Subaqua Sternal Rubs

Note to construction workers building Superdorm 4:

You are the same company that built Superdorms 1, 2, and 3 just a few short years ago. I know it's tough, but please try and remember where you laid the 3″ water main supplying these buildings.

That way you won't have 350 angry students who were without water for greater than 12 hours. Luckily for me, I am on the ground floor, so I was able to take a shower with a world's record smallest amount of trickling water, thanks to whatever residual was left in the pipes and gravity. Yeah, gravity!

In other news, the A/C chillers are scheduled to be fixed tomorrow. To think, having both water and A/C in time for finals… Unthinkable!

As finals are coming up as soon as tomorrow, and continuing for the next two weeks, my laptop computer decided now would be a good time to go totally Kaputt. Like as in it won't even start up. Instead, when I hit the power button, it just blinks the caps lock light at me for 5 seconds, and shuts off. The HDD indicator light also comes on, but nothing on the screen indicates that the BIOS is starting up. Not like I had important study materials (and email, etc) on there. I think I have most of it backed up, but still GRR!, since I don't have a computer to restore the backup to.

How does this affect you? In short, don't be expecting frequent updates for a bit until I can get this fixed…

Made it back to Grenada, despite LIAT's usual attempts to be the world's least on-time airline. (What can you expect for a $30 plane ticket, though?) Flight was ok, symptoms (joint pain, etc) exacerbated only very slightly, and came back to baseline a little while after I was back at sea level. Now I realize how much work I have to do — including making up a final I missed, and studying for the two other finals only weeks away…

Maybe it's time to get bent again…

Based on DAN data, I am now one of the top 90 divers in the world. Or better yet, bottom 90, because I was stupid enough to get Type II Decompression Illness with some neurological symptoms.

You all no doubt remember my foolish dive attempt last week. Well, after the dive, I started feeling very nauseous and vomited a couple of times over the side of the boat. Soon thereafter, I started feeling pain and numbness/tingling in my extremity joints. I had initially attributed this to hyperventilation and hypocapnia. However when the symptoms persisted over the next 24 hours, I began to suspect some sort of sub-clinical variant of decompression illness.

Read the rest of this entry »

Remind me never to do that again… For the first time in two months, I got back in the water today for some scuba diving. With the exams and other stuff I have to do, it will probably be the last time in Grenada. Too bad it couldn't have been a better experience.

The first (and only) dive was to the Bianca C, a 600-ft 1940's cruise liner that I have written about before. Since I've done the dive about 5 times previously. Needless to say, I wasn't thrilled about doing it again… However, this time the Divemaster offered something different — he proposed going down to the stern of the ship and swimming under the props, which I had never done before. The only problem is that the props are in 170 feet of water. I knew the proposed dive would be pushing the limits of sport diving (limit is theoretically 130 feet), it was something I have wanted to do for a while, and since the Divemaster had done it numerous times and survived, I figured how dangerous could it be?

Read the rest of this entry »

With about a month left on the island, I have joined the Grenadian Fire Department, a division of the Royal Grenadian Police Force. No, I did not suddenly loose half my brain cells, I joined because the FD needs about 200 students to run a large scale drill in preparation for the World Cup of Cricket coming to Grenada next year. If they don't get to it while I am hear, it's only an $80 flight from St. Vincent. Definitely be worth it to drive the big Airport Fire Rescue trucks.

I never though I would see it: an actual post in the EMS category. Not one, but two EMS calls in the past week. Nothing spectacularly interesting, but it's something nonetheless.

Last week one of the campus Physician Extenders (campus EMS) