*tap tap tap* *squeeeeeeek* "Is this thing on?" *tap*
Hello web, hello from Oakland, California, USA.
That's right, I am spending the second-longest period of my life beyond the confines of the Orange Curtain. Up in Oakland for a month of ER externship at Highland Hospital, serving
the broke, homeless, and uninsured of Alameda County.
Living in a room in a little old house 4 blocks from work in an old neighborhood on a hill near Lake Merritt.

Things I've learned in the week I've been here, including the typical Dustin-visiting weekend in SF:
-Put your ID back in your wallet EVERY TIME you take it out. You WILL lose it.
-Cracking open the Members Only Jacket collection from its storage unit in Yuba City will get you closer to scoring a phone number in a bar than you've been in months.
-Maker's Mark >> Jack Daniels (that's a mathematical statement)
-SF is the greatest city I've ever been to. Possibly in all the world.
-Oakland is HUGE and most of it is quite pleasant.
-County hospitals are stinky and overcrowded.
-People in NorCal are more friendly than their southern counterparts.
-People drive more slowly and streets are narrower, making for a more leisurely experience.
-Trauma (not gallstones or alcohol) is the most common cause of acute pancreatitis in children.

I'm sure my body of knowledge will expand like a belly full of Steel Reserve, so stay tuned.

Air conditioning + heating pad + ice cream + muscle relaxant = my back feels a little better...
Threw my back out last night, was working in the ER overnight and did SOMETHING, don't know what, but was habbling around the second half of my shift, examining patients from a stool, and sleeping uncomfortably only to wake up and not be able to get out of bed. One drawn-out doctor's visit, a shot in the ass, and a prescription later (see above) I'm feeling little better and might make my day shift tomorrow.
Only three more shifts and a case presentation before the department chair left, then i'm done with my UCI ER months. It's been by far the best 2 months of med school unless you count the very first two where when I wasn't studying I was drinking and making new friends, 1/8 of which I still like/see on a regular basis.
Off to NorCal for a whole month come Friday, gonna chill with the D in SF then move in to Oakland for a month in their county hospital ER. Gonna be crazy. Plans to hit Palo Alto and SacTown are in the works, so if you live in one of these towns and are reading this, look out beause I'm coming to visit you whether you like it or not!
In other news, my temp roomie left so I'm all alone in myapartment, it's just me and the 1,000 dead people next door in the cemetary. What else... Forgot to blog about how great BoxWars was, when I get my computer fully nonretarded (buy a mac. please.) I'll post pics of Mat and I in our combo armo costume: "DragonBoy and Douchetard!"
Peace until next time.

wow august fifteenth, you have come and gone like nothing.
so since last post, i got to that ozomatli show late and mizzed ozomatli. still fun though.
have been working the ER, loving it, helping people, seeing sick-ass patients, and learning.
had roomate day last weekend, mateo and i drove up to surprise the recently-awakened
victims of andrea's bridesmaid night as well as sanchez status post rock concert. headed
to flo's, as you do in chi-no. (as opposed to fon-tario or fon-chino). yummy gravy. then went to driving range and batting cages (same parking lot!) for some sweaty 105 degree amateur sports. then made bad mojitos and hit the pool before heading to shamrock's for darts, dinner, and drinks. great day, great friends, great times.
good things happening with school, applying to residency (JESUS, already??) and getting
all of that squared away. gonna be good, gonna be good. just have to decide the following:
1. where i want to live (norcal vs. socal vs. OC vs. east coast)
2. 3 or 4 years?
3. community vs. county vs. academic ER?
that's it....

Worked my second ER shift today. Guy comes in with tachycardia, hypotension, sever abdominal pain and dizziness. That's an abdominal aortic aneurism until proven otherwise. Then he goes into atrial fibrillation. They can't figure out what's going on but he's not stable enough to go to CT. They call for a bedside ultrasound, I plug in the machine, and a resident steals the probe from me to start looking for a dilated aorta and free fluid in the belly. He sees this big fluid-filled thing and says it's the aorta, the attendings are doubting it, so I throw on some doppler flow (a control on the machine that shows moving fluid, can distinguish flowing blood through a large artery like the aorta vs fluid sitting still in a colon or cyst) and it's not the aorta. I take the probe and find some free fluid near the (cirrhotic) liver and deem the large fluid-filled thing a large bowel with swollen wall full of fluid. In a guy with atrial fib, horrible sudden onset abdominal pain, and swollen bowel wall, that's mesenteric ischemia (likely a clot pumped out of the heart and stuck in the arery that feeds the colon, like a "colon attack" where the bowel starts to die, can lead to sepsis and death in hours). I proclaim my diagnosis and they ignore me. They shock the guy into a normal rythm and he goes to CT. What does the radiologist say about the CT? Swollen bowel wall consistent with ISCHEMIA. Ha!! Fuckers.
So it was a good shift. I love this shit, it's great. Had a nice old lady patient, a guy who actually had POLIO back in the day, and a poor woman from Cambodia with no insurance and a parasitic muscle infection (?). Tomorrow is BoxWars and Ozomatli. Had a great time at Less Than Jake with Shannon et. al., despite too much drinking and not enough sleep.