Resit results

Wednesday

I failed the resit.

4 little words, thats all it takes, anyway I am now off to see my tutor this afternoon, mentally numb, mind whirling and such like.

Friday
Well after a few days to settle in, I have now come to grips with the fact that i have failed and that my number one target is now to get through the Progress Committee and be allowed to retake year 3 of the course. There are several things I need to sort out, but first I am going home for a week to relax and recharge my batteries as I am exhausted.

I'll probably not post again until I am back.

Quiet weekend

Well I had a very exciting weekend! I spent most of saturday clearing things out and moving furniture around.

As you can see, my desk is now under the window, and the other stuff (like sofa, table, tv etc) have all moved round.

This is the tidiest my living room has been in 3 years i think.

At 6, I am off to see Butcher Boy and he will reformat my PC Hard drive and then we can install windows XP again!
My issue now is how to fit a desktop PC in to a rucsac to carry it.

Domesticated

So having now got home, and with the second lot of washing trubndling away and a third one sat in a basket ready to go in, I have decided to make some home improvements....

• Moving the living room / kitchen / study round so the desk is under the window
• More bookcases.. I have more books...
• a new light fitting in the living room / kitchen / study.
• Fixing my desktop PC so it works - needs reformatting and installing windows (Butcher Boy will therefore be able to repay the effort I put into his house move!
• My new laptop arrives soon - this one is close to dying....
• Dry cleaning
• dentists appointments
• Driving lessons
• New clothes
• Give Blood
• Tidy up before a parental visit on Tuesday!
  

Sadly I now need to go to Tesco, a Bank and a post \office. as there is no food and i am strving!

Holidays and friends

This time I had to kill the time from 1pm-6.30pm (when my DIME Team meeting was due to start) so i looked up a few old friends in Edinburgh and toured the coffee shops. First up was Dr A, who was one of the medical students who intercalated on the same course that was my honours year for my BSc. he has just started as an FY1 and was telling me the joys of his rotation compared to some others who work for weeks on end without a break etc, then have 2 weeks off.
It is quite worrying that in 2 years I could be in the same situations... very worrying!

Later in the afternoon I met the blu one and magrat, and we went for coffee before the DIME meeting and had a couple of ideas which I will work on. As usual the blu one needed lots of espresso, and some headache tablets.....

The less said about the DIME meeting the better really, but as normal I left with a long list of things I think I need to sort out, including a Treasure Hunt to organise and a Ceilidh to organise. Magrat kindly gave me a lift to the station so I got home not too late (in the rain!)

I still haven't yet got hold of the Harry Potter book - WHSmiths at at teh stations I passed through didn't have any!

Edinburgh Fringe

Typical.

It seems to have rained for my entire 5 day holiday!

I started off going to Edinburgh last Saturday with Butcher boy and some others. Sadly the great monster Mash was fully booked, so we settled for some rather tasty 'well hung and tender' steak baguettes before heading to Medina to see the Amateur Transplants - well the Adam Kay half. It was a rather enjoyable hour of music, jokes, medical humour, profanity and stereotyping. All in good humour, including (rather pleasingly for Butcher Boy) some ribbing of Edinburgh Students - I wonder if he used that at his special performance for Edinburgh medical students later in the week.

Medina is a very odd place though - small metal benches with cushions to sit on, where you are about 4 inches off the floor. All very bizarre.

I then left them to their own devices and sprinted across Edinburgh (in the rain) to help with a tech getin for an event on the Sunday, making it home at 3am, just in time to pack for my proper holiday - a whistle stop tour of my Grandad, the lake District, Mum & dad before pitching up on Thursday in Edinburgh again.

Holiday.........

My holiday begins today. As I have only 2 weeks, i am trying to cram a lot in!

Tonight I am off over to Edinburgh to see a festival fringe show - The Amateur transplants - a selection of amusing and risque songs performed by two medics from London. Butcher boy is also going and we are hoping to grab a meal at monster mash before the show starts After that I am helping with the get-in for a festival show tomorrow night, then catching the train back to here. Getting in about 1.

Tomorrow I am catching a train to Wolverhampton (or Wulvramptun as they call it) there meeting Mum Dad and my grandad and going to see my grandad for the rest of the day and evening. Then on Monday, Mum is going home to work and dad and I are going to the lakes for 2 days walking etc before heading back to Newcastle on Wednesday. On Thursday I am trekking back up to Edinburgh for Coffee then a DIME training evening before making it back to my flat some time Thursday night.

With any luck, my new laptop will arrive on Friday and Butcher Boy and I can hopefully resurrect the PC on next Sunday so I will then have a couple of days before results come out to sort the PC etc in the hope that i have made it into 4th year. I also have a pile of dry cleaning to do, and minor jobs to do around the flat - major food shopping, buying a George Foreman Grill and and a trip to IKEA. Next Friday is also my leaving night from work.

Let the waiting begin

The exams are over, and they seemed to go ok. Just a 12 day wait until the results come out.

Judgement day part 1

It looks like, following a night of near insomnia, that breakfast will be a Danone Actimel and a cup of coffee or 3, as I read over my notes again, knowing I need to pass and doubting my ability to....... I have revised as hard as I could without going mad, and yet there is this nagging bit that tells me that others know more, and that I don't know all the details about the diseases we have covered. year 2 and 1 can also be covered, so heres hoping that it's npt the sheep embryo we had to label in the Year 2 exams.

Exam nerves

Feeling sick, stressed, thirsty, agitated, restless......oh well only 35 hours until it is all over!

What to do on a revision break?

