holy cow

Holy cow its been 2 weeks since I last wrote on here. What have I been doing all these days....?

Just finished my Anatomy and Stats exams and the anatomy skills portion, which is the portion where they tag structures on the bodies and we just identify them. Went pretty well, no big problems. Except they made the STATs exam super hard and virtually no one finished all of it, so that's uplifting. Especially since the TA said it was going to be pretty easy. Lies. But both portions of the Anatomy test were all good. Now we have 3-4 tests every Monday until Thanksgiving break. So that's something to look forward to. It is nice not having class on Monday, though, no stuff to go over that day. It's like another weekend day to study. I just can't believe that it's still such a long time until Thanksgiving, but time generally flies around here so its all good. And since all the exams aren't on one weekend, we have a little more free time, which is nice.

On this past Friday I got to ride about 35 miles solo because of the extra time (and because I skipped my student anatomy demo. No worries, though, I went over the structures the night before with the student who was going to demo it to me that day, so it was no biggie). But I got to ride, plus it was super nice out. I only had to wear a short sleeve baselayer under my jersey to be perfectly comfortable. Then a bunch of us med students went and played football for almost 2 and a half hours. It was awesome. Great way to just relax. But then one of the guys may have torn his ACL, so not that good. It was funny cause when he went down, here we are, a crowd of med students, and everyone just looks at each other and is like "well what are we supposed to do." Luckily we had a kid who was an athletic trainer at Iowa so he handled the situation. That ended the game though, so not a good way to end the day.

Then my buddy Nick, from undergrad, came all the way from California to see people who are still here, so we got to hang out Saturday. I couldn't do anything on Friday night because I was studying. Except that I spent like an hour or so just watching different ortho surgeries online. I'm pretty sure I can do a total knee replacement now, though, so that's good. My problem is that I was studying anatomy and in anatomy they start talking about different procedures. So then I look up videos of the procedures to get a better understanding. Then I get distracted and look at other entertaining videos, which are generally ortho surgery videos. So there goes an hour. Woops.

To get more out of my days I have started working out before class in the morning. I work out with my friend Joe. We call him ostejoerosis, like osteoporosis,  because he is soooo old (he's 30) (just turned last weekend). Anyway, it's been really nice actually. There is something fantastic about riding to the gym at like 6:20 in the morning when its cool and dark. One day last week I left like 15 min early just so I could ride around campus a bit before I went to workout. It's quite nice. Plus, in the afternoon I have time to go and get a run or ride in without taking time away from lifting.

The working out that I do in the morning is from this website/program called crossfit. It's basically militaristic circuits that usually only take like 20-30 min and really work you hard. I would say that about half the time I feel kinda queasy afterward, so it's definitely good stuff. I even got Jenna started on it, so when you see her on Thanksgiving she'll probably be super jacked. No big deal.

So this week I was studying in the anatomy lab. Going over structures and such. We were learning about the thorax and deep back/spinal cord. This means that half of the structures are on the back and half are on the front, so we have to turn the bodies to study both. Well, another student and I turned over the body we were using, and the towel over the face did not follow. So his face was no longer covered. This was the first time I saw any of the cadaver's faces. It was kind of weird, I'm not going to lie. Because usually I just see the body as tissue that we are learning, or a model or something, not a person. When you see the face, though, it's like oh wow this is really a person. It made me think about what the guy was like when he was alive. It was weird to think that this person had lived 85+ years. They had been a fully functional human being for 85 years and all of the parts that we are now looking at used to function in the same way that mine are now. I mean, we compare the structures we see to our own, but you never think of it the same way. We're looking at skin and shapes on the skin and don't really think about what it looks like underneath on ourselves. I mean we never think about how the air goes in our trachea and down into our lungs. And the blood comes from the heart to get oxygen then gets pumped through the body. And all the time the heart is doing this and we're not even thinking about it. All of this stuff just happens, and we never even think about it. The human body is an amazing thing. And it's really cool to be able to take one apart and see how it works. See how everything works together and functions appropriately and does what it is supposed to for so long. I mean 85 years is a long time for something as complex as a human body to be functioning. It's amazing. So if you ever get the chance to see a more in depth view of the human body, I say take it. Unless it means you are dissecting a body that you found yourself, in which case I would not advise taking that route, but that's just me.

Okay I'm going to go. Gotta start studying for next weeks exams. Yum.

