Perhaps in my last few posts I have tried to focus on how awesome med is rather than being completely honest about how overwhelmed and scared I have been.
- This is the first week that I haven't called home crying.
- This is the first week that I am beginning to wonder if I do in fact have what it takes to be a doctor.
- This is the first week that I have come to grips with the possibility of failing.
Really what does it matter if I fail? If I fail I'll cry etc and then I'll pick myself up and do first year again.
Aside from that I'm looking after myself- I'm refusing to let med take over. I've found time to start knitting again (how I've missed it!). Today a med friend and I decided to pretend not to be med students for two hours and do normal things. It so special just to wander through lovely clothes store and sit and have food in a real cafe. We couldn't resist talking about our favourite med things from the week, oh well so much for forgetting med!!
So what can I tell you about this week? My favourite things of course!!
1. The skin is covered in pathogens (microoganism capable of producing disease). This is... good. They happily live there in safe numbers basically taking up the space and food so that no one pathogen can take over and cause oh no... disease. The immune system also gets daily practice at killing off and keeping these pathogens in check. Finally the microorganisms sometimes produce vitamins that the body needs and toxins that kill bad pathogens. We have around 100 trillion of these microorganisms on our skin, in our gut, eyes and noses etc. Beautiful. It's only when a microorganism that is usually found in one place and moves to another- say from the gut to the mouth that problems happen- it puts the whole beautifully balanced normal skin flora out of whack. Taking broad spectrum antibiotics can also clear off the normal microorganisms letting the more resilient microorganisms take over.
2. So yes that is all cool, but I particularly like the gore. Learning about abscesses etc this week was awesome. If you aren't too squeamish you may enjoy the following link:
http://www.facebook.com/l.
Abscess: I hope my understanding is correct. Here I go. Something gets through the outer layer of the skin. This could be a pathogen or splinter etc. The body sends in white blood cells to kill it and eat it up and clean out the wound. These cells struggle as it is not an easy war. Many die as do some of the invading pathogens/bits of the object. This creates a pool of dead fighters from both side= pus. The body is also sending in fibroblasts (builders) to rebuild the damaged war zone and isolate the infection. Now the pus is completely isolated. There is no blood supply and the nice alive good body tissue is dying inside the capsule. The pool of pus is getting bigger. Antibiotics won't help as they can't get through the capsule. This is a dreadful situation. What if the capsule fails and the infection, which is now big, gets into the blood and goes EVERYWHERE??? So what happens? Cool doctors comes along and open it up and let out all the pus, clean it up and all is well again. Although it would be temping to do it at home just like the people in the video above!
Now I must go and do my share of the cleaning and SLEEP. Is not sleep the best invention in the world?!
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