........
STOP
Before anyone gets upset, I am in fact a long suffering feminist myself battling against the male wrath on a regular basis, and I'm totally up for going a few weeks without having to shave my legs...because who has time to do that in the morning?
No, I'm referring to the surprisingly progressive role-reversal currently shaking up society; men are taking more time in front of mirrors, stealing our survival tactics (cunning mallicia and back-stabbing), and playing us at our own games. No longer are we these 'mysterious creatures' that capture the male imagination, no longer are there women from Venus, and men from Mars....apparently Venus has become so powerful, that Mars is Crashing into us. Where's our islands? temple bodies? illusions of perfection and unattainability? We are a sport.....thats right girls....we wanted to be equal so badly....we have turned our own men into women....and oh...dear god have we created monsters. I bet we didn't calculate that risk when we jumped to step up and burn all our bras.
I went to a house party last week and walked in on two men touching up their eyeliner and foundation in the toilets AND they were wearing more make-up than me.......are you kidding me? LOOK WHAT WE'VE DONE!
When did we hand the Peacock's back their feathers?
This thought had crossed my mind the other day while dumfoundingly watching my caveman fiance parade around the living room stark naked, and present himself in front of the mirror.
'When did I become this good-looking?', 'no, seriously, look at me...I'm so hot and I don't even have to try, does this happen to other people? it's so hard being irresistable sometimes'......and then...I kid you not.....moved on to gyrate 'himself' (picture naked dance with clapping...and it wasn't his hands doing the clapping)around the sofa.
....what does he want...a cookie?
I'd also like to mention, this behaviour is not a one-time occurrence, and is generally far more common when I have submerged myself in paper work and books...needless to say...it is rarely amusing. Neither am I very impressed that this type of society has started to rub off on him since taking him out of his Canadian red-neck habitat.
I call this behaviour peacocking (pun unintentional). Someone once told me that humans are one of the few species in which the females are the ones that peacock and display themselves. Traditionally, men would win the objects of the affections over by slapping a dead deer into the opening of her cave...more updated versions of this technique tend to involve chocolate and flowers. I know that secretly all feminists are aiming for an Amazonian society rather than meer equality, but I think we may have gone about the conversion the wrong way. Is it not worrying, that one day...we might be the ones picking up our dates and presenting the with computer games and golf clubs in an attempt to woo and impress.....seriously?....nobody is worried about this? It's starting to look more and more likely that I am going to end up with a house husband, whom I shall come home to every day, saying 'Honey, I'm home is dinner ready yet? Where's my beer?', and then he shall rub my feet and ask me about my day....if I wanted this life, I would have just agreed to marry a girl.
Although having my dinner ready and a pre-poured glass of wine sounds rather nice now I think about it.......
You know what I love about being a woman?...I love having breasts, I love having a bigger bum than men, I love having to worry about my weight (because ultimately, this will help my health), I love putting on make-up and being the only one taking up the bathroom, I love being able to accuse someone of being sexist or perverted, I love the fact that it is still acceptable to bop a man on the nose and expect not to be hit back, I love the fact that if I don't know the answer or have offended someone or made a mistake..I can just revert to being cute and all is forgiven, and I absolutely love putting on a pretty dress and turning male heads, because when women lose their ability to still have this effect....we are losing the gender battle. We are handing men the torch back, we are handing them their key back to power....not only are they stronger than us, but they are stealing all the qualities that make us superior and in turn, making themselves ever more powerful. Before we know it after the male wooing starts...we'll find ourselves back at the kitchen sink, with a small farm of rugrats running around, desperately trying to impress our men and keep them happy and pretty, because they are the peacocks now
....for these reasons....this, this is why feminism sucks....sometimes
Saturday, 17 April 2010
Thursday, 25 March 2010
Suicide and Such-like
Whilst I realise that this is my second morbid blog in a row, I just suddenly felt the urge to take a brief blog break from my depression and suicide research(....can you see the link yet?). OK so I haven't gotten very far into my suicide notes, since I have only just stumbled upon methods of suicide....and No...before anybody panics...I do not have any suicidal thoughts or ideation, neither to I wish to act upon them, thanyou for asking. You psychiatric type people can crawl back into your crazy houses, or onto your rather conveniently placed Chais-lounges (which, by the way, I think are genius conspiracies created by shrinks to catch up on forty-winks between exhausting/heart sink patients).
As I was saying, I just finished making notes on suicide methodology (again this sounds bad)when I surprisingly discovered that death by carbon-monoxide from car exhausts is sitting at number 3 in the popularity list. This surprises me for several reasons;-
1) My imagery of this method is tainted by tv dramas and movies based in the 1950s of old or middle aged men choosing this option as the result of a particularly embarassing (and thus status destroying) event or similarly a troubled middle-aged housewife resorting to sticking her head in a gas cooker....hence fourth I firstly considered this as a choice for middle aged men (which are not the highest risk age group) or housewives (also not a high risk group) and a choice that is rather outdated
2)Also in my research discoveries, apparently attempted suicide was a criminal offence in the UK up until 1961. Which leads to me to the conclusion that in the 1950s...people probably didn't discuss their wishes to kill themselves or the method in which to do it. So how did someone even come up with this idea in the first place? I mean that is some serious planning desperation when that one was thought up....I suppose someone may have arrived at the car exhaust conclusion in the early days, with the earlier models of cars with roof's and therefore perhaps more chance of error....but again that is just speculaton.
3)In this day and age, when there are so many more suicide options in our very own homes....why is this still the front runner?
Next time on Poodle Ponders....Do Psychiatrists contribute to suicidal ideation and facilitate acts?
