Dr. Nicole Fox ..... Someday: Craniotomy...I think it was just what the doctor ordered!

Down to the wire now, only five more days of classes and final exams after that and I will be home! I am so excited to see my family and friends, I find myself aching for them more and more. Of course we still have an embryology quiz tomorrow (which I should probably be studying for...but I feel pretty confident) and a histology group presentation on retinal detachment later this week. The end is finally in sight, although there is a lot of work and studying involved in getting there. I am finding myself feeling quite burnt out. Learning and studying all day every day for four months really wears a person down. It's hard to find the stamina to keep pushing through. I find myself more and more distracted, thinking about going home and getting these subjects behind me. I know I just need to put my head down and get through this, even though I'm kind of tired of putting in all the effort.

At the beginning of this block, I was so fed up with anatomy already. The enormous amount of material that you have to memorize is absolutely insane. I thought to myself -- "OK, head and neck...that's all that's left. Can't be that bad". WRONG. Just because the head and neck physically take up less space than the rest of the body doesn't mean jack. There are so many tiny vessels and nerves to be crammed. The famous twelve cranial nerves might be the death of me. The skull is full of tiny little holes and you have to know what each one is there for...what travels in and out of them. Every move you make from a stuck out tongue, a flare of the nostrils, or a wink of the eye has such a complicated pathway to make it happen. How does the brain do all of these things? What will happen if there is the tiniest problem with one of the nerves? How does each part of the head and face get it's blood supply? What lymph nodes drain fluid from each part? And hey, quick, learn this in a couple of weeks.

Today was definitely one of the most awesome days in the lab -- we did a craniotomy. I helped to manually saw off the skull of my cadaver and remove the brain. What a rush! And a lot of work....a couple of the other students and I stayed in lab an hour late, sawing away. Then we took a chisel and hammer to the skull to get it off and finally got at the master control centre of our body. Holding a human brain in your hands is definitely a once in a lifetime experience. It's hard to believe everything we think, do, say, and feel comes from this slimy, intricate organ.

What else has been happening? Other than study, study, study...not a heck of a lot. Most people seem to be feeling the same way as me, just doggy paddling toward the light at the end of the tunnel (well...the tunnel that is MD1, anyway). The students in MD4 are getting ready to have their White Coat Ceremony on the weekend, then they leave the island for good and get to move on to the next chapter. I can't imagine how they must be feeling. It will be sad to see them go! They are a great group that bring a lot of energy to our school. I'll miss my group of friends that I do yoga with at lunch three days a week, and others that I have become close with in the last several months. I am sure we will cross paths again in Chicago. And hey, they can keep in touch and give us the low down about what happens on the other side.

In my last post I was mentioning that we were going to be celebrating American Thanksgiving at our place -- we did, and it was awesome! About half of our class showed up to the potluck. There was an insane amount of amazing food and it was great for everyone to just relax and have a few hours to not worry about school. It was a little late for the Canadians, but it was a night of reflection and thanks. We are all going through this thing together, we are together all day long five days a week, and it is nice when once in awhile we all do something that is not related to school.