Quarantine Diaries Update!

 So, as you can tell from the last blog, I wanted to do a weekly update during quarantine but I was struggling with motivation and when term started I was swamped with work. I want to provide a quick update and I have been thinking about the future of this blog and the types of posts I want to make, which I will explain more at the end of this blog. So, let's get into it.  

Quarantine Week 2 (30th March-5th April) - During this week I worked with my Mum and Sister to finish decorating the shed and garden furniture. I also finished a jigsaw puzzle, watched some movies, played sims, and played minecraft with my Sister.

 

Quarantine Week 3 (6th April-12th April) - This week I brushed up on my Arterial Blood Gas results interpretation, something I've always struggled to get my head around - shout out to Geeky Medics for having such a useful page on it! (https://geekymedics.com/abg-interpretation/) I went for a "short" walk with my Mum which ended up being a couple of hours in wholly unsuitable shoes and gave me more than a couple of blisters. I also tried baking the Royal pastry chefs' spiced Easter biscuits recipe, and it turned out pretty good! (https://www.royal.uk/royal-easter-biscuits-recipe) On Easter Sunday we had an Easter Egg hunt in the garden.

 

 

Quarantine Week 4 (13th April-19th April) - I spent most of this week with my youngest sister, and Mum, preparing a festival in our garden for my other sister's birthday. Apart from being rained off on the Saturday we had a good weekend in the sunshine.

 

Quarantine Week 5 (20th April-26th April) - This week uni started again, online.This module (204) was about the Musculoskeletal and Immune Systems. I've got to admit the timetable didn't seem as full as usual. However, lectures which would take me 1 hour in the lecture theatre could easily take me up to 3 hours at home, so I was studying more than usual. I also worked on my case-based discussion essay this week, and got that submitted. 

Quarantine Weeks 6, 7 and 8 (27th April-17th May) - I've lumped these three weeks together because I was mostly just doing my uni work, enjoying the sunshine, and hanging out with my family. I guess I was also fantasising over booking a trip to Ibiza once covid has calmed down!

Quarantine Week 9 (18th May-24th May) - This week was one year since my Dad passed away so I went with my family to visit his willow tree. I picked out some nice photos and tried to write some nice pieces on my various social medias, but I'm not sure if I'll do that on here. At the end of this week some new holiday clothes I'd ordered online arrived so I tried them all on before tucking them away in a drawer for that post-covid beach holiday! 

Quarantine Weeks 10, 11 and 12 (25th May-14th June) - Again, I've lumped these three weeks together because I was mostly just studying. I had a pair work poster project to finish and submit. Unfortunately, I also had a patient study essay to finish, which took my until 5am, but on the plus side I got to watch the sun rise before I crashed into bed! More holiay clothes arrived, it's safe to say I was really feeling the need for that trip! The med school supplied us with an anatomy self-assessment quiz which was helpful to see how I was doing with the exams approaching.

Quarantine Week 13 (15th June-21st June) - This week the government announced social bubbles allowing couples living separately to meet, so I moved my place of quarantine to my other half's house. With only a week to go until exams I was spending virtually every waking hour reviewing notes and drawing anatomy posters. At the end of the week I took a couple of hours off to visit Dad's willow tree for Father's Day.

Quarantine Week 14 (22nd June-28th June) - EXAM WEEK! On the Monday I had the exam for Module 204 (musculoskeletal and immune systems) which was the module I had studied fully online. The exam seemed okay to be honest. After a few hours off it was time to crack on with final revision for module 203 (endocrinology, reproduction and gynaecology) as the exam which should have been in March was cancelled due to covid. The second exam also seemed surprisingly okay. And then I was FREE for summer! 

Quarantine Week 15 (29th June-5th July) - This week I was so grateful for free time! I would get up in the mornings, make a coffee and breakfast and sit on the sofa to eat it while watching an episode of "The Crown". It was such a little luxury to have time to enjoy it without feeling like I should be doing something else! I also did a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle, played so much sims, and started working on a little handbook for year 3. This weekend I would usually have been working at my first festival of the summer so I was feeling a little lost and made sure to keep busy.

