Callan 的个人资料Shadows and Crystals照片日志列表更多  |  工具 帮助 |
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2月28日 Back On FormAnd life is good again. The one odd thing being that I seem to be almost constantly burning hot, but do not otherwise feel different. I can only think that this is me healthy again, and that this is how I always was a good while ago before the whole long hours and less sleep phase. A wholly non-ironic warm welcome to the thermogenesis version of me =) Hey, at least I'm happy about it all! Today we packed about 800 or so boxes and barrels and crates on to a large lilac lorry, coloured right down to the hubcaps. Never seen anything like it. The company who sent it assured us that it would be big enough for everything, and we assured them it wouldn't. The second lorry arrives tomorrow at ten. Otherwise we are almost done. Only thing left to do soon will be to pack my own stuff, and then in two weeks I'm off. Finally, if Birmingham don't get back to me by tomorrow I am calling UCAS and telling them to intervene, by whatever means necessary (meaning that if the only way to get a response is to remove my application to bham university, so be it). I have deadlines to make before I leave so that is how it has to be. 2月27日 It's not been a good few daysI've been and am ill, which I never am. I've had to call the police out. I feel like crap with a cherry on top. I can't sleep because I have a temperature and I either boil or shiver.
I'd forgotten how much being ill sucks. Thank you to all those who left messages of one type or another, much appreciated.
Night 2月25日 999I hope I never have cause to call out the police again. Something of a state of shock here, combined with being ill. Its interesting how adrenalin counteracts all the illness feeling for a while.
They noticed me notice them, and they ran. Haven't heard from the police yet, I guess I'll find out later what happens next but it'd surprise me if they didn't get away. I can only hope that my presence stopped it from continuing.
Shaken. Results!So many hours of testing later, results! I'll write a brief decription of what the results I have at the moment mean, and what mine were. Any questions, that's what the comments box is for! Quite a few tests are pending results, and some of those are picture form - see XtremeEverest photos =)
First test was bloods, and I tell you it was the most unpleasant blood test I have ever had. Not only did they fail to find any blood the first 3 times they stuck needles in me (two in the right arm, then one in the back of my right hand), but they also (once they moved on to the left arm where they should've started) had to draw 5 bottles, one of which wasn't full enough and needed re-doing. While I did manage to hang on to my conciousness throughout, I did end up lying on the floor at one point in order to do so. Bleh. Never again, till monday, and I'm bloody glad I'm not having a grey cannula tomorrow.
Next up was the best test of the day - CPX. Metabolic efficiency has no results until there is something to compare it to, but the ramp test gives out the anaerobic threshold and VO2 max. The anaerobic threshold (AT) is the point at which you can no longer sustain your work rate indefinately (food permitting). Your VO2 max is the maximum amount of oxygen you can supply, measured in millilitres of oxygen per minute per kg of tissue. Olympic athletes have VO2 maxes of around 65-95, the average person (male) is around 35-45 and the average person (female) is around ten less than the males. I was prettyu proud of my test result, despite the fact that I didn't actually get to my maximum plateau - only to a peak value. I must train such that I can tolerate higher lactate levels for long enough to achieve my VO2 max for 30 seconds or more. As is, my VO2 peak was 60.1ml/min/kg with an anaerobic threshold of ~40ml/min/kg, of which I am rather proud
 .There was also the body composition, which told me that I have only got 7% fat on my person - not exactly brilliant I have to say (on the low end of "very low" for my gender) and what makes it worse is that it is all on my stomach. *shakes fist*
Neuropsych was an interesting one - basically and enhanced IQ test. It involved remembering and defining words, putting pegs into a set of slots with your dominant and non-dominant hands, making patterns out of blocks - all sort of different bits and bobs being bandied about. No result as of yet, and none till I get off the mountain.
The other tests aren't really so interesting (unless you ARE desperate to find out how rapidly my nasal cilliary movement shunts mucus up my nose, or how fast I can breathe in litres per minute, or my pupil reflex time) but if anyone does in fact care I'm happy to go find them out.
The testing is, however, now over - just spent the last two days sitting about for 4 hour periods running the breath analysis on some people doing a meal study - basically finding out how long it takes for a meal to be absorbed using labelled carbon-13 proteins on the breath and in the blood. Frenzied activity, but only for about 30 seconds every 15 minutes. I had some pictures of people sleeping everywhere but unfortunately they got deleted so...
Doubtless boring you all now. All those whom I don't meet on a regular basis, I might well have a gathering before I leave. No other ideas in that direction just yet though.
Going to write manuals now. 2月22日 3 Days of......stool collection, and I don't mean the type you sit on.
