Hey all,
If anyone's still reading this blog, I'm on vacation and I'm trying to really vacation, which means trying to de-stress. I've been having a lot of heart palpitations and I'm trying to do everything I can to relax. Funny thing is, I think they're caused by relaxing. I had things to do for the last 2 days and the palpitations went away. Funny that. Maybe going back to work on July 2 will solve them all together.

Anyway, my relaxing hasn't left much to write about. I've been making bread and making a quilt for my new niece and both are going quite well, although the quilting is getting a bit tedious near the end.

I hope everyone's doing well. I'll write more once there's something to say.

Big Week

This week was a really big week for me! I graduated on Wednesday and I have a new niece! My brother had a beautiful baby girl, born at 34 1/2 weeks, weighing in at a slight 4 pounds 14 ounces. She's doing fine and has been moved into the feeder and grower area of the NICU. She's lost all of her tubes and wires and seems to be holding her own. I went to visit yesterday and holding such a small baby is weird! Especially after holding my 9 month old nephew a couple of hours earlier.

Tomorrow is the baby shower we're throwing for my brother and sister-in-law. It was supposed to be before the baby was born but... oops!

Epic 8 hour

Yesterday Ben and I did the Epic 8 hour mountain bike race at Albion hills. My goal was to do 4 laps and I did 4! 4 really good laps without falls and riding everything except 2 steep hills that most others were also walking. Ben did 7 laps for a total of 11. We came right in the middle of the pack of 20, 12th. If I wasn't so slow we could have done better, but just finishing the race was a major accomplishment for me.

The only downer of the day was on my last lap about 300 meters from the finishline. A guy came up to pass me on the left and clipped my handlebar with his and took me out. I landed on him and his bike and had the wind knocked out of me. In his excitement over his fastest lap of the day, he forgot to call out which side he was passing on and as it's a long gravel straight it's hard to tell how far back the crunching gravel sound is, so although I knew he was there, I couldn't tell where. In mountain biking it's the responsibility of the faster passing rider to call out which side they're going to pass on if it's double-track and it's more of a negotiation on single-track where the faster rider tells the slower rider they're there, then the slower rider finds a place to slow up and pull over a little and tells the faster rider which side to pass on. 99% of the people yesterday were excellent passers. About 1% were complete assholes, which amounts to about 3 people who passed without saying anything or at inappropriate times and shoved me off the trail. That's a pretty good record for this race and really does the mountainbiking community here credit.

Anyway, so I have a really bruised up left leg and a somewhat bruised up right leg and I thank god I was wearing pads. I still had fun :)

The day after I book my holter and echo the palpitations stop. Isn't that always the way?

In other news: Ben and I went and rode the Hydrocut mountain bike trails in Waterloo and they were amazing. They're really well set up and maintained and use the small area of woods really wisely. There are some wickid climbs and by the end of our 20k ride I was pooped. Hopefully the course for the 8 hour this weekend won't be as hard as what we did today because then I'll be fu*ked after a couple of laps :)

This week is going to be full of apartment hunting and bridesmaid dress hunting. Still haven't been able to find dresses I like. Might have to *gasp* go into a bridal store (I've been doing my best to avoid them).

Why is starting residency so expensive? 500 dollars to the CPSO, 152 per month to the CMPA, a couple of hundred to register with my new university, having to start paying disability insurance to avoid having a physical if starting insurance after starting work (haven't decided how much insurance to get yet). All this and I have yet to get my first paycheck! Good thing I have some savings. I'm trying to budget out my money for next year and I'll tell you one thing - a resident's salary doesn't go very far.

So, I went to our local conservation area to do some mountain biking today. I was feeling very optimistic after a bad weekend bike in the mud that ended with some bruises and almost tears. I was timid today because I was on my own and not feeling super comfy on the bike as it's still pretty early in the season. I challenged myself to ride a few things that I had chicken out of in the past. One of them involved a steep descent with a sharp right hander and then some boulders. It took me a few attempts to get through the right hander and then I thought I would just sort of step the bike down off one of the boulders because the line was really good after that. Bad idea. I endo'd and then faceplanted into some bushes. I got up and checked my teeth - all still there, but had a wickid bloody nose and did something funky to my neck. I'm alive but shaken. I went on and rode a few easy sections of singletrack because everyone knows you've gotta get back on the bike, but man, it hurt. What a way to ruin a good sunny mountain biking day.

palpitations

I'm using this post today to vent some anxiety. I had a whole day of palpitations last week, chalked them down to studying for the big exam and being nervous. They lasted about 8 hours. On Sunday evening I started having them again. Went to bed hoping they would be gone in the morning. They weren't. Spent 3 hours having them and then started freaking out. Had a bit of chest pain (probably psychosomatic). Went to emerg and felt really stupid, only had one PVC on the EKG. Blood work fine. Doctor recommended a holter if I still had them and they were worrying me but he can't order it. Today I woke up having them again. I'm sure they're PVCs or PACs but they're freaking me out and they're making me afraid to do things like go for my run or go to the gym. I know that they're normal in young people but when they're bad I'm having them every few beats. I am an anxious person by nature and I'm sure that's not helping. Phew. I needed to get that off my chest. I'm a normal healthy person and this is just freaking the shit out of me.

