Medical Nightmare Victims Awareness Association

We hear all kinds of crazy stories, pretty much daily now, of medical nightmares. Things you would not want to happen to your dog. Things that should definitely never happen to living human beings. I don't know if an association like the one above exists or not, but if one does, I think I should get to be an honorary member.

Everyone knows I have crazy dreams almost every night. Now, I cannot believe I didn't see this coming. I have started experiencing some medical nightmares of my own during the noctural hours. They are insane! I've started dreaming of procedures we learned about in class that day...being done on ME! But they have these horrible twists, like instead of medical instruments the PAs or nurses will be using broken pieces of glass... or they refuse to intubate me when I am suffocating and I wake up gasping for air. And these dreams are SO REAL.

I had one, early on in anatomy, the day we dissected the heart. In class, I had to wash the blood out of the heart and it took a long time so I think the visual of that human heart in my hands got lodged in my unconscious. That night I dreamed I had elective open heart surgery... to dissect my own heart while I was conscious.

OH. This cannot go on. The people these things happen to in real life get a blank check from the hospital. I'm getting nothing. My only compensation is the flood of relief that comes when I realize all my vital organs are still in working order. Where, oh where, is the MNVAA??

My Niece

Hey everyone, my niece Kiersten was hit by a car last Friday and snapped her femur in half. She was extremely lucky because that's all that happened. They did surgery Friday night and put a metal plate in it. She'll be in the hospital until Monday (the dates on my blog are messed up- today isn't Monday.) Please be praying for her and her family. We are so relieved that she will be fine.

Hasta la Vista, GI

We just finished our section on gastroenterology. I am so relieved!! The weekend after our clinical medicine tests are like a little piece of heaven. We start pulmonology on Monday.

Everything is going pretty good. We have a month off for Christmas break and I just booked a trip to Salt Lake City to visit a good friend who is living out there. I can't wait!

Right now I am just enjoying being in school and still spend my study breaks reading the news as is apparent on the next post. I probably need to find something else to do.

We have met the enemy, and he is us.

I cried reading the new all week. Why do we want to start wars with nations that haven't attacked us?

I feel strongly about the prejudice some Americans have for Iran because it is exactly that: blind prejudice. Have you read some of the comments on NYT articles lately? I was ashamed. Ahmadinejad doesn't have blond hair; he looks like the Arabs who committed 9/11. And our Zionist president has labeled him on an "axis of evil" that, interestingly, other world leaders we respect less are NOT on. After all, why aren't Sudanese militia leaders on that list? Or Mugabe? Or anyone else who has caused intense suffering in Africa? Hmm..

I'm not saying Iran is innocent. No nation is. But like Iraq, they had nothing to do with 9/11. The real terrorists in 9/11 were Saudi Arabians, who are ARABS. Iranian people are Persian. They are an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT ETHNIC GROUP. They just look alike and live near each other. Not a good reason to attack them.

The CIA did a special report and concluded that is it, in fact, not proven that Ahmadinejad had anything to do with the American hostage crisis thirty years ago.

Iran was attacked by Saddam Hussein and underwent a very long and painful war in the 80's during which they were repeatedly the victims of chemical warfare. The religious head of Iran condemned this type of warfare and Iran NEVER USED chemical warfare back on moral grounds. They don't believe in using chemical (or nuclear) weapons. Reagan's administration, however, knew about the chemical warfare being used against Iranian civilians and continued to support Iraq militarily.

Countless teenage Iranian soldiers sacrificed themselves in human wave attacks- knowingly walking onto land planted with mines in order to clear it for the trained Iranian army to cross over.

Iran is building schools and clinics in the city I lived in last fall. They are also responsible for a ton of power and roads in Afghanistan. They are doing really good things for their poor neighbor in the fight against terrorism and the Taliban. Hamid Karzai himself has declared this over and over and Bush has had to belittle Afghanistan's president to try and deny it.

America has destroyed Iraq and we really need a scapegoat; so the administration is claiming that Iran is behind a bunch of attacks in Iraq. This is COMPLETE crap. I hope we don't attack a second nation that has absolutely nothing to do with Al Qaeda and destroy the lives of millions of ordinary citizens. Once was too much.

God save Iran from us.

