Pethidine Pleasure

I developed severe abdo pain and nausea in theatre this morning. It just came out of the blue! I decided to just go home I wasn't able to do anything productive anyway. I was walking down the stairs and felt that I wouldn't even make the walk home without throwing up, so I went down to ED to try and find a place to sit lie down. They wouldn't let me lie down unless I actually checked in as a patient, so I sat around for a little bit but I was feeling super lousy.

I couldn't decide whether to see a doctor or not. On the one hand, I really wanted something to take away the nausea because I was feeling extremely ill. On the other, it seems stupid to get admitted to the emergency department for something like gastritis when symptoms had only been around for 3 hours and I was clearly not on death's door. That's what I really hate about being in med! It's impossible to objectively know if you should see a doctor or not!

In the end, I decided that I couldn't go anywhere fast, so I might as well get seen by a doctor. The moment I got into ED, I vomited a couple of times. The doc saw me quite quickly and prescribed IM maxalon which was extremely effective at giving me a sore bum. I was quickly shipped to short stay where I vomited another 5 or 6 times within an hour. The feeling was unbelieveable. I got no relief from the nausea after vomiting. There was no position I could get comfortable in.

An ED reg then charted IM ondansetron. It took ages to arrive because they only stock the IV version in short stay. Now I have bilateral sore bum! A few seconds after that, they decide that I'm vomiting too much to have oral fluids and I needed an IV! So all that sore bumness for nothing! I should have gone straight for the IV!! Anyway, I think a student nurse put in my IV and he did a good job - I would have killed him if he missed because my veins are like drain pipes! Anyway, I now have a new respect for 20g IVs. Even when he did it well, it still hurt!

Anyway, ondansetron is wonderful stuff. It really fixed the nausea. Honestly, I don't know why they make it so hard to get hold of in the community. They should add it to the tap water! Then nobody would ever have to suffer nausea again! It's not like maxalon is a super safe drug and it's even more useless than placebo.

Anyway, after a quick nap, I at least felt able to keep down some dry buiscuits. They gave me some meds to take home, which I didn't know would cost me $20 until after I recieved it. Oh well, at least the travel insurance will cover it. Soon afterwards, I made a quick getaway. Gosh I felt really silly, but then then I guess the ondansetron really helped me make a quick recovery and I couldn't have gotten it anywhere else.

Well, that's my breif encounter with the Australian public health system!

On Monday I tured up at the Anaesthetics department. I said, "Hi! I'm the elective student from NZ!" Effectively the response I got was, "What elective student from NZ!?!?!" Nobody was expecting me - nobody even knew I was coming! When the secretary made several phone calls, including a couple to my "supervisor", it was clear that they had no idea what to do with me. So I offered to go away for about 30 mins and come back. After that, nothing had happened so I was just showen quickly around the theatre area and thrown into an operating room. The rest of the week has been similarly chaotic. Every day I just turn up and find a theatre which doesn't have a local student in there already.

Although the lack of a proper schedule has been a bit frustrating, once I get into a theatre it's really good! Getting lots of practise with airway stuff like bag-masking and LMA insertion.... and even a couple of intubations! I've also been getting grilled on physiology stuff - like the 4 things that make the oxygen dissociation curve shift to the right...

Haven't done an awful lot of sightseeing in Melbourne yet. I think after 2 months of sightseeing in Canada, I'm kinda exhausted!! Went to the museum today though which is really awesome! Almost 3 hours in there and I didn't get through half of it! What made it even better is that it's free for students!! Perfect for my budget which kinda exploded in New York and Vancouver...

This blog posting thing really isn't going too well is it? I think I'll forget about catching up on the Hawaii and Canada bits for now - anyways, while most of it is interesting to me, reading about it will probably put you into a metabolic coma. I'll start posting about my activities in Melbourne and if I have time, I'll insert bits about my Canada trip when I have my episodes of longing to return to the mountains around Vancouver....

I haven't done all that much with respect to sightseeing in Melbourne yet. I've been here a week and I still feel like I'm getting over the jetlag. The 24hrs+ travel from Vancouver to here was quite exhausting. Perhaps I've just been running on adrenaline for the 2 months in Canada, and now that I'm back in semi-familiar territory, I've kinda relaxed a little. I have had the chance to catch up with some friends though which has been very nice. Although I enjoyed travelling on my own immensly, it's also very nice to have some company for a change.

Yesterday, I turned up for the first day of my elective at RMH. I turned up at the anaesthetics department, and nobody was expecting me. It seemed that nobody - not even my supervisor - knew that a student from NZ was coming at all! It took them some time to decide what to do with me. I even left for 30 minutes, came back and nothing had happened! Eventually they put me in a theatre where I stayed for the rest of the day. Today was fairly similar, where I just turned up in the morning and joined a theatre where no local students were already placed. I have been promised a schedule but nothing has appeared yet... while I don't mind sitting in on lists to get used to the environment here, it will be good to have a bit more structure to my attachment. Even if it's just knowing where to go each morning without having to bug the duty supervisor!!!