Vegan nutrition and a horrible day at the office

Well apart from a few accidental slip-ups including eating honey and stuff that contained whey, I think I've done pretty good for my first fortnight of veganism.  In fact - it's been really easy and really enjoyable. I feel really really good. It has helped me a lot to think about what I'm actually eating and to stop and make good nutritional, and where possible ethical, choices. I do wish I had more organic fruit and veges available to me, but I'll do my best for now.

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I had my most horrible day in ambulance yesterday ever. We were driving back to branch when a dog got run over in front of us. I don't know much about canine medicine but he seemed to be decerebrate with obvious head trauma, was not reacting to outside stimuli, and had no pupil or no corneal reflex in my physical examination. He was still breathing though, but it seemed to be a sort of reflex. His owners came out - a lovely elderly couple - and they were very upset indeed. There is no vet in town and the dog was very old. I gave the owners the option of me calling the local copper to put him down using a bullet to the head. They decided to take that option. I was so upset. Much more than by human death. I had a nightmare last night as well. I went home and hugged my dog so tightly and I also couldn't help thinking about that baby emu my BF and I found with a terrible open leg fracture and also that worst night of my life when I agreed to go shooting. I have realised how much I love animals and reinforces my decision to go vegan. My BF is a little confused by this turn-around as it wasn't that long ago we were talking about raising our own cattle for food. He is supportive and has accepted the compromise that he can still eat meat, although he has really enjoyed and even requested some of my vegan dishes.

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I was driving home from the hospital in the ambulance late last night thinking about being vegan and thought to myself "why on earth didn't I do this earlier?" I guess I thought it would be really hard or I had somehow been convinced that I needed to eat meat to be healthy, but really as far as I can tell it's only vitamin B12 that I need to take as a supplement (which I have an awesome liquid multi in my fridge which I have as my little treat in sparkling mineral water and the body can store quite a lot of B12 anyway).  Other potential dietary insufficiencies include:

• Omega-3 - luckily for me, I absolutely love olive oil and avocados and attribute them to curbing my fat cravings and improving my skin.
• Protein - we only need about 100g a day which can easily come from the amount of tofu I seem to be newly addicted to. Other sources include: legumes, nuts, seeds.
• Iron - non-haem iron seems to be ok, especially when combine with the absorption enhancer vitamin C. Sources are again legumes, nuts, and seeds. Also, thankfully as I love it, watermelon has both iron and vitamin C.
• Vitamin D - sunshine or supplements.
• Iodine - as much as any other person - try to get table salt with iodine in it.
• Calcium - again soy, nuts and seeds and figs! Also in some fortified wholemeal breads and cereals.

So it looks like I'll be consuming a lot of soy from now on! Luckily, like I said, I'm addicted to it!

FML

Well I did end up doing a workout last night as well. I also watched tv (Fashion Police) and didn't do any study at all.  I tried to do my quiz this morning but my internet wouldn't work. I still have it hooked up to the LAN (that works) and I haven't figured out the wireless router as yet as it works on my phone and iPad. I run a diagnostic and it asks for a PPoP address or something like that - I have no idea what it is asking for. Ugh...

I had my mentor meeting and I felt slightly more prepared than last time but still feel like I don't know anything at all and like the biggest dumbass medical student she has ever come across. My motivation in waning and I'm day-dreaming of the end of this term.

I also had my first time of going out for food as a vegan. I had called ahead, but it turns out the gnocchi has egg in it, so I had to have a change of plans. The beef salad without the beef or dressing sounded so incredibly boring after I had planned for the extra calories for the week. I ended up going with a vege coconut curry and rice which was delicious. I used my new My Diet Coach app and nearly fell off my chair when I calculated the calories. Holey-moley. That, with a glass of Coke, means I am over my daily calorie budget. Great. I can workout for an hour and not eat for the rest of the day and get back to 0 balance.

Kitty managed to get her arm (yes, I do refer to the front legs of quadrupeds as "arms") stuck through her collar which terrified me into thinking she might do this and get stuck somewhere never to be seen from again. I will try making another smaller hole to tighten the collar a bit more. Poor Kitty.

Well, that is all. I guess I better stop complaining and get back into trying to study. FML.

Kitty gets collared

I've had enough of kitty's killing. Today's dead bird was the last straw. Now she must wear this reflective and bell-adorned collar.

Smile

Smile everybody! It's Australia Day!

Neuro week 1

I just had my first neuro lecture - 3 hours zzzz. Actually, it's quite interesting. How can one not marvel at the human body, especially the brain?

Thankfully I have today off work because I haven't prepared enough for the quiz which opens....now. This term it is open for three whole days! Wooooowwww! I have tomorrow day off too so I might delay it, but, yes, I run the risk of losing time for my second case study which is on bacterial meningitis, which, along with stroke and trauma, are the only neuro focuses with have in ambulance practice.

It also never ceases to amaze me the level of knowledge we're supposed to have coming into the lectures. It's truly revision only. As students of this course we seem to teach ourselves almost everything. I generally prefer this. In my bachelor degree I preferred to just go home and read the slide notes or whatever. I found the lectures took too long to cover a topic. But, occasionally, I do miss live lectures, which is one of the reasons I think I trawl the internet looking for video lectures where I can, just to break up the reading. You can find a lot of these on my page page tab above called Resources.