I think it would be cool, if you were writing a ransom note in Microsoft Word, and it popped up, the paperclip and said, “It looks like you’re writing a ransom note… need some help? You should curse more.” The paperclip would be all messed up, you know? I never saw a paperclip with tattoos before.
     - Demitri Martin

one time i wrote a blog

you can call me Dr. Lotz (in training). Yep that's DR. LOTZ (in training). 

I do look pretty super doctorly in that picture, though, I must admit. I mean I would let me operate on me for sure. 

Okay down to business. You guys like to know what's happening in my life right??? So here goes....

This weekend was pretty good. Very relaxing. Got to see a few guys that came down from various medical school establishments to partake in beverage consumption at various establishments present on our lovely campus. It was great to see them. One of my friends brought his roommate from Rosaland Franklin (dont know how to spell it) who is 19. Let me reiterate, he is 19, which is 4 years younger than me. How did he do that you ask? Well I'll tell you. Right now. Now. Now. Okay I'll just tell you. He SKIPPED HIGH SCHOOL!!! wowzer this kid is smart. So he was a freshman in college at 14 years old. Crazy. 

Also, on Sunday I dropped my phone on the ground in my apartment. Unfortunately it was on the small bit of tile I have so it exploded. It still works great, but the vibration-ness of it is now dead. Dang. I pretty much exclusively had it on vibrate so that was pretty detrimental. Oh well, gotta get a new one anyway. 

So I am an "expert student" for Introduction to Human Disease, a class that we have very rarely. Basically what being an "expert student" means is that I have to study a patient's case and then look over his test results and stuff and answer questions about what he has and how we determined what it is. I am working with 2 other students and on Thursday this week we have to present to a small group (20 ish students) the case and all of the information that we have gathered. Now we have to do a power point and handout for the students that was due at noon today. Not a problem. However, the TA sent out an email like a month ago that she wanted it last Thursday b/c she wanted to make corrections and get it back. Well none of us remembered, and the majority of experts didn't remember until Wednesday after class. So we spent about 5 hours straight that afternoon/night researching our topics and creating this handout and powerpoint to turn in the next day. It actually turned out really well. I thought that after that we would be mostly done. However, this week has been pretty much nonstop work so far. I didn't get to be until 1:30 last night and today is no different. Granted, I'm writing this, but that doesn't take long and it lets my brain relax before bed. Anyhoo it's just been really busy. Oh, but if you were wondering, our patient (I am not at liberty to disclose his name because of the law. Actually it's a fake patient, but I'm just practicing) presented with chest pain that increased on exertion. An EKG was ordered and it showed that he had inverted T waves. Now I know what you're thinking, "But Scott, inverted T waves are not diagnostic of anything specific without more information!" Wow you sound peeved. More information: he also has depressed ST segments. EUREKA!! That means that he has myocardial ischemia in the anterior, anteriorlateral and anterior septal regions of his heart, although you probably already knew that. Turns out he has a blockage in his anterior descending coronary artery that leads to those areas! See I am doctorly. Anyway, the time that I spent researching this flew by because learning how to read an EKG and learning how to spot problems in the patient by looking at this wavy line and knowing where the problem is just by that line is pretty cool. So, in conclusion, time well spent. 

So, important things I wanted to touch on from yesterday: 

I woke up in the morning freezing because I forgot to close my windows before bed and it was like 50 degrees in my apartment. Woops. 

I spent nearly the entire day at the library/medical science building random rooms until late at night. I was tired and just wanted to go home. So as I left I put my iPod on as usual and randomly Bob Marley came on singing Everything's Going to be Alright. Perfect timing Bob, perfect timing. 

Then I rode the entire distance from the Medical Science Building to my apartment no handed. It was awesome. And let it be known that this is not a straight shot home. I have to take two 90 degree turns and many other rounded corners through the quad. I'm just so cool, I know, you don't have to tell me. 

Recommendations:

Listen to Sara Bareilles's new album Kaleidoscope Heart. It's really good for studying, if  you need to do any of that. 

Closing arguments: 

None

Welp, see ya later!

GOLLY I ALMOST FORGOT!!

In histology lab (boring) today our prof told us about a video that a previous med student made. It's just him randomly break dancing in various locations across campus. See if you can identify any of the locations. YAY GAMES! Here's the link. ENJOY!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp-ZFVhN7U8

“I love women, but I feel like you can’t trust some of them. Some of them are liars, you know? Like I was in the park and I met this girl, she was cute and she had a dog. And I went up to her, we started talking. She told me her dog’s name. Then Í said, “Does he bite?”. She said “No.” And I said, “Oh yeah? Then how does he eat? … Liar.”"

         -Demitri Martin