Foul Mouthed

Bad things have been happening inside my oral cavity. My childhood disdain for toothbrushes has wreaked havoc in my dental enamel, and let's just summarise the results in one word, cavity. Not just any old cavity off the street looking for a sweet tooth, we are talking infected, painful, so-huge-my-voice-echoes-when-I-speak cavity. Combine this with a horizontally impacted wisdom tooth, and another wisdom tooth that chose to become impacted vertically, all of which become complicated at the same time, and you have a fun fest.

The impacted wisdoms will "probably require surgery soon". The cavity needs root canal treatment. ASAP. *gulp*

The only funny (the haha variety) was when the dentist wanted to wait until I was "21 or 22 years old" before yanking out my last claim to wisdom. The lack of wisdom teeth imparts to my face the appearance of a teenager, I guess. Which may be a good thing, because I HATE GROWING OLDER. Gah at you, birthday next month. (Not very subtle, was that? Let's just pretend it was, and say "Let's all gift Pancreas a new cellphone next month, because that is what she desires the most, and we love her.")

The title *ahem* does not mean that I am channelling YELLING BIRD. Nor is it supposed to imply that I suffer from halitosis. It represents the evil-ness inside my oral cavity that is making my life living hell.

I return to Ob-G this week, and I will soon have heart warming stories about old women getting their uteri ripped out by clawed forceps for your reading pleasure. Until then, please, resist the temptation. DO NOT confide your tales of root canal treatment horrors with me, I beg you.

P. S. : My tooth hurts. :(

UPDATE: The deed has been done, and there was no pain AT ALL! and I am doing fine. I have to go back next week to 'crown' it, whatever that is.

Goodbye, Sir Jerry

I am on the review for one of my favourite subjects ever, Orthopaedics. Let's all turn cartwheels for the sheer joy of fractured bones, shall we?

Although I am afraid of a jinx, I will say this, I have been rather happy at college these last few days. I like Surgery, and I enjoyed the review posting. Occasionally, I even got the feeling that I actually knew what I was talking about, because I did not feel blank when my teacher talked about the Bormann's system of classification for carcinoma of the stomach. And also, my current, uh, objet d'affection, knows I exist because I stood up to answer a question in class, and I got that right! So yeah, it's been great.

But things at home have not been wonderful, to balance out the good. My Mom was diagnosed with periarthritis of the shoulder joint, which has been giving her a lot of pain. She might need surgery, because her response to drugs and physiotherapy is not as satisfactory as it should have been. And my cat died. He disappeared one day, and a couple of days later, there was a terrible stink from somewhere outside the house that is too overgrown to explore. We put two and two together, and got four. I miss him.


Rest in peace, buddy.

Now that I am in a melancholy mood, I will probably start talking about my Dad, and then I will start to cry, and my Mom will want to know what's wrong, and then we will both end up using a lot of tissues, and be depressed enough to skip dinner. And since I am trying to gain weight (an exercise in futility, a more accurate description would be 'trying not to lose any more weight'), skipping dinner is inadvisable. Therefore, TTFN, before I start blubbering.

Exam Fundae

I ought to be all "My exams are over! Yay!" but I actually am "Damn! It's back to class again."

Now, I can hear a lot of excited voices ask me, "How were your exams? We want every little detail." I realise I am hallucinating, but I have a feeling that the the voices have got to be answered, or the Universe will implode. On the other hand, if I do that I will lose all my readers (namely, me, my cat, and uh, me. I am not sure if my cat can read, but he stares at the screen for long periods.) So there will be only a few details about my exams. Very few.

But.

But.

But.

Before that.

I have some good news.

No, it's awesome news.

It's the best news I have heard in a year.

I came second on the Paediatrics end posting exam.

< pause for applause, and letters of congratulation >

Come on, you stupid cat, clap your paws.

Ow!

< /pause >

Anyway, that was old news, because the end posting was a couple of weeks ago.

