When pimping becomes fun...

So...it's been a while since I've posted. But I have a rather fun story for all of you today. First I'll start with a little bit of medical education so that it all makes a little more sense and seems a whole lot less random.

Sometimes people's arteries dilate and form aneurysms. When the aneurysms get big, they are prone to rupture or clotting. Rupture is bad because you can bleed out pretty quickly, and clotting is bad because part of the clot can break loose and then something farther down the artery loses blood supply. So when aneurysms are found and they get big enough to be concerning, the patient will typically have and operation to repair said aneurysm. There are a few different options for repairing the aneurysm, most of them involve some sort of synthetic artery substitute. One brand of substitute is made of fabric...this is where the pimping became fun :P

Attending: So Moriah, what's the difference between woven fabric and knitted fabric?
Moriah: *looks like Christmas came early* Well, woven fabric involves many separate fibers that are placed around each other such that they form a mesh of sorts. Knitted fabric is a series of inter-locking loops.
Attending: *looks slightly startled by the rapidness of my response* Yes, exactly. Now, how do you think they make these knitted grafts?
Moriah: Hmm...probably some sort of modified sock-knitting machine.
Attending: *looks slightly baffled* Close...technically the machines were originally used to make pantyhose. So, how do you think they add arms to these knitted grafts?
Moriah: I have a pretty good idea about how to do it as far and knitting is concerned, but I'm sure they do it a little bit differently in this case.
Attending: *clearly feels better now that I haven't completely stolen his factoid thunder* They have little old ladies who sew them on! Isn't that amazing?!?!?
Moriah: Yeah, that's pretty cool. *misses having time to knit things...like socks*
*Some time later*
Resident: You seem to know a lot about knitting...
Moriah: Yes, well, it's one of my hobbies. I used to knit all the time...knit all through lecture last year, but I haven't had much time to knit during this rotation.
Resident: Wow...that's pretty cool. Ok, you're gonna sew now. *hands me the loaded needle driver and forceps* Watch me and I'll show you what I want you to do.
Moriah: *does happy dance in her head*

Today? Inherently awesome...almost as awesome as when a different attending let me remove a patient's appendix (have no fear...he was in complete control of the situation the entire time).

I'm loving this rotation for the most part. I have days where nothing is going on and there's nothing for me to do and I kinda want to stab myself in the eye...but most days are lots and lots of fun....hard work, but fun.

Things I Learned on Overnight Call

1. My brain starts to turn into mush after about 22 consecutive hours of consciousness.
2. Stream of consciousness pimping from my resident is an excellent way to keep me one my toes
   
3. Nothing helps time fly quite so well as a trauma
4. If you want a consult to be done quickly...don't ask me to do it
5. Call beds are surprisingly comfortable, although this may have had more to do with the fact that I had been up for 23.5 hours
6. I actually know how to manage acute cholecystitis (gallbladder infection)
7. I can run very well on 2 hours of sleep...until I get a chance to sit down and then I'll probably face plant on the nearest horizontal surface...kinda like I did when I got home at noon and tried to check my email
8. Pagers completely boggle my sleep-addled brain
9. I love the patient that is happy to answer all my questions when I come in to write his post-op note at 1AM, and I love the nurse that gives me a hard time about how exhausted I look and then starts laughing with me when I tell him how long I've been up.
10. Sleep is precious and AMAZING!
    

The Crocheting Surgeon

Today I scrubbed in on an incisional hernia repair. The attending placed all the sutures through the fascia (the tough part beneath the muscles for you lay people) and then placed mesh over the hernia. He then set about trying to pull all of these loose threads through the holes in the mesh, he started out with some small pointy clamps but then one of the nurses asked him if he wanted a crochet hook. I'm pretty sure my eyes bulged out of my head. The nurse came back with this crazy crazy small hook and the attending set to work...he kept getting caught on the mesh and I couldn't help snickering to myself. Why, you ask? Because I couldn't help but get the feeling that my fiber arts skillz would have made me much much faster that both the attending and my resident. But I was a good little med student...I did not give them pointers, I did not laugh, I stood there holding my scissors ready and waiting to cut any knots that might need trimming.

The saddest part of this whole story? Aside from petting my Doctor's bag everyday on the shuttle to and from the hospital this is the only remotely fibery thing going on in my life. I have not knit a single stitch since orientation on the 7th. Ah well...better get back to my reading, I have a conference on lung cancer tomorrow and I need to be prepared! Happy knitting everyone!

Happy Birthday, Blog!

