Death by Laughter

There are very few things in life that I find genuinely funny. Sadaf sent me this link and I listened to a minute and a half out of 4 minutes and I couldn't breathe because I was laughing so hard. BUT after the first minute and a half the jokes are retarded again. But man... I haven't laughed this hard in a long long time. Much thanks Sadoodoo.

Why I want to be a doctor part II

So we left off in the physio workshop. My group consisted of 2 girls and 2 other guys, 1 of which is married (there are a LOT of married people in med school). We sit down and we read this case, silently, I'm marking up my notes (as you can see from the scans I uploaded) and then we broke off into our groups and we discussed what the problem could potentially be. And all the other groups are immediately thinking out loud food poisoning, botulism, blah blah blah, but one of my guys used to be an EMT and he immediately goes "This sounds a lot like organophosphate poisoning." I'm thinking to myself what on earth is OP poisoning, but I'm smiling and nodding with the rest of them. Turns out organophosphates are like stuff that's used in insecticides, and it makes sense because the patient is in landscaping. He pulls out his iPhone and searches organophosphate poisoning and it says that that Organophosphates basically inactivates acetylcholine esterase. Now THIS is where it got really cool... we all got together and we were like, ok, what is acetylcholine esterase? Why, it degrades acetylcholine to Choline and Acetyl CoA, of course. Where does that happen? Why, in the synaptic cleft, of course. What does that mean? That means when the nerve fires, the neurotransmitter Acetylcholine doesn't get degraded like it should... so... maybe.. it keeps on binding to the receptors... so it keeps firing the nerve or muscle that it is innervating. Now, the grand finale... what nerves use Acetylcholine? Why, All presynaptic sympathetics, select post synaptic sympathetics, and both pre and post synaptic synaptic parasympathetics. That means that there will be an exponential increase of parasympathetic activity.


Im sure you all are familiar with sympathetic vs parasympathetic nerves: sympathetic = fight or flight, parasympathetic = rest and digest. But what happens if you rest and digest wayyy too much? Your breathing slows down, you have a ton of mucus being secreted in your lungs (hence the moist rales) your pupils don't dialate, you salivate like crazy, and you start throwing up (these are the related symptoms particular to our case). And thne you have the muscle faciculations, which makes sense because motor nerves use Acetylcholine, and the subsequent flaccidness of muscles/paralysis was due to receptors becoming desensitized (aka accomodation).


Anyways, the name of these posts were why I want to be a doctor, and I mentioned the difference between the science of medicine and the art of medicine, and how dark dark darrrrrrrrrrrrrrk it can get in medical school. Speaking of which, let me go off on a little tangent: Recently, before my histology exam, I stayed up 2 nights in a row and then gave my exam. On my second all nighter it was around 3 AM I decided to take a nap, so I left all my stuff at the cafeteria (that's where I was studying at the time) and I came home to sleep squished next to the 1 man flooring bed that Sadaf was occupying and I put my alarm at around 4:45. A man can not really sleep under those conditions. The fear of oversleeping does not allow you to keep your eyes closed more than 3 minutes at a time. When it was time to get up, I felt like hell... and as I sat there on the dark floor thinking about my life... right then and there I gave up medicine. Because there is nothing in the world that could justify this much pain. There was a time I was volunteering in Cook County ER a man came in with gout in his ankle. If you know anything about gout you will know it is excruciatingly painful. This man was in so much pain he was sweating, and we gave him so much morphine that a normal person would've been alseep a long time prior, but it barely made his pain go away. He made a comment, he said that I don't wish this pain on anybody. At that time in my life I hated certain people, a real hatred, hatred that would confuse someone for the devil (Marin would know what I am talking about), and I thought to myself, really? I would never expirience any pain which I wouldn't wish on the people I hated. Well my children, at that moment, the despair, the panic, and the utter defeat felt so horrible, I wouldn't wish that on anybody. All of you who sleep at night, when you lay in bed and expirience that moment of peace, of comfort, thank Allah for it. Your life would go to hell in no time flat if Allah decided that you would never sleep again. The act of laying down in bed during the night with little to no life threatening concerns is probably the biggest blessing you take for granted. You better thank Allah before He takes it away.


Anyways, the point of all this is that sometimes we get so caught up studying the science of medicine that you lose sight of why you are during this, and that all these little names and details and muscles and enzymes and cofactors will actually mean anything one day. (To finish the story about my histo exam, I had to walk back to the cafeteria to get my stuff, so when I got there there were other students there... and I thought to myself... it's not so bad =) Anyways, to tie everything all together... to sit in that physio workshop and to deduce everything and put stuff together, it was pure magic. And for that one moment of awe... I remembered why I wanted to be a doctor.

