the chain continues

z’s family –> me –> z hopefully he got it in time to be resolved for commencement ball.  poor guy.

“free” healthcare

a story i wrote for a sci fi class at my school:

He sat on the exam table looking down at the gown, still debating which direction to have the opening face.  He hated coming to the doctor, but he wondered who really liked going anyway.  He doubted that this was a new phenomenon.  There is a faint rap on the door, as though the doctor was distracted as he knocked.  The doctor walked in reading the chart, looking up at him just as he closed the door with a finality that made him nervous. 

 

“I’m looking here at your blood pressure, and it appears it’s elevated today.  Did you have coffee, smoke or have anything strenuous happen today?”

 

“Um, uh, not that I can recall…why?”

 

“Well, those things can raise your blood pressure.  I need to assess whether it was a one-time thing, or more permanent.  We know genetically you have a long history of heart disease and hypertension in your family, and based on our DNA analysis, we know you’re approaching the age when it will develop in you.”

 

Without allowing any further discussion, the doctor placed the electrode over his heart.  He watched and listened as it pierced his ears with its high pitch beep signaling its completion.  He barely glimpsed the numbers as the doctor removed it from his chest.  Even if he hadn’t seen the numbers, he saw his verdict.  The doctor scanned the chip in his arm and entered the new diagnosis.

 

Later that evening, he returned home, still thinking about the slew of monthly injections he was  now mandated to receive.  The cost was not a concern; the government had long ago decided to pay for healthcare.  It was more than that.  He had heard his friends and co-workers discuss the other ensuing changes that such a diagnosis led to.  He sunk into the couch and heaved a deep sigh.   His wife would be home in a few minutes, and he wondered whether she would already know or if he would have to tell her.  Despite everything he had been told about the genetics and inevitability, he still felt responsible for the diagnosis. 

 

He commanded the viewing screen to turn on.

 

“ERROR.  You are no longer authorized for access to this unit.”

 

It had already started.  He could deduce what his new “options” would be: exercise, relaxation techniques, etc.  He wondered if he sat on the couch long enough, would it chuck him off of it?  At that moment, his wife opened the door.  He begrudgingly raised his eyes to meet hers.  She knew. 

 

“I tried to order groceries to be delivered today, and lo and behold, I can no longer order ice cream.  What will the kids have for dessert?  What is the diagnosis?”

 

“Hypertension.”

 

It was like a death knoll.  To the government, it ran with the likes of diabetes and obesity.  Once they started paying for healthcare, it was easy for them to enact legislation deciding what you could and couldn’t do.  Very few people were still permitted to smoke cigarettes, which was primarily only tolerated because the government owned the cigarette companies as well.   The government was now able to control his diet, activity levels, and his habits.  It was a consequence that would reverberate throughout his home.  His children would no longer be able to watch the viewing screen with him in the room, and he now dictated the food they were permitted to eat. 

 

He knew he could tolerate it.  He had seen many others before him survive. 

 

 

 

the teacher said it was worthy of publication, but meh.  here it is.  published.

“embarassing” or “learning my lesson”

just over 1 week ago, i was exposed to it. ‘it’ you ask? it’s a disease that i have been taught since i was a young elementary school girl to cringe upon seeing it. the dreaded “pink eye” or in medical terms, conjunctivitis. the saturday prior to easter, i spent with z’s family, and on saturday evening, i glance over at the commotion surrounding his grandmother, when i realize immediately what the problem is.  it only takes a single glance, because when you are trained to look at someone’seyes, it is inevitably the first thing you see. 

and there she was, itching her eyes, goop collecting at it’s sides.  the family is ‘aww’-ing and sympathesizing with her pain.  they had all been through it one week prior, and the young children of the family had passed it to them one week prior to that. 

she left that night, and the following day at church and at the home of his aunt, i could hardly help but cringe or watch with my jaw dropped as she touched her eye and touched a child or my arm, and went on her way.  the whole day i washed my hands ad nauseum.  i could barely bear it.   i could only reminisceon how all i would need to do is walk past someone with it as a child to contract it.  just like some people get ear infections as a child, i get eye infections.  except mine haven’t stopped once i grew out of childhood.  with my transition, one thing has remained steady – my susceptibility to eye infections – hordelums, conjunctivitis, etc. 