Today is my first blogiversary. I started this blog due to a combination of a desire to talk about my knitting and my extreme boredom at my summer job. Over the past year I've found many other blogs that I read on a regular business and made a few friends. In the future I hope to have the time/money to participate in some swaps and get to know more of my fiber-loving comrades.

I got my Pay It Forward Exchange gift from Alicia! They're beautiful aren't they? There hasn't been too too much going on on the knitting front lately. I spent most of my 5 weeks off reading for pleasure and hanging out with people that I never seem to get a chance to see anymore. But I do have a some progress to show you. First of all, I managed to finished sewing The Afghan together. I still have approximately 1 million ends to weave in. Sadly I don't have any knots to tie so I can't practice my surgeon's knot on it. I've made a fair amount of progress on my Dorky Socks...not that far from finishing it but I don't think there's going to be much knitting time on this rotation. I also plugged ahead a fair amount on the Lacy Scarf. I really like the way that it's coming out...and I love all the compliments I keep getting on it, even from people who don't knit!

I'm sorry to say that the likelihood of my updating frequently looks like it's going to be pretty small for the next few months as I will have very little knitting to show you. There's only so much surgery I can talk about before I might start grossing people out :P

Things that I have learned so far on my Surgical rotation:

• The OR is my crack...seriously
• ENT is awesome
• Head and Neck is even more awesome
• Holding retractors can be a lot harder than you might think
• My very asthmatic body doesn't like it when I try to sprint up three floors (each story about 15-20 feet) to get a scope and a light source for a STAT page for ENT to the MICU...the best part of that whole situation being that they ended up not needing us.
• Surgical rotation is the best diet I could have ever asked for, the combination of never getting to sit for more than 3 seconds and rarely getting to opportunity to eat is doing wonders for my weight.
• When they tell you to go home...GO!
  

Too neat for my own good

63 As a 1930s wife, I am Superior Take the test!

I saw this on Lick My Sticks and Ponyknit and was way to entertained to ignore it. I am apparently way too neat for my own good since that's the only way I figure I got a score that high. They didn't have a box for "is a doctor"...I'm sure that would have been about -100 right there. Almost done knitting The Afghan...pictures coming soon!!

I Survived!

I did it! I finished the Step 1 and I lived to tell about it! However I haven't knit much of anything in the past month or so...so I have nothing to show you. I'm working on finishing up The Afghan and getting a few small projects done over the next month. I've already managed to finish a book for pleasure-reading...something I haven't done since the last Harry Potter book came out. I do have a couple pictures for you...because I wanted to document some things. First my hand is healed (has been for a while now but I finally bothered to take a picture)!I also went through all my syllabi and put just about all of them into recycling. Here you see in the first stack (on the left) all of the syllabi from first year plus my anatomy coloring book, in the middle all of the syllabi from this year, and on the right the four books I used to study for the boards (these books covered everything in the first two piles)And this is the recycling bin...I think I may have participated in the killing of a small forest as a result of picking up my syllabi...Happy knitting everyone...hopefully I have something to show you soon!!

1/2 M.D.

I have completed two years of medical school. This of course prompts me to immediately ask where the the last two years of my life have disappeared to. I'm not really feeling anything profound at the moment...this is perhaps because I still spend all day studying for the boards. *sigh* Not much knitting going on at the moment because I can't knit and write/underline/take notes at the same time. A little bit less than three weeks left...then I can knit and get nerdy about surgery to my heart's content. In the meantime, I have my entire first year of medical school to re-learn. Happy knitting!!

Is it May 31st yet?

I am done...I am so done it's not even funny anymore. I realize that most of you are really excited about the super nice weather that we've been having lately but it has been MURDER on my willingness to study. I'm still managing to get a fair amount done...with much effort. But I really need it to be after boards so that I can stop freaking out about the hellish 8 hour exam that's looming in front of me and start enjoying life again.

Today was my last day of my Physical Diagnosis class. I have mixed feelings about it. I really liked getting together with all of the people at my site every week and I usually enjoyed the various specialties that we saw in the morning; but I'm glad that I won't be losing my entire Wednesday every week anymore. Irony: there's only like two more Wednesdays left in the semester.

Yesterday I got my first lecturer comment on my knitting. I was happily knitting away at a square for the The Afghan when pretty much out of nowhere the lecturer asked me what I was knitting...from clear across the room. She's the course director for Reproductive Pathophysiology and an OB/Gyn. Apparently last year the class made a whole bunch of hats for the babies in the NICU and such. Awesome moment...awkward...but awesome.

