organics

Well, after a two year hiatus, I'm back and blogging! Ok, back to my college ways.

I guess I'll just rationalise it by saying that I wasn't actually IN school for a year and a half and blogging just doesn't work as well when you're not procrastinating on something you should be doing.

A rather fast recap of what's going on with my life:

I'm living in Germany now. I successfully uprooted and replanted in September 2014, worked as an Au Pair for a hellish year in which my mother died, my dad got married, I went to Greece, and I was randomly accepted to medical school in Bonn (on a whim). It was a big year. And a hard year.

So now I'm back in full student mode, in a new country, studying something more intense than I've never studied before. I'm older now, 25, and it's not as easy as the first time around. Or maybe it's a language thing. Whatever it is, learning stuff about medicine is hard.

The university system in Germany is quite different from ours back in the States. All grades are based on one exam at the end of the semester (sometimes also at the beginning of the next). You can take a test for a class you never attended. You basically are your own....is what I'm figuring out. They use this "sink or swim" tactic, and if you don't teach yourself the material on your own time, you fail. Unique to medicine though, (thankfully) is that we don't get grades. Everything is purely pass/fail, which is helpful. I thought, yeah, 60%, easy smeazy. Nooooo. It's not. Try remembering every sulcus and tuberculum and ligament and what they do and how they can get hurt. A whole semester worth of only BONES and I can barely manage to get 60%. Next up on the challenge list is organic chemistry (which I stupidly never took in the US). That exam is on Friday and I'm pretty behind because it's just SO MUCH. And it's super tailored toward medicine so it's like an overview of the important things and then they dropped right into biochemistry with amino acids and DNA. It's just a lot. On the bright side, I learned so much by myself and it really gives me something to be proud of, where as in the US it's more like I feel like I had been "taught" so much and the sense of accomplishment wasn't as high I think.

So that's what's going on. What's coming up?

After the embryology and chemistry exams this week, I'm flying to Madrid to meet up with my dad on Saturday. I'm really looking forward to seeing him...and maybe working on my Spanish? I would love to learn Spanish! Marco and I started on Narcos last night on Netflix and it just made me want to be able to speak Spanish SO BAD.

Anyway, after that, at the beginning of March, I'm embarking on my next adventure to Vietnam. I'm heading over there with Marco, Maja and Nick. I'm pretty excited but a bit nervous about the budget. As a non-working full-time medical student living abroad the finance situation is a bit tight. I booked those tickets nervously and thought, yeah, until then I can find a job...but unfortunately learning all this stuff takes a bit more time up than I would've expected which doesn't leave a lot of time for employment. Ah, c'est la vie. You're only young once.

And then it all starts up again in April: this time with developmental neurobiology, physics lab, biochemistry, and histology. (And maybe more? Stay tuned to find out!)

Alright, I think it's time to get back to peptide bonding and kinetics. But this was therapeutic. Maybe I'll try to get back into the groove...

march on til spring

This winter is just so long and horrible. I haven't been any where warm for a while (first world problems, right?) and I've been working and going to school. It's actually refreshing, after a whole semester of only going to school without employment. I enjoy the busy-ness.

I'm teaching German to little children, and it is AMAZING. I always go there after a long day though, unfortunately, so that's kind of a bummer. And rather than taking a German class I'm filling that hole by teaching and working at the Essen Haus. Love the dirndl.

I feel like I want to blog this crazy time in my life after I've made this insane decision to flee the country. I hear people around me talking about their life prospects and how much money they'll make right out of school and I'm choosing the European bohemian life over all things material (including paying off my college debt). It's such a me decision, I feel like I'm making the right one. I have so many ideas and open roads to follow, so when I think long and hard about it I am 100% sure I'm making the absolute right choice. It's just when I hear everyone else talk about their life plans when doubts crawl into my mind. It's like jumping off a cliff when no one else is. About not following people on the straight and narrow.

