Thursday, September 17, 2009

Be Still, My Heart

Nothing much has been going on. Met up with some friends. Joined a nearby gym. Went back to school. Actually, I've been in classes for a while now. Physiology's been brutal so far. Wake up 6am everyday for classes which sometimes run super late - I got home around 10:30pm last night after wrapping up a paper. I don't even know how I wake up sometimes. The first exam, I ran on three hours of sleep a day and on the day of, I didn't even have the stamina to cram in the morning break. I just passed out in the study room and told friend to wake me when it was time to go.

We had a lab the other day where we ran EKGs (recordings of the electrical activity of the heart) on each other. It was easy for the guys in our group because all they had to do was strip off their shirt and the girls would label their chest, hook them up. The worst they had to deal with was removing the stickers, maybe taking a few chest hairs in the process.

Us girls though ... we had to head to the bathroom, fumble underneath our shirts to get the leads on (it's slightly more ... complicated for girls. We have to work around certain curves. And wired bras. Plus, I found that I had way less surface area for the six thoracic leads. V6 was supposed to somewhere midaxillary - roughly down the middle of your side. Mine ended up near my back. Friends laughed at my boniness.), then hook up the wires without pulling any of the stickers off, and get back to the lab room. Should the machine beep in error, the girl would have to shoo the guys into turning their backs before rummaging underneath her shirt to fix any wrong leads.

I was in and out of the bathroom, trying to hurry before the class ended, to replace the previous girl after she failed to elicit any signals for some odd reason, but I laid on the cot for five minutes, pressing around my chest to figure out if any leads had fallen off underneath my shirt as the machine kept beeping.

The two professors hovered around and I wondered if I was just a failure at hooking up leads when the guy in our group exclaimed, "Oh! I know why." He held up the plug. They'd forgotten to actually plug the leads into the machine. Geniuses, we all are.

So we ran the EKG - first with me reclining back, then holding a deep breath, and finally, lying on my right side. It went well and all in all, it was an interesting lab. Now we finally know what those lil squiggly lines mean. And I have my very own sheet of signals. I don't think I'll be having a heart attack anytime soon.

Still, physio has not been a favorite class of mine so far and the next test, coming up this Tuesday ... sighs.

On a happier note, another of my cousin is getting/has gotten married! They've registered, but the banquet is set for next month. I was a tad worried about the whirlwind courtship, but he seems happy and as long as he's happy, all is good. With all these preparations going on, I'm getting excited too. My dad just went over the other day to help write out the invitations because his Chinese calligraphy is supposed to be pretty good - or at least, pretty neat - and yay, it's just exciting haha. I love weddings.

Writing status: I'm so sorry, but like my sleep hours, it's been nonexistent. I wish it was otherwise. No time. No mood. No joy. Thank you all for continuing to send your messages and reviews even though my responses are still delayed - everytime I get an email, my day just brightens. You're the best.

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