I love love love definitive statements. Esp from someone of authority which supports what I was hoping for. Is it because I just do not have enough of a mind of my own to believe in what I believe in? Or is it more of a case that I am lazy and this definitive statement actually supports my inaction? Either way it doesn't paint too bright a picture of myself. *Self- doubt*

ZOOOMM

It seems to me that I am now constantly catching up with school work, and I am no longer on top of the ball game as I long have. I actually feel (or worse, know) that if I don't Buck up, I will flunk med school. Its an awful, draining, panicky feeling that I can't get rid off. It's like I'm on a threadmill that's turning too fast, and I am about to slip off. And it feels like until the actual scars I acquired from a treadmill accident last year fade, I will never get rid of these feelings.

AH CHOOO!

Just casually checking my inbox and I see these 2 emails. LOL! WTF?!!

New role as Academic Activities Officer and sitting into a Year 1/2 course committee meeting, with all the lecturers and course coordinator.

Balance between advocacy for the 1st years and raising petty issues and losing my credibility. Where is the fine line?

I've always had qualms about pple using the index to look up something in a textbook. When a pass leader recommends doing that to look for definition of terms, when I see my fellow classmates looking through the index etc, i just feel in my heart and brain that something is not right. As if some procedural step has been jumbled or someone is cheating. Fair, its a fricking 600 page textbook, an index would be like a crtl f- god sent to those unresponsive, unscrollable deadpan pages. But but- You are a student! And you are learning. Surely the content page, which contains the main concepts would be more useful to you than an alphabetical list? Surely locating a term using your existing knowledge of it, through the various body systems nicely segmented out for you in the content page, is more satisfying than trawling through an alphabetical list where neighbours are as related as a STOmach ulcer to a STOp codon??

Quaint old journal article on endocrine crises :)

Diabetic Ketoacidosis

Pathophysiology: Starvation in the midst of plenty

The Actors in the drama:
-Insulin
-Glucagon
-Free fatty acids: Essential for the play to begin
-Glucose transporters: Playing supporting roles in developing hyperclycemia

The Stage:
Scene I, The Fat cell: Insulin exits and the fat cells goes into lipolysis
Scene II, The Liver: Glucagon enters and the liver becomes a sugar and ketoacid factory
Scene III, The Kidney: Osmotic diuresis leads to dehydration
Scene IV, Skeletal Muscle: Potassium moves out of the cells

The Patient is the Star:

'The patient never stops making water and the flow is incessant... life is short, unpleasant and painful, thirst unquenchable, drinking excessive... if for a while they abstain from drinking, their mouths become parched and their bodies dry; the viscera seem scorched up; the patients are affected by nausea, restlessness and a burning thirst, and within a short time, they expire.' - Aretaeus of Cappadocia (2nd Century AD)

How I love reading articles that describe unfortunate conditions with such familiarity and flair, putting the art into the science, the soft, romanticism into the hard, objectified physiology. :)