Winter Camp

My last week of surgery was a little chaotic. I had no desire to study, no desire to

prepare my portfolio and no desire to be anywhere away from my bed. I had a osce on Monday, a project presentation on Tuesday, and urology oral on Wednesday and a practical and portfolio oral on Friday. After a long and hard battle I failed to convince the mazkir to sort out a flight for me to Durban on Friday. I was quite angry and frustrated with him, and told him so. It actually didn’t make much difference and in retrospect was probably for the best.

I packed my bags on Friday evening and caught the 7am flight to Durban. I was collected from the airport by a good and dear friend. We stayed at the Durban bayit until Monday.

I initially felt quite overwhelmed. There were many people there, most of which I did not know. On Saturday afternoon we went to the botanical gardens. Apparently people went absolutely mad when the mazkir suggested this. It was quite an average outing.

My friend and I planned a peula for Sunday afternoon. It was along the lines of the “worst peula ever” peula that was initially run by an Australian and I on Shnat 2003. It ran something like this:

Boring speech at the beginning about how I have not run a peula before and am feeling nervous. We then get them to write the name of their best and worst madrich ever on a piece of paper. We collected the pieces of paper with the names of the bad madrichim on them and placed them in the braai where we tried burn them but spilt water on them. We later read them and laughed.

The madrichim were then split up using huggie bears – huggie bears 12, huggie bears 11 (forcing them to ostracise on of the group members), huggie bears eye colour, huggie bears number of living grand parents. This created 5 groups. There were only 4 stations, so we left the floating group smoke nag. The 4 stations were discussions about what makes a madrich cool (persona, sex-appeal, rule-bending and favouritism). The discussions were poorly timed and facilitated by senior madrichim we put on the spot.

After this section we played bang and another name game as an ice breaker

They then had one of those walk around museums which had really crap quotes and lead down a narrow passage into a toilet.

We ran a meditation during which my friend and I changed into a mad costume – me in a latex mask of adolf hitler and he into a silly bathing costume. We then started making strange noises as the sikkum.

On the first night, while we were planning this peula I had my first laugh in ages. We made a quote which read “become the change you seek” after which I started writing mahatma ghandi, but then crossed it out half-way and wrote hitler. My friend then did a dance around his bead room in his underwear with a knife.

A friend of mine was hooking up with a girl 5 years his junior. I decided to express my feeling that he was being a bad example but going into his room, using a giant jerry can as a drum and telling him that he was sinning. This happened twice.

We discussed the idea of possible putting this one baby back into his mother for a time. We also considered attaching valcro onto her labia to keep the oven closed.

On Monday we went to the the camp site. It was the same camp site we used last year. I was in a chalet with the camp steering committee. In my room were two of my good friends. We set the nag up in the room. The 4m long pipe I used was perfect so that each bed had a nag. It was in this room that I had some of the most fun I have had the entire year.

For the first few nights we were just raucously out of control. People, mostly senior madrichim, came and we entertained them. We were mocking this one madrich, when his x-girlfriend said something very hysterical about him. We realised that one of our room mates looks almost identical to a mop, so we dressed a mop up like him and stuck it in his bed with the nag. We had a little party commemorating the 4 year anniversary of the onset of symptoms from my friend’s brain tumour.

I met some really cool people. One of the Bogrim 1s was just the nicest girl I have ever met. She just loved me! She understood that I was just a puppy dog and gave me love and attention and her boyfriend was ok with that and a really amazing guy. One of my old chanichim was very enjoyable. He used to impersonate his dad being a neurologist “walk for me!” which I just loved. I would impersonate this song one of the madrichim sang. We impersonated some prominent members of the WPZC.

I spent most of my time in bed. There were few kids and very few medical problems. I completed reading the Harry Potter series which I thoroughly enjoyed.

I also had quite a few meaningful experiences.

I finally spoke to that girl that I like. I had emailed her a few weeks previously and was really struggling. I told her how I felt and why. She listened and things seemed ok. After spending 9 days in close living quarters with her I was not coping at all. She was often around and friendly enough, but she wasn’t giving me enough attention which made me feel progressively more anxious. I would keep trying to get her attention by making physical contact with her which she understandably was not feeling comfortable with. She was express her discomfort which would make me more anxious. The last two days were hell.