Sadoodidoodidoo... Where are you?

Sadoodidoodidoo
Where are you?
I've got to go to sleep now
But if I'm not with you
Sadoodidoo
Then how can that come true now?

Sadoodidoodidoo
I need you
Or else I'll start to shiver
And if you don't come through
Sadoodidoo
I'll feel it in my liver

You know I'm trying to get a schedule going so Sadoodoo clean up your act
And come back!
And if you come through we're going to have a Sadoodi panda bear snack
That's a fact!

Sadoodidoodidoo
I miss you
And I feel like a villian
Cuz when I look for you
My Boo boo
We could have just been chillin

But it's a sight to see
when everybody
Sees you and gets spell-bound
But when you come to me
Sadoodidee
We'll go to sleep and sleep sound

Sorry ladies, it's been a long time

Welcome welcome welcome you are far too kind, this is the encore do you want more? Good, cuz here I am back again with a vengence. It's been a while since I've posted, I apologize for that. Right now it is 3:36 AM Arizona Time (yes, we do have our own time zone and I'm not kidding either, look at the settings of your phone and see if it's even an option if you don't believe me) and I'm trying to keep my nose above the water for Histology, exam being Friday morning (today is Wednesday... well it was Wednesday, technically it is very early Thursday morning) at 7:30 AM, and man I am livin the life! Anyways, a little update... I've been a little busy, I've had an Anatomy exam this past Monday, that sucked away all my time from the weekend, but there are lots to tell LOTS TO TELL I tell you. I've actually made a list of postings I need too catch up on. The list is as follows:

~ Part 2 of Physio workshup ==> Continuation of why I want to be a doctor
~ Ode to Umar Khokhar for his homosexual comments to my Part 1 of Physio workshop
~ This past Anatomy exam
~ Phlebotomy lab (Insha Allah at 9 AM I have to be in the lab and we are going to harpoon each other's veins trying to draw blood, stay posted for the update)
~ A picture tour of my study room and how I pimped it out
~ A subset of the above post with a focus on my teapot
~ A scanned page (or maybe a few pages) of my notes, so everyone can see what one has to go through to study in Medical school
~ Response to Sadoodoo hijacking my blog and posting at will
~ And lastly: WHY THE **** DOESN'T ANYBODY COMMENT (aside from my beloved beautiful wife that I talk to every single day anyways Masha Allah ALhamdulillah)

So what I am going to do insha Allah is I will post once a day, covering the above topics as first priority. I have the histo exam on Friday, but I also have a physio exam on Monday (which will be a frickin MARATHON study session this weekend) but insha Allah I will make time because the world doesn't stop due to a little homework, and I have fans to cater too therefore you will be rewarded for your patience. As for today, I am going to cover the topic of commenting:

The reason why I made this blog was because I wanted those who were close to me to know what it's like living here with Sadoodoo, how is Arizona, how is medical school, and so on and so forth. Because there is a LOT that happens and a LOT that I wanna share with yous guys. Last quarter Nosheen aapa had to take the majority of it cuz I needed to vent every 3-4 days, so I would call her up, and life would be good. But then you have everybody asking me the same questions, answers that took me a whole quarter, 2-3 times a week, 30-45 min conversations apiece to articulate to Nosheen aapa, and how am I supposed to answer these questions of "hey, whats it like? whats med school like? is it hard?" at a dinner party? So what ends up happening is I give a severly shorthand version of the story, and it stays in the persons mind a grand total of 7 seconds, enough for them to say "oh really? wow, cool" *swallows food* and then life goes on. So I made this blog so that the people who mean a lot to me can KNOW what happens as it happens. And I enjoy writing because I feel like I am talking to everyone who frequents my humble site.

But the problem is, the reason why I write (or the reason why ANYONE ever communicates ANYTHING that has ANY LENGHT to it whatsoever) is because I want to get a RESPONSE!!!! Do you know what it's like to spend sometimes 30 to 45 minutes writing a post, and then the next day seeing your hit count go up, but no one even dropped a line? Maybe I'm being a girl, so I won't start crying over it for too long. I just want you to know that a few words would go a really, really long way for me.

So to help get comments going, what I am going to do insha Allah is that everytime I post, at the very end of my post I am going to ask a question. All you need to do is respond to the question. Make it as long or as short as you like. Cool? <--- (this is the question for this posting! Now go comment!)

