Day 2341: So much to talk about!

Hi hi,

I know. I know. It's been 16 days. With a life outside of school (sort of), you would think I would blog more, but there's actually very little time in the day once I get out of the hospital (again, sort of). Okay. Here are updates in my favorite form, bullets.

• I am on Ob/Gyn for 4 more weeks. I am on gynecology for the first three, and obstetrics for the last three. I have seen a few surgeries and many many return obstetrics patients in clinic. Also. I took call (call = 24 hour shift, 7am-7am) the first night ever (July 3rd) and I delivered a baby. NBD (no big deal). Except it was a giant deal. To answer everyone's burning questions...1) No, I didn't drop it. 2) No, the mom didn't poop on me.
• Boards scores are out. I passed! I got a lower score than I would have preferred, but it was probably the score I deserved. There are so many things I would do over about that exam, but I passed and I am just fine for family med and on the low (low) side for urology. Everything happens as it happens so whatever I will be, will be whatever I will be. (There was a lot of repetition in that, hope it made sense!)

Huh. I guess I didn't have that much to talk about, haha. I thought I did. Oh well. I should post pictures again soon, hey? These text posts are bo-ring.

Okay, if/when exciting things happen, I will let you all know!

Day 2323: I'm back!

Hello everyone!

Firstly, thank you all for being so patient, supportive and wonderful about this time away from the blog. I'm sure you were all itching for a post, and here it is. In all it's glory.

What I'm sure you are all wondering, if we haven't already spoken/texted/communicated, is that the exam was fine. It felt a lot like the question bank I had been doing, and in that regard, that was nice. There was familiarity. Otherwise, it sounds like whether you barely scrape by with a pass or get a rockstar-score, everyone feels like the exam was a complete sh!t-show, pardon my French. So. My exam score comes back in the next few weeks and I will let you know how it pans out for me. (Depending on the score I get, if it's competitive enough, I will still pursue urology. If it isn't very strong, I will enter family medicine and be 100% happy and confident in that decision.)

Anyway, enough snoozefest boards stuff. I am positive you are all bored out of your mind of my "I'm so stressed" "boo hoo Jess" blah blah blah. Me too.

Disney World was a ton of fun! Danny had come to the conclusion after Day 1 (of 4) that this was going to be a very different trip to Disney. Normally, he puts the pedal to the metal and wears himself out from a 12+ hour day, every day. With his parents getting older, and me having an "oh yeah sure, whatever you want" attitude, I think he realized that he wasn't going to hit everything he wanted and he was okay with that. We still had an awesome, fun, hot-and-humid time! Danny's parents were unbelievably generous on this trip. Not only did they pay for my flight and lodging, they paid for my food and even bought me some stuff (a rash guard and new swimsuit, both on sale!) just because they wanted to. I was incredibly humbled by their kindness.

Don't think I forgot how lame text blog posts are. Here are some pictorial manifestations of Disney!

I painted these Donald Duck nails the day of our flight.

The iconic Disney castle.

I painted these shirts for us!

I couldn't leave Danny's parents in the customized-shirts cold!

Our first Splash Mountain picture.

The rebel spy!

Our second Splash Mountain picture. The photo attendant
actually laughed when he saw it. Probably because my face of
sheer terror (all acted, by the way) was amusing as hell.

Day 2270: Sick, dying, and thank you

Hey all,

The quickest post to tell you I am sick. For the third time this year! Apparently it's true, when you are stressed out, you get sick much faster. I am never ever sick. And now I am on icky-feeling-number-three for the year 2013.

I am dying of stress. Not my sickness. My whatever-this-is involves a lot of clogged noses and nose-blowing and somewhat phlegm-y feeling throat. My cumulative final for pathology is on May 9th (!!!) and then my final exam of microbiology is on May 13th. Luckily micro is not cumulative, but still. I'm not terribly stressed about either exam, so much as busy going over the material (the previous seven blocks of path) and learning the new stuff (dermatology, breast, thyroid, etc). The true stress comes from the fact that my board exams are a little more than 5 or 6 weeks away! I'm still on the fence about moving my test date up, but everyone and their mother's brother's niece's dog says that I will either burn out by my current test date (June 17th) or stress myself out so much in that time (aka Jessica will become bald like Homer Simpson -- with three lone strands of hair left), so we'll see.

How sad is my life? I am straight-up excited for finals to be over, not because I have finished another somewhat-hellish year and am heading in to the hospital (!!), but rather my excitement is due to the fact that I can finally dedicate my desired 10-12 hours a day of solely boards studying. Very sad Jessica. Pitiful actually.