I also decided to use a different pattern of my lacy scarf. The Tiger Eyes just weren't doing it for me anymore. So now I'm using the Swirled Scrolls Scarf pattern. I like now it's turning out so far. It's complicated enough that I'm not bored out of my mind but not so complicated that it makes kidneys look like nice easy simple organs (hint: they are so totally not). I think I might be disappearing for a little while. In part because my brain is slowly becoming saturated with all things medical school to the point where I don't even want to listen to myself think...so I will try to spare you...unless something totally awesome happens of course at which point I'll be sure to fill you in. Wish me luck on all the studying that I have to do between now and May 30th! Happy Spring! Happy Knitting!

So much news!!

First, Alicia tagged me for a little meme that's running around:

1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Post the rules.
3) Share six non-important things / habits / quirks about yourself.
4) Tag at least three people.
5) Be sure the people you tagged KNOW you tagged them by commenting what you did.

My things:
1) I cut my pasta. Whenever I get spaghetti or anything else that is long and floppy I cut my pasta (using a grid pattern because I'm that OCD) so that the pieces are smaller and I don't get sauce all over myself
2) I always carry a tuning fork in my white coat...I'm pretty sure I haven't ever used it on someone who isn't one of my classmates or a standardized patient
3) I have a lot of stuffed animals on my bed. I make my bed every morning and they go back on the bed the SAME WAY every single day...and it's a very symmetrical arrangement too
4) I color code my class notes by learning objective. This is part OCD, part studying tactic, and part three-year-old being easily entertained by my amazing technicolor syllabi
5) I died my hair black once. I thought it was awesome. My mother was horrified at how pale I looked; but this was probably due tot he fact that I was wearing a black shirt at the time and (unknowingly) mono
6) I eat the food on my dinner plate in the inverse order or how much I like it. For example: Broccoli, Mashed potatoes, chicken, stuffing. No matter what else is on the plate...stuffing always goes last.

I tag Dorothy, KnittingNurse, and LadyLungDoc.

Second: I won the lottery!! Sadly not the money kind but I did pretty awesome in the lottery for my third year rotations. I'm off to Lahey Clinic for Surgery and Medicine and Baystate Medical Center for Pediatrics, Psychiatry, and OB/Gyn. I also got the family medicine rotation I was most interested in...but I think I would rather do a Neurology rotation during that time. The only one open right now is Neurosurgery at Baystate...the irony is killing me...but I think my mother might try to kill me if I went to Baystate for that rotation too (Baystate is really nowhere near my house and I'd be living in glorified dorms across the street from the hospital)

Third: Knitting! I promised more pics of the Doctor's Bag...and I'll show you those shortly. But I also have two socks now...I am so proud of them! I started to make a pair of ankle socks with the remaining yarn, but I'm pretty sure I don't have enough to do it on US2s so I need to rip back and try with something a bit bigger...and fewer stitches. I also made a hat. Stephanie's Unoriginal Hat to be exact. The pattern say it's for a women's small head. Now I realize that I used slightly smaller needles because I live in the US and don't have much choice...but I didn't think my head was that big...apparently I was wrong. Now for the Doctor's Bag. Here is it with just about all my stuff in it (I usually keep my purse and a small textbook to study during downtime in there too). Just in case you don't realize how much stuff is in there...here it is all laid out on the coffee table. I also wanted to show you my general over-achiever-ness: the feet that I put on the bottom. I personally think they're pretty awesome and it just goes to show that deep down inside I really am a gunner (sorry for the profane language :P)And, or course, the arty button shot:

What's on the needles now? Well I've decided to make a concerted effort of crank out the squares for the Warm Up America Afghan. They're not exactly the most exciting knitting which means they aren't terribly great at keeping me awake during class but I need to finish that sucker like it's my job. And for a little bit more exciting knitting I've cast on for the Tiger Eyes Lace Scarf. I haven't even managed a full repeat of the lace pattern yet but I'm already loving the way this yarn is working up in the pattern...I can't wait for it to be done so I can wear it all the time for no good reason.

IT IS FINISHED!!!

More pictures to come...when I find the time to take them...Happy knitting!!!

I has a sock!!

I finished my first sock...and I'm just about done with the cuff of the second one. I have also suffered my first knitting-related accident. This will perhaps remind me that talking with my hands while holding US2 needles is a bad idea...ow.
But enough of that...On with the sock! Nothing too terribly special, just a simple sock with a flap heel and a poorly grafted toe. But it's my sock...and I am proud.
Also...I saw this add in the paper today and almost died from the cuteness...so I felt compelled to share it with all of you: