Somebody hold me.

This scary girl would have made a fantastic Clay fan (actually not - she only has one phone, when they were known to use a landline and all cell phones that they could get their hands on.)

Thank goodness for that piece of glass that keeps frustrating her - it keeps people like her from the famous types.

Doctors are funny!

That is, except the tactless ones that ruin the Internal Medicine clerkship for 3rd year medical students. Anyway, I found this article online from The Journal of Family Practice (Howard J. Bennett, April 1995) and it amused me. It's about humor in the medical practice, and has wit throughout. Here's a couple of my favorites:

A surgeon, an internist, and a family physician go duck hunting.

The surgeon sees a duck, shouts "Duck!" and shoots it down.

The internist sees a duck, shouts "Duck! Rule out quail! Rule out pheasant!" and shoots it down.

The family physician sees a duck and blasts it out of the sky with a burst of machine-gun fire. As the tattered carcass falls to the ground, he remarks, "I don't know what the hell it was, but I sure got it!"

Rule out quail! Rule out pheasant! Hee. It's funny because it's true. I also like this:

To the Editor:

Last year, my husband, a pulmonary fellow, sent me a valentine; he thought that the cardiac system was receiving far too much attention on that day. I thought that your readers would enjoy the valentine.

A Pulmonologist's Valentine
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Without your lungs
Your blood would be too.

Here's the whole thing, if you're interested: Humor in the Medical Literature - Editorial

Heavy-handed moderators and the posters who don't love them

I was searching for something online the other day, I don't even remember what, and I ran across a post on http://www.healthboards.com/ that seemed to be an answer to my query (although I could only see a snippet, given that Google is such a tease!) When I tried to go to the boards and see the actual post, it required registration to see anything that had been posted. Well, okey dokey. So I registered, filled out my profile (which, for one thing, asked for "occupation" and so I listed, "medical student".)

Then I read the post that matched my search, and I perused the site and posted two more things. I returned yesterday to find that my account had been suspended. What the February? (I don't care if Ellen DeGeneres is a big ol' lesbian. She makes me laugh, and I don't laugh much anymore, and therefore I love her.)

Anyway.

The big scary "SUSPENDED, YOU LAWLESS THUG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" page gave an email address to which to direct appeals. And appeal I did:

Hello,

I just visited HealthBoards.com to login - I only registered the other day (username: kimberly78) and made two posts, one on an skin treatment regimen that has worked well for me and the other on the pain management boards. When I visited today to check for any responses, I see my account has been suspended for the following reason:

"Peer Sharing Only - Med School"

Huh? What did I do wrong here? I would very much like an explanation and for my account to be reinstated. Thank you.

~Kim

Today, I got this email back:

This website is a peer support group for patients, only. The terms of use are very clear that you may not register or post on the message boards as a board topic professional/student.

From the rules:

Do not register or post or reveal your past, current or future board topic or healthcare profession, in any way. The boards are to be used for PEER support, only. Professional titles lend undue weight to what is to be only your opinion. Members are to share health
opinions and advice as PEERS.

You need to know that the Posting Rules and moderator instructions are enforced.

Thank you for your understanding.

Administrator

www.healthboards.com

Whoopsie. I guess I shouldn't have signed my post, "Kim, a third-year medical student who has been going to medical school for three years, during which time they have been teaching me medicine so that when I finish this school to prepare doctors of medicine, I will be a physician (an M.D.) who knows and can practice medicine."

Seriously though, Jiminy Christmas. That was a little snooty, Mr./Ms. Gestapo Moderator. (It hearkens back to the fugly brown moderator edits that I got when the loony bird Clackhouse began (before I fully realized their loony-birdness and got the heck out, although I still enjoy reading them once in awhile for a good fix of crazy). I was always getting edited at their banana republic because they hated me a really lot.)

But this guy/girl hasn't quite had enough time to hate me, you know? Furthermore - not just in medicine, but can anyone who has learned anything give their opinion without taking into account what they know? Are we all supposed to go, "La la la la la! I've forgotten everything I've ever learned, and now, here is my ignorant opinion!" Geesh. I guess this means I can't use health forums, never ever again.

It makes me wonder if this moderator is someone who applied to medical school and didn't get in. Heh. Actually, he/she probably is an actual physician or something (or, if it's a girl, she's obviously a nurse because girls can't be anything else, right?) and just has a stick between his/her gluteus maximii butt cheeks.

[an inside joke] Yes, Lori et al., I didn't read the effin' FAQ. So shoot me. :-) [/inside joke]

The suckage of GoDaddy and their stupid TOS

You can't see this right now, because GoDaddy has helpfully suspended my account. Do you know why? Because I have

"... content not directly related to your live website on your hosting account [and am] in violation of the TOS as the hosting is not meant to be used as a file repository for non web related content. Once you can confirm that you have removed all non web related content please reply to this email again."

Do you know what the "non web related content" is? It's my very amateur, non-copyrighted clogging videos and the also very amateur, non-copyrighted video of my high school senior year Homecoming pep rally routine to Thriller. Good grief. I guess I'll have to remove those links in the sidebar, even though I do get a fair amount of hits from people looking for clogging videos. (Seriously, I really do.)

I only stay with GoDaddy because they're so much cheaper than other hosting companies and I, as a medical student with a pretty high tuition cost, don't exactly have lots of money to throw around. If only I had more traffic, which would mean more people clicking on my G**gle ads at the top of the page, and more people using my Amazon affiliate link when they buy from Amazon ... sigh.

So I'm in the process of deleting those oh-so-threatening clogging videos. I'm not sure what harm they were doing to anyone, but whatever. I'll play by the rules, but I'm still putting GoDaddy on my List. You know, THAT List.