....Only joking, I promise to swear off morbid blogs for at least the next one
As I was saying, I just finished making notes on suicide methodology (again this sounds bad)when I surprisingly discovered that death by carbon-monoxide from car exhausts is sitting at number 3 in the popularity list. This surprises me for several reasons;-
1) My imagery of this method is tainted by tv dramas and movies based in the 1950s of old or middle aged men choosing this option as the result of a particularly embarassing (and thus status destroying) event or similarly a troubled middle-aged housewife resorting to sticking her head in a gas cooker....hence fourth I firstly considered this as a choice for middle aged men (which are not the highest risk age group) or housewives (also not a high risk group) and a choice that is rather outdated
2)Also in my research discoveries, apparently attempted suicide was a criminal offence in the UK up until 1961. Which leads to me to the conclusion that in the 1950s...people probably didn't discuss their wishes to kill themselves or the method in which to do it. So how did someone even come up with this idea in the first place? I mean that is some serious planning desperation when that one was thought up....I suppose someone may have arrived at the car exhaust conclusion in the early days, with the earlier models of cars with roof's and therefore perhaps more chance of error....but again that is just speculaton.
3)In this day and age, when there are so many more suicide options in our very own homes....why is this still the front runner?
Next time on Poodle Ponders....Do Psychiatrists contribute to suicidal ideation and facilitate acts?
....Only joking, I promise to swear off morbid blogs for at least the next one
Friday, 12 March 2010
Is Fred Dead?
Ok, a very brief and materialistic note;
Freddie from Skins....has apparently just been killed according to my 4od online widget. To most people I imagine this will be some form of torture, but to me...Freddie gone is almost therapeutic. I am a religious skins watcher, and whilst I have never appreciated any significant acting ability in many of the cast(come on, you can't honestly think that is acting), I do have a special love for skins and its 'cult' originality. That aside, apart from the fact the freddie is a pretty boring character lets face it, I cannot help but feel a huge sigh of relief as I watch his blood splattered up against a stained glass door.
WHY? Because he is the last stimulus in the world/media that reminds me of an ex-boyfriend long ago. The similarity between our relationship and the one skin's has materialised is almost spooky, and so you can imagine my relief now that I will no longer have to relive the memories of those miniscule, yet frustrating chapters of my life.
When you leave someone, you expect to never see or hear from that person again, but when they sneak back in subtle ways, this can be very irritating, not to mention traumatic for some people. So my point is, if your gone, GO and never come back, and freddie....you were pretty...but don't give up your day job
Freddie from Skins....has apparently just been killed according to my 4od online widget. To most people I imagine this will be some form of torture, but to me...Freddie gone is almost therapeutic. I am a religious skins watcher, and whilst I have never appreciated any significant acting ability in many of the cast(come on, you can't honestly think that is acting), I do have a special love for skins and its 'cult' originality. That aside, apart from the fact the freddie is a pretty boring character lets face it, I cannot help but feel a huge sigh of relief as I watch his blood splattered up against a stained glass door.
WHY? Because he is the last stimulus in the world/media that reminds me of an ex-boyfriend long ago. The similarity between our relationship and the one skin's has materialised is almost spooky, and so you can imagine my relief now that I will no longer have to relive the memories of those miniscule, yet frustrating chapters of my life.
When you leave someone, you expect to never see or hear from that person again, but when they sneak back in subtle ways, this can be very irritating, not to mention traumatic for some people. So my point is, if your gone, GO and never come back, and freddie....you were pretty...but don't give up your day job
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Why Oncology?
As a medical student, I amongst many others find myself suffering from the daily bombardment of 'medical small-talk' from Doctors and Nurses alike. On the whole it is quite refreshing to talk to like-minded health professionals, avoiding the relentless stream of people at dinner parties and gatherings demanding vague diagnoses of their ailments. These encounters are usually precipitated by variants of the following dialogue;
Assailent;
'oh so you're a [medical student/student doctor] are you? well I don't suppose you know much about [insert ailment or body part]?'
Medical Student;
'erm...well a little but...[attempt to avoid imminent interegation]'
Assailent;
'Well I've got this thing, could you......'
...and so on and so forth until either you convince the assailent to see his/her (usually his) GP or they get bored of you skirting around the subject and move on to their next victim. No wonder medical students stick together like sardines, we don't stand a chance in the real world.
In addition, whilst most people are gifted with a decent general knowledge, I have watched mine slowly diminish over the past 4 years into a pool of nothingness interfered occasionally with a medical fact or two, but on the whole I'm the last person you want at a pub quiz. Unfortunately this makes normal conversation increasingly difficult, reverting me back to my inner child in certain circles, thus I have become a prime victim for these attacks.
Aside from the violations at parties and suchlike, Health professionals have their own set of 'small-talk dialogues' catered to the type of Health professional they are addressing; 'So, what type of doctor do you want to be?' has become just about as close as medics get to 'how do you do?' or 'fine day isn't it'. Unfortunately, unlike the latter two, the first requires an actual answer. This is all very well, but you should then expect to endure either a lecture on what is wrong with your choice, or be forced to support your answer with well thought-out response. Fortunately, I have been asked enough times now to reel off a sufficient response, but sometimes it would be really nice if they just said 'alright?' then had done with it.
Ugh, so now I am faced with the literary version of this tedious question, as I prepare to write myself a personal statement to study Oncology as a masters, and after all this time, why can't I put it into words that sound like I should definately be given a place and £1000 to do it. Hopefully, this blog might help me put things into perspective.