Charmed, I'm sure.
Tomorrow is my testing day, where I will undergo all the fun that others have been undergoing over the past two months or so. I'm a bit apprehensive about learning just how unfit I really am, and also about having a camera shoved up my nose, but otherwise I look forward to it. It'll be nice to find out all sorts about my body and how it copes etc. I'll write the results down if I can remember them all, and we shall see.
I might leave out the stool collecton results. That's just a load of crap.
Man, have I not been sleeping well recently or was that just a terrible joke?
Even that line is a private joke, seeing as the first good night's sleep we had in a while was yesterday.
Evidently wasn't enough.
Ok, ok, I'm gone! 2月20日 Decisions Decisions...So I went to the Southampton University Open Day yesterday, wandered about a bit, went to the SGH and admired it, spoke to current med students and was given a talk. All dandy, although it was a little ironic to show us around a building that was due to be demolished before September. Oh, and we got a free pen. Always handy.
And to be honest, it all looked pretty good - no real problems and everything as you'd expect. The course sounds fantastic, and I'm sure I'd be happy there. Hence, today I e-mailed Birmingham and asked them to hurry up on giving me my decision, because frankly I need it, eiher way, as soon as possible so I have time to sort out loans and places and medical forms etc. before I leave on March 17th. It's all gravy.
So I guess what I'm pretty much saying here is that I've made my decision. At least for now - I'm counting on bham rejecting me and not sure what I'll do if they don't...
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I still haven't decided. 2月16日 Back at Home...but it doesn't really feel like home any more. That's not to say that it doesn't feel like home - just that London doesn't not feel like my home either. Very odd feeling.
Anyway, I thought I'd just drop in an update on everything this week that I haven't mentioned already. As you know, we finished trekker testing on Tuesday and went out for a celebratory meal with the team, which was excellent - really good atmosphere. Xtreme Team testing starts on Wednesday of next week, and that'll be a load of fun what with the muscle biopsies and the insanely packed timetable, which you can see a snapshot of in the newly added XE photo folder.
Seeing as the trekkers are all done, I spent the next day packing boxes from 9:00am to 19:20pm. Coincidentally, this was Valentine's day. Fortunately, I'm single, so this didn't present a huge disappointment to anyone; I daresay that the couples at XE (there are two) weren't too happy about it though, and there was definately a tinge of stress in the air.
Today was my ILS (Immediate Life Support) course, and it was really good. It was intermediate, so it covered inserting airways and some of the drugs you administer and when to administer them to a cardiac arrest patient, how to use a defibrillator and what types of ECG rhythm are shockable and which are not. Means I can happily bandy about terms like ventricular tachycardia or larynal mask airway, which is always fun. Oh, and defibrillators really do make that whine as they charge up, but the dummy didn't jolt which was a bit anticlimatic.
Still, it drove home some things, and made me think about some things. I'm now wondering about working on A+E for a goodly while at some point, because for some reason I feel strongly like it is something I could do - I'm not entirely sure why. It also made me think about the desperation in a cardiac arrest situation - the A+E nurse who ran the course was talking about number of shocks to deliver on the defib when she said that the most shocks she'd ever seen was 15, and only because it was a child.
A child? Could you make that call, to stop resuscitation because its hopeless on a child? To be frank, it was hard enough to call it on the dummy let alone on a real person. Within two weeks I've learnt how to take a life and how to give it back, and it gives you a sense of perspective. Truly, it takes a master stoneworker years to make a perfect statue and a fool with a hammer only seconds to destroy it.
While I am on the philosophical side, I saw a phrase the other day: "The most common cause of unhappiness is putting that which we want most after that which we want at the moment." which I thought was very true.
On that note, I want to talk instead of write. So I shall.
Oh yes, I forgot - I am off to Southampton University on Monday to have a look around on the Offers Open Day. I'll see how it goes... 2月12日 The 8th DayTomorrow is the 8th day straight I will have been working in the lab for XE, and also the final day for testing trekkers. 8 trekkers left our of about 204 who we finally got through, what with people dropping out and Kay putting new people in the gaps etc. It's been a bit manic, but the end of the trekkers is in sight. After tomorrow all I have to do is rewrite all of the protocol instructions, write out 3 A1 posters for base camp, help pack the 200-odd trifibre cases we've got scattered upstairs, cutting foam around the shapes of every single item going into them, filling and foaming all the remaining barrels, colour coding them, testing the 54 Xtreme Team subjects including being tested myself, and then pack up all the lab kit and get it sent off to Nepal.
