Dreams, psychiatry, and future blogging

Y'ALL! I've missed you. I don't know why I'm not writing more - it's not like I'm at the hospital 24/7 or anything (I'm on psychiatry, for crying out loud!) I guess I'm just not feeling creative or something. Although I do have a lot to write about - speaking of that, here's the thing about HIPAA and patient talk. HIPAA, as I understand it, means that I can't talk about patients in any way that would allow them to be identified. So I can tell you about the patient who equates West Virginia with Egypt:

Me (doing a mini mental status exam): Do you know what state [current city] is in? (I was expecting a correct answer, because she did get the city right.)
Patient: West Virginia.
Me: That's corr-
Patient: You know, Egypt.
Me: -rect? Okay.

And you would have no idea who that patient was. You could even go onto the floor at the hospital where I'm currently working and still not be able to pick her out based on that. So I will not discuss patients in a way that allows them to be identified, but I may discuss them if I'm talking about a particular concept in psychiatry, or something that deeply affected me, or whatever. [/obligatory HIPAA statement, because I signed approximately 10^3 forms stating that I won't violate it or else they'll kill my kitty cats and let the air out of my tires. Oh, and chop off my big toe.]

With that said, I can't stop dreaming about my rotation. Seriously. I either dream about psychiatry, psychiatric patients, the other students on this rotation with me (which, despite popular-but-ridiculous belief, I have NO CONTROL OVER and it does not mean that I want to jump their bones in any way, shape or form), or marriage. For instance, I recently dreamed that Scott and I got married and moved to Australia, where I had to take Step One again (the horror!) and Scott's personality changed so that he was a completely different person. He was also wearing yellow capri pants, which was very disturbing. And then last night I dreamed that every person I talked to exhibited an inappropriate affect. This is when someone laughs as they tell you about the death of a person close to them, or smiles at strange points in the conversation - it also applies for crying or being sad at weird times as well. So everyone in my dream had an inappropriate affect, and I would point at each one of them and declare, "Inappropriate affect!" I don't think I'm right in the head, y'all.

Re: Future blogging - I bought a book called The Book Of Myself - A Do-It-Yourself Autobiography in 201 Questions, and I think I'll answer some of the questions here from time to time. Because y'all want to know me better, right? And I want to do a better job of chronicling my past and my thoughts about things. The questions are things like this:

• This is the profession that I often considered as a teenager and how I learned about it
• I was very hurt by this person I counted as a friend
• If I had any trouble with my mother/father when I was young, it was in this area
• This is how I met my sweetheart and fell in love

Just stuff like that. What do you think? Do you think that type of thing would make for interesting posts? Give me some feedback, please. I really wish that each of my parents would fill out one of those books for me. I love hearing about their childhood and early years together, and stories about family members - not just genealogy - I like the narratives.

All right, I'm off to a substance abuse lecture. Whee!

Ugh, back to class

First of all, re: the comments on my last post - y'all are sweeties. *MWAH* And Oliver, no worries. Despite erroneous belief, I have absolutely no interest in married guys as anything other than friends. Thank you for your kind words, though - they put a little bounce in my step. Yours too, Chris - but you already knew that. :-) Also, Oliver, you have the same name as my cat.

So, I finished my 2nd year of medical school. Or, God and I finished my 2nd year. Now I (and God) have to pass the USMLE Step One exam in June, and my medical school offers a review course for us (meaning my class - not God and me. He doesn't need the class.) This great because I lack any and all motivation and have no study structure whatsoever. I would just sit in the midst of my review books, sobbing, and shouting at no one in particular, "Where do I start?? WHERE????" I don't think that's what you'd call a winning strategery (you know I love President Bush, but I also love that non-word.)

The bad thing about the review course is that it's 8AM-4PM (some days are 5PM), every day, until June 6th or somewhere thereabouts. Uuuuuuuugggghhhh. And tomorrow, to make things EXTRA fun, it's at 7:30AM. In general, I don't like to be conscious at 7:30AM. But oh well. My plan is to go to the review lectures, then read on those lecture topics that evening in my review books (BRS series, First Aid, Kaplan - whatever I feel like picking up) and doing the corresponding Kaplan QBank questions. I think I'll be all right. We took a practice Step One exam today, and other than being rusty in some areas (biochem, neuroscience, some anatomy) I think I did fairly well. It was heavy on microbiology, path, and pharm - micro being my bread & butter, and pharm and path being fairly fresh. The Lord has brought me this far, and I don't think He'll drop me now. Knowing that the Creator of all things is with you at all times and cares about your well-being? That's comforting. Especially when you're studying His design in depth. :-)

I had a week off between my mini-boards and this review course, and despite this weird sad feeling that I can't seem to shake (I think it might be because people I know are always doing things, and I'm never invited. I don't know why that is. I guess it could be because I don't drink - but you know, alcoholism on one side of the family and pancreatitis on the other doesn't exactly make me want to run for the EtOH. But it's more likely due to the fact that I'm boring, annoying, and remarkably forgettable. At least most people think that I'm a boring, annoying, and forgettable NICE person - yeah. MOST people. Some are misinformed and instead, think I'm horrible.) Oops, a little digression there. Anyway, I was mildly sad all week, but other than that, it was great. I stayed up late and slept in. I did my toenails. Went shopping. Spent several hours in the sun, working on my melanoma. I changed my hair. Rearranged my bedroom at the house, and gave it a good cleaning (I mean, "dusting the baseboards" kind of clean.) I did a bunch of laundry and bathed two kittens. I took bubble baths and read a bunch of magazines. I got completely engrossed in The Kite Runner (which is fabulous, by the way.) I watched movies and ridiculous exposes on famous people on E!. I took naps. It was great. I can't wait until I can do it again after June 13th!