Long time no post.
what have I been doing the past month or so??
Finished a group project on cannabis use in indigenous australians.
spent a weekend at the snow with wodonga baptist! yay
spent a week in sydney. great to catch up with everyone.
Now Im back doing obstetrics and Gynaecology.
Saw one birth. one C section and one hysterectomy.
gross and messy. but i guess its not something that everyone gets to do.

got 7 weeks left in albury this year. . . and plenty of assignments and exams to keep me busy.
also got a job at target this week. about time you say???

Becky

thanks bec for letting me use your computer. ..
we've been watching so you think you can dance - on youtube. check out jamal and e-nock. umm and a guy called sex. sooo funny. there was another girl witha prosthetic arm.. cant find her... and also the robot guy. bryan gaynor. he got copyrighted. oohh hick and wink they're a funny couple too.. love it.
and yes we think we can dance

Annoying things to do on a car trip:
-tap
-click
-poke people sitting in front of you
-bang on the chair in front of you
-put other peoples headrests down
-tighten seat belts
-lean chairs backwards

4/09/07
WELCOME TO WAGGA
the welcoming committee put on a glamourous dinner for all new medical professionals and students. there was about 60 people and lots of great old surgeons to talk to. some up to 80 years old. fun times, good food, free drinks.

Corowa

very productive week.
i spent 3 days in corowa (population 5000)
there were a few gross things i wont mention - you can ask me later..
there were heaps of babies too. I got to mind some of them while the community nurse was chatting about feeding and weight and growth etc etc... One newborn fell asleep in my arms. much better than crying! his mum was happy
I gave one guy an injection of Gold. for arthritis. !
and burnt of some yucky skin spots

day 6

flight back to beijing saturday morning. Cindy took us to the airport dressed in her traditional clothes.
Everyone was ready for a nap at the sommerset hotel but the kids got bored so we went for a walk. ended up at hard rock cafe! heaps of fun. yummy chips, icecream and milkshakes.

Day 5

Friday in Li-Jiang. did some great shopping with Cindy our guide. watched a sing/dance show that night. The guy (ill find a photo) Cindy told us was 'seven thirty... i mean seventy three' hehe. We visited lots of shops along canals which was very cute. The trip up the mountain was loonngg, had a 2 hour wait at least. but we managed to spend the whole time chatting to a group of chinese tourists who were learnin/teachin english.Some of the kids, 17 yearolds, did amazingly well. I think they enjoyed having someone to practise with. The Cox kids managed to get a few photos up there.. the tourists are often more interested in the 'beautiful australians' than the scnery about them.. this happened at most of the places we went. bus trip back down the mountain was pretty boring except for the part where we got to ride a yack!! oh my goodness.. it cost a few dollars to ride and the same for a picture.. in australia i can imagine the ride being $20 and $50 for a picture. we couldnt resist. although i think the one bec had was a cow in disguise, she wasnt happy.

day 4

-Traditional Dali people wear fun costumes, the minority grop are the Bi people. Costumes represent teh snow, flowers, moon and wind.
-We visited an island with a fishing villiage on it. Some of the community had never left the island!
-Tea ceremony in the afternoon, complete with dancing and chinese singing which we didnt understand.
- 3 hour bus trip to Li-Jiang. 2 hours into it we came across a huge shed which contained a jewellry store looking like david jones! it was glamorous but just in the middle of nowhere.

Day 3

Our tour guide Roger picked us up on rainy wednesday morning. We travelled to the stone forest in the morning and Western Hill in the afternoon.


Plane to Dali. Stayed at a nice hotel.

Day 2

Breakfast was a strange assortment of cereal, lettuce, toast, gerkins, tomato, rice, bacon, curry, eggs.... so strange.
Dad and I walked around the block to kill time.. plenty to see. the witches sweeping the road,people on bikes, traffic, traffic, crazy intersections, lots of funny shops. and bad smells.
Flight to Kunming at 12ish. then roger drove us to our new place. met the family there and heard about their travels!!
Then off to hit the shopping/markets of mainstreet spring city. lots of junk. but i managed to buy a shirt $5 and said thankyou in chinese. the lady was most impressed. people tend to know HELLO and youre welcome. which is difficult the R and L.
lots of shoes. belts. bags. food. fruit. bikes.
Dinner was mixed.. 3 of us had buffet which was chinese. and the others had spagetti and burgers and milkshakes.. yumm.. at least they didnt go hungry. will get photos later.. too difficult to figure out on the laptop here.
so now off to bed. exhausted from the stress of crossing 2 roads today.
tomorrow night is another flight out...

