Many reasons.
This is not specifically true – there are things I could have written about.
This is partially true. I did spend a couple of days on this. I am currently stumped for certain layout ideas.
Hold the laughter please! I have done some. But it’s not going as fast as I would like. (ie it’s not going to be finished by the end of November)
PUHHHHLEASE! That idea is more preposterous than any other that I can think of!
Now that’s more like a reason to not be writing. Believe me it took an inordinate amount of energy for me to haul my frame of the bed it’s been moping on for a large part of the last few days to be able to actually sit in front of my laptop and think of the words that it takes to write such an entry as this.
Now I realise that it is not going to get me anywhere moping on my bed and lurking around my accomodation with the blinds pulled and nothing but my internet connection and the TV to keep me from going stark raving mad….but fuck it feels good to sleep and sleep and sleep and get up when I want to not when I have to.
Things all went pear-shaped about last Monday. I think it was about then, or may it was the Friday before that Monday when I realised that frankly, I didn’t give a damn any more about this island I am on and the clinic, and the lack of responsibility that some people take for their own health.
I am getting disastrously low on Merlo coffee. I have two weeks left on this gulag. How am I going to cope? I need my coffee. It’s my lifeline! It’s too late to order any over the internet… I might have to resort to tea. I sure as hell ain’t going to resort to International Dust or Nescafe Bland 43.
It still hasn’t rained in any great quantity. So it’s as humid as all buggery. Unpleasant. Horribubble. (Thank goodness for three airconditioners in my humble dwelling to keep me from dessicating).
So in 11 more days I will be back to civilisation. I can’t wait!!!!! I am longing to be able to pop down to a coffeeshop and sip on a hot mocha and chat to a friend or two. I can’t wait to go rollerblading along the river and suck in the smells of the Jacaranda flowers as they drop to the ground (making the bike-path slippery as anything and making for an interesting rollerblade, but pleasant none-the-less). It will be nice to know that I can go down to any choice of shops on any given day of the week and have, at my disposal, a whole gamut of fresh produce that isn’t going to cost me my first-born child to be able to have.
Actually while we’re on the cost of things…. a thought occurred to me the other day:
In spite of me living out here in the middle of nowhere for these six weeks that I am, and in spite of things costing an arm and a leg AND a torso…. I am actually spending less than I would be back home.
Thinking about this a bit more…. I realised…. out here there is no coffeeshops and VERY limited places to eat out (namedly the ARC and the Golf-Club). Consequently, I don’t go out twice a day for a mocha and some baklava (or insert favourite snack here). I don’t go out 3 or 4 times a week for dinner. I don’t have a hospital cafeteria to purchase lunch from. I DO have to make my breakfast, lunch and dinner at home. Consequently I think I have effectively halved my catering expenses even though I am buying groceries at a highly inflated price. It’s a sobering thought. I think as a result of this time out here, I have a new found appreciation for why I am perpetually short of cash.
Sure, in the back of my mind I think I was aware that eating out is more expensive than eating at home….but I don’t think it ever really struck home just how much I must spend.
So if there is one good thing to come from this time out here in the sticks, it’s that I can save a shiteload if only I am organised enough to cater for myself at home!!
So anyway…enough of that “positive spin on things” shite…..where was I? Oh yeah, being amotivational. Woe is me and all that jazz.
I didn’t even manage to make it to the clinic on two of the days last week. Which is a real shame… because I would have benefitted from such days – they happened to have a paediatrician on one and an opthalmologist on the other. And I am the first to admit I know very little about paediatrics and only marginally more about opthalmology.
True to my self-destructive nature I missed both these days.
But, I can see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.
I can see now why they say one should be on the lookout for a sudden upwards change in mood in a clinically depressed person….it can often mean that they are suicidal – that they can see an end to their pain, and all of a sudden, things seem so much easier to cope with – because you know the end is near. (No, I am not suicidal in case anyone was planning on writing out an involuntary assessment order).
I just hope that the light at the end of the tunnel is not an oncoming train!
]]>Twas an eye opening experience. The clouds scudded over….it started to rain as we drove through ‘The Jungle’ towards the coast at the south end of the island. We made it to the beach and went off in search of mud-crabs. So in the tropical shower (covered in sunscreen) I followed Mark around the holes on the mud flats. We managed to get two crabs ….pretty pathetic haul apparently. It was basically a case of using a three pronged spear to skewer these mud crabs hiding in their holes. I was honoured to carry the bucket around.
So we tramped through mangroves and sand flats and rocks (and kept an eye out for crocodiles which apparently frequented the mouth of the Emerald River where we were). Still..only two crabs. Such is life.
So back in town, we cooked (well I watched) the crabs and devoured them and then devoured us each a six pack of beer and chatted.
