Compressed three month Blog

It has been such a crazy time since I last posted here. I've moved from friend's place to a pretty condo in suburban Chicago to sharing an apartment with three other girls and calling a room the size of a closet my own. Of course, this claustrophobia-inducing room is temporary until I can find better accomodations.

I took both CK and CS in two consecutive weeks at the end of July and the beginning of August. I just finished celebrating the results for my CK, which I passed, IMO, with flying colors. With my QBank scores swinging between 60 and 75 all the time, my score surprised the heck out of me, considering all the craziness that the past three months of my life have been.

My parents asked me to buy myself a gift, and because I am a nerd, I'm thinking about getting myself a booklight... haha. Nerds FTW.

Met up with a bunch of classmates and schoolmates the other day after a long time, I hadn't seen some of them in over two years. And it was fun. Its nice to meet up with people who understand that unique situation I am in.

On the flip side, my rotations in CT aren't happening. Not exactly sure where the goofus happened, but it did and now I'm stuck without rotations.

That may be a good thing because I want to go into Pediatrics (YES! I finally made a choice!) and neither of those were pediatric rotations; so that leaves me free to do a slew of pediatric rotations for my electives. I'm working my a** off to get rotations here in Chicago, this is where I want to live and work. I might decide to do a Sub-internship in Internal Medicine both because it is a school requirement and because it will keep me from being idle and tearing out my hair while waiting for my pediatric electives to be scheduled.

You heard that right, I said I want to go into Pediatrics. Yay for words coming back to haunt me... and premature declarations.

I'm also trying to finish my scary-looking paperwork for the residency application process. It is so scary.... I hate paperwork and I've been told many times that I am in the wrong field for the amount of hate for that particular item... Sigh. I suppose it is the rule of balance.

I've also been calling programs and doctors in practice to see if I could do rotations with them; I've exhausted the minutes on my phone... hahaha. And I'm still sitting on my ass. This is doubly hard on me because I'm not a people person at all, and it makes me cranky and insociable. I turn into a cave being. Completely... except for the fact that I wear clothes... I don't feel like talking to anyone after those crazy, long days. I DON'T WANT TO DEAL WITH PEOPLE ANYMORE! (I happened to mention this to my mother the other night when she had called - and she laughed. Obviously, there are exceptions - I do always want to talk to my parents and certain friends)

Yesterday I went to the clinic so someone could stick me with a needle and draw three huge tubes of blood from my arm, and get a complete physical; today I had a chest x-ray. That concludes the medical portion of the programme - it is the the last bunch of tests I'll need before I graduate, hopefully. Results on Tuesday!

For all the rollercoaster that I've been on since mid-May, I am a stronger and saner person today. I've noticed my priorities have changed a lot... though I'm still not a people person. I'm learning to focus on the big picture. I'm trying to hone my sense of humor... apparently, I developed one when I wasn't looking. I've also made friends - some of whom will be permanent sparklers.

And Big hugs for everyone that sent out prayers, good wishes and encouragement. I love you all!

To Do List

1. Study for Step 2
2. Reschedule CS to somewhere in August/early Sept
3. Figure out electives
4. Work out schedule for electives
5. Catch up on email
6. Remember: Coffee is not a meal, even if it is a latte
7. Eat. eat. eAt. EaT. Atleast tid.
8. Do not stress out.
9. Write 1000 words/day.
10. Study for Step 2
11. Do not start novel/ebook.
12. PRAY
13. Stay sane
14. Get chocolate!

Random observations and Writing

So I'm moving... again. To Chicago. Yay me!

I've spent the last three days culling and packing and sorting and folding and sitting on my suitcase to close it and unpacking and repacking and stopping short of tearing my hair out. Mind, I washed my hair on thursday morning and did not comb it or brush it for the rest of the day so it looks like I;ve been tearing it out.

I'm bunking with a friend, I'm really looking fwd to seeing her again. I like to think we're pretty close. Its very generous of her to open up her house to me. So thanks!

Step 2 is kicking my a**, and I'm determined to win. Its been a very ugly, one-sided battle so far and I haven't been on the winning side even once. I haven't done anything that has any relation to medicine since sunday, and I have a feeling I'm going to pay. So yeah, I'm going to have to spend next week playing catch-up.

Thats next week - which officially does not start until Sunday. So I'm going to take my time off and enjoy it - enjoy every minute of it. Take time to relax, heal and write. Maybe I'll get around to writing that novel I never really gave up on. Maybe it'll make my studying better, improve my focus. So by June 27, I should really have about 30000 words written.

