June-ish

You may have noticed that the design of this blog has somewhat changed, from just the plain black and orange look to this one; after seeing the new design options I had, the amateur style I was going with was crying out for change. I'm not sure if I'm completely happy with the background I have; there may be a little bit too much orange so I may change it further, probably depending on the mood I'm in. But a massive change that I could implement finally was the width of various parts, meaning I now don't have to manipulate YouTube videos to make them fit, or adjust picture settings so the border doesn't get cut off. I also noticed some other nifty gadgets that I hadn't seen before; apart from the fish tank and various games, something that I may want to add is a photostream, as I practically relive my memories through photos (how else can I remember what I've done during the month?). I'm unsure about putting adverts in my blog; I know it can make me some money, but I wonder how much, and will it interfere with the feng shui balance of my blog? Surely I'd need loads of people to see my blog for the adverts to be of any use, but is that the real purpose of me writing, and do I want all these randoms to see my blog? I'm not sure.

The summer holidays so far haven't exactly been filled with days of chilling, and by chilling I mean just sitting around doing nothing. Much like the past academic year, I've had a list of things in my head I need to do; this summer I need to find a job, go to various things I've been invited to, do all the projects I've been planning to undertake (filming, writing, university society work etc), watch the World Cup; so I really don't have much time to sit around, and nor do I want to. I know next year is going to be much tougher with the workload, and if I start the year knowing I've gotten alot of the 'recreational' stuff out of the way, I can do much better with the 1+1=3 stuff.

I went to Scotland with a friend for the weekend recently. He's a rally driver and there was a competition up near Castle Douglas. He said I could be the co-driver for a couple of his races, but (on the 'advice' of my mum, and for safety's sake) I chose to walk the entirety of the track and take in the depth of the mysterious forest, hurriedly making for the bank when I heard the deafening buzz of a speeding car from the distance. There were moments when the race was stopped (probably due to a crash farther on), and that was when I truly felt 'at one' with nature; just myself and the innumerable pine trees, and no phone signal. The hotel we stayed at was nice, neighbouring a field of cows; I got my own room, and managed to watch Algeria's first World Cup game there. Actually the whole area we stayed in seemed quite peaceful and dreamlike; the drive through the country lanes was as if someone had delved down into my deepest thoughts and extracted the perfect scenes onto Scottish canvas. It was too nice.

Other things that happened this month: I watched a play: one of those rare occasions in my life. It was alright; a little too deep for my understanding, but it had a couple of actors I recognised from elsewhere. There also were protests against the 'freedom flotilla' massacre, which really had a 'good' feel to them.. And I had another MRI scan; alhamdulillah the pituitary growth hasn't grown further, but I still haven't managed to get hold of a picture of my brain!

Oh, and I went to Turkey for a week, but that deserves a blog-post on its own.

 

My month in status updates:

loves how the neighbours have bought a trampoline, inspired by my early morning bouncing :D

has done the unthinkable and bought an Algeria football shirt...

MRI scans and hayfever aint the best of mixes...

is on the way to Scotland. All matters are to be taken up with batman until I get back.

is in the Scottish wildnerness following a rally course in the hope of finding civilisation...

Come on Algeria! No really, come on >_>

Algeria just showed England very nicely. Fireworks in Cricklewood, imagine if they won!

is definitely feeling more half Algerian than half English tonight :)

is on the way to Turkey, but the tardis is staying at home.

can't believe I had to explain to the Turkish bath guy that public nudity wasn't part of My tradition >_>

 has witnessed some spectacular scenes, met some wonderful people, swum in some paradisical waters. But there's no place like home.

World Cup Fever 2010

Well, that time is upon us once more; the World Cup will be filling everyone's screens and minds from now until mid-July, and the mood and feeling surrounding such an occasion is like no other. I've wanted to write about the World Cup for a while, because of the intense excitement everyone feels in the midst of it, and the sense of anticipation before it begins. It's not 'just football', as many women critics claim; this only happens once every four years, and you could say that every football-playing man has dreamt of lifting that trophy, that beautiful solid-gold trophy. Drama is at a high even before a ball has been kicked, with squad selections, fixture lists (and who has qualified) and doubts about players' fitness and injuries. This is the month that every professional top-flight player works towards; only the best are chosen to represent their countries, with the hopes of whole nations resting on their shoulders. In the build-up to the start of the tournament, programmes showing the history and highlights/bloopers of the World Cup are broadcast, and that only adds to the excitement.