Medicine, you have a place in my heart after all.

I realized, a few days ago, something really strange. I spent 16 months preparing and applying to a medical program AND... I never, ever thought through what medicine actually is or what it would mean to practice it. Hmm.

This is possibly the strangest realization of my life. I really spent countless hours on something that I didn't think through. I made a decision about my LIFE OCCUPATION based on zero logical thought processes. I mean, I knew I liked science but science doesn't have that much to do with medicine; I certainly never sat down and thought about intubating babies, writing prescriptions, or doing emergency tracheotomies.

It probably would have helped if the words "medical practice" had crossed my mind. But the real reason I never asked myself if I liked medicine was because I just believed that God wanted me to go to PA school. And figured that it had something to do with helping poor people in the end.

But now, I find myself sitting in our classes, LOVING learning about pathologies and treatments. I get really, really, really excited thinking about rotations and diagnosing patients and healing people. These things are making me so excited for the future!

And so I realize, on a deeper level than ever, that God truly knows me better than I know myself. He is the one who guided me into a profession he knew I would love. I entrusted my whole life to Him, and He led me to something that He knew would bring me deep satisfaction and fulfillment. And honestly, though I should have thought it through, God didn't need me to. That's how it is with the Lord; if you think it through, it will probably make sense in the end, if not in the beginning; but you really can just trust Him.

Dreams

Sometimes it really sucks to wake up in the morning. This last week, for me, its had little to do with sleepiness. I keep having these really intense, hope-I-can-sleep-a-little-longer-to-find-out-what-happens kind of dreams. Here are some synopses from the last few nights:

I wake up one morning and a friend of mine has died and left me her tiny, newborn, still pink-faced infant. The thing is so tiny I have no idea how I'm going to feed it, find it daycare, and still be on time to class at 8 a.m.

My dad convinces me to cut off my feet for an experiment and tells me it will be easy to get them back on. We do, and it doesn't hurt, and it isn't until the next day when I am trying to hobble around on stumps that I have the horrible realization that he was wrong, and its permanent, and WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITHOUT FEET?!!

Some friends from PA school and I are lost in Middle Earth. We can see the Misty Mountains but we have no idea where we are exactly or how to get to Gondor and out of the grasp of the Dark Lord... until we find the Robert L. Byrd library, look on a map, and realize that we are in Osgiliath.

I am somewhere off the coast of South America. Probably Ecuador. A good old friend and I join up with some strangers and a hoary old captain and skipper a small boat across the Pacific. Halfway through the voyage, we realize that the old captain hasn't come out of his cabin for a couple weeks and is probably dead. My friend goes in to check and...

Some lady from Blue Cross Blue Shield called and woke me up! It appears that one will remain a mystery for now. But sometimes I dream the same dream later and finish it, so if I find out what happens I'll let you know.

Those things are HUGE!

So, I have always had a hard time smelling things. I never knew why until last week. We were doing ENT (ear, nose and throat) exams on each other when the girl who was looking up my nose said, "I think you have nasal polyps!" So we get the instructor to come over, and sure enough, I have two huge, very anteriorly-located nasal polyps- one in each nostril.

So nasal polyps cause anosmia, or a decreased sense of smell. I feel so vindicated!! My lack of smell is indeed a physical anomaly that has also probably been the cause of frequent nasal congestion. Whenever I get a cold or allergies, my nasal mucosa tries to swell and has nowhere to go because those things are HUGE!

I think its funny, though, that I have been to doctors all my life and they have never, ever looked up my nose. The next time you are at your doctor just ask them to and maybe you will get a little nasaly surprise.

We started fall classes today.

This fall we have physiology, physical diagnosis, and clinical medicine. Clinical medicine will actually be six different sections that we have to pass individually (so they are a little like different classes). I am stoked and feel really excited, but I also don't feel ready. Its weird that you can work toward something for as many as five years and then feel totally unprepared when it happens!

Last weekend was a blast. I can't remember when I've had so much fun... or maybe it just seemed so fun because we weren't studying. I think this weekend my brother's family will be here to help my mom move into her new house. I am really excited to see them and hopefully things won't have picked up too much yet. That seeems to be all the news on this side... love you all and take care!

P.S., At this point the Taliban has killed two of the hostages and freed two of them. Please keep praying for them.

