motivational beer, beyonce, and tulips.

The amount of effort that medical school asks from you is draining.  Not that I'm complaining about the drain - just stating the obvious.

And the effort requires a lot of motivation --- motivation, that, before I thought was simply, "I want to save lives one day."

But when you're studying your testis off, and then you have a clinic to go to even though you know you should be studying, and then there's this whole making time to do crazy things like eat or less: sleep, the saving lives motivation isn't enough alone.  You get creative - desperate - to find other sources of motivation to put on your earphones and listen to that 24th hour of lecture.

On St. Patty's day, my motivation was green beer.  If I crossed everything off my to-do list, I could go to Applebee's with my classmates and drink a jungle green brewsky.  And so 80 bazillion note cards written later, I finished my to do list.  The (green) Blue Moon never tasted better.

Sometimes my motivation is of, um, a little less substance.  Like, I'll tell myself that if I can get through 30 minutes of the.most.boring.lecture.EVER, I can go get a soda from the cafeteria --- wearing my earphones ---listening to Beyonce. She really is motivational.

And then, last night, I was running low on any creativity.  I mean, we have a practical Friday, Exam 5 Monday, and then our most-dreaded NBME final that next Friday. And I was exhausted from preparing.  Washed forty times, rung out 50 more, and hung out on a clothesline in the middle of a West Texan dirt storm to dry.  But, I started my trek to the library anyhow.  On the way, I noticed these tulips growing in the beds right by the libe.

Healthy, thick green leaved, hot orange and sun red tulips. They'd burn your fingers off if you tried to touch 'em.  And I don't even like flowers..... but I liked these.  One of them, my without-even-having-to-think chosen favorite, was half orange, half yellow.  Just effing beautiful.  And then I noticed all the buds... still waiting for their time to shine.  I found my motivation for tomorrow: maybe another halfsie will bloom.... I'll never know unless I come back in the morning.  So I did.

What I found was not so pleasant.  The yard workers were pulling all of my newly adopted babies out of the earth.  Tossing them in the trashcan.  Tossing away my motivation.

I asked them what they were doing. Surely, just a relocation - standard procedure. 

Nope.  Throwing them away because a man in a suit told them so --- I guess these sun tulips weren't good enough.  Needed something prettier, better. And, to add to the pain, halfsie was gone.  She'd already been disposed of.  Without even thinking I said,

"WAIT! The half orange half yellow was my favorite!"

Maybe I was a little too upset about it all.

But, before I knew it, the yard guy sifted through his treasure trashcan and found my halfsie, and gave it to me.  I don't have the energy to go find someone to protest this to, and making the yard guys feel bad for doing their job isn't an alternative either.  So I said thank you, took my hybrid tulips and another into my hands, and walked up the stairs of the library.  So now, despite how sad I am that they killed all the darlings, I at least have something nice to look at while I study today:

an overdue update.

I haven't posted in a long while. A decent excuse would take all day. To be short and sweet: medical school has cut out a large portion of my blog writing time.

But today, I've decided that histology could wait a damn minute while I post an update.  And just a forewarning: this is going to be scatter brained. It's hard to sum up three months in a couple paragraphs.

First: I passed anatomy. Grateful for the experience, but I never want to live it again.  The gut wrenching (literally), life-taker-over, study-unspeakable-body-parts-'til 4 AM class is over. All I can say is: Thank. God.

Now I'm in my 3rd unit of Biology of Cells & Tissues, and I've enjoyed it thus far. I like biology.  Just do.  I like being able to read a piece of text and regurgitate a good portion of it back to you. I like reading what I've read before (many thanks to undergrad professors). I like slices of guiltless free time, and BCT has allowed me that time... I've watched movies, read a book for leisure, spent quality family time, shadowed a couple physicians, and I've thrown back a couple beers with classmates. It's been nice.

Medical school, after figuring out how to play the game a little better, has done pretty wonderful things for my sanity. Opposite to what you'd expect, I know. I'll back this up with a short anecdote:

Today I went for a check-up (nothing major) at our family medicine clinic, and one of the first questions she asked was if I was a med student. A very clinically relevant question. After that, several of the questions asked were along the lines of:

How much stress would you say you're under?

Do you ever get weepy?

Do you have body aches?

Now I won't pretend to be a physician, but these were all questions that, for the most part, if answered 'yes,' or 'a lot,' point to depression.  Questions that are completely understandable, and she was right for asking.  For God's sake, the day before we started med school, a psychiatrist spoke to our class. And by spoke, I mean he gave us the number for a suicide hotline and told us that we have five free therapy sessions available whenever we need them. So yeah, the physician asked  me relevant questions.