At the beginning you have three or four matches shown on television daily, even the most average of teams in the competition have something up their sleeve, and sometimes the best goals come from them. This is a platform for people to pursue their childhood dreams, to show their talent off to prospective clubs, and leave the worldwide audience in awe as they shine. The knockout stages are the most dramatic, where a single loss means an early trip home, and a win allows your team to fight one more day. You couldn't get more suspense than when a match goes to penalties; England have never won a penalty shootout and will avoid them if they can, but for the moment we can enjoy asking each other which matches are being shown today, and where we want to watch them together. And we can go on discussing possible scenarios where certain teams get a certain number of points if they won, drew or lost, and the effects that would have on other teams in the group.  Things are especially exciting in 2010, as Algeria have qualified for the first time in my life, and they've been drawn in the same group as England. I'm hoping Algeria do progress to the knockout stages, which is unlikely as England and USA are far stronger, but it should be entertaining nevertheless! I've bought my (very pricey) Algeria shirt and can't wait to see how they fare; last time they were in the competition, they beat West Germany!

Some people may criticise the World Cup for becoming too commercialised (like Christmas), but the thing is, the football has remained the focus, and although yes, companies do take advantage of the event by making so many football-orientated (and entertaining) advertisements, the spirit of the beautiful game and purity of competition have not been tainted. It's still an opportunity for nations to come together and witness the spectacle that transcends all boundaries. It's difficult to explain how a spectator feels when the World Cup is in full swing, and it's different every time because of the different host nations, different matches being played, and new faces on the pitch. And once you start to get used to the whole thing; whether it be the Argentinian skill, Italian defence, Dutch flair or Brazilian genius, it's over, and every guy (and girl, who has a four-yearly sudden interest in football) has to wait for the next one to roll on, and inspire generations anew. But for now I'll try and take it in as best as I can.

UPDATE: With my late blog-posting, almost a week of the tournament has passed, with criticisms of the match ball and how difficult it is for players (and goalkeepers) to control it, as well the the 'vuvuzelas' (African trumpet things) drowning out the sound of everything in earshot. With the actual matches, some would say it has been a slow start as few goals have been scored (that changing when Germany met Australia), and Algeria had to slip up against a team they needed to pick up points against; the Algerian keeper making a muddle of a straightforward Slovenian shot, almost re-enacting a similar one the day before involving the England keeper, which raises further questions about the state of the ball. So I'm hoping Algeria can do what they do best and somehow unpredictably get results in the other two games. Otherwise, we've had New Zealand picking up their first ever point in their tournament history, with a very late dramatic goal, and the real minnows in the competition, North Korea (who qualified for the first time since England lifted the trophy- in '66), playing the best team in the world, Brazil, and holding them at 0-0 at half-time! It needed two world-class Brazilian goals to defeat them, but North Korea did manage to pull one back, and it was quite a well-worked goal too! The 'group of death' in which they occupy (including Ivory Coast and Portugal) may not finish as predictably as we'd thought!

Results

Last Thursday I got my exam results for first year, and I passed! All I can say is alhamdulillah, thank God I've passed the one year mark without any slip-ups, and can look forward to 4 months of retake-free summer. To be honest, apart from one paper that was too close to call, I didn't think I failed, and overall I think I got an A. Checking the results brought back memories of logging into UCAS seeing if I got a university place, but the results were comfortable passes and I'm happy, sort of. We had to get more than 50% in every paper to proceed, which I did, but I'm disappointed I didn't achieve a merit (as far as I'm aware, since friends who did get merits already know), which is reserved for the top 25% of the year.

