Iron deficient

Gah medicine. I mean really- sometimes I hate all the baggage that medicine brings with it.

I wish that medicine was simply- medicine. The wonderfully fascinating science that can be used to extend the quality and quantity of life.

It's not though. No matter how much I try, some of the baggage will haunt me- tempting me to carry the stress of that too. I know the metaphor is becoming a little hard to follow- so I'll try and explain.

At least 70% of people in my course are struggling financially to get by. Some of these people astound me with their ability to hold down jobs on top of the mammoth task of studying medicine. 100% of us don't keep in contact with our friends and families like we did in our past lives. The list goes on. Perhaps what I dislike the most is being so vulnerable all time. It is so strange to go from competently holding down a job and looking after others to need constant support from those around me. Should a 25 year old still be calling home for help? Should a 25 year old burst into tears in front of strangers? Should a 25 year old need care in much the same way as a toddler learning how to walk does? It is embarrassing.

Yet I wonder if this humbling time has value? I know a lot of my med friends are going through the same thing. In hospitals patients are often seen by doctors during their most fragile moments. For example to go from working one day to lying in bed being catheterised the next- must be a horrible adjustment to the person's identity. Perhaps like me they need help, but also long to be seen as the competent  happy person they normally are. So then how should I treat these patients? Should I get them well as quickly as possible? Yes. Should I acknowledge their pain? Yes. Should I acknowledge who they 'normally are'? Yes.

I want to thank my family for putting up with my many phone calls. I want to thank my friends for loving me just the same- even though I write letters far less than should. I want to thank my housemates for encouraging me daily. I want to thank my housemate's family for having me over during Easter.

Enough of that deep thinking for today. Two weeks ago I went to suturing night at uni- we lacerated and sewed up pig trotters. It was pretty incredible. I loved it. Being a surgeon must be exhilarating. Soon I'm going to be part of the Teddy Bear hospital and pretend to treat school kid's teddies- how fun! I've finally given in to Ugg boots. All my life I've hated them- they are so ugly. However they turn out to be vital for studying in my cold house. My friend's wedding was stunning and it was so refreshing to be home for it.


Cool medical fact for the week- we can get iron through eating it, but it's a lot harder to get rid of. Our body cells take up what they need and store a little extra. Some protein (transferrin) carries it around our blood stream allow the iron to reach cells all over the body. If the cells don't need anymore iron the body seems to know to not absorb any from the intestines. Yet why do we keep needing to eat iron- if the body doesn't get rid of iron once it's been absorbed from the intestines? Simply because we lose cells every day. Hair falls out. Dead skin rubs off. We fall over and a bit of blood oozes out. This is the lost iron that we need to replace. Pretty cool hey?!

I shall leave you with a picture of my room. The angel reminds me to pray. The picture by my brother reminds me to hope. The skeleton makes me laugh.

Deadly words

Oh my dearie dear me. I have not written for two weeks. How completely dreadful.

My excuse is that I had an essay due and I'm heading home this weekend for a beautiful friend's wedding. Somehow I had to study extremely hard so that I could do absolutely NO study for those few days at home.

Over these two weeks I've thought a lot about the power of words. Does saying something negative really make it happen? To me this has always been a ridiculous belief. Yet, I now wonder otherwise. I have a veggie patch- that I nurtured from seed. The soil in Perth is basically sand and yet some zucchinis and a pumpkin were beginning to grow. Every morning I'd eat my breakfast by my garden and lovingly water it. It was one of the best times of the day.

I suppose love is blind. What I thought was beautiful, was scorned. My housemate's friends would come over and they would stand in front of my garden and laugh. Every day it seemed, someone would give me some more advice on how to improve my ridiculous garden. This upset me. My beloved garden was now a laughing stock. I no longer ate my breakfast by it and hence forgot to water it.

Over  the week I got upset enough to forbid my housemates from paying it out. However by the end of the week most of it died through lack of watering. Only the basil and eggplants continued to thrive. If only people hadn't paid out my garden. If only I hadn't let their words destroy my enjoyment of my garden. If only... then my garden would not have mostly died. Quickly I just want to say that I'm not blaming my housemates (Australians basically pay out anything thing that they can). Still I think this is a part of our culture that we ought to lose.

So words killed my garden... sort of.

Applying this principle to my studies intrigues me. Each day I plug away at what I need to learn. Yet I regularly feel completely inadequate. I am vulnerable to attack. Imagine if I believed that it was no use and that I should not bother. Imagine if in my vulnerability, people began talking and saying that I didn't have what it takes and laughed at my poor grasp of medicine. Would I study harder to prove them wrong? Or would I slowly lose motivation to study and believe that it's no use anyway?

Normally I would be resilient and prove them overwhelmingly wrong. Yet now I am pushing myself to the extreme. I am tired. I am stressed. My brain is working harder than it ever has. I am away from home. My defences in other words are down. Therefore I've come to the conclusion that as med students we should encourage and support each other. All pushing each other to believe that we can in fact pass and that yes.. all the study is worth it.

Enough deep(ish) thinking. This week has been full of med brain instances. I poured cereal into my coffee mug. I tried to pay for my printing with my transport card. I boiled the kettle with the lid off. Despite this med is still wonderful. I love it how our lecture went 30 minutes overtime tonight, but it was so engrossing that no one told the lecturer. I love it that as many of us chat on the train ride home (7:30pm) after a day of lectures, we laugh and share our favourite parts of what we've learnt. I love it that we love med.

I'm way too tired to describe something medical in detail to finish this post off tonight. Instead I'll leave you with this cool fact. Some people don't like big scars. This poses a problem when surgeons want to remove something big like a kidney. So they make a tiny cut to slip the scalpel in and detach the kidney... but how to pull the kidney out through that tiny hole? Well they make a cut into the colon and put the kidney in there and then suture up the colon and abdominal wall. What... so they leave the kidney in there??!! Yes! The person then wakes up and excretes it like they normally would with anything else in the colon, ie faeces. Now that is gross, but awesome.

This is a giardia cake that I baked for my tute group.