I never thought I'd say this....

But it's HOT here! It's like 88 and humid, and there is no air conditioning anywhere. I mean, I can't really complain, because when the summers here are cold and rainy I am miserable and whine to my husband all the time. But when it's this hot, and there's no air conditioning, life can be miserable. I ran my scheduled 6 miler this morning on a tough, hilly trail and I almost died. It was so.freaking.hot. I have been having a lot of trouble sleeping because it's so hot!

Buuuuut...I don't want it to go back to being 55 and rainy so I guess I will just shut my mouth!

Week 5 of 12

I'm in the middle of week 5 of my half marathon training. It's been going surprisingly well **knock on wood.** I have been able to get all the runs in, although I've missed some of the cross training days. I'm really proud of myself for what I've accomplished so far, and I'm exciting to keep progressing.

Work has been going well. It's been busy, especially this week since I have a delirious patient who is taking up a lot of my time! That has been interesting, to say the least. On Monday, she was convinced she was in labor (she's 85). On Tuesday, she thought her life was over. On Wednesday, she kept talking about bears and angels. Today, she was singing children's songs. Never a dull moment, that's for sure!

They call me Doctor

Yeah, I know, I haven't updated in a while. Life has been crazy. My hysteroscopy on June 19th ended up being a disaster...they couldn't do the procedure. Long story short, I have a new consult on July 30th, and then we'll see. So we'll be TTA for a while.

Things have been going really well at work though! People call me doctor. Or they say "Are you the nurse?" And I say "no...I'm the...um...doctor..."

The old people are hilarious. One day, this happened:

Nurse: "E [old man with dementia] just told me he broke one of his teeth while eating. Can you take a look at it?"
Me: "Sure..." OMG I don't know anything about teeth. What do I do if it's broken? Call a dentist, I guess...

Me: "Hi E, the nurse tells me one of your teeth is broken."
E: "Yeah...it hurts."
Me: "OK, can you show me where it hurts?"

E then proceeds to take out his fake teeth and put them in my hand.


My attending said some really nice things to me last week, so it's nice to feel like I'm making progress and am not just a total disaster!

1 more semester!

Last week I finished my 10th semester of medical school, which means I only have 1 left. It's been a long journey, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! And I'll be spending the last few months of school doing an away rotation in the US, so I'm excited. I'm trying to ignore the fact that all this means I really have to pick a specialty........

So Monday was my first day of work as a doctor. I kept almost introducing myself as a med student, and I had to stop myself. When I was dictating my charts, I had to stop myself from saying I was a med student dictating for Resident'sName. It's just me. I dictate and write the charts, and no one checks my work. Yikes!!

A few funnies from my first 2 days:

Little old lady (LOL): Oh, my son is a doctor in SwedishTownI'veNeverHeardOf.
Me: Oh, really?
LOL: Yes. And where he works, there are a lot of young immigrant doctors.
Me (young immigrant doctor): Oh...
LOL: So his patients love him. They are SO HAPPY to be able to talk to someone who speaks Swedish. It's so hard when all the doctors are immigrants.

Me: Hi, my name is Mrs.E, I'm one of the doctors here.
LOL#2: Oh. And a woman, too!
Me: Yep.
LOL#2: A doctor and a woman.
Me: Yep.
LOL#2: So what do you call yourself if you're a doctor and a woman?
Me: .......A doctor.......
LOL#2: Well, there must be another word for it. A more feminine word.
Me: No, there's no other word, just doctor!

What happens when you don't have window screens

Here in Sweden, it doesn't get very hot in the summer, at least not very often. As a result, no one has air conditioning. No one. Instead, you have to deal with opening your windows and hoping it doesn't get too hot inside.

BUT....Swedes don't seem to have discovered screens. So you open all your windows, and think "Ahh, what a nice breeze." But then, your apartment quickly gets overrun with bees, flies, and mosquitoes. Then you have to make The Choice - a hot apartment, or dealing with the bugs?!