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My dog is constantly barking at the builders next door. He hates their nail-gun as they put up the roofing frame. Sadly, my road is being developed. But on the other hand it should only increase the value of my own property as the new homes go up. The new neighbours seem very friendly.

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I started my Schedule in full today and I don't know why I'm so excited about it. I think it helps alleviate the mind of these stress of trying to fit everything in. Ever since I handed over my book-keeping to MyBudget and now MySchedule in place, my mind feels a lot freer to concentrate on the present task at hand. For some reasons I thought being spontaneous was freeing, but now I see with how far I need to stretch my finances and time, that detailed planning is much more liberating!

My schedule

I've already had to make some changes to my schedule. Firstly, I didn't leave enough time to accomplish the readings. Two days is definitely not enough. Other than that the trial run went well this week and I look forward to implementing it in-full tomorrow morning. I'm also going to limit my bloggings to max 10 minutes per day (it usually only takes me 5 minutes) and my Facebooking the same. The timer on my watch has come in handy a lot this week.

I slept for 19 hours yesterday. I drank two iced coffees and a cappuccino at my mentor meeting yesterday, which went really well btw. Coffee in high-doses (or probably more specifically caffeine) has a paradoxical affect on me. It really knocked me out and my afternoon nanna nap rolled straight into bedtime. Wowzas.

Today I bought a bucket to cart all my cleaning gear around to save even more time. I am really amazed at home quickly some tasks can be done and I'm sure they will be even quicker once a more regular cleaning pattern has been established.

I also put a collar on my cat with bells and reflectors on it to stop her killing. She hates it. I've locked her inside today to keep an eye on her so she doesn't injure herself trying to get the collar off. She hates me now too.

Well that is all. I am now going to try and get through the remaining readings for the neuro case (which is Multiple Sclerosis this week) and prepare for my lecture and mini-quiz tomorrow, and then, a new case!

One week down already!

TV for pets (3)

What's happening in the world this morning?

Please excuse my front lawn - it looks like it has the mange. It was all chip bark and I'm starting to seed some grass there. With the weather we are having my garden is starting to resemble the jungles of the tropics that I love so much.

My dog is big but cute

My dog is doing this thing lately where he gets all cozy amoungst the cushions on the couch.

That's his "Why are you studying and not paying attention to me?" look.

Oscar's Law

Today I got to meet the Oscar from Oscar's Law.  Oscar's Law is a campaign to help all the "Oscars" by abolishing puppy factories.  Oscar is a dog that was rescued from a puppy factory.

Dawwww

A cute photo of my neighbour's kitten who is very adventurous.

My dog

I love my darling dog, and he loves going for car rides. We don't go far without his proper safety-harness seatbelt thingy, but to tell the truth, he really only likes short trips around the town centre where we can drive slow and smell all the wonderful smells.

I got told once that talking your dog for a walk is like them getting to read the newspaper.  I guess my dog just got a quick scan of the headlines today.

It seems to make people happy to see a giant dog in a small car as well.  His head sits up higher than mine. Sometimes when I come out of the supermarket I see him sitting in the drivers seat behind the wheel, which looks really hilarious. It's well-worth the hairs he leaves all over my car seats.

Another one of the most amusing yet simple things in life, I think, is how much dogs love car rides and how much cats hate them!

Remote proctor

I got lazy and distracted yesterday arvo.  I just couldn't do it.  I needed to chill and rest my brain.  At least I got in a few hours in my mentor session and about an hour at home on the new case study, but that was it.

This morning I'm happy to report I've got my mojo back and I'm nearly done with the case before lunchtime, which is great.

I've also installed my Remote Proctor, which is a weird camera thing and finger print scanner as now our end of term exams are done from home, rather than in the testing centre in the city.  This is great for a lot of people who have to travel great distances to testing centres.  I kind of liked having the day off and going into the city.  I think I was less likely to be distracted by my pets, phones, whatever.  I suppose I can turn my phones off but try telling my dog and cat to amuse themselves for 2 hours when I'm just sitting here in my study ignoring them!  Believe me I've tried reasoning with them: "I'm doing it for us so we can have more plants to sniff, more toys to chew, and the expensive pet food". LOL

Back to finish this case study now....

Mentoring

As part of my course, I have to see a mentor for two hours every week during my pre-clinical modules.  Today was my first mentor meeting for this term.

I am so lucky to have the mentor that I do. She is a top emergency consultant and works at the local major regional hospital.  So, basically, she is doing the job that I want one day. (Emergency medicine is still my first preference, with paediatrics and general practice as my other top preferences). She is very optimistic about my prospects of finding a job once I graduate, despite me being an IMG (International Medical Graduate) and the surging medical student tsunami in Australia.  Geez I hope she is right.

So today we had a double session and we went through the first two cases - hypo- and hyper- thyroidism.   It went well.  It even went better over a pot of jasmine green tea and eggs florentine.

