Volunteering

I thought finding a job was going to be really easy for me out here. In my mind I was going to immediately get a job at the sports medicine and orthopedic clinic that's literally three minutes up the road from where we live. It was going to be great. It turns out that my job field is very limited up here, not a lot of jobs, and many of the places want an x-ray tech who is also certified in CT and has worked at least three years. I had only worked a year and a half with my license before we moved. And in order for me to do CT I would have to go back to school and probably commute an hour to go to a teaching hospital.

I'm done with school. I payed off all of my school loans over a year ago. I don't like CT. 

I never heard back from any other job I applied to. I even applied to random stores like Barnes and Noble and Hobby Lobby but I'm over qualified. 

I took the job hunt pretty hard. I felt like I was suddenly a worthless tech who no one wanted. They didn't know me but they knew enough apparently to not want me. 

I finally decided to just start doing some volunteer work at a hospital to help keep me busy and maybe get a foot in the door. 

Best idea ever.

I chose to help out on a couple of the patient floors answering the phone, patient call lights, helping out where I can and also working on the comfort cart. Oh yeah. I take this cart around to every single patient and pass out coffee, tea, juices or water. It's actually really fun and people here in the south are the best. "No thank you sugar." "Thanks so much sweety!" "Oh thank you baby." They really do call everyone and anyone things like that. 

I was also introduced to the radiology manager on my first day who told me to bring her my resume and she would look into things for me. There's a hiring freeze right now though at that hospital which is a bummer but she totally gave me a hug when I gave her my resume. That's how friendly people are here!

Now I should have realized this but for some reason it didn't cross my mind, but all of the volunteers are at least 70 years old. And then there's me, little young looking me who they all think is 18. The old volunteer men like to make the joke that I brought down the average age of the group to 50 now. I've had a couple doctors even do double takes at me, they have a confused look, "Wait, why isn't your hair grey?! Why are you volunteering? You're not 80!" They're normally really impressed actually when I tell them I'm keeping myself busy with volunteering until I can find a job. Just the other day I had a surgeon sitting by me and we went through the routine about why I was volunteering and how I'm a certified rad tech when suddenly he pulls out his prescription pad and writes me a "letter" of recommendation to take to another hospital! It blew me away! He also told me he was going to talk to the radiology manager again for me.  I'm grateful for kind people like that in this world. 

I took his prescription to the other hospital and talked to the HR department. They only have an opening for an MRI job so no luck there. But I'll keep looking. The HR girl was completely confused about the prescription letter of recommendation. haha It was so great. I doubt she's ever seen anything like that! 

I don't know when or if a job will come out of all this, but I'm enjoying my time volunteering. It's good to socialize with all these people of different backgrounds. I love the southern black women, all of their "mmhmmm!" It's just fun to make some friends. My favorite is an old lady named Margaret who is a volunteer and trained me on the comfort cart. She's a retired nurse from England. Her mother was a nurse as well and a midwife! (If you've seen the tv show Call the Midwife, then you know that I was dying to find out that her mother was one of those women!) She's a hoot and her England accent is the best thing to find in the deep south. I love it.

Anyways, I'm glad things are happening the way they are. I know it wasn't how I wanted but guess what? Heavenly Father knows way more then I do! So I'll just keep going along with his plan.

Why Write?

With not having a job right now I was running out of things to do to keep me busy during the day. A good friend told me to try out calligraphy, and can I just say that I'm so grateful I did! Calligraphy is amazing and addicting. It has a way of calming you and sucking you in. It's the same feeling I get when I do embroidery. I'm focused in on this simple task, be it a stitch or a stroke, that everything else fades away and I become relaxed. I just write, or I just sew and nothing else matters.

I came across this video though and thought I would share.

Why Write?

Now if you don't have 16 minutes to just sit down and watch this TED clip, then scroll a little further. But really, you should watch it.



The medical loving side of me caught on to this research he mentioned... Here are the notes:

-He took a cognitive psychology class and studied how handwriting helps develop the brain. During the different tactile movements of doing handwriting, the brain is engaged in more areas and the information is ingrained into the brain. The same was not found to be true with typing however, which does not involve the same type of differential tactile movements.
-Handwriting was also found to be incredibly helpful in small children who were learning to read. By forming the individual letters they had a deeper understanding of the anatomy of each one, and were therefore able to recognize it when it came time to read it on the page.
-Cursive was found to be even more beneficial to the brain. Researchers and scientists have done brain scans on children learning cursive and found that the different parts of the brain engaged are similar to those that adults typically use for writing and higher reasoning. The screen went blank when the kids were doing typing because it didn't involve the same type of tactile movement.