Wish me luck!

Age

Gnarled fingers touching, soothing,
bringing back to life the
pleasantness of all that is spring,
youth and content.
Share with me the secret
of life on these windy cliffs
a river carved through a mountain
immemorial times ago.

Let me listen to the rhythm
of your heartbeat,
a genteel murmur – or
is it the water I hear
rushing below us
as we stand together
basking in a spring sunset?

Tell me the stories
that carved each line of you,
etched each curve.
Were they knights
that first fell in love
with your homely scents
or were they warriors
checking their steeds
at the memory
of a stolen first kiss?

Or were they Viking sailors
with blue eyes
and insignificant boats
bobbing on the river
before returning to
the conquering majesty
of their ship, carrying
news of you,
you pink-and-white-robed minstrel?

I stand here and watch
as you sparkle
in the dewy evening,
ensconced in birdsong
and whinnying horses
and the smell of rich soil
awakening around you.

I'm going to zone out

Here it comes - the end of one miserable rotation. Don't know why, but everything that could possibly go wrong in a single rotation went wrong on this one. I'll be glad to slink out with a low B... I have A's on all my other rotations. Sucks.

Six weeks of OB/Gyn. Not a terror rotation, it was supposed to be fun, dammit. This whole rigmarole should have been a piece of cake, but it turned into something else that will twist up my guts for a longish time.

Never could settle down to find my groove for this rotation, could never get comfortable with the system I was working in. I have a very good attending, but I could not get into a rhythm at all... I've spent the last six weeks constantly off-balance, losing my groove just as I begin settling down. Spending my days in the office constantly wanting to be in the OR - where I fell flat on my face. Literally.

Three times I left the OR halfway through a surgery - first time was a C-section when I almost passed out, second time was last week when I had to throw up (thank you... its called PMS) and today, I officially passed out. Like one moment I'm standing on my feet doing whatever I'm supposed to do and answering questions on anatomy, vaguely aware that I'm too hot and its kind of hard to breathe. The next thing I know is the anesthesiologist is telling me about my vital signs. Sigh.

Talk about reality checks. This wasn't even a particularly bloody surgery, it was this beautiful symphony. And I conked out. Not fair. I've stood scrubbed in for eight hours with a radiology gown on, starving, but in good shape. And 30 minutes into this morning's surgery, I was flat on the OR floor. And it is a reality check because I want to go into surgery.

I know I'm entitled to pass out atleast once as a medical student in the OR. To give them credit, the staff were great and non-judgmental and quick. They walked me to the lounge after I came around, got me breakfast (I'd eaten before coming to the hospital, but they made me eat anyways), ordered me to stay in the lounge, and the anesthesiologist came back to check my vitals again. My attending cut me a break and asked me to go home instead of sticking around for surgery number 2. Maybe that makes me feel worse than I would have felt otherwise, I don't know.

I feel like a screwup of major proportions. That is not even considering the other crap that was going on with my visa extension application and my school and my loan. I did get those sorted out. What I couldn't resolve was that sense of being a misfit throughout the last 5 weeks. Like a square peg in a round hole. I screwed up on my oral presentations because I was sorting out my visa and school issues and the presentations slipped my mind, I made up for that though I have a feeling it took the shine off. It didn't help that we were seeing these women who had these amazing figures and walked in eating sinfully rich ice-cream - and there I was, with the protein drink or whatever, feeling totally fat and whatever.

I'll admit, I'm tired. Mentally definitely, but also physically, especially over the last two weeks. I have never needed more than two cups of coffee a day, I'm up to three. And I'm yawning at 9 pm - I could never sleep before 11 pm unless I was jetlagged. I can totally skip dinner and not even notice it till I wake up in the morning with a growling stomach. I do make a point of having dinner everyday though, even if I eat just fruit and yogurt, I eat.

Bottomline is, I feel like crap. Passing out in the OR this morning just brought it to a head. I don't doubt I'll get a fair evaluation, but it sucks to know I was so ragged I couldn't focus. And it wasn't for lack of trying. Neither could I find my usual enthusiasm this time round.

What I really want is to get drunk and pass out until Monday morning, but since I dont drink, that isnt a viable option, so I'm going to get me a giant slab of chocolate and drown myself in a few pounds of potato chips... And steel myself for tomorrow and the day after, my last two days in this rotation. Friday has never been more welcome.