Every time I tell people truthfully what my answer to the forbidden question is, the reaction is almost exclusively the same...'but why would you want to do something like that?'; So what is it that is so wrong with oncology? Just from the disgusted way people look at me when they ask why I would consider Oncology, they might as well be asking me if I like to watch people die? or I should have just told them I was intent on entering the adult filming industry.
Why indeed. Why oncology? Why cancer? Nobody likes cancer right?...True, nobody likes cancer, cancer is depressing. Cancer took the lives of two of my family members. In fact, cancer is downright offensive.
If someone attacked you, wouldn't you defend yourself? If someone attacked your family member, wouldn't you defend their honour? Cancer patients need someone else to help them fight their battles, and regain control of their own body. That is exactly what I aim to do; a medical kick in the face, or at least a good curse word.
I bite my thumb at you cancer!!..Shakespear eat your heart out
Plus if you cure someone with cancer, most are very greatful. When people hear cancer they hear 'WOOPS!! Guess whos numbers up?! ..Please wait in line for purgatory until further notice...'.
Most patients with cancer WANT and HOPE to get better, and are more likely to listen when you ask them not to do certain things. Whereas, a patient developing COPD may well tell you where to stick it if you ask them to stop smoking, despite the fact that their death is predicted to be more strung out and painful than someone dying from cancer.
Treating cancer is becoming more rewarding as many cancers are becoming increasingly curable. It sounds too good to be true if someone comes to you with cancer, and you can tell them you have a 85% chance of cure, but this is becoming very much the reality in some cases; 5 stars for customer service. Even if someone can't be cured, the end of their life can be made as comfortable as possible for them, hopefully allowing them some element of control or normality.
Cancer, like people, comes in all shapes and sizes, liquid and solid, and can affect any part of the body so long as there is living tissue. This means that Oncology (in some ways) is a form of general medicine, plus the avenue for surgery makes it a surgical speciality option too. Even if I decide to sack it all in after my masters and go into general practise, my encounters with cancer will continue regardless.
Overall, knowledge of oncology is useful, of great importance AND intersting. It is also important to remember the patients themselves. Delicate patients such as these, need doctors that are going to care about what they have to say, and continue to care further down the line(which may be years for a singular patient). I am not expecting that dealing with such a volume of depressing cases will be easy, but I have an abundance of patience just waiting to be tested.
So, Why Oncology? Well why are you standing there?
Assailent;
'oh so you're a [medical student/student doctor] are you? well I don't suppose you know much about [insert ailment or body part]?'
Medical Student;
'erm...well a little but...[attempt to avoid imminent interegation]'
Assailent;
'Well I've got this thing, could you......'
...and so on and so forth until either you convince the assailent to see his/her (usually his) GP or they get bored of you skirting around the subject and move on to their next victim. No wonder medical students stick together like sardines, we don't stand a chance in the real world.
In addition, whilst most people are gifted with a decent general knowledge, I have watched mine slowly diminish over the past 4 years into a pool of nothingness interfered occasionally with a medical fact or two, but on the whole I'm the last person you want at a pub quiz. Unfortunately this makes normal conversation increasingly difficult, reverting me back to my inner child in certain circles, thus I have become a prime victim for these attacks.
Aside from the violations at parties and suchlike, Health professionals have their own set of 'small-talk dialogues' catered to the type of Health professional they are addressing; 'So, what type of doctor do you want to be?' has become just about as close as medics get to 'how do you do?' or 'fine day isn't it'. Unfortunately, unlike the latter two, the first requires an actual answer. This is all very well, but you should then expect to endure either a lecture on what is wrong with your choice, or be forced to support your answer with well thought-out response. Fortunately, I have been asked enough times now to reel off a sufficient response, but sometimes it would be really nice if they just said 'alright?' then had done with it.
Ugh, so now I am faced with the literary version of this tedious question, as I prepare to write myself a personal statement to study Oncology as a masters, and after all this time, why can't I put it into words that sound like I should definately be given a place and £1000 to do it. Hopefully, this blog might help me put things into perspective.
Every time I tell people truthfully what my answer to the forbidden question is, the reaction is almost exclusively the same...'but why would you want to do something like that?'; So what is it that is so wrong with oncology? Just from the disgusted way people look at me when they ask why I would consider Oncology, they might as well be asking me if I like to watch people die? or I should have just told them I was intent on entering the adult filming industry.
Why indeed. Why oncology? Why cancer? Nobody likes cancer right?...True, nobody likes cancer, cancer is depressing. Cancer took the lives of two of my family members. In fact, cancer is downright offensive.
If someone attacked you, wouldn't you defend yourself? If someone attacked your family member, wouldn't you defend their honour? Cancer patients need someone else to help them fight their battles, and regain control of their own body. That is exactly what I aim to do; a medical kick in the face, or at least a good curse word.
I bite my thumb at you cancer!!..Shakespear eat your heart out
Plus if you cure someone with cancer, most are very greatful. When people hear cancer they hear 'WOOPS!! Guess whos numbers up?! ..Please wait in line for purgatory until further notice...'.
Most patients with cancer WANT and HOPE to get better, and are more likely to listen when you ask them not to do certain things. Whereas, a patient developing COPD may well tell you where to stick it if you ask them to stop smoking, despite the fact that their death is predicted to be more strung out and painful than someone dying from cancer.
Treating cancer is becoming more rewarding as many cancers are becoming increasingly curable. It sounds too good to be true if someone comes to you with cancer, and you can tell them you have a 85% chance of cure, but this is becoming very much the reality in some cases; 5 stars for customer service. Even if someone can't be cured, the end of their life can be made as comfortable as possible for them, hopefully allowing them some element of control or normality.