Thank you all for your texts and care packages (BEL-C)! I feel so lucky to have people who love and care about me so much. Especially when I have essentially turned my back on everyone to get through the last 5 weeks of pure hell. Thank you. From the bottom of my cold, dead heart. My heart will beat again soon and I will be the friend each of you so deserve.

There might be radio silence until then so I wanted to end it on a positive note. Honestly and truly. Thank you all.

Day 2260: Ups and Downs

My weekend with my sister was glorious -- exactly what I needed, family time. However, the entire time my sister was here, I was stressed out beyond belief; thinking about all the things I should be or could be studying. Nevertheless, we had a helluva time and I love my sister to the moon and back. There are pictures below of our outings. What you don't see is a ton of eating my sister I did -- Cafe Centraal with Danny's family, a yumtastic breakfast/brunch at Danny's parents' home, Milwaukee Public Market -- the whole shebang.

My sister and I at a Brewers game!

My sister and I at Miller Brewery, getting ready for a tour!

Yesterday, Tuesday, was a sh!t-show. I was at school from 8:30am to 11pm, with probably an hour max of relaxation/hanging out on the internet/whatever, and I was so stressed about boards and finals and life that I cried twice (from sheer stress and panic) and called Danny to tell him I probably wouldn't be able to go on vacation with his family this summer (because I was so stressed out about boards). And then, to top it all off, I lost this earring that I just bought for my sister and I as a fun little sister-studs-thing. Sigh. What a bunch of crappy things at once, hey?

Today, I gave a little presentation at our class meeting regarding professional attire. It was (surprisingly) well received by students and staff and, if you have any interest in watching, I included the video below. If you have anything to say about the video, please comment below! I'd love to hear what you thought (good and bad).

All in all, it was a really nice start to the day given how craptastic yesterday (Tuesday) was. Oh. I also got my new iPad 4 (it's for clinic, not for fun...but I'll be using it for fun :P). My iPad 2 will be given to my parents/family in Taiwan so they can FaceTime.

As you can see, it's been a very up-and-down week. Off to study pathology (and everything else, sigh). See ya later alligator!

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 2228: Back to reality

It has taken me a bit longer than I would have liked to get back in to school-mode, but here it is, in full force. One of the (delightful) reasons for the delay was that my dearest Nicki was in town! Danny and I took her out to lunch and it was a delicious (literally and figuratively) time.

Reunited!

As hinted to in the Spring Break post, the ever-impending boards draw nearer and nearer. At this point, all of us M2s are either talking about them or stressing about them or both. My game plan is doing questions. All day, every day. I do a block (46 questions in an hour) of questions every day. I learn from my mistakes. I learn for school. I am stressed. I lose focus. I get stressed about losing focus. Rinse. Repeat.

Speaking of boards, the more and more I speak to upperclassmen/M3s about it, I think my 5-week study period might be too long. My original thought process when selecting my exam date was, how the hell am I supposed to re-learn all of med school in five weeks??? After M3s broke it down for me -- when the true panic and fear of boards sets in after finals, I will (actually) study at least 8 hours per day, 7 days a week...over five weeks that amounts to at least 250 hours of studying -- that's a lot of time. My mother, I am sure, thinks that I need more time (thank you for the added stress Mother. I know you don't intend on adding stress to my life, but you somehow manage to provide it plentifully), but I am 10,000% sure that I will burn out. Way before then. So, the moral of this paragraph is, I am considering moving my date up one week to June 10th (versus my current date of June 17th). I'll know better in the next few weeks if that date is plausible. In three weeks or so, our school is giving us a NBME (aka practice boards) exam. That will be the deciding factor for me.

Thank goodness Nicki was in town to provide a fun picture for this post, right? Or else it would be about boring old stressful-as-hell boards. Thanks for the study/blogging break team. Now....break!

Day 2214: Spring Break

It's finally here!

Yesterday, Friday, I took the entire day off and it was glorious. I slept in. Danny and I went to meet Neehar for lunch at Milwaukee Ale House, where I ate a bacon-stuffed-bacon-cheeseburger and had a yummy stout beer to wash it down. Then, my burger was obviously too filling, so I came home and took a nap while Danny played Tomb Raider 4. I woke up, I watched some TV on my computer and Danny continued to play his video game. We went to a classmate's house around 8:30pm where they were having a little get-together. There were about 15 people there and it was a ton of fun. They had food and booze (a perfect combination for a good time) and it was all the classmates I like, so I couldn't have asked for anything better :)

Today, I slept in and finally cleaned my apartment (dirty dishes, the bathroom, my room, my closet, etc). How I love a clean living space. Then I went to the gym (my gym schedule has been extremely erratic lately) which I loved. And then I went to Target to run some errands. Then to the grocery store to buy some vegetables (since my life has consisted of eggs and pasta the past few days). Then home to make this. While chopping the vegetables for the quinoa salad, I watched some Global Health videos for an assignment. Now I have to write a one-page reflection on each video. Then, I will either do some Step 1 (that's what my upcoming boards) studying or learn more kidney stuff for this block of pathology.

