"Oooh... two LADY paramedics...!"

"Oooh... two LADY paramedics...!"

I was going to put that in the "Overheard" category but I couldn't be bothered.

I hear this ALL the time when I work with another female paramedic, which is also quite regularly as there is currently 3 females and 1 male at my ambulance station. I feel like saying "Why, yes! I even have my manual driver's licence!" ffs

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Fruitarian life is going great. It is so easy when you get the ball rolling. I say again and again, it is the easiest "diet" I have ever been on. The hardest parts are:

• eating enough fruit calories
• having enough ripe fruit around the house

That's it!

Productive day(s)

Well, I just want to tell the whole world how my Chinese Medicine Foundations exam got graded incorrectly and I found myself and extra 20 points on my exam, just by taking the time to go and review it!

It's a pain in the bum at some unis, and some don't allow you to at all which was a major gripe of mine with OUM changing their exams, to review your exam. Well, excuse me for wanting to know what questions I got wrong just in case I ever have a patient with the same complaints but here I am not knowing what I know and what I don't know.

My CM school is quite small, so this week they allow students to drop into the office and have a look at their exams. This is great because you can take notes of where you need to revise so for the rest of the course and career you know what you're doing.

Anyway, I've felt like the biggest dumbass for the past 3 weeks, thinking I only got 51% on my exam! Turns out, I got 71%.Geez. So my final grade for the subject jumped from 64 to 77 or something like that. That's a Credit to a Distinction. I ended up with D's across the board, thank you very much.

Today - just now - I finally submitted my assignment for Herbal Medicine. I quite enjoy this subject on Skin and right now I want to be a dermatologist (if anyone's been following this blog for the past 2  years I've gone from emergency physician, to general practitioner, to paediatrician, to emergency paediatrician, to integrative medicine, and now to dermatology.)

I also saw an advertised job for an alternative health dermatology specialist with a salary range of $80-100k. This is where I'm aiming to hit with a cruisey 9-5 M-F job, not an insane any time of the day or night all weekends and public holidays in any weather job. Of course, if and when I ever become a registered doc I should clear that no worries, but it's good to know my other options in the world of alternative health.  I feel like I need about that much to comfortably pay off my mortgage, to maybe get an investment property (for my retirement), and to take one overseas trip a year (not an expensive one though), and to do be cringing at the thought of bills being higher than expected or stressing because the price of petrol rose 10c. Yes, I am still striving towards a self-sufficient and sustainable life-style.

In 1.5 hours I return back to work. Well, actually I'll probably go in half an hour earlier to get myself organised. I start on-call tonight. Eek. It's difficult coming back. I have to admit, I'm starting to get over the adrenalin rush of paramedics and look forward to the day I am chillin in my clinic. But, I need to go back to work to study - sounds funny. Since having my stressful episode at the beginning of the year, I have been conscientiously practicing only studying at work, and never after work at home and rarely on my days off. This is much healthier and I do a lot of study at work as I know that is my only time to do it. So, I need to go back and get back into it and I'm really looking forward to that aspect of returning to work actually.

Well that's all as I have to go get ready. 

Natural birth control

I've spent multiple consultations with multiple GPs and OBGYNs talking about birth control options as  my body and my mind do not like what we've tried so far.

Lately, I've been using a phone app to help my monitor and use the rhythm method. The problem with the calendar-based or rhythm method is it assumes every woman has the same luteal phase after their period. I got put onto the app by my friend who is trying to conceive.

Natural birth control, or fertility awareness, uses the monitoring of basal body temperature as well as combining calendar method information. Monitoring cervical mucous is another way to help gain more information about what phase of your cycle you are in.

Background info - women produce only one egg per month (ovulate) and that occurs on only one day per month. Conceiving can occur around only 6 days per month as sperm can live for up to five days, thanks to the cervical mucous, and the egg can hang around for about 18 hours after ovulation - this brings a total of only about 6 days per month max. Cervical mucous signs of fertility is when it is of a raw egg-white colour and consistency - this should happen during the 5 days leading up to ovulation. (For more info re cervical mucous see this YouTube video).

If you use your calendar (free iPhone apps available) and monitor your cervical mucous, this alone has a 93% effectiveness - around the same as condoms.

If you monitor your basal temperature and use a calendar, this provides up to 99% effectiveness. Combining all three methods - calendar, cervical mucous, and temperature, will provide a contraception effectiveness of greater than 99% (or if you want to get pregnant, this helps you too).

LadyComp is a great device that  combines a thermometre into a computer calendar that gives you coloured lights for whether you are infertile or fertile (depending what you want).

It feels good to be in control of my own body, to not be taking synthetic hormones, to not be worried about the increased risks of cardio-vascular disease, liver disease, and cancer. To not be gaining weight and losing my mind. My last contraception, Implanon, made me gain 20% of my body weight in less than a year and I'm still stuck with it now.

My question is - why has not one single doctor even briefly referred to these methods in my 19 years of fertility?

Code Red and ravenous

I'm at Code Red. I feel anxious and stressed. I worked until 3:30am this morning and just couldn't attend my lecture. I was also under-prepared and so friggin tired from the weekend. I feel like I've lost the plot and I don't know where to start.

It is really not helping that I've been on a diet. Cutting out refined sugars is NOT helping! I know it will be better for me in the long-run but I wish I had waited until after the end of this term. Now I've done really well to get my BMI from 24 to 23 I don't want to undo all this hard work.

I'm quite ravenous after my morning run, lack of sleep, and lack of food (I had watermelon for breakfast). Completely cranky. I should really end this rant here.
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Off to go figure out my damage-control plan for this term...


EDIT: Sorry for this terrible post. I had some more breakfast and feel much better. I shouldn't be allowed in public so hungry.

Reality: I only missed one lecture. It's best not to miss any, but it's no the end of the world. I normally miss 2-3 every term and I have decided previously that this is acceptable collateral damage to continue working full-time. Also, I normally have lulls in each term, that was mine. Now to stop complaining and start taking action.