Cancer, like people, comes in all shapes and sizes, liquid and solid, and can affect any part of the body so long as there is living tissue. This means that Oncology (in some ways) is a form of general medicine, plus the avenue for surgery makes it a surgical speciality option too. Even if I decide to sack it all in after my masters and go into general practise, my encounters with cancer will continue regardless.
Overall, knowledge of oncology is useful, of great importance AND intersting. It is also important to remember the patients themselves. Delicate patients such as these, need doctors that are going to care about what they have to say, and continue to care further down the line(which may be years for a singular patient). I am not expecting that dealing with such a volume of depressing cases will be easy, but I have an abundance of patience just waiting to be tested.
So, Why Oncology? Well why are you standing there?
Friday, 5 February 2010
Introducing the Ninja Turtles and Notes on Hypochondria
I am at home today instead of broadening my neurological horizons for two main reasons;
1) Janet is unfortunately still with us, whom has made me completely deaf in my left ear over night, and is now coursing herself slowly through my throat and rest of my body
2) I received a note from the lovely UKMail people yesterday to inform me that they had come round to the flat, and been so incompetent that they could not possibly deliver my £60 parcel without my presence, a pretty impossible prospect between the hours of 9am and 5pm. Because of their patheticness, they were only willing to attempt a delivery once more(today), before I would have to travel all the way to trafford to pick the damn thing up. Jesus Christ, if I wanted to go out of my way to get the UV lamp my little darlings so desperately need, I would have walked the 20 minutes down the road to the pet shop, instead of waiting two extra days and risking potential turtle death; something that apparently is worth avoiding the nosey man in the pet shop for...more on that later.
In Conclusion I am housebound, some might say truanting, but in the light of my ill-health, and swine-flu warnings (I haven't sucked it up to get my complementary health-worker vaccine yet), and regular close contact with immune-compromised patients, I feel that this day is somewhat justified.
Plus.....IT HAS ARRIVED!!!! my UV lamp and all it's expensiveness is here, and at least now Janet is the only thing that will keep me from sleeping at night.
So why is this UV lamp so important?
Well to tell you that, I have to introduce you to the story of Edger and Luigi, my baby yellow-bellied sliders(stripey turtles to normal people). Of course, as most stories go...they weren't originally Edgar and Luigi. In fact, they were Edgar and Clarence, and I know what you're thinking but no, I didn't kill Clarence, although you would be right in assuming that Clarence and Luigi are completely different Turtles.
No Clarence's sad story pretty much begins and ends at the pet shop. Within 24 hours of Mr Yeti surprising me with Clarence and Edgar, I was minding my own business, when I kept thinking I was hearing funny noises coming from their tank. After changing my attention onto scrutinising the turtles and what they were getting up to, I realised that Clarence was...did he just....SNEEZE?
Yes thats right people, turtles ACTUALLY sneeze. Imagine if you will, a little turtle innocently sitting on its rock then...'ah, ah, ah,...CHOO' *poooof* flippers and all shooting back inside its shell. I tell no word of a lie, that is actually what happened.
After laughing hysterically at Clarence's expense (for far longer than I am comfortable admitting), I realised that Clarence was actually ill. I took all the precautions suggested across the world wide web 'turn up the heat, clean the tank blah, blah, blah', but Clarence appeared to get worse over the next 24 hours. In a panick (as the turtle vets were unavailable), I rang up the pet shop to see if they might offer some medical attention. I was instructed to bring Clarence back to the shop and they would look at him, so obediently...that is what I did.
Now, nosey pet shop man (lets call him Clive), fancies himself as a bit of a vet and if he actually was a vet at some point, he probably lost his licence through malpractise, else he wouldn't be owning a pet shop.
Anyway, he basically poo-pooed the fact that Clarence was experiencing excessive sneezing, nose-bubbling, and was apparently gasping for breath, announcing it was just stress and plopped poor clarence back in the pet shop tank.
Now, I'm no vet either(although Yeti regularly has to remind me of this), neither am I an expert, and I am definately suffering from a variety of forms of hypochondria, but I think that Clarence pretty much spoke for himself when he sneezed himself inwards. To add insult to upset, Clive all too quickly presented me with a brand new turtle, and shoved me out of the door faster than I could say 'but what about clarence'. Thus is the story of the Clarence-Luigi switch. To this day, I am not sure of poor clarence's fate.
Since Clarence, I have become somewhat of a turtle ailment specialist, there is no illness I haven't read about. This is actually a bad thing for me, as now I know every possibility I'm a smothering hawk, spending most of my free time staring at the turtles instead of doing normal people things.
After Clarence left, I became obsessed with the turtles eyes; are they puffy? cloudy? and decided that their diet needed enriching with Vitamin A, thus trip no2 to the pet shop to come face-to-face once again with Clive, who forbid me to buy live fish for the turtles to chase around 'because it is cruel'.
Yes, it is definately cruel for the fish, and yes, it probably is a little cruel encouraging them to chase moving targets, and as a relatively strict vegetarian I never thought I would see this day. But these turtles, I swear, are making me do evil things....next I'll be robbing a bank so that I can buy them some massive, deluxe tank with underwater televisions and discoballs. All they have to do is look at me with their little face and do that funny wiggly swim thing, and I'll be off seeking the latest gadget to enrich their lives. Damn you Clive, you are ruining my ability to spoil them!