Quarantine Week 16 (6th July-12th July) - This week I caved and finally baked my own banana bread! I added some chocolate chunks for a fun little twist and it turned out so yummy! At the weekend I went to a small local zoo (Thrigby Hall Wildlife Gardens - https://www.thrigbyhall.com/) 

Quarantine Week 17 (13th July-19th July) - Out of quarantine? The tenancy on my uni house in Brighton was finishing on 15th July so I headed out on the train to meet my housemate at the station in Cambridge, we would travel the rest of the way in the car. Unfortunately, we suffered a minor accident and had to be towed back to her home, so I ended up staying the night there, a little detour on my adventure, before we borrowed her Mum's car to head down to Brighton the following day. With the help of another uni friend we got stuck into packing and storing our things for a couple of days before driving back on the 15th and I caught the train back from Ely to home. 

 

Quarantine Week 18 (20th July-26th July) - RESULTS WEEK! I was relieved to see that I had passed both of my exams (86% for 203, 88% for 204) and as I had also passed all of the other components (essays, poster, attendance, SSC, etc.) I had passed the year and I was now a THIRD YEAR! What?! That's crazy. It feels like only yesterday I was a first year and third years seemed so mature and knowledgeable. Wild! This week I visited Dad's willow tree again and told him all about my results. For the weekend I had signed up for the Tomorrowland Around the World livestream so I enjoyed watching that and making myself "festival food" to eat in the living room, haha! I also spent a couple of hours at the beach on Sunday with my sisters and we built a sandcastle! 

Quarantine Week 19 (27th July-2nd August) - This week I had to have a biopsy at the hospital (results are all okay) but I think I want to talk about my experience of this in a separate post. It was at the beginning of the week so I spent a couple of days being lazy and taking painkillers. At the weekend I headed to my Mum's for a birthday BBQ for her partner. 

Quarantine Week 20 (3rd August-9th August) - This week I had a couple of outings to play crazy golf and to the beach again. I usually like staying in but apparently after 20 weeks of being mostly indoors I was starting to feel a little crazy and my mental health was starting to decline. 

Quarantine Week 21 (10th August-16th August) - This week was my birthday week, so roll on a whole new wave of mental health struggles. I had my birthday without my Dad last year so this wasn't the first birthday without him and I was a little surprised at how unstable my mental health was this week, but it was definitely compounded by quarantine. I had a couple more trips out to go kayaking and to another zoo (Banham Zoo this time - https://www.banhamzoo.co.uk/). On my birthday my family held another garden festival and I was so grateful for how carefree and fun it was! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quarantine Weeks 22 and 23 (17th August-30th August) - These two weeks I've been mostly indoors during the weekdays, but I've spent the weekends at my Mum's finally sorting through a bunch of my things in storage from my old house. It's been so therapeutic to throw away old things with old memories, and give away some things to charity. I also packed my things to take back to uni and will be heading down to move into my new house on Sunday 6th September. I can't wait to finish buying things for my new uni room and decorate it. 

And after 24 weeks of quarantine I can't wait to see my housemates and friends, and I can't wait have some routine and structure back in my life! 

Going forward I want to have a bit more structure to this blog so I can make posts about different things and not just updates on my life! I'm hoping to cover medical topics, some personal experiences/stories, reviews of books/movies/series, and just generally more content. I hope that makes sense. 

I'm looking forward to bringing you all on this journey into Year 3 and clinical placements during covid and beyond! 

Thanks for reading!

Katherine x

Endocrinology, Reproduction and Gynaecology

I initially fell behind with posting due to general life being busy, and then coronavirus happened and wow did it complicate things! Anyway, for this post I'm going to talk about term 2, which has just finished.

The first week back after xmas break was our second immersion week. This time I was based in a GP surgery and only had to attend in the mornings! I spent two mornings with the GP, one with a practice nurse and one with a health care assistant. Even though I have worked in a GP surgery for 10 years now, and racked up a number of shadowing hours too, I still found this week interesting and informative, and surprisingly enjoyable! We also spent one day during this week studying personal and professional development, which included some teamworking, and legal aspects of medicine. On the Friday night I treated myself to a pamper night in with a new Lush bath bomb from Xmas, face mask and foot pack.

The World's Smallest Disco Bath Bomb - £5.50

We ended the week with a birthday celebration for one of my housemates and we were feeling refreshed and ready to start off the new term.