That was my morning.  Now I'm home and my afternoon will be going through the second case study.  I believe I can finish it today as I don't have work to interrupt me.  I like to get the case study read and out of the way before moving on, although after each Learning Issue there is the associated readings, but I prefer to do those all at the end.  I liked my method last week of reading the case study (and looking up any unfamiliar terms along the way), watching the associated Kaplan videos, and then doing the readings.  The readings were easier to digest with a quick overview first from the case and the videos.

Yesterday, FYI, I had my first online lecture for the term.  It went for three hours and covered the first case study.  I was so glad I had done the pre-readings as you need to have done them before class to be able to answer the questions the lecturer asks.  There are about 10 students in my class so we all get asked questions in turn. I felt pretty confident about most things, but once again I feel inferior to the nurse practitioners and osteopaths - they are already seeing primary presentation of hypothyroidism, for example, and ordering and interpreting tests.

My mentor told me every time I have a patient from now on, after I've finished all my paperwork and other duties for work, I should sit down and go through all the possible differential diagnoses for that patient, write them all down, and then write down how I would work that patient up as a doctor and what tests I should order.  I will definitely do that from now on.

To be honest, I didn't realise until this week that thyroid problems could cause arrhythmias.  I will look at that more closely now, although my mentor did say it's not exactly the most common cause (of bradycardia and AF).

Ok off to get cracking on this hyperthyroidism case study.  My dog is already crying at my because I'm at the computer and ignoring him.

PS  My iMac is going really well.  I think it is one purchase I can definitely say has made my life better.  Loving the iPad too.

Today's routine

Today I was so tired.  By the end of my working week the sleep debt has accumulated so much I feel like I've done an all-nighter... I tried to fix it by going to bed at 6.30pm last night as soon as I got home from work - but I could only sleep for an hour before my body said "Hey, I'm normally woken by a loud beeping noise at this time so I'm just going to go ahead a wake-up now anyway".

I got up and watched Paramedics: Recruits from the night before which was 20 minutes with fast-forwarding the ads.  I was happy to see this week they showed a patient that vomitted all over himself and the ambulance as that is what the job is really like.  I have become good at pre-empting emesis with my four years on-road experience (plus 3 years ambulance training and 7 years army medic experience).  I was watching the tv thinking "He's gonna spew!  Get an em-bag!", but, no, they were insistently trying to put a Hudson's (oxygen) mask on him.  They nearly wore it too.

All I wanted to do was watch tv last night. Instead I got to finish the physiology Kaplan videos for all of endocrine, which is excellent.

Today at work I watched the whole pathology section for endocrine as well.  I have now completed the videos for endocrine in the first week of the term (except for pharm because its thyroid section is so small - I will watch it at the end of the term for revision of the other endocrine drugs)!  Excellent!  The videos took me about 1.5 hours today.

Retention of videos - probably about 75%, which isn't bad considering they are designed for revision.  For me, I found them handy as an introduction to the topic.  I think watching them again as revision would be better.  The biochemistry I watched the other day is probably my weakest area (as usual) but I think I could do well there if I spent more time on it.  I think being in the MD program now this is something I'll certainly have to look at.

We went out on jobs for most of the day, and I managed to scrape in the endocrine section of FA over about 20 minutes.  I took my Guyton and Hall in the ambulance with me, but my partner finished his paperwork too quick and was done before I had refurbished the ambulance.

At work I'm always looking up anything I don't know, especially patients medications, and revising things like diagnosing left and right bundle-branch blocks, and when I return to the ED cubicle with my finished paperwork, often the doctor has ordered his initial tests and management and I can check what they are.  At triage I'm on my phone Googling everything while I wait that 5 minutes.

Tonight I have to prepare for tomorrow's lecture.  I have to make sure I've done those compulsory readings, which is a massive task.  It will take me all night, and that's if I don't get any call-outs.  It's also my baby-sitter's 18th tonight so I promised I'd drop in if I could.

That is where I'm up to.

In other news, my dog hates thunder and I felt so sorry for him today as we were stuck at the hospital and it was a big storm. He got into the rubbish bin yesterday, but it was my fault as I left chicken bones in there andI guess the smell was just too irresistible. He once did that when I first got him last year but he got the bin lid stuck on his head.  Enough time has passed now and he has regained his courage towards the bin.  I must remember to put such smelly-delights straight out into the big bin in the garage where he can't get to it.

Hole

This is the holey dog escaped through today. He's 40kg.

TV for pets (part 2)

This morning's show: Strange car pulling up in neighbours drive way

MoH duties

Today was occupied by Maid of Honour duties. First, the bride-to-be got sized up for dress alterations, then a hair and makeup trial I also attended (a mere ~150km from my house. Picture.), then it was jewellery shopping for the bridal party, then dress shopping for the hen. Whew!

I came home to find my dog had escaped yet again. I'm now pushing the neighbours for a new fence as it is falling apart.

Just had a nana-nap, now I'm about to get ready and go out dancing!

Study mascot

Hope he doesn't slobber too much on my notes.

Pets

They are their cutest when asleep

Kitty

My cat on my Wii board. I love how oriental she looks. She matches my decor.