But for now, busy schedule and everything, I'm happy. I'm working, and I'm doing an interesting job meeting interesting people and doing interesting things. We've done almost 200 trekkers in 6 weeks, which is damn impressive considering the amount of stuff we put them through, and we've not had any major hiccups at all. I get to learn a lot about medicine in advance - not only all the stuff I pick up just by listening but also the stuff I'll learn on my ILS course (intermediate life support) and phlebotomy course.
The expedition continues... 2月10日 Tube EtiquetteSeeing as the tube is such a strange environment socially, I thought I'd write a few pointers for anyone not used to it. Following these basic tips, you'll be able to act like every other commuter on the tube.
It'd be nice is people could be people on the tube... LondonAs a child I always hated London; I called it the grey city and hated the oppressive ranks of terraced houses, the endless buildings, the lack of open spaces and the way that you could walk for just a few minutes and get totally lost. The city was dead to me, a languishing place of stern-faced businessmen and uncaring bustle.
Now, living there for a while, older, I still see those negative points - most notably the uncaring attitude of the faceless suits and umbrellas, the impolite cars just searching for an excuse to run you over, my friend from work being held at knifepoint outside a hospital (he managed to get away unscathed). I can also see the positives though, now: the shopping convinience, the lack of need for a car when you can use public transport that is actually available for use, as opposed to at home where buses ran twice a day and you had to walk for a hour to get to the nearest train station. There are people who become familiar, like the cashier at Sainsbury's who I see every morning. Someone on the tube, who went over to a drunk slumped on the floor on the tube and asked if he was ok. London is a lonely place to be, if you don't know it. No place to be alone like a crowd. But every cloud has a silver lining, right? I wonder if it's a cloud with a silver lining, or simply tarnished silverware.
Not entirely sure what prompted that. Just lots of time to muse around here I guess. 2月4日 SleepIs an odd thing. One moment I was just having relaxing while listening to music, the next instant the room was a lot darker in the time it took me to blink. Turns out, however, that blinking took me about four hours, yet it didn't register at all. Strange how there is no sense of passage of time while you sleep...no concept of it, even, outside of a dream concept. Think back to the last time you slept. Think about the instant you fell from being awake to being asleep - I'd be fascinated to know what the change is in the brain at that instant. And what wakes you again? and all that happens in between.
Or I'm tired, and need some sleep =)
Mornin' 2月2日 WaitroseToday, having served my notice, I moonwalked (literally!) out of the door at Waitrose.
The last remanant of that chapter of my life is now closed. Onwards! My life is picking up this tremendous sense of momentum, and I'm loving it  2月1日 Life in London, Roots & Lethal ResponseLife in London on your own is something of a lonely existence. I understand better now why people come home and watch TV for several hours, cook, watch some more TV and then go to bed. Its very difficult to go somewhere unless you have not only a place to go, but people to go with, and obviously if you don't know anyone that becomes tricky. Having said that, if you DO have lots of friends and places to meet and be, it'd be excellent - you could make your life busy with interesting things to do and see. I know that if I lived here I'd be going around doing just about every club I could get my hands on in order to get out and about and avoid endless repeats of Angel and Have I Got News For You, however entertaining. It's a place you have to put effort in, in order to get something out.
On that note, last night I went along to the Jiu-Jitsu class in UCL. It was, amongst other things, rather interesting and was, I suppose, the first step in putting down roots in London. While I didn't exactly make firm friends for life, it is always a beginning. And thats when I realised that putting down any roots here at all is potentially a very bad idea - all I will end up doing is pulling them up and that'll be the end of that. Then I thought - why live my life worrying about what I'm going to lose in the next few weeks - enjoy what I have, clichéd as it may sound. Next week, I will go along to jiu-jitsu, and if I eventualy end up making friends with peoples there then so be it. If they are that good, we'll keep in touch.
Just a few thoughts I had.
Last night I also learnt how to kill someone, should they try and attack me with a knife. I also learnt some non-lethal tecniques. I was best at the one resulting in the death or severe injury of the assailant, and it was the one I found easiest to do. The moral dilemma is, would it have been better for me not to have that knowledge? In the unlikely situation that I am attacked by a knifeperson (to be PC =P) and I had to defend myself, would the fact that I am best at a response which resolves in death cause me to kill someone in my attempt to survive? Would the techniques that I learnt which didn't have the side-effects of murder be feasible for me, if I had only a split second in which to think? If I hadn't been taught it, I couldn't do it for obvious reasons, and so I would rely on the non-lethal techniques only. I guess what I'm asking is should lethal response techniques be taught; then could save someone's life, but also result in someone's death.
Am I expressing myself clearly? Or does that above paragraph make no sense whatsoever? Assuming that someone knows what I'm going on about, what're your thoughts?
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