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I survived my first ever hot lab rotation. Waking up at 5:10AM was not fun for me at all, but once I got to work it was pretty good. It was an enjoyable two weeks of making kits, drawing doses, doing lots of injections, putting in lots of IVs, and running the stress lab. I used to find stress lab very stressful (for me!), but I am way more comfortable doing it now. And I improved a lot in putting in IVs. They’re no longer scary, it’s fun to try now! Sorry to all those patients that I poked unsuccessfully though…….

Hot lab was really tiring but I still managed to go to the gym a few times per week. Lately I’ve been doing about 30-45 minutes of assorted weights (mostly machines, because I don’t know anything) and then 20-30 minutes on the elliptical. I can’t see much progress yet other than a little weight loss, but I’m still motivated. Skeleton is a good motivator.

I am excited to make a real fitness/food plan when I come back from Fiji. Random stuff is ok for now because my Fiji trip is going to throw everything off, but when I get back I’m probably going to follow one of the plans in the books I got from the library. And get some help from some friends that are more gym savvy. I want to get strong!

I don’t have any pictures to share this time. Going to bed at 8PM does not leave a lot of time to do fun stuff.

Scott got his last three wisdom teeth out. He is recovering very well so far. DENTAL PLAN!

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Hmm what have we been up to in the last 11 days? I’ve been a terrible blogger lately. SO BUSY with school stuff, all in preparation for my big vacation that is rapidly approaching (YAY!).

  • Scott made a cool loaf of bread.
  • We went to a friends house to play Ticket To Ride and eat pizza. Panago butter chicken pizza really doesn’t taste like butter chicken at all.
  • Went out for drinks at the pub after school.
  • Lifted lots of weights at the gym.
  • A FREAKING LOT OF HOMEWORK.
  • Went out for a yummy Peruvian Valentines Day dinner of fish ceviche, deep fried pork, and amazing sweet potato chips.
  • Woke up at a painful hour of the morning to make it to work on time for my hotlab rotation.
  • Had much more success putting in IVs.
  • Went to bed at 8:00 PM.
  • Watched Amour, slow but good.
  • Ate a lot of Nerds.
  • Went to the library and got a bunch of books that I won’t have time to read.
  • Chatted with Rosemarie who is now back in Fiji for her second semester.

That is actually a pretty good representation of what I’ve been up to, if you multiply the homework by 50. I just keep reminding myself “it’ll all be worth it soon”.

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  1. Listening to the 2012 Triple J Hottest 100 countdown!!
  2. About to eat a cheese empanada from the Peruvian restaurant near the hospital!
  3. Applying moisturizer to my hands every 2 minutes.
  4. Resting my tired legs from a busy week of running back and forth all day long with a lead apron on at work.
  5. Drinking a homemade pink lemonade bubble tea. :D

Life is nice at the moment.

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We’ve had below freezing weather for the past week. The other morning there was black ice everywhere. My bus skidded up to my stop, then later slid half way down a block on the hill towards work. The bus made a lot of weird noises, and then the driver had to reverse back up the hill so he could make the right turn. Terrifying! I was gripping on to the edges of my seat.

I’ve had a pretty good first week of work. My first impressions of the hospital are really good, I feel like I fit in and I like the way the department is run (so far). However I think this has a lot to do with working with a very nice tech all week. We’ll see what my opinion is after working with a scary/mean tech.

I already posted about this on Facebook but it still makes me laugh. So there is a nuc med test called a “gastric emptying test”. Basically we make some scrambled eggs in the microwave with some radioactivity mixed in with it. Then the patient eats it, and we take short pictures every 15-30 minutes for a couple hours so we can watch the passage of the food from the stomach through the intestines. We make a graph of how long it takes for the food to empty out of the stomach into the intestines and this gives the doctors some information about how that persons stomach motility is.

ANYWAY, I was reading through this nuclear medicine manual that I guess is pretty dated, because it suggested this for doing a gastric emptying test:

In vivo labeled chicken liver: 99mTc-sulfur colloid injected in wing vein of live chicken. Chicken killed, liver removed and cooked. Fed to patient as solid-phase marker.

There are a number of things about this that makes me chuckle.

  1. LIVE CHICKEN? At the hospital? PS I have actually had this confirmed that they really used to do this.
  2. INJECTING INTO WING VEIN? OMG injecting humans is hard enough!!
  3. LIVER REMOVED AND COOKED? Hahahahhahaha brb, making some radioactive chicken pâté!

from nourishnetwork.com

I am 50% glad I don’t have to do this and 50% sad that I don’t have to do this. Hahahaha.

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Tomorrow will be my first day at another new clinical placement. I’m much less nervous than usual, at least I have a better idea of what to expect now. I’ve set out my scrubs and packed my backpack to maximize the amount of time I get to stay in bed early tomorrow morning. It’s going to be so cold!! Vancouver has been going down to BELOW FREEZING lately! :P

I spent the whole weekend doing homework so that I don’t have a lot of work to do during the week/next weekend. Worth it? I don’t know, but I definitely enjoy relaxing after school/work instead of having to do school stuff. And there is skeleton next weekend…

We did go out for sushi on Friday. It was a Groupon dinner. It was ok, but nothing special. I’d rather go to Broadway Station Sushi and that is cheaper too. You will be able to see what we ate tomorrow because I will be posting my first set of dinner pictures! I haven’t missed a day yet!

PS I AM REALLY EXCITED ABOUT L.A. AND FIJI COMING UP IN LESS THAN 2 MONTHS.