I'm pretty happy at the moment. Now, if I can find decent cup of espresso...

I will keep telling you about my clinical assignment (while I eat!)

I was walking on the street yesterday after class coming up on Broadway; I had been originally heading toward the store, but then I realized I didn't have enough money on me to buy both a fine-line green ink pen, and lunch, so I turned around quickly and headed back toward the pizza place.

Turning on my heels I nearly bumped into my friend Shannon. He is also in the ETP anesthesia program, and so we stopped to talk a little bit. He decided to come have a piece of pizza with me and while we were there, his lab partner, Hugh, came in and so the three of us ended up having lunch together.

I was glad for the company, but more importantly, I was glad for all the information they were imparting. It seems they have a very good clinical site, and are learning any number of things. While we are made to feel like intruders at our clinical site, unable to do anything on our own without the preceptor there, they have been learning how to take reports and give reports on patients, have been in charge of the patient entirely with the exception of administering medications, and they are getting a lot of practice doing physical assessment.

I told Hugh that on my floor there are about two working blood pressure cuffs, and that it is a constant struggle to try to find working equipment with which to take vital signs. The contrast between their rotation site and mine was obvious!

Later we came back to the Hammer building and practiced our physical assessment checkout run through. During our final, we will have to give an observed physical to our lab partners, and then they will have to give us one. We will be stopped along the way and asked what we are checking for, what any sign of abnormality would indicate, such as in the case of lung sounds, heart sounds, cranial nerves, etc. since my lab partner lives in Queens, it has been very hard to get together and practice, so I decided to start hanging out with Hugh and Shannon on Friday afternoons and doing the run through with them.

Honestly, I like physical assessment. I wish I had more time to dedicate to reading the chapters, studying what all this means; I feel like I am just doing pantomime, memorizing the locations of things (aortic valve sounds [S2] heard at second intercostal space right of the sternum, tactile fremitus palpated in five different regions posteriorly, stethoscope listening spots in nine different places posteriorly, five places anteriorly -- you get the drift) and not really getting a good idea of what it is I'm supposed to be hearing, seeing, feeling, assessing, etc.

I'm sure it takes time and practice. However we're not getting that time or practice during our clinical rotation, and my real worry is that I will show up to my next clinical rotation, next semester, and not know my ass from a rectal thermometer.

I guess the one positive thing I could say, is that from here, everything will seem like a better clinical site. I'm also happy to say that I will be in group four next semester and that some of my friends will be in this group, too.

And as Forrest Gump would say "that's all I have to say about that."

posted by sketchmonkey @ 12:00 PM 0 Comments

A very busy and rough week

Well, sorry to have done nothing but stick video clips up here for the last couple of weeks, but it's been crazy hectic.

With 18 units being crammed down my throat in eight weeks (eight classes!) It seems like there is always something to do and not enough time in which to do it. There's so much to read every day for every class, but there's just not enough hours in the day to read at all!

The fatigue doesn't help. Every time I open a book to read, I can't get more than a sentence or two into it before my eyes start to close; book open, eyes closed.

So here's a rundown of the last couple weeks:
Clinicals have been going much better; despite an early rough start and the fact that our clinical site is shit! Because there is an odd number of us there are three two-person groups, and one three-person group. I am in this three-person group. So, routinely the three-person group gets the most difficult patient. By most difficult I mean the most severely ill, the one with the most complications, the one closest to death's door. This wouldn't be so bad, if the third person and our group actually did anything.

Repeatedly, this third person, who was straight from her undergraduate degree and has absolutely zero experience in the clinical setting, not even volunteering, has taken a complete passive role and has not done anything but follow us into the room and stand near the door. On our second week of clinical (the maggot story) we were asked to find all nine of our patient's pulses -- difficult even on someone who doesn't have a lot of edema, on this guy--nearly impossible. Our preceptor came in and found the femoral pulse, but she had to slip her gloved fingers underneath his penis. She then said "here it is, do you want to feel it?" And looked at this shocked girl, who then took a step back, in horror, and shook her head no.


So what the hell are you doing going into nursing? How the hell do you plan on helping patients, from the doorway?

So, long story short, we were told by a representative of the group that they would like to alternate the three-person group, so that everyone gets a chance at "the interesting patients" ROFL--we laughed and said "yeah, that's totally fine with us!"

So this last week in cilnicals, we got a patient who was lucid (alert and oreinted x3) and we were able to do vital signs etc on him...that was a first.

Came home, felt great, had energy left over...fabulous. The people that had asked for "interesting" they fell asleep on the subway ride home LOL.

Careful what you ask for!

posted by sketchmonkey @ 5:02 PM 2 Comments

Yngwe Malmsteen...and his big 80s hair

I got this from George, and laughed my butt off--so funny

posted by sketchmonkey @ 2:41 PM 0 Comments

The funniest

I dunno...maybe it's the sleep deprivation--but this has me rolling right now, as I'm writing up a health history...

posted by sketchmonkey @ 6:20 PM 0 Comments

absolutely brilliant

posted by sketchmonkey @ 5:18 AM 0 Comments

I'll sleep when I'm dead

Well, this is like Hell-week.