So a good day was to be had. And I have a new found appreciation for crab-meat. Yummeh. Very yummeh. Boiled in seawater. No sauces, no spices.
So here I sit…drunk as a skunk… and very satiated on crab-meat and beer.
What a day.
]]>I don’t know why.
I woke up.
From then on it was fucked.
First… I had no homemade bread. Which meant I was forced to endure bought stuff. Yuck!
It was hot at even 8am today.
Tucking fypical that the clinic air-conditioners should choose today NOT to work.
The clinic was rather lacking in patients today. Normally this would be a good thing. But because I was sleep deprived it made it difficult for me to keep my eyes open and difficult for me to look interested.
A small blip of relief on the bleak day was the arrival of the Merlo coffee I had had the foresight to order for the clinic a week or so ago. Thank goodness for e-commerce. Consequently I think I have OD’d on coffee…..because everyone kept making coffee so they could all try it out (beats the crap out of the vacuum packed shite the eylandt shop sells).
When four pm managed to slide in at an inexorably slow pace, I had to walk through the searing heat with two heavy bags of groceries.
What is with this pathetically crystal clear blue sky and pristine weather? It’s supposed to be the WET season. About the only thing WET about the weather at this point in time is the complete lack of scudding great storm clouds and monsoonal deluges. We (yes that would be the royal-multiple-personality-disorder we) are not amused.
Okay rant over now. I should snap out of it. Better out than in I guess.
]]>So it was not until 1500 hours this afternoon that I decided to awake from my slumber. And it was sooooo nice. In my own time I brewed myself a cup of Merlo Forza coffee and in my own time I enjoyed it. And it was good. Oh yes, it was good.
It has been a relaxing ‘me-day’ today. I have not felt compelled to be anywhere for anyone except myself. I think that as a result, my BP has dropped several millimetres of mercury.
There was a blip this evening however, when Mum tells me that Centrelink wants ‘more information’ fucking bastards. I am in the middle of fucking nowhere and they want me to provide ‘more information’. Balance was returned to my universe however when I discovered that the ATO had come through – but a week after my return was returned. So it’s ‘all good’.
So where does the potato and the birthday candles fit into all this? Well that would be this evening when the power decided to go off…. I was in the middle of downloading my latest audiobook for my iPod from Audible.com and the power decided to go. Great. On battery power on my laptop….please oh please let the power come back on before I lose battery power – I don’t want to have to download the whole thing again.
So in pitch blackness on an island in the middle of nowhere. I’m in a strange unit. No thought had been given to me that perhaps the generators on the island might be somewhat unreliable!
So with the aid of the glow of my mobile…. I managed to locate in the myriad of kitchen cupboards, a packet of birthday candles. Fiat Lux – let there be light. I was able to get around by the light of two birthday candles wedged into a washed potato. Each lasted 15 minutes….so by my reckoning, I would have 6 hours worth of light should I need it.
As fortune would have it, the generators managed to be restarted and I was once again awash with light. And my download was saved.
And the balance of the universe is maintained.
]]>A basket of groceries cost me 97 dollars yesterday. That is… a carry basket.
So it’s an expensive little time here on Groote.
And muggy.
Thank goodness for airconditioning. The two bedroom unit I am staying in has three air conditioners. The clinic is airconditioned.
Will be an interesting six weeks.
]]>Here I am in Darwin.
Muggy as all buggery. It honestly feels like what I guess it must feel like if you were to swim in a pool of warm urine.
Having said that I can only speculate as to what it would be like to marinate in urine (be that mine or someone elses). I have certainly not had the misfortune of ever having experienced it for real
Ahh well. Six weeks of that ‘Warm Urine Feeling’ – hereby referred to as WUF.
Flight up was uneventful. Mikko drove me to the airport…via Merlo. I decided that if I was going to rough it in the never-never I would at least take with me a few creature comforts. Thus I have my stove top espresso maker and 400g of Forza Merlo – freshly ground.
I hope I am not expected to actually achieve any study whilst up here….I wasn’t actually able to bring any textbooks. When I weighed my pack this morning it was 15kg over the 13kg limit. Which means I am up for a nasty hefty excess baggage charge. That being said, I would choose espresso over textbooks any day.
As an exercise in keeping the boredem demons at bay while wallowing up here, I have decided to attempt a bit of a video/docudiary thingy. Basically I think my plan is to video a clip a day, cut it together on my laptop (that in itself should take millions of hours given how slow the laptop goes), and post it in my online album. Given that I can link files from my album to this ‘ere blog thingy, I hope to be able to have a clip of some interest to document my time up in the top end.
Believe it when you see it though. I am sure that even the best laid plans go astray – particularly when they are that of a professional procrastinator….me being one who should probably achieve a lifetime achievement award for procrastination.