But the truth is this: I'm happier now than I've ever been before. A steady happy.  I'm at peace - a state of peace that I didn't really ever find in undergrad. For once, when my life gets rocky, I can pinpoint what's causing it, and I can fix it.  If I'm cranky, I take a nap. If I'm worried about grades, I study out the anxiety. I'm not depressed, and for the first time in a good while, I honestly couldn't answer 'yes' to any one of those questions. 

Medical school has given me security ...a routine. I have just enough free time to keep me sane, but not enough to drive me crazy.  And even more importantly, I've been forcibly taught to genuinely appreciate whatever bit of free time I get. To genuinely appreciate a shopping trip with an old friend... going to the movies with classmates... a good laugh... a weekend with my family.... an opportunity to write a blog post.

consolation for a fool

Note: I wrote this post in the first 2 weeks of medical school, and my outlook has much changed since.  I actually (and surprisingly) enjoy it very much now -- now that I've figured out how to balance my time more wisely, and study more efficiently.  I wasn't going to post this - because I didn't want to give the impression that I still felt this way. After speaking about it over dinner with a dear friend - a dear friend who reads my blog - last night however, I've become convinced that I could post it without leaving that impression. So here it goes:

I'm worse than a New Year's resolution.  Really though.

A couple posts ago (or, should I say, a couple 1,000 pages of medical texts ago), I wrote about how my primary goal would be to stay happy in medical school.  As long as I was passing, I was fine.  No need to gun through this.  No need to lose hours of sleep in order to crawl my way up in the class rankings.

Well, breaking news:  turns out, in medical school, people lose hours of sleep just trying to keep up.  Screw skipping naps to blow the curve..... skip the nap to skim by.  I shit you not.

I've lost a lot of sleep.  I've cried 2 and a half (or maybe more?) times.  I've questioned myself.  So yeah, that New Year's resolution about staying happy? Like any good American, broke it 6 days in.

Somewhere between the 40 pound backpack, pouring vinegar and baking soda into my washing machine (along side fabric softener and normal detergent) to rid the formaldehyde stink from my scrubs, the forgetting of how to draw the brachial plexus, trying to find an empty spot in my datebook so I could go get toilet paper, and the double shots of espresso; I cried.  And I cried really fucking hard.

The worst part about the tears? I couldn't figure out what was causing them.  Sure, you know, it's depressing when you suddenly don't have time to go get toilet paper from the store.  And it's a weird feeling to spend your time studying about how precious and fragile our backs are, all the while your own damn backpack weighs well over the healthy limit. It's rough --- but I've been in similar (though less extreme) predicaments before, and I've dealt with it relatively better than this.  So, as per usual, I called my dad -- my own personal Atticus Finch.

At first, I was hesitant to let him know that anything was wrong.  I don't know if I've said this before, but I'm a grown ass woman.  As our conversation dwindled down, however, the act became a little harder to follow through with than anticipated.  He tried to say good night to me, and my eyes started filling up with pools of real tears and a giant egg grew in my throat.  The type of egg that hatches into sobs the minute you try to speak.  So I tried to whisper something like, "I miss you." And then yeah, my act was caput. 

I spilled everything to him.  The backpack, the toilet paper, the feelings of intellectual inadequacy, the lack of sleep, the everything.

He asked what upset me the most, and I told him that above everything else, I felt alone.  Alone in that I felt like everyone else in my class was so much smarter than me. Everyone but me had time. Everyone else was on top of their game, and I felt like I was two weeks behind for the first practice.... I told him that maybe -- just maybe, if I knew that someone else felt the way I did -- like maybe that they were struggling too, I'd feel better. I wouldn't feel so alone.

He sat quietly on the other line for a while, and then spoke up....

"Mal de muchos, consuelo de tontos (pendejos)"

My mom will kill me for saying this, but I don't speak spanish too well.  I've got my curse words down, but everything else is a little ....unrefined. So naturally, all I picked up from what he said was 'pendejo.'

"Dad..." (doing the laugh sob laugh thing), "did you really just call me a pendejo?"  

Turns out he didn't.  Or kind of didn't. His advice came from a spanish proverb --- but his meaning varies a bit from what Google has to say about it.

It means that the misery of many is a fool's best consolation. 

This is where the "kind of didn't call me a pendejo" comes in.  Yes, I'm the fool in the proverb, but no, he didn't mean that I was a fool.  He meant that - in some circumstances in life (particularly the ones in which you're doing all you can in order to not need consolation), the only thing you can do is to look to others.  All I could do to feel better was to talk to my classmates - who were busting their asses as much as I am - and learn that they too, were miserable.

I didn't take his advice lightly. 

SO... on Monday morning whenever a classmate asked how I was doing, I answered truthfully.  Something like, "shitty. I studied all weekend, and I still feel like I'm 2 weeks behind."

The response I received was just how my father said it would be.... consoling.  It turned out that my classmates (or most of them at least) felt the same way.  I wasn't alone.

