anomalous origin of the coronary arteries

I finally started rotations. I'm in the Emergency Room and so far I have felt like I know absolutely nothing. Yesterday, I diagnosed a patient correctly and my attending replied with "well even a blind squirrel finds an acorn sometimes..." I think that pretty much sums up my experience thus far. I am starting to get the hang of it more and more though. I have learned to clean and dress a wound, suture, do a pelvic and swab for the clap, glue a little kids cut together, do a rectal exam, a rapid strep test, even did compressions during a real life code blue. Last night was the coolest night in the ED thus far for me though. I had a pt with a piece of his fathers day steak stuck in his esophagus which we had to retrieve, a pt with a massive collapsed lung that we had to do a chest tube for, a pt with a severely dislocated elbow that we had to set, and a little kid with a salter II fracture that I diagnosed from the xray (boo-yah). This last tid bit was particularly sweet seeing as the attending who called me a squirrel had incorrectly named it a salter III.... This attending is a rock star though. He really does know everything about everything and I am hoping his relentless teasing means that on some level he thinks I am worthwhile. If only I had known that when a new born is crying and sweaty you have to worry about anomalous coronary arteries...blast.  Here's to 6 more weeks in the ED!

Back from the dead....

Whoa, it has been a looonnggg time. I blame two things, PA school and neuropathy caused by PA school. But, yesterday I took my core comp exam which was a cumulative exam covering everything we had learned this year. Considering that we sat in class like 8-6 everyday and took 91 exams leading up to this one it was pretty daunting to even think about trying to prepare and pass. So in my true PA school fashion, I put it off and did as little as I possible could and prayed things would work out. Luckily, I did pass and now I have successfully survived my first year of PA school. It was the most grueling year of my life and I feel like it is hard for anyone who knows me to really understand how grueling it actually was, except for Nate who was here for every meltdown and fiasco. But somehow I made it. There were many times when I seriously questioned my decision to go to PA school and wished I had chosen medschool instead just because Nate's med program compared to mine was a freakin piece of cake, even he will tell you that. But, in the end I think I am glad that I chose this and hopefully I will be really happy with it once I graduate. Now that I am done with my first year my life already feels so much more balanced and I can't wait for my 2 week trip to puerto rico with my family. Congrats to all my fellow classmates who survived this year. I feel like we went into battle together and though broken and bruised somehow made it out alive!

8 Votes

Primary season kicked off last night with the always interesting Iowa caucus. During this campaign season so far, I had completely written off the chance of Mitt winning the Iowa caucus. You see, last time around Mitt spent a LOT of money and time campaigning in the state, visited all 99 counties, had his sons driving around the state for months in the Mitt bus and the state of Iowa shafted him for Huckabee at the last second. So depressing. So this year I was expecting the same kind of ridiculous shenanigans out of the Hawkeye state. Mitt and his campaign must have agreed, because he opted out of the straw poll and spent very little time and money in the state.

Naturally, I was shocked last week when the poll numbers coming out of Iowa began to change. Gingrich dropped and Mitt moved into a very tight lead with Ron Paul, Santorum, and Gingrich close on his heels. Still, I didn't hope. I have tasted the bitter disappointment that comes with getting your hopes up with these kinds of things and I was trying to have a healthy level of skepticism for self preservations sake.

Caucuses began at about 8:00 last night in Iowa so of course I started tuning in to live results online at about 8:00. They had predicted that a winner would be announced at around 10pm but ten came and went and there was only about half of precincts reporting. All night, hour after hour, Mitt and Santorum were in a dead heat. 30 votes here, 15 votes there...it was painful to say the least. At one point Mitt was leading by 1 vote with 98 percent reporting! So ridiculous!

After Nate and I had spent so many hours watching and waiting for the results, we felt like we couldn't give in and go to bed so we ended up staying up for the long haul. Finally, at 2:30 a.m. it was made official that Mitt had won by a margin of 8 votes. 8 votes! Closest caucus in Iowa history. It really does go to show you that every single vote counts and every vote is important.

I am so happy for Mitt and his family. He looked like a happy little boy in his closing remarks last night and he had a right to be extremely happy. He too had written Iowa off and even though the results were 30,015 to 30,007 a victory is a victory and Mitt came out the winner.

Even though the mainstream media is and will continue to tout Santorum as the victor because of his meager budget and come from behind finish, his performance was no more impressive than Mitt's was. Mitt took a very evangelical state which is no easy feat for a member of the LDS faith.

Aw.....such sweet, sweet vindication. Four years in coming, but still..oh so sweet.

On to New Hampshire!