China Day 1

9/07/07
Flew about 12 hours to Bejing. Watched becoming jane, slept, ate, watched saturday night fever, slept, ate and finally got there late at night. driver wang took us to the garden hotel or something. no one spoke much english besides HELLO. which they yell at you every so often.
Saw Russ, a family friend from australia and he promises to take us shopping later in the week.
after i figured out the shower etc.. it was definately bed time.

Cousins

Girls night out

Danielle gave me my typhoid injection today. This is her practise go, i think she was taking a run up. She did such a great job, didnt hurt at all but there was a bit of blood!. thanks dan. Pic 2 is our dinner at rural clinical school and dont we just look like a bunch of nerds.

I diagnosed my first suspicious breast lump on a mammogram. Dr Bright was pretty impressed! Those things just look like a black and white mess

Music

Played keyboard again this sunday. Great band. It was all boys other than me though. Chris on Bass, Scott on drums, Archie on guitar, Mason leading, with Paul and Kurt singing. We did quite a few new songs. I'd sung them but not played for ages.

Awesome in this place (it literally goes 'God is awesome, He is awesome, God is awesome in this place...' wow boring)
Salvation is here (Hillsong)
Hosanna
Beautiful one
How great is our God
Majesty

Pretty different not having to lead the song like you would at a morning service. Scott was very creative and very clever with arranging songs to sound better. I pretty much just did what I was told. Kinda scary coz I havent played in such a long time. I got the scary part of playing during the offering. so nervous.
Next time im going to have a bit of a practise on the uni piano.

WDBC

GO Wodonga!! We had an awesome time away at state youth games, yep who would have thought id ever represent wodonga in victorian sports? 50 of us went down and camped along with 3000 other people from various churches over the state (more photos later). Quite a hectic weekend
Ultimate Frisbee: my first time ever, we came 3rd in C grade!
Ladies Netball: we were in A grade... and lets just say we had plenty of fun!! well we won 1 game in about 5 so thats ok.
mixed Touch football: the first time in 5 years probably.. and our team drew the grandfinal 1-1. it was such hard work but everyone was pretty patient with the few girls we had on the team.
Revive: our guest band for the night was heaps of fun... go sharky! no realy there was a shark!!
mixed netball: again did pretty poorly. boys are funny to watch. i forget how many rules there are to explain to them!
AEROBICS: B grade. the other teams were 14 year old girls/professionals. but were pretty boring,, like watching eisteddfords. our team was 12 of us, 4 boys, and we'd practised so hard, we dressed up 80s style but so many things just seem to go wrong once you get us infront of the lights. we had the biggest cheers and the other teams loved us. we sure were entertaining. i think the comment from the MC was 'What a long way to come.... to look like THAT'.

photos

Albury Sunrise

This is the only good thing about early Wagga mornings

Girls Dinner

Courtney, Jacquie and I had dinner a week ago which was fun. The girls went to school together and now we are in the same bible study. We met up with an old friend of theirs from school, she's been overseas with the army, training and stuff. Lots of fun stories there. Anyway, thought it was nice to mention the people I know outside the hospital!!

Oscar

Spending the long weekend in the Warragul area - near Melbourne. Run by Youth Vision Victoria, heaps of churches all over the place get together for a weekend of sport and fun. We are camping (cold i know) and taking 50 people. My sports will be Netball, fristbee (need some tips), touch footy, and aerobics! Thats right, we started choreographing a groovy 80s routine, complete with pushups, star jumps, and leg warmers. Will get heaps of photos from that weekend for you. Cant wait.

Trust me I'm a med student

Im practising really hard but some skills just dont come easy to us.
1)First was plastering which went quite well, Ive never had my arm and my leg in plaster before. The 6 of us made quite a mess, bandages and white goop all through the room. But the fun part was cutting them off with the scary spinning blade thing.


So this is michael, I forgot to add that he decided to wear a patient gown with his undies.

2)next adventure was giving injections, we practised for hours on the soft spongy pretend skin. Rochelle and I paired up to give each other a shot of saline. Fun fun. we did pretty good. Then this week we went to the hospital to get the flu vax shots. Michael gave me one.. and lets just say I wasnt impressed. Ouch!

