what do i want to be when i grow up?

Right now, my fellow classmates and I are all feeling a little anxious about what kind of doctor we want to be when we grow up. I am practicing saying "I want to be a gynecologist", but it sounds kind of weird, doesn't it?

A friend found a quick Myers-Briggs type personality test.
Apparently we are both INFJ, a very rare personality type.
I judge, no shock there. According to this, I should be a psychiatrist. I think that I prefer to be a therapist to friends and family, not patients. But we'll see.

Quote of the Day
Patient: Oh, do you have one of those medical conditions in your stomach that makes you look 9 months pregnant all the time?
Nurse: No, I'm just fat.

Brooklyn

Earlier this month, I was lucky to have two weeks off from my rotations. I chose to camp out at Hotel Loder-Jen in Brooklyn. Yes, I may have caught up on many tv shows, but I also explored brooklyn a little bit. On 6th ave in Park Slope, there are lots of little signs for doctor's offices. I told Melissa that I had imagined myself being a doctor in Park Slope and it seemed pretty cool. She replied that she's heard this from me about other places: Minnesota, Portland, Ecuador, England. I guess I just want to be a doctor and that's the cool part.

Park Slope is a great place to live--there are great bars, shops, restaurants and coffee shops. My biggest gripe with park slope is that there are too many mommies with babies. The hipsters have turned into baby making machines and I don't like it. This is why I'd like to live in Cobble Hill. Same stores and restaurants as Park slope, but fewer babies.

I also took a little tour of Red Hook, at a Key Lime Pie, went to Fairway and walked on the pier. Red Hook is cute, but just a nice place to visit.

Coffee, finally

My dear friend Erin found a bookstore that just opened in Harrisburg with a cafe. We went to study the other day and I discovered good coffee with a fancy coffee machine. Mmm, organic coffee and nice thick foam in my cappuccino. It almost rivals Gimme! Erin and I tried different brews of coffee:
Me: Hmm, your blend is more earthy and has a complex aftertaste.
Erin: (confused) Well, I think it has a great pre-taste, and post-taste.

survivor 101

A good friend of mine believes that the world as we know it will soon end, with economic collapse and chaos. Luckily, I have just spent a weekend at a Wilderness Medicine conference and am now prepared to survive the end. An ER doc hosted us at his home for the conference. We all camped out on his 20 acres of property and admired his beautiful log cabin that he and his wife helped to build. (Note: my med school friends did not believe that "city girl Charisse" would be ok with camping, I am very versatile.) I learned how to tie knots, start a fire, treat snake bites, stabilize and carry injured persons, use a compass and what to pack in an emergency medical kit. The most disturbing lecture was about hotel fires and how to get out quickly. The wilderness expert encouraged everyone to bring rope and a harness with them when they stay at hotels, in order to survive a hotel fire. My Muslim friend pointed out that he wouldn't get past airport security with ropes and a harness. I would prefer to pack more pairs of shoes. Overall, it was a really good time and even if the world does not end or I do not find myself in a hotel fire, I feel a little more like a survivor.

dumpling party

My second dumpling party was a wild success! Why? Because I put people to work! The secret is to assemble a "dream team", in this case: Erin, Jay, Alissa and Waseem. We used this recipe http://userealbutter.com/2007/10/04/chinese-dumplings-and-potstickers-recipe/ which is very easy to follow and has stepwise pics. We used beef instead of pork, but otherwise, followed the recipe exactly. Jay said when he was a kid, his job was to roll out the dough, so I will be having children specifically for dumpling making. (erin is not pictured because she was too busy eating)

f/u

My hearing has improved and I can expect a full recovery, yay! Unless I have a crazy autoimmune disease that the tested me for in the 13 vials of blood that they drew! I survived it...barely. The tech gave me some apple juice and crackers when she was done. I am a small child.

Yes, I assisted on a c-section and a vaginal delivery today, but I cannot stand needles going into my body. By the way, labor is way more silent in real life than in movies. I've been to two vaginal deliveries and the mothers were essentially silent. Weird.

say what?

two weeks ago, I woke up and couldn't hear out of my right ear. I thought at first that it was because I was around kids all of the time and they gave me some weird ear infection. A few days later and no improvement with antibiotics, I went to the doctor. He sent me to an audiologist, where I realized that my hearing was pretty severely impaired. She showed me the deficits on a graph and suggested that I go talk to an ear nose and throat doctor. I sighed, disappointed that it wasn't a simple infection, and she told me "We don't know if you are going to get your hearing back, but if you don't get it taken care of now, you may not even have a chance". This was fairly upsetting, and I burst into tears. Who says that?

The ENT said it's likely sudden sensorineural hearing loss, which may be caused by a virus or an autoimmune reaction. She gave me steroids and scheduled me for an MRI to make sure I'm not walking around with a brain tumor. The steroids have made me fairly grumpy and flat, which sucks, but today my hearing is at 90%. My MRI is normal, no acoustic neuromas. In a sick way, I thought it would be cooler to have a brain tumor, but I'm pretty sure that's crazy and we'll blame it on the steroids. I have a hearing test next week and followup appointment. Hopefully by then, I'll be like new.

It's kind of strange how much you rely on your hearing. In the last two weeks, I've been totally disoriented. I have to walk on the right side of people so that I can hear them better when they are talking. I can't tell where noises are coming from. And if too many people are talking at the same time, I get a headache. I really like(d) my hearing, and I'll be really really sad if I lose any part of it permanently.