The new terms topics covered endocrinology, reproduction and foetal development, and gynaecology and sexual health and we worked through the topics in vaguely that order.

Refreshers week meant heading out for a meal with our medic kids. We had Italian at "VIP Pizza" and then walked to "Sprinkles Gelato" for dessert!

The clinical module this term included more clinical technical skills learning including wound closure and care, local anaesthetic, and intramuscular injections.

At the end of January I spent another day in theatres with the anaesthetists. I know I still need to type up a blog about this! (Another quarantine job to do!)

At the begining of February I decided that my room needed a shake up so I could actually get to my desk properly to study, and one of my housemates helped me to change it around.

Old Layout

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New Layout

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In the middle of February we celebrated "Galentines Day" with a movie night in with our friends, and then the next day I met some friends from home for dinner and then headed to The Brighton Centre for a Bowling For Soup concert, with support from Not Ur Girlfrenz and Simple Plan.

Not Ur Girlfrenz

Simple Plan

Bowling For Soup

I also treated myself to a Bellabeat Leaf fitness tracker in their Valentines Day sale, as in clinical environments we have to be bare below the elbows, ruling out fitbits or other similar trackers, and often may not have our phones on us either, while we are probably doing the bulk of our daily steps during that time. I was interested to be able to see just how many steps I was racking up on placements and look forward to gathering more data on it.

Towards the end of February we had our third immersion week. For me this was in the Early Intervention in Psychosis Service. This service was about a 45 minute drive from the medical school, and I had to travel there first, and the placement was full 9-5 days so it was a very long week! I have to admit that Psychiatry is one of the topics I am probably the least excited about and I could have ended up having a very miserable week here, however, I kept an open mind and engaged with the team and ended up learning a lot and really enjoying myself, which was definitely contributed to by the fantastic atmosphere of teamwork and support fostered by the team. During the week we had a day away from placement to attend our Manual Handling Training and Venepuncture Training. I used to be a phlebotomist so this was a great refresher for me. I actually hate needles being put into me though but I bravely allowed one of my colleagues to take blood from me as her first patient. I was equal parts terrified and so proud of her! And she did a great job, there was hardly even a bruise. I rounded off the week with another Saturday in theatres, and a very much needed Sunday in bed!

The first week of March I filmed a week in my life at medical school video and so that will be coming your way very soon. It was a very normal week, with lectures, more clinical technical skills, a powerpoint presentation, and a diabetes alert dog visitor!

The second week of March was due to be our last real week of teaching, but I missed the Monday to take my Brother to the Japanese Embassy in London to apply for his student visa. We usually only have one or two lectures on a Monday so fortunately I didn't miss much. As the week went on the coronavirus news only got more intense and other universities and medical schools were starting to close. Ours was still adamant that we would try to have our exam on Thursday 26th March unless we were told otherwise and that they would update us twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. Some clinical placements were starting to be cancelled though. On the Friday it was still "business as usual" so on the Monday morning I went to my scheduled phlebotomy supervised session at the hospital to get signed off, and when I arrived back home the school office was still not giving away any secrets about our exam. However, later the same day they finally emailed to let us know that the school was closing, the exam would be cancelled and term 3 would move online.

So after a couple of days of eating our way through as much freezer food as possible, I headed home on the Friday to be with my family before the inevitable lockdown.

I'll be updating from quarantine and, you never know, I might even be able to keep on schedule!
Thanks for reading!
Katherine x

I know, I know, it's been 4 months

Okay, okay, first off, I know I'm terrible, it's been 4 months since the last blog. I wish I was more consistent but here we are. Let's catch up!

New Year

For the past few years my new year's resolutions have been plentiful, however this year I made very few, but they are as follows:

• Practice yoga
• Eat a better diet
• Drink more water
• Study more and more effectively

I also set a couple of goals too:

• Improve my snowboarding
• Learn new recipes 

 These have been coming along pretty well so far!

Term 2 - Module 103 - Heart, Lungs and Blood

After new year I started back at uni and we dived straight into our first Level 5 (Second year level) module - Heart, Lungs and Blood. I also spent the first couple of days spring cleaning my room!

A few days in we received our results from the first module and I was pleased to see that I passed everything for the first module (academic skills, essay, exam, attendance), with an exam score of 82.4% (the distinction boundary was 85.8% - not too far away!).

