Please hold while I try to remember every part of the human body.

 

I sawed her head in half. From the tip top of her skull down to her throat.

No one in our group had any reaction, really. Except that when I got to the tongue my lab partner freaked out that I would destroy it with the hack saw. "Use the scalpel!!"

I spent eight hours studying today and I feel like I need another six.

Drew and I went out with a college friend of his Friday night. She and Drew hadn't seen each other in years. They reconnected through facebook.com. She was in Philadelphia for the night because her boyfriend plays guitar for Sum 41. We took her out for drinks and then she got us into the show (which wasn't our thing but was still fun). Afterwards we got to meet the band and made plans with Drew's friend to get together in a couple weeks.

She lives in NY and is also in med school. I hope we see more of her and her boyfriend. We're starving for some good friends.

I think I just heard thunder outside.

I'll try to be better about blogging this week. We don't have internet here (long story). You have to take your laptop to the far end of the apartment and set it in the windowsill to get a signal.

Sad. Here's a photo I just took of myself. Note the similarities to the photo below.



I'm wearing the same damn shirt and the same sour expression. Things really aren't that bad. I'm just tired.

 

I still haven't seen her face. The facial dissection doesn't start until Thursday, apparently. Tonight my friend told me that she was in the lab this afternoon and the predissectors were cutting off the cadaver's heads. I'm not quite sure what that's all about. We're dissecting parts of the neck right now, and I don't see how you're supposed to get a good look at neck structures if there's no head.

I got up and ran this morning. It was rough getting out there, because it was really chilly and our bed was so warm. And dragging yourself out into the cold at 5:45 always sucks. I studied for ten hours today. I also had two hours of class. It's 10:30 and I just finished (although of course I can never actually finish anything -- there's just too much stuff to ever feel like you're on top of the material). Here's what I look like:



I got so freaked out today because I feel like I fucked myself by not studying more than a couple hours on Sunday. Last week I felt like I knew what was going on every day. Yesterday and today I just felt so lost and I hate that feeling.

I'm doing this entry quickly because I'm sure Drew's annoyed that I've been MIA all evening. I should really go to bed.

 

Drew and I came home from dinner tonight to find that Madeline had eaten a box of Drew's birthday chocolates. We googled, we made phone calls, we finally discovered that she wasn't in danger. She didn't eat nearly enough to cause major damage. Apparently we can't trust her not to jump onto the kitchen table anymore, though.

It's gorgeous here. It was in the 60s all day. Sunny and brisk. I had to wear a sweater. I love that weather. I love it. i haven't had it in so long. The natives assure me I'll get over it pretty quickly, but today was just the best. I was so happy. I wanted to be outside all day.

I didn't get much studying done, though. Only 1-2 hours. It's not nearly enough for a weekend. But it was Drew's birthday. And I have a 92% in that class. And... and... I guess I'm out of excuses. I'll work hard this week. I'll make up for it.

We have to dissect the fact this week. I still don't know how I feel about that.

Drew's calling me. He made tea and we're eating chocolate cake his mother left for us (she was here all week last week). Thankfully Madeline doesn't know how to open a refrigerator.

 

We started out the week dissecting something called the "anal triangle" (I'll spare you the details... I'm sure you get the idea). I thought that was a rough day, but then on Wednesday the other group had to saw through the "urogenital triangle" so we could all get a cross-sectional view of the pelvic organs. They cut through our cadaver's vagina with a saw. And we're all so caught up in trying to learn the anatomy that no one even commented on what was done to this woman's body.

Tomorrow that same group has to unwrap the head. I wonder how they'll feel looking at her face. I don't know that I'm ready to see her yet.

 

New York Times:

"The World Health Organization estimates that 4.8 million people a year with moderate to severe cancer pain receive no appropriate treatment. Nor do another 1.4 million with late-stage AIDS. For other causes of lingering pain — burns, car accidents, gunshots, diabetic nerve damage, sickle-cell disease and so on — it issues no estimates but believes that millions go untreated.

Figures gathered by the International Narcotics Control Board, a United Nations agency, make it clear: citizens of rich nations suffer less. Six countries — the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Britain and Australia — consume 79 percent of the world’s morphine, according to a 2005 estimate. The poor and middle-income countries where 80 percent of the world’s people live consumed only about 6 percent.

[snip]

At pain conferences, doctors from Africa describe patients whose pain is so bad that they have chosen other remedies: hanging themselves or throwing themselves in front of trucks."

 

 

I just got my scores for last week's exams. I did way better than I thought I did, so I'm very, very happy at the moment. I'm also back in the group study room (although not sleeping this time). This exam grade makes me feel like my study habits are good and I should just stick with what I've been doing. I guess that doesn't include blogging on my phone. Back to the spleen.

 

I made it through the day.

I won't lie. Anatomy lab was a disaster. I had read all the material, but I had no clue what was going on. I was supposed to be the reader, but I couldn't find any of the drawings and I kept losing my place in the handout notes. One of my dissecting partners was really pushing to get out early, so she kept asking me to just move on to the next thing. I left feeling like I didn't know what the hell was going on.

So after lunch I went to the group study rooms. I found one that was empty, walked in without turning on the lights, and quietly slipped under one of the desks and napped on the floor for about forty minutes. Then I studied for 2+ hours and covered most of the stuff I hadn't understood in lab.

I'm going to sleep now.

 

Some nights I just can't get to sleep no matter what I do. Last night was one of them. How am I supposed to dissect the stomach on 4 hours of sleep????

Ugh.

 

The test was damn hard. I'm not sure how I did, honestly. All I know for sure is that I didn't have the same post-test experience I had after, say, an organic chemistry exam -- the feelings of vanquishment, relief and elation. I didn't get that yesterday, and I realized about six minutes into the two-hour exam that it wasn't going to go down that way.

I got depressed about it late last night. I started to wonder if maybe I am too old or not quite as smart as I've always assumed myself to be. But then I woke up this morning and felt much better. I think I was just exhausted.

I'm taking the rest of the weekend to recuperate. Today Drew and I went to the Franklin Institute, the library and the art museum. We had a picnic on the Schuylkill. Now we're getting ready to watch The Wire on DVD.