For two days I had about 1.5-2 hours sleep, and then last night I took a couple of 15 minute naps because I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore. I ran out of time studying for my pharmacology midterm (too many subjects, too many drugs, too much info for each drug--indications, contraindications, side effects, systems...I focused on the big picture, because the details were too much; it wasn't humanly possible.

So, I think I was awake during the test; I can't remember. I was surprised that I answered any of the questions--I was expecting to be completely stumped on all of them, and fail the test--pharm is that hard! I had to sacrifice learning about alpha1, alpha 2, beta1 and beta2 blockers/receptors etc because it would have taken a few more hours than I had and that's ALL I would have studied--so I made a sacrifice. I said to myself, I will get those questions wrong, or just guess at them as best I can, because there are too many other body systems to really focus on--cardiac (even though the alpha and beta blockers would have factored in here) vascular, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, the entire autonomic nervous system...I had to focus on the OTHER 95% of what would be on the test.

In the long-run, I think I did the right thing--I think I passed the test, though, I can't have been pretty.

I'm not out for pretty here, I'm out to pass and understand this material. Grades don't matter anymore, here.

So, then I came home and ate before taking a 4 hour nap. Did I mention that in the 48 hours preceding the midterm, I had had, one banana, two cups of coffee, a hand full of crackers, one hard boiled egg, and half a bran muffin? I'd guess I've lost about 10 pounds here... I'm not trying--so don't ask me. Everyone is asking my "secret" LOL.
OK, you want to know? begin eating healthy. Only eat organic, fair trade, non-GMO, non-GE, no aluminum, no High Fructose Corn Syrup, no hormone injected, antibiotic fed beef. Don't eat any animal products that were inhumanely/inorganically obtained. Oh yeah, give up all processed food, and don't eat or drink out of plastic.

THEN: move to a place where the environment matters little, there is no recycling, and the sum of food that would fit your criteria of "edible" would fit in the palm of your hand.

THEN: get as much sleep in one week as most people get in one night--and avoid food because it makes you sleepy anyway, and who needs to eat, when you have to study anyway--oh, and live in a shoe-box without a kitchen or horizontal surface for you to prepare your own food.

Misery, is the best word I can use to describe it.
And where are the cookies you guys were supposed to be sending? :) (Just kidding.)

I did find this website http://www.westsideorganics.com/wso/index.jsp and got all excited, but they deliver to Daly City...not Washington Heights, NY. (coals to Newcastle, eh? Daly City, where we each have 2 cars, and there is more Organic food than you can wag your finger at. But HERE, nothing..Sigh) So, with a lump in my throat, I move away from the internet...snif.

So, I guess I'm off now to start cramming for my skills class exam, that's Monday. Then Tuesday, my Physiology exam. I went in over-confident to the last one and didn't do so well, so I'll be damned if that's going to happen again this time.

So, this weekend, I won't be around much--I think after wednesday I'll be able to come back and spend 15 minutes describing my clinical--that's been interesting and full of drama! (think ER)
hah.

I love and miss you guys--and I'm looking forward to coming home, shooting the shit, tossing back a few beers, shooting some pool, catching up on YOUR stories, and just in general, chilling out with y'all.

Send cookies, damnit.
:)
Lisa

posted by sketchmonkey @ 3:03 PM 0 Comments

This deserves a post all its own

I stumble across most things I post here in the usual way; I see them on yahoo, or someone I know posts them to thier blog or myspace.

I was sitting down to start putting in some more time with my pharmacology notes and I saw this on yahoo.

Of course, having lived in Bella Firenze for nearly a year and a half, I knew immediately what artwork these people were looking at...my own experience was far more private--

My friend, Demetrios, and I were working in studio late, and he said "hey, the Academy is open late now--the tourists don't know about it--let's go when there's no one there!" So, we put down our T-squares and triangles, hot glue guns and X-acto knives and walked over to the Academia.

We were the only two people there. We had him all to ourselves. We got there at 9 pm and walked around him once. When we circumnavigated him once, I looked at my watch. It was 10 pm. It had taken an hour to inch our way around slowly, admiring every angle.

I use this word so infrequently, but THIS was positively "BREATHTAKING!"
Enjoy, and remember, if you've already been :)

posted by sketchmonkey @ 6:25 PM 0 Comments

Too damn MUCH!!!

Test after test after test.
I was thinking it was the MS (why I was so tired) but then I realized...I'M CRAMMING 18 UNITS IN 8 WEEKS!!!

I know people that have been in nursing school for a year before they even do the stuff we're doing--sheesh--

Like trying to wet your lips on a fire hose!

I'm swamped--sorry there are no updates.
I've got a couple of HUGE tests coming up on me, and long assignments...

watch this while I go study and have a laugh.
:)
Miss you all
(ps...where are the cookies?!)

:P

George, stop playing video games or this will happen to you:


and while we're at it, "F* yo' Couch!" (remind me to never have Rick James over...oh yeah, he's dead.)



and I don't know who this guy is, but I wanna hang out with this dude:


Yeah, definitely would hang out with this guy until I died from dehydration from laughing so hard I cry myself to death.

posted by sketchmonkey @ 5:11 PM 0 Comments