One Hundred and Ninety-five, Whoa

I haven't read a blog or webcomic in three or four months...

The thought just floored me. It's not that it's freedom; it's not good or bad; it just is. I do realize I've missed reading some close friends' blogs which I would enjoy. But things are as they are right now and I won't fight it currently. Maybe upon residency and possibly moving to Land's End, USA, I might drag myself more to there to catch a glimpse of what my peeps are encountering and doing.

One Hundred and Ninety-four, Cardiac Arrest

I have been remiss from this forum for quite a while mainly because I did forget about it in the jumble known as life.  This entry doesn't herald my sudden return to all things blog but it is to point out a small event that occurred earlier today.

A patient in the hospital for whatever reason stopped breathing and pumping his own blood.  Doctors rushed in along with nurses, I stood outside the room with my three colleagues.  I hear different orders being shouted through the air, "Get the crash cart!" "You start compressions!" "I'll get the kit" "Push another atropine!" "Stop! Does he have a pulse?" "Rotate on compressions" "We have a pulse!" "Ok, he's stable" "I lost the pulse!" "Quick, start compressions again!" and on and on.

At one point, one of the residents turns to me, points, and beckons.  As I near him, he tells me to leave my white coat outside the room.  I hurriedly rush in sans white coat and grab the gloves he gives me.  

"You're going to relieve the guy giving compressions."

My mind's jaw drops.  My physical body continues as directed to the side of the room where the folks giving compressions are standing and doing their job.  As I stand behind the fellow whose shoulders are heaving as he pushes heavily onto the old gentleman's sternum, someone tells him to pause to check pulses.  They find one!  Everyone relaxes (again) as the people in the room prepare to move the bed to the ICU.  As the connections are dropped, they notice his pulse is gone again.  Matt, my resident, turns to me and points me in.  I step up, place my hands as taught and practiced on rubber dummies, and start counting while doing my job.  I count ~50 compressions when the lady next to me says, "I can feel your compressions, stop so I can see if he's beating on his own."  I halt.  She still has a pulse.  I step back after glancing at Matt as the bed is wheeled off.  As I exit slowly behind the bed and its horde of people, my two colleagues come up to me and congratulate me on saving a life.  I stutter like I always do when I get a compliment.  Jokes continue into the night about using the story to score chicks at the bar.  I'm just happy he lived.  And constantly reminding myself in my mind about how oddly the feel of the elderly gentleman's chest felt just like the mannequins we practice on.  The only odd part was the face staring up at me slowly turning first purple, then pink with compressions, and with a mouth slightly parted in the agony of the situation...

One Hundred and Ninety-three, Insurance

Ah vacation! Here I am in Texas with nine other people to celebrate the New Years! And I'm working on an overcharge problem with my health insurance company. Sometimes Life can be too much of a blur to see the little things piling up at your feet.

One Hundred and Ninety-two, Death of 'Ole Blue

Around eight years ago the four of them came into our lives as brothers of the same factory.  The gentle blue with a glowing insignia were soothing to our sense, the ergonomic shape eased into our palms.  We four had found our mice.  Lord Chaos, the Beatnik, the Engineer, and myself revelled in our gameplay for many years with these mice.  Switching to each other's computers was simple with the same peripherals.  Orcs, dwarves, trolls, gnomes, terrorists, scientists, Gordon Freemans, robots, Soviets, Allies, GDI, NOD, pyros, engineers, Psilons, Silicoids, roller coasters, trains, Civilization(s), Tribes vehicles, mutalisks, carriers, seige tanks, Jedi, Sith, smugglers, bounty hunters, augmented UNATCO operatives, Ylloj - my frost sorceress, a red Boba Fett-lokalike named Silencer, fantasy warriors, X-COM operatives, cities, evil minions and mistresses who you could slap, Kabuto, and Meccs are but a few of the creatures and races under the sway of our mice at one time or another.  