I met a girl that really understands me and I understand her. I suppose that I knew that she would understand, but it took a while for me to speak to her. Eventually, on the last night, I had a really amazing chat with her about life. We just understood each other. I am not struggling not to be in hectic contact with her. I will not contact her until Sunday.

There was another girl who was just the biggest bitch in the entire world. I eventually head her story which is incredibly rough and then I found the good side of her; well a better side anyway.

I am now back at home. My laundry is done and I’m unpacked and settling down.

Money’s a bit toight. My car’s starter’s not working and I’m struggling to keep busy and sane.

Finally some understanding

I have done as was suggested to me. I took my closest friends aside and spoke to them about all that has been trouble me. I have asked them for help and told them what I need.

I have gained a tremendous amount from this experience. For the first time I finally understand what is going on. I understand exactly how I am stuck and why. The last piece of work required is to find another way.

Firstly, because of complicated factors I sit with unmet fundamental human needs. I need support, care, concern, love and human contact.

I have learned to give greatly of my self. I am able to receive and take, but I do not know how to communicate my needs to women effectively. The only method that I know how to employ is to give and show concern, which has the opposite effect to what is desired. It freaks the women out and drives them away at worst, or make them see me as a close friend at best.

The major problem, however, arises when I start to develop feelings for a girl; realising that she might be able to fulfil my needs. As the feelings grow and develop they resonate more and more powerfully with my unmet needs, which becomes painful and uncomfortable; like dangling a carrot in front of a starved horse, or like an itch that you cannot scratch. The feelings of extreme anxiety, loss and sadness grow worse and worse until I cannot contain them any more.

Then one of two things happen: I diffuse it by having an uncomfortable conversation with girl who is then left with the unpleasant and unfortunately choice of having to tell me she shares the feelings or not. She inevitably says she doesn’t share the feelings and then she feels awkward and does everything in her considerable power to get rid of me.

OR I leave her and move on, which normally doesn’t work the first option supersedes.

I wind up creating things that are so sad, terrible and beautiful; like the Elves. I fall for girls who don’t love me, love them until it drives them away and then cannot move on. The reason that I cannot move on is the hope created during the process; the hope that this women might be able to meet my needs, is all I have. To let go of that shadow of something that might have been is too much to bear because without it there is nothing.

I believe in truth; in life, too much is left unsaid.

I speak my truth calmly and openly because it is the only thing left to do when the hope is gone and the hollowness hurts horribly.

My truth is the searing hot spark that turns my reality into a blazing hell of pain

After time the blaze burns down and the scars remain, and the shadow of the hope sad, beautiful and terrible.

A pearl of wisdom

I have had an incredibly difficult day.

I woke a few times during the night and early in the morning. When I eventually got up I thought of the fucking amazing day at had yesterday and got straight back into bed. Yesterday I went to Jooste where I chose to go help out at the surgical out patients clinic. The doctor who runs the clinic had an American girl with him. She was not even a medical student. Just a completely random girl. He was being very flirty and talkative with her, but I didn’t mind. I just did my bit, helping him out, seeing patients, etc. I eventually saw a lady who need a benign, though large, tumour cut out of her inner thigh. Because I believe in thoroughly examining the patients I see I noticed that she was profoundly anaemic with a tachycardia and tachypnoea. I asked the sister if we could do a ward haemoglobin on her, but we couldn’t because the machine was broken. I proceeded to take blood from her to send for a formal haemoglobin. I’ve been taking blood from patients for years and I had very good reasoning to do this investigation. When I told the doctor he decided to shit me out for not getting his permission. I think he thought it made him look good for the american chick. What an asshole.

Anyway, so today I woke up feeling like shit. My university/work was terrible. My friends are all busy writing exams, my family are in a state about my dad having heart surgery soon, my time is free but I have nothing to do. I’m so lonely and bored.

I went to Kaya where I had an excellent chat with one of the counsellors. He suggested that I speak to my friends and people and tell them what I need. He also suggested that I speak to people to get feed back about my interactions with women. I then attended there aftercare. I had an issue with one of the patient who was being aggressive and trying to intimidate me, which wasn’t fun.

I went to the bayit where I had a nag. I then went out with a good friend for sushi. Then I visited one of my good friends who is down from Joburg. I had a long serious talk about how I am feeling. It was good to speak about it. In talking to him I realised why I haven’t ever been able to feel real closure with those many women who has caused me so much pain.

