flibbertigibbet

I know I have at least a year ‘til I have to decide, but this is driving me crazy. :((

1. Last night’s duty was surprisingly light. We only facilitated a lot of the backlogged workup during the morning and afternoon, then had 3 trauma referrals at night. Yey. And to think that I actually really dreaded that duty. Hahaha

2. Today’s conference = free food. :P

3. I finally have my new card. Haha. I feel more secure now. HAHA

4. This milktea place near my building that’s really cheap. I love it. So close, spacious and cheap. Cheap is important. Hehe

5. Freshmen have arrived. Which also means…the new clerks start on Monday! It won’t actually matter to me much, for at least 2 more weeks, since I won’t be having any clerk-intern interaction during Burn and Pedia-Sx rotations, but it’s better knowing there are almost two hundred more people in the hospital now. :)

6. My aunt’s family from States is here. Free food..? Nyehehe

I should get out more often, get a life outside of PGH.

I think I understand the concept of “Intern’s Powers” now. Hahaha.

Yesterday was an especially good day for IV lining. The first one was a breast cancer patient, whom you’re only allowed to line on one arm (since the other had the mass, edema, etc), and whose veins were particularly tortuous. After cannulation it wasn’t so curly anymore. Hahaha

Another difficult one was a hemodialysis patient with anasarca and pitting edema everywherrre. After getting the excess fluid out from his arm (BPx5 haha), I tried lining him with a yellow cannula. I didn’t really feel (nor see!) a vein on that portion of his arm, it just seemed anatomically logical to have a vein there. And presto, so there was. Hahaha.

The most difficult one of all that day was yet another HD patient, who other people have tried lining already. An anesth resident tried and failed 4x, and the nurse didn’t have any luck either. He wasn’t my patient, but the nurse decided to let me try anyway. It was amazing how I was able to line him, since I don’t know how I did it. HAHA. 

Why can’t every day be like that one? Sometimes I’m miraculously good at procedures, like just now. Other times, my skills are just worse than an ICC’s. Hahaha. Oh well. I always have good days and bad days. :|

It’s surprising even me, but I am actually really enjoying this SOD rotation, and I think it’s unfortunate that it only lasts this long. I have decided that I do want to become a surgeon some day. I just really cannot imagine the dehumanization process that first year residents have to go through, though. I don’t want that for myself, ever. And I imagine that all Surgery residents, even those not in PGH, go through some version of that. 1 year is still a long time to be sacrificing everything you have, and I don’t know if I can do it (if I can even get into the program at all HAHA). I don’t have the money, either, so…

Hay nako. I love my SOD, but her residency stories are scaring the hell out of me. Hahaha. 

It was an awesome day to start internship. (Although technically it’s already been 2 days Haha). 

I lugged about 5+ kilos of medical supply stash to the ER a little before 7AM. I was wearing my coat at the beginning but only lasted about 10 minutes in the prickly-sticky ER heat/humidity before I had to give up and take it off. So much for the coat hype.

I spent the first 2 hours of internship as the triage intern (first everrr!). Thankfully it went by quickly and without toxicity; the patients arrived steadily but there were no complicated cases during my time. Phew. I hope all my future triage posts would be similar hehe.

ER duty was kind of toxic. And in the ridiculous heat we were having an insane amount of insensible losses HAHA so we consumed maybe 4L of water each. Hahaha. We’re lucky there are four of us, and that our SOD is incredibly efficient but understanding. 

Minor OR was the best. For my first case i shared a 21-year-old patient with a 1x1cm breast mass, with my co-intern. The mass was so tiny it practically disappeared. The second case was both easier and more difficult, if that makes sense (which obviously doesn’t HAHA). Easier because the mass was large, so I knew where exactly to dissect, etc. Harder because the mass was large, and attachments ran much deeper, and vessels had to be ligated. I still hate that after the OR I immediately get allergies. My hands now look like raw meat and are itchy as hell. :(

I think we were a lot slower than I (and probably our SOD but she’s too polite to mention it) would like to be, but it was a great and fulfilling first day anyway. Tomorrow I’m kind of excited about the chart-all-you-can OPD. My feet will recover from all the standing and running around, but my fingers will probably fall off at the end of the day. Hahaha. Weee. :D

So I am now a medical intern!

Well actually we officially start on May 1, but I enrolled today, so I think that counts. Hahaha. The 365-day adventure will start with me immediately doing triage posts as an SOD intern-on-duty. While others are going to enjoy their extended holiday via Labor Day (since the OPD will be closed). Boo. But hey, the PGIs seem to be great! Here’s hoping we all get along well with each other. :)

I am still a hodgepodge of emotions. Nervous/scared/excited/doubtful/apprehensive/gaaaah.

Part of me is in denial, part of me just wants to get the first day over and done with, if only to rid myself of the jitters and shifting dullness. Haha. Oh well, we are taking it one day at a time. :)

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Last na.

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! *hingang malalim*

Okay.

My mantra these past few days: “you are ready, you are ready, you are ready”. To be repeated N times until I actually am. 

