Home is where the heart is......

Its funny because a I received a letter today and the person writing is a friend from home. Bristol. but she was writing from Brighton, which is where she has moved to for Uni. She asked me if I thought of Manchester as my home and I thought about it and can't really answer.
When i'm out up here and a housemate calls me i'll say 'Ill be home in a bit'. When i visit friends from Home. Bristol. and return to Manchester i'll say 'ive gotta get the train home at 5', but when im in my house in manchester Home is Bristol.
'Im excited about going Home for Christmas'. I really am.
My house in Manchester is so homely though, but my room is so 'Bristol' as someone recently described. The people i live with are amazing and i feel like im with family, but i miss my family. Someone on my course said today that she hadn't spoken to one of her housemates for 3 whole days straight, just because they hadnt seen each other (although tbh they dont get on thattt well..)
I cant imagine a day when I dont see all 6 of the people that I live with..because i like them. i love them.

Recently I went to LDN to see 2 of my Homegirls.
It was soooo nice, theyve set up a little home there too, and it feels strangely familliar although ive only been there once. We cleaned the kitchen and listened to 'In the mood for Britney' at top volume on the Telly. We watched 'The Family Stone', a really christmassy film, lying in bed, and drank syruppy starbucks and sat in the pub in the day and ate fat chips and mayonnaise. we watched x-factor and I got shouted at for fancying a boy to young to fancy and it was like it always is when were in B-town. but we werent.

Then i came 'home' to Manch and it felt weird, but everyone said they had missed me which was nice. and soon i'll be leaving again to go PROPER home.
Back to a bath and a centrally heated house with an 'override' switch that isnt off limits, and to houmous in the fridge and our local pub with mulled wine over the festive period, and carols in the park (is she?) and my family and to fuss and neighbours asking how im finding manchester and whether im a doctor yet, to all the clothes i couldnt fit in the car on the way up and to dirty slimy clubs and that festive cheer that exists only really with people youve been sharing home with for your whole life.
I cant wait to come home at christmas, but i'll want to come back here after.
I think home is mainly about the people in your life.




and houmous.

Can we cut it?

because i took English literature (what is basically 3 years ago) i feel i have a right to use witty and yet cringeworthy puns as the titles of my blogs.
anyway, this one is slightly multifaceted, and i'll tell you why....
a) last friday we were doing dissection, as you do. and Ethel's (NOT ACTUAL NAME) upper arm was way more fatty than her forearm so it was taking longer. Someone had de-skinned it and i got the wonderful job of blunt dissecting the fascia. this means the scalpel goes away- and you use your finger. gloved. preferably.
now there was quite a lot of phenol dripping everywhere and i got stuck on a bit of tough stuff and anyway, to cut a long-ish story short, my finger slipped and i covered my face and lab coat and someone who will not be named (stood on the other side of the body) face with 'bits'. THE MOST DISGUSTING THING IN THE WORLD EVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
b) everyone wants to hack away at people before theyve even talked to them. everyone wants to be a surgeon, everyone wants the scalpel first. what if you dont even need to cut them open? In our weekly cases theres always a psychosocial element, which EVERYONE.HATES. it is annoying because 30% of the exam is on it and you have to find models for it and stuff, and this requires buying the text book for £30. grr. But having also done Psychology for 4 years i get a bit annoyed when this previously unnamed (previously covered in cadaver) dismisses depression as 'not important' because weve 'already done it'. bearing in mind he wants to be a neurosurgeon. doesnt he think these people with brains might actually use them at some point?
c) my clinical partner is finding medicine really difficult and its really nice that he is honest about it. after AUTOPSY FAIL i have to say i have been thinking more about what it is to be a doctor, about all the people you wont end up helping, or in fact will end up killing, and i think were all in one of those situations of almost constant not-knowing if this is the right thing to be doing, or whether we can cut it if it is.
i mean i WANT to be able to do it. i KNOW i can. but you cant be a fair weather doctor who avoids all the death and stuff can you....?



oh wait. psychiatrist. thats right.

a nowte on spellig....

APOLOGIESSSSSSSS- 'Ladle' - 'visceral'!!!

Its such a shame that the whole NHS is attempting to go paperless, I was looking forward to the times when my attrociiiiiiiiioussssssssssssssss handwriting could cover the words that I can't quite spell so I could just put a squiggle...........

Autopsy.....fail.

