Gila Monster Spit

So I started studying again tonight after essentially taking a two week bender minus the OSCE and the BSCE2, which are two exams that matter but don't matter but the first one matters more but is still Clinical Skills but the second one is 7 hours and makes you feel like a complete moron that has wasted the last two years, so blah.

But tonight I finally broke down and dug into the antidiabetes lectures for pharm, since that class requires three times the study of pathophys while being half the units because words I'm unfamiliar with (like thiazolidinediones, and no, I didn't make that one up) go straight in one ear and out the other.

But what did stick, and will probably be the *only* thing that sticks from pharm before I'm forced to cram it all back in for the USMLE, is that there's a diabetes drug made from the salivary gland of Gila monsters, which is one of the most random things I can imagine other than that whole "don't freeze your polar bear meat" from parasit.

It also leaves a number of questions... such as... what on earth was the scientist smoking when he decided to try that one out? How many other lizards got screened. Did he go straight to lizards or was there a whole move up the phylogenetic tree before he honed in on that *specific lizard*.

Also... if I get bitten by a Gila monster, and I'm diabetic, will I be half-okay?

Also... this kind of makes a weird conservation argument. Never drive anything to extinction that might treat a disease with some improbable part of its anatomy. Next up... wombat gonads cure struma ovarii. You heard it here first.

Oh yeah, those test things and the whole birthday thing...

Pathophys, despite woefully understudying it this time around, turned out well. That nice busty curve helps a lot.

Pharm would be discouraging in studying twice as hard for this exam as I did for the last one and only boosting my grade by four points until I realized that they threw out 15 questions on the last exam, so I actually boosted my grade by 19 points... that makes me feel better at night.

OSCE: No results, and I suck at reading chest X-rays that don't have anything glaringly obviously wrong with them. I'm also bad at reporting EKGs when the diagnosis seems to be "Patient's heart exploded". "Oh good, ST elevation in 6 leads, ST depression in two leads, one lead is inexplicably missing from this read out, dicrotic R waves, spiking T waves, sawtooth P waves... I mean, did this guy's thorax crack open and an alien spewed out of there? WTF? And 10 minutes to read it and report it."

This is when the more practical types ask me what I'd do when I'm a real doctor, and this is when I even MORE practically answer "panic and page the attending".

The OSCE was well run though, I have to admit. The patients were also super nice. You get feedback from them after 7 minutes (during which I ran out of time on... oh, all of them), and while the clinical tutors were more "Um, you completely neglected to do X" (appropriately), the patients were like "I would feel very comfortable with you as my doctor, and I really felt like you empathized with what I was telling you" etc, so wahoo to fake patients.

Actually, most of the fake patients (and real ones) we've gotten since first term have been really cool. The OSCE chick that was doing rotator cuff syndrome actually locked her muscles when you hit a certain point on the rotation, such that I could feel it tense, so she's not only kind, but a decent actor.

We also had a really good actor last term that had aches and pains related to her husband's recent death, and she was recalling the story well enough, that it half choked me up.

Prior, as mentioned, was the BSCE2. Whoda thought the Carnitine transporter was so important? Not me! I have *no* idea how I did on that one. I needed a 52 to pass, and don't really need to pass, so the fact that I was actually pushing to know the answers rather than bailing after half an hour out of 8 is a testament to just how anal retentive I am. Huzzah.

So we had the whole "drag ishie out to Stuart's Wednesday night as the clock hits midnight on when her birthday starts" that I mentioned (and loved) and the wrestling ON my birthday that still has my arms covered in bruises.

Friday was my birthday at Prickly Bay and it was absolutely spectacular. All hail the Barbie Cake!



Christine found the candle at IGA and built the rest of the cake around it to create me an absolute Anti-Ishie cake that was not only delicious in taste but delicious in irony. A bunch of people showed at Prickly Bay, we had pizza, the band came on and they were great, I have awesome friends, and I got to dance in the rain. Dave's coming to visit me in the US next term, which is my (very awesome) birthday poster, and Krash made me a big poster that she got a bunch of people in the BSFCR class to sign, so it's all been good. People have still been wishing me a happy birthday a week later, which is highly cool, and I've been getting well wishes from my Annex Peeps rolling in, so I feel very and completely loved.

Then it was Banana's, then, I believe, a night swim at the beach, because I don't learn. And plus night time shark jokes never get old.

Next morning was the Sauteurs hash! Woot! And total mudhash it was, and more cuts and bruises to add to my wrestling injuries. I've been wanting to go to Sauteurs forever, and I finally got to see that beautiful beach. Hung out with Grace and Dem for it and managed to score some cheap and great BBQ chicken, nutmeg ice cream, and beer before booking it back onto the bus... for the Unity Ball, which I was needed for pouring wine and champagne, which I pictured as occurring behind some sort of a bar with a shelf behind me. Ha.

I got home, climbed into the shower with my clothes on (again) to avoid carnage, and quickly realized I would not be able to wear a skirt because my legs and arms were torn up, so I figured, nice long sleeved shirt and slacks, no worries, just working.

Whoa. Not only was everyone dressed up like senior prom, but everyone was getting drunk and fast. While there were a ton of nice people who were giving me no problem, and Grace was dropping me homemade gingerbread over the tops of people's heads like she was feeding a fish, there were also a ton of people YELLING that we're too slow, that we're out of the wrong wines, that we generally suck, one great guy grabbing me and squawking "Don't you wish your boyfriend was a freak like me!!!" approximately 6 feet away from my *actual* boyfriend, and then barring that, they just ran into the back to grab our dwindling wine bottles.

Oh, and someone threw a beer bottle down the stairs, and the bar areas were so soaked in alcohol it was hard to walk. I dunno, I wasn't up for the mood of it and was underdressed, so I felt the majority feeling irritated, a little embarrassed, and toward the end where it started turning ugly, like I wanted to chew my arm off to get out of there. But I saw some of my friends and they all looked great.

So it's *definitely* studying time. Or sleeping time, as the case may be. Night!