Break time

I was only able to spend 6 full days at home over the holiday. It was short but was definitely fun. Just going home and sleeping in my own bed with no real schedule to follow and things to do was awesome. I did eat lots of yummy food, basically caught up on all the food the food that I didn't eat for the last couple of months. I don't like eating out in restaurant by myself, particularly for dinner. Lunch is fine but I'm usually at the hospital during the day and going out to lunch is a luxury. I always make my rounds on a few good local Chinese restaurants, sushi buffet, northern Chinese restaurant.

I kind of like the fact that we didn't go anywhere this holiday, with the exception of the family holiday dinner. Every year that dinner is always a bore and I could never wait for it to be over. I don't really talk to any of the cousins despite the fact that we all lived nearby all our lives. But there was a surprise, my cousin, Bruce, was actually fairly talkative and I found out that he recently became a Christian. I could definitely see a change in him that was very unexpected. God really did something that I would not expect. He and his family are very into Buddhism and all the superstitious beliefs. Aside from the pleasant surprise, it's the same old things, like boyfriends, work, what field I'm going into, how long I'm in town and why so short stay.

I think they really do play a part in my wanting to not go back home yet. They really do make me feel uncomfortable because to them, I'm somebody that they can make use of and get some good advantages. It's almost like I'm a family obligation and they don't even want to try to get to know who I am and why I'm doing the things I'm doing. I don't know. I think until I don't feel that way about them, I won't have the strong desire to really go and stay.

First time Blood Donor

I donated blood for the first time today. I'm not sure what to expect so I kinda just follow my resident and the other student in. I've wanted to donate blood for a while but just haven't gotten the courage to do it. Today, I was like what the heck, just go for it. That's what I did.

It wasn't bad at all. The room that the drive was in today was cold and of course, they couldn't find a good obvious vein on my arms, so they have pick the best one. The pinch when the needle went it hurts, it was more painful than when the draw blood for lab work. If that's how an IV line feels, I can see why patients absolutely hate them. I didn't feel anything when the phlebotomist took it out. It took be about 10 min to fill the bag up with my blood. By the end of the time, my hand was tired from squeezing the stress ball that they had us squeezing. After that I just got a sore arm.

I didn't feel dizzy when I got up but I laid down for a couple of minutes before that. By the time I finished, they had catered lunch brought in, so I sat down the staff and basically had lunch with them. They gave me a Christmas mugful of candies and random things. I also got 2 auto show tickets and a BP gas card of $15. I gave the autos how tickets to my residents since I have no intention of going. I think I'll do it again the next time they have a drive.

Now I just feel extra tired. I wasn't tired before this but I feel like it's already 8 or 9pm. ::yawn::

It's all for a good cause. And I also get to find out my exact blood type.

First Code Death

What an experience. I'm sure because it's my first one that I'm feeling like this. I'm pretty sure that I'll see and experience plenty more codes whether the patient comes back or gone. I'm not quite sure what I'm feeling about what just happened. The patient was at end stage with his lung disease and the family was outside of the ICU watching all of us running off the elevator and into the ICU. By the time I got there with my resident, only the daughter was there and she wanted everything to be done.

The team did 45 min of rescue with CPR and medications. Halfway through it, we all thought the patient was going to make it because he had a pulse and good rhythm. But finally it just wasn't enough and went pulseless again. Finally enough was enough and called time of death.

It was a grim reality check of our life. When I saw the white feet, I had a gut feeling that the patient wasn't going to make it but you can't say that when the family wants everything done. Life is just too short and there's no guarantee that it will be a set number of years that we get. I'm glad that I know where I'm going to be after death, with God in heaven. The death on earth is our sleeping time. I also know that even though I'm leaving my friends and family behind, I'm in comfort knowing that they know where I'm going to be and that we'll all meet again in the golden heaven.

Another that I got started to think about is DNR and organ donation. There are many forms of DNR, but I know for sure I don't want to be on a machine when my brain is dead. Intubation is questionable. All I know for sure is that I want the intubation but only till a certain point. Being on the machine without any brain function might be comforting to the family but I don't see how it could benefit the patient. Anyhoo, these are my thoughts.