 I was one fool studying medicine with a bunch of other fools. Fools whose backpacks were too heavy, who were forgetting the brachial plexus, who were desperately experimenting with how to get eau de formaldehyde out of their scrubs.... Fools who had trouble finding time to buy toilet paper too.

a brief message on staying busy.

I like being occupied... and pre-occupied.  Call me hard to please, but I can't stand being left alone to my own thoughts or own little creative activities. Not for too long. I need something more. I like having a full schedule that occupies my time, and then some.

Medical school has filled that schedule --- fulfilled that need.

Sure, I've gotten a little sad at times. Cried a couple times (the post about this will come later).  Thought for a couple of hours that I was giving up my 20s for good, and more days than not, I probably wouldn't get to see the afternoon sun.  Thought I'd be stuck in a lab.. or a hospital.. or a library... and when I'd finally get to go outside before nightfall, I'd have grey hair and I'd still be single, but I'd have an MD to my name. And really, those things might actually be true..

But I've begun to accept it all, and I've come out of it for the better.  I learned something.  

I appreciate the sun more when I don't always get to see her.

I appreciate my free time more when it doesn't come around too often.

When there's a reason to laugh now, I cock my head back and take full advantage.  And when I have time to listen to music, I belt out the words along with it.  I appreciate those opportunities... Sure, before I appreciated them, but not as much.  

There's a reason why it's called gross.

Before I say anything, I want to make it clear that under no circumstance whatsoever will I disclaim any information about the sex of, details of, or anything along those lines about the cadaver.  I am very appreciative to the men and women who have donated their bodies so that we may become well-educated in what is the foundation of our medical careers, and I whole-heartedly respect anyone who plans to do the same one day. This post is simply about my reaction to my lab experience, and nothing further.

I wondered if I'd faint today.  After all, my track record isn't the best.  I've gotten overheated, dizzy, woozy, vision-going-into-a-pin-point, elephant-sitting-on-your-chest over less climactic events.  I surprised myself today though.  We completed step #1 (turning over the cadaver), I walked away, gagged four times, started getting teary-eyed (partially because of the gagging, mostly because I wanted to cry), and then walked back to my lab partners.  All four of them looked pretty concerned.  One of them offered me a bucket, and another promised that he'd catch me if I fainted.  I decided then and there that there wouldn't be any fainting... Momma didn't raise a pansy ass.

The importance (for me anyway) in being an -ISH.

This weekend, my big sister warned me that I was about to enter the land of Type A personalities. A secret that, as a Type A-***ISH*** personality myself, I had already figured out.

I'd really like to think of myself as a mixture between the two of them.

There's the A in me that stresses over grades, forgets to sleep or eat if my study time forgets to allow me, and will kill you if you touch a highlighter to my notes.  I don't like talkers in no-talking zones at the library, and I've been known to do something about it.  I'll delete my facebook if there's an exam in the near future. I stress. I work hard.  But.... there's a but to this:

There are some things --- some stressors, that I could genuinely give a rat's ass about.  Like, for example, when my class argued (for what seemed like a kajillion hours) about whether to use "I" or "we" for our class oath we had to recite yesterday.  The oath is important -- and I get that, but I'm not going to get heated over a pronoun. Or, when Jimmy (the gunner I wrote about in my last post) politely asked if we could make the oath more "succinct and concise," and another of my classmates straight up yelled at him for "not taking it seriously enough," I couldn't help but laugh.  But those are just two examples---- two of many more that I could choose from.

The B in me enjoys relaxing on my back porch with buddies, a good beer, and barbeque. The B in me laughs it off when Type A's take themselves too seriously. The B in me doesn't give a shit about pronouns unless we're sitting in an English class.  It's the B in me that shaped my recently found approach to handling medical school: get shit done, but more importantly: stay happy.

I don't want to be depressed.  I don't care if I'm not #1 in my class...... or #30...... or if I'm #100. As long as I'm passing, I'll be a happy girl.  And if I do get higher grades than passing, well then bravo for me. I know that stress will be inevitable, but I'd like to keep the stress related to studying ---- and nothing else.  Which means no stressing about grades because they are no better than passing and no stressing over pro-nouns... I don't want to cross over to the wholly type A side.... I'm happy at the ISH side with Jimmy where we belong.

stress relief for the stressers

One of my favorite peers (and everyone's favorite gunner*), Jimmy, asked me about my garden a couple months ago.  The conversation went something like this:

"So is your garden supposed to serve as a stress reliever for while you're in medical school?"

"Yes, what's yours going to be?"

"....beer."

He's that type of guy.  I appreciate his honesty --- and the fact that he can blow curves out of the water but is still willing to enjoy adult beverages with you on the weekends.  But back to the point.