When I liked each of them they gave me hope of human comfort and understanding. It is the most that I have ever had. I cannot let go of the hope because the hope is all I have. I will only be able to let go of the hope when I have somebody or something to fill that small space of the vast emptiness within that is occupied by the hope.

The Creeping Doom

I have found it difficult to reflect lately because my life feels very empty and uneventful. It feels like the constant stream of medication I take to maintain myself. I have two blister-strips and one bottle. In the morning I take 60mg duloxetine. They are arranged in 2 rows of 5 tables and 1 row where the middle table is missing making 14 in the blister-strip. Each month the pharmacy gives me 2 blister strips and 2 tablets cut from another blister strip making 30 tablets. I can take whichever one I want from the blister-strip. Some months I take them in order, some months I make a pattern, this month I am taking them out at random.

In the evening I take quetiepine 100mg and phenergan 25mg. The quetiepine comes in blister strips of 10 arranged in two rows of 5 tablets. I get 3 blister-strips. I normal take them in rows of 2. The pherergan comes in a plastic bottle. I feel bad because I have a draw of plastic bottles that I cannot recycle. I sometimes take 50mg of phenergan if I really want to sleep well. If I need to wake up very early and not sleep much I don’t take the phenergan.

Sometimes I forget to take the duloxetine in the morning. I always put it out on my bedside light’s stand the night before. Sometimes, when I wake up, I see it but I roll over or get distracted and then forget to take it. By early afternoon I can feel that I have forgotten to take it. When I move quickly, especially if I move my head quickly, I get a shooting sensation through one of my arms. It is painful or pleasant. This gets worse if I miss the medication for two days in a row. I rarely miss my medication though, I think that I am more than 95% compliant.

I never forget to take my quetiepine. I cannot sleep at all without, not matter how sad, tired, depressed, despondent, exhausted, or sick I feel I cannot sleep for one “millisecond of a motorcycle wheel” without it. It has been like this for over 3 years.

In the morning I wake up. Half the time I feel sore. This is when my joints feel achy. It’s not an arthritis problem, but a psychosomatic manifestation of my illness. It normally goes away within 20 minutes, sometimes it doesn’t. Other times I wake up feeling tired. I often wake up feeling lonely. There is nothing that I look forward to when I wake up.

University is very unstimulating at the moment. I am doing surgery. I spent a month at groote schuur of which 3 weeks was spent in the breasts, thyroid and sarcomas firm. This involved busy interesting days on Monday and Tuesday and quite chilled Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. In fact, I haven’t gone in on Friday for over a month. I am not going on on Thursday at the moment because it is just tutorials and lectures and I don’t give a horses ass. I feel bad. I feel that I am missing out on something.

I have been studying medicine for more than 5 years and I know that I am not missing out on anything. I am missing out on those lectures that I was forced to attend last year. The lectures that I was bored in and resented last year. I am not attending them.

Tomorrow I will go in at 10am because there is a lecture from 8h30 to 9h30 by the vascular firm. Vascular surgery is one of my least favourite topics of discussion. At 10am I will present my scrawny Jewish ass to the orthopaedics outpatients clinic at G.F. Jooste Hospital where the consultant will, as he did last week, scream at me to shut up whenever I try to answer a question. I will not care about his verbal abuse and continue to try to learn orthopaedics. I will then go home.

When I am at home there are a few activities which I use to help fill up my days so that I don’t go any more crazy. I am devouring Harry Potter at the moment. I spend a substantial amount of time every day reading Harry Potter. Reading Harry Potter has no long term benefits. It just serves to fill the vast, nearly overwhelming emptiness. I watch TV series and I play computer games. I am currently playing Warcraft 3’s Frozen Throne expansion on hard. I am on the first level of undead. The online tutorial I had to use describes this map, along with most of the other maps in this campaign as either almost impossible or impossible. I find that far form motivating, but it does fill time.

I also spend quite a bit more time than I am used to cleaning. I clean my room, sort things, wash, dry and pack away dishes, just because it fills time. It also provides a false sense of maintenance. I am maintaining my… erm… room therefore I must be maintaining myself and my happiness. This is quite the contrary.

I spend a significant, though small, period of time every day trying to communicate. I send text messages to my friends. I send a message to a girl I really like every day wishing her well for her studies and exams. My relationship with her at the moment fills me with pathos and sadness. I know that she does not have feelings for me. I also know that there are complicated reason why we will never be together.

There are other girls with whom I communicate less frequently. The content and feeling are the same. I barely even expect a reply.