I don't think I particularly deserve a merit, unless you count the hours spent in extra lectures every week throughout the year, but I didn't spend one sleepless night revising, and certainly didn't put as much effort in during our one week of study leave as others did. I'm not a fan of re-writing notes out neatly to pretend you're doing some revision. Sure, you'll have something ordered and tidy to read from on the tube to the exam, but it's just too time-consuming and laborious, compared to just reading from the notes and lecture slides you already have; the route I chose to follow.

But maybe I should have been a bit more ordered in my revision; I did have a timetable from which I knew what I exactly wanted to revise on a certain day, and the piles upon piles of material were sorted out into their respective modules, but there was something extra I was missing; maybe taking a more organised approach from the start of the year is a good idea, so by the end, you have all the key things you need to learn summarised and highlighted ready for your final few days of delirium.

I hate the idea of being mediocre, whether in exam results, sporting prowess or just life in general. I think it's our parents who shape us into people who either really have that urge to achieve more or just settle for second place. I don't like doing second place. Remember in our younger years when we wanted to do well in something because it would make our parents proud? Or when we found something cool and wanted to show them, and present said object in front of their eyes, and they would gleam in appreciation and pride? Although those shows of praise have all but ended (almost), I still have the urge to try my hardest and do my best, be the best, because it's been instilled in me; it is me.

So next year inshaallah I will do better!

April and May

I'm back from finishing my first year at university, and with revision and exams out of the way, I can finally publish the stuff I typed out ages ago for the last two months...

APRIL
Well, another exam out of the way alhamdulillah, and going with the theme of not having study leave before the exams my uni is adopting, I thought this would be the most difficult exam yet; Brain & Behaviour and
Locomotor modules are no easy feat to get your head around. Learning all the different tracts in the spinal cord and what would happen if one had a lesion on one particular side did take some time to understand, but I think learning about how pain and sensation works was probably one of the more interesting things I've learnt this year. Things became especially mind-blowing when we started to learn about the structure of the brain, and what every region controlled. For example if a person suffered a stroke to Wernicke's area (a part in the dominant hemisphere - usually left - to do with reception of information), you could ask them a question, and they would hear it, but they would give a completely random response to do with anything (an example oft-used by my lecturers was to do with butterflies and clouds). If there was a stroke to the same area, but on the different side of the brain, the person would get something called neglect syndrome, where the person would ignore everything on the other side of the body. So the person would ignore people, what they see, what they hear; everything is neglected on that side (even though their hearing and eyesight works fine), and most bizarrely, they would neglect themselves! So they wouldn't dress, wash or shave themselves
on that side. If you brought their neglected arm in front of them, they could fling it away with such force that their shoulder could become dislocated.

There is so much left to discover with the brain, and indeed the whole body, and sitting the exam made me aware of the many fillable gaps in my own knowledge of the syllabus, let alone the unexplored territory. But it went better than I thought (especially considering that apparently 60% of the last year group failed this exam). I felt such a feeling of relief, and I'm still feeling it; I remember during our cardiorespiratory module looking at the timetable for the rest of the year and dreading the B&B exam, but being here doesn't seem too bad alhamdulillah.

I did take a few risks though; when I shouldve been revising for the exam on Friday, on Wednesday I volunteered for the teddybear hospital safety day. I've been involved with the teddybear hospital group at my
uni all year, and I really love it: just going to schools and teaching five and six year-olds about germs, medical equipment and teeth-brushing, and where they bring in their ill teddybears that we bandage up. This day was when the schools came to us, and at our research centre we have a pod room suspended in the middle of the
building where there are cool activities for the kids to do, so they went there for a bit. Also the police, fire brigade and hospital staff came with their respective vehicles (and horses), and we taught them a bit about being safe and healthy. The day was focussed around the children, but I have to say that maybe the volunteers (us numbering about 50) probably had more fun, and the source of a lot of it was from the helium balloons. I was responsible for tying the balloons around the kids' wrists, which I must have messed up, because there
were a load of balloons up in the ceiling further down the hall. So we had the pleasure of first retrieving these balloons and then sucking out the helium to some hilarious effect!