3) my next goal is trying to take blood. The nurses in emergency let me do anything and push me to try it all out. (dont tell the patients its your first time). So anyway, I took blood off a nurse with the help of Karl (nurse in charge, I met through baptists church). So yeah, I got blood, but it wasnt a real success. Im trying again tomorrow... wish me luck!

Wow. what an adventurous couple of weeks. I should remember to post more often but oh well.
I had a radiology exam and got the results back on wednesday. Top of the class. Well theres only 6 of us but I stil did pretty good. None of us passed and our answers were very amusing, not ready to be doctors yet. I had 'heart failure' as a diagnosis for several Xrays EXCEPT for the one that actually was heart failure. I called the metacarpals - metatarsals (non med people - this means the ankle instead of the wrist) oops. I found 2 small white dots in an Xray of a pelvis, which was exciting because they ended up to be gun shot pellets from eating a duck (which had been shot) and apparantly this is common, the pellets just sit in your appendix for ages. It wasnt an important part of the Xray. If I end up being a radiologist I will read over these and laugh. Mel, have you got any more stories to swap me?? Thanks for your advice on osteoporosis... if in doubt .. that will be my diagnosis for everything.

We all met some lovely old people (over 85yo for anyone getting offended) at the geriatrics and palliative care wards. Pat had severe dementia but was lovely, wandering round the halls and chatting to everyone like she ran the place, rearranging vases and things. Another lady was out spoken! asking if michael was my boyfriend because we showed up to the hospital at the same time, and then when she met John from Taiwan pointed 'Your from China!'. Very clever, and very inappropriate!

Urology Extravaganza!

Yeah I read that on my timetable last week and was just as shocked as you. or maybe more because I realised what gross things we would be covering. Catheterisation, Kidney problem, bladder, prostate and everything on the way out. We were a bunch of immature teenagers. But anyway, we keep getting advice that urology is a good profession, lots of patients, not much after hours, rarely on call, plus its the only specialty that you get to be a physician and a surgeon at once. Well thats what they tell us. Thanks to Ben the urology reg for letting me in on the operations.

Im just back from my first pump class.
letting you know that it was good. but teh rest of the week ill be in pain probably. Sarah, Danielle and I went all the way to Lavington for the class. Its really not too far, but we dont like to admit that we live in Glenroy not Albury. so dont tell anyone. The other class I did was a step class in Wodonga with Rochelle. My dancing has paid off, thank goodness I dont look like a fool when trying to pick up the new routines. Getting your feet all caught up is not fun.
ok will update you on how many muscles in my body are aching by morning. Im guessing I wont be able to brush my teeth from the arm pain!!!

Update for the week.
I know I dont want to do palliative care, obstetrics, paediatrics, pathology, rehab or dermatology. Still considering emergency, cardiology, neurology, surgery?
Dont want to do orthopedics - joint and bone stuff. every second patient (literally) had broken knuckles... yes theyd hit someone... or something. I know there are a lot of army guys around but this is just violent!

I have some new mad skills. Ive given 2 injections! one tetanus shot and one saline injection. thanks to rochelle and a scared patient for letting me do it!
Assignments are due tomorrow. just wanted to write in and tell you that way out west they are putting us to work!

In other news... I lead a young adults bible study on monday night. It was fun.

The Gang

My fav. There was a series of pictures... I think the other ones were 'Mum' and 'Poo'. Whos idea was that.

I finally got to scub in to a surgery at Albury Base. The clinical school spent a while teaching us how to do the scrubbing (hands above elbows, for 15 minutes), gowning (this is the mistake i made) and gloving (2 pairs of gloves, size 7 and 6.5 for me). So after at least 20 minutes prep I am ready, complete with shower cap, mask and shoe covers. Theres probably a dozen people in the operating room but 4 of us are in the sterile green section. The nurse, the surgeon, his intern and me. Of all the surgeons and interns there is only one girl out here in the country. Penny.
The surgery was a hemicolectomy, where they remove quite a bit of the large bowel. This guy had some polyps which are growth that can look like cancer. I got to watch it all and hold the retractors (pulls the skin open so you can see inside) and when the surgeon left I helped cut the stitches as Penny was working on them, and use the cloth to wipe up heaps of blood. The guy ended up with a stoma (for colostomy bag, you can look that bit up), but will hopefully get 'joined back up' next time they operate.
I was surprised at how much blood there was... it really smelt bad. and how relaxed the surgeons were... questioning me on my anatomy and explaining stuff as we went along. Thankgoodness I wasnt getting in the road.
We'll all try and get photos next time in our gorgeous blue scrubs. Greys anatomy style.
I'll keep you posted...