I try, whenever possible, to socialise. I attend aftercare at Kaya on Wednesday afternoon where I contribute greatly to the group therapy. I smoke nag with some of my friends and go out for dinner with others. I speak to them, try to laugh and tell jokes. I try to relate my experiences with them in a positive way.

The mantra I find myself saying to myself more often then not is “There is nothing.”

My problem is that I have hope. My hope is unreasonable and irrational. While, in this period when most of my friends have exams, I feel isolated, lonely and forgotten, I maintain hope for unreasonable things happening. I still clutch with the remants of my will onto the hope that girls whom I have chased for years will like me. I hope that girls who have rejected me, insulted me, scorned me, ashamed me, humiliated me, betrayed me and then forgotten that I exist will like me, will communicate with me, will contain me and care.

Why do I hope for that which is impossible and would damage me beyond repair, when I cannot believe or understand that tomorrow might not be another hole in the threadbare cloak of my soul.

The Uni Gap

Yesterday was my first day back in the breast, thyroid and other tumours firm. I had a decent time in trauma but it was nice to be back. I arrived at 7h15 for the post-intake ward round after which we had patient allocations and then a tutorial by the head of the vasular firm who felt that it was completely justified to open two Fogerty catheters, the cheapest of which was valued at over R1000. He openned them just to show us and probably threw them away afterwards.

After the tutorial I went to the medical school library where I took a fantastic crap.

I then went back to the hopsital where I saw a 28 year old male with with treatment resistant immune thrombocytopaenic purpura. He had a strong smoking and ethanol use history and had facial features of fetal alcohol syndrome. He initially presented to a second level hospital with epistaxis echymosis and rectal bleeding. He has been at Groote Schuur for the past month and is currently on predinsone 2mg/kg/day and still has a bicytopaenia with platelettes between 5-10 and haemoglobin between 5-10. He has undergone numerous transfusions. When I examined him he had 2/6 ejection systolic murmer and tender hepatomegally extending 1cm bellow the costal margin. The total liver span was 6cm. He liver was smooth and non-pulsatile. He was pale.

The second patient I saw was a 48 year old female with a strong family history of breast cancer presenting for sentinel lymph node biopsy and radioisotope occult lesion localisation. The tumour was found on mammography. Histology and cytology point towards it being a grade C3 papillary carcinoma. She also had a single thyroid nodule which will be investigated after the surgery.

I went to the computer labs for a while. I printed some documents for my meeting with the dean on Friday and I work on something for a friend. We had a ward round after which I went to a friend to help him with a computer problem, then I dropped my phone charger at another friend.

I went to bed quite early because I had had a late night on Sunday.

Today I assisted in the S ROLL which was very smooth. The surgeon removed the tumour and we found the sentinel lymph node which was radioactive and blue, but did not have malignant histology. I took a break then I watched a massive spleen being removed. I went home just before the ITP guy’s procedure started. He had had plasmaphoresis and was transfused with platelets and blood.

I am not going to go in for the rest of the week because there are just lectures and tutorials and I don’t pay attention in them. I need to go to aftercare. I need to get a better handle on my surgical studying and I should write up my patients. It feels weird. I feel bad, in a way, or not going to uni. I also feel like it is completely justified because I cannot handle any more boring lectures or tutorials.

Things are difficult at the moment

I’m feeling pretty low at the moment. I feel miserable, cynical and petulant. I am bored with my studies. I feel boring. I feel like I am struggling to make conversation with people. I feel uninteresting. I continuously feel let down by the social interactions that I struggle to organise.

I feel useless and worthless. I know this is a completely absurd statement, but it’s how I feel. I am know that I will be a doctor soon. I feel skilful and able to be a important and helpful part of any hospital team, but, at the same time, that doesn’t seem to matter.

I am so incredibly frustrated by my relationship issue. I am tired of chasing shadows and I am tired off all my shattered dreams, yet I do not know how to move on. I don’t know whether to run away or run towards.

This are difficult at home. My dad has been quite down lately. My step mother has been going through her own stuff with her own family.

This past week I rotated through trauma at Groote Schuur hospital. I generally had freakishly quiet shifts. I met good, friendly and kind doctors who taught me and treated me well. I was able to help out and felt part of the team.

The best that I have felt all week was after I had been awake for about 27 hours and donated blood. I was over tired and found my long lost sense of humour, for a while. It is now gone again.