Oklahoma: Working Toward Not Being As Boring.

Maybe everyone already knows this. But I just found out today that part of the MAPS project was a really nice boathouse for rowing and crew along the Oklahoma river. Now finished and located just south of Bricktown on Lincoln, the Chesapeake Boathouse is a boat lover's hotspot and offers rowing lessons, clubs, rentals, etc along 7 miles of the scenic Oklahoma river. Check it out at ChesapeakeBoathouse.org. You can rent a two person kayak for $7.50 per person per hour, or a one person kayak for $10 an hour. You can also join the boathouse for an annual membership fee and dragonboat or kayak anytime.

I am stoked! I think I'll go this weekend.

Seven More Days, Happiness and Dreams

Our anatomy class is over in seven days. Sigh of relief...

However, yesterday I realized that even with all the school stuff going on, life seems to be the happiest its been for a long time. I am so thankful for that!! I don't think it would be possible to be in a better place in life or happier. I am so grateful for the friends and family who are such amazing people. I am so thankful to be in school learning so many cool things. I am so thankful to be living in great apartments that are really peaceful and have a beautiful lake that can be run around at sunset every evening. I am really thankful to have a brand new, awesome little red fish named Ivanhoe. (He's really cute, anyone who wants is invited to come see him!!!) I am just so grateful for life. Even though I know seasons of happiness and sadness come and go, I'm so glad to be in such a peaceful place for the time being.

I also went out after our last test and bought some plants to put out on my balcony. It had been looking pretty bare. As I was buying them, I suddenly remembered something that happened almost ten years ago on an orchestra trip to London.

I had never been out of the country, and the first morning we arrived, they took us on a bus tour of the city. We were driving around, seeing all these amazing things you only see in pictures- Big Ben, the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace... and as we took in all the sights, I remember driving by a bunch of English flats. They all had balconies filled with bright green plants. And I hoped to myself that someday, I would have an apartment of my own with a refreshing little balcony just like that.

So, when I brought these gorgeous new plants home a few nights ago, I made a dream that was almost ten years old come true. Its such a little thing- but it was so weird how I realized that all of us, as life changes, sometimes get to see our dreams come true. Its beautiful!! But its hard to believe how long they can take. I think if someone would have told me then that I wouldn't have that balcony for ten years, I would have been really sad or wouldn't have cared if it had happened at all, ever. But now I see that it was worth the wait. (Especially since I forgot I was waiting.)

I'm really hoping that being a PA will be much the same. A dream that seems to take forever but is worth coming true...

Signs

Tonight at Lifechurch, Craig's main message from the "At the Movies" movie Signs was... when strange things happen, do you see it as the hand of God or as a coincidence?

I thought about this for awhile and was surprised to find out something a little weird about how I have always thought of things. First, it seems that if things happen out of the blue, then I totally accept them as the hand of God and his intervention into life. Don't usually question it.

But, the really weird thing I realized, is that if I pray for something from God- and then it happens, I usually wonder at least once if it was really him answering my prayer or if it was just a coincidence. Isn't this weird?

So I started thinking- have there been any signs lately I haven't noticed? All I had to do, upon arrival home from church tonight, was to look back in my journal. This shed a lot of light on the matter. Back in May, I prayed for two very specific things. I don't want to share but they were SPECIFIC. And I was praying really hard for these things... for about a month.Then, PA school happened. I was consumed with all of the new things to do and totally forgot about my prayer. Then, within three days of PA school starting, out of the blue the two things I prayed for happened.

But the weird thing? I never even wrote them down in my journal or remembered I had asked for them! It was as if these two answers to prayer came and it didn't even cross my mind that God had just provided what I had asked for so fervently. In looking back, I guess at the time they seemed like coincidences to me. Only now does it all become clear.

And I know its not just because I asked for them that they happened. They happened because they have a place in the plan of God, like all affirmative answers to prayer. "The Lord works out everything for his own ends..." And yet, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart."

One More

One more war rant, then I'm done for awhile I promise.

The US is almost completely finished with an almost 600 million embassy in Baghdad, the largest US embassy anywhere in the world, complete with its own power supply, water purfication system, wells, apartments, and palm tree-lined swimming pools.

