Productive Weekend

This weekend has been pretty productive. I've finished my cases for clinical pathology, wrote a surgery report on a fictional dog who swallowed a sock, did my part of my pharmacology group project (thinking about getting a head start and making PowerPoint slides for it), read two chapters for systemic pathology, went over three lectures of virology, and went over pharmacology lectures. However, that doesn't mean my list is any smaller. I've got an exam on Tuesday I need to study for, another virology lecture to take notes on, another pharmacology lecture to take notes on, and I need to get on to reviewing for my quiz in clin path tomorrow.

Did I mention my weekends are filled with studying?

This Week in Training

Or I should title this post--"This Week In Not Training"

I ran on Monday, but took the rest of the week off. Last Saturday night my stomach was irked and that followed into Sunday. Monday morning I woke up doing okay so I ran, but since then I've had to take it easy. I'm hoping next week/this week will be better but I'm not holding my breath. My plan is to walk tomorrow morning and see how it goes.

Basically this week was a huge cut back week. Total mileage: 3 miles.

State of the Body--GI Version

I had a follow up appointment with my GI doc this afternoon and had an in depth conversation about the future and changing treatment plans. The first part of the conversation revolved around the small bowel bacterial overgrowth, which seeing that I responded to the Cipro Dr. L is pretty sure that was what was going on. The plan, as it stands right now, is to wait until the symptoms crop up again and then hit them with another dose of antibiotics (but a different one). Then repeat the cycle. He said it could be anywhere from one month to four months between treatments it just depends on how fast the little buggers grow in my small intestine. It is, however, proof my small intestine is sluggish like my stomach.

The rest of the appointment we discussed the gastroparesis. Since I've had it two years he is pretty sure I will be dealing with it the rest of my life. That is what I figured, but I had to ask. Because I've been on Reglan for 2 years and the longer you are on it the greater likelihood of having severe neurological side effects I am supposed to start weaning off of it. The plan is to reduce it over the course of several weeks and see how I do. In the mean time Dr. L is going to look into getting domperidone for me. I see him again in a month and we will reassess things then.

I'll admit I'm a bit nervous about stopping the Reglan. I've been having some major stomach issues the past two weeks and have lost 2 pounds. But, Dr. L knows that and he still wants to give a try. I'm supposed to call him if things start getting worse. I'll start the taper tomorrow night by reducing my night dose to 5mg. I'll do that for a week and then stop my dinner dose. I'll do that for a week and then stop my lunch dose. After a week I'll stop my morning dose and just leave my bedtime dose for one more week. After that I'll be off of it. That is if all goes well.

Access Denied

I'd be studying right now, but there is no place quiet in the building to do so and I'm rather unmotivated to try and concentrate while listening to a meeting between Dr. J and the students presenting the case for Tuesday's case studies. So I thought I'd write a little bit about learning, knowledge, and remembering what you learn.   I walked into VBS 106 this morning and read the dry erase board. It said "atresia ani." If you had asked me what the term for the congenital defect of lacking an anus was I couldn't have told you, but the moment I saw those words the photos from pathology came to mind and I knew exactly what it was talking about. I have this happen all the time. This morning in pathology rounds I struggled to define lieomyoma. I was getting rhabdomyoma and lieomyoma mixed up in my brain but I finally remembered it was a smooth muscle tumor after a few moments. That's the problem with having so much information thrown at you in the span of two years. The knowledge is there, but accessing it is the problem.

It Is The Little Things

I'm a creature of habit. I like my environment to be the same all the time, so when I come into the classroom in the morning and the tables are rearranged I go a little bananas. That happened last week, and after investigating I found out it shouldn't have been rearranged. We sit in teams for Clinical Pathology and the tables are supposed to be arranged in a specific order so we have our teams together. To say the room is tight is an understatement. We have 24 people crowded in a small temporary classroom and the tables have to be just right. Putting them back where they belong made me a happy camper.

Lectures

This semester is going pretty quickly, but the lectures go slow. Right now I'm listening to a lecture on pancreatic surgery. We are talking about the surgical approach to the pancreas at the moment trying to finish up the PowerPoint slides we started on Tuesday. Which woud you rather have a ventral midline abdominal incision as an approach or a laparoscopic pancreatic biopsy? I'd go for the laparoscopic. I recovered pretty well from my laparoscopic appendectomy/ruptured ovarin cyst adventure a couple years ago.   The problem with lectures going slow has to do with my level of distraction. I have distractions coming from left and right. On the left is all the stuff revolving around juggling school and moving to Ames this summer, and on the right is all the health related stuff going on. I discovered I'm going to have to take out a loan to move and I need to get on that. Half my class is starting to find places to live already, and I know with my animals I'm going to have a harder time then most. On the health front I have medical bill issues, I'm waiting on results from bloodwork drawn yesterday (I have to call Dr. E next Wednesday/Thursday for results), and I'm having stomach issues. Today the stomach isn't as bad as it has been unless I walk around, then I'm nauseous as all get out.   Now where talking aobut Whipple's Triad. Hypoglycemia anyone?

Exam One Is In The Books

I managed to survive my first exam of the semester on Monday. It was a pharmacology exam, and thankfully I kind of knew what to expect. I had the same professor for my undergraduate pharmacology/toxicology course so I knew his test format. I did however have to ponder how to calculate the half life of a drug from a first order reaction equation but I think I got it right. We should have them back on Monday, or so we were told.