Hi all! Happy Friday! It’s currently Monday. Today I had an open book exam on variations on health. I’m still not entirely sure what the course is about. But it was an open book exam so it wasn’t that difficult. I read the material beforehand and I was familiar with the pages and the chapters. It was a very wet and rainy day today and after class I had to trek out in the rain to go to St Paul’s Hospital. Today I had a very important meeting with an endocrinologist about my diabetes. I have been taking Metformin for my diabetes for about three months now and during today’s checkup, my glucose levels were normal. I am very glad they’re within normal range. This means I’m doing something right. Anyway, I first met with a nurse who did an assessment of me and checked my glucose levels and gave me a shiny new toy, a glucometer. It needs charging so I’ll plug it in after this entry. Then I met with the endocrinologist who did another thorough assessment of me. She found out I have a heart murmur. I think my family doctor found that out too and sent me to get an echo done but I never found out what the results were. Anyway, she was like you have a heart murmur and so she wrote a referral to get an echo done. So it seems I’m going to have another echo done and this time we’ll see if anything significant comes up. St Paul’s just called at around 1830 hours and said they had a slot for tomorrow for the echo. I’m really surprised at Providence Health Care. They’re really on top of things. I remember the last time I had an echo they were really fast at getting back to me with an appointment time. I didn’t have to wait like two months. So that’s my plan for tomorrow; go to school then go to St Paul’s again. I think I’m going to work on my portfolio for class and compile all the material I have. Also do some pre-readings. Oh hahaha I scared my nurse and doctor today with my list of medications. I take so many pills and such. Alright I’m going to end today’s entry at this point.
Ah so it is now Tuesday. The big day. So today we started the day with a bit of a lecture. At which point I quickly fell asleep. So embarrassing. But I can’t help it. It’s like a switch gets flipped and I automatically go into hibernation mode. And worst of all, I snore. And I know I snore because I wake myself up from my snoring. HAHAHA. Oh god. So after lecture, we went to lab and today we finally got to practice reading blood pressure! I’ve always known the theory behind it but I’ve never actually been able to practice on anyone because I didn’t have the tools. But today we had the tools and we had the chance to do it. The annoying and most difficult part for me was figuring out where the brachial pulse was on my classmates. It’s so hard to feel for it. It’s not at all like mine. I just put my fingers on my arm and it’s right there, beating away like no one’s business. And some of the girls in my class felt it and were like “That’s so easy to find!” I had to feel quite hard to find their pulses and when I did find it, it was fairly weak. Anyway after a bit of trial and error I was able to read the blood pressures of my classmates. I learnt that there’s a right way and a wrong way of wearing the stethoscope. If you wear it the wrong way you won’t hear shit. I tried five times to read my classmates blood pressure while wearing it the wrong way and I heard nothing. And I got so frustrated and then my classmate pointed out to me I was wearing it wrong and then when I finally corrected the mistake I instantly heard the whooshing sounds of blood flowing. Speaking of whooshing, my heart has a whooshing sound too! I finally got a chance to listen to my own heart beat for the first time today and I was able to heard the distinct whooshing sounds my heart makes as a result of my heart murmur. And then I was able to let my classmates listen to it as well! Great learning tool! Go me! Anyway after class, I bumbled my way to St Paul’s Hospital for my echocardiogram. I followed their directions: arrive at the gift shop and take the elevator across from the shop and go to the 4th floor. It’s the same floor as the diabetes floor which was where I was yesterday so I didn’t have much trouble following the directions. I arrived half an hour early and ended up waiting about an hour or so before they were ready for me. The echo tech checked my records and noted that I had done this before at Mt St Joseph’s. Then she proceeded to take about 30 minutes doing the echo. I nearly fell asleep on the bed while she was doing the procedure. And then came the patient participation mode, where she asked me to breathe in and hold my breath and then slowly breathe out. And I was like “Oh my goodness! How long do I have hold my breath for?! She didn’t tell me to breathe…do I breathe now? How about now? Now?!” And so I held my breath till I was blue in the face and finally couldn’t hold it anymore. Anyway, this time at St Paul’s it was definitely a lot more comprehensive than compared to my first time at Mt St Joseph’s. My first time took like 5 minutes and then I was done and out of the hospital in record time. So after my echo I went back to Waterfront station to have lunch and then after quickly ordering something to eat, I took the train back home. I think tomorrow I will go out with my classmates to buy a new toy, a stethoscope. We need it for next week’s class. I tried out the Littmann’s today and they’re great. Better than the off-brand ones our classroom had. So today was a pretty interesting day. We got to put into practice the theory I learned. We got to practice a lot and hone our skills. It’s far from perfect. I plan on getting a cuff to practice on friends and family to hone in the skills some more. Practice makes perfect! I also need to practice the previous skills I’ve learnt so that they all stay fresh in my mind. It’s a constant cycle of learning new things and practicing old skills to keep them fresh. I’ve written some notes on the procedures and so I’ll review them. But for now that’s it for today. I think I’ll work on my portfolio some more.