MAY
This month was supposed to be dedicated to revision for exams starting on the 17th, but again I found myself up to other things, like running for press officer for teddybear hospital (which I managed to get, at a krispy-kreme filled AGM), and auditioning for MESS (which I don't think I've praised highly enough on here). MESS, the group at uni which gives extra lectures on Tuesdays and Fridays for first years on recent topics covered has practically been a lifesaver; I've barely missed one session, and has been an amazing almost-substitute for the revision I've supposed to have been doing throughout the year. Students from upper years volunteer to give the lectures, and I can only be proud to give something back to a group which has practically
been getting me my much-needed passes. I wonder how I'm going to cope next year without it. The audition just involved me giving a short lecture on a topic covered during first year, and as we'd just sat the B&B exam, I thought I'd do some neuroanatomy, which my co-auditionees couldn't believe I'd take a risk with, but a topic I found quite enjoyable as well as easier to understand than some other topics out there.

I've had a history with revision; not a very good one. As soon as I sit down to get some work done, I find myself drifting away and being distracted by other things I wouldn't normally be interested in. This time though I've been watching House, the medical drama that forms a kind of bridge between myself and where I want to be, and motivates me to get revision done. My promise of 'no films for two weeks' has been upheld, and a timetable for the week ensured I covered all the stuff I needed to.

So onto exam day, and the administrators had problems with booking exam venues, which found us going to Barts hospital in Barbican and doing the exam in the Great Hall. And boy was it great! Half an hour before the exam you could see us all on the benches at the edges of the vast hospital square, frantically going through notes and trying to remember drug names and disease mechanisms. This was the dreaded Short Answer Question paper, and you could tell people would be happy scraping a pass. This paper could cover any PBL we did during the year, as well as 3 brand new ones they gave scenarios for beforehand, plus a hidden never-before-seen one. The stairs leading up to the great hall were magnificent; this place dripping in history with its
painted walls and oak bannisters. The hall was covered in golden engravings of the names of all the hospital benefactors over the centuries, and at the front hung a massive portrait of Henry VIII; adding to our sense of occasion.

We all came out not knowing whether or not we did well; it was more of a 'write alot and hope for marks' exam, and the next day we thought would give us some reprieve. This was the Extended Matching Questions paper, where they give you a list of words to choose from and match a few of them to the sentences describing something we were supposed to have learnt earlier in the year. This paper was slightly easier, as the answers were practically in front of us, but there were some tricky questions to do with cranial nerve nuclei and their pathways. This would be the last time we'd sit in the great hall, so I took a few moments to soak the atmosphere in.

Wednesday was a free day with no exams, but allowed us time to prepare for OSCEs the next day, and the anatomy/microanatomy spotter on Friday. We were at Barts hospital on Thursday for our OSCE exam; an exam where you have various stations with patients sitting in them, and with you having to examine various parts of their bodies. In between these stations were some EMQs we also had to answer, relating to the patients we had just seen. Before the exam we all had to wait in a lecture theatre for the other groups to finish; all of us dressed smartly, some with stethoscopes hanging around their necks. The exam itself, I thought, was quite fun. At every buzzer, we had to move stations and see new people, hurriedly reading the scenarios beforehand and quickly deciding what procedures you were supposed to do, do them, with occasional interruptions from the examiner asking questions. In the various stations I had to: locate the apex heartbeat/listen to all the valves, locate the jugular venous pulse, guide a blind person to another chair, examine someone's lungs on their back, test the motor function/reflexes on someone's arms, examine knee joints, get consent from a reluctant patient, resuscitate a dummy, examine the function of cranial nerves 5, 7, 10, 11 and 12, do an abdominal exam, as well as answer all of the EMQs in between. Overall I loved it, but some friends said they made silly mistakes and missed stuff out, but it's an exam that's difficult to fail unless you really had no clue!

The final exam day; just an hour and a half on a computer answering multiple-choice questions based on the pictures of dead bodies they give you. Revision for this is either hit or miss; you either know all the different tissue types and what microscope slides look like or you don't. Guessing won't get you really far, but walking out of the exam, alhamdulillah,  I didn't think it was that hard. Sure, there were a couple of questions that you had to make informed guesses on, but nothing too impossible. The time spent after the exam wasn't really full of celebration as you'd expect, but our usual probing of every question took precedence. I went for lunch at subway with the group of friends I was debating answers with, and then went to watch Robin Hood at Westfields with another group of friends. In the end, a happy but subdued climax to our exams and the end of the year. And results come out on Thursday!