Saturday evening, and I got a call from butcher Boy - "Instead of a trip to the pub, do you fancy giving me a hand." he said. I agreed and he came and picked me up, explaining that we were going to be involved in the removal of the old toilet seat from his new flat and its replacement by a nice shiny IKEA one. The issue appeared to be that the bolts had gone rusty and thus the wingnuts would not undo. We also had to build a wardrobe (ie put the doors back on) and sort out the furniture plan for his room. Tattooed drinker turned up, lured by the promise of alcohol for helping with this escapade. We then departed for ASDA to buy a hacksaw to cut the bolt off with.

Obviously a trip to ASDA requires a visit to Maccy D's for supper and the "hold your breath as we go through the tunnel" game. We bought some more "No more nails" and some food from ASDA as well. Butcher Boy made the interesting choice of Cappucino KitKats - what were they like?

Upon our return, the joyful noise of west end drinking could be heard for the pub just across butcher Boy's new backyard! So we started hacking away at the bolt. At this point, I noticed that the rubber ring kept getting in the way and cut it with a knife. after doing so, the bolt fell through the hole....no need for hacksaws after all.

We then set about fitting the new toilet seat, with much discussion as to whether it was square (ie equal support on either side of the bowl) and whether we had the angle correct such that the seat would stay up by itself - in a flat of 3 males this is an important consideration! Once that was sorted, we helped butcher Boy sort some books onto his shelves and drew a ground plan of the room suggesting where would be best to site the various items in relation to power points, radiators etc. Hopefully butcher boy was pleased.


Well on monday at my lunchtime revision break. I went to see Butcher Boy. He and his flat mates were moving flats. As you may remember from here they had an upright piano in their flat. they were taking this with them to the new one. A suitable posse was assembled and we started down the 3 flights of stairs (that is 11 corners!) to their front door then down a naroower set of steps and out to the van.

Butcher boy was driving with the tattooed drinker and myself sat in armchairs holding onto furniture in the back. Upon arrival at the new flat, butcher boy instructed me to guide the van back to pack on the pavement as close to the close door as we could. This involved some weaving between bollards and bins, round small children and avoiding parking on top of a cellar light in the pavement.

These stairs were narrower and were curved which made life all the more fun. e eventually got the piano into their furniture filled hallway and set off for the most important cargo of the day - Butcher boy's fish! These were decanted into a bucket along with their oxygen filter until departure. Stupidly one of the fish tried to make a bid for freedom, after which we covered the bucket with bubble wrap and could hear the fish leaping out the water and smacking off the bubble wrap. The Tattooed drinker carried this bucket, whilst I took the one with the fish tank water in it, and we made a second van trip.

This second journey completed we left butcher boy to get on with his unpacking!

Success!

Faculty have finally deigned to tell me that my year 4 (If I pass my exams as their emails remind me) will start with an SSM. I sent an email to the ICU ward where I have spent two mornings of my elective and got a reply next morning saying that they would love to have me and that they would see me on Tuesday 28th August (27th is, like the first day of each teaching block, an academic day on campus) at 0830 in ICU.

This will mean that (excluding 5 weeks holiday and 2 weeks of exam leave) I will have been at the same hospital from mid May- end of September. I was also there for clinical teaching 1.5 days a week from November '06 - February '07 in year 3. Thankfully it is also only a 15 minute walk from my flat. I'm sure such luxuries will end one day!

Elective - day 11

My final day in Anaesthetics came round very quickly. I was once again in plastic surgery.
The SpR who was looking after me today also had a trainee SpR with him. We went to see a few patients and do anaesthetic assessments - one lady had a suspected ejection systolic murmur (Aortic Stenosis) and she had to have an echo before her surgery.

The actual theatre list started at 10am, and because the plastic surgeon was otherwise occupied in the morning, our theatre was helping with the trauma list. So we had a haematoma evacuation to do, and a crushed finger repair. in both cases the patients had been in for a few days and so they already had venflons in, so I couldn't practice my technique.

My supervisor said that all the Anaesthatists I had been in theatre with had been pleased with my performance and said that they had enjoyed having me as a student. he wished me the best of luck in my exams, took the Elective assessment sheet off me and sent me home about 3!

Gone to library

I'll be back after the exams.

Plans, plans, plans

I went to the rather strangely names Development and regeneration services arm of the council today to look at the proposed building work in the offices on the ground floor of my building. You can see the plans here!

Basically they plan to add two new doorways and convert 2 office suites into shops - a corner shop would be very handy but somehow unlikely I fear!

Empty yer locker......

• Shoees
• Fleece
• Apron
• Hat
• T-shirt
• Glucose tablets
• Deodorant
• Tissues
• Belt
• Shoe laces
• Name Badge

These were the contents of my locker which I emptied this afternoon, when I handed my notice in. at work, the managers were very nice and said they had enjoyed me working there. I need to take my locker key and discount card in next week as well.

Elective - days 9& 10

Day 9

Today I was in vascular surgery. The anaesthetic stuff went quite well and I got to do a couple of venflons and intubations.

One of the registrars also told me a really simple way to look at blood gases and pH and work out whether a patient had an acidosis or alkalosis and whether it is respiratory or metabolic. If is a very simple 4 step approach which no text book has but it works very well. All in all it was a useful way to spend the 3 hours of the second operation; during the first one we had gone over ECG patterns and the pyramid of analgesia.

Day 10

Today I was back in ICU. This entailed following a ward round which was very interesting, as in the case of 4 of the 6 patients, the doctors had no idea what was actually wrong with the patients, nor why some of their biochemistry was so disordered. i also spoke to the ICU staff about the possibility of doing an SSM there - I need to send an email this weekend!

There is one day of my elective left, next Tuesday, as I have the Wednesday off for revision for the exams on Thursday and Friday.

The lights have gone out

Hurray!!!!

The spotlights on the poster opposite have not come on tonight!

That should mean I can get some sleep!