I HAVE MY LIFE BACK!

It’s been so long I’ve almost forgotten how to write on this thing. It might have something to do with being temporarily stunned by the blitz of fame I had, along with the other student bloggers, on the Imperial home page. Or it could be that I just had my second year exams and was scraping every second from every day in order to revise.

Although, for the most part, it didn’t quite play out like that.

Unfortunately what was generally happening was that I woke up with every intention to revise but my consciousness ended up disposed of elsewhere. Where exactly is anyone’s guess. In order to find the answer to this question, and to provide some light relief to the numerous others who are going through the godforsaken minefield of second year exams, I have documented the start a typical day from the last month I spent back at home trying in vain to revise…

7.00am Alarm set on phone goes off, approximately on time. Cannot for the life of me work out what is going on, nor where I am, as am still half asleep. Not entirely sure why it is necessary to be up this early. Decide to award myself a temporary snooze in order to allow coherent thought patterns.

7.06am Clearly this has not been long enough for me to effectively “snooze,” and so I’m not sure why my alarm has decided to go off at this particular time.

7.12am Hrrrm. I think I see a pattern emerging.

7.18am Suddenly remember that I had inexplicably set the snooze period on my alarm for six minutes. Throw phone at wall.

7.24am Alarm goes off again. Realise the tactical error in throwing the phone to the other side of the room, as it necessitates getting out of bed to silence the damn thing.

9.00am Awake in a bizarre half-asleep dream where I have successfully broken the record for the longest mobile phone based snooze pattern, to an audience of well wishers and a Guinness Book of Records adjudicator. Slowly wake up, slightly scarred by the whole experience.

10.15am Have now been sitting in my pants staring at a page of anatomy notes whilst being distracted by facebook and emails. Decide that eating pate on crumpets with orange juice was not my stomach’s first choice for breakfast. Brain is overwhelmed by memories of orange juice increasing iron absorption, and stomach decides enough is enough.

10.16am Hurriedly head to the toilet.

11.36am Still there.

11.45am Leave toilet, and feel that a shower may motivate me.

2pm Have spent the last two hours machine gunning down innocent bystanders on the playstation. I sincerely think that my brother could not have worse timing when it comes to purchasing video entertainment equipment. Still, there is something rather satisfying about taking a tank and steaming through virtual streets, destroying anything and everything in sight.

2.11pm Somewhat concerned about my mental state. Relocate to the garden. Watch cat play with butterflies. After being sufficiently calmed, crisis of career looms. Not entirely sure I want to be studying life this for the rest of my foreseeable life, with the added bonus of bodily fluids and late nights.

2.20pm Finally start revising the joys of psychology. Take an online test that tells me I have an ultimate male brain and am therefore on the autistic spectrum. Tell a friend who promptly laughs at me. Consider starting legal action against them under some obscure disability legislation.

So as you can see, completely productive. For the rest of the afternoon I did manage to get a few solid hours of revision in, powered mainly by strong black coffees, a whimsical sense of bravado whilst staring over the horizon into Croydon, and listening to Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” somewhere in the region of three hundred and eighty seven times. It is a strangely rousing song.

And so now I am back in Fulham, and the regular trials and tribulations of student life have started once again in earnest. In order to recoup the bank holiday weekend at Easter I lost through revision, I took a detour out to a club in Piccadilly, with the rest of the year. I almost didn’t go because I was so tired. I woke up the next morning with an empty pocket, a hateful stomach, a splitting headache and the grim realisation through photographic evidence that I am losing my hair at a rate previously unknown to man. Half-price Champagne cocktails, it seems, are always never a good idea.

Although I am now on four day weeks and half days, I still don’t have it in me to concentrate. This is partially down to the fact I brought my old school XBox up to the flat, which has brought forth a new era of destroying aliens and watching two of my (female) friends try to fling the controller around in all directions in a vein attempt to stop the onslaught of bullets hurtling towards their character. I’m going to try and record her strangled screams, it’s a noise never before heard by man. Aside from that and the occasional trip to the dry cleaners I don’t really know where the time goes. Answers on a postcard.

And so normal service in my life resumes. Tomorrow shall come a post regarding a well known supermarket chain, and how close I came to headbutting the scanner on their automatic tills. I’m going to get some sleep; that is if my flatmate can stop burning her pork chops for long enough to stop screaming and setting the smoke alarms off for the tenth time.

And what a beautiful way to start the Valentine’s Day post. Cat sick. I’m such an romantic.

If I make it to Tuesday after writing this post and my girlfriend hasn’t finally flipped and murdered me with a comedy inflatable sword there will have been some divine intervention. But here goes anyway.

Valentine’s day is an interesting experience. I have a lot of cynical (single) friends who see it all as a massive scam by big business to try and exploit what is otherwise a historically insignificant day. And for the most part they are right. It’s no truer anywhere else than in London. It’s like a bad rash…everywhere, itchy, and not relieved by E45. Even walking down the street with your eyes closed and fingers in your eyes free papers (certified news-free) invade your personal space and rant on and on about how awful it is to be single and the biggest way to pimp yourself and other such nonsense. I even saw a tube driver, as the train pulled into the station, with a wizened expression and a hastily bough item in an M&S carrier bag with a helium heart shaped balloon. And can I understand why. The problem is, when you are in a relationship forgetting any day of even dubious importance can result in dangerous consequences. I can imagine his life plays out a little bit like this.