March is my least favorite month. It drags on forever. It's cold. There's snow. Spring still seems distant. The only holidays suck (St. Patrick's day? That's pretty weak, let's be honest). And to boot I feel like I'm coming down with a cold.

I wish I had some deep and profound observation about the world around me, but today I guess I don't. How many of those can one person have anyway? Can everyone's conversations be riddled with depth and ponderences about the complexity of life? Sometimes things are just mundane and we need to accept that. 

2013 in Photos

2013 wasn't a year for blog posts, but I did take a lot of pictures...so there's that. 

finn-ishing up the week

well, now I can openly write about what happened last week: I successfully pulled off a HUGE surprise! I flew to Finland on Wednesday with Marc and surprised the HELL out of Hanna for her birthday, as evidenced by her face. It was amazing. We spent a long weekend enjoying Finland (Helsinki and her summer house). The whole trip was just so great and I loved spending every second with Hanna! Highlights included skinny dipping and swimming to a rock to sunbathe, going boating at midnight to watch the 'sun set' (it never really set, it just dipped below the horizon for a couple hours), eating a fish with all the bones intact, riding a roller coaster with an actual break man, eating reindeer meat, watching Marc bonding with Hanna's father (who speaks absolutely no German or English), watching Marc bonding with Simo (Hanna's boyfriend), going swimming in a freezing cold bay in Helsinki, and paying 4 Euro for one beer. Crazy. After leaving Finland, Marc and I had a 6 hour long layover in Berlin, so after prodding at him for a while he agreed to leave the airport and go on a Berlin adventure with me. It was really awesome: taking really touristy fotos in front of the Brandenburger Tor with a real German. And I knew the way around more! Fun times.

Roller Coaster with Live Break Man

I've been back in Bonn for about a week now, I survived three PM shifts at the hospital and managed to get tomorrow off so I can celebrate Julian's birthday and Lisa's going away parties with everyone this evening. Wednesday night I went clubbing after work with Goetheallee 62 (it's becoming a bit of a misnomer to describe them as "Marc's roommates" because now I hang out with them all too, so it's like Marc is their roommate?). It was a ton of fun I have to say, we played Shocken, a really fun dice game in which everyone gets wasted. I lost and had to buy a round of beer, but luckily beer for 5 in Germany is cheaper than one small beer in Finland so the out of pocket cost wasn't too high. Then we went to N8schicht, which was really fun. Tequila shots can do a world of good after a long day at work :)

Other than that, life has been tame. Yesterday I finally met the new Americans at Flunkyball (who seem to have more drama than we ever did I have to say), and I thought they were pretty mediocre. I guess I'm biased though, and I am looking at the whole situation from the outside at this point. Some of them are really odd (there was this one Italian girl who looked like she was seizing but I'm pretty sure she was doing some sort of victory dance) and some of them were really nice. None were that cute. I have to say I think my German friends take the attractive cake around these parts...

I've been really disconnected with home lately. It's just such an escape here and I have a life and I have this huge lust for life, it's nice to be able to forget about home for a while. I feel guilty, but at the same time I feel so refreshed and rejuvenated. I love shopping at German grocery stores and knowing what I like and what to buy. I love knowing how life here runs. I love this!

Praktikum going really well. Bureaucracy of staying here not so much.

Hanna, Viivi, me and Marc in front of the summer house

praktikum details

I thought it would be cool to write a little bit about what I do really in my Praktikum instead of just write, "yeah, I'm there when babies are delivered...nbd"