So, the theory exams. The very important ones that contribute 20% marks to my final total. They sucked.

The Paed people, you know what they did? They announced that the portions included were the first ten chapters of O P G hai (which is Mr. Cow's* book is known as in certain circles), and then proceeded to set a question paper based on chapters 11 through 20. I would have boiled them in oil if I hadn't come out second on the end posting exam.

I don't think I have said this before, but ObG is my favourite subject**. Not a word of what I read got implanted in my head. Except for that bit about 'multiple sexual partners' being a risk factor for carcinoma of the uterine cervix. As you might have guessed by now, there wasn't a single question about risk factors for carcinoma of the cervix.

During the Surgery exam, I got a full blast of the tropical sun RIGHT IN MY EYES and I don't really remember much else about the day.

Medicine was not any better, either. I did not know most of the answers, but I couldn't finish writing them out by the end of three hours and they had to forcibly eject me from the exam hall.

Although you are going to find this hard to believe, I did learn a lot of new things.

That's good, right? Please say yes.

Here they are.

No, I am not going to talk about Lyme disease, which is caused by Borrelia burgdorferi and is transmitted by the bite of Ixodid ticks. It has three stages- early localised infection, early disseminated infection, and late persistent infection. Whew!

The Things You Learn During Exams

• No matter how long the study leave is, you start reading in earnest only the day before the exam.

• The night before the exam, you will ring up your friends for 'moral support' and end up chatting for an hour.

• Your appetite increases exponentially while you read, only to disappear when you are at the dinner table.

• You have to keep your lids propped up by the time it's eight the night before the exam.

• You can stay up comfortably till two if you watch some TV for a 'wake up break'.

• The topics you painstakingly spent hours over will not be asked.

• If they are, you won't remember them.

• But the areas you skipped will find their way into the question paper.

• Every time you get stuck for an answer, you will see everyone else around you writing furiously.

• Nobody else ever gets stuck as much you do.

• You notice that the exam hall has quite a lot of lights and fans.

• Your voracious appetite returns.

• Occasionally, you might write an answer incompletely and then leave some blank space, where you scribble "Think, dummy!" with a pencil.

• You never remember to erase such comments from your answer sheet until you do the same thing on your next exam.

• You don't remember to erase those bits in the next exam, either.
  

• The cleverest of insights don't enter your mind until the invigilator holds out his hand for your answer sheet.

I am sure there are more, but my tortured brain is still reeling from the effects of the clinical features of viper bites. I never knew that windscreen vipers bit you. See? That's another thing I learnt. Don't you wash your car ever again.

That is the message of this post.

DO NOT WASH YOUR CAR.

I can already see the Big Brother jumping for joy.

* 'Gai' is the Hindi word for 'Cow'.
** Refer sarcasm.

Being Examinated

So I have good news and I have bad news, like in all those terrible jokes. And to stick to the formula, I'll tell you the good news first.

The good news is that I have completed my Paediatrics posting, and probably even passed the end posting exam because my examiner kept saying "Very Good!" at the end of every answer. But he was a vann kidu who expected me to know the three stages of Lyme Disease, and I was all "Lyme disease has stages?" And then it went downhill from there, and turned uphill after a brief visit to the Underworld, then I was on level ground and then rose and fell so many times I lost count. Hopefully, the highs and lows will balance themselves out and he meant it when he appeared to be impressed by my answers*.

The bad news (get out those tissues, you are going to need them) is that my semester has ended *sob* and what's even worse is that I have exams. And to add insult to injury, I have just one more semester left in college. *bawls*

Think of it as my funeral, and let the tears flow. That probably requires tear gas, but please, oblige a heart broken medico who knows nothing about the stages of Lyme disease.

The exams last a couple of weeks. Until then, it's farewell and adieu to you, sweet readers. If you can manage it, say a short prayer for me. It doesn't matter if you don't believe in God(s), just hint to Hippocrates that some day he's going to be proud of me for being THE expert on Lyme disease, and he will do the rest.