My Elf Self

I've been playing around with ElfYourself (thanks, Trinoh!) and I can't stop giggling at the "Elf Selves" I created for Scott and me:

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9588061433

I'm not sure why Scott's glasses look so ginormous - they don't in real life. But I think we are MUCH better dancers disguised as our elf alter egos than we are as medical students and chemists. Especially Scott. I mean, we've been together over 10 years, and I've danced with him exactly three times (at weddings that I dragged him to.) When I used to clog (boo hoo, I miss it) sometimes we'd be short on guys, and I'd have to dance with my ex-pre-algebra teacher, who is female. So I've danced with my female pre-algebra teacher many more times than with Scott. That's just wrong, people.

Anyway, follow that link. And laugh. (You have to have Flash Player running.)

I may be climbing out of my pit

It's been a rough couple of months, y'all. I can barely talk about it without crying, because it was just so full of disappointment and sadness and pain, and it was like I was someone else entirely that I didn't even recognize nor did I like very much at all. (I do have horrible self-esteem and can't find much at all that's good about myself - except for Christ in my heart, of course, but that's Him, not me - but over the past couple of months, I *really* despised myself.) I'm sorry the posts have been so sparse lately, and I'm sorry that when I did post, that it was all about doctors and so on and so forth. Interestingly, my traffic has gone up quite a bit over the past 2 months. Figure that.

Anyway, I hope you, dear readers (I first typed "deer readers" - heh. Scott would be proud - that's what's on his mind at this time of year, too) don't have the idea that I'm some sort of drug-seeking pill-head. Instead, I'm a chronic pain patient struggling to learn to be a doctor, a good one - working 70-80 hour weeks in addition to trying to study in between, and also trying to spend time with my Scott, my family and friends, and some MUCH needed time at the Y. Oh, and sleeping, sometimes. It's hard to do that when it feels like someone is stabbing you in the gut, and pulling the knife around to your back. And then when you go to your doctor or to the ED for help, they instead berate you and you end up sobbing because of their jaded lack of compassion, it's discouraging.

Being in severe pain all the time, all the while being expected to perform in a superhuman manner (and getting bad evaluations when you don't - more on that later) and having more doors slammed in your face - it made me feel more hopeless and sad than I have felt in a long time. I didn't know if I was ever going to get help, or if this pain was going to become a part of my daily life. A Google search found a lot of information on depression resulting from chronic pain. I don't know what the answer is, fellow members of the healthcare system, but we have an underserved population of people here. I don't know how we weed out the true sufferers from the addicts and the dealers. But something needs to be done. And the way I heard other providers refer to patients requiring pain medication was less than encouraging.

I am doing all of the "alternative" stuff that the Interwebz recommends for pancreatitis - an antioxidant blend (the one I take is by Nature Made, with Vitamin A, 100% as Beta-Carotene - 10,000 IU, 200% RDA; Vitamin C: 250 mg, 417% RDA; Vitamin E: 200 IU, 667% RDA; Zinc: 7.5 mg, 50% RDA; Selenium: 15 mcg, 21% RDA; Copper: 1 mg, 50% RDA; Manganese: 1.5 mg, 75% RDA), and I'm also taking an additional selenium supplement, my trusty enzymes (amylase and lipase, aka Creon 10), and a couple of doses of Advil a day for anti-inflammatory properties.

I'm still hurting, though - I do have a new pain doc, and I'll talk about him later - I think I'm going to like him. He and his office staff are already a billion times kinder than the other Pain Clinic Which Shall Not Be Named.

I just didn't want you guys to think that I was an addict who was obsessed with getting my fix. Is that what you think? What DO you think? Let's have it, I can take it. It's why I have comments on my blog - I want to know what people think about what I write, and I appreciate and consider them all. Except the trolls, of course, which I just kick back under the bridge; and the potty-mouths, who I edit and *then* consider. :-)

No Internet For You!

My internet access has been screwed up all week, and Comcast is on my LIST, y'all. I'm currently in the library at the hospital waiting for a monsoon to pass over, so I thought I'd let my faithful reader(s?) know why I've been silent all week. And I really had lots that I wanted to say, too - I felt like writing. Oh well. I'm going home this weekend, where the Inter-webz abounds, and I will talk your ears off. Maybe.

Psych is going well, and I found out yesterday that my next rotation is Internal Medicine. Yay! With Christy! Yaaaaaaay! For Medicine, I've heard that we work in pairs, and I hope to goodness that I don't get paired with an undesirable person.

That's all for now.

The number's a fake! A fake!

Is there such a thing as a reverse phone lookup that is completely free? Mom's car was parked on the street at my apartment last week, and someone bumped the car (doing about $500-$1000 damage) and being a good citizen (or so we thought) left a note with a phone number. Well, Mom called the phone number, and got a woman who had no idea what she was talking about. Mom thought it may have been another medical student who lives in my apartment building, because the note was written on the reverse of an "Information About Your Medications" piece of paper, which would seem to come from a student or nurse or doctor, etc. So she went upstairs and asked his fiancee, who said that the writing wasn't his.

I tried searching that phone number, and I got results, but every reverse search is going to make me pay $14.95 to see the results. Boo! I remember when they were free.

So Mom has lost all faith in humanity. But if someone was going to leave a fake number, why would they bother with a note in the first place? If anybody has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Crazy Clay Aiken fans skeere me. I mean, look at this, from Gilded Moose - these people have to realize that they're insane, or maybe they're just happily oblivious.

I admit that I'm a fan of Clay Aiken, but I'm not crazy. Well, I am crazy, just for other reasons. And I'd never write about my ovaries with puff-paint on a T-shirt. By the way, shaking ovaries must indicate a serious medical condition. I haven't had female reproductive pathology yet, but it certainly doesn't sound normal. None of it does, actually.