Okay. Nuff said. Stay tuned.
Oh yeah. One other thing….feel free to comment away with each post. Would love to hear what the invisible masses* have to say.
]]>* …okay okay….invisible masses might perhaps be a little grandiose…my awstats script of site visits shows a currently limited audience…but it’s growing.
Not as interesting as you might think. I was not having a bad morning, I was not laughing following my bad morning and I did not consume any alcohol this afternoon. Sorry to disappoint.
What I did today was defibrillation and advanced life support this morning, suturing a little later on and had a plastering class this afternoon where I had a short leg and short arm cast put on me, and I did the same to someone else.
Quite an interesting day all up. I felt TOTALLY clichèd having to say things like:
“Charging to 200 joules…. clear!” or “He’s in v-tach, he’s got a shockable rhythm” I felt like I was a farce – pretending to be on a show like Scrubs or ER.
Even though I think I can work the funky machine that goes ‘bing’* I still think that I will be shitting myself when it comes time for me to shock a real person (thank goodness for the ‘Analyze’ mode).
Suturing was reasonable. I actually learnt to do more than simple interupted stitches this time (which I have known for a while). I learnt how to do vertical matress stitching today. Pretty funky.
I was happy with my plastering effort. The theory seemed to click in my mind. Perhaps it appealed to my artistic side as well as my analytical side. There were some real doozies from some people. I could move my leg around in the plaster that was put around me.
Perhaps I might be of some use as a medico one day.
]]>* for the technically minded the machine that goes ‘bing’ in question is the LifePak 12 from MedTronic.
Fabric softener (bless it’s [soft] cotton socks) appears to work its softening magic on far more than fabrics….pig skin in fact.
Soaking pig’s trotters in fabric softener overnight not only provides the trotter with an apple-fresh fragrance but it also renders the skin to a similar consistency as that of human skin.
Starting to sound too bizzare to handle? Okay it’s nothing tooo barbaric or sick or twisted and does not have any Silence of the Lambs connotations. Softened pig’s trotters are a useful training aid for learning procedures such as injections and suturing.
Which brings me to today. Rural Rotation Orientation.
For some reason I was awake ALL last night. I drove up the hill around 10pm and arrived up here to a pile of mail. Thinking after working all day I would sleep….not a chance. Awake all bloody night….doing not much. Made it to daylight and attended day 1 of the rural rotation orientation program.
Ten minutes in and I could tell this was going to be a longgggggg day. I resorted to writing letters to people in exotic places (okay well just one person….Juanita, in Norway). Even that didn’t manage to ease the boredem of a powerpoint presentation that consisted mainly of Chart Junk. Slide after fecking slide of data that showed that health in rural areas is shit and we should do something about it. Tell me something new.
About the most interesting (and useless) fact that I learnt from the whole bloody morning was that around 60% of the world’s supply of atropine/hysoscine etc comes from dubosia plantations in the North-Burnett region of Queensland.
This afternoon was no more interesting. First cab off the rank was jabbing pig’s trotters (I got bored and attempted to transform the cornucopia* (that’s such a funky word) of hypodermic implements and the trotter into an installation of art).
To arouse our flaccid enthusiasm, the next activity involved sticking catheters into fake penises and vaginas**.
Comparing this experience to the real thing….they’re nothing alike. Gripping latex penises (which seem to be perpetually stiff) are not nearly as hard as trying to grasp an iodine coated wrinkly floppy schlong and hold it pointing towards the ceiling, squirting lignocaine/chlorhexidine gel into it and then attempting to slide a catheter down without the slimy slippery little sucker (c.f. Julia Roberts and the Pretty Woman oyster scene) getting away from you. Of course we should not forget to mention the poor patient who is probably feeling less than inspired at having a novice med student fiddling with his bits.
Continuing in the contrived and unrealistic vein of the afternoon, we then spent two hours of cannulation and venepuncture (lordy the puns are flowing thick and fast today). Again it’s nothing like the real thing. Trying to cannulate latex veins which sit firmly under latex skin and are filled with red coloured fake blood is nothing like trying to coax a cannula into a rubbery, sclerosed, less than jovial vein of a real-life human being. Latex arms don’t yelp and squirm. Latex arms don’t get whopping big haematomas when you manage to blow a vein. They should have let us practise on each other. A nice iatrogenic systemic septicaemia would have spiced up the afternoon.
I should stop being so cynical about my medical training.
We have four more days of orientation.
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*Cornucopia fig. An overflowing stock or store.
]]>** Note: (for correctness) it is the urethrae of both males and females that is being catherised. catheterisation of the ‘vagina’ is not strictly correct. For details, refer to HERE