Catch Up 3: Back to Cambridge

First of all, sorry I didn't post yesterday, I was busy rescuing David who had hurt his knee at "Manly Circuits" and now can't walk. Also you may have noticed that there are now adverts here, basically if I make any money from them I'll donate it to the Sponsor a seat fund.


Back to the point, I've filled you in on the end of Mich term and the holidays so on to the first few weeks of this term...


Rowing:

The rest of CUWBC went to Soustons for training camp for ten days at the start of January. I bought flights to go out and join them for the weekend, and was all prepared to go, but then I had a difficult journey back down and ended up missing the first day back at Clinical School and so I couldn't go out to Soustons and miss another 4 days. Instead I did ALOT of classes at the gym and erged with the Clare girls, and once I went out rowing in a mixed Clare boat. The mixed boat was pretty entertaining, especially as I got to stroke it, Alice and I spent most of the time making sarcastic comments, and a boat with guys in it goes REALLY fast even if it is going badly.

Medicine:

Once I had got back to Clincal School, I was on Vascular Surgery for my first placement. Turns out vascular surgery is incredibly dull. There are three things that people in for vascular surgery have- an Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm (AAA), varicose veins, or necrotic feet. AAA can be very dramatic if they rupture in which case they are a surgical emergency, but mostly they are very slow to increase in size and after their incidental discovery they are left alone before being fixed a few months to a few years later. Varicose veins are very boring as there is nothing that can be done really on the NHS for most people. Necrotic tissues are kind of interesting, in that occasionally, very occasionally there are amputations. But turns out what is interesting is interventional radiology, mostly because there are lead suits to wear and a cool consultant called T.C.See and who likes to teach med students!

Social:

Seeing as how I had a weekend where I didn't need to go to Ely or in fact rowing at all because I couldn't make training camp David and I went to Chester for the weekend. Needless to say Chester was really really nice and it was wonderful to get away for a few days. We went to the Zoo! The Zoo was really good fun, I haven't been to the zoo for years and years- I loved the jaguars!

Catch Up 1

So now all my grand claims of a blog post a day seem ambitious. I am tired and we have an outing in the morning. Ah well here goes nothing:






Everything up to the end of last term..... (which I wrote about once at the time and it didn't post)

Rowing:
Well the weather was horrible, so the Cam froze and the Ouse froze and my bike got frozen into the shed more than once- so actually not that much rowing happened in the last week or so of term. What did happen though is CUWBC had Trial Eights, or rather we tried. Lizzie does a fantastic job of explaining what actually happened over on the CUWBC website but for completeness sake I must add a couple of things. First of all a huge thanks to Esther and Kate for holding our feet down when we did realise foot straps were silly, I think they did as much work as we all did, if not more! (I wish I had a photo of the faces they were pulling) And of course I need to point out that we would have won if we hadn't fallen off the seat....

Medic:
I finished off last term with my last few weeks on the Diabetes and Endocrine firm, and generally found my enthusiasm for talking to little old men with diabetic neuropathic feet was waning. But I did have my most embarrassing moment of medicine so far- when one consultant looked me up and down and claimed that my boots were entirely inappropriate. I promptly spent the rest of clinic with my feet tucked right underneath the chair!

Social:
So after Trial Eights comes dinner! After the excitement of the day we all settled down to get ready for our early dinner at 6pm Cafe Rouge, I had a conversation with Mum about 4pm and told her that I would be fine to get my flight home the next day. By the time I tottered out to my taxi in a dress and heels (not worn them for a while...) there was six inches of snow on the ground. Luckily we had left plenty of time to get to dinner, which was lovely and involved some amazing secret santa presents. We all made it to Clare MCR for speeches and after dinner drinks, as far as I can remember Lizzie was inspirational and lovely and we gave her some utterly ridiculous hats, and Martyn was actually quite rude about what he expected us to be like... he did say we were nothing like that though...

Anyway it was great fun to see everyone all dressed up and get to dance and be silly. Even if we were all pissed by 10pm.

Cold

As in I have one and it is...

So yesterday and today CUWBC has been seat racing in positively Arctic conditions. It was -8 Degrees this morning. Except I have not been seat racing as I have a horrid cold and therefore can't guarantee that I could be consistent over many pieces, so instead I have been messing around in small boats while other people seat race. Despite this seeming like a bad deal- I am much much more likely to fall into the Ouse from a single or pair than I am from a IV, this was actually a very very good thing- I got to row continuously and therefore avoid the extreme cold that came with seat racing switches. I still had to spend a very very long time at Ely over the last two days though, what with rigging and faff- which makes me exceptionally glad that I own enough to have two changes of this with me:

Leggings x2 (one thick one thin)

All in One (to hold it together in the centre)

Short sleeve tech top

Long sleeve tech top x2 (one running base layer, one rowing layer on the outside)

Merino wool base layer

And:

One rowing gilet

One pair of Seal Skinz

Two hats (one to row in and one for the break)

Fleecy balaklva/neck warmer

Pogies

Jeans for the break

Fleece

Down Filled Gilet

The thickest socks in the entire world

Waterproof gloves which I can rig in

At one point today I was wearing all of these things. ALL OF THEM.

Also I went to BCD last night. I was sober. I sat with Novices I didn't know who were trashed and obnoxious. I am not keen to repeat this.

Anyway my roast dinner is ready!

Bloods, Bikes and BIRC

Don't worry the three things in the title are not related, they just alliterated nicely.

Two pretty exciting things happened yesterday, first of all I (semi) successfully took blood from a real patient for the first time, and secondly I was told I am selected to go to the BIRC.

I know that many of the clinical students have taken lots of blood from patients already, having had their sessions with the Phlebotomists (awesome word) but my Phlebs session is not untill next Monday and so I am still pretty cautious about volunteering to take bloods. But yesterday a woman I had seen a couple of times needed blood taking as she was off the ward when the Phlebs came round to do all the bloods that morning. So an F1 and I went off to get 2 bottles of blood from her, and despite my nerves I successfully filled the bigger bottle! But I sadly must have wiggled my needle as I switched bottles so I couldn't fill the second one and despite another new attempt at venepucture, so I let the F1 do it!

When I got home yesterday, in my normal mountain of emails was one from Lizzie to announce who Martyn has chosen to go to the British Indoor Rowing Championships from the CUWBC squad. And I am one of four lightweights going! So I have to be 61.5kg on the 21st of November but seeing as I am pretty close to that now I don't think it will be a problem! I'm really excited about this, as I am any time I am picked to do something, I think it comes from my experience of being the one picked last at school sports!

Finally, I went out on my lovely shiny bike this morning, sadly not with CUWBCCC (that's Cambridge University Women's Boat Club Cycling Club) as I had to get to the hospital quite early. Despite realising how cold and dark it was and how unprepared I was for that I had a lot of fun being out on my neglected bike especially as I found the one hill in South Cambridgeshire and did a couple of loops around it, being rewarded at the top with lovely views of dawn over the City :).