The Juggling Act Schedule

Today, same routine. 6:45. Grunt. Coffee, juice, English muffin. This time I opt to shave. I have to put on the appearance that I take good care of myself so that it looks like I can take good care of other people; thank goodness patients can't see my apartment right now.

8:00am The teacher doesn't show up on time. So the junior resident decides to chat it up with us in the conference room whilst we wait for the glorious ENT surgeon. The resident is a pretty down to earth guy and he gives us a bit of advice on choosing a specialty; the first thing he brings up is lifestyle, THEN he mentions how interesting he thought ENT was.

8:40 commence learning about sinusitis. We find out halfway through the session that our class at 10:00 has been postponed until 2:00; this means that I'll be missing optional clinic. We leave the confines of the ENT conference room and are awarded with saline nasal washing kits for the next time we get sinusitis. I somehow end up with the one hypertonic one that is made from sterilized sea-water and comes in a pressurized can instead of the standard bulb that you squeeze yourself to get the saline up your nose. Hopefully it's just as painless as the others. I'll find out next time I get sick! Stay tuned.

I speak with my tutor, get a patient name and head home to drop off my notes. I head over to the other hospital and up to the ICU to see my patient. He's younger than me, which I find out after calling him "mister." I feel silly, but that's the way we're supposed to address patients until they tell us otherwise. Turns out, this kid was in an MVA (motor vehicle accident) involving a scooter and a telephone pole. I have no idea how you drive a scooter into a telephone pole; the things only go 60 kph! So he dislocated his knee, badly. They reduce it (put it back in place), but only to find out that he's damaged his nerve (not good, but not tragic since it could heal and won't ruin his leg) and that's he's damaged his artery. This needed surgery (hence why I'm seeing him) in order to save his leg. He had lost the pulses in his leg because of the accident and was at very high risk of having his leg go gangrenous and needing it to be amputated. You can check for pulses the old fashioned way and if you can't feel them, then we have this fancy little probe that uses ultrasound and applies the Doppler effect theory to figure out if there's even a tincy wincy pulse, but there isn't. Not good for him, but a cool medical case. During the quiet days at the hospital we say (and this isn't anything clever or unique to us) that it's good for the patients but bad for us. Anyhoo, the surgery went well and I could feel that his pulses were back. Vascular surgery saves the day.

I wrap up the interview, which doesn't have too much detail but has just enough that I can write up a report on it and beef up the report with some talk on the risks of losing the limb and I head off to the library. I look up some details on vascular injury following blunt trauma to the knee and I study until my hunger gets the best of me. I eat and head to my next class. We talk about appendicitis and small bowel obstruction and the teacher goes over his time by 30 minutes, but he showed up on time, so I find it in my heart to forgive him.

I get home and pass out for a 30 minute power nap before tackling my report.

I get writers block and start pacing. I'm pounding back Earl Grey tea like it's the last supper. Finally the words start to flow and it looks like I'll actually get to bed before midnight. I succeed and joyfully head to bed at 11:15