I help sort out a friend of mine with a new PC and got another friend of mine an external IDE laptop hard drive enclosure.

On Monday I saw one of my friends and his partner for supper. On Tuesday I took myself out for a movie and saw a friend who came over to collect some computer hardware I had collected for him. On Wednesday I gave a friend a lift to the airport. On Thursday I was meant to see one shadow but, predictably and very frustratingly, she cancelled. I saw another shadow afterwards then I worked for the whole night. I slept the whole day on Friday and then worked from midnight to 8.

I saw a few people die. I saw my first rape patient. I saw people in agony.

I am struggling so much. I feel so alone. I waste vast amounts energy keeping myself going and chasing after my friends and shadows.

The lady who was loosing blood from an unknown source

30 year old female whose folder was locked away in the closed down out patient department with known #neurofibromatosis #bellow knee amputation of left leg secondary to neurofibroma eroding into bone #spinal fusion with prothesis broken at coccyx. Presents with collapse at her physiotherapy out patient appointment. She arrives at casualty with a blood pressure of 50/20mmHg, pulse 160 beats per minute, she was apyrexial and was not in respiratory distress. She was pale with cold, clammy extremities. Her respiratory system was normal and her cardiovascular system showed signs of shock: tachycardia, hypotension, weak / absent peripheral pulses. Her heart sounds were normal. Her abdomen was soft and non tender. She had no guarding, no rebound and no organomegally. She had no neck stiffness and her pupils were equal and reactive to light. She was confused, with a decreased level of conciousness. Her haemoglobin was 9.1g%. She was resuscitated, receiving 7 litres of fluid without any marked improvement in blood pressure. She reached a point where she was no longer protecting her airway and required intubation. Blood results came back showing her haemoglobin dropping to 4g%. Her white cell count was 45.0, CRP 1.2, procacitonin < 0.5, lactate 4-5 and eveything else was unremarkable. A nasogastric tube was passed which drained stomach contents and no blood. There was no blood per rectum or per vagina. An radiology registrar was called. Her supine chest and abdomen x-rays were unremarkable and an ultrasound of her abdomen showed nothing of note. The medics insisted it was a haemorrhage and surgeons insisted it was a sepsis. Her folder was retrieved the following day showing that she had: #recurrent abscesses on left inner thigh #previous fracture left inner thigh She was sent to ICU where she was ventilated and kept on quite a high dose adrenaline infusion to keep her blood pressure high enough to ensure her brain was oxygenated. She received more than 10 units of blood yet her haemoglobin remained low and no site of bleeding was found for 4 days. She was found to have a left ruptured popliteal artery pseudo aneurysm. She was taken to theatre where the aneurysm was occluded using a balloon catheter and the aneurism was repaired. She lost 4 litres of blood in theatre and received 11 units of crystaloid, 7 units of blood and 1 megaunit of platelets. She remains restless yet not fully concious in ICU following the recent withdrawal of sedation.

The end of my Valkenburg Block

My time rotating through Valkenburg was come to its end. I really enjoyeed my month rotation in the male high care ward. On Tuesday and Wednesday I saw all of my patients.

The gentleman who was keeping the peanuts and an olive in his mouth is unchanged, though I did find out that he has been living in ward 6 for the past 30 years. They think that he has stomach cancer. He had a barium swallow, which was suspicious, but he keeps not consenting for the gastroscopy. He will probably die soon.

The perseverating gentleman who got stepped down to ward two, then his family didn’t come collect him for weekend leave and he started fighting with the nurses and causing problems so they stepped him back up toward 4. I assessed him and felt that he was apsychotic. He has an underlying intellectual disability, and I felt that he was at his baseline and needed discharge.

The young man with the second or third schizophrenic episode remains virtually unchanged since I started working at Valkenburg a month ago. He is apsychotic, but has absolutely no insight into his condition and remains guarded. Last week he has this strange delusion that he was going to be able to support himself by blogging and getting corporate sponsorship. The delusion has now become an overvalued idea. He remains in ward 4 and will stay there until he gains some insight.

The psychomotor agitated gentleman in ward four is settling down nicely. He is still suffering from akathesia and tardive dyskinesia. He is calm, engages well and I don’t think he’s psychotic.

The floridly psychotic gentleman with the good insight went on leave for a weekend and he was gone for a very extended period of time, I think over a week. He came back and had a good report so we discharged him.