Anyway, since the vitamin A fad, I have moved on to pastures new....that's right...METABOLIC BONE DISEASE!!! Edgar and Luigi, have suffered numerous prods at their shells this week because my latest panick is that their shells are a little on the soft side. The Cure? UVB lighting....which technically I should have had all along, but Mr Yeti did not consider this when buying the turtles the first time, so I'm blaming him.
Now that balance has finally returned to the turtle world, I can finally focus all of my attention on to the fact that Janet might actually be a lymphoma...
1) Janet is unfortunately still with us, whom has made me completely deaf in my left ear over night, and is now coursing herself slowly through my throat and rest of my body
2) I received a note from the lovely UKMail people yesterday to inform me that they had come round to the flat, and been so incompetent that they could not possibly deliver my £60 parcel without my presence, a pretty impossible prospect between the hours of 9am and 5pm. Because of their patheticness, they were only willing to attempt a delivery once more(today), before I would have to travel all the way to trafford to pick the damn thing up. Jesus Christ, if I wanted to go out of my way to get the UV lamp my little darlings so desperately need, I would have walked the 20 minutes down the road to the pet shop, instead of waiting two extra days and risking potential turtle death; something that apparently is worth avoiding the nosey man in the pet shop for...more on that later.
In Conclusion I am housebound, some might say truanting, but in the light of my ill-health, and swine-flu warnings (I haven't sucked it up to get my complementary health-worker vaccine yet), and regular close contact with immune-compromised patients, I feel that this day is somewhat justified.
Plus.....IT HAS ARRIVED!!!! my UV lamp and all it's expensiveness is here, and at least now Janet is the only thing that will keep me from sleeping at night.
So why is this UV lamp so important?
Well to tell you that, I have to introduce you to the story of Edger and Luigi, my baby yellow-bellied sliders(stripey turtles to normal people). Of course, as most stories go...they weren't originally Edgar and Luigi. In fact, they were Edgar and Clarence, and I know what you're thinking but no, I didn't kill Clarence, although you would be right in assuming that Clarence and Luigi are completely different Turtles.
No Clarence's sad story pretty much begins and ends at the pet shop. Within 24 hours of Mr Yeti surprising me with Clarence and Edgar, I was minding my own business, when I kept thinking I was hearing funny noises coming from their tank. After changing my attention onto scrutinising the turtles and what they were getting up to, I realised that Clarence was...did he just....SNEEZE?
Yes thats right people, turtles ACTUALLY sneeze. Imagine if you will, a little turtle innocently sitting on its rock then...'ah, ah, ah,...CHOO' *poooof* flippers and all shooting back inside its shell. I tell no word of a lie, that is actually what happened.
After laughing hysterically at Clarence's expense (for far longer than I am comfortable admitting), I realised that Clarence was actually ill. I took all the precautions suggested across the world wide web 'turn up the heat, clean the tank blah, blah, blah', but Clarence appeared to get worse over the next 24 hours. In a panick (as the turtle vets were unavailable), I rang up the pet shop to see if they might offer some medical attention. I was instructed to bring Clarence back to the shop and they would look at him, so obediently...that is what I did.
Now, nosey pet shop man (lets call him Clive), fancies himself as a bit of a vet and if he actually was a vet at some point, he probably lost his licence through malpractise, else he wouldn't be owning a pet shop.
Anyway, he basically poo-pooed the fact that Clarence was experiencing excessive sneezing, nose-bubbling, and was apparently gasping for breath, announcing it was just stress and plopped poor clarence back in the pet shop tank.
Now, I'm no vet either(although Yeti regularly has to remind me of this), neither am I an expert, and I am definately suffering from a variety of forms of hypochondria, but I think that Clarence pretty much spoke for himself when he sneezed himself inwards. To add insult to upset, Clive all too quickly presented me with a brand new turtle, and shoved me out of the door faster than I could say 'but what about clarence'. Thus is the story of the Clarence-Luigi switch. To this day, I am not sure of poor clarence's fate.
Since Clarence, I have become somewhat of a turtle ailment specialist, there is no illness I haven't read about. This is actually a bad thing for me, as now I know every possibility I'm a smothering hawk, spending most of my free time staring at the turtles instead of doing normal people things.
After Clarence left, I became obsessed with the turtles eyes; are they puffy? cloudy? and decided that their diet needed enriching with Vitamin A, thus trip no2 to the pet shop to come face-to-face once again with Clive, who forbid me to buy live fish for the turtles to chase around 'because it is cruel'.
Yes, it is definately cruel for the fish, and yes, it probably is a little cruel encouraging them to chase moving targets, and as a relatively strict vegetarian I never thought I would see this day. But these turtles, I swear, are making me do evil things....next I'll be robbing a bank so that I can buy them some massive, deluxe tank with underwater televisions and discoballs. All they have to do is look at me with their little face and do that funny wiggly swim thing, and I'll be off seeking the latest gadget to enrich their lives. Damn you Clive, you are ruining my ability to spoil them!
Anyway, since the vitamin A fad, I have moved on to pastures new....that's right...METABOLIC BONE DISEASE!!! Edgar and Luigi, have suffered numerous prods at their shells this week because my latest panick is that their shells are a little on the soft side. The Cure? UVB lighting....which technically I should have had all along, but Mr Yeti did not consider this when buying the turtles the first time, so I'm blaming him.
Now that balance has finally returned to the turtle world, I can finally focus all of my attention on to the fact that Janet might actually be a lymphoma...
Thursday, 4 February 2010
Could I end up dead next time the river runs red?