the following monday, i thought i had made it.  i woke up with a sore throat, but otherwise, my whites of my eyes remained just that.  as the week progressed, my sore throat evolved into congestion, but still i was happy – it wasn’t pink eye!

on friday, i drove out to z, and we shared a very relaxing eveningout at a park having a picnic.  we returned rested, and went to bed.  at 4 in the morning, i woke up with so much congestion and my throat hurtingso much, that z insisted on taking care of me.  and as i trudged to bed, he exclaims, “your eye is so red!”  and my heart drops.  i lay in bed knowing i’m going to wake up with it.  and i did.  it progressively worsened as saturday went on, and my right eye quickly joined the left, succumbing to all that is pink and goopy.  the right eye pooped out so poorly it was even kind enough to also get a lid infection causing me to look like not only a stoner, but a stoned quasimodo.  this peaked on sunday, and somewhat this morning, but i am on the mend.  my eyes are still red, and there is some swelling, but i’m hoping for a decently quick recovery.

i do hope i didn’t pass it on to z, but as he has started this week with a similar set of symptoms that i started with, i don’t know his chances of escaping.  so in all my squeamish-ness and disgust with the lack of sanitation on his grandmother’s part, i have been paid in full with my judgement.  

and as i sit here writing this, i simply thank my lucky stars that the cops came 2 months ago to arrest people at my house for drugs, and not today, because i look like a perpetual stoner.

it’s done!

well!  sigh – it is all done. 

my speech went well, even though i almost cried. 

my name was called by the most unlikely of characters – someone who has been an entertaining arch nemesis for 4 years now (he liked me and i turned him down for his friend – unknowingly!).  the crowd through up an excited cheer, and i walked up to the stage.  opened my envelope, hoping i wouldn’t give myself my usual papercut.  and of course, you can never open that paper fast enough, AND since you don’t know where the name of the hospital will be on the paper – you frantically search for your hospital’s name. 

but there it was…my number 1.  i am so happy and so excited!

tough

it’s tough when on one of the most important days of your life, more of your best friend’s family is coming to see you than your own.

i can make plenty of excuses, but with only my brother going, it seems like a poor showing.  some of it’s my fault by not telling people soon enough, but i did tell my father, and he won’t be there.

 

i don’t know how i will ever be able to sleep tonight.  i should have taken han up on her offer for a beta blocker.

less than 24 hours

as the big day approaches, i feel violently nauseated. tomorrow at noon, match day across the nation commences. tomorrow at 1130, my school will begin it’s ceremony, which will entail some words from the dean and president of the school. then i will have the joy of speaking to the class, providing the toast. i suppose it’s good practice for rachel’s wedding. then it’s time. but you don’t know when it’s your turn. all of our names are on envelopes in a bingo type spinner. the first person is called… they walk up, open their envelope – they have 2 seconds to read it to themselves, compose themselves regardless of their emotions on what it says on that piece of paper, and then read it out loud to hundreds of people.  that little piece of paper – it holds each of our futures.

then they pick the next person’s name.  and so it goes for about two hours, with more and more tension with each passing minute that your name isn’t called.  as you hear people in your specialty of choice get their first choice or last, you become progressively more nervous – what if i get my last choice. 

i don’t know how i will ever sleep tonight.  i just keep telling myself to trust in god – i know he will send me where best i belong, but i pray that it is where i would love to be.  that we both see it as the place for me to go.

i don’t believe their are accidents in live – and as i look back i see each event connecting to the next and how important each preceding event was to what is happening right now.

wish me luck.

three guesses

that’s how many you get. for what you ask? well, i expect you to guess what i found in my living room when i came home this afternoon, after a month-long hiatus. you might think to be creative… another dog, something broken, etc.   but these are all far too reasonable.  no my friends… it was a motorcycle.  right in the middle of it.

something to make me more irate – we now have two broken down cars in the garage, because SON OF A B WORD.   i am just steaming about this.  why isn’t my fully functional car in there?  why does this happen everytime i leave?  it’s dangerous for me to leave.  now, i have to be the the other person out of 2 people who can drive AND work that has to wake up and brush my car of from the 8 inches of snow we’re sure to get.  but psh, how dare i be upset – chewkie has decided he needs BOTH spots to fix cars.