Top 100

My Sisters Keeper (2007)
The 5 People you meet in heaven (2007)
The Bible (2007)
Da Vinci Code (2006)
Memoirs of a Geisha (2006)
Angels and Demons (2006)
The Bronze Horseman (2006)
Across the nightingale floor (2006)
Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy (2006)
Jane Eyre (2005)
Little Women (2005)
Angelas Ashes (2005)
Brave new world (2003)
The Hobbit (1998)

Some patients just stand out.
A lady I saw yesterday having her routine check up before a surgery. The Dr and I noticed large dark bruises on her arm and neck. Throughout the morning her story changed from falls and bumps to it just being a sore. Her husband was in the waiting room (and this made us all sick to our stomachs). The nurse offered... 'if theres anything you want to talk to us about...' but she declined. We weren't sure if this was notifiable to a social worker. The poor lady didnt seem to want an option out.

'These are a few of my favourite things'

The Normal ECG

Ejection Systolic murmer

Chest Xray (abnormal)

Angus and Robertson

The new Top 100 list is out. My total currently stands at 14 books read. Competing strongly with my family. Have been to join Albury library - getting serious I know. Mel - am I tied with you yet? have to update me!.

Wodonga District Baptist Church

www.wodongabaptist.org.au

Long time no see. sorry for the delays. I will be able to access the internet from home this afternoon. Im literally between harvey norman and home. The lap top is in the car.
Went to my first surgery on Friday. Will tell all the gross details soon.
TBC

Mel and Andy

Current Reading list

~Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning
~Prayer, Philip Yancey
~Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
~Power of One, Bryce Courtney
~Clinical examination, Talley 'winner of 2006 australian awards for excellence in educational publishing' woohoo

The final result

Rebeccas finished project

Rebeccas Project... Before

Holidays already. I know, lucky hey. Had the long drive back yesterday with sarah and charlotte. but its nice to be home for a bit. Ive had a busy couple of weeks. I finally got to see a surgery which was pretty cool. And I even got to take one guys' stitches out (he knew it was my first time). Neurology is an interesting place, lots of different things to diagnose and brain CTs to try to read. the 2 doctors there are very different. One is like House, and the other is the kinda guy you would acutally want as your OWN doctor. Both great teachers in their own way. Theres also a lot of disabled kids at their consult rooms, which is pretty sad. but theyre such great kids.
We spent the second week doing fitness stuff. and read an article saying that it was fitness and not weight or BMI that was the best predictor of mortality etc. The punch line is you can be fat and fit! we went to TAFE for a go on the exercise bikes and lets just say that I have the two criteria back to front.
Skills tutorials are my favourite, there seems to be a simulation for everything. they have a crazy dummy - which i name johnny. and you can feel his pulse, listen to heart murmers, his breathing, give him a drip, put tubes down his throat, do cpr. etc. hes like a full size one that you would use for CPR but with arms and legs. My latest acheivement is learning how to intubate him- thats probably the most commn procedure in med shows.

Higlights of week 1

Good start to the year (start? yeah i know its march).

Favourite patient: Carpal tunnel
Best Diagnosis: brady-arrhythmia causing syncope
Favourite Talent: reading ECGs
Fav Roadtrip: wagga for thursday friday.
Guest Lecturer: Dr Vu for an update of anatomy and dirty jokes
To Do List: Put together a desk.
Most exciting moment: helicopter at albury base.

Miracle: it rained... did we break the drought?

For the community: protested at wagga for their new hospital to be built soon.

Day 1

Suspense. The year has finally begun! are we the last ones to get back to uni.. probably. So sarah and I arrived yesterday at the Albury Rural Clinical School, collared shirt, new skirt, sensible shoes, and lunch packed like we are starting kindergarten.

Positives
-Staff and teachers are great.
-The hospital is nice and new
-our student lounge has a kitchen and piano. And I got a key to my first locker!
-the 4th and 5th and 6th year students are all lovely
-Dr Vine really wants us to get to see everything that goes on in hospital.
-We get to go to the races in a week! no really, they scheduled it in our timetable.
-Heaps of trips between wagga and albury are planned. with accomodation and BBQs included.