The bi-monthly video

The video is an old animated film of Animal Farm; I remember my mum borrowing this from the library a couple of times for us when we were young. We obviously didn't understand the deeper politics-related meaning behind the story, but I think it engrained in us an early ability to recognise the concept of injustice.

My two months in status updates:

That's the last time I'm bringing my scarf near a horse's mouth!

The demon headmaster in Doctor Who!! :O

Who suggested that football should be played with the same limbs you need to walk home afterwards with?

is loving the daylight at this late hour :)

Thinking about thinking, talking about talking, understanding understanding; lectures are getting bare trippy! :P

can't wait for tomorrow when i cruise about town in a wheelchair... feeling sorry for you GP surgery sitters :P

The skill of pushing a wheelchair and holding a video camera is one I have yet to acquire...

You know you're doing a medicine writeup when Office doesn't recognise most of your words...

"Damn their filthy Yankie hides!"... Lecture quote of the day :D

loves how everyone was flailing their arms and legs about to try and get some marks today :)

believes tfl has a list of all the important days in his life >_>

Omg! I can see myself on the BBC marathon programme!!

Cricklewood United FC 8 - 0 Blood Sweat & Beers. For once i can say i'm proud :)

is ecstatic that the lib dems got my area, but gutted overall :/

is getting addicted to the sound of his own heartbeat. Buying a stethoscope now was a wrong decision!

felt the urge to practice his OSCE's on a blind man today, forcibly.

The silence before the storm :S

really needs to stop thinking the examiners are trying to trick him ¬_¬

Learning all this anatomy, i'd have thought i'd be fluent in Latin by now. Vescere bracis meis as they say...

maybe shouldn't have said there was something not right about the tone in someone's arms :S

Standing between myself and 4 months of summer... One exam!

The sun couldn't have shone on a better day, but i'm a bit sad the year had to end so soon!

just had an afternoon nap... because he can! (and was a bit tired)

Petition to remove the word 'for' from 'transport for london', and maybe the word 'transport' too! 

In other developments, the Lib Dems won our constituency which was good, although Conservatives won most seats overall. More importantly, my laptop broke, completely. The motherboard decided to just die, and so the screen is blank, and I just picked it up from the shop with the knowledge that it's irreparable (which I'll confirm when I contact hp), but hopefully I can get all my important data off it. But still, my beloved touch screen laptop that was just so beautiful and compact, gone. On a more positive note, I now own what will probably be one of my more important (and dear) possessions: an orange stethoscope! :)

 

Marathon Fever 2010

As a couple of friends decided they were running the London Marathon for charity, another friend thought it would be a good idea if we volunteered as staff, advertised for by a volunteering group at our university. The meeting for volunteers was to take place on the Friday before the marathon; the same day as our exam. Luckily the lady offered to meet with us quickly afterwards as we couldn't make the time, and the two hour meeting that everyone else endured was summarised for us in ten minutes. We were also handed pull-string bags with the marathon logo emblazoned on the front, and inside was all sorts of stuff: lots of food as well as a cool t-shirt, cap and bib we were due to wear on the day (and a waterproof poncho that came in handy, but I still wonder why they packed that marathon foil stuff). As we walked out of the student union building, our excitement couldn't be contained, and we couldn't wait to be part of something big!

The morning of the marathon, and travel plans looked like they would be disrupted by the regular weekend works on the tube, but TFL had some mercy and the jubilee line was working for once. The first train leaving Neasden was at 7am, and I needed to get to Canary Wharf (the location of the mile our group was covering- mile 19) by half past 7. So I texted in to say I would be a bit late, and boarded the train wearing my white marathon t-shirt with 'STAFF' stitched into the front. There were a few people already on the train who looked like they were running it, and I just stood there as more and more marathon runners got on, feeling a little important inside, that I was made partly responsible for their safety.