To my dismay this morning, my body woke me up over an hour before schedule with a throbbing headache and blocked sinuses. I bumped around in the dark trying to find my slippers and dressing gown(yes, you are not mistaken), desperately avoiding too much movement of my head eventually making my way to an extra long hot shower to get the soothing started. After all necessary non-medicated interventions were exhausted, I realised that my headache (hence forth called 'Janet' on account of it being highly irritating, and sums up the physical feeling that I get whenever Janet from Friends has talked for too long in an episode), was here to stay indefinately, and did not hesitate to reach for the medicine cabinet.
Little background on my medicine cabinet, it consists entirely of the following medications; ibuprofen, paracetamol, meclofenac, gaviscon and ranitidine, all of which are at there maximum prescription concentrations. As you may have noticed; three are painkillers, the other two are to prevent gastritis (aka, so that I can take even more of the first three without getting that unwelcome epigastric burning sensation and nausea)
Imagine my horror on opening said cabinet, to find that this week ALONE, I have used up two whole packets of 500mg paracetamol, and have none left. Unfortunately for me ibuprofen and meclofenac are pretty useless for flu-type headaches....so in otherwords, I was screwed and Janet has been plaguing me ever since. Houston...we have a problem!
The reason for such extensive usage of analgesics is, as the title of this blog suggests, exquisitly painful periods...now some people may have problematic periods and some may not, and I am not trying to one up anyone on their experiences, but in recent years, the pain has become intolerable, so much so that I become incapacitated to move (at best). This isn't some lame excuse as to why I have to be lie in bed 2 days every month, I genuinely become physically sick(plus, its always comes on the weekend...Sod's Law). Other symptoms include(GRUESOME ALERT!); nausea, vomitting, diarrhoea, headache, fever and uncontrollable shaking....just to name a few.
Thats enough moaning... Basically because of this, I have a very low threshold to reaching for my trusty cabinet and popping my most successful cocktail yet; gaviscon, 3x500mg paracetamol, later ranitidine, followed by ibuprofen (just one) an hour later, and two hours later there is more 500mg paracetamol......and this will continue, until either the pain subsides, or the analgesic cocktail overrides my anti-gastritis precautions and then both pains coincide (which as you can imagine is pretty awesome)...then I normally pass out.
My time of the month is actually one of the only times (except of course, since I have been acquainted with Janet) that I actively encourage myself to indulge in painkillers. Merely the sheer quantity of analgesics over the two day time period that I normally am affected is enough to raise a few eyebrows, and being a Medical Student in my final years, I really should know better, let alone devising cocktails of drugs to allow me to take even more....it is a cardinal sin.
On top of the drug indulgence, I have usually been drinking the night before I come on (theoretically this is when I am most relaxed), thus placing my liver in an already compromised state before I even get cracking with the known toxicities of paracetamol. This stuff is what suicides are made of, and the thought is actually quite daunting.
Many celebrities in the last few years have suffered at the hands of prescription analgesics(whether accidental or not); my beloved Heath Ledger(we'll meet again someday), Michael Jackson, and Brittany Murphy are just a handful of those on the analgesic hit-list. Granted, they may not have popped they cloggs on paracetamol and ibuprofen alone, but others certainly have, and good ole 'molly only leads to stronger things.
Do I have a death wish? Absolutely not, but I'm certainly teetering with the dice of danger and temptation. So what can I do? I can't take nothing....well I could....but I would be very VERY ill.
Instead, I seek to take a hit at the heart of the problem, instead of just treating the side effects...I am to succomb to the evils of suppressing my hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis through systemic hormone treatment, aka long-acting contraception...wish me luck and future fertility
You may be pleased to note that since my revelation, I have not yet renewed my medicine cabinet. Janet will just have to be filtered out like background noise (maybe just for another hour...I think I have lemsip somewhere)
Damn it Janet!!
Little background on my medicine cabinet, it consists entirely of the following medications; ibuprofen, paracetamol, meclofenac, gaviscon and ranitidine, all of which are at there maximum prescription concentrations. As you may have noticed; three are painkillers, the other two are to prevent gastritis (aka, so that I can take even more of the first three without getting that unwelcome epigastric burning sensation and nausea)
Imagine my horror on opening said cabinet, to find that this week ALONE, I have used up two whole packets of 500mg paracetamol, and have none left. Unfortunately for me ibuprofen and meclofenac are pretty useless for flu-type headaches....so in otherwords, I was screwed and Janet has been plaguing me ever since. Houston...we have a problem!
The reason for such extensive usage of analgesics is, as the title of this blog suggests, exquisitly painful periods...now some people may have problematic periods and some may not, and I am not trying to one up anyone on their experiences, but in recent years, the pain has become intolerable, so much so that I become incapacitated to move (at best). This isn't some lame excuse as to why I have to be lie in bed 2 days every month, I genuinely become physically sick(plus, its always comes on the weekend...Sod's Law). Other symptoms include(GRUESOME ALERT!); nausea, vomitting, diarrhoea, headache, fever and uncontrollable shaking....just to name a few.
Thats enough moaning... Basically because of this, I have a very low threshold to reaching for my trusty cabinet and popping my most successful cocktail yet; gaviscon, 3x500mg paracetamol, later ranitidine, followed by ibuprofen (just one) an hour later, and two hours later there is more 500mg paracetamol......and this will continue, until either the pain subsides, or the analgesic cocktail overrides my anti-gastritis precautions and then both pains coincide (which as you can imagine is pretty awesome)...then I normally pass out.
My time of the month is actually one of the only times (except of course, since I have been acquainted with Janet) that I actively encourage myself to indulge in painkillers. Merely the sheer quantity of analgesics over the two day time period that I normally am affected is enough to raise a few eyebrows, and being a Medical Student in my final years, I really should know better, let alone devising cocktails of drugs to allow me to take even more....it is a cardinal sin.