Interesting right?! I love learning about how amazing the body is and how things effect each other.

Here's another article for you:

Why Writing by Hand Could Make You Smarter

I think it was in high school that I decided I wanted to start writing in cursive more. (I'll have to check my journal for sure though.) I had to do a google search for the cursive alphabet for some of the letters I had forgotten from elementary school. Cursive became my primary handwriting for my journal and remains still. I love cursive. It's so fun and fast and beautiful.

If all of this hasn't inspired you to take a second look at your handwriting then I don't know what will. It's never to late to try something new. Start with cursive and just a normal pen or pencil. I think knowing cursive beforehand has been helpful with picking up calligraphy. And then try some calligraphy. I'm excited to really study it out and practice. I find myself looking at billboards now and imagining the direction that the strokes would need to go to produce the thick/thin look of the letters. Pathetic I know but whatever. It happens!

Catch Up

I almost completely ignored this poor blog my last semester. So much has happened since I don't even know if I should bring things up to speed. But I'll do a quick recap anyways.

-I got a new calling in my singles ward as the Relief Society President. (Seriously, this had to happen right with my last and most stressful semester?! Good one...)

-I turned 22 in February. 

-I bought a car! A Nissan Sentra 2005 whose name is Richard Parker. 

-I got two new jobs during the last month of my semester. (So stressful but hey, it was a good opportunity.) So I now work at American Fork Hospital, a Sports Medicine Clinic, and Riverwoods Urgent Care.

-I finished all 1500 clinical hours and passed my last bunch of classes. 

-I graduated with a second associates degree. (So lame. Why couldn't it have been a bachelors?)

-I passed my Radiology Technologist boards exam. Do you remember how stressed I was about taking my Limited Practical Tech exam? Well this was way worse. But all is well, I passed.

It's so strange now knowing that when I come home from work I don't have homework or something to study for. I don't have school or tests. My time outside of work is completely my own. I love it. Life is so good right now and I am constantly grateful for it. 

Brainiac

Did any of you happen to see this article the other day? (17 year old girl builds artificial 'brain' to detect breast cancer) The title alone blows me away let alone her simple matter of fact statement, "I taught the computer how to diagnose breast cancer."

I don't know about you but I was no where near building neural networks when I was in 7th grade. And as much as I feel like a complete failure after reading articles like these, I still love reading all about them. Smart, talented little prodigy kids are awesome. They blow my mind.

Here's a link to her project summary, if you feel like delving a little further.

Facing Fears

I've been facing a few fears lately, and whether it's been by choice or force that really doesn't matter right now. At least I'm moving forward right?!

In my schooling we finally moved past using fake arms to practice IV's and we practiced on each other. My first tries were partially successful, not entirely... but at least I was sticking a real vein. After that I boosted my self esteem with some easy veins provided by a couple guy friends. Fear faced. (For the time being, until I have to practice on a patient.)

I've been feeling more comfortable in the O.R. lately. I was perfectly fine Saturday during our extremely long femur case, but then I had one of those moments where the mother bird pushes her baby out of the nest so it can finally learn how to fly on it's own. I got pushed up to Endoscopy to do the ERCP exam ON MY OWN. I hate this exam. Mostly because I can't understand a word the doctor says (accent plus mumbling = complete confusion) and the atmosphere tends to get stressful quite quickly. There were only 2 techs working that day and then me, a student. One tech was covering the O.R. case and the other was out doing portables, so while I'm holding down tech hall doing E.R. exams, lovely Endo calls letting me know they're ready for me to come for the ERCP. I kind of died inside. But I went up and I did the exam all by myself. Fear faced. (With grateful help from the nurses working in on the case.)

So I had a bit of pushing out of the nest moments this past week but I'm grateful for them. It's a terrifying but nice way to see where you're at. I think I'm doing all right.

Switching

Switching from Teachings of the Living Prophets institute class to Parables of Christ was the best decision I've made so far this semester. This class is going to be fantastic.