This encouraged me that I was doing well and to keep going and keep working hard.

This term was different to the first one for many reasons.

Module 101, the clinical skills module, finally started teaching us some practical skills. We learned how to take a manual blood pressure and how to conduct a cardiovascular exam and a respiratory exam. This meant finally taking our stethoscopes out of their pristine cases and getting to use them!

Module 103, heart, lungs and blood, was immediately noticeably more in depth than the previous module, and I could already tell that I was going to need to work harder to learn all of the details. Helpfully, this module had scheduled module tutorial tests spaced out throughtout the term, five of them, which counted towards our final score. These tests encouraged me to start my revision straight away to keep on top of the material for each test, and the scores came out okay: 10/12, 12/12, 8/12, 11/12, 10/10, totalling 51/58 (87.9%).

We also got to choose a "Student Selected Component" for the first time. This is a topic that interests us, from a list we are given, and we don't get examined on it, however we do have to pass the component - by taking part and completing it to an acceptable standard (usually assessed by a powepoint or essay). The SSC I chose for this term was called "Secret Intelligence" and it was about blood biomarkers. We learned about different types of biomarkers and different conditions they can detect, including ones which are already in use and those which are at the forefront of development. We got to visit the pathology laboratory at the local hospital and have a tour as well as talks from consultants. We were assessed by powerpoint presentation and I chose to present on Rapid Diagnostic Testing as this relies on blood biomarkers. 

This term I also made more trips home, 4 in total within 9 1/2 weeks. A couple of these trips were planned and a couple were unplanned, so I was constantly on my toes. The unplanned trips weren't relating to my Dad for those of you who follow his progress, so I won't share the details of them here. But, on the subject of Dad, his chemotherapy treatment was changed to the third and final option during this term, and student support were there to help me through that change.

In other term 2 news:

• 3 of my flatmates and I chose our house for next year, and they went to view it while I was at an appointment - they loved it and we signed for it immediately!
• IT SNOWED! We turned into children and played outside in the snow, and built a snow-woman!

•  4 of my flatmates and I made a time capsule email, complete with a video, to recieve in 10 years time! We predicted our lives and reminded ourselves that we deserve to book a trip to Vegas! 

• I did some group revision sessions for the first time and actually found it helpful.
• Dog therapy came to the university!

Easter Holiday

At the end of term I left immediately after my final exam, the exam finished at 4.30pm and I was on the train by 5.10pm! I wanted to travel straight home on the Wednesday so I could get stuck back into my snowboarding improver sessions on the Thursday! I managed to squeeze in 7 sessions over the Easter break and am currently snowboarding comfortably from the "red station" on the main slope, which is the exit just below the top. I had a couple of attempts from the top at the end of my last session and let's just say that was a disaster! I ended up with a bruised coccyx to go along with the potentially broken hand from the week before (Do as I say, not as I do, and go for x-rays when you're told to! I'm currently almost 3 weeks post hand injury and still sore).

During the holiday I worked a fair amount, having 8 days off total out of the 32 I was home. However, I still had time to catch up with my family and friends, help rearrange my sister's bedroom, sort Japan photos with my brother for our scrapbooks, start working on my Family Study Essay, and play too much Sims 4! I also managed to do a little bit of student stuff at my workplace - practicing taking histories from patients, checking blood pressure and listening to some chests, and I spent a couple of mornings with the 3rd years from our local uni and it was crazy to see how much more they know! And one of our GPs donated me even more textbooks!

Just before I came back to uni my sister celebrated her birthday and it was nice to get the whole family together for a little buffet dinner.

As Term 3 has only just started I think I'll write about it in a separate post. However, I will just include on the end of this post that I passed everything for the second module (exam, module tutorial tests, student selected component, attendance), with an overall score of 80.5%. This is the combined results of my module tutorial test score of 87.9% (distinction boundary of 89.7%), and my exam score of 79.7% (distinction boundary of 81.1%).

Thanks for reading,
Katherine x

Term 2 is looming!

First things first, I hope you've had a lovely Christmas, or other seasonal/religious holiday, and if you're studying I hope you've had a nice, restful break. 