On top of the drug indulgence, I have usually been drinking the night before I come on (theoretically this is when I am most relaxed), thus placing my liver in an already compromised state before I even get cracking with the known toxicities of paracetamol. This stuff is what suicides are made of, and the thought is actually quite daunting.
Many celebrities in the last few years have suffered at the hands of prescription analgesics(whether accidental or not); my beloved Heath Ledger(we'll meet again someday), Michael Jackson, and Brittany Murphy are just a handful of those on the analgesic hit-list. Granted, they may not have popped they cloggs on paracetamol and ibuprofen alone, but others certainly have, and good ole 'molly only leads to stronger things.
Do I have a death wish? Absolutely not, but I'm certainly teetering with the dice of danger and temptation. So what can I do? I can't take nothing....well I could....but I would be very VERY ill.
Instead, I seek to take a hit at the heart of the problem, instead of just treating the side effects...I am to succomb to the evils of suppressing my hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis through systemic hormone treatment, aka long-acting contraception...wish me luck and future fertility
You may be pleased to note that since my revelation, I have not yet renewed my medicine cabinet. Janet will just have to be filtered out like background noise (maybe just for another hour...I think I have lemsip somewhere)
Damn it Janet!!
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
Romance etc
As this is my first post, I should probably nod this blogging notion towards my old friend Leila, whom is jetting off to the land of Oz in a matter of days....lucky cow! We shall all miss her sunshine and smiles, and I'm sure that despite her prophetic dreams of elaborate australian deaths, that she will return to us unscathed from crocadiles and suchlike.
ANYWAYs more to the point, in an attempt to follow her blogging adventures, my hand has been forced by the ways of the blog, and unearthed a guilty secret of mine to outlet my random ponderings....so here we are....thus is the story of my blog...
As it is now February, and as Company brought to my attention this morning (while being extradited from my expert patient session on the grounds of ill thought-out attire), it is also the month of Love....and for many... the dredded Valentines day. I'm not going to blabber on about the assets/short-comings of Valentines day, as I have never celebrated it through choice...the thought brings me out in hives for so many reasons.
Nope, the topic (although somewhat relevant) is Romance...Yes I know, it's kinda boring and cliched with the whole february and valentines day thing, and frankly, attempting to be romantic is all a bit awkward and very difficult for me. Sex is the easy part, Romance is underrated.
But as I was sat feeling like a bit of an idiot and flicking through Company, I reached the article 'Is Romance Dead?'. Ok so a fairly standard discussion point, but Company have chosen the Skins cast to write their pieces on Romance. It just seems a bit odd to me that Company would chose 18 year olds to write their feature pieces on subjects such as this. Especially considering that the target age group for Company extends to much above their ages.
Whilst I have no doubt that they may have had their great loves and romances etc, and hell, I'm not even that much older than they are. It just seems to me that having a boyfriend and dating when you are in your teens is a far cry from that in your 20s (I would imagine, although I'm not all that far in).
When I was a teen, romances would have started with a drunken kiss/fumble followed by several other drunken nights, and eventually pizza, movies and more alcohol......romance amounted to cheesy text messages, drunken declarations of love, or good old public displays of affection....and maybe....if I was lucky, I might get met at the train station.
Point is, teen romance = sex and chilling.
Several Years down the line, as more professional relationships mount up and you find yourself with only the closest of friends; people have more money and a greater need to fill what spare time there is left with 'quality time', and things start to get a bit more romantic, flirting becomes an olympic sport, and dating (rather than loving-under-the-influence) is apparently more the done thing.
I first realised this change in dynamics when I turned 20... actually now that I think about it I was 19, when my then 25 year old man-friend first introduced me to the then foreign concept of romance, but it didn't fly with me too well as I was still clinging to the threads of my 'under-the-influence' ways...and as you would expect things did not last. But even standing looking through my wine-hazed-romance type world into his steriotypical romantic world of restaurants, culture, intellectual conversation, and longevity, 6 years away from my own, I could see our differences in the dating styles, and what to expect from then on.
In fact, my now fiance was my first (and hopefully only) experience of meeting, and falling in love with someone completely sober (which is a novel experience I highly recommend). It wasn't that long after the previous 'relationship' had ended that we met, but it just demonstrates the narrow gap in time and significant change in attitude.
Needless to say, having fallen in Love with the closest thing I could get to a neanderthal man (I mean this is the best of ways) I could find, I was completely blown away by his capacity for romance, with some of the most unrealistic gestures such as, moving to the otherside of the world to live with me, impromptu trips abroad, getting deported then hitch-hiking his way across his native Canada for Visas, then finally back to the UK...this whole process lasted about 6 months, and of course thousands of pounds and extensive upset.
If that wasn't enough, we may not celebrate many holidays or birthdays (yeah...I hate birthdays too), but I have a steady but unpredictable influx of gifts reeking of sentimentality and nostalgia....and occasionally things that are just plain pretty. He would never sink to flowers from the petrol station, although there was that one time when he drunkenly picked all the flowers from the garden down the road and flung them on me at 4am...the gesture was there somewhere. Unfortunately for Mr Yeti, I am highly unromantic especially for a woman, but for him...I try at least, although my attempts normally amount to steak and a case of beer...whatever keeps him happy...
