Sunday, April 12, 2009

Awkward Medical Exams and other Life Experiences

This post is for all of you who have been anxiously awaiting the amazing post I said I was going to write. I am finally done with my semester so I have time to do something besides study.

So as many of you know I am in PA school. This means that I spend hours of my life stuffing medical knowledge into my already full brain. Also I get to look at and stick my fingers in ALL the body's orifices. Recently one of the most exciting things I have done is the male and female genitourinary exams.... In the past we have done these exams on plastic models but this year in preparation for our rotations they had people come in so we could do the exams on a live patient. Yes it was as awkward as it sounds and I was being graded as well. The only thing that could make this worse is having my teacher there, looking over my shoulder mentally critizing every step I make. Also its slightly unnerving when your patient grabs your hand and tells you that you are feeling the wrong spot or that you are doing the exam wrong. Yeah it was awkward, enough said...

So in March my brother got married. They decided to get married in the Nauvoo temple which is about 5 hours from where my parents live. They also decided to bring all the wedding stuff from Fort Dodge (our Hometown). We trasported all the decorations, food, dresses, tuxs, flowers, you name it they had it. Now they decided to get a 3 level cake and transport it. I thought this was a bad idea but no one listened to me. This was the first mistake. So we get the cake and transport it from Fort Dodge to Nauvoo. The cake travelled perfectly with no problems for 5 hours. Before the reception we were taking the top layer of the cake into the reception hall and of course I was carrying it. This was the second mistake. Who ever gave me a cake to carry should be shot. I trip in parking lots when there is nothing on the ground to trip on. Well as you may have guessed I dropped the cake. Irronically it was right after I told my sister to be careful and to make sure not to drop it. Yes I really am that unlucky its kinda what Im good at. Due to some divine intervention and some clever decorating we were able to putthe cake back together. All of the bridesmaids and all the groomsmen put Humpty Dumpty cake back together again.

So after the wedding my roommate and I went to St Louis. Everything there is free! Being an extremely poor grad student if its free we love it. You woulkdnt believe some of the things I eat just because they are free. And I will do just about anything for a free t-shirt... Anyways St. Louis has this park called Forrest Park and everything in it is free. Including the Zoo and all the museums. Its a great place to visit if your on a budget.

Well the next month I went to another wedding. I know 5 couples getting married in a 2 month time period. I also know at least one couple getting married every month thru September. Im still looking for a October couple. If anyone knows someone let me know. So at this second wedding we ate some amazing food, took pictures, etc. Now the wedding was amazing but the really amazing part was my trip back to Lincoln. I flew United and I was scheduled on the 7pm flight connecting in Dever and then on to Lincoln. I get to the airport and wait for the flight. First thing that happened was the plane got there late. For those of you that dont know this is a very bad sign. Because it means something is wrong with the plane and they are going to have to fix it. Well they are fixing our plane but I missed my connection so they had to re book me on a 10am flight out of Denver the next day. So I sit back down to wait for the plane to get fixed. Two hours later they finally board us and we are all ready to go and we pull away from the boarding thing... I think they call it a moving jet way or something like that. Anyways we procedd to sit there for another 2 hours before they tell us that they cant fix the problem and so the flight will not be leaving. Now this is a big problem because I am supposed to be in Denver at 10am and there were no flights that could get me there in time. I ended up in a hotel room, got to sleep around 1:30 am and had to leave for the airport at 5:30am. Yep got a sum total of 3 hours sleep it was awesome. I get to the airport again and try to fly standby, which I failed at. Anyways the story goes on and after 6 ticket changes and 16 hours in an airport they finally managed to get me to Omaha. And I had someone pick me up getting me home around 5:30pm on Monday. It was amazing!

Well sorry if that was a bitter story Im really not bitter about it anymore. It just makes for an interesting story, its pretty much the most exciting thing that has happened to me in the last couple months. Although a close second was giving birth to twins for my spanish class assignment... but thats a story for another day

P.S. Im sorry if this wasnt the amazing post some of you were expecting. I tried really hard but the material I had to work with was a little lame. Hopefully once rotations start I will be able to get you all the messy details of life in the hospital. My first roatation is in Guthrie Center, Iowa. Where is that you ask... I dont know. I grew up in Iowa and I have never heard of it. But supposedly its a booming metropolis of 1500 people. Should be the time of my life...