Return to the Blogosphere, and my new name...

Yellow :) By which I mean “hello”. I actually wanted to say “Yo Dudes!” but I know my brother will tell me off for being “too American”.

Sorry, I’m full of endorphins. Why? Because I’ve finished my exams!!!! Kind of...I still have my prosection test/viva on Monday but it doesn’t count towards anything so, technically (and I like technicalities) I’m free!

Exams have been...awful. Sickening. Amusing, but only because when I can’t cry, I laugh. Also amusing in the sense that we got asked a twenty mark question on what ten questions you would ask a patient to work out if their illness was work related...yeah, odd. They’ve also been quite fun. At least, the OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Exam) was. We were tested on measuring blood pressure, peak flow, examining visual fields and doing a neurological exam of the lower limb. What’s the one thing our GP tutor doesn’t properly teach us? Lower Limb. It wasn’t that bad though. We got told the day before what we would be examined on so I spent the afternoon/evening in the lower common room practicing on my friends. In the actual OSCE I got a few questions wrong, and the Babinski sign completely the wrong way round, but overall I actually really enjoyed it! It was fun. It made me feel like a real doctor and gave me a taste of what to look forward to!

I’ve had about 3 months of revision, late nights, early mornings so I’m ready to do absolutely nothing for as long as possible! We get our results on the 24^th June so I can enjoy myself until then. I’ve pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I’ll probably have at least one resit (don’t look at me like that, I’m telling the truth) but considering how ill I’ve been this year I’d say that was more than acceptable.

It’s actually been really interesting to see how my depression has...evolved over the last few months. My mind started off so fuzzy that nothing would go in, nothing would make sense and so there wasn’t really any point doing anything. But in the last 3 weeks or so everything has become so much clearer, almost sharper. I was going over a podcast from a Semester 1 lecture that I didn’t understand before and it made perfect sense. It was a case of “This is easy. Why didn’t you find this easy before?” It’s nice to see actual signs that I’m getting better :)

In other news:

I told my Dad about my depression. This was something that I was so afraid to do. I was convinced he would blow and go crazy at me the way he did when I didn’t tell him about my sigmoidoscopy (if you Google this please don’t judge – it was necessary at the time!). But the opportune moment came up. And he didn’t scream. He actually got really upset. He looked like he was about to cry. I think telling him has brought us closer. He’s realised that our relationship isn’t perfect but we’re both trying hard to make it better. We actually have conversations now when he rings (as opposed to just exchanging monosyllables like before) and he’s coming down at the weekend J Everything seems really good on that front.

My stepmother is having a girl :) Very excited!!! I get to be a big sister again. And my brother wanted it to be a girl, so all is good

I’m going to LONDON with some friends on the 10^th June to see a show! Can’t wait!

Mum and I have tickets for Gardener’s World Live which I’m actually looking forward to *smiles sheepishly*

I’m crazy excited about Bristol next year. I can’t wait to have a year somewhere new where I can read and “find myself”, as corny as that sounds. I’m not quite sure just who I am any more, but I do know that I’m getting happier and stronger.

On a final note – a few people have wondered what to call me. On blogger my name is “A”, which is boring. I used to be the (Sometimes) Despondent Medic but I don’t want to go back to that. So I’ve thought long and hard about it and decided to give myself a fake name, something I can go by on the internet. Just to re-emphasise, this is not my actual name.

Good Luck to anyone who has exams :)

Toodles.

Lexie