Have you ever felt so tired, that the floor feels like its moving under you?


omfg why did I book a 7am flight at LAX? -______-

I had a pretty crazy day on Wednesday.

I woke up late, got to writing late, spent the next 4 hours in class jotting down notes and doodling up a storm (my feeble attempt to stay awake). I was starved during lunch because food never came while I sat in a lecture hall learning about geriatrics and spirituality in patients. Heard some pretty fucked up comments like, "Patient care and religion should never mix," or "I don't believe that religion and medicine don't go hand in hand. In the past and other cultures, religion is a huge part of medicine. I know of some Asian cultures where religion is used."

Wtf. At the first comment, the people I was sitting with glanced at each other with wtf-is-he-talking-about looks. At the second comment, my friend (who happens to be Asian as well) and I looked at each other for a second before turning around and asking the boy who commented about Asian cultures, wtf are you talking about.

Him: "Well you know, Asian cultures."
Friend: "What Asian cultures?"
Me: "You mean acupuncture?"
Him: "Yeah! That."

?? I am confizzled.

Anyway, I finally got food after starving for 6 hours and promptly went to the weekly "Peak Performance" session. They call it "Peak Performance" but it's really group therapy. I sat on the floor while listening to the psychiatrist go around asking people, "How are you feeling?" Then I sat on the floor through a health disparities seminar, which was interesting, but not when you want to stab yourself in the eyeballs. After sitting for three hours, we were finally released and I was allowed to crawl back into my room. It wasn't before long I had to get up, change, eat dinner, and walk to the hospital with my partner for our weekly clinical rotations.

So from 7-11pm, we were assigned to follow the resident at the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CCU).  It was a little boring at first.  Our doc was cool and spoke to us like we're not dumb fucks.  After chatting with him and a fellow, we learned more about how hours are hard, everyone wants to help everyone, etc. But I did witness when a doctor had to give family some bad news. sigh...

Anyway, our cool doc admitted to us that he was going to be doing paperwork and he didn't want to waste our time. So we left to take a break at the cafeteria. We met up with another friend from the program and we all decided to go to labor and delivery, but THEN...




WE GOT INVITED TO OBSERVE OPEN HEART SURGERY

Ho yeah. Guess who saw a live beating heart?

It was an emergency sextuple bypass surgery. SIX! Damn, that's a lot of damage. But I didn't get to see the whole thing though. My friend and I stayed until the patient was hooked up to the bypass machine, leg vein was harvested, and heart was prepped to start the bypasses.

While I was looking down on this patient's open chest, I tried to imagine myself as one of the surgeons sticking his hands down into the chest cavity.

I couldn't.

One more thing off of Lucy's list of potential careers.

Got back around 2 am to a sleepy roommate who managed a "I HATE YOU!" after I told her what I saw before falling asleep.

But going back to the title of this entry, it wasn't that special.  I feel like I should be in awe and amazed by the human body and all the toys the surgeon used to fix him up, but I'm not. It was a little short lived. I did chat frantically with some people online when I came back, but when I woke up, it seriously felt like, "eh."

I think it is a sign of some sorts if I'm feeling like this. Oh well.

Anyway, I hate N. Carolina weather. The sun was hidden behind clouds today so I decided to eat my lunch outside on this here bench. Then there was literally two drops of rain and now the sun is hailing all of its fiery glory down on me.

I'm burning so I shall end here.


Btw: Ginormous is part of the dictionary now.

Yeah I'm procrastinating right now. I just got back from a mock disaster drill. Me, 79 kids from SMDEP, and 400 med students (doc, pa, nurse, and therapist) and health professionals got on buses at 5:30 am and drove to Surrey, North Carolina where we, the SMDEP kids, pretended to be victims while the med students worked on taking care of us.

After standing around for hours, I received an orange tag making me a 66 year old female with autism. Later, I developed seizures.

SOOO AWKWARD. The other people were really interesting to watch though. One student was "agitated" and then got violent. Another student was distressed because he was feeling pain from his amputated foot. I heard later that the hospice was locked down because someone with TB came it. After I performed my "seizure," I was given diazepam, which according to the med students that I was to act sedated and calm. So I just sat on a cot for 5 hours watching the "agitated" student get handcuffed by the cops because he started throwing stuff, watch a friend act bipolar, and laugh at the student who demanded KFC because he was in pain (and later told the med school student to shut the fuck up and stop acting so smart).

At least they fed us well. Some other symptoms other people had to act out were cerebral palsy, rectal bleeding, Huntington's disease, vomitting, confused, etc. Some people got to get makeup like fake gashes or an open wound on the leg. One guy even got a plastic knife stuck in his belly! It was originally a knitting needle (because we were all from a nursing home) but they changed it. One student's card even said, "Recovering from c-section."

But on the bottom it said, "Male."

hahaha. Okay gotta get back to work.



My schedule for the next 5 weeks. Every Wednesday, I go on a clinical rotation. My first one is next week in the SICU, Surgical Intensive Care Unit -- woot! Too bad I miss "so you want to be a doctor." I was really looking forward to that.

//edit
I emailed the program director and she said "so you want to be a doctor" shifts around so I won't miss all of them, yayyy

Update later on my new Southern life.

Leaving soon, this saturday in fact. Man, I don't know if I want to leave or not. Usually I'm excited to head out someplace new, but this time, not so much.

I think I know why, which is a fucked up reason.

Anyway, I started a new book and for some reason, it's scaring the scrap out of me. Only on page 66, but the back cover basically says, Man must find mutant sheep with black star on back or else. The Japanese students my sister worked with on a project recommended it to her. It's Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase, pretty okay so far. I finished the Red Tent last night, but shoot me until I'm a bloody pulp if I have to read another word about a woman's period or the process of making and birthing a baby. No need after spending a year at a school of all women and living in a house with just women.

I got an email sent from Kathy today about current happenings with the immigration reform bill that's on the table now in Senate. I haven't really paid attention to it in the beginning. Just heard few words like "point system," "z-visa," and "damn white people just wanna close the borders!" here and there, but after the email, I read around and dang, if we don't do anything about it, a lot of people's lives are going to get screwed over.

So, if you're a parent (naturalized citizen) and your kid is abroad, and you want you kid to live with you in the states, the law now takes 15 years for ya'll to reunit. A proposed amendment to the bill is after your kid is 21, then nope, sorry. Try something else.

The point system basically knocks elderly and children off the potential possibility of permanent residence.

Fucking, working 2 years on the z-visa, a year back home, and hopefully another two years puts people in low-wage, lower class America until they can start building.

A quota on visas for parents who are abroad? Hey, that's messed up. My mom's a citizen but if I find a friend crying in the future because she can't see her mom because the United States don't want another Mexican, Chinese, Arab, non-English speaking old lady here, then fuck.

You can send a letter to the Senators at this link. There is a pre-written letter by the Asian Law Caucus, a group focused on representing and promoting the legal rights of Asian and Pacific Islander Americans.

http://www.actionstudio.org/public/page_view_all.cfm?option=begin&pageid=8098

Okay I'm off to bed now.