Omgeee. *pre-internship jitters* :((

Come home already.

I love you, and I like that you want to keep holding my hand. But I need you to let go sometimes, and let me grow up.

Please talk to me and I will try my best to understand. Just don’t push everyone away.

Thank you.

I miss you. The old you. Or maybe just how things were before. 

I want us to reconnect, but we have no common ground and nothing to talk about anymore. It’s probably my fault. How do we do this?

Why do you intrude my thoughts with unwanted memories at the most in-opportune moments? Stahp!!!

I wish I could lecture you on how to live your life. But I can’t and shouldn’t, so I won’t. Just straighten up, bud.

For your own sake, I hope you’re going to try your hardest. 

It will be okay. 

I cannot wait for the day that I can finally be my own person, with no strings attached, with no responsibility except for myself. I want to detach myself for a while and just be. Let me be, let me go. 

Sometimes I’m mature, I promise. Other times, god I swear I need anger management issues. Or actually, I guess I do manage it well enough sometimes that I don’t actively do anything about it, but it doesn’t help that I’d still be pissed off then.

If people had mind-reading abilities, I probably would have been in jail already by now. And if “looks could kill” were true, then I’d be the most fickle serial killer. Hahaha.

But seriously, while I acknowledge that I’m probably PMS-ing and that the weather is at its worst (and thus adding to my baseline pissed-off-ness), WHY AM I IRRITABLE THESE DAYS?! 

I have 40 days left to become mature, and to magically know things that all the interns seemed to know. Am I supposed to be any smarter 40 days from now? When am I getting the intern powers? HAHAHA. 

But no, seriously, I still feel like a clerk, you know? As in, I don’t feel ready to become an intern. Huhuhu.

Sometimes I LITERALLY have to bite my tongue or the inside of my cheek in order to stop myself from expressing opinion, especially when I know that what I have to say isn’t the popular vote. I’ve bled more times than I can count, I think.

Sometimes I think…I just don’t think like anybody else.

I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. 

Welp.

I’ve done this many times before, but I’ve decided to make this something I’ll do every so often. Just as a reminder to always look at the happy things. :)

1. Sharing a meal with my sister, using an actual dinner table and having an actual conversation while eating. Hehe

2. Salted caramel ice cream made accessible, thank you Nestle. 

3. Singing along to 8tracks. Or to my iPod on shuffle. It’s like karaoke on crack, it’s so random. :))

4. VERONICA MARS MOVIE. :D :D :D And re-watching some episodes just because. :)

5. Still having new ebooks to read. I’m halfway through Looking For Alaska now, I think.

6. I finished ORL Capul notes. HAHA. That’s about it for my academic achievement this entire weekend, but hey, it’s something, right? :P

7. 8 days of hospital left, and then 4 days of nonstop marathon exams, and then summer!

8. Internship’s sooo close! ~1 year to go, yo!

Clerkship year. I can no longer count the number of times I’ve witnessed a patient be brought home against medical advice. Or assisted in emergency intubations. Or participated in running a code. 

With medical training, you learn what to expect in an elderly patient with severe pneumonia, and the prognosis of someone intubated, in need of mechanical ventilation, and possibly inotrope drips. What if that patient were to be brought home, only with oral medications?

Here I am, knowing these things, having seen it myself more than a handful of times. But here I am, a thousand miles away, and suddenly grandparent-less. You see it all the time. But it doesn’t hurt any less.

It’s hard to try not to judge people. As a medical student, you’re taught to treat patients objectively, and never judge them based on the short histories we gather. There are some times it’s easier said than done, though.

What about the man who contracted gonorrhea during a sexual encounter with a random woman he met at a bar, but two days later had anniversary sex with his girlfriend? You hope he tells her of the encounter, because you know she’ll have contracted the disease from him anyway, and you’ll need to treat her, too. But you can’t preach morals. You can’t tell him not to cheat on anyone. You’re just his doctor. You’re limited to giving the patient appropriate sexual education and advice, and that’s probably the best you can do. 

What about the mother who is able to smoke her lungs out but cannot afford a mechanical ventilator for her infant whose lungs are also failing? I’ve never had much patience for people who smoke, and my personal opinion is that they deserve whatever disease befalls them (sorry, maybe that still is a bit judgy, but like I’ve said a million times before, I really hate smokers, with a passion of a thousand burning suns). But her child is free of that vice, and doesn’t deserve someone who gives up on him. She sits there, blinking blankly at you and claiming she has absolutely no money for labs or meds or anything, all the while pocketing a half-full pack of cigarettes. I have no idea how much those death-sticks cost, but I know they’re not for free, so what the fuck. But you’re the doctor, and while you can advise the mother to quit smoking, ultimately it’s going to have to be her choice. Like it’s going to be her choice how aggressive she’s going to be on seeking funds for her child. 

And sooo many other stories like the above. It’s not every day of course, because sometimes there are those miraculously awesome and diligent patients/bantays. I just wish there’d be more good ones than bad ones.