Tuesday, October 21, 2008

The Entire Respiratory Tract

Er, hi. I did not die. But I came pretty close to it. And that statement is not just to make you feel sorry for me, it's almost true. Let us review the events of the last couple of weeks.

1. Medicine end posting exam
You know what that means, don't you? My posting in Internal Medicine is done with, and they wanted to find out how much I'd learnt in the 2 months I spent with them, not having seen anything about my posting on my blog. Ha ha. They don't read my blog, of course. Or they wold have known that I didn't know the causes of massive splenomegaly, and failed me without wasting time conducting exams.

The exam was weird. It's a practical exam, and we're given a real! live! patient and asked to figure out what disease he/she has. If it sound easy to you, **** you. Here's what happened.
Me: Good morning, I am Doctor (cough) AP.
Patient's daughter (PD): Student-aa? Which year?
Me: Final year.
PD: My dad is too sick to be poked and prodded by you stupid students. Go away.
Me (almost in tears): No, no. I have an exam.
PD: OK, on one condition. You don't touch him.
Me (thinks that as long as she does not have a gastrointestinal disease, this should go fine.): What trouble brought you to the hospital?
PD: Vomiting blood. Doctor Saar said my Appa has liver disease.
Me: I am so screwed.

I passed the exam (yay!), but only because the patient's daughter called my examiner a murderer when he palpated for the liver, and he realised why I had commented on the patient's enlarged liver as "liver not palpable."

2. New house
My mom and I have moved to another home, one that didn't feel like my Dad was going to walk in any moment. That reason for the move was stupid, because we can't wait for him to see this house and give it his seal of approval.

It's a tiny place, and the first week here was really hard, because THE STUPID INTERNET PEOPLE TOOK THEIR SWEET TIME WITH MY CONNECTION. As did the idiot cable people and the morons at the telephone department.

3. -itises
So while we were packing up all our stuff to be moved into the new house, I discovered that things? Collect dust. Like magnets. And this gave me allergic rhinitis, which got infected, and the next thing I knew, I was trying to cough up my lungs. The cough was so bad I got laryngitis and everything I said came out as a croak. And while I was getting over the bronchitis, the infection spread to my sinuses and I would spend hours in front of a steamer (not the kind that float on water). Then I found out my antibiotic was not working, and everything came back, so now I have rhinitis, pharyngitis, bronchitis, laryngitis and sinusitis. I haven't attended class for a week.

I have a date with my steamer now. See you next week.

P.S. I love getting "get well soon" cards and flowers. Just saying...