So Is Romance Dead? Are men just too manly?....Nonsense. If Mr Yeti; a 6"6 hairy man covered in tattoos and piercings, heavy smoker, drinker, with an obsession for UFC and sex; can pull off being a romantic complete with feature length cheesy monologues....then I say there is hope for the world yet. I would also note that the majority of men develop this romantic style, or stage if you will, around age 23 (not based on scientific fact), or approxiamately 2 years after previous heart break. What is unclear, however, is if cheesy monologues apply to all nations of men or just north america. I would recommend that if this quality is what you desire in your romantic males, I would make my first stop in Canada.
On the other turn of the coin, maybe women need to step up a bit. This is the 21st century after-all, we've gotten so used to the concept of being romanced, that the thought of being the romantic ones frankly seems a bit absurd. Could I give Mr Yeti a cheesy monologue?....Hell No, I would sound like an idiot...or at least to the feminist inside me. But men have egos and flickering self-confidence issues that need grooming too, so why can't we at least humour them? I salute women that can embrace this, and retain their feminine dignity!
ANYWAYs more to the point, in an attempt to follow her blogging adventures, my hand has been forced by the ways of the blog, and unearthed a guilty secret of mine to outlet my random ponderings....so here we are....thus is the story of my blog...
As it is now February, and as Company brought to my attention this morning (while being extradited from my expert patient session on the grounds of ill thought-out attire), it is also the month of Love....and for many... the dredded Valentines day. I'm not going to blabber on about the assets/short-comings of Valentines day, as I have never celebrated it through choice...the thought brings me out in hives for so many reasons.
Nope, the topic (although somewhat relevant) is Romance...Yes I know, it's kinda boring and cliched with the whole february and valentines day thing, and frankly, attempting to be romantic is all a bit awkward and very difficult for me. Sex is the easy part, Romance is underrated.
But as I was sat feeling like a bit of an idiot and flicking through Company, I reached the article 'Is Romance Dead?'. Ok so a fairly standard discussion point, but Company have chosen the Skins cast to write their pieces on Romance. It just seems a bit odd to me that Company would chose 18 year olds to write their feature pieces on subjects such as this. Especially considering that the target age group for Company extends to much above their ages.
Whilst I have no doubt that they may have had their great loves and romances etc, and hell, I'm not even that much older than they are. It just seems to me that having a boyfriend and dating when you are in your teens is a far cry from that in your 20s (I would imagine, although I'm not all that far in).
When I was a teen, romances would have started with a drunken kiss/fumble followed by several other drunken nights, and eventually pizza, movies and more alcohol......romance amounted to cheesy text messages, drunken declarations of love, or good old public displays of affection....and maybe....if I was lucky, I might get met at the train station.
Point is, teen romance = sex and chilling.
Several Years down the line, as more professional relationships mount up and you find yourself with only the closest of friends; people have more money and a greater need to fill what spare time there is left with 'quality time', and things start to get a bit more romantic, flirting becomes an olympic sport, and dating (rather than loving-under-the-influence) is apparently more the done thing.
I first realised this change in dynamics when I turned 20... actually now that I think about it I was 19, when my then 25 year old man-friend first introduced me to the then foreign concept of romance, but it didn't fly with me too well as I was still clinging to the threads of my 'under-the-influence' ways...and as you would expect things did not last. But even standing looking through my wine-hazed-romance type world into his steriotypical romantic world of restaurants, culture, intellectual conversation, and longevity, 6 years away from my own, I could see our differences in the dating styles, and what to expect from then on.
In fact, my now fiance was my first (and hopefully only) experience of meeting, and falling in love with someone completely sober (which is a novel experience I highly recommend). It wasn't that long after the previous 'relationship' had ended that we met, but it just demonstrates the narrow gap in time and significant change in attitude.
Needless to say, having fallen in Love with the closest thing I could get to a neanderthal man (I mean this is the best of ways) I could find, I was completely blown away by his capacity for romance, with some of the most unrealistic gestures such as, moving to the otherside of the world to live with me, impromptu trips abroad, getting deported then hitch-hiking his way across his native Canada for Visas, then finally back to the UK...this whole process lasted about 6 months, and of course thousands of pounds and extensive upset.
If that wasn't enough, we may not celebrate many holidays or birthdays (yeah...I hate birthdays too), but I have a steady but unpredictable influx of gifts reeking of sentimentality and nostalgia....and occasionally things that are just plain pretty. He would never sink to flowers from the petrol station, although there was that one time when he drunkenly picked all the flowers from the garden down the road and flung them on me at 4am...the gesture was there somewhere. Unfortunately for Mr Yeti, I am highly unromantic especially for a woman, but for him...I try at least, although my attempts normally amount to steak and a case of beer...whatever keeps him happy...
So Is Romance Dead? Are men just too manly?....Nonsense. If Mr Yeti; a 6"6 hairy man covered in tattoos and piercings, heavy smoker, drinker, with an obsession for UFC and sex; can pull off being a romantic complete with feature length cheesy monologues....then I say there is hope for the world yet. I would also note that the majority of men develop this romantic style, or stage if you will, around age 23 (not based on scientific fact), or approxiamately 2 years after previous heart break. What is unclear, however, is if cheesy monologues apply to all nations of men or just north america. I would recommend that if this quality is what you desire in your romantic males, I would make my first stop in Canada.
On the other turn of the coin, maybe women need to step up a bit. This is the 21st century after-all, we've gotten so used to the concept of being romanced, that the thought of being the romantic ones frankly seems a bit absurd. Could I give Mr Yeti a cheesy monologue?....Hell No, I would sound like an idiot...or at least to the feminist inside me. But men have egos and flickering self-confidence issues that need grooming too, so why can't we at least humour them? I salute women that can embrace this, and retain their feminine dignity!
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