Hello 2010.

Ha! Remember that time I blogged? Ya, me neither. :)

Well, I made a new year's resolution: to blog 1x/month. Unfortunately, based on the current date, I've already failed. But I am unwilling to completely fail: so here I am trying to make up for January (we're not too far into February, right?). I made this new year's resolution because of a comment from my long lost Pookster, Katie O, who resides in Kenya and rarely gets to catch up with me. I figured that others might also be curious about what I've been up to as well.

Not much has changed, really, since I last blogged in JULY 2009. Wow, that's embarrassing: July. Anyway, not much has changed except my wonderful growing knowledge of PT and life and love and new friends...Yes, I have had time for a few things despite my schedule. However, these aren't always easy to manage. As I write this, I am procrastinating studying more for a midterm tomorrow in Physiology on the kidneys and the GI tract. Exciting as they can be, I'm tired of solute channels and the causes of osmotic diarrhea. Though, speaking of weird bodily functions, please share any with me, as my new favorite thing seems to parsing out diagnoses and illnesses with their respective medication lists. No joke. Really. Try me.

I did have a fantastic January in my program: I was able to participate in my very first clinical rotation at a hospital in San Francisco. Three times per week I spent my afternoons shadowing a PT in the acute care (read: with pretty sick people) and then eventually, I saw some patients under the supervision of the PT. It was cool! And it was exhausting: both mentally and physically AND emotionally. On my first day, I saw an elderly couple (separately, as one was in the ICU) who were in the same car accident. They had both already spent an extended amount of time in the hospital and were recovering from fractured pelvises and legs, diaphragm ruptures, and emergency surgery to save their lives. And now they were basically living in the hospital with no family to speak of. This hit me pretty hard. I had to go in and work with each of them on moving their arms and legs (in PT speak=range of motion, ROM). Both were a little resistant and distrusting of all the people bustling in and out of their rooms. I can understand why, too: bells, alarms, buzzers all go off constantly in the hospital at all hours--especially in the ICU. There is such thing at ICU psychosis, and I definitely can see why. Anywho, I saw each of them several times during my rotation, but they both remain in the hospital as far as I know. Luckily, the nurses and staff were willing to go out on a limb for them, since they had been there so long, and they arranged for them to get together (for one to get rolled down to ICU to see the other). I wasn't there for the reunion, but I think they at least were grateful to see a familiar face.

In the midst of the clinical, I also had class. Now that the rotation is over, I just have class. This is a slight bummer as we average 25-30 hrs/week. I understand that this sounds lovely compared to working full-time, but it's a little hard when those are just hours spent listening, not necessarily synthesizing information. However, I have definitely been able to have some information start sinking into my brain--and it feels so amazing.

This is turning into a longer break from studying than I was anticipating, but I think it was worth it.