“Do you know what day it is today?”

“…Wednesday?”

“And?”

“…”

“YOU’RE THE WORST BOYFRIEND THAT HAS LIVED SINCE [insert unfounded insult, followed by hurtling cutlery]!”

So therein lies the risk, a fork implanted in your forehead for the rest of time.

Apparently it is socially unacceptable to throw your children to the Wolves

I may or may not have forgotten to get my girlfriend a Valentine’s card, and because I wanted to avoid a similar fate Because my girlfriend is lovely and amazing and would never try and impale my face with kitchen equipment, we went to London Zoo for the day. It seems like we weren’t the only ones with the notion that animal feces is romantic, because the place was infested with couples. I’m sure carrying a single red rose around all day is very sweet, but seems like an unnecessary warning to the rest of the crowd that you are in love if you are apparently giving the poor girl rescue breaths.

I must say though, that the Zoo is an amazing place to go, and I highly recommend a visit. There’s a whole host of animals there, as you would imagine. I checked and it seems its “Licence to Operate a Zoo” is in fact up to date, so it’s all above board in case some of the more

NOT my girlfriend.

ecologically minded amongst you were worried. Highlights included a fish bigger than the size of my head, Hippos trying to bite each other’s face off, a lion with a hairball, penguins standing around looking bemused, a meerkat sunbathing under a heat lamp and Otters thinking about doing a synchronised swimming regime, but deciding better of it.

In the evening, Westfield London was the destination for a hastily thought out meal. I think it is rather telling of the kind of man that I am that I was more excited by the car park (there are lights about every bay telling you if the space is free…I was in awe) than the food itself. If you’ve not been yet, go; I hate shopping and yet I love it there. If you weren’t able to hear the police sirens and gunshots you could even forget you were in Shepherd’s Bush Green. The Real Greek (as opposed to The Fake Greek? Now there’s a restaurant I’d like to eat in- nothing tastes better than fraud) is a good choice for a romantic dinner-

This was a synchronised swimming regime, until the one at the front stacked it

however I would advise that you exercise extreme caution if considering eating anything listed as “coarsely blended.” Whilst the Heepitiki, or whatever it was called, was indeed delicious, it did look a little like someone had forced fed my cat a red crayon and then made it drink salt water.

But appearances are apparently deceiving, as it was otherwise delicious (my lawyers have told me to say).

Having a long-term relationship at a place as busy and distracting as university is not easy, especially when you’re eighty miles away from

Haven't Meerkats ever heaard of skin cancer?

each other as we are. But when you’re both standing there, watching a small ape throwing itself repeatedly at the glass because it wants the sandwich you’re eating, the sun is setting in the background and tourists are trying to shoulder barge their way to the front of the gorilla

exhibit, it is all worth it. So stick with it.

And if all else fails, you could always adopt a monkey with a screw loose:

As I sit here in my bed I am slowly dying of a disease that has for years baffled the medical profession…there are no vaccines, few if any effective treatments and has far more public health implications than Avian Influenza.

The condition is not something that can be easily explained if you haven’t suffered from it yourself. At approximately 1200hours this afternoon I was sitting in a warm classroom (too warm, if anything), when the drowsiness kicked in. Ordinarily I sleep through most learning related activities so this didn’t come as too much of a shock. But then I couldn’t breathe through my nose, and it’s at this point that the panic really begins to set in. Once the headache erupted like pus from a fourteen year old boy’s face my fate was sealed: Man flu- the single most deadly affliction to face men since Germaine Greer. I’m not entirely sure what I have done to deserve such a fate. I take the rubbish bins out, cuddle small kittens and help old ladies cross the road. My one vice is perhaps that I drink a little too much…and for this I am paying a hefty price. Since Friday I have been on the go non-stop; my gallivant to Exeter with all it’s drinking and falling over, a subsequent pustulent elbow, and spending 24 hours awake on Monday all seem to be contributory factors.

Luckily for me it’s something that doesn’t come around too often- but just enough to keep me on my metaphorical toes of doom. It does happen when I get run down, but normally I eat enough oranges and limes to keep germs away. Unfortunately, as I have said, there is very little any doctor or surgeon can do to heal me. I simply have to rely on bed rest, re-runs of Live at the Apollo on BBC iPlayer and imposing sufficient levels of guilt on my flatmates to make them run around after me and cook my meals…as you can see this disease seems to bring unprecedented optimism as well.

The problem with being a medical student (or one of them, at least) is that we suffer from a very real condition known as “medical student’s syndrome;” they don’t mess about with nonsense names in psychology do they? What this says is that students may suffer an irrational fear of contracting the disease that they are currently studying, with many believing that they are indeed suffering from the disease. Astonishingly, studies have shown that just under 80% of medics will go through this, and I can safely count myself amongst their number- however I seem to be considering every disease I have ever come across, and not just the ones I’m studying now. In the last three hours I have forced myself to exclude the differentials of a brain tumour, aspiration pneumonia (from falling asleep backwards in a chair 4am Tuesday morning), sub-dural haemorrhage, meningitis and septicaemia from that cut to my forearm* as well as a whole host of other disease that present with general malaise. You’ll no doubt be glad to hear that at the moment it looks like I will pull through…just.

