Playing catchup; or: A To-Do List As Long As the Titular Glove

Wow. When I said clinical school could cause longer delays between updates, I really didn't envisage it taking this long just to get the first "this is what I've been up to" post up and running.

---

Part 1: Stabbing pains and stabby stabby needles

One of the main reasons for this delay, although not by any means the only one, is the unfortunate fact that I managed to miss 2 full days of lectures thanks to a short stay in hospital. Long story short, I got crushing then stabbing chest pains and shortness of breath for no apparent reason, so - as you would - Han-Ley took me to A&E to find out what the hell was going on.

A&E had very few answers and very long waiting times, as well as a slight obsession with taking blood samples. While monitoring my levothyroxine dosage has involved blood test after blood test, and hence has left me with a remarkable tolerance for having my (poor soft vulnerable*) inner elbow punctured, I'd really like to make one thing clear to anyone who is informed they need to have a blood sample taken to measure arterial blood gas:

RUN, YOU POOR SOD!

I'm not joking. I found out what was involved about 20 seconds before the doctor put the needle in - there may have been a warning along the lines of "this is likely to hurt quite a bit," which didn't quite have time to register before the pain kicked in. For the information of the inexperienced reading this, the sample is taken from the wrist, very near to scraping the small, slightly protruding wrist-bone below the thumb, where there is a nice collection of nerves.

Now, while it certainly didn't scrape a nerve (thankfully - wouldn't want go through that again), it was bloody painful and, since it was taken from an artery rather than a vein, the point had to be pressed on firmly for around 5 minutes afterwards to close it up. Pressing on a bundle of nerves in an already-sore spot while excessively tired (it was after 3am by this point) does not have beneficial effects. Within one minute of this finishing I was dizzy to the point of vomiting.

Naturally, once this started, a very unimpressed-looking nurse came in and told me I'd have to have a cannula put in now because I'd be messing up the levels of any drugs they gave me. Between the feeling of being scolded and the one of ohGodpleasenomorepunctures my "I'm finished, honestly" came out sounding rather pathetic. The cannula went in anyway.

I stayed shaky and generally out-of-it through being told I'd be kept overnight for more tests in the morning as they were worried about the possibility of pulmonary embolus, then fell over while attempting to get off the examination table and was portered up to a bed where I lay awake for about half an hour hallucinating that the ceiling and curtains were covered with worms.

So yeah - really not going through that again, if it can be helped.

The first day in passed quickly - I was absolutely drained and kept falling asleep in between all the times various people woke me to do more tests (bad), give me painkillers (good) or give me hospital food (...meh). I also got visitors in the form of Blaise and Han-Ley, which definitely improved my mood a lot - even just from the small things like watching Blaise tell the tea & coffee guy "black coffee no sugar" three times before he remembered it.

Unfortunately, one of my tests had come back horribly wrong... in the form of my temperature being 37.5 degrees rather than 37. Apparently this "raised" temperature meant I had to be kept in overnight for observation. By 9am the following morning I was fed up of the old women on the ward giving me suspicious "Oi, you can walk unaided, what do you think you're doing here?" looks and, more to the point, I was absolutely sick of staring out the window at hospital roofing while waiting for someone to tell me what, if anything, was wrong with me. A few talks with a nice nurse, about an hour of staring despondently at the wall, and someone finally told me I could go.

I'd have been out of there like a shot if I hadn't had to ask directions to get out again.

*I said that I tolerate it. That doesn't mean I'm happy about it.

---

Part 2: So far from homeless we're right out the other side

Lauren and I, fond as we are of the house, are now both very keen to get rid of it before the start of November (and hence save ourselves another month's rent payment). As a result, a huge chunk of my would-be-blogging time online has gone towards checking for replies to our house rental ad and replying to the replies, and another chunk towards tidying the house and showing it off to potential tenants.

We did have high hopes for one person, who honestly was very keen on the place; but, with her first-choice housemate being out of the country and her second-choice housemate making it abundantly and tactlessly clear on viewing the house that she wasn't interested in staying in a "student house", she had to pull out, leaving us with less than two weeks to find someone to take over.

Five viewings over two days this week and another two Thursday/Friday - hopefully someone will be able to take over.

---

Part 3: The vet students' theme: "9 to 5"

Lastly, but an infinitely more forgiveable drain on my time, is the vet school itself and all that that implies.

This far it has mostly implied spending several hours a day perched on the same wooden benches in Lecture Theatre 1, interspersed with little breaks to stretch legs and have tea or coffee. I still haven't quite moved past the novelty value of making a mug of tea and carrying it into lectures with me - it creates a relaxed, "I'm learning from my living room" kind of feel. Perhaps the senior staff are aware of this; from the start of the year we've been encouraged to accept that most of our lives will be spent in the vet school from this point until graduation, so getting us to think of the lecture theatre as a big common room is probably just all part of this scheme.

That said, my cow mug is enjoying the full appreciation that only other vet students can give.

There have been many "special" vetty incidents that I really should have been blogging in this time.

For example, there was the lunchtime after a Parasitology practical when Tom attempted to identify what kind of tapeworm had gone into making my budget suitable-for-vegetarians chicken(!) pot noodle thing (a great excuse to stop eating it - it was manky).

Or the collared dove that found its way into the teaching room in the stables and perched on a horse jawbone, until captured and set free hippie-style outside.

Oh, and that my wellies still smell of pigs even this long afterwards.

I can see a lot of upcoming posts potentially mentioning my rotation group, so I may as well say now that this involves Megan, Rachel (Spikes), Jenny, Lowri, Mary, Sam and Greg (who as the only male was automatically given squad leader/organiser status during equine... interesting logic, that...) and that they're all lovely and we do amusing things - like getting up early just to end up getting bitten or stood on - and then eat cake.

True story.