More specialty choices

This pains me to say, but the more I study it, the more I like pathology. Like a lot. Like view the slide review sessions like I'm playing frigging jeopardy and get inappropriately excited over getting stuff right. Because there are few things dorkier than pumping my fist in the air yelling "Reed Steinberg cells!! Who is your f'ing daddy?" And no, it doesn't make sense. I've mentioned I'm cooped up, right? And wasn't really stable to begin with? Cool.

On the study update, since I've moved onto systems, I finished off cardio and finally have a half-assed grasp of the drugs, even the classes of antiarrhythmics, which for some reason I need to differentiate despite most of them sharing the feature of "causes the problem they're supposed to treat along with some hideous bonus side effects". But I'm finally getting comfortable with the physiology of the heart, which I was really bad at a year and a half ago, and got so paranoid about it that I beat it to death in physio, path, and pathophys, and now again. I'm getting to where I can draw out Wiggers diagrams and length-tension curves and understand them fully, which is one of those cool skills that has very little practical application. Which is sort of a theme in my life. Seriously, ask me about Red Dwarf.

I reviewed endocrine because it's high yield, and I was in an eye chart kind of mood. Tacked reproduction onto the end of it, which despite focusing on nearly the same mechanisms, makes me want to claw my eyes out, and also features the one area of pathology I don't especially like due to the tendency of the ovary to get seventeen billion tumors that all present exactly the same way but derive from different cells that I need to know about, including what they look like when they're normal, which digs back into a deep and inexplicable dislike of the female reproductive system. Oh, and I finally know breast anatomy (thanks Netter!), which made breast pathology a whole hell of a lot easier, since by the time I got to that part of path, I was like "ductolobular..., screw it, I'm studying renal again". Which turned out to be a wise move for the exam. 1 breast question. 40 kidney questions. Booyah.

In re-review, I also finally learned that during kidney transplants, they leave the old defunct ones in and just shove the new one in the front because it's easier to get to. This falls under my description of awesome, right up there with one of the few things I do find interesting in female reproductive systems, which is that you can get ovarian tissue to still ovulate even if you stick it in someone's arm (a female someone). Something about putting organs where organs don't normally go steps up my interest. And it's pronounced "Franken-STEEN".

Oh, reviewing reproduction also reminded me of the fifteen thousand reasons not to have a kid unless you get it off Ebay. Pregnancy is frightening. The only things that make it more frightening are med school or reading "What to Expect when you're Expecting", which for some reason, they recommend to pregnant women, because being in abject terror for 9 months is good for you when your body is already maxed out.

And now... uh, since I'm the only one on the east coast not getting snow, here's a picture of Grenada.