Really?

There's a girl from my home town who's not a lot older than me (I am quite young, thanks) who is pregnant and engaged to the baby daddy. No big deal, there are at least 10-15 other girls that I went through elementary and middle school with that seem to have done the same. If your child is the ringbearer at your wedding, I'm not gonna judge you.

But the thing with this couple is this isn't their first kid. Or their second. This is baby number three and the oldest is 4 or 5, I think. They've been engaged for a while.

I've seen this a couple times on rotations too. Happens with the hood rats and the white trash girls (my peeps). Here's my question: what's the point? I mean...we all know you guys would've gotten married around baby #2 if this was gonna happen. Stop foolin' yourself.

Photographic Evidence

So here's an example of a typical patient encounter nowadays in what I fondly refer to as "Coochie Clinic"

Me: "So what's brought you in to see us?"
Miss Photogenic: "Well I got this heat rash"

She immediately pulls down the 'dress' that is roughly the size of something that I, at 115 pounds less, would wear as a tank top. I get an eye full of cleavage and it takes about three seconds to identify the ringworm.

Me, with full poker face: "Ah, OK, and have you had any other skin problems?"
Miss Photogenic: "Yeah, I had this spider bite about a month ago, here, I gotta picture!"

As I'm thinking to myself, "Oh shit, I know what spider bite is code for," she grabs her smartphone, clicks around, and then shoves it under my nose. Sure enough, there is a picture of her very large breast lifted up by a hand and a huge ass Staph abscess underneath.

Really, people?

Brain Surgery? Easy. Prepositions? Impossible!

I had a patient last week with a skull fracture. I was reading through his chart during pre-rounds when I noticed something odd on the Neurosurgery note.  I would've taken a picture, but I'm just a timid med student and don't want to get yelled at [more]:

"Reason for operation: Surgery for fix skull"

I shit you not. I expected that from ortho, but neurosugery?

Terrible Two's?

Whoever thinks two is the hardest age has clearly never tried to bear wrestle an equally contrary but far more strong three-year-old down in order to look in their ears.

Finito

So I survived Step 1 (well, I've made it like 12 hours since it ended, so my chances are looking good).

It proved what I already suspected: the extent of my medical knowledge is only eclipsed by...the extent of things I don't know about medicine.

That's my way of saying I don't know jack shit.

Anyway, it's over and I probably did OK. I mean, I feel like I failed massively, but I think that's normal. I felt that way during all my practice questions sets and I was really doing OK. I find out in about a month, and I think until then I will just repress all thoughts of the exam (oh, excuse me Step 1, I mean suppress).

Now on to clerkships. I start with Pediatrics, which is a terrifying thing because:
1) Kids are petri dishes- my stomach just cramped thinking about the fun viruses I am likely to pick up
2) I'm afraid I will accidentally break the little ones, somehow
3) Screaming baby otoscopic exams

Should be an experience. In the meantime I'm taking a vacation to Asia! Yeah, bitches. And I'm not going to think about medicine at all!

Step 1 Made Me Racist

Studying for Step 1 has made me a buzzword-recognizing machine. My brain is like a little medical landmine - one of those crappy, homemade ones - that gets tripped every time I hear something that sounds remotely like a buzzword.

"Blah blah blah roses," old lady at a table near me says, and suddenly my mind is full of Homer-Wright pseudorosettes, medulloblastoma, and neuroblastoma (oh my!). Some dude in the other window chair says, "Yada yada writing," and things like HLA-B27 and "can't see, can't pee, can't climb a tree" bounce around in my head.

Buzzwords aside, Step 1 studying has also made me TOTALLY racist (and ageist and sexist).

Every black person has either sickle cell or HIV. If you're a black woman, you definitely have sarcoidosis (in fact, as far as I can tell, the only reason to EVER do a CXR on a black woman is to see bilateral hilar lymphadenopathy).

If you're a young whitish female and you fell down? You have MS.
Teenage female with a bad attitude? Acute intermitten porphyria.
The right side of your heart is mentioned at all? IV drug user.
Mediterranean anything? G6PD deficiency. (And lay off those fava beans.)
White kid with a respiratory infection? CF, bitches.
Acting an aggressive fool, even if you're an old dude? PCP.

And I assure you, there is a pretty good chance that it is lupus.

The Brain

...cannot be explained by anything but magic. And not in a nice way, as in, "Wow, it sure is magical how awesome our brains are!"

I'm not going to be a neurologist, guys. I think I'll get a Harry Potter-esque wand for my neuro clerkship next year. Here is how this goes down in my head:

Attending: "Sassy, what causes Wallenberg syndrome and what is the clinical presentation?"
Me, waving wand vigorously: "Magic!"

Attending: "Sassy, what does this patient's CT scan suggest?"
Me, brandishing wand at image: "Magic!"

Attending: "Sassy, how in the hell did you get into this school?"
Me, flourishing wand: "Dark magic!"

Resident: "Med student, get me a cup of coffee!"
Me, stirring in creamer and sugar with wand: "MAGIC!"

They will love me. You have to admit the wand would be useful in the last situation.

Life Sucks, But My Roses Are Bloomin'

I have nothing funny to say at this point. I hate Boards. Studying (and life issues) have more or less turned me into Eeyore, but with a fouler mouth and better access to stimulants and depressants.

This is my schedule:
-Wake up late in the early afternoon
-Shower and "dress" (AKA put on the same scrubs as yesterday, with different underwear)
-Go to a coffeehouse
-Drink a Big-Mother-Effing™ iced latte...or three
-Study in somehow the most inefficient way possible until 8pm
-Go home and fail at studying some more
-Stay up 'til 6 or 7 am so that I will be too exhausted to lay awake worrying and/or being depressed
-Crawl into bed and, invariably, wind up still worrying and/or being depressed
-Pop a trazodone or zolpidem and either fall asleep (with the former) or hallucinate for a while, then fall asleep (with the latter)
-Wake up, lather, rinse, repeat

My mental state is a scary thing to examine right now. I think (hope?) I will probably look back on myself in a few years and go, "Wow, Sassy, that really wasn't that important, you were being such a whiny little drama queen!" But as of right now, I have had Step 1 sold to me as *THE MOST IMPORTANT TEST OF YOUR ENTIRE LIFE AND YOUR ENTIRE FUTURE DEPENDS ONLY ON THIS ZOMG* by classmates, teachers, my school's administration, peers on the intranetz, etc. I tried to resist for a while, but I've now been totally sucked in. Oh well, as a recently-graduated friend told me, "Do what you gotta do. Here's a bunch of Ambien. Please don't OD on them. We'll deal with any addictions or health problems when this is over."

On a less "woe is me" note, I took up gardening (I use this term lightly, as I still don't really understand how to not kill most plants) this year. One of the plants I shoved into the ground was a raggedy little stub of a baby rose that I got at a bargain store for $2. I fully expected it to die, but instead it has grown and when I peeked out my back window this morning - tada! It is blooming!! Finally, something not totally shitty!

OK, back to the books.

Step 1 Bitchin'

I'm about to go all Hulk Smash on Qbank. I only have three weeks 'til Step 1 and I am suckin' it up.

I can't wait to light my notebook on fire after this is all said and done.

USA, USA, USA!