Last Vascular Week

I couldn't sleep Sunday night, too much was on my mind for everything i needed to do and what was to happen throughout the week, some exciting, some sad, some needing more organisation and some i was uncertain how it would work out. Thankfully as each day went by i was a little more relieved so each night meant a little more peaceful sleep.

Monday was another morning of ward rounds and i took the chance to follow one of our surgeons to theatre to see radio-frequency ablation of the Long Saphenous vein with a diabetic foot ulcer debridement and another toe amputation. They sounded more complicated than they were but i was happy to have seen them done to tick them off the list :) the radio-frequency ablation involved basically destroying a vein which is mostly used for therapeutic treatment for varicose veins. With a quick visit to the cath lab to see a patient having a tricky stent put into their descending aorta we had a lunch break and caught up on some patient notes. After waiting around for our clinic we found out it was cancelled after no one told us!! I was a bit annoyed as i could have joined Lex for her birthday celebration with her family :( but the registrar only found out then too so he gave us a tutorial in the cafeteria and we finished up with our patient notes for the day. It was a special day for Lex and mum's birthdays i just wish i could have seen them, it was a little harder when mum was in Darwin but she can't complain about that ;)

Tuesday - another round of ward rounds and we took a history from a man bleeding somewhere in his GIT and we had to try find its source. He is a lovely man and only too happy to talk to us and let us do an abdominal examination. Seeing our doctors again they called us to hurry along with them and we thought we must be going to the ICU or somewhere important only to end up at the coffee place without our wallets! I guess that is an important place though :P i presented the man we just talked to off hand in probably my worst case presentation but we all had a good discussion on GIT investigations at least. We also saw an amputee patient then i went to the ENT clinic to follow up a patient and was happy to find i could see her get a surgery done tomorrow after seeing her in the clinic last week with loss of voice. I had some lunch and a nice coffee break with Kyle and Marcus at Santis but used the afternoon to run into the city and... got my med dinner dress from Forever New yay!! I even made it back for a good RPM class and got ready to head out for a lovely birthday celebration with Lex in Subi!! I love outings with lex and Subi is becoming a favourite place of mine :) I ran to San churro's to get Dim a birthday voucher then met Lex at the cinema's to see 'Hope Springs'. It was a laugh i really enjoyed it! I love Meryl Streep too i think she is fast becoming a favourtie actress of mine.

Blueberry waffles :)

There were some moments i almost couldn't watch with the scenes being a "Mr Bean" style of awkwardness haha. Afterwards we treated ourselves to half price waffles at Gelare's. I can't believe i have not had them before!!! I loved hearing lex's stories about when she was at school and her and her mum and brother would get the half price waffles every Tuesday, it is such a nice memory to have and spend time with your family like that :) We had them with blueberry cheesecake yoghurt and maple syrup and i had some blueberries too............ all i can say is YUM :) I want to go back every Tuesday! It was so nice to have that time with lex especially when she had been busy finishing a big assignment she really deserved a good break and birthday celebrations! :)

Gelare's Waffles!

Wednesday was a different day which i enjoyed. I followed up a patient from the ENT clinic who was coming for surgery on her voice box. Basically she had a thyroid cancer and had to have it removed but in the process her recurrent laryngeal nerves were damaged which are close by and her vocal cords were mostly paralysed. This made talking and breathing difficult! SO the surgery was to open up the airways while preserving most of the vocal cords for her little voice left by taking away some of the surrounding muscle and cartilage. The poor lady was so nervous but she was in good hands! The ENT consultant/surgeon is probably the best doctor i have ever seen, he is so calm and composed, knowledgeable and very considerate of his patients, their family, other staff and even of us medical students!! One the operation was done his priority was to call the family and let them know it was a success, the first time i have seen a doctor even mention it! I also stayed and watched a septoplasty and learnt a lot about the anatomy of the nose and sinuses through the endoscopic camera :) I hurried away to get to the 12pm tutorial with the scary consultant then made my way through the wards to check up on a few patients.

Vocal cords 

I made it to an afternoon pump class but missed Trinity's Rocky Horror formal dinner to do some much needed work on the research presentation Em and I are giving on Friday... not so fun :( sorry trinity i have neglected you this year and cease to exist in college life! But i also made some quick banana choc chip muffins for our vascular team to say thanks tomorrow :)

We had our 8.30am Thursday tutorial  on trauma this time, then ran up to G73 conference room to join in with the chest x-ray/patient discussion session with our team. They brought us coffee!! it was perfect actually because then we got out our baked good (Illy also made a yummy blueberry slice!) and shared them around much to everyone's delight! We followed the consultants around for their ward rounds then i went back to trinity for some lunch. I made my way to Freo for Nanna A's funeral, it was a beautiful sunny afternoon for a beautiful service. I felt a little awkward not really knowing or recognising her family but slotted in with the walk to the crematorium. There i met Uncle Steven who i have not seen for a few years! It was really good to see him and we sat together in the service. I loved hearing about Nanna A's life, she is one inspiring lady! I didn't know she was president of the CWA... no wonder her cooking was amazing!! She did so much volunteer work from in a school in Albany to making pyjama's for the poor when she had no pyjama's herself. I loved how her grandkids would fight to stay with  her and visit in Collie over the summer break and she would take them to collect eggs and bake goodies together, the type of nanna i would love to be :) she was a determined and willful lady from sawing a hole in the wall for a window to learning to use the computer in her 90's and i admire her enthusiasm for all things in life! I would love to have a copy of her life story which she wrote before she passed away, and i aspire to be able to perfect the pumpkin scone recipe she gave me before i am 98, (hopefully i can get it within 76 years!!) and put lots of love in the food i make for others as food brings people together. So in true Nanna A style she insisted on afternoon tea after her service and we all gathered in another room together with tea, coffee, sandwiches and sausage rolls. And just as Nanna A showed, food brought Uncle Steven and I to have a lovely catch up! It was so nice to hear how he and the boys (Brendan, Liam and Jarrad) are doing and i hope to join them one weekend on one of their outings sometime soon :) Rest in Peace Nanna A, you are one inspiring lady who touched the heart of so many people, mine included.

Friday was presentation day... after our ward rounds i pretty much went straight back to Trinity to do some work and prepare some more, Em and i had a few practice run through, had lunch and headed off to present. There were 8 research groups presenting in total and we were the lucky last. I always get nervous talking in front of people but it went well and i was thankful for the good remarks we received from those who listened as we are giving the presentation in Busselton next week so this was a good rehearsal for that!! I was exhausted after the busy week and treated myself to a much needed walk along Matilda May, something i haven't done in a while! And found myself stretching and lying on the grass listening to the birds... bliss. 

The weekend was quite study packed which i needed. I had my Saturday gym session then got into work. I hadn't seen Kyle much that week and looked forward to seeing him Saturday night! We had dinner at a place up Hampden which is becoming a favourite of mine for the teriyaki salmon and miso soup! Kyle likes the Salmon Don with sushi and with free Jasmine tea it makes a good meal! Then we had a coffee at Ti amo's and i would have loved to spend more time with him but Em had invited the girls over for a movie night watching Hysteria. I always miss those catch ups so joined in with them and had a nice time and a few laughs at the movie :) Sunday was a good pump class session, washing and an afternoon full of chest x-rays to get my head around them, fingers crossed it worked!! I mainly want to remember 1. Pleural effusion (fluid line) and 2. Pneumothorax! (pleural line)

Pleural effusion in right lower lobe

Pneumothorax of right lung (collapse) 

I had another lovely walk through Kings Park to finish the weekend and admired all the spring flowers coming out... i love spring!