So first of all, let me just start of by saying I feel much more comfortable (at the moment) just watching babies be born. It's a comfortable place. I can observe without having to say much, I am sometimes needed (to hold this leg or that wash cloth or hold the baby's head or cut the umbilical cord) and am always happy at the end of the birth because there's a new little baby! I've learned some new vocabulary to help me, "ruhig und tief atmen...durch die Nase ein und durch den Mund aus" or "Sie können das schaffen! Das Baby ist gleich da! Ich kann das Köpfchen schon sehen!" [Breathe deeply and peacefully...in through the nose and out through the mouth" or "You can do this! The baby is going to be here very soon. I can already see the little head!] And I think gently touching the woman or offering something cold for her forehead is always appreciated. I try. I did see one really horrifying birth though...the hebamme was also mortified because the doctor just came in and kind of imposed his ideas on how the birth should run. I felt helpless. It turned out good in the end though, the baby girl was beautiful and healthy and very cuddly :)

What is really scary for me still is meeting people at the door when they ring the bell. I always have to ask how I can help them, and when they reply, chances are that I will 90% understand them, but not be able to repeat a word back to the Hebammen. And no one really explained much to me all at once, I've kind of had a slow learning curve so far (or at least to me it seems that way). Most often, women seem to come either for a "Termin zur Kontrolle" like...just to make sure everything is okay when they reach their errechneter Termin [due date], or an "Einleitung" which is an induction. Being induced in Germany is really much different than in the US: the women receive a "cocktail" made up of two tablespoons Rizinusöl (castor oil), two tablespoons Mandelmus (almond butter) and a bottle of carrot juice. If this doesn't work on the first day, they receive two cocktails on the second day. On the third day, I think they get three cocktails. On the fourth day after beginning induction if they haven't had any contractions, they finally receive one 500 mg (?) Cytotec tablet (usually the first line in the US, correct me if I'm wrong). If that doesn't work, they continue with cytotec...I haven't seen any invasive measures used quite yet, excluding breaking the bag of waters but they only do that when a birth is imminent as far as I can tell. Svenja, one of the hebammen, told me today that although they start inducing the births as early as 7 days after their due date, it really isn't an issue until later because at +7 days the baby may still not even be ready to be born. Giving birth past a due date only becomes a real issue when the placenta starts to break down and stops providing the baby with nutrients. Then is an induction really necessary.

Anyway, I usually lead these women, whether they are there for an Einleitung or a Kontrolle Termin, into a CTG Zimmer (EFM=electronic fetal monitor in English! I finally figured out the proper translation, more info can be found here) and I put the CTG on them. This involves placing two round discs on the woman's belly, one at the top of the fundus (where the top uterus is) to measure the force of the contraction, and one where the fetal heartbeat can be monitored (done through ultrasonic waves, so usually placed somewhere on the back of the child or near the child's head). I learned how to feel a pregnant woman's stomach to tell where the baby is laying (in welcher Stelle=in which position). It's so crazy because you can feel EVERYTHING. It's just a matter of being able to distinguish which lumps are which. I must admit I feel kind of boss when I ask (in German) if I can touch their belly and magically find a heartbeat in one try with the CTG Knopf. It's a good feeling.

One thing I find extraordinarily difficult in Germany is measuring blood pressure. I have done it a thousand times in America manually and with a machine. Here, first off, everything is manual. So, not only do I have to properly hear the two blood pressure measurements (systolic and diastolic), but I also have to remember the numbers in German. I'm not good at remembering them in English. it's really, really difficult. So like, if I think to myself..."ok, one hundred and twenty two over seventy eight" it's not so difficult. But THEN, I have to remember those numbers long enough to translate them, repeat them to the patient, "ein hundred zwei und zwanzig zu acht und siebzig" and write them down on a piece of paper. It's really difficult for me, I must say. In my opinion, made only worse by the fact that in German the number order is reversed, so rather than saying "seventy eight" I effectively have to say "eight and seventy."

Another one of my menial tasks is to "urine tasten" or test urine. The women all pee in a cup (really unscientific, it's not collected by a lab or anything, they just simply leave the urine cups in one of the two bathrooms and I come on by) and then I stick a stick into it which tests for leukocytes, erythrocytes, pH (pay-hah in German :D ) glucose, protein and a host of other possibilities which I can't pronounce in German. I then report this back to the Hebammen too, usually also written on the paper that the CTG machines spit out with the results. Yep. The vocab for all the stuff I am learning. No biggie.