Today is Wednesday and this will be my last entry before handing in my portfolio tomorrow. Today’s day started as a cold morning. I woke up with a throbbing headache and I immediately regretted waking up. I took two paracetamol pills with some tea and I got ready for school. I probably should have worn more clothing to keep myself warm but despite my condition I wore my usual two thin layers and marched out to the train. I got to school feeling somewhat apprehensive and really weary. I was confused on the train and didn’t know what stop I was at and stumbled out, luckily, onto the right platform. During class I was slipping in and out of focus. I was typing notes and trying my best to stay awake. On Monday I gave my nurse and doctor quite a scare with my long list of medications. They were like “You take ALL these?!” and I was like “Yeah, unfortunately I do.” It’s a constant balancing act with my medications as lot of them have a sedating effect as is the norm with antipsychotics and antidepressants. I take stimulants and I need a lot to keep me awake and functioning. I’m not entirely sure what I’d do without them. I’d probably be bed ridden all day, dozing in and out of consciousness. Anyway, I try to keep taking stimulants to a minimum and I try to eke away with taking the bare minimum but it’s still a lot that I take. If a normal person were to take the amounts I take, they’d probably be bouncing off the walls for a couple days. At any rate, I didn’t take my PRN because I wanted to limit the amount I take so I was dozing in class. Struggling to stay awake and sleeping during breaks I managed to make it through the pharmacology class. The paracetamol wore off pretty quickly and soon my headache was back. I was in a foul mood. I refused to talk and gave people the cold shoulder. Alright, in short I was a ghastly mess and was being a total asshat to people around me. After class ended, my classmate and I were going to go to Regency Medical Supply to buy our stethoscopes. En route to Regency we got separated and I told her I’d wait for her at City Hall station on the Canada Line, but somehow she bailed out on me and went home, so I was left alone to make the trek to Commercial-Broadway to meet my friend and get a ride to Regency. We decided that since there were no other classmates, we’d go and have lunch. We went to Whitespot on Lougheed and I ordered a chicken fettucine alfredo sauce dish and he ordered eggs benedict. I really liked my pasta even though I really shouldn’t be eating so much carbs and starch. I need to keep my sugar levels low or else I’ll get in trouble again. I’ve been drinking and eating too much sugary foods. After lunch, we drove a short distance to Regency. At Regency there was a scale and I weighed myself and despite having eaten a hefty lunch I was 8lbs lighter! There was much rejoicing. I mean eight pounds isn’t a lot but it’s significant to me. It’s hard to lose weight. After playing around with the scale we found our way to where the stethoscopes were sold and we asked to see some. Though in hindsight, that seems like a silly notion. They’re all pretty much the same. You try one Littmann Classic III and you’ve tried them all. They’re just different colors. There were some really nice combinations. There was a navy blue one with smoked metal earpieces; it looked really cool, the smoked metal had a very cool appearance to it. But I had my eyes set on the Raspberry Rainbow one and I specifically asked to see that one, but the lady misheard me and thought I had said that I didn’t want that one. And so she picked out all the blues and blacks for me and I was so confused so I was like “No, I want to see that one. The rainbow one.” And then she got confused. It was a confusing situation but that was soon rectified when we both realized what was going on. I bought my beloved Rainbow Dash. Yes, I’ve already nicknamed my stethoscope. There was a good discount on it; ten dollars cheaper than Amazon.ca. After I bought my stethoscope, we wandered around the place and poked our noses into different sections of the store and after having our fill of the curiosities in the store we left for Staples. At Staples, my friend wanted to buy a whiteboard for his room. So we looked at different sizes and after much deliberation we figured out what size of a board was suitable for his room. We then set our sights for home. When I got home, the first thing I did was unpack my stethoscope and listen to my heart again. There’s a nice comforting feeling of hearing that constantly lub dub with some extra whooshing added in there. After playing with it and listening to various parts of my body with it, I set it down and took a quick power nap. And now here I am writing this post and about to work on compiling the rest of my portfolio. I already finished my ethics paper last week during the free time we got so I don’t have to worry about that anymore. I think I’ll end this post now.
