Day 3 - Orange

My first thought was "I don't have a lot of orange in my life". I don't particularly like the color orange. I could be that I think it's an ugly color. It could be the fact that I worked for Home Depot as a cashier for some time, and just had fill of orange aprons. Then keeping the theme in mind today, I saw orange everywhere. It is on my Starbucks K-cups, on the bread packaging, on my toothpaste squeezer, my astringent is an orangey-pink color, the blogger website icon, the Firefox icon, but there's one thing I didn't even notice... Something I look at almost every day... The retina. How could I forget about the retina. True the retina itself is clear and when you are looking at the fundus the color is from deeper structures, but the isn't really the point here. The point is that I see at least 6-8 retinas average each day right now and forgot to register what I see. In honor of orange I present my retina. No HIPPA violations here, this is not a patients fundus, this is my own fundus.

Day 2 - favorite

Today the them was favorite. My favorite thing is stars. If you ever want to get me something and aren't sure about what, you can't go wrong with anything that has stars on it.  When "A walk to remember" came out, one of the things the guy does is name a star after the female character. I don't remember their names but that's not important. I always wanted someone to name a star after me since. In fact if and when I get engaged, I want stars to factor in somewhere: name a star, star ring, during a meteor shower, watching falling stars, etc something star related or he is not the right guy for me. The right guy will know that stars are my favorite thing ever!

Other than that, not much is going on. I have the Super Bowl in the tv for background noise, but I'm not really watching it. Mom decided that the Seahawks should be my team because of the green. Green btw is my favorite color. Lime green. Like the green in the Seahawks uniform. Perfect huh. I also turned in my apartment keys and no longer have anything in Birmingham. No ties to bind me there at all. Amazing feeling.

Day 1

I thought I would do one of those photo-a-day challenges. I chose this one courtesy of fatmumslim:

I have this blog that I haven't been doing much on lately, so I thought I'd combine the two together. I will post my pics on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, tumblr, and here. Here, I will elaborate a little on each one and maybe update about what is going on each day as well.

So without further ado, here is my first photo.

I took this in Birmingham. My last full day in my apartment here. I am turning in my keys tomorrow. It's a little weird knowing that I no longer live in Birmingham. It's been my home for the last three and half years. So I took this pic on my iPad. I was working around the light pouring in from the window. I was trying to hid the pimple on my cheek, I succeeded. I don't usually take selfies, so I thought I'd do one instead of trying to be creative, which I'm not by the way. I think it's a pretty accurate representation of me, I don't have much makeup on, I don't have a huge smile in my face, but I'm not scowling either, my hair has a bit of a wave to it from th french braid I slept in instead of my usual curls. Just a basic me on a typical Saturday.

See you tomorrow.

Another New Year

I have to say that I wasn't particularly fond of 2013. It brought a lot of challenges and obstacles, that (sorry to say) brought me to my knees and knocked my self esteem and self confidence down to the bottom most rung.

In order to not repeat your mistakes, you have to first confront them and realize where and what went wrong, right? This is just what I am preparing to do; I think I'll break the year down and note the big things that happened each month.

