Day 2752: Good-bye Agong.

Almost one year to the day that my grandmother died, her husband followed her into eternal life. Look. I'm not a terribly religious person. But an attending I worked with this year was a devout Catholic and when his father passed, he had the remembrance card (or whatever it's called) from his memorial and that's what the card said. Entered life = birth date. Entered eternal life = date of death.

Like my grandmother's death, I feel fine. I don't have a lot of emotions about this for a number of reasons. I only saw him a handful of times. We spoke the same language, but I didn't get remotely proficient at Mandarin until he was much too old to converse (due to some health setbacks and general old age). I feel sad that I couldn't have developed a better relationship with him, but I feel sadder that my Dad has lost both his parents in one year. I don't care how old or how sick people become, in the end, these old sick people are your parents and losing parents is awful and gut-wrenching and sad. So incredibly sad.

To more candid times. The last time I saw my grandfather. 2011.

Day 2254: Madison, practice boards and life

Hello everyone!

I am taking a little break from my sleepless life to tell you about said sleeplessness, ha.

My only picture of the Capitol.

This past weekend, I was in Madison for the Wisconsin Medical Society. And I have to tell you. Politics leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. During the "ref comms" (reference committees), I was surprised to see that physicians didn't use facts or experiences to determine why they, personally, disagreed with certain resolutions but it actually came down to "I don't want to do this, so I won't." I wasn't terribly passionate about anything (when am I passionate about anything that isn't enhancing my wardrobe?) but there was one resolution I cared about -- death with dignity. A female ENT (ear, nose, throat) physician has been trying for years to get a physician-assisted suicide resolution, similar to the one in Oregon, passed here in Wisconsin. I don't get what the fuss is about. Physicians are concerned about the possible avenues this could lead to (depressed people asking for fatal doses of drugs, etc) but I feel that since we never asked to be brought in to this world, the least we could provide ourselves is a way to leave it. And if it could be a little less painful and dramatic than a handful of whatever pills you can find or, worse, a gun to the head, I think we as physicians should be able to provide people with terminal, fatal illnesses that option. Do any of you have opinions you would like to share on death with dignity/physician-assisted suicide? Disagreements are welcome!

There was a Pokemon convention below our medical one.
Obviously I enjoyed this one wayyyy more.

Okay. Politics done. Yesterday, Wednesday April 17th, I took a four-hour practice Step 1/boards exam. It was fine. We don't get our scores for a few weeks so it's hard to gauge how it was. Some of the questions were more direct than I have seen (which is good), but it was still a lot of "dammit. I have seen this before and have narrowed down the choices but still don't know which one is right!" So, we'll see. I am shooting for passing (180) but at least a 200. (The national average is 225 and I will be getting a 240 to be able to coast into urology.)

Life. I went to a SF Giants versus Milwaukee Brewers game last night with some classmates to unwind from the four-hour exam. The Giants lost at the bottom of the 9th and everyone around me was surprisingly gracious about their loss. They were pumped the Brewers won, of course, but they did say "Sorry about your Giants" which was nice. They meaning everyone except Danny haha.

Let's go Giants!

Homemade Giants fan (my scarf made me way too hot so I made
it in to a turban, haha).

Our view from the field. Brewers player Aoki on the bottom left,
and Giants player Pence on the bottom right.

Consolation fries and custard at Kopp's after the game.

My sister comes to visit tomorrow/Friday! I couldn't be more excited to see family. I love my sister to pieces of death and GAH! Can't wait! She is, of course, the best sister on the planet and said "you know you have to study while I'm there right?" What a thoughtful one she is!

Okay, I'm going to listen to a few more boards-prep lectures and then shadow a urologist (my last time this year before finals/boards/rotations!). Then, more boards-prep and then I have to head to DSW to buy a pair of shoes for Sandy's wedding in July! So much to do!

Day 2097: Life moves on with some good news.

Today, I felt very ready for my pharmacology exam. Granted, there were still about 7-points-worth of things (out of 50.5) I wasn't 100% on, but the amount of information you have to learn for this class (in three weeks, no less, for his horrific block) is just too much to ask for. So. I felt good overall! Let's see if the exam score reflects that.

Also! The pathology department secretary-helper-lady emailed us today to tell us that two of the answers were mismarked on the exam so I, at least, got two points back! Excellent! My current score is a closer match to what I wanted! :)

I also bought this sweater (for $15!) as a little treat for myself. Yay!

In about an hour (at 5pm), I will be shadowing a doctor I work with (for my research, oh my gosh! I haven't told you about my research! Future blog post in the making) in the pediatric emergency department. It's actually perfect this way. I don't have any TV to watch until later tonight and even though I would rather be sewing/hemming/tailoring, I'm still glad to be learning a little something (and working with a really fun(ny) guy).

No word from the Popsicles since he left for Taiwan Friday night. My Mom and sister leave on Wednesday and then I will be the only one of our foursome here in the States. The lone cheese.

Day 2093: Good-bye Apo.

There is no good way to say this. My father's mother (my paternal grandmother) died today. My sister called to tell me. My parents are so concerned with my school(ing) that they didn't tell me (not right away anyway) until later/I called them.

My dad is en route to tomorrow/Taiwan Friday night and my sister and mother will be following him next Wednesday. I will be here. In the US. Learning, studying, doctor-things. (I have my path exam on Friday and my pharm exam on Monday).

To be honest, I'm fine. She lived in Taiwan my entire life so I only met her a handful of times. On top of that, we never spoke the same language (she speaks a village dialect and I definitely do not). This doesn't mean I am not sad, on my behalf or my father's behalf, but it's a blunted form of sadness. Also, my grandmother was getting pretty on in age and she had more than a few health setbacks in the past decade, so, it was (and obviously is) her time. She died in her sleep, which is the most that anyone can ask for.

Day 489: Oh the humanity!

Don't be fooled by the subject title. This is going to a serious-ish post.

This looks just like the one we use at the lab.

Today, I returned to guillotining rats and cracking their skulls open. It's been a while since I've guillotined a rat myself and it was incredibly disconcerting. It didn't help that this certain rat was not given the best treatment -- it was definitely alive and somewhat conscious while it's heart was being drained of blood, and it's liver and lung were being cut out; it was thrashing about in it's semi-alive state. Then, I get the joy of cutting it's head off only to have its eyes bug out as I sever his head from the rest of his body. It was not a pleasant image.

Then, I have to crack the skull and do other unpleasant things and the moral of this story is, it's hard to completely distance myself from the inhumanity of it all. I'm not a fan of rats. However, I think it's good to be grateful for their lives because they are contributing to the big picture.

I'm going to warn you right now. If you don't want to read about teeth and skull-cracking and brain-removing, skip ahead until you see this "@#$"...

As I was cracking the rat's skull open, I could feel its teeth jabbing into my finger. I had to cut its skin away from the skull and pull at the muscle and I was trying somewhat desperately not to gag at the idea that it's eye sockets were just about gone and its teeth were still jabbing my freaking finger.

@#$

Anyway, all in all, rats are rats. It's easy to feel bad for what we do to them (or so I think) but it's also surprisingly easy to dull one's senses to both the injustice and plain old creepyness of what I/we have to do.

Classes start tomorrow. And the new routine begins.