Friday Update

This morning I went with my clinical group to a local elementary school where we held a flu shot clinic in the gymnasium.

I personally gave about 30 elementary school children their flu vaccinations. I've never given a shot to a child--I've given two shots before (to non-mannequin patients, I mean)--so it was part public health promotion, part experimentation. Only two children (out of 100+) balked and didn't get shots. Neither were my mini-patients. One was a big boy who stood and cried, poor thing, and in the end decided he couldn't. Another was a tiny girl who I didn't see but who just wasn't having it. The rest of the kids were brave. Braver than I was almost. And a journalist from the newspaper interviewed me and a photographer took my photo--about thirty photos in a row, actually, with that burst of clicking that we all know from somewhere--as I gave one tranquil fifth grade boy his shot.

So that was my Friday morning. After that was done I was free, but I had to go up to the university and talk to one of the advisors for my program. I am on track to graduate in the summer of 2018, just before my 47th birthday, but I had to fill out an "intent to graduate" form that all but ensures that something, some stupid bureaucratic bullshitty thing will go wrong and threaten delay my graduation date and I'll have to get irate and my blood pressure will shoot up and I will get to practice my outwardly calm, collected voice on someone.

So I got to campus early and had to wait for the student services office to open up after lunch. Someone had put several boxes of books in the waiting area, so I picked through them and came home with an out-of-date psychology textbook (next term I have to do a psych rotation at a local hospital) and a book by Bill Bryson and a couple of other things that caught my interest. In the waiting room was also a cool contraption (that I think should be de rigueur in waiting areas everywhere), a stationary bicycle charging station for cell phones and other electronic devices. The pedaling generates the charge. How cool is that?

Leaving campus, I stopped by the bookstore and bought a few things, one of them a laminated cheat sheet for lab values. I'm terrible at interpreting lab results. I need to get better at it sooner rather than later.

Then I came home and watched a few videos on youtube and ate half a bag of popcorn.

So that was my Friday afternoon.

In the evening, Dave and I went out for fizzy drinks and tater tots but had to come home via the filling station to put air in one of the car tires. Dave thinks there's a nail in  it, which means a trip to the new tire store tomorrow to get it fixed or replaced.

Thursday in clinicals, I took care of an elderly woman who had had some complicated bit of surgery. I came home and Dave and I drove out to the school where I had to be in the morning, just to make sure I wouldn't get lost on my way there (I have a terrible sense of direction and almost always get lost unless I am familiar with the destination). Then we had dinner (laard na and drunken noodles) in a little Thai restaurant across the river. After that we hit up Target because we needed some stuff. (Even though just two days before we received an order from Target's online store, which, don't get me started. They somehow managed to ship six things in seven boxes, so I won't be using them again.)

Wednesday I had class. After class, I had to run up to the doctor's office and get vaccinated myself. I already had my flu vaccine, but I had to get the last of my hepatitis B vaccines. (It's a run of 3 shots that are given over six months.) It didn't hurt, but I felt like crap for about 30 hours afterward as my immune system revved up. I had hot and cold flashes. I felt run down. I didn't sleep very well. (In fact, I stayed up most of the night reading a book--Psychward by Stephen Seager--I had just received in the mail. It was an interesting book about a doctor doing his residency on, yes, a psych ward.)

Tuesday I had class.

Monday I have no idea what I did. I know I didn't study, that's for sure.

Next week is a doozy: Dave will be out of town and I  have two exams and a day of clinicals and another sims lab (and another fucking mannequin that's going to need goddamned CPR probably) and and another paper to write.

Right now, I should be writing up the patient I had on Thursday.

It's never ending.