January - rang in the New Year with my mom's boyfriend's 17 year old daughter. Can't remember the last time I was excited for a New Year's Eve. 2006 don't remember, 2007 alone, 2008 w/Josh, 2009 w/Josh, 2010 w/Josh, 2011 alone, 2012 w/mom at Patty's, 2013 w/mom's boyfriend's daughter. The New Year's Eves with Josh were ok, I think I went to bed before the ball dropped on most of them. Says a lot about our relationship huh. Hindsight is 20/20 but that is a whole other blog topic.
February - the month of love. No love for me.
March - Part 1 Boards followed by a Blackbelt (community eye care in middle-of-nowhere-Alabama) followed by a Neuro exam; all in one week!!!
April - Happy 26th Birthday... alone. Pretty sure I spent my birthday evening/weekend alone, or I had a test around that same time or something.
May - found out I failed Part 1 Boards. ugh! Watched my good friend get married. Started summer clinicals.
June - summer clinic, started off on the wrong foot with one of my professors - ended up being the one I feel most comfortable with and I feel like I grew as a clinician the most under her; the other was just a witch. The witch - doesn't realized that we are going to make mistakes and that it is better we do it now than when we get out into practice and truly made me feel like a glorified technician (not almost clinician) and that nothing I could do was right. Had witch again in the fall for 8 weeks - oh joy.
July - Happy Independence Day. Stayed home and watched fireworks out my window and on t.v. Couldn't find anyone to go out and watch them with me.
August - Part 1 Boards re-take, went to Savannah for two days - it was dreary and rainy and I couldn't enjoy being alone because I couldn't do much because I didn't have enough money to really do anything, but I needed a break. On the plus side that day I toured Savannah alone, I walked nearly 20,963 steps or the equivalent of 7.28 miles based on my stride length. I also moved into a new apartment with my newly married roommate and her hubby this month.
September - found out I failed Part 1 Boards... again. ARG! WTH is wrong with me? So embarrassed. Cannot believe myself. Cannot believe I'm writing this and letting the world know, but it doesn't make me any less of a clinician. I am still smart (working on that affirmation) and interact with my patients well. I know that I can take care of them in the best possible way. I just don't test well, especially when it carries such a large weight on your shoulders, and it's a two day/12 hour/4 session test.
October - went to Seattle for AAO meeting. Fun, but couldn't help feeling lonely in a crowd again. I was around people who I didn't really hang out with before hand, had my own things to do, and basically did meeting stuff and touristy stuff alone; which was ok. I got to spend a few hours on top of the space needle and went to the market, etc.
November - Thanksgiving with my mom and her roommate. Tried some new trimmings at the dinner table - they were good. Never had homemade cranberry sauce before. Yum.
December - last day of clinic at UABSO on the 13th. Took Part 2 and Part 3 Boards this month. Spent two full weeks on break with nothing to do. I could have been studying, but I think my brain and my mental status required two weeks of doing nothing related to eye balls. It was good to spend Christmas with my little brother and my mom, just the three of us. I rang in the new year with mom and her friends. I was on the border of hanging with them or not, I chose to go; it was just a chill night at someone's house, drinking wine, relaxing by the fire, and after the New Year we went to a dive bar for a little karaoke. If you ever feel down or hard on yourself, just go to a karaoke bar and you'll feel a lot better, #best #advice #ever.

I was going to say that 2014 can't be much worse, but it could. I can think of several things that could happen this upcoming year to make it all go down the hole, but I don't want to even think like that. I should be done thinking so pessimistically. I need to let 2013 and my past go, to let myself learn from it and to move forward. I can't let my failures keep affecting the way I see myself; if I view myself in such a light, I'm sure my colleagues are bound to start seeing me the same way.

So what do I have to look forward to in 2014?
January and February - 8 weeks rotation in Montgomery, AL. Get results of Part 2 and 3 Boards.
March and April - 8 weeks rotation in Savannah, GA. Repeat Part 1 Boards in March.
May - get results of Part 1 Boards. Graduation May 16th.
June, July, August, September, October, November, December - unwritten, but I'm sure they will be memorable as my first 7 months out of school and in the "real world".

2014, please don't let me down.

Fear and Self Loathing

Usually it takes a lot more alcohol in my system before I start to feel as crappy about me and my life as I do now. I've only had one jack and coke (which was more jack than coke - which I'm not complaining about, for $7 is should have been more jack than coke) and two beers. I don't even feel a buzz.

I went to the school Christmas cocktail party tonight. It seems like I barely knew a quarter of the people there; probably because I don't know many of the first and second years, and only a bit of the third year. Of the people there, it seemed as if they were paired up or had their clique of friends. I felt like a third wheel all evening. I feel like I don't fit it. Likely my fault, when I first met everyone three years ago I didn't make a great impression. I'm the quiet one. I don't party. I'm not the fun person.