Taro and Tapioca Dessert

This is one of my favorite desserts when we go to restaurants. But the restaurants have a tendency to make it too sweet. Now that I've found the recipe for it, may be I'll make it myself so it won't be too sweet. Haha.

Ingredients:
0.70 lb taro diced
1/2 cup tapioca pearls
1 1/2 cup coconut milk, to taste
rock sugar, to tast
4 1/4 cup water

1. Soak tapioca pearls over 3 hours. Add to the boiling water on medium heat. Stir them frequently and make sure that they don’t stick together. After cooking for 20 minutes, remove the pot from heat, cover and let sit for another 30 minutes. The tapioca pearls should be translucent, without any white dots in the middle. They are done. If they are not ready, turn on the heat again and cook for a few minutes more. And then let sit for a while again.
2. Drain tapioca pearls and rinse under cold water. All tapioca pearls should be cool to the touch.
3. Bring water and coconut to the boil, add diced taro. When the taro cubes are cooked half through, add rock sugar until melted, to your taste. Lastly, add cooked tapioca pearls. Done.

Serve hot or cold.

Medicine Floor

I started on my Medicine rotation. The residents and the interns are great. They are super smart and more than willing to teach. My first week was uneventful. Had a patient with angioedema from ACE Inhibitor and another patient with chest pains that wanted to be in the hospital for the holiday. Then I had the Thanksgiving and the Friday off. So really not much.

Just finished the second week and had a new team of the resident and intern because of the new month. They are chilled and fun to be around. I'm definitely enjoying my time on the floors with them. They are very efficient so a lot of the times we would all finish our rounding by 10am. They assign the students about 2-3 patients at a time. And a lot of the time, whenever there's a fairly simple procedures, they would let us do most of it. Pretty neat.

This week we've got a couple interesting ones. We had a Ludwig's angina, Steven Johnson Syndrome, Ascites due to Schistosomiasis and another due to alcohol. I was also able to observe a bone marrow biopsy. St Mikes definitely is not lacking in any interesting diagnosis.

The biopsy and aspiration has pretty much turn me off on Heme/Onc. The biopsy wasn't too bad but I don't think I can handle the painful melodramatic screaming. That's not the worst part for me. Just thinking about how the whole patient population is dying from cancer of some form and the point is to prolong their lives, even though we know it's hopeless. I know that the whole profession is like this but Heme/Onc was more obvious.

As more and more I think about my choice for the rest of my life, I working more and more to set myself up for anesthesiology. Hopefully that will pan out for 4th year rotations. It's still a little too early for it, but there's a lot of leg work since I'm going to go the allopathic route.

I finally settled on the COMLEX Step 2 dates.
July 7 - PE
July 16 - CE
USMLE Step 2 CK will depend on how the studying goes. If I do take it, it will be late July/early Aug.

Thanksgiving on the East

This is the first Thanksgiving away from home. I'm spent it with Kirstin's family. She is my closest friend in med school. Her family is very much like mine so it was very comfortable. I definitely enjoyed it and had 2 thanksgiving dinners, one at her brother's place and the second one at her home. It was yummy. My favorite was the Pumpkin Gingerbread. I found the recipe that her mom used and I'm going to try it one of these days.

We also did the Black Friday shopping but we did it at 9am. It was all girls, her mom and her sister (Katie), Kirstin and I, so we did the usual stops, NY&Co, Express, Victoria's Secrets and Bath and Body Works, JC Penny. I have bought sweaters, enough to last me for a long while. I was able to buy the gift for the girl I picked from the inner city organization. So all in all, it's been a good couple days of break away from the hospital. The weather was good until I had to drive back from Saugerties. That day started off with flurries, then raining then icy rain. The road wasn't bad at all but the drivers were kind crazy. 3 accidents along the Thruway which took me 3 hours to get back when it should've taken me 1.5-2 hours. Oh well.

I'm just glad that I didn't have to spend Thanksgiving by myself and in Newark. Thank God for giving me a friend in med school when I didn't think I would find a good Christian girlfriend.