Would you like to know something about sectional anatomy? I've always thought that when you are looking at an axial slice (a slice cut through the body horizontally), it's from the view of you looking down. That would mean that at the top of the page you have the front of the body, at the bottom you have the back, the left side is the left side of the body and the right is the right. Well guess what? I'm completely wrong. It's as if you are looking up. So you take the picture and hold the slide above your head and look up at it and suddenly you realize that the patient would be facing you which now means the the left side of the patient is on the right side of the page and the right side of the patient is now on the left side of the page. And you are looking up. Up! I can't even describe how much of a difference that makes. My brain had a serious issue trying to get over that fact and understand what I was looking at in class. Ridiculous.

But don't worry. I'm catching on. The workbook is making sense as I guess and check my way through the slices.

In other news, I leave for Vegas in a month. Which means that my birthday is in a month.

Let's See That Axial Slice

Sectional Anatomy...
This class completely scares me.
I thought I had anatomy decently understood. I passed all of my anatomy labs with flying colors. But this, this is a whole new level of having to know EXACTLY where things are. Having to know that the carotid artery is always more medial and smaller then the jugular vein. Having to know that the sternocleidomastoid muscle is lateral to the strap muscles. Blah blah blah.
Doesn't this sound exciting?

And apparently the anatomy and positioning class and the physics class are both on the same day now. My brain is not going to like Mondays.
I have a feeling that this semester might kick my butt.

Goodbye Stranger

I feel I should sing this after I finish getting an x-ray of a patient. 

"Goodbye stranger, it's been nice, hope you find your paradise. 

Tried to see your point of view, hope your dreams will all come true." 

Feeling Better

It's been interesting the span of emotions I've had from getting accepted into the radiology program. It's gone from ecstatic joy to uncertainty. There's four of us that will be doing clinical hours at the American Fork hospital and when I found out that two of them have shadowed there for over a year and already know everyone I felt discouraged. I felt like they would have a leg up on me and already be more advanced and in sync with what's going on. This morning a few of us got together with the clinical instructor for an orientation at the A.F. hospital and I feel a lot better now. The girl that shadowed is just as lost as I am. Granted she knows her way around the building more but she's just as nervous and unsure.

I realized today that I'm going to love having my clinical hours at the A.F. hospital instead of the Provo hospital. A.F. is small, cozy, relaxed, fun. Everyone is nice and willing to help you out. There's only four students there which means more learning for me with less competition. And it's very likely I could get a job there even during my two year program. They're in need of man power and they depend on the students. I like that. It forces me to get a handle on things that much faster. 

Anyways, I'm just really excited to start. I'm ready to be busy in school work again. I'm ready to start working in a hospital. 

Introducing...

Me, a soon to be (in 2 years) radiology technician! Yes this means that I got into Weber's Radiology Program! So remember those 2 interviews I had to go through, one for the program in the Provo area, and the other for Ogden? Well, I had the Provo interview last Monday and lets just say that I did not feel good about it at all. I felt like I was giving the wrong answers, I wasn't saying what they really wanted to me...on and on. But I will say that at least it was a relaxed atmosphere. Which helped a lot. I mean they have a long table with 6 people questioning you on one side, while you sit on the opposite side of the table right in the middle. Talk about hot seat. But they were all joking around, laughing, just really relaxed. Which I loved.
Ogden's interview came on Thursday and I felt 10 times better about that interview. Oh it was perfect. They were asking questions that just set me up beautifully to give answers that I had prepared in order to make me sound worth it. And the people interviewing me were just as friendly, nice and relaxed.
Anyways, Friday a letter came from Weber State saying I had been accepted into the Provo Radiology Program. Which, I just about died because 1) I thought that interview did not go over well, and 2) I really wanted to get into the program in Provo. I'll be doing my clinical hours at the American Fork hospital, which is 5 minutes from my house. Fantastic yes? I can live at home and save money!
I still haven't heard back from Ogden yet, I'm assuming I'll get a letter sometime this week, but I have do say I feel slightly confident that I'll be accepted into the Ogden program also.
Can I just say that I can't believe I'm in the program and in just 2 short years I'll be certified?! Of course it's only in x-rays but then I can specialize and goes who knows where from there.
I'm just flat out excited.