The other thing is that I don't feel comfortable in my skin. I never have. Some people tonight said I looked good, I don't remember the exact words, but I couldn't take the compliment. Surely they were just trying to be nice and friendly and don't truly believe what they are saying. I hate the way I look, but I can't seem to find the motivation to get out of bed and do something about it. It is hard work just to get up and out of bed for clinic during the week, let alone weekends. Some Saturdays I won't even change out of my pj's. I guess you could say I'm depressed.

I hate myself. I fear being alone forever. I fear never being able to love myself and that by extension no one will love me. It's time for bed, I just needed to get that out there, into the void of the internet, tonight.

Eyeball Clinic

So, I have had almost 17 full weeks of patient care. Of being able to dilate without getting my attending's permission. Of having to come up with my own diagnoses and treatment plans... well sort of.

This semester is taking a lot out of me. I know that I don't know everything, and that's ok, that's why we call it practice... j/k. Anyway today was rough for me, I feel like one of my two attendings has to find something wrong with my exam, the other I feel as if I should be a walking book (and I don't know everything! - some things I haven't seen before so how am I supposed to recognize it and/or I can't possibly think of every differential but the ones I do think of are relevant - that's why I'm here... to learn how to recognize something when I see it in clinic because let me tell you: patients are not textbook, they come in looking like something else and not like the classic case we always talk about in clinic, so how am I supposed to recognize it!?)

I just feel a bit deflated and defeated after my wednesday's in clinic. The other thing is that I don't always agree with the attending, but when I try to voice my opinion that I don't think it is what they think it is, I feel a bit swept to the side and what they say goes, but I don't always get a good reason for why they are doing what they are doing. (this is not just today - more of a general opinion than any specific case) I think part of that is due to the fact that we are pressed for time, that patients come in 20 or more minutes late and we are still expected to have them finished in time for the next pt that happened to come in 15 minutes early... It always inevitably happens that way, then we are rushed, our attending is rushed, and we have to talk about our plan very briefly and what the attending says goes, if you are stumbling in trying to make your opinion known, well you don't have one and then you can get dinged on your grade for the pt encounter for not knowing/creating a plan, etc.

Maybe none of this is true, maybe I'm just seeing what I want to see. Who knows. All I know is that I will be relieved when I get to leave school in January and be in the "real world" almost completely relying on my own knowledge and experience to tell me what to do. I'm going to stumble and I'm going to fall down, but I should be able to and not made to feel bad when I do. It's like my attending said yesterday about the difference between how we are taught and how ophthalmologists are taught. We are taught that everything has to be perfect and that if we overminus by 0.25D then the pt is going to die (exaggeration- sarcasm doesn't come through the written word as well as it does with the spoken word), and ophthalmologists are taught to be fearless and that it is ok to make a mistake because everyone does it and they have more on the line and at risk than we do. I would love to see more optometry schools and professors and attendings give us the opportunity to fall and to fail and to make mistakes, to allow us the time to make mistakes.

I guess that is my ramble for the evening. I need to get some sleep before my long day in peds tomorrow... yay. Eyeball school is ahead and winning (UABSO:10 - Me:1).

5 lbs down

Well, I am down 5 lbs to 225.2 lbs. I just have to break through and past this 225 mark and I'll be on way.

I haven't been working out. So I think that most of that is due to getting almost 7,000 steps a day in clinic and 30 minute lunch times. If I were better at being a clinician I'd be getting 1 hr lunch breaks, but that is a different post.

I've been feeling down in the dumps lately and I don't really want to go into why right now. I'll save that for another time. Today I just wanted to celebrate my 5 lb loss. Go me! Something is finally falling into place. So this morning I decided to go ahead and workout before heading out to the pool or doing some studying or cleaning. So I did my interval training. I only made it halfway through before stopping, but I'll attribute that to my drinking last night, my stomach just won't let me finish today, not that I can blame it. Well here are a few pics and I'll try to keep updating.