The post I owe you all about my adventures in Exeter will be up in the next few days, depending on my prognosis. I assure you it will be worth the wait.

The more cynical of you will argue that this illness is strangely close to Valentine’s day. All I can say to that is if this were a ploy to get out of buying present/spending the day (read: my hard earned cash) with my beloved girlfriend, then it is doomed to failure. For, I fear, my head would have to be hanging on its last thread and even then I’d still be made to pander to her romance based whims. Some diseases, it seems, will never have a cure**.

*All joking aside, meningitis is a very real problem amongst the student community as it can strike very rapidly and its symptoms can be confused with a cold/flu or a hangover. Get vaccinated against Meningitis C, and keep an eye out for your mates- visit http://www.meningitis-trust.org/ for more information.

**In case you read this, my love, and you probably will- I didn’t mean any of the pandering stuff. Please don’t kill me

I realise I promised to write about my adventures in hospital and give you an insight into life as a student; however real life sometimes takes over. Included in real life: is beer, family, some work, and Jeremy Kyle. That show should be a licensed cure for depression; it certainly makes me feel better about myself.

I am not usually one to harp on and on about the virtues of charity- don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, I’m just not particularly adept at it; generally I prefer laziness. However, it is customary for me at around this time of year to do a good deed, and the radio and TV adverts by the National Blood Service were coming so thick and fast that I felt I had to do something to help with the usual blood shortage over the festive period.

When you are working in a hospital, it’s very easy to forget that everything comes from somewhere. You have a patient with a severe GI bleed and they need blood transfusions to correct their subsequent severe anaemia. You go and get the red form for the doctor, filling out “4 units crossmatched,” take a blood sample and put it in the shoot and off it whizzes to pathology- sure enough, 4 bags of the good stuff turns up and your patient’s life is saved. Hurrah. But at no stage do you ever stop to think that it’s come from somewhere- it appears as some drug the same way as anti-biotics or analgesics do- in neatly formed packages. So in a post-prandial festive malaise, I made an appointment to give blood. I also convinced a good friend of mine to come along, lured principally, I fear, by the promise of Wagon Wheels.

We did wait for two hours, as there weren’t enough beds for the donors; but eventually we passed the screening questionnaire and went to the station. The needle doesn’t really hurt, it’s more of a discomfort- but I saw it more as a constant reminder of the good I was doing, similar to the way my girlfriend’s constant nagging reminds me of how I love her. Ok, bad example. Nevertheless, if you do have a phobia of needles, then I suggest perhaps finding another way to do good; the last thing they want is blood everywhere but the bag.

So with only 4% or so of the eligible population actually giving blood, and around 7000 units needed a day to maintain a working stock, it is vitally important that if you are able, you do. In fact, I am reliably informed that for those at Imperial, a session is taking place on 11th February in SAFB- or go to http://www.blood.co.uk

And if all else fails, just go to stock up on the snacks. I’ve never consumed so much orange squash and TUC biscuits in my entire life. Well, you’ve got to make it work for you, haven’t you?

Although judging by the sheer amount of junk I have eaten over the last few days it’s a miracle that I’m not. In fact I make the point because the photo in the top right hand corner of this site would suggest that I am. The camera never lies and laxatives never work, it seems.

And so I extend a warm welcome to those of you who have braved that somewhat graphic opening to my blog and made the perhaps foolhardy decision to read on. I am Jaimie, and as some of you may have realised from the nonchalant way I can include my bowels in a conversation I am medical student- a second year, to be precise. That beautiful time when you are caught in limbo between wanting to give it all in for having to sit through another neurology lecture by well-meaning but altogether limp lecturers; unbridled joy about being able to stick a needle into a living, breathing patients groin; and a complete sense of loss when you realise it only gets worse from here on in. (I have just finished my first clinical attachment, but I shall leave that tantalising glimpse of my life hanging for another post- I’m not throwing my material away!).

But yes, I am here to bare myself to you and let you see what life really is like on the other side of those pearly Imperial gates, warts and all- and believe me, I can foresee a fair amount of those. I will make my apologies now for my crude and cutting sense of humour; it is my firm belief that after spending any amount of time trying to grade a patient’s stool sample you lose the ability to converse politely over dinner, or blogs for that matter. And I only worked in hospital for a month, so it all looks promising for third year.

I could go on and on about my life, hobbies, friends, foes, feelings and that time I ran into a pond, but in order to save those who don;t like to dwell on social minutiae (i.e. those that aren’t stalkers) I have put them into a pocket size guide to my life that you can find on the about page.

Because my curry has just arrived and I was supposed to be in the pub 10 minutes ago- it is Christmas, after all- I shall bid you adieu. I will put up the tales of my Christmas and my month in hospital because I fear they are worth sharing. But until then enjoy the break.

Sincerely yours,

Jaimie