A Work in Progress

Objective Structured Clinical Exam "OSEC's" is a rite of passage for PA students. This is a test with a live, paid actor as the patient.  Our first one involved doing a full head-to-toe physical, and then taking a history that takes 30 minutes to get through. I can say that before I got started, this was one of the more stressful tests I've taken.  The physical alone had 130 items to get to and while we were given 60 minutes to do, it it went so fast. But a strange thing happened.  Muscle memory told me what to do.  My brain could almost be on auto pilot for this exam.  Just tick all the boxes, just like in practice, just like I wrote on the white board 100 times.  The time did go by so fast, and when I emerged as the first one finished in my group, I did begin to panic.  But it was done! The next day, I had to ask my patient over 200 questions to get to and explore their complaint.  All while trying not to look stupid, trip over words, and he...

Last week I learned that I can prepare for something for seven months and on the day before, still feel unprepared and panicked.  But, once I calmed down and collected myself, school started.  In the next five (now four) weeks we will complete- no rest for the weary.  Our first classes are anatomy, public, health, patient assessment and ethics. A good mix and a good intro.  Once a week we have a cadaver lab.  That is a new experience.  The last cadaver lab I had was in paramedic school and then we did intubation and did cricothyrotomy (the ol' knife and a straw routine) on them.  This was way cooler with actual looking at things and touching things, and....okay, gross.  Yes, I know.  First week in, and I brought my lunch every day (a fact, I'm very proud of), made (roughly) 33 new friends, and been to two happy hours.  I've written 1/4 of a paper, done research, taken 4 quizzes, and made an alarming number of flash cards.  Can't ...

Preppin'

In September 2009 I remember sitting on the floor of my empty apartment, having just called the cable company to cancel my service. I was nearing the eve of my departure to England.  By that time, I was feeling a little less than zen about the whole idea.  The feeling is hard to articulate: a happiness, an excitement, a sadness, a dread. I want to have a stout heart and a calm mind, but both will fail at least for a few minutes in the execution of wild-ass plans. Yesterday I felt that 'little less than zen feeling" and I described myself as "An 'Ellie' 8 [out of 10]...which is a normal person's 12."  But now that I am here and the cats didn't pee, throw up, poo, or die on the ride down, I feel a lot better. We all have a lot to get used to. In the last week I had two last days at work, a great going away party, and several meals and several more drinks with people before I left.  Yesterday I packed up the last of my essentials and the cats and the...

Last day.

A root I killed.

Doobie doobie dow!

My weird cat.

 Life is hard.

Flood damage.

What a beauty.

When there's nowhere else to dry out the tent.  An unspoken perk of the job.

Semi-urban camping.

Like gold dust.

Moving sucks.

The medic garage.

I realized today that this is the 10th year I've been doing the "Picture of the Day" project on the blog.  That makes May the best month for the blog for 10 years running.  In celebration, I went back and labeled all of the old POTD posts with the tag "POTD". Clever, I know.  So, if all one of you wants to go back to 2008 and see what I took pictures of in May, all you have to do is click that little "POTD" at the bottom of this (and many posts) scroll down and hit "More posts" over and over again.  It seems that basically for the last five years, the blog has pretty much been picture of the day posts. If you're a blogger (which no one is anymore)  I would encourage you to start your own pic o' the day as it is pretty cool to look back over 10 years and see what I was up to in Mays past. (I did just discover that the 2008 pics have to be clicked on.  Maybe if I get bored some day I'll fix this...)

The old homestead.

