So turns out today is a holiday (Good Friday), and many places are closed. (Apparently a lot of classes were cancelled today, but none of mine were!) No wonder there were so many people at the grocery store yesterday; it won't be open until Sunday since Saturday is Sabbath. The only places open today are the Chinese stores (obviously).  

I am currently conducting a mini experiment with my avocados. So you know how there is more than one way to speed up the ripening process. Since I have two avocados, I wanted to see which method works better. So last night I put one avocado in a brown paper bag and folded the top so it was mostly sealed. The second one I put beside a bunch of yellow bananas (4 of them to be exact). Day 1: both avocados are still hard as rocks.

In other news, my supply of turkey bacon is running low. But that's because I've been feeding it to my cats instead of eating it myself. Well I was getting sick of eating turkey bacon every day (I had bought a family pack size of 3 regular packs), and the female cat is having kittens soon so she needs the extra food that I'm giving her. I can't wait for her to pop them out so I can play with them! The male cat is obnoxious as ever, keeps banging on my door and meowing frivolously whenever I come home from class. The third cat, a medium sized one that looks like an offspring of the two, lurks around as well but from a safe distance. I noticed that she has a limp whenever she walks and carries her right paw gingerly. It doesn't look injured, but she won't let me come close to take a better look at it.

Yesterday in Neuro class we watched a documentary that showed several emergency cases in the ER that involved use of brain imaging. The first was of a guy who was stabbed in the skull by a butcher knife. He looked like something from a Halloween costume party, with the hilt of the knife sticking out of his head and blood seeping copiously onto the white blanket of his stretcher. He was still conscious despite the visible trauma. After running a CT scan, the images showed that the knife was fully lodged, all six inches of it, with the tip reaching the roof of his mouth. Fortunately for him, no major arteries had been severed, so haemorrhaging wasn't a problem, and the doctors went ahead and operated on him, removing pieces of his skull until the brain was exposed so that they could remove the blade as safely as possible. And it came out, surprisingly clean and bloodless. I wish the documentary told us how he had ended up with the knife in his head (someone must have really had the intent and strength to kill him to sink it so deeply in), and how he did in his recovery. I suppose his case would be reminiscent of the famous documented case of Phineas Gage who had a metal rod penetrate and exit his brain, resulting in full blown Frontal Lobe Syndrome despite intact motor abilities and everything else typical of a normal, functioning human being. Any student who has ever taken first year psychology should be familiar with the story. 

Another episode showed a 14 month old baby who was brought in after a car crash. She was resuscitated four times and had to receive a blood transfusion before doctors ran a CT scan on her head and realized that the damage done was irreversible and fatal. She had a fracture to the frontal portion of her skull and blood was seeping freely from the severed meningeal arteries, forming an epidural hematoma. The contained bleeding had surrounded her entire brain and was putting a lot of intracranial pressure on the vital organ, as well as producing much swelling to the head. She died almost immediately after in the scanning room. There were a few more episodes from the ER. It was a really good documentary that piqued my interest in the ER. Would be very exhilarating to work under so much time pressure. I wonder what the hours are like. 

The documentary reminded me of the time when I volunteered at Sunnybrook Hospital in the ICU Trauma ward. One day I visited a patient, an elderly woman who had a massive pond fracture centred on the front portion of her skull. Her entire forehead (where her frontal lobe should have been) was caved in as if someone had squished it with a large round object. Now that I think about it, it's quite an enigma as to how she received that. A pond fracture usually occurs in babies before their skull has hardened fully and is characterized by a concave dent because of this. Any blunt trauma to the skull in adults would result in a fracture and subsequent splintering of the skull. Hmmm.

Yay it's Friday!

I have started jogging in the mornings about a week ago. Like actual jogging. Not the jog-for-five-minutes-around-the-block-jogging. But jogging for 3-4 miles every morning, and sometimes in the evening right as the sun sets. It's a nice work out, and it helps me keep motivated. Now if only I could keep this stress-eating under control, things would be a lot easier… 

Anyways, here are some photos I took recently:

Labels: avocado, er, friday, good friday, neuro

Just had block 3 exams. Physio, neuro and biochem (in order of increasing exam difficulty). They were a little rough, but it was to be expected. This was the hardest block for biochem (pathways), and we had renal and resp for physio. And neuro was, well, neuro. What used to be an easy course is not so anymore thanks to one or two people in the class that ruined it for everyone. I passed everything but definitely could have done better. One more exam before the shelfs, and I'm already worrying about them. Everyone is agreeing that second semester is one of the toughest. 

View of sunset during one of my runs.

My first week and a half.

I made cookies from only two ingredients: banana and oatmeal!

Labels: biochem, block 3, blocks, exams, md 2, neuro, physio, running

First semester wrapped up in mid-December. I'm happy with how I did in all my courses. Winter break was relaxing but kind of boring, so I was glad to be back in school in January.
My three courses this semester are: Physiology, Neuroscience, and Biochem/Genetics. All the upper semester students have been constantly warning us about the difficulty of Physio, and they were so right! We had our first block exams yesterday (Tuesday), and the class average for Physio was a 56. Even though I passed, I felt very worried about my confidence in the material after seeing my mark. I thought I knew the material inside out, and it was supposed to be the easiest section of the course. The whole class was up in arms about it right after the test was finished, but the professor seemed unfazed about our reactions. I guess we just need to be more on our toes for her exams.
Anyways. The island feels chillier than usual, especially in the mornings. I have yet to turn on the A/C at my place.

I've changed my study habits up a bit. Instead of going to the study hall, I've been confining myself to my house. I hired a cleaning lady to come every two weeks to clean the entire house. It has definitely helped me take a lot of my mind and makes me feel more relaxed and at ease. I feel more focused and less worried about how dirty the floor is or how many spiders are possibly crawling up the wall. It has also reduced the number of trips to the convenience store, which means less consumption of junk food.


Some pictures I took recently:

Labels: biochem, md 2, neuro, physio

MD2 on an island.