My ego is a bit bruised and I'm nursing it with mountain biking, running and beer. I'll post more when I feel a bit better about myself. I'm enjoying life but dreading the time for results of the LMCC.

Piece of crap stupid exam I hate you.

The big exam is tomorrow and let's just say that I'm freaking out. I don't feel ready, but I also feel like I couldn't study anymore. Studying has taken over my life for the past 2 weeks, like a 12 hour a day job and I'm ready for it to be over. But I'm not ready to take the test. Funny how that works.

Burning heart

Does basil cause heartburn?

Stage II

Now I'm actively in stage II of LMCC prep. I've finished reading the Toronto notes and now I'm on prep questions. I'm currently doing a USMLE step 2 practice question book because it's well presented with answers to all of the questions. I have a couple of other sites and practice questions but the answers aren't as well laid out.

After this: on to more questions and doing the community health and epidemiology pretest to see if I can learn something about studies and 2x2 tables.

I'm having weird fluttery chest feelings. I've been having them for about 2 months but they've really stepped up in the past week. Originally I thought they were esophageal spasms not cardiac and I have no other cardiac symptoms, but, my pulse was a bit irregular today. I have a doctor's appointment next Friday so let's hope I can wait until then.

Blog Spam

What's up with people leaving lame ass comments just so they can advertise their own blog? I'm sure the information in this blog is "well layed out and thoughtful" but I'm pretty sure you also didn't read it Mr. nutrition blog. I'm going on a quest - from now on I'm deleting all such comments.

Idle Threats

so,
Yesterday I got an email from one of the administrative assistants of a department at my medical school saying that if I didn't locate and hand in an evaluation (that I thought was handed in) I wouldn't convocate with my class. I had emailed said admit assistant 3 weeks ago to ask about the form and never heard back, so I thought the doc who had the form had handed it in. Turns out he didn't. He also didn't reply to any of my emails. I spoke with his secretary yesterday and she had no idea where the form was.

After a day of stressing myself to death, the form was in this morning.

Too much stress for LMCC studying time.

The weatherman lied

Well, Saturday morning WAS gorgeous. But, I am still resentful that the weather man lied and Sunday was a bit more dreary than expected. Also, weather.com said maximum 1 mm of rain on Saturday, I laugh to hear it, the torrential downpour definitely yielded >1mm.

In other news, Ben and I didn't go to the race this weekend. Instead, we went biking for 3 hours on Saturday morning/afternoon at Albion Hills then went to my parents house and made surf and turf bbq in the rain. Pickerel mmmm. The biking was good. Made me realize how out of shape I am and how much I need to step it up if we're going to do the Duke's 8 hour later in May. Thankfully, after my exam I have nothing else to do except line up at the passport office to get a new passport.

Gorgeous day

It's a wonderful beautiful sunny day outside and I am studying... bah humbug. I'm going to go sit outside and pretend to read the Toronto notes. Then I'm going for a run, because I need to enjoy this sunshine. Hallelujah, winter's over! We hope.

sad news. today, after 6 years of loyal service, my ipod bit the dust. I loved that thing. Huge, white, high tech that became low tech. No click wheel. Buttons that are not too uber sensitive. Ah, ipod, I hearted you and now you're blank and don't have the necessary files to connect to my computer. Sounds like your wee hard drive is fried.

Should I get another? Or is there some new fancy music device on the horizon.

Got back on the bike today after Sunday's challenging times. Bum was sore, neck was sore, elbow was sore, but otherwise ok. Too windy though!

Well, I finished 60k without training for it. I guess this is the best thing I can say about the ride yesterday. In truth, it was really really hard. The wind was a direct headwind gusting 50km/h which made it brutal. It was cold and the ground was quite wet - making the grass sections sodden and a difficult slog. The singletrack, however, was fun. About 40k into the race I started cramping. First my adductor longus, then my quads to the point where I couldn't flex or extend my legs and I had to semi-crouch and bang my legs for a few minutes with my fists, then my gasterocs. Nobody else knows how cramps feel unless they're also suffering. There was a girl on another girl/boy team who was suffering as much as I was with hideous cramps. We would both ride for 15 or so minutes and then have to get off and stretch and the other one of us would pass on one of our riding stints. We must have switched places with them 20 times. At some points in the race I must have been pinching my median nerve with my handlebars because I started getting shooting pains in my hands and 4th and 5th fingers. That was fun.

All in all I learned a few things for next year... oh and there will be a next year, and I won't suck. I will train. I will eat while on the bike. I will figure out which fancy bike food works best for me because trying to eat granola bars with dry wind blown dust mouth was not working. The only things I could eat yesterday were jellybeans and fruit leather. I drank gatorade but it wasn't enough. Oh, Paris to Ancaster, next year you will rue the day you messed with me.

Yesterday was my last day of medical school. It really hasn't sunk in yet. I have my LMCC part 1 in 2 weeks time and I feel very under studied. Tomorrow we're doing a 60k bike race which we're not very well trained for. Wish us luck!