So, being a Medical Student (note the capitals...) I should be able to deal with all sorts of situations? right? blood and gore and stuff.
Well Ive been doing alright in anatomy, scalpel in hand degloving...well a hand. But today was the ultimate test of strength (of stomach). Through the medical school you can sign up to see autopsies at the path lab of the MRI. I thought I might as well start young (ish) so this morning I toddled along with my friends Yas and El. We arrived and signed in. We were one man down at the door as El realised she didn't have her STUDENT ID. Bad times.
I didn't do much better to be honest. We scrubbed up (every med students dreeeeeeam!) : down to undies, scrubs, full gowns with elasticated wristbands, crocs (big fashion faux pas), then into the pre autopsy room room where you find wellies of all sizes (white, none of these leopard print, flowery things), and full length plastic aprons, then you go into the AR and put on gloves and visors and step back to take in the view.
I'm not going to go into much detail but there were ladels involved in the removal of fluids and it was SOOOOOOOOO incredibly hot in there. This was before i did my 'i feel funny' business.
The smell was pretty viceral, and I didnt mind what I was seeing, be it infected wounds or weird brown stuff in the oesophagus (ENGLISH SPELLINGS PLEASE!!) or lung juice being drained, but my brain just decided that it wasnt right and I was to go and sit down in the boot room. IMMEDIATELY.
I had to take off all the plastic stuff and waft warm smelly air around in an attempt to cool my sweaty sexy self.
Round two didnt go much better, Yas was having a question field day but again, it all got a bit hot and I had to leave. One of the very nice assistants said I should try again but I was wasting plastic aprons so I thought I should just go.......
I did learn one thing though, I look good in scrubs!




Gotta go now, me and El are having lunch.........

Oh the irony......

of the fact that this is meant to be letting you all know what its like to be a medical students, I'm meant to be delivering witty anecdotes and the likes, but in fact I'm so busy with the course I don't have time to write all about it, because I'm DOING the course....
Fail.

In the deep mid-winter.....

Ok, so its basically only just November but MY OH MY its cold up here! This weekend has been a funny one- as I mentioned, or maybe not, it was 'Reading Week' last week- a fictional concept for medics who merely get to watch their housemates on other courses go home and get fed and plumped and return home having caught up on all their work, rosie cheeked with Pies for the freezer... SO the house was empty- that is 5 people were away and only me and paul were left..

We have issues with regards to heating the house because its BIGGG but its EXPENSIVE. Dad phoned and i told him i was sat in 2 wool jumpers and a hoodie (hood up, obv) and 3 pairs of socks and paul was lolloping around in his ski hat, and he.......laughed! and said (to which i was most indignant) 'welcome to student life' thanks DAD!
Anyway, by 2pm on sunday we had had enough, i text paul in the other room and we went out to buy 500 calorie Chocolate muffins from somerfield and discovered that it was...warmer outside. i actually got the shivers in the supermarket when i was stood under the electric heater in the baked goods dept. wooo! We have an indicator on a cupboard sent by british Gas. it said 'turn up the heating' for most of the weekend- you dont understand how bad this situation is- the next one is 'YOU ARE AT RISK OF GETTING HYPOTHERMIA' GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Anyway, the work this weekend has been a joke too...i dont know why im even surprised. We had to learn all the anatomy of the upper limb- clavicle, shoulder blade, humerus (not funny at all..) radius and ulna and all them bastard little bones of the wrist..GAH
and the lymphoid system. and Immunology. EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD TO DO WITH IMMUNOLOGY.

I suppose without my immune system this cold would get the better of me....

Whats a 'Symposium' when its at home anyway?

1. a meeting or conference for the discussion of some subject, esp. a meeting at which several speakers talk on or discuss a topic before an audience.
-Well thank you dictionary.com. for enlightening me without really giving me insight as to why everyone else has nothing to do and i still do......
Our PBL group has been getting on well recently and we have had our first visit to hospital- pretty exciting stuff, especially as for part of it we had to wander around pretending we were hard of hearning, short sighted, didnt speak english and wheelchair bound. not all at once. all in the name of 'research'- seeing what facilities were available for different groups of people.......
and to test out the wheels on those hospital clean floors!!!
We 'officially' made PATIENT CONTACT....housten we have lift-off! Was merely a social interview with an elderly patient, much like i did on work experience, but it made me remember how sad those wards are...
now I'm writing a 'reflective piece' on my general experience....awooo.
and tomorrow we get to discuss, or sympose, or whatever, about medical school disciplinary action....................................................................................................................
i wonder what happens if we dont do it?!