Hello all! It’s finally Friday! I didn’t make a post yesterday because I was busy editing a paper and to be honest not a whole lot happened yesterday. Like yesterday, today’s class was pretty uneventful. We didn’t learn anything new and we spent the class reviewing old quizzes and getting ready for our final. We had a lot of free time to work on whatever assignments we chose to. I had already finished all of my work yesterday so I was extremely bored. I brought my stethoscope for yesterday and today and was hoping to get some time to practice in the lab but alas, that was not to be. There was no time for extra lab practice. But that’s okay, at least I was prepared for it. I would really like a case for my stethoscope. Right now, I’m just cramming it in my bag. I treat my tools so carelessly and abusively. Anyway after a long and rather tedious day of doing nothing in class, things ended. The pharmacist for the flu vaccine came and we all filled out forms and got vaccinated. It’s my first time getting a flu vaccination! I’ve never gotten the flu vaccine before and I’ve only gotten the flu once in grade 4. It wasn’t anything special. I’ve gotten vaccines before and this was like all the other vaccinations I’ve gotten. A quick and painless jab into the arm and done. Getting my finger poked for a hemoglobin test is more painful, probably because the lancet is a lot bigger than this needle. So after my vaccination, I made my way to Oakridge to meet up with my sister to go meet up with a friend at Jinya to eat ramen. This time I ordered a ChaChaCha ramen. It came with fresh garlic and a garlic press to add however much garlic you want. I may have added too much garlic to my bowl. It was super spicy and now my breath reeks of foul garlic smell. But it was delicious. After lunch, we walked into a small store that sold figurines of all kinds. Now I really want to resume buying figurines. They’re so expensive but so nice. I saw a couple of Batman and Ironman figures that were really cool and well designed. I saw some Evangelion figurines. They were all over $100 so I didn’t buy any. I’ve been buying a lot of stuff these past couple of days. I bought a new stethoscope and a sphygmomanometer, and a new phone. Oh yeah! I got an invite yesterday for the One Plus X and so I jumped on that opportunity and ordered the One Plus X. It’s like half the price of the One Plus Two. I bought a carbon fiber case along with it. So yeah, a lot of money spending these past few days. I think I need to stop. Oh I got my ethics paper back today and I got perfect on it. Yay! Aced it. BS machine in full motion. Hm… anything else? Nope I can’t think of anything new. I’m going to the doctor’s office tomorrow and I’ll probably get another blood work requisition form. That’s it! That’s my whole week in a nut shell. =)
Fast
Slow
Moving
Lost
Left behind
Ditched
Bailed
Anger
Confusion
Temper tantrum
Short tempered
Adult
Grow up
Childish
Behavior
Hatred
Dislike
Loathe
Apathetic
Indifferent
Care less
Happy
Free
Liberated
Unrestrained
Have a happy weekend everyone! Enjoy the sun while it lasts! We’re also nearly done this album. Two more weeks and we’ll be done! Time for a new album!
remixboy 