Week 12 Update (with pictures)

Life is going at a whirl-wind pace around here!

K just submitted his final paper for his "Studies in the Prophets" class.  I was able to read it and let me tell you, my husband is a brilliant scholar.  I am so proud of all his hard work!  If you are interested in reading it, email us and we'd be happy to send you a copy.  He still has a lot of work to go in finishing up his semester, but he is a champ and just keeps going.  He really is my hero.

E is getting so big.  The last week or so, he has been rolling over onto his belly and pushing himself up with his arms.  A couple of times, I've awoken to him starting to cry because he got onto his tummy and couldn't get back over.  We purchased a shark floatie for him to swim in and used it the other day at the pool.  He was just adorable.  He splashed in it for about five minutes, then happily splashed and kicked in my arms for another 30 minutes. 

I can't believe we're in the middle of our 12th week in medical school.  Where did the time go?  We just finished our third Mini on Monday.  While I didn't do as well as I would have liked, there is still time to improve.  So, to that end, I'll be studying extra hard for the next few weeks because my final is 2.5 weeks from today!  Eeek.  (April 17th for those who pray for us!)  I do have one more mini (April 10th) and one final lab practical (April 12th.) 

For those of my friends who don't have family down here, life can be really isolating and hard.  Sometimes I feel overwhelmed, but then I go home to my husband and baby and life really does feel better.  I can't imagine trying to tough it out on your own.  So would you please pray for my friends who are struggling to keep their heads above water and feeling pretty low?  We are family down here and just a little love goes a long way.

We are super excited to have family visiting soon!  K, E, and I are eager to see more of the island and just to hang out with some of our favorite people.

Here are some more photos from our little piece of paradise.

 I found this little fella (look at the middle yellow paint strip, on the right) on my way home and luckily he stayed there while I pulled out my phone.  Lizards and geckos abound here.  I'm sure E will be chasing them soon enough.

 This is in our "office" where I study.  We have a white board and the paper attached to it has a picture of K & E, plus some more inspirational quotes.  The giant stack of papers is all of the lecture slides that I had to know for our most recent Mini. 

There is so much joy in following the will of God.  We do miss you and can't wait to visit in December.

With love and for His glory,
KCE

Life in the Slow Lane

I came to a seemingly strange realization the other day.  Hawkeye and I had gone to pick up our passports from the immigration office on campus.  We were looking at the student visa papers now stapled in the backs of our passports when it dawned on me: we live in a different country.  This might sound odd to you, but it had suddenly hit me that we are not on vacation.  This is not a short-term trip where we’ll be packing up and moving home in the near future. No, we are here for the next 17 or so months, Lord willing, and Dominica is our home.  K and I have often said that our home is wherever the other is, so if we’re together, we’re home.  (It is here that I’m sure he would interject that America is the most amazing country in the world!) 

Things just run differently down here.  If you’ve ever been on a mission’s trip, you might have an idea of what I’m saying. Most of the people are very friendly; many of them know our names and faces and ask us about our day.  The Dominicans with whom K and I interact on a regular basis always ask about “the baby.”  The few times that the debit card machines have gone down, the grocery store has just had me sign my name to the receipt and come back to pay it the next day. It is beautiful and warm, with a plethora of rainbows.  The views are inspiring, right out of a movie.  The beach is a 10 minute walk from our house and we only need to wear sweatshirts on campus in the A/C.  There are also very few distractions for the majority of students (I’m excluding myself from this because having a family in medical school means there is never a dull moment!)  The friends you make tend to be good ones because we cling to each other like family!

That being said, we are still adjusting to life in a third world country.  Imagine your electricity shutting off in the middle of bathing your baby (true story! Though the apartment’s generator kicked in shortly thereafter.)  Or having to buy your electricity in advance.  The water shuts off around 6:00 PM each night, though we have back up water so we can bathe our little one at night and continue to fill up our water container in the fridge.  Perhaps the supermarket has one thing out of the 10 on your list; fruits and vegetables are available at a market on Tuesdays and Saturdays, but you have to take a taxi to get there.  The island is also hard on items: stroller wheels, clothes, shoes all tend to wear out quickly.  Because we couldn’t ship everything down, we tried both Huggies and Pampers diapers from here (I’m not sure where they were manufactured, but not in the USA) and E tended to leak out of them; so we’ve had to ship in diapers from the states at a painfully high cost (think about $1 USD/diaper.) 