Other things I do: clean the Kreißsaale after births, help the hebammen do random stuff, hang IV bags/prime tubing, change pillow cases, fold towels, run blood down to the lab (no, there is no tube system, I run it down wearing a white lab coat...usually because it's raining and I have to actually leave the building to get to the lab), pick up Steri from the autoclave people (that's also on a different floor), weigh, measure, dress and give vitamin k to newborns, make Bändchen for the babies (little bracelets for their wrists), set the table for breakfast, make Wehencocktails (for the inductions). It's so much, it's so different every day, and I am absolutely beside myself because I love it so much.


In other news...things have been good. I had a sore throat yesterday but slept forever and it went away. today it's back a little, but it's alright. Hopefully I'll survive. I'm still trying to figure out the insurance thing...working on it. Over the weekend I didn't do much in the way of social things...had to work both days. Marco and I had a lovely Sunday afternoon today though, wandering around Bonn, eating ice cream, pizza and drinking beer. He has some free time now, which is awesome because every second I'm not working I'm basically free. Maja is reading some paper or making some bizarre youtube video about cats, god only knows, and everyone else is working on some presentation or another. Excited for the upcoming week :D :D

Goodness I love it here! Words can't even describe. Apart from having to wake up at 6 this morning, the day was perfect. Absolutely perfect.


Bis nachher...
Becca
{geburtszahl: 7}

the poor decision to wear a thong, flowers, and getting past the past

My birth total has increased to six now. Today is a good day to recap because I have it off. I slept in until like 8 (ok, then 10). Yesterday I saw one beautiful birth with a woman who had a personality similar to mine I think. In the breaks between contractions, she would say funny and/or somewhat awkward things. It was cute. She was sweet, and her husband cried. Hell, I almost cried (yeah, not very professional, but THERE WAS A NEW BABY IN THE ROOM!) It occurred to me that before every birth I've seen, there are usually 4 people in a room, and then the room population actually INCREASES! How crazy of an idea is that? I guess not that crazy when you say it like that, but when you think of it, at least to me, it's a little mind blowing.
I got my first gift! A woman from a couple days ago and her husband came in with their little girl and gave me and the other hebamme flowers! I couldn't stop smiling, my day was totally made! They are so pretty and that meant absolutely so much to me...I can only imagine what I meant to them. It's weird because I might be in their stories about their kids for years to come! The American intern :D

Here's a picture of the cupcakes I baked for Maja's party last week. I am proud. :D

 Here's a picture of breakfast we get every morning in the break room at the Kreißsaal.

 This is what I did after work the other day. It was amazing.

I've met most of the Hebammen that work there, they are all so sweet and have this unbelievable quality about them. I went to a Besprechung (basically just a meeting with all of them that work there) and they are all really beautiful and elegant in their own way, confident, and have large eyes that hold on to your every word. They're all caring in their own ways, but each has their own way about them. I love it. I realize I am idealizing them, but I respect them all not in a way that they each accomplished something great, but in the way that their natural state of being is so conducive to the profession.

The day before yesterday I went to my first c-section. It was an experience because I've been to surgeries in the US before and this was just a variation on the theme. Sterile technique was the same (if not more sterile here, but they use all autoclaved metal instruments whereas we throw everything plastic away). However, what was very bizarre was changing! There was this bench thing that, once you had stripped down to your skivvies, you had to climb over to get into the sterile area where the surgery scrubs were and then seek out your size of scrubs and shoes and dress there. Butt naked. Needless to say, wearing a thong turned out to be a bad choice.

We saw the Great Gatsby auf deutsch last night. I wish I could identify less with Gatsby and just let the past stay there.
And, with that I shall leave you.

Bis gleich :)