I'll pick up where I left off the last blog post. My module exam was only days away and I was going stir crazy from being cooped up in my room doing revision, but it was all worth it (I hope) as when I sat the exam I felt okay about the questions. I had a couple that I didn't have a clue what to write but other than that I felt like I either knew the topic or knew enough to write something down. Exam results are on Wednesday 9th January so I'll let you know after that if I actually did okay!

After the exam, that evening, we went out for dinner to celebrate another flat birthday. We went to a cute little Lebanese restaurant in the city.

The next morning I had my Academic Skills sign off appointment with my tutor, and then got straight on the train to London to go and meet my Dad. It was the weirdest train journey. On the train to London I met an elderly man, in his 90s, who used to be in the forces, and was the Queen's bargemaster. He shared some wonderful interesting stories and wished me luck with my degree. Then I got onto the tube and these two guys hopped on with their instruments and started playing music in between stops. It was a journey that really brought a smile to my face.

We got the train back to my campus, stopping to take some photos at one of my favourite stops on the journey, London Blackfriars, and first I took Dad to visit my medical school before going back to my flat. Flat Christmas dinner preparations were well underway and I enjoyed cooking with the girls, before one of the boys swooped in to mull some wine, carve the meat and serve the food for us! We pulled crackers, told jokes, played charades, and exchanged secret santa gifts.

On the Friday I had to attend my first aid training, and in the evening we had our Winter Ball, where my Dad was my guest. It was at The Grand Hotel in Brighton, and was a lovely night. I even drank my first full glass of red wine! My flatmates headed out to the clubs afterwards but I took my Dad back to the flat so he could sleep, the journey back being complete with me giving up on my heels and walking along freezing damp concrete in my thin tights, and someone being sick on the night bus, woooo Friday nights.

Over the weekend we managed to do a little bit of sightseeing, went out for dinner, had a takeaway, and, on a whim, went to the cinema to see the new Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald.

On the Monday we got the train home and the next day I went back to work. I worked every day, apart from one Sunday, up until the day before Christmas eve. Then I worked the 28th, and will work the 31st, and the 3rd. The work Christmas party was the first weekend I was home, and it was a riot, as always! I tried pink gin for the first time and loved it... a bit too much! I went out clubbing for a little bit afterwards and managed to break a shoe, and I was wearing a pair of my Mum's heels... that took some explaining!

Update on my Dad's flat: It's all finished and him and the dog are all unpacked and moved in! He had a boxing day/housewarming party which was nice.

Star Wars themed Christmas was a definite success, despite my uncle refusing to attend, the rest of the family had a great time. We decided our themes for next year are The Hobbit for Halloween and The Lord of the Rings for Christmas! - I know I said I would do a post about our previous themed Christmasses during the Christmas season and I will try to do that very soon.

I really enjoyed the way my Mum stacked the presents this year. Usually they're all separated out for different people but this year they were in one big pile which meant we were handing gifts to each other all morning which was lovely. We also had my grandparents present for the initial morning gift opening, usually they arrive later in the morning, so that was nice too.

The Christmas dinner was devine, as always. And after dinner, and a nap, there was more snacks and The Christmas Game. Usually the Christmas game is in line with the theme but this year it wasn't. It's the only present we usually open after dinner. This year the game was Jumanji and we played it three times! In the evening we played more board games, Sherlock Master Detective and Rick and Morty Cluedo, and as usual, started a Christmas jigsaw puzzle before bed.

In other Christmas break news:
- I did manage to overcome my anxiety and go back to snowboarding practice. I've had two sessions and am improving, and looking forward to a third session on Thursday.
- I've done a bit of sale shopping and bought some more clothes for my university "dress code" wardrobe - I feel like I should do a post about this sometime!
- For university, I've been updating my ePortfolio, and writing up my family study notes, as well as looking at the material for next term.
- I got my results for my first reflective essay back and I passed that, and the comments included "excellent first essay" and "deep personal insight" to the topic, so I was pleased with that. I'm not sure if I said in a previous blog but we had to write about an ethical or professional dilemma and I wrote about the ethics of prescribing antibiotics when antibiotic resistance is an increasing problem. 
- Also, I'm having another attempt at my academic bullet journal and have been drawing out my pages in the hope I'll use it more this term than last term!

Now I just need to think up some New Years Resolutions, decide where to go for the New Years Eve party, and what to wear!!

Thanks for reading,
Katherine x