Going into med I was under the impression that med would make me more smart. Unfortunately the opposite is true. My brain is fried. Kaput.
Let me give an examples. Coming home from uni I thought I'd shower my neglected garden in affection. I pulled up many weeds. Sadly the next day I realised that the 'weeds' were the tomato plants and the plants that I had rescued were weeds. I have replanted the tomatoes and am hoping and praying that they somehow live.
This leads to me to my title uprooted. In a sense I am too uprooted. I have been pulled up out of the clay-like soil of Adelaide and planted in sandy Perth. Weirdly this did not hit me until three days ago. All night my dreams were filled with searching for missing friends and attending the funerals of my family and close friends. I woke feeling disorientated, wondering why my quilt was black and my bed was facing a new direction. I had a little cry and then had a good day of study. Plants, no matter how tough, cannot be uprooted without a struggle as they adjust to their new environment.
Still apart from a fried brain, missing home and still not taking in nearly enough information each week I LOVE med. Each day I fall more deeply in love with med. Seriously it is the most special, unique degree ever. We all attend classes four days a week from 8amish to 5-7pmish. It's almost like we're all living in a giant mansion together (going home to sleep seem to be insignificant). Apparently next week we all have to weigh each other and strip down to our underwear (or bathers) as we practise clinical skills. I am not looking forward to this! I think we'll all know each other in quite a different way by the end of the four years than we know our non med friends.
On Mondays we hangout at Curtin uni and do all the core science stuff. (we're extra nerdy as we have student cards from TWO unis). On this day we done white coats and spend two hours exploring the anatomy of cadavers. Despite the smell that makes me disconcertingly hungry and the chemicals that make my eyes red and watery, this is the BEST two hours of the week. I am SOOOO thankful to the people who donated their bodies to help us learn. Seeing the body parts in real life blows me away. Let me tell you of the two best things I saw this week. The area beneath the heart and above the pelvic floor is the peritoneal cavity. The guts are all shoved in there as I thought. Instead there is the this sheath like thing that is interspersed in the cavity that hold every thing in place. The tissue is called the mesentery and is connective tissue that has an awesome blood and lymph (can hold germ killing agents) supply. The greater omentum hangs down from the stomach and flaps over the small intestines. It is described as the watch dog. When an organ is infected it wrapped around it. This means that the infection is isolated and can't spread. It also means that the lymph supply can FLOOD it with germ killing agents to fight the infection. This BLOWS me away. On a lesser note the same material is attached to the small intestine like a pretty frill. I've attached a gruesome picture below, which I found with google. Also see my beautiful garden- this is a photo of my pumpkin plants.
MED IS DREADFULLY DIFFICULT BUT NOTHING COULD BE BETTER.