EMS is... cold dinners missed sleep split seconds golden hours chest pains back aches filthy houses narrow stairs dead on toilets dead behind doors woah, look at that! talking off the ledge boredom adrenaline knowing too much knowing too little making cots squeezed hands repetition bitching held pressure held breath all eyes on you public scrutiny high expectations bull shit feeling cool looking dumb driving too fast   getting there too late panicked parents happy babies hidden sorrow unbridled joy

There is now a cast of 33 new characters in my life.  My classmates and future colleagues.  The 33 other people who, like me, are thinking, "I hope I can do this".  They will help me learn, help me grow, and build me up.  I hope I can return the favor Orientation, was like many other orientations I have been to:  awkward, stressful, and extremely boring. Administrivia has never been my strong suit.  Also, I just about ran out of business attire within the three days, so I guess I still have some shopping to do.  My ongoing closet emergency. I have never been simultaneously built up and broken down before.  It is an odd and confusing sensation that has (actually) kept me up at night.  The entire three days vacillated between welcoming us, telling us we were great, and gearing us for the tsunami that is about to break upon us.  "Congratulations on being here. You should be proud. This will be the worst summer of your life. Don't think...

The office.

After 3 days of orientation to PA school, Lola needed some pets.

Kayak storage.

Fancy new closet.

Unfathomably, the first kayak of the season.

It just occurred to me that I never followed up on why we were in Greece in the first place last summer.  Feeling at a loss as to what to do about the refugee crisis, I researched and asked around.  I was put in contact with a woman who runs a small NGO and was helping at a camp in central Greece.  She was enthusiastic and supportive of our visit, and put the right wheels in motion to get us there.  I can't really describe the camp to you, for many reasons, or even if it met my expectations.  I learned a lot that I didn't learn in grad school about long term emergency planning, logistics, and some hard truths about NGO's and their level of helpfulness. It is hard to know the right thing to say, because the experience meant so much to me. While on camp we did a great many things- organizing clothes, making first aid kits, distributing food items, shopping for camp.  The best times were when we got to hang out with the residents either through clothes dist...

I spent many months convincing myself that it was a good, financially sound, and safe idea to commute to school.  After all, it's only every single day for a year, and then pretty much every single day for 14 months after that.  I would only put 30,000 miles on the car (in the first year) and I would definitely love getting up at 5 am.  I can be a morning person!  It's only an hour drive (in theory and only on sunday afternoons and weekdays at midnight) and the traffic is predictable. This PA journey will force me to change many things about my lifestyle.  Mostly it will dictate when I sleep and when I wake, and what I do with my spare time, and what and when I eat, and how often I can go kayaking, and how much I can spend on everything, and that's all!  These lifestyle changes are what worry me the most about school.  I am used to being in charge of me, but now I'm going to have to let a lot of stuff go.  Pretty much everything I've gotten use...

13th anniversary: the lacy one!  Just so you know...googling 'lace' is a bit of a risky business.  So, I stole this picture from googling 'lace doily' and I was happy to see that there still seems to be a market for doilies.  Also 'doily' is one of the weirdest words in English.  Anyway.  Today is my 13th blogiversary.  I celebrated by putting up a bunch of posts last week. I know you all enjoyed them...right?!  I am pretty excited that the blog will be reverting back to it's original mode of 'student blog'.  Sure, I think the first year of PA school blogging will be more apologizing for not not taking the time to blog, but it could be filled with plenty of new things up to and including (hopefully) me suturing an orange.  Or more likely a grapefruit because that is a citrus that I want to eat after I've finished stabbing it.  So, happy anniversary, blog!

After big bend, we continued on to Marfa, Texas. This is a wacky little town with very expensive real estate and a lot of modern art thanks to the Chinati Foundation who set up here back in the 80's to be a beacon of modern art installations.  Most of this type of thing...I don't get, but it was an interesting place to visit.  We spent the night in El Paso, where although we didn't get to explore too much, but I did learn just how big this city is and how it is a stones throw away from Juarez City, Mexico. We had a quick stop in New Mexico- just long enough to say we had been there and didn't get bitten by any rattlesnakes.  We drove on to Arizona, and Tuscon, our final destination.  As an east coast girl, I have to say I was entranced by this area.  The rocks, the dust, the mountains.  It was all so foreign to me, and I loved it. In Tuscon we visited Saguaro national park which just struck me.  These towering miracles just hanging out in the desert...