Radiography

If you didn't hear, I've been called back for interviews for the Provo and Ogden radiography program. Over 250 people applied for the Ogden location, they interview about 100 and accept 50 applicants. Provo had over 100 applicants. They interview 40 and accept 20 into the program. I cannot even explain how ecstatic I was to hear that I was called back for BOTH programs!
But holy cow I didn't realize how badly I wanted to get into this radiography program until I was given a sliver of hope. And now I'm going crazy with worry and nervousness. A friend once made the comment to me about never telling a perfectionist how good their doing, because you'll just end up putting them in more stress. Can I say how true that is? It is. I fall asleep imagining my interviews, what I'll say, how the conversation will go. It's on my mind all day. To help myself prepare, I'm doing a mock interview through the college where they film you and give you feedback and critic on how you interviewed. I know it's just a mock interview but good grief I'm nervous for that too.
My prescription for all this worry and nervousness: bury myself under homework.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

I came across this book as I was looking for a good medical book to read in the library. It was so interesting reading about how research has developed through time. Henrietta Lacks was a black woman who was hospitalized in the 1950s from cervical cancer. The doctors ended up taking some of the cancerous cells to study them and see if they could grow them in culture without having them die off. Her cells grew at an incredibly rapid pace and are still alive today even though Henrietta has been dead for more than 60 years. Her cells are known as HeLa; the first two letters from her first and last name. If you piled all the HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they'd weigh more than 50 million metric tons. Her cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine, developing drugs for treating herpes, leukemia, influenza, hemophilia, and Parkinson's disease, and they've been used to research numerous other things. 

In the book you get medical background along with Henrietta's life and the world that her children had to grow up into. Her children didn't find out about their mothers cells still living until a good 20 years after she died. It was a really interesting to read even but I'm still unsure on how I feel about it. It makes me wonder how many other stories are out there like this. 

Day 25

Your worst habit.

...probably popping my knuckles. I tend to do that a lot. But take a look at this, and you'll see why I really don't care to stop any time soon.

Applied

I have officially mailed out my applications for the radiology program.
Yup I know, life moves way too fast.
I'm extremely excited/nervous.
And I don't think I find out anything until April.
So I guess I'll just busy myself with this winter semester and by the time it's over, I should have a reply back!
So Weber has the program in multiple areas and I applied to Ogden and Provo. I'm leaning more towards Provo but they only accept 12 new students every year. I think Ogden accepts 24 or so... not sure. Either way my odds are going to be tough to beat.

Medical Books

Remember my kick that I was on with the autobiographies? Well I've moved onto the wonderful world of medical genre books.
I won't go into them too much but I love reading the different cases they talk about. I look up what I don't understand and write it in the book. It's like another night of watching E.R. only in book form and with much less drama. I love reading a doctors thoughts on what they do. The struggles they have or the joy they find in orthopedic surgery.
So far I've read Complications: A Surgeon's notes on an Imperfect Science: by Atul Gawande. And Hot Lights, Cold Steel: by Michael J. Collins.

I would completely recommend either of these books to anyone interested in the medical field but probably Complications over Hot Lights, Cold Steel though.

The Urinary System

I know you were hoping that I'd have some outstanding connection with the urinary system to the gospel, but today I don't. I'm sure I could think of one, but I must admit, I haven't enjoyed this system as much as the previous ones I've studied. There are a few concepts that are hard for me to wrap my mind around. Like blood osmolarity. That one takes a good few minutes for my mind to register what's exactly happening.

I have to say, my favorite part of anatomy and physiology is being able to understand how the body works. The physiology part of it. When watching Untold Stories of the ER, I know exactly what goes on when someone takes a diuretic. I know what channel it's blocked, and why a diuretic makes you pee like crazy. My anat and phys study buddy Emily and I have also started having E.R. slumber parties every Tuesday night. We watch a ridiculous number of E.R. episodes and all the while we have our laptops out researching medical terms that we don't know, or drugs we haven't heard of. It's very informative and the most productive I've ever felt while watching a t.v. show.

I'm also reading a most interesting book titled, Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande. I will post more about this once I finish the book so stay tuned.

I guess all I really have to post about is medical stuff. Ah the consumings of my life.

The Digestive System

So I had another connection of Anatomy and Physiology to the gospel. I know what you're probably thinking... but I don't care. I'm going to tell you anyways.
Let me introduce you to the digestive system according to my teacher.

Obviously it's not anatomically correct. It's more a diagram for functional purposes. Let me try and explain this. In the stomach there are 4 different types of cells that are all stimulated from the brain. Once the G-cell is stimulated it releases gastrin which stimulates the ECF-cell and the Parietal cell. The ECF-cell releases histamine which also stimulates the parietal cell. The Parietal cell releases HCL (hydrochloric acid) which makes the stomach acidic. The Chief cell releases pepsinogen which reacts with the HCL to make pepsin. Once food moves through the pyloric sphincter it activates the S-cell from the HCL and the I-cell is activated from fat. The S-cell releases secretin which goes back to the Parietal cell and tells it to turn off. It also goes to the gallbladder and the pancreas and stimulate them. The I-cell releases CCK (cholecystokinin) which tells the pyloric sphincter to close and also activates the pancreas and gallbladder. The Liver makes bile and moves it into the gallbladder. So when the gallbladder is stimulated it releases the bile into the small intestine for digestion. When the Pancreas is stimulated it releases alpha amylase, lipases, proteases, and bicarbonate. All things that help digest food.