'Ole Blue has travelled a lot too between three different cities and almost 10 houses/apartments.  He provided my thumb a gentle gel-filled pad on which to rest.  He outlived two of his three brothers in regular usage.  One got lost to the annals of "old equipment" while another hemorrhaged out gel fluid.  One sibling remains who still feels the love of a human daily.  The Beatnik has just built himself a new computer and his mouse will hopefully get to experience it for many years to come.  Mine decided six months was what it could last on my new PC.  Today the years of rough use and the cord's weight to the ground finally pulled some connection loose inside the mouse.  I tried a splint with tape but it can't hold with the pressure needed.

Today I went out and found the great-great-great-great grandson of my Mouseman Wheel, the G5 Laser Mouse.  

It's been hard with it because it is unruly and different.  My thumb sits slightly differently, there are a few extra buttons, and the slide is smoother than I'm used to.  I'm sure I'll get used to it though.  Already today I've gotten to like the slide and messed around with the extra buttons.

But I'll still miss that blue glowing symbol on my first real mouse.

One Hundred and Ninety-one, The Lich King

Wrath of the Couch Potato

One Hundred and Ninety, Epic Fail

I won't say a game is sucking my life away because that would imply that I am miserable playing it both with people I know and with people I've never met.  That, however, is not the case.  I felt a thrill of joy in the weeks leading up to the release of the expansion and now I have some goals on what I want to accomplish with it.  I've taken my first steps into Northrend and they are thrilling and sturdy ones.

One Hundred and Eighty-nine, Passion

I had a surgeon tell me about a procedure he was going to help perform back when I was on surgery.  The procedure was the one mentioned briefly in this entry.  And while to you or I it might seem like a long, amazing, and possibly tedious surgery, to him it was why he lived.  The excitement on his face was a beacon for me.  As I go through pediatrics and look back on Ob/Gyn and Surgery, I realized that I want what he has.  I want to experience the same glowing feeling, the same Drive for a particular line of work.  Doctors are in their profession for life.  I want to do something that I will thoroughly enjoy for the rest of mine.  

One Hundred and Eighty-eight, Dalaran

The search begins in two days for the city that used to fill this crater.

One Hundred and Eighty-seven, Seven Rocks!

It's still the 10th!  So there!  Nothing here though.  Check back another day!

One Hundred and Eighty-six, Patient Continuity

So this daily blogging isn't going to work as is apparent to all who read my last one and then glanced at the date on this one.  Ohwell, ONWARDS!  

Continuity of Care is important in medicine for particular doctors.  Mainly Family medicine, Ob/Gyns, Psychiatry, and Pediatrics.  You see the same patients regularly either for checkups or for sick visits.  Hopefully the former, but the world isn't perfect.  Friday closed a chain of events in which I had interacted with a particular patient through three separate events, as opposed to following a patient stuck in a hospital during my rotation.  The first encounter was during my Ob/Gyn month during clinic where she came in for a 28 week checkup.  I can recall the exacts of her circumstances, older mom, excited that she quit smoking during the pregnancy, and with a particular medical condition which required some vigilance on our part when delivery-time came but was not a major worry.After her checkup that day, I placed her out of mind and figured, like the rest of the patients I had seen during those months, that I would let her melt into the pool of faces and names and diagnoses that collects all the patients I see.

Ten days ago during Newborn nursery my fellow classmate was examining a baby who had just come from the OR where mom had just had an emergency Caesarian section.  I didn' think much of it as I was writing my note on another baby while listening to them talk about a medical condition plaguing some mothers when I happened to hear the baby's last name.  I glanced up and without thinking uttered a first name.  The attending glanced down and read the mother's name.  Perfect match.  Mom was not exactly with it since she was recovering from her operation so I didn't get a chance to congratulate her then.  I felt a little warm inside with this patient continuity but again I figured that this was it, the end of the line.  I was prepared to let her and her child melt into the pool of patients although I figured it would take a little longer due to this second interaction, however remote it was.

Two days ago in my pediatric outpatient clinic, again I found myself sitting writing up a note on a patient I had seen while listening to the residents and attendings interacting and teaching/learning.  This time I heard about how this newborn's mother had a particular medical condition but it had been handled properly and there was no sign of damage to the baby due to it.  This time I glanced over at the folder the resident was working on.  There was the last name again.  This time I did go in to say hi.  

I don't know what I want to do yet, but I do want continuity.