Negatives
-Lots of work to do
-Too much to remember from 1st and 2nd year
-Tomorrow we are at hospital for 12 hours.
-charlotte (sarah's pug) is sick :-(

Wednesday we learn how to 'scrub in' so that if/when we are asked to join on surgery we wont look like fools!
I promise to get some more photos from Albury soon.

Body and Soul

I found this great quote from Plato, stuck in the bottom of my drawers at home. It reminds us to begin the year again by thinking of patients as people, not statistics, diseases or bed numbers. I guess its a bit like Patch Adams; I should really get that DVD out. I reckon more than half of 'how you are feeling' when you leave the doctors office, depends on how the doctor 'treats you' as a person not how s/he 'treats you' medically.

On the flip side we have Gregory House for the Negative team:
"What would you want, a doctor who holds your hand while you die, or a doctor who ignores you while you get better? I guess it would particularly suck to have a doctor who ignores you while you die."

PLATO
'As you ought not to attempt to cure the eyes without the head or the head withought the body, so neither are you to attempt to cure the body without the soul. For the part can never be well unless the whole body is well. Therefore, if the head and body are to be well, you must begin by curing the soul'

Fresh Air

Friday, packed and ready to hit the road. The Cruiser is full to the brim, with lots of goodies to fill out my new house. I've had lots of hugs and good-byes over the past week, one of the highlights was my dancing buddies who baked me a cake saying 'good luck'. thanks girls! Then they proceeded to sing from the sound of music 'So long, Farewell'. They will certainly be missed.

Saturday, got my room sorted out. but i will have to go out and buy 100 coat hangers. Did the first grocery shopping trip today aswell. Lots of furniture to put together (kinda like ikea), and my desk comes during the week. some of our neighbors came and said hello. we all share a cute little driveway off the road. thats all for now.
exhausted.

Olympics 2000 to year 10 graduation

Cox kids in the Aussie spirit. I think we came down for a few days of atheletics. How tiny is Tyler! Dance Unlimited presents The Wizard of Oz. Starring Kathy as the witch, Danika as Tinman, Amanda as Dorothy, Lauren as the Lion, Haley as Scarecrow and Sally as Glenda. Congratulations to Danika who is now travelling and performing in exciting things like the Canncann. And Lauren in America continuing to get her degree for dance teaching.
Coxs and the Moores go skiing. Nice to see everyone together at Hotham I think. Makes me cold and sore just thinking about it.
And finally, we graduate in year 10 with the School Certificate in 2001.

1997: Year 6 CVPS

*Appology to anyone who appears in these pics and doesnt think its cute!. Im sure 10 years on we all look back with some regrets! and a huge improvement in our fashion sense.

First picture is with Ragan, my next door
neighbour, at our Australia Day celebration.
Our school had a float in the parade down the
main street and we all dressed up. Looks like a pretty hot day, especially in long skirts and bonnets.











My netball team!!
Coahc is Penny. Gillian, Ragan, Bethany, Sophie,
Bec, Amanda M,
Connie and ME. Must have been
taken after a final or something. Go team! Im still not tall enough for Defense, but what they hey.








Next pic is our year 6 farewell. what a group!
should have a 10 year reunion. sophie, sarah, me and laura. Back in the day where we'd pic which spice girl each person was. and dream of the day when we'd be able to drive! I remember thinking
'in 2000 i will be 15!'
Where are they now? After leaving us for boarding school in year 11 - sophie (aka stella) ended up doing physio at sydney uni. clever chicken. Sarah (aka sard) was captain at highschool and is in mudgee now i think.? Im off to do med in albury. and Laura (aka Trevor) is in Crowsnest and is studying business or about to change degrees.






Last one... Code! I think this was taken after our

presentation day for Cudgegong, which was at the highschool. Cody and I got a principles award or something equally nerdy/cool (depends how you look at it). They couldnt choose between us (of course!) so we both ended up being winners. Ready to take on high school.

Photos 1991-93

These are the best photos of our time in America. Rebecca (now 16) was born in Gillette, Wyoming. Both Melissa and I started school while we were there, and got the big yellow school bus in the morning. We enjoyed 2 halloweens and would return home with garbage bags of lollies bursting at the seams. One lady up the road even gave out cans of drink! I was the little mermaid one year with Melissa as the lobster. The middle photo is us back in Brisbane as flower girls for my Aunty's wedding. We came back with the cutest accents. The last photo is of course the snow! I'm proud to say that melissa was a skiing racer for her school in year 12, and dad and I have made the switch to snowboarding! much cooler. Its all about the beanie and pigtails.

me