*My head keeps saying "Fat chance!", but I shall ignore it for now. Please, please, God, let me have passed.

Landmarks

Paediatrics still has bawling children and tired medicos carrying chocolates instead of knee hammers. Let's not go there. OK?

OK.

The results of the fourth year exams are out, and I have (once again) scraped through. Let's not go there, either. OK?

OK.

I have an exam tomorrow. Nope. We don't go there, either.

The semester is almost over. A round of exams, and then, my VERY LAST SEMESTER.*panic attack*

How did I get here? I (still) do not know anything about Anatomy. Or Physiology. Or any of the other twenty-odd subjects we are expected to have a working knowledge of. *hyperventilates*

I am going to miss all those places we used to hang out at.

Ooh, good one! There aren't any places to hang out at college. Except perhaps the library, and let's face it, if I were the type to 'hang out' at the library, I wouldn't be a blogger.

We have this place called the NeuroMuscular Junction (the NMJ). It looks something like this:


Please, roar with laughter at my pathetic attempt at humour.

The NMJ has four arms. One of them leads to the Ladies' Hostel (the neuro- part, for Brains) and the road opposite that leads to the Men's Hostel (the muscular part). This is supposed to be the reason for the name. The other two arms, for the people who are still reading, lead to the hospital and to the college buildings respectively.

The NMJ is not a hangout. It is more like a meeting place. "Drop me at the NMJ," or "I'll see you at the NMJ around ten-thirty."

Another place of note is the Umbilical Cord, one of my favourite names. It is a long corridor connecting the Mother and Baby sections of the Mother and Baby Hospital. It does not consist of the right and left umbilical arteries and an umbilical vein buried in Whaton's jelly. *gasp*

To someone unacquainted with the anatomical geographical structure of our college, our conversations would resemble gibberish.

"Where are you? I am waiting at the distal end of the umbilical cord."
"I just reached the NMJ."
"How lazy can you get? What are you, immotile cilia?"
"Are you implying that I am sterile?"
"No, I know you are not in the OT now."
"Aargh!"

I can't think of any other places at college with interesting names. The old auditorium is known as the Old Auditorium, the bike stand as the Bike Stand and the office as the Office.

One place that deserves a name is the bust of Hippocrates in front of the hospital.

"Meet me in front of the Hippo at nine."

That should raise a few eyebrows.

Dr. Jekyll and Chucky

I am in Smallville.

That is how I think about Paediatrics inside my head. Because children are small.

I can't stand Paediatrics.

Literally.

But only literally.

My feet hurt. From standing on them. For hours. About five or six of 'em. Hours, that is. Not five or six feet. Because that would be weird. Not to mention shopping nightmares.

Ow.

So.

A lot of people believe Paeds is all about this:


It is.

Little kids are cute. Small babies are adorable. And tiny preemies are... let's be honest here. Scary. They could die any second.

Children are innocent, sweet, endearing, precious, playful, enchanting, talkative... (Yes, I used a thesaurus. So?)

What they also are, are monsters. Tiny monsters, but still, monsters. Allow me to demonstrate.


Picture a room with forty beds. Side by side, in two rows. Imagine each one occupied by the person pictured above, in that pose. Imagine the noise level. Multiply that by your favourite 6 digit number. Here, your imagination needs these. (I am genuinely sorry about the colour.)

You should totally visit our Paediatrics ward after the nurses have finished giving a round of injections. It will broaden your horizons. Trust me.

One day was devoted to Paediatric Surgery. There was this kid, less than two years old. Her grandmother had brought her to the OPD for post surgical follow up. She had had a surgery for a hernia, which is unusual in girl children. Well, it turned out she was not a 'she' after all. They found a pair of 'undescended testes' inside her during the surgery, and studies showed that the child was genetically male. 'She' had something called testicular feminising syndrome (it is as ghastly as it sounds) and externally appeared to be a girl. Now, the difficulty was in deciding whether to raise the child as a girl or a boy. Since 'she' already looked like a girl, it was settled that she would continue to be one. (The testicles would have to be removed, they were no good anyway, and there is a high risk of cancer later on.)