Being a medical student has been my dream for a long time.  The sacrifice that Ross students make should make them much more attractive candidates for residencies because we are a resilient group.  We know how to make due.  When things get tough, we get creative.  We are in love with the practice of medicine and we want to serve people.  Students and their families make huge sacrifices in order to become physicians.  It is absolutely an honor to be a medical student and despite the challenges, I wouldn’t want to do anything else.  

Here are more photos from our little corner of paradise:

This is the front gate.  You can see the student center just beyond the shelters.  This is where I enter every morning.  I usually eat breakfast at the cafe then head to class.

 This is just outside the entrance to Jenner Hall, a quiet study space south of the main campus.  Because this is closer to home, I sometimes go here in the afternoons to work on questions and study.

This is one of the computer labs on campus.  The technology is pretty up-to-date, especially in the simulation labs.

Here is a picture I took of the most recent rainbow I've seen.  No shortage of rainbows here!

For His Glory,
KCE

Introduction to Clinical Medicine

I saw my first live patient yesterday.  At Ross, we start clinical medicine in the first semester.  I love this because so much of what we study right now is scientific minutiae (important, but very fine details.)  Seeing a real person reminded me that this is why I love medicine and want to study all of these things, so I can help real people with real problems.

So we saw a "standardized patient" in class yesterday.  These are professionally trained individuals who have probably done this a 100x.   Our lecture was concerning the abdominal exam.  First, we did a visual inspection of her abdomen.  Was it protuberant (pregnant? air filled?), round (a little obese, but when laying down, matches what we'd expect from her standing up), or flat?  Then we looked at her sides (or "flanks").  If they are bulging out, it could indicate that fluid has built up in what are called the paracolic gutters (spaces between the sides of your colon and the abdominal walls.)  That fluid indicates that something is wrong inside.  Finally, we looked for surgical scars, rashes, lesions, stretch marks (called abdominal striae), and tattoos.

Next, we performed what's called "auscultation" (listening to the patient's belly with a stethoscope.)  We listen in all four quadrants of the abdomen.

(from Wikipedia)

We are listening for bowel sounds.  You should have bowel sounds called "gurgling" because your stomach/intestines/colon are working to push food through.  If you don't have bowel sounds, that is a surgical emergency so we'd have to be very confident that there are no sounds (I was told that you have to listen for at least two minutes in different quadrants to assure that there are no sounds.)  Next, we listened for "bruits."  Bruits (sounds kind of like "brew-ries")  are the result of turbulent flow in arteries from plaque build up or other obstructions.  We listened to the aorta, renal arteries, and iliac arteries.  It is normal to hear nothing; an intermittent whoosh-ing sound would indicate a bruit.  

(from Study Blue)

Next, we percussed the abdomen.  "What is percussion?" you might ask?  Percussion is a special method of tapping on the abdomen to hear what's underneath because sounds are different whether they are over a fluid-filled, air-filled, or solid space.  Basically, you press the middle finger of your non-dominant hand onto the patient so that the joint closest to your fingertip takes all the pressure (your fingernail shouldn't be white.)  Trying not to let any of the rest of your hand touch the patient, (because it changes the sound), you strike that joint with the tip of your middle finger on your dominant hand.  (This should hurt if you have long fingernails, that's how you know you are striking with the correct portion of your finger.)  My finger nails were longer, so I immediately cut them last night so that I don't hurt the patient, or myself.

Finally, we palpated the abdomen.  Palpation is pressing on the abdomen in the different quadrants (see the picture above) to see if it induces pain in the patient, or to see if we can feel the organs (if they are enlarged, you can sometimes feel the liver or the spleen.)

I was honored that our patient would let us practice this exam.  She's done this so many times that she was able to sometimes correct us or reposition our hands for better auscultation/palpation.  

Overall, it was a great reminder that at the end of the exams come the patients.  The whole point of everything I'm studying is to be ready to help those people. 

Now, back to the books! 

For His Glory,

KCE