Most runners got off at London Bridge while I stayed on until Canary Wharf, where I was met by a crowd of people wearing identical t-shirts and caps to me. After a bit we were showed around the course, and were dropped off in pairs at the locations we were supposed to steward at. My friend Farhaan and I were luckily placed just before the water station, where a lot of the action would take place, and were told that our job was to answer questions from the spectators and ensure that they didn't cross the barriers.

The buildings overhead were mighty, and we stood at the foot of The Canary Wharf building itself, helping the water people open the catches on the bottles, ready for the inevitable horde of runners to grab them. Suddenly we were all alerted to the presence of the oncoming wheelchair racers (who are traditionally the first to start), and they zoomed past ignoring offers of water bottles. With the crowd barely present at this stage, we thought we could liven things up by helping hand out water, so we grabbed a couple of bottles each. The small group of elite women runners passed next, again with no-one taking water. But as the elite male runners with their entourage of motorbikes and cameras passed, one Kenyan lagging behind did snatch a bottle from Farhaan, who was ecstatic at his achievement (Farhaan that is, not the runner).

Slowly slowly, the average Joes and Janes began to trickle through; the fastest way out in front, with the less able and the more wackily-dressed coming later in their droves. The spectators were behaving themselves so we decided that water distribution would become a more permanent role of ours, and the helpful feeling inside was overwhelming; now multiply that thousands of times for all the runners that needed hydrating, and you got one hell of an altruistic buzz. It was surprising how many people actually said 'thank you' or 'cheers mate'; when they should've been concentrating every muscle fibre on running, they made the effort to be polite even in times of exhaustion. Such are the formalities of Brits I suppose!

Water was getting scarce on our side of the road, so we had to dodge runners to get to the other side and bring back soggy cardboard crates of new bottles, whose numbers needed further replenishing just after a few minutes (and towards the end we realised people further down our side had loads of bottles). As we were both bent over opening caps on new bottles, we got a tap on the back. It was one of our participating friends who noticed us, when it should've been the other way around! Such a surprise, inducing feelings of awe as he had covered 19 miles and still sped along, not having time to stop and have a chat.  About four hours of handing out bottles with wide smiles across our faces, and sticky feet due to the lucozade bottles runners were disposing of at our feet, the numbers began to dwindle, and the water distributors began to leave. The two of us were finally left with barely any water to hand out and to cheer on the remaining few stragglers. A few still persisted with their costumes, which were clearly weighing them down; like a few rhinos, a massive doll, a stormtrooper and a replica of the Angel of the North (but missing its wings).

After an exhausting but enthralling day full of photos and videos (which I have yet to go through and edit), and which involved the indecisive sunny/rainy weather, we received a text from our group leader to say that we could return to the station and sign out. We were told that we'd be getting our silver volunteers' medals soon (yes, we get medals!), and encouraged to take part in more events; and if this was anything to go by, you could count us in! You can learn so much about people just by being exposed to them, albeit for an average of three seconds each, but I've learnt much about myself as well; that helping complete strangers can sometimes give me the greatest satisfaction I can ever find.

This is my human

March-ing on

I think this month has been the most enlightening when it comes to meeting patients; I have almost been blown away by the endeavours some patients have made to become well again and get on with normal life. Probably the most memorable was a patient we met during a MedSoc home visit; my most enlightening hour and a half spent with a patient ever,and it will probably stay that way for a long time. We arrived at the front door of his ground floor flat, the disability lift in full view, used to overcome the four steps to his front door. Probably an old-age pensioner we thought, and as we rang the doorbell, the doors eerily opened by  themselves. But on the other side was a friendly, healthy-looking young man to greet us, except he was in a wheelchair. Not all disabled people are old, and by the time we sat down in his kitchen, the photos pinned to the notice board told us that he certainly wasn't without a family either.

Our patient suffered a spinal injury after he fell out of a tree (being a tree surgeon at the time), resulting in him losing all sensation and movement in his legs. He described the scene as he arrived at the spinal injuries ward, and how when his friends and family came to visit, they told him that he wasn't that bad compared to other patients in the ward. At the time, he felt as if his whole world around him was falling apart; all his plans and hopes for the future gone to waste. And although he was grateful for all the work the healthcare team did for him, he said they should focus more on the psychological well-being of the patient after such incidents, even if seeing such injuries was a normal occurrence for them.

