On illness and Admin

From jk5854's flickr photostream

So what started as a bit of pharyngitis has made a concerted effort to claim everything south of my carina as lebensraum by way of a detour up into my nasal cavity.

This led to me taking today off school as I didn't really want to spend the morning mouth-breathing my way around the DR and then spend the afternoon coughing and spluttering my way through the expert forum (kind of like a Question Time for the week's lead lecturers).

This in turn gave me a day to spend either lying in bed feeling a bit sorry for myself or, once that got boring, addressing issues of admin. A close friend on the course is an army type and has introduced me to all sorts of interesting turns of phrase: "popping smoke", "bring the rain", "danger close" and "admin". This is a phrase that covers everything from polishing your boots to packing your bags to making sure you're carrying enough ammo. There is "good admin" and "bad admin". And I have, of late fallen into the latter camp.

So once the paracetamol, phenylephrine and industrial grade caffeine had kicked in I set to my admin. I've cleared up quite a few bits of IRL BS this week and this morning was an opportunity to finish up some notes, send off emails about next year's project to the person who will hopefully be my tutor, pay some bills, secure my place in next year's Brighton Marathon and then have a bath.

And it was everything I thought it could be. I got to lie still and read for pleasure (something I'm not very good at giving myself time to do) and then I washed from top to toe, had a shave and felt almost reborn by the end of it. I'm still working my way through Full Catastrophe Living and the more I read, the more the idea of giving myself a few minutes everyday of paying attention to my body seems healthy and appropriate.

I find it slightly ironic that I need to be sick enough to not go to school to force me to stop for long enough to just "be". This is something I need to work harder at doing. That and paying attention to my admin.

"You've not blogged in a while, have you?"

Thank you, Liz!

My apologies for not having posted in oh-so-long. It's not that I don't have anything to say - I am the kind of dude who always has an opinion and little needs to be done to wheedle it out of me. I am however, the kind of dude who also has priorities and sadly med school has taken up my mental runtime a bit too much of late. I'm not suggesting that I've kicked it into high gear and I'm producing more work than previously, it's just that the work is taking up more of my conciousness than previously.

I guess it's not a useful place to be in especially, but I am doing what I can to nip it in the bud and try and remember how to work *and* play.


Can I direct you to a podcast about priorities? Well, I'm going to anyway. Back to work is a nominally a podcast about business practice (don't worry, it's not as dull/ pompous as it sounds), but a fair amount of the issues that Merlin Mann addresses are relavent to study, too - especially when he starts banging on about priorities and "what can you not ship?".

Can we talk about not doing, too? This is another step I've taken to address the general horror of medical school. I've started practicing Mindfulness which I hope will be fruitful in future weeks. I picked up a copy of Jon Kabat-Zinn's "Full catastrophe living: using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain, and illness" from the school library and I'm working through it slowly. There's a lot in there and integrating 15mins (and working up to 45mins) of meditation into my daily routine is not easy in terms of finding time. I am learning to be more in the moment and observing what is happening around me without judging it. I am *not* turning into some kind of crunchy beardy type who moves to Vermont and knits their own yoghurt - I am turning into someone who is more in control of their life. There will be more on this as I pursue mindfulness.

I've started a pilates class before school starts, too. Turns out that standing an breathing is waaaaay more complicated than I thought. Just as well I found out now so I can do something about it before the situation gets any worse!

We've transitioned from musculo-skeletal to neuro and psych in modules at school. The former reminded me that I am not a surgeon and after yesterday's primer on neuro-anatomy, I think I can rule out neurology, too. I did enjoy dabbing at coursemates with cotton wool though for the sensory neuro exam, though. Psych is something I have limited experience with, but I look forward to finding out about it and the idea of an assessment that doesn't involve touching someone is novel to me!