Little Breakthroughs

Today was a big day for me in an area completely outside of medicine. Yay! There are other things in life besides stressing out about my future career.

Indulge me in a little post about yoga.

My sister has a great workout studio in her basement so today we decided to spend some time playing down there and attempting on some challenging yoga poses. She has become a serious yogi in the past couple of years who can now wipe the mat with me. Yes...the student has become the teacher. 

So we both had some fun breakthroughs today resulting in loads of whoops and high fives sounding up the basement floorboards.

To start.

We finally nailed Bird of Paradise. It is a beautiful pose and one that I've often admired others doing in hot yoga classes. But usually the flow is so fast and I am so afraid of falling on my tuchas that I haven't attempted it before. (I took a very hard and embarrassing fall from a bind once in Whistler which has made me one-leg-bind-shy). My sister went from not being able to bind to pulling off the pose five minutes later. We were both pretty giddy.

Bird of Paradise

Side Crow

Then we tackled Side Crow. Which isn't as pretty as Bird of Paradise but it is another one that I've been too afraid to try in class. Probably a good idea since my first dozen attempts involved me flopping all over the place like a dying killer whale, then face planting with my arms stuck behind my back.
Sis had it on her second try while I was still getting mat-burn on my face but then...VOILA! It happened!

Finally we went for the headstand.

My mom had been warming up with us and now she took on full cheerleader and coach mode. Your hands are too close! You need to make more of a triangle!! Straighten your back!

"Head stand" photo by Richard Seagraves

Oh headstand. How beautiful you are to behold. 

I can't remember the last time I tried to slowly extend into a head stand (as opposed to kicking up with a wall very nearby) but something just clicked today. It was unreal. It felt so easy I couldn't help but think...why didn't I try this ages ago?? I just never thought I was one of those people with enough strength and balance. And really, these days I don't feel like I have much of that physically or mentally.

Gotta love it when you surprise yourself!!

I (Heart) Rural Medicine

In the last 48h have included having the opportunity to:

-catch a baby
-cut a piece of glass out of someone's face (and then stitch them up afterward)
-surgically assist with fusing toes, replacing hips, replacing knees
-perform a D&C
-assist with a hysterectomy
-sew up knife wounds
-assess / treat / discharge about 75 emergency patients
-learn how to insert an IUD

Despite the exceedingly damp climate my hands are cracking from so much handwashing, I'm surviving solely on t.v. dinners and instant soups, clean underwear is becoming a scarce commodity, and I've spent every day (except one) in the hospital since my arrival. And I couldn't be happier.

My days are so full and varied, with such fantastic teaching from the docs here. It's hard to sleep at night, completely wired and excited by each day's events. I feel so fortunate to be here. I'm starting to believe that saying about how "there are teaching hospitals and then there are learning hospitals". Say what you will about rural medicine...but my experience is that people working in remote areas have half the egos and double the desire to teach.

I've been spending a lot of my retractor-holding and trying-to-sleep time thinking about the (soon arriving) residency application process. Today I truly felt like a few things have started to crystallize in my mind about what I want to pursue...

As always it is a work in progress, but I think that will have to be a post for another day.

In the meantime, check out my new O.R clogs while I try to get some well deserved sleep.

Yes, yes I did.

First Ultrasound!

Bet that got your attention!

Yes, last night I had the opportunity to do my first ultrasound on a pregnant woman. Can I just state for the record that there are many concepts in medicine that fascinate and perplex me, not to mention the endless list of interesting presentations and procedures. But apparently there is one thing that turns me into a giddy, effusive fool: prenatal ultrasound.

I trundled down to the emergency department last night after my flatmate (and ER nurse) called me in to see some good cases. The doc who was working knows me well so he was happy to have me seeing and working up patients. Early on in the shift a pregnant woman presented with some minor bleeding so he wheeled in the ultrasound machine, flicked off the lights and handed me the transducer.

At first all I could see was fuzzy blobs and fluid and then lo! A vertebral column appears in the darkness! And then I saw the heart, its tiny chambers pumping away. I practically jumped up and down, Look! Look at the heart! Hey, there is a femur, wow! The baby is moving his, ah...or her hands! That is amazing!! 

So maybe I should have played it slightly more cool, but I couldn't help myself. It is quite something to look at a nearly flat and unremarkable belly and then suddenly be given a glimpse into a hidden world that houses a kicking, twirling, fist-pumping little being.

I spent the next portion of the evening smiling to myself as I stitched up wounds and listened to heart sounds.

The little beating heart and those dancing legs were a delightful reminder that there are also joys in medicine, even in the emergency department on a Friday night. 

Thank you, little one. I needed that.

A little bigger but you get the idea, image from here.