Okay so you don't really need to understand all of that. But I'm sure you're wondering how that could possibly connect.
Yesterday in church we were reading in Jeremiah and the scripture Jer 31:33 says, "But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put the law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people." The phrase underlined specifically jumped out to me.
You can see that when you eat food, your digestive system goes crazy. This activates that, which stimulates this, which reacts to this, which stimulates this which releases that...
When we allow the laws of the gospel into our lives, it essentially effects everything. If we truly allow the gospel in our lives we will get this snowball effect of things working together to help perfect ourselves. For example, say we really think about charity and we work on that specifically, it'll develop in us a love for others, which will lead to service, which will lead to humility, which will lead to growth in some other area and the cycle will continue on until we have fully digested the gospel into our inward parts.

Well, that's my connection of the gospel to another anat and phys topic. I hope it made sense. But even if it didn't, it made a light bulb go off in my head.

Prop 19

I came across this article today.
Thank you California for your generous contributions of starting all these propositions. Now everyone is going to start trying to legalize marijuana.
Does it blow anyone else's mind away that a formal surgeon general would be quoted of saying, "It's not a toxic substance" or stressing that the drug is not physically addictive?

In looking up the definition for physical addiction we learn that physical dependence is: substance abuse. A physiologic state of neuro-adaptation to a specific opioid, characterized by a withdrawal syndrome if the drug is stopped.
I don't know about you but it sounds like marijuana could be put in that category.

I also found this article (well it only gave me the abstract). But I thought this was particularly interesting: "It is suggested that when there is a dysfunction in the brain reward cascade, especially in the dopamine system causing a hypodopaminergic trait, the brain of that person requires a DA(dopamine) fix to feel good. This trait leads to multiple drug-seeking behavior. This is so because alcohol, cocaine, heroin, marijuana, nicotine, and glucose all cause activation and neuronal release of brain DA."

Here's another article with a quote from it to think about, "Legalization would be a significant change in that marijuana production and sale would move above ground. State and local governments could then tax it. California is expecting $1.4 billion in additional tax revenue from legalization, along with reduced criminal justice expenditure."
They also go on to say, "In a free society, the presumption must be that people can smoke, snort, eat or inject whatever they wish, so long as they do not harm others."

Food for thought.
.
..
...

Planning Ahead

I've have a sketched out plan of the next... 4 or so years of my life. Here's how it's going to go:
Fall semester of college at BYU-Idaho. I'll be taking Anatomy and Physiology, Math, a humanities class, science foundations, and a religion class.
Next I have winter break, where I'll most likely do some online classes, work as much as possible, and try not to become a hermit where I will get angry from a lack of social atmosphere.
Spring semester arrives as my last up at BYU-Idaho, I will complete all the classes needed and get my associates in general studies. I'll be taking an Abnormal Psychology class, which I'm kind of excited for. Hopefully it turns out well.
I can't send in my application for the radiology program until the beginning of the next year, so I will do volunteer work at a hospital, hopefully snag a job somewhere in the hospital too, and I will work diligently saving money. If I get into the program first try (fingers crossed) then my schooling will start again in the fall. So I'll be able to work for a good year or so. Once I get into the program, it's 5 semester straight, where I'll have lab and class twice a week along with 24 hours a week of clinical work.

I'm kind of excited.
It's going to be epic.

Tissue

I've discovered my favorite tissue.


Bone Tissue.


It is the coolest looking tissue in my opinion. I thought my anatomy & physiology teacher was a little crazy as he stood and stared in love for the hyaline cartilage, but now that's me with my bone tissue.


Doesn't that fasinate you? I could tell you all about the haversion system, canal, osteocytes, lacunas, concentric and interstitial lamellas, volksmann canals... ah I just love it. If I ever come across a poster of this, be sure that it will appear on my wall next to Michael Jackson and The Beatles. Maybe it'll end up on the desktop of my computer... I haven't decided yet. All I know is that I think it looks awesome.