I took today to catch up on some blogging I should have done a long time ago. So...there is Greece (that should have been done in August) I do need to write some EMS stuff, but, maybe in like 4 months. I have been trying to get a list of things that need to be done and then finished before school starts. After a couple of months fretting about how the school probably forgot about me and/or kicked me out already, I finally got news of the start date. Early June I will start my adventure/sentence. In May we have a three day orientation with two hours set aside for 'instrument purchasing'. Ooh, let the spending begin! I am hoping that my 12 year old stethoscope will pass muster as it is probably the only useful medical instrument I own at the moment.  It was a relief to hear something from school as it had been a while.  Although it did open up another little bit of panic as now I need to collect things to get started like vaccine records and get a physical, and eno...

This December I had an opportunity to visit a part of the country I'd never seen before. My friend needed a road tripping companion to get from Ft. Hood, Texas to Tucson, Arizona via Big Bend National Park. My immediate answer was yes. With two kids and a dog? Double yes. It wasn't long into our trip before we started seeing huge landscapes, distant hills, and oil fields. We also passed miles of pecan trees and tiny town after tiny town.  Little did I know we were heading to Terlingua Texas, a town of only 58 (according to the 2010 census)- probably the smallest town I've ever been in.  We had dinner- a sit down dinner- in a gas station because that was the only restaurant we could find. Santa Elena Canyon Terlingua is the closest town to the entrance to Big Bend, and when we left to enter the park, we still had a 40 mile drive to the first ranger station.  The size of this area is not something that this east coaster could comprehend. Miles and miles of isolation....

Kleftiko We traveled by boat to Milos next.  Milos is famous for it's bleached white beaches, distinct rock formations, and mineral veins. We went to more beaches than I can count, each more beautiful than the next.  The most bizarre we visited to was accessible only by climbing down the cleft of a cliff using a rope hastily nailed into the rock and an aging wooden ladder. We must have lost our minds- the sand rained down on my head while I watched others panic at the top of the ladder and give up on visiting this exclusive beach. Prassa Beach A visit is incomplete without a boat trip around the island to see the cliffs.  Kleftiko is one of the best places I've ever seen.  Snorkeling with tropical fish in the warm waters and eating fresh watermelon on the boat is a wonderful memory. This outcropping is only accessible by boat and well worth it. The next day we took a ferry to Kimolos where we enjoyed an exclusive beach and a charming medieval town....

Oia We met up with my Greek friend at her home in Thessaloniki.  In her typical style, we hit the ground running- starting by whipping through the ancient narrow streets to an overlook where we could take in the entire city and surrounds.  Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to explore the city properly but it's good to have something to do in the next visit. We then flew down to Santorini (or Thera, or Thira).  The quintessential Greek island, which did not disappoint.  To say it is beautiful is a gross under-description of the island.  Crystal clear blue waters, volcanic landscapes, and white-washed towns clinging to the edges of sheer cliffs. We attempted to catch the famous sunset at Oia and I was struck by the sheer number of people willing to camp out for this daily event. It was beautiful, but I think everyone forgets that the sun sets all over the island with equal grandeur and far fewer people. Fira The town of Fira is where we took a b...

Our first adventure outside of the area of our camp was to Litochoro. This town lays in the shadow of Mt. Olympus.  We came here to hike the Enipeus Gorge and say hi to Zeus.  We met our guide and took a taxi to our starting point, about half way up the mountain. We started by visiting an old monoestary that has been destroyed many times, lastly during World War II. Two monks still live there and are slowly rebuilding it to its former glory.  We were kindly provided skirts for our visit. We hiked down to the cave of St. Dionisis where the order started. There is still a small church here and a spring providing the coldest, clearest water I'd ever experienced.  We crossed the river of the Gorge several times. At lunch we stopped for a dip in the freezing waters which was bracing to say the least. The water was crystal clear and we could watch tadpoles and frogs darting between the sharp rocks. It is a beautiful place where I would have stood happily for the rest ...