A gentleman said that his brain was melting and he had a genie on his cock. When he came into the ward round for an assessment he bent forward to show us where the genie was on his head. Another patient, Mr Emergency Delta March has remembered his name, and more recently, his date of birth. A patient in ward 4 no longer feels that his blood is eating him. He did say “I don’t understand why my brain is being roped and scalped. My jugular vein has been slaughter and I don’t think my Adam’s apple can handle it.” He then requested ointment for his Adam’s Apple.

A Bangladeshi gentleman with psychotic depression and a 20 year substance abuse history of heroin and codeine containing cough mixtures was transferred to ward 4 but had to be sent back to high care because he continually made inappropriate sexual comments at the nurses and was also touching them inappropriately. He developed multiple medical complaints which were probably drug seeking behaviour.

I enjoyed working with the the team in which I was placed. Our consultant was an amazing man and the registrars were superb.

Today I wrote my written paper, which was quite straight forward. The oral exam also went well.

I upgraded to 4gigabytes of RAM.

I am currently playing Warcraft 3. I am really enjoying it. I was running it in Wine, but I kept getting this memory error when I saved. After searching the internet for quite a while there seems to be no good solution.

Lolita was in touch with me a few days ago which was nice. My reply to her message was a bit too expressive.

I saw a friend of mine and we were discussing this girl I was with a while ago. She has schizoid personality disorder. We were discussing how she was becoming so withdrawn and nobody ever sees her and she failed uni last year. I then got incredibly worried that she was developing schizophrenia and that there issues she was experiencing were a prodrome. After worrying for about 2 hours and actually contacting her for the first time since she ignored me on my birthday, I realised that schizoid personality disorder is so named because it resembles the prodrome of schizophrenia.

I am happy to be on holiday for the weekend. I am still feeling quite lonely, but not that bad. I need to redo a part of my family medicine portfolio this weekend, to which I am not looking forward. I start surgery on Monday

Feeling rough after a rough weekend

Shoo. It has been a rough, rough weekend.

I have not been sleeping well. I know that I do sleep in the night, but I continuously wake up giving me the impression that I am not sleeping. I wake up at 5am every morning for no reason and then I sometimes can doze and sometimes cannot fall asleep again. Eventually my legs get stiff and sore and I have to get up. On the nights when my medication does work properly I get quite strong alpha sympathomimetic effects, peripheral vasodialation and completely blocked nose. I often wake in the nigh with my mouth being completely dry. A while ago I started supplementing my meds with phenergan. I started at 5mg and moved quickly up to 25mg, which is now not working. For the next few days I am going to take phenergan 25mg + allergex 4mg.

On Friday I did not go into university. I was meant to go in for a set of three group presentations. I did not go in because I cannot concentrate in group presentations, I do not gain anything from attending them and get very frustrated and angry when they run overtime. I went to go see the ophthalmologist who tested my eyes very thoroughly and found nothing wrong.

I received two disappointing and worrying phone calls. One was from the doctor who facilitated our group during our family medicine block telling me I need to re-do part of my portfolio. The other was from the doctor who runs the student lead teaching that I bunked telling me she wants to meet me on Tuesday.

I pushed myself incredibly hard this weekend. I covered a lot of work. I went through 9 old exam papers, made a hand-out on delusional disorder and type up 3 patients. I still have another patient to type up plus I need to add bits and pieces to the ones that I have already completed.

I had dinner and saw the movie Milk with some friends on Saturday night. It was enjoyable. I felt depersonalised and socially inept the whole evening.

Yesterday I went to another friend for an hour just to get out of the house.

I am very lonely and very unhappy at the moment.

I have a cold

I slept quite well last night. I had a great bath with a hot facecloth over my eyes. I woke up early in the morning again. I have a runny nose.

On my way to uni I dropped off some recycling and bought tissues and some food for my friend in residence.

I attended a ward 2 pre-discharge ward round which was quite entertaining, though I do not remember the specifics.

I dashed through to Rondebosch where I went to the bank and bought some fruit for my friend in residence. I also went to UCT where I printed a whole lot of stuff.

I got back just in time for the ward round. We heard about two patient. One who has a previous head injury, hectic substance abuse history and who is currently dementing. The other patient has depression with psychotic features. Though the round was entertaining, it was not riveting.

After the ward round I went to smoke nag with my friend in residence. We had a great time and she was really happy about the food I brought her.

I have blown my nose at least 40 times today. It is sore. I am tired.