As Iraqis walk by our more than half a billion dollar luxury establishment through their own blown-up streets to wait in gas lines, this embassy shows Iraqis that we do indeed have the resources and ability to build reliable infrastructure. Just not on them. And, that our current administration and their war profiteering oil mongers have no intention of leaving Iraq's huge pool of oil, ever.

I have to go buy some gas now.

Surprised by a Lovely Snack.

Last night my 8 year old niece spent the night. Now, this child has the most optimistic and precious heart and a very sweet disposition. So as we were leaving to go to my house and she told me she was going to make me a "special snack," the following ensued.

"I make it all the time, and everyone always loves it!" she said happily.

"How do you know that I have all the ingredients you'll need to make it?" I asked.

"Oh, its easy!" she replied. "Everyone has them. I just need flour, sugar, and baking powder. Do you have those Aunt Erin?"

"Yes I do," I said.

"Oh, and do you have an oven?" she added.

"Yes, I do have an oven," I replied.

"And chocolate chips?" Followed hopefully.

"Well, no. I don't have any chocolate chips."

"Okay, well that's fine. Then that's all I'll need. Flour, sugar, baking power- oh, and ham."

"Ham?!!" I said with some alarm.

"Yep, ham. You've got some ham?"

"Um, no. Actually I don't. Wait, I do have some lunch meat ham. Will that work?" I said hesitatingly, still somewhat uncertain of what this random pork item was doing being tossed into what had up to this point seemed like a harmless cookie recipe.

"Yes, yes. that should work just fine. Oh, and actually, I don't need the oven."

I was mystified at this point. "Jensen, let me get this straight. You are going to make something out of flour, sugar, baking powder, and ham- without an oven?"

She smiled up at me. "Yes! We do it all the time."

Okay, I thought. Whatever. I am a really easy going aunt. Let's just see what she makes.

After getting to my apartment and swimming for awhile, while I was in the shower rinsing off she went to work in the kitchen. Little did I know that a few new items were getting tossed into the mix- some pears that she had harvested the night before from the tree in my mom's backyard as well as a carefully hoarded after-dinner mint from Pei Wei's Asian Diner procured at a previous unspecified mealtime.

I came out of the shower to find a gigantic mess in the kitchen, and two finished, um... "snacks." Thankfully, it turned out that there was actually no ham involved. Like many things small children say I have no idea where she got that, but I know it made sense to her at the time. Here was her masterpiece.



Yes, that is an unbaked drizzle of flour, sugar, water, and baking powder on a plate frosted with granulated sugar and slices of pear.



Its a little blurry, but perhaps you can discern that mine is garnished with the aforementioned, strategically positioned after-dinner mint. Only slightly less obvious might be the whole lot of lovin' she added that made it all worthwhile.

Please Pray.

Yesterday at 5pm, 18 Korean workers were kidnapped on their way to Kandahar. At this point it seems that they were entirely a visiting group, no long term workers were among them, and they are mostly young adults. Please, please be in prayer for this group of young people who are now being held by the Taliban.

Some of you may remember the post about the doctors who stopped and humbled themselves to wash and feed street children. Those doctors and their colleagues are the long-term workers who invited this group and were expecting them. Please be prayer for the entire community of expatriate workers in this city and please pray that the Taliban will have mercy on those being held.

Things That Are Really Too Important Not to Think About, No Matter How Busy You Are.

A new study by the Congressional Reasearch Service reported that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan now cost 12 billion dollars per month. That's right, billion with a B! 10 billion for Iraq, and 2 billion for Afghanistan. Now, I am the first person to really not care so much about money. BUT... doesn't this sound crazy to anyone else?? Even if you are not into math... WOW! We have now spent almost half a trillion dollars on the wars, and President Bush has another 147 billion dollar proposal for them pending!

As my sister and Nancy Pelosi have recently said, think of all that this money could have done. We could have rehauled the health care system, provided for schools and education, enforced the borders, invested in alternative energy, or heck- we could have rebuilt Banda Aceh from the freakin' ground up or educated and provided AIDS medicine to most of Africa! Anything but blowing apart other people's lives. Not to mention that we also would have thousands of living servicemen and women, and the deep and irreversible emotional and physical scarring of the recent war veterans could have been erased.