This is just a really nice song. Enjoy

A Tribute to the Lazy Med Student

This blog has been hacked to bring you this special post. Thanks to my dear husband, many of you know me as "Sadoodoo", and I would like to share a moment in time with all of you.

I have a dark and scandalous history with the field of health care. I will not elaborate on that except to say that perhaps as a result, I'd scoff at the people wanting to be doctors, dentists, etc etc. Shakil knew I wasn't exceptionally thrilled that he wanted to be a doctor, but obviously I would support him, as was expected of a good wife. I would support him, despite the fact that it was not the ideal life, being the wife of a medical student, having to deal with an irritated, stressed husband who is constantly under pressure, who doesn't have normal sleeping cycles, who can't eat meals with you like in a normal household, who never has one-tenth of a second to spare, and who transforms into delicate eggshells on weekends before exams. No, it's not easy learning to live with a person like that, on top of having my own classes to worry about, maintaing a clean house, cooking, keeping on top of the bills, groceries, and being the permanent PR person to family members on both sides.

So you say, cry me a river. Ok, fine, maybe it's not *that* bad. It's kinda nice, being in charge, doing things my way (more or less) and letting Shakil just focus on what he needs to do to succeed in school. But the point is, the toll I saw med school putting on Shakil just gave me another reason to think, ugh, medicine is awful.

Then last Friday we went to the White Coat Ceremony. I'm sitting with my father-in-law sharing a laugh at the expense of the cermony, mocking it's gallant attempt at motivation. As the evening drew on, some nice words were spoken, the ceremony was well executed, and we had to sit and watch a billion students get coated. It was *almost* as bad as graduation ceremonies. As I sat there, watching the students with huge lopsided grins, the happiness in their eyes shone brighter than the chandeliers in the room. And when Shakil walked off the stage with a white coat now over his attire, I choked up thinking two thoughts.

The first was about the medical profession. I remembered having a conversation once with Shakil about why he wanted to be a doctor. I told him he could have entered many other fields that required much less work, much less stress, and sometimes much more money! He told me then that of course he could have, but that work would never have satisfied him knowing that he wasn't utilizing the knowledge and skills Allah blessed him with to help those in need. As I sat in my chair watching him, it became clear to me what those words really meant, and the responsibility that coat added into our lives, to the lives of all those accepting white coats. What I saw sitting there, was the nobility that existed in the medical field's purest form, minus all the politics and red tape. I watched with a sense of awe and respect at those students so willing to burden themselves with that magnificent responsibility.

My second thought was that it doesn't matter that this was his dream up to this point, because I am no longer an uninvolved bystander offering support from a distance. From here on out, this is a bittersweet struggle and a dream that we are living and experiencing together. When inshaAllah he walks off of another stage four years later with two tiny letters after his name, that will be the result of a battle that we experienced, survived, and conquered together by the grace of Allah.

And so the ceremony that was supposed to be the motivation for the student-doctors became an inspiration for me to live for the deam that my husband began, and that together we will end, insha'Allah. On a last note, the one line I remember vividly from all the speeches was the following. May your days ahead be as bright as the coats you wear.

Here are some photos from the ceremony. Enjoy =)

...the sea of white coats.

...the cadaver lab!!

Some more nice quotes

Sometimes in life, you have to be intelligent.
~ Boro Mama (Mamu for the urdu speaking crowd)

You are never really playing an opponent. You are playing yourself, your own highest standard. And when you reach your limits... that is the real joy.
~ Arthur Ashe

Eid Mubarak

White Coat, Me, Usman, Asim, Ramin from left to right.

Assalaamu Alaikum wa Rahmatullah

It's 12:21 AM on Eid eve, and I'm trying to catch up on studying. I'm high on green tea that I actually brewed. I bought a tea kettle today from a middle eastern store and this small packet of chinese green tea called gun powder and man im hiiiiiiiiiiigh haha. Sadoodoo is still in the kitchen doing her pre eid cooking and I sent an email out to the muslim body saying come on over tomorrow anytime and eat insha Allah. My play list right now is Snow (hey yo) by red hot chili peppers, bad moon rising by CCR (hilarious song, listen to it and tell me you dont picture me haha), pray by Jay Z, and Get Up by 50 cent. There is also its a beautiful life by ace of base but we will disregard that. Let's see if I can pull till 3 am, then wake up by 6:30. This is the life! That's what I'm talking about, studying till humanity sleeps and then wakes up again, being the only crazy fool enjoying the pain... ahhh yes nothing like the life of a student. Baptized by fire baby. Gunna include part 2 of my physio workshop diagnosis soon iA.