i cannot wait to move.

in between cases

i didn’t end up updating last night, but yesterday went something like this…

after waking up at about 330-ish it was off from pburgh to ytown to see some patients and scrub into a cabg.  the case was quick and i did little because it is, afterall, heart surgery.  my primary job was retraction, but the cool part is of what?  the heart, duh.  there is something mind-blowing after the surgery and seeing the patient and thinking, i held you heart in my hand.  i touched your beating heart and aorta.  craziness.  i didn’t get to help with closing the skin, like normal, because we were in a rush to go to the next hospital for the next case.  it was still great to watch the attending to it though because it looked just beautiful, and sometimes you can learn a lot of technique just by watching.  certainly it’s best learned by doing, but it’s worth watching to pick up the little things.

the afternoon case was the evar (endovascular aortic repair), which went smoothly and quickly.  i helped close one side, which was no big deal, but it was nice to do because i realized my subcuticular stitch is getting back to where it used to be.  this is great because i only have a limited time to regain some of my surgical skills, minimal as they were before.

the afternoon was the clinic, which is no big deal, and i was out early thank goodness, because i needed a nap!  i was so tired, i left the key in the deadbolt of my friend’s apartment.  thankfully her neighbors are great and knocked on the door until i woke up.  i was embarassed, but extremely greatful.  i would feel terrible if ejax’s stuff was stolen.

anyway, i better get going to the next case for today, which i will for real, this time, write about later…unless i miss it because i have sat here too long.

day 3 and 4

these two days weren’t really that long because i had other obligations, especially on wednesday.   wednesday morning we did some really easy cases in the morning like an av fistula for diabetics which is the surgery du jour, followed by a super easy pelvic dissection at the other hospital.  and by pelvic dissection i mean we pretty much did a femoral lymphadenectomy.  nothing exciting.  when we were done, dr. s sent me off to the med school to take care of the school stuff i had to do, which consisted of a panel and a student council meeting.

the panels my school puts together are often times a waste, and now being part of one, i feel like i perpetuated my school’s love of wasting student time.  i kept my answers as brief as possible, swore one time (i said ass), and i made fun of our “doctoring” curriculum all in one, and all on streaming video.  yes!  it went something like this:

“how did you decide to apply to academic vs community hospital?”

“well, let’s see, i started by writing a reflective essay…”

i pretty proud of that because it was instantaneous.  nothing like wit.

blah, anyway, then there was the council meeting, which was okay and everything, but sometimes i worry about handing over the reins.  part of that, or really much of that, has to do with my control issues.  i like to think sometimes that the world around me would come crashing down if i wasn’t doing something to prevent that.  i do need to relax a bit and relinquish that control.

day 3 ended with my enjoying some delicious old wedgewood pizza – the best!

day 4, thursday, was a bizarre day consisting of me amputating two legs… not on the same person.  it seems so strange to even have done that, but i think it would have been weirder if i had had the time to actually look at the removed appendage.  unfortunately (or fortunately), i had to keep helping with the surgery.  i did get to use the super awesome muscle and vessel stapler, which saves so much time apparently, both in that case and it prevents the surgery from having to be redone.  and i don’t mean the limb grows back, i mean going in a fixing where it was already cut off.

 

well, those are some brief synopses of last week.  friday i wasn’t around because of interviews.  i will update on interviews and then about today’s happenings later, but due to my sleep deprived state, i must go for nap time!

day2

i will be trying to write daily during this month since it’s bound to produce some rather interesting stories.  if i am not wirting every day, i will hopefully be making up for it on those days i do write… this all of course excludes weekends.

day 2 was pretty awesome.  it consisted of going to one of the local community hospitals where there are no residents.  this was particularly exciting because i actually was doing a lot in the case.   we had a carotid endarterectomy after some other at forum where the resident did most the work, but let me close.

then it was off to clinic where i didn’t do anything because he sees all of ten patients – score…

of note, it’s pretty awesome when an attending gives a ride over in their nice car and you’re the cool medical student who spills tea all over it, especially right after calling some other girl a “ditz”.  what great timing on my part.