According to a recent gallup poll, 7 out of 10 Americans are now in favor of a troop pullout by April.

President Bush's approval rating is now only 29%.

Also, the principle author of the new National Intelligence Estimate on the Terrorist Threat to the US Homeland, Edward Gistaro, flatly stated that Al Qaeda in Iraq did not exist before the US invasion.

So it seems to me that the White House is spending 10 billion dollars a month to fuel a terrorist organization and a civil war. This... is... complete.... INSANITY!! There is just no other word.

Finally...

We took our first test today and I think... I am probably going to graduate from this program. Thank God! it was not nearly as bad as we all thought it would be. I just screamed for awhile in the car on the way home I was so excited that it looks like I am not going to fail this class.

Now, I happen to have one of two apartments in the entire complex which overlooks the neighborhood pool. I also happen to be able to hear, through my window, all the fun people are having when they are in said pool. It rained non-stop for almost the first three weeks the pool was open; now for the last three weeks my contact with the pool has been limited to overhearing other's great enjoyment of it.

But finally... this test is over and I AM GOING SWIMMING RIGHT NOW!!!

P.S., I just also have to thank the people who have been praying for me. I know that I made it through these last stressful weeks because of you guys. Thanks a lot. :)

Overwhelming, But Good.

Okay, it is totally overwhelming to have so much stuff to learn and what seems like never enough time to do it. For example- the last two weeks I have basically done nothing but school. I go to school and when I'm not in class I am at the library or my house studying or running around trying to get little things like student IDs and immunizations and parking permits done.

Yet, although I studied around four hours every day beforehand as well as a ridiculous amount of hours adding up to somewhere around 21 the two days before our mini-exam yesterday- I still only got 5 out of 10 questions right. And the scary thing is that I guessed on some of those!

My only relief was found in talking to other students who only got 3 or 4 right and they guessed on half of their correct answers, too. It was a sad, sad day in the anatomy lab yesterday as the reality of what we might have to give up this summer dawned.

So, I have a lot left to do before our real test next Monday. Its kind of depressing because in some ways I don't know how else I can study. Or, I can think of some ways, but they don't include sleep or food. Maybe I will give those a try this week...

Crap. This is going to be hard.

After going to my first anatomy class today, I realized that there is only one for for the next six weeks and word is-

GOODBYE. See you in six weeks.

We had a three hour lecture today on the nervous system. I was all there the first hour. I was 80% there the second hour. But by the third hour, it was down to like 40. I felt like I missed every other thing he said. It was impossible to write (OR type!) as fast as this man was talking. And I realized, that I have a LOT of studying to do.

So please understand that I am not dead, I am studying. See you sometime in the middle of August. :)

Suprise! You are going to PA school in three days.

-God

WOW!~ Now, I LOVE suprises but this one was just about too much for me. I think I have called and emailed half the world and Summer is finally back from Belize- its now all good to post the whole story on here.

Last Tuesday afternoon after work, I got a voicemail from the PA program. Just to "call them back," which is probably the most mysterious message they could have left. Unfortunately, it was 5:04pm, so calling back that night proved fruitless. I tried to calm down and not imagine that they were calling to tell me that I got in.

Wednesday morning at 11am, I found out the reason for the call. The school had not been able to contact a girl who had a prerequisite missing, and I was now #1 on the wait list. Although it wasn't an invitation to attend, it still shocked my pants off! I was totally suprised!

By Friday, I hadn't heard anything new and was about to DIE. I finally emailed the head of the program and asked if he knew what the heck was going on. He emailed me back three little words: "Call me now." So after getting ahold of him, the conversation went something like this...

"Hi Dr. McNeill."
"Hi Erin! What are you doing on Monday?"
"Well, I'm supposed to go to work..."
"Want to go to PA school instead?"

Most of you have already heard this story but I don't think I have EVER been more excited in my whole life!!!!!! I am actually going to PA school TOMORROW.

AHHHHHH!

Arkansas

So Ashlie, Evie and I went to Eureka Springs and Kings River over Memorial Day weekend.

We went up to the top of a lookout. The view was great-

But the stairs were a little steep.

Unfortunately, all the canoeing and kakying pictures were on the waterproof, non-digital camera. To be posted once scanned.