We rarely realise how lucky we are.

Pancreas & The Gang

Some day, when I am feeling especially sadistic, I will give you a blow-by-blow account of "How Pancreas Writes a Case Record." Write Right now, I just have this really painful cramp in my right hand. I have been writing from last night, and all I have down is eight pages. It may not seem like much to you, but it is for me. I am a little* lazy, to be honest.

Nothing much happened last week. I went back to college after 'Christmas vacation', which is what we called the week long bunking of classes we undertook because we only had Christmas day off, and you can't enjoy it when you have just one day with all the goodwill in the world. Maybe you can, but there wasn't enough goodwill in this part of the world, at any rate.

Yeah, going back to college. There I was, walking, no, running (I was late for class, as usual), down the corridor of the Mother & Baby Hospital when I see a woman holding this tiny, tiny, baby. And I was all, "Aww!" and thought, "ObG isn't that all that sucky."

You think you know what is coming next, don't you? I am going to be all "God, ObG is the BEST" and "Oh, how I am going to miss it", isn't it? Read on, the suspense is killing me too.

I walk into one of the operating rooms, all smiling and happy, brimming over with this LOVE for mankind, when I see a woman with her uterus hanging out her va-jay-jay and blood all over the place. That is when I remembered the reason I can't stand ObG. ObG consists not only of Obstetrics, but also Gynaecology. And Gynaecology involves LALALALALALA family blog. If you really want to know, drop me an email so I can ignore it.

Also last week, A and I were having lunch at a restaurant close to the hospital, and the people at the table next to ours was making more noise than the both of us, and this annoyed us no end. A mere eight puny human beings getting more dirty looks from the others than us? Really, an unpardonable offence. Reinforcements arrived as quickly as they could, and we spent the rest of our meals making faces at the eight at the next table who were glaring at us. Go, us!

Anyway, this incident made me very sad. Not because we surprisingly did not get kicked out of the restaurant, but because we only have a few more months left in college. And then I realised that my beloved readers (all three of you, including the I) don't know any of my friends. And I felt ashamed, and decided to kill myself. But my Mom convinced that a blog post about The Gang would do instead. You can scream at her for this post, but not too loud, she has a slight fever.

Pancreas & The Gang

Adorable Pancreas: Mysterious, immensely talented, blindingly gorgeous, stupendously clever medico who is loved by all and feared known far and wide for her brilliant wit. Is of a skeletal skinny slim willowy build that is the target of much envy. AKA: Skeletal System, Prevaricator

The A: Cuddly baby in her early twenties. Has a voice which can be heard clearly even at an Iron Maiden concert. Claims to be an excellent cook, victims still not out of hospital. A rock in times of trouble, a pain at other times.
AKA: Hypertrophied Triceps, Accident waiting to happen

Twin: One half of a set of identical twins, separated from the other half for the first time in her life. Claims to be one half of a set of fraternal twins who just happen to look identical. Hates colour, wears black to weddings, funerals, and classes. Has two cell phones both of which are either switched off or beyond coverage area.
AKA: Dog doctor, Vanishing Twin

The R: The most mature and quietest member of The Gang. Has an inexplicable tendency to make friends with the wackiest characters around. Had to haver a cell phone surgically removed from her ear once, but the disease recurred. Addicted to chocolate.
AKA: Silencer, Partner in Crime

These are my four bestest friends in the world. Unlike a lot of people, my best friends list also includes me. The extended Gang would take me an entire day to type out, and contrary to popular belief, I actually have other, more important stuff to do. Such as, uh, important stuff. Dear lord, I have exams next month, and I start Paediatrics tomorrow. And I have four library books to finish. Bye!

*Word used in its b    r    o    a    d    e    s    t sense.