I am taking a relaxed approach to spring break. I definitely plan on studying, but I am so happy that there is no new material for an entire week! This will let me solidify what we have learned so far in path and also start getting my Step 1 study schedule together.

For those of you I haven't told, unlike last year, where spring break was this wonderful time of going home and seeing my family, spring break this year is more like the mark of doom. Every M3 (third year medical student) I have spoken to says spring break (or right after) is when you begin actually studying for boards. Well, I have been studying every (few) days for it since late January. Even so, I don't feel terribly ahead of the game. Instead, I have a minor panic attack every day about how spring break is almost/now here and how I still feel like I don't know anything. Don't get me wrong, I know some things, but not everything. And that, my friends, freaks me the hell out.

So, the next five days will be filled with learning but at a less stressful and erratic pace.

Danny, his brother and I are off to New York on Thursday as my last hoorah of fun. (YAY!) I still plan on studying in New York because that's my life from here until June but so be it. As I was discussing with an M3 pal of mine, getting to and through boards is a rite of passage for every medical student. I plan on kicking this rite's butt and sealing my fate as a future urologist.

(Are these wordy posts getting annoying? My next post will have pictures, promise.)

Day 2163: Lots of cool stuff.

I had such a great week, let me tell you about it!

Monday: I worked in the pediatric emergency department, where I do research, and actually, finally, enrolled a patient without something wonky happening. For whatever reason, I have the strangest luck when I go in to do research and a patient will have to be un-enrolled in our Spanish Interpretive Services study. Not only did I enroll one, but I also got to speak Spanish! He was very sweet and said I didn't need the interpreter and I told him that I like having him/her there to make sure I don't mess anything up. Also, one of the doctors on the study was working that night so we got to catch up and shoot the sh!t and all that fun stuff. It's cool to be friendly with the ED staff. Hopefully I can get a few days in there on my pediatrics rotation next year and impress them with all my actually (wannabe) doctor-ing!

Tuesday: The male exam. An examination of the penis, testicles, feeling for the vas deferens and checking for hernias. Probably one of the most awkward moments in medical school for many students. Not for me! I loved it! It went too quickly! Maybe it's because I like awkward things or maybe it's because I don't care, but I am really digging urology. After my path exam on Monday (which, for all intents and purposes, I plan on pwning (aka kicking butt on), I am going to contact a urology resident and get some more information on it. It's competitive as all get out so I am starting to get insanely stressed about boards. (What's new there though?)

Wednesday: My jeans that I bought (aka split with Danny) off eBay arrived and they are gorgeous!

Paige Porcelain Leaf Skinnies

Only I would love such an outgoing print. And wear it with pride no less. I plan to hem these bad boys on Monday after my exam. Or maybe before since I am so bored of studying blood disorders and leukemias and lymphomas. Have I told you all that I am a sewing machine? (Thanks to Danny for that pun!) I have blind hemmed a bunch of slacks, finally hemmed a bunch of my jeans to my teeny tiny leg length and twerked some bootcut jeans into skinny jeans! However, I screwed up one of the legs of my skinny jeans (the fade between the front and back of the jeans is awkward) and feel uncomfortable in them so I plan on converting those babies in to shorts.

School-wise on Wednesday, I had a boards study group where we reviewed stuff for our exam on Monday and that was helpful. Showed that I knew stuff, but still need to get it locked down. Motivating stuff.

Today/Thursday: Hung out at home. Became obsessed with clothes again (have I told you? I am attempting to save money and/or buy investment pieces (like this silk blouse for rotations next year/interview season the year after that). I am also planning a major closet clean out over spring break.) Purchased my question bank for boards today. Fell asleep for no good reason from 4-6pm. Listened to Pathoma for 2 hours because I was sick of actual reading/writing/learning studying so listening seemed more exciting.

Okay. This little study break/update for you has been fun but it's time to go back to our regularly scheduled pathology studying. Snooze fest. Catch y'all later!

PS! Did you know this is my 400th post?! Crazy!