Today I had this problem. It's 75 degrees-ish and humid. I opened all the windows, and the balcony door. Within minutes there were bugs everywhere. I went into the bathroom and saw a huge (like, 5 inches wide, and I'm not exaggerating) mosquito-looking thing. I took a picture and sent it to my husband. He didn't reply, so I called him. This is how that conversation went:

Him: Hello?
Me: Did you see the picture I sent you?!
Him: No, what picture?
Me: You need to look at it. Now.
Him: Ok....
Me: WHAT IS THAT?!
Him: It's a....I don't remember what they're called in English.
Me: It's a giant freaking mosquito is what it is!!!!!!!!
Him: It doesn't bite.
Me: HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT? You can't know that.
Him: The big ones don't bite.
Me: I don't believe you. Can you please come home and kill it for me?
Him: I'm at work...
Me: So?
Him: I have to go. They don't bite. Calm down. You'll be fine. I love you.
Me: Fine. Bye.

I mean, he seemed to think it was unreasonable to ask him to come home and kill it. The nerve.

First, I did what any sane person would do, I closed the door and locked it in the bathroom. But then I realized I couldn't avoid the bathroom all day, especially since I was going for a run and would need to shower.

So I manned up. I went in the bathroom with 4 sheets of paper towels bunched together (you don't want to risk getting pieces of bug guts on your hand). I stood on a chair, and took a deep breath, and squashed it.

Then I ran some water over the paper towel. You have to make sure it's dead.

Then I put the wet paper towel with the bug inside in the trash. And then I tied the bag up and took it outside. What if it comes back to life?! You can't take that risk.

The bug is gone. I closed all the windows and left the balcony door open a crack.

The moral of the story: Sweden, you need to discover SCREENS. They're like magic, you put them on your windows, and then the bugs can't come in. Please, please, can you work on this for me?

11 days

(I'm still working on my Moscow recap, it will be posted soon!)

Warning: This is a random post about all the thoughts running through my head right now.

11 days left of school!! June 5th is my last day. Then I have 4 days off, and after that I start my summer job. As a doctor. As in, I am going to the the doctor. On a real live ward. With real live patients. Not just as a student. Holy crap. **commence hyperventilation**

I will be doing that for 8 weeks, after which E and I are headed to Switzerland for 2 weeks. And after that, I will hopefully be going home for about 10 days but that's still up in the air. A lot of that will depend on whether or not my operative hysteroscopy can proceed as scheduled on June 19. Hopefully everything will go smoothly.

In addition to waiting impatiently for school to be over, I am waiting impatiently to ovulate. If I don't ovulate soon, I will not be able to have my surgery as planned, since I can't have my period during the surgery. Ugh. Please, body, come on! Do your thing.

Making a difference

First of all, E and I just got back from 4 days in Moscow, which was quite the experience. Full report and pics to come.

In January 2012 (actually, the day before I found out I was pregnant the first time, but that's beside the point) I was doing a rotation in the ER, seeing surgical patients. During this rotation, we got our own patients and treated them ourselves, did everything that needed to be done (under the supervision of an attending, of course!). One Monday morning, I walked into the office and saw an envelope with my name on it. Except my name had "Dr." in front of it. Obviously that made me giddy, but also confused. I opened it and inside was a card from a patient I had taken care of the week before. He was a 40-something-year-old male with some vague abdominal symptoms who turned out to have pancreatitis due to gallbladder problems. Nothing extraordinary. I admitted him for a cholecystectomy and went on my way. In the card, he thanked me for helping him with stomach problems that had bothered him for years.

I was so incredibly touched by his card. I also felt a little guilty, since all the decisions were made by my attending. I was the one performing the first exam and coming up with a preliminary assessment and treatment plans, but my attending made the final decisions. But in any case, I was really moved by his gesture.

Today, I got thanked by another patient. Well, a patient's mom. On Monday, a baby came in severely dehydrated, going into shock. He needed a lot of fluids, but ended up being ok. It was scary, he was drifting in and out of consciousness for a while. I ran into the mom outside the entrance to the hospital and she started profusely thanking me, and asking me to please thank the doctor who was in charge. She said that what we did was amazing. Again, I was truly touched. I wasn't the one deciding what to do, but I did help.

It's nice to feel that you really make a difference sometimes.