Words.. and a Favorite Sparkler

Words - those nifty little creations of intellect. They rhyme, they explode, implode, elevate, embarass, express, soothe, rouse, arouse, calm.
Do I choose my words to define my thought or does the thought choose how it must be defined, from word to image to deed? How does my intellect choose my words to suit my moods? Does one ever get to a level of wisdom when one is immune from saying the wrong words?
My words are mostly poetry. It is how my thoughts arrange themselves.
But tonight, it will not be my words that I choose to start off this new voyage with. It is one of my all-time favorite poems by Al Zolynas, from his book The New Physics:


The Blessing

Lying on my stomach
in the backyard, my eyes
leave War and Peace, skip away
from lives more beautifully broken
than mine, fall on a dewdrop
hung in the shade of a blade of grass in the summer sun.
An insect--a kind of caterpillar--
no larger than a comma approaches,
his body folding and unfolding.
Under my nose, all of Mother Russia
and the drama of an insect and a drop of water.
My insect enters the dewdrop--
simply walks into it,for a few seconds a timeless bug in amber.
He comes out, glistening in the summer air.
The dewdrop remains as before,
pure and clear, a collector of light,
self-contained in its miraculous simplicity. . . .
As if in the old gypsy woman's tent,
after a few predictable cliches
about the future, after
you've paid her a handful of coins
and are rising to leave, she smiles
and passes her hand through the crystal ball.
Lying on my stomach in the grass,
I seem to be looking over my own shoulder,
watching myself watch myself
pass in and out of solid domes
of light, impossibly clear demi-worlds.

I'm a Whiner.

There are days, and there are days.

Days when I can pour myself into whatever I do from minute to minute. Days when I can start something and know, that it will get finished. Days when I wake up by myself. Days when I almost love myself.

And then days when nothing, absolutely nothing enthuses me. When nothing seems to go right. Days when I can't make the transition from hour to hour, smile to smile. Days when I walk around like a zombie and try to get something done. Days when I wake up with ten minutes to spare. Days when I can't take myself anymore.

Don't get me wrong, I love what I'm doing. I love surgery, I love medicine as a whole. I love being able to write.

I spend my days cooped up in a place without sunshine, where I learn how to bring healing and health to people. Suffering with the patients I help take care of is an essential part of me, one that can never die out. I have watched pain in every stage, sorrow that will leave scars and I have felt the cold sweep of affronted Death turned away from the door.

I have stayed up entire nights reading up on stuff, passing from one link to another, one page to another, fascinated by the journey of disease and health, and then trudged my grassflower-kissed path to the hospital at various hours between 4.45 and 10.00 a.m. What drives me is the knowledge that this is the fulfilment of a dream. A dream I shared with those closest to me, some of whom have left my enchanted circle. I miss them, I always will. I learnt from them lessons that will guide me forever, the most important of them being to value myself first. Everything else is secondary to that.

My emotions are awry and tangled, all it'll take for this sweater to unravel is one tug on a loose end. I need the sunshine, the air, the rain on my face, the smell and touch of life upon bare fingertips. It is my elixir, my philosopher's stone. My cocoon is my poetry, and the wonderful people I've met through the sheer magnetism of words.

My pen runs overfull, paper is never enough. But I'm unsatisfied - I feel like each word I write is a cliche, each figure of speech plagarized from my reading. My poems are getting macabre, one life intruding, interfering with the other. My words feel weak, without conviction. I don't like what I write, and I throw it away; then I feel guilty that I should be reading for Big Exam II.

I started this blog intending it to be my diary, but I post, on an average, once a month. I wanted this blog to be the beginning of my renewed learning in poetry, in looking at life on the other side where there is grass. I aimed to make this the place where my friends could keep track of me. But I failed. For pretty much each objective with this blog, I failed. I haven't even found a picture of a guinea pig to post on here. I've turned away the very people I wanted as readers from coming back here by my inexcusable tardiness. Yes, I've managed to make them feel guilty for wanting information about me. Since I'm the only one on this planet in my position, I'm too busy to care.

To those of you who come here looking for me, I'm really sorry. I hope I'll get better. I'm emotionally tired, tired of wrestling with myself, tired of pushing myself, tired of competing with others, tired of being compared to others, tired of being valued not for myself, tired of being disillusioned. I think I'm tired of pretending to be myself.