He did admit that after taking it all in, he was quite well off compared to other wheelchair users; he retained his bladder and bowel function, and compared to many other wheelchair occupants, he wasn't spiralling into depression. But he did recall the seriousness of his injuries; even now, at any point could pressure build up against his spinal cord further up his back and cause more serious complications, leading to death if his breathing was impinged upon. And without his constant physiotherapy and daily exercises, he would barely be able to sit upright on his wheelchair as well as prevent muscle wasting.

His family and social life seemed very healthy. He had a wife and a young daughter who were the focus of his life, and with the obvious career change he had to undergo, it gave him a new perspective on life and people. He now writes columns in newspapers and his blog, and published a book about the experiences he had to endure. We discussed in detail the large-scale changes he had to make to his life and daily routine after the accident, and he was thankful for the disabled-access car he drives, so he is able to take his daughter out like a normal father should do.

His story was so complex and touching, and he spoke so eloquently and clearly, using clever anecdotes to describe his situation, that I couldn't help but feel empathetic towards him; that he was just a normal person trying to get on with his life, and adapt to it without the use of his legs. This is something that doctors maybe don't properly appreciate, that many patients with seriously disabling injuries had completely normal lives beforehand, and would probably need help adjusting psychologically to such sudden incidents and the state they have been left in. But they certainly do not need to live the rest of their lives alone and bored; albeit they will have to change their living patterns, but with the right support and mindset, they can lead very happy lives.

Our patient said he didn't agree with people who said that being in a wheelchair was the best thing that ever happened to them, because he would definitely change his state of not having the use of his legs if he could, but he copes and adapts and I think there are so many lessons that can be learnt and applied to the life of a doctor from patients such as these. If unexpected pressures and strains are suddenly put upon you, there is no point collapsing and giving up, because there are people that depend on you who may be in worse situations. The biggest lesson he has learnt in his life (something I ask every patient I meet) is that if there is a seemingly unachievable task at hand, there will always be a way around things to finally get it done.

So yeah, that massive chunk of text above was lifted straight out of my regular reflective piece of writing I have to do for my GP. Another day I saw a schizophrenic lady (just after talking to two alcoholics anonymouses). She looked twice the age she was, and listening to her story, quite understandably so. As a child she was sexually abused, and by her late twenties (after she was abused again), she realised that that not everybody felt the same she did; not everyone was experiencing the same depression and psychotic thoughts
she was. When I asked her how the strange experiences manifested themselves, she said that the voices she heard were 'outside of her head', like someone was in the room with her, and she recalled some terrifying hallucinations that she saw, even whilst sitting in the GP's office one day. Her poverty didn't help, and every bit of money that she could scrape together (from the jobs she couldn't keep due to her 'strangeness' with others), she spent on a therapist that she thought could help. This was a while ago when mental health services weren't as advanced as they are now.

It was extremely easy to empathise with her, due to her remarkable ability to re-enact what she said and thought so well, with such extreme emotion, and I felt so lost in her world. But there was a point in the conversation when I knew exactly what she meant; when she recalled picking up 'hidden meanings' in what people were saying and body language, and attaching significance to certain colours, as it's what I went through two years ago. It doesn't matter what someone is trying to tell you, your brain works overtime to link things together and produce a meaning that attaches to warped ideas you already had in your mind. It doesn't matter if someone is telling you how their day was or what they ate for lunch, certain words are picked out from the sentence, as well the tone of voice analysed to derive some hidden meaning, any meaning at all. Conversations between people are homed in on; adverts, noticeboards and headlines are closely scrutinised, and all the while you are sure in your own mind that everyone in the world around you is against you. When the psychotic thoughts are removed though, I have to admit that the faculties you have after being cured, of being able to pick up on subtle nuances in people's behaviour, is quite useful. I nodded in understanding to every word she told our group, and now she regularly takes medication, not suffering from any of the symptoms (apart from some drug side effects), and it looked like she was really appreciative of the work the health professionals did for her. But you can never tell with a previously psychotic, paranoid person; are they just saying it because they fear they're being watched, and they're trying to pass off as being 'well'? The acquired label of once being mentally ill seemingly never goes away.

Anyway, in other developments this month, I took part in the BBC Sport Relief mile (well actually, we ran 3). My friend asked me down about a month prior, and the night before I got the reminder. So after football, I manouvered my way past all the tube delays to arrive at Embankment; a gloriously sunny day with everyone happy beside the river, and ready to run. It was an extremely refreshing day alhamdulillah, and with my friend running the slowest three miles ever, it gave me a chance to stop every so often and just take in the atmosphere. The BBC cameras were on me as I approached the finish line, and just before I crossed it, I stopped, looked back, and encouraged my friend on, with us clutching each other across the finish line. It was definitely a Hollywood moment, looking great on the big screen (but I don't think it made the final cut :/), and we went off to collect our medals and bags of free goodies they had waiting for us.

On the back of the triumph of running three whole miles, I accepted an invitation to a slightly longer run of a half marathon in October, with Barts buddies this time. I know that even though I've got ages to train for the run, training is probably not going to happen. Things are always more exciting when you're caught unprepared.

This month I also found myself hosting my uni's Muslim Medics and Dentists annual dinner, which was very unexpected (I obviously knew before I arrived :P). I do remember one day a committee member saying it would be cool if I co-hosted it with him, but I thought it was just a passing comment. So a few days before the event, I was asked to write a script, and being the unrefusing dummy I am, I inserted it into my already packed schedule. The event itself went quite well alhamdulillah; as I was given free creative reign over the script, I thought I could insert jokes here and there. Proper jokes, and they did serve as good fillers when stuff was being sorted out in the background. I think people were amused more at the fact that I was telling jokes, rather than at the actual content; an extremely tough crowd, but I think I managed somewhat to induce smiles from an otherwise stern-faced bunch of Muzzies.

About a week later I was invited to another dinner hosted by Queen Mary, called Colours and Honours and where they give awards to various clubs and people. Basically just the Octagon building (an amazingly constructed 8-sided building with busts of ancient philosophers overlooking everyone), filled with  over-excited barely-dressed girls and suited guys, all looking forward to the boat party afterwards. Charity Week was nominated for fundraising, and I and a couple of others were to represent MMD and collect the award if we won (which we did). It's not that I was particularly active during Charity Week, but I think it's supposed to be an introduction to me being next year's Charity Week rep, a position I found myself in, as a result of being elected to the MMD committee (another position I found myself in). It was during this glitzy evening (with halal food may I add) did I realise the extent to which the Barts-QM rivalry went, with everyone booing when as so much as our name was mentioned. It really took the biscuit when a highly controversial student article criticising our union president won article of the year. But overall it was fun, witnessing the type of event a lot of people dedicate their lives towards: just to go up on stage and pick up an award, receiving a moment of praise and appreciation for the work they put in.

My month in status updates:

feels privileged to be part of the exclusive group to have seen the elephant man's skeleton :D

should be asleep in bed, but is instead in a supermarket filming stuff with mates :D

being a policeman, destroying a supercomputer, taking over a TV studio... all in a night's work, standard! :D

My MedSoc is unmatched in levels of enlightenment!

has 600 friends... apparently

will be surprised if he didn't make the final cut for Sport Relief tonight.

In a museum full of diseased body parts, doing blind people experiments... Too good! :D

Shutter Island is my type of film!!

The video below is a cartoon that I used to watch so much as a child. It was part of a video collection of cartoons from MGM that were mostly slightly dodgy or racist; those old fashioned ones. But this cartoon I'd like to think was revolutionary at the time, with the ideas expressed and the humour envisaged. It has definitely contributed to the richness stage my humour has reached. Let's hope youtube don't take it down!



And finally, here's a quote that I was made aware of by my friend Adnaan:

If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you. - Oscar Wilde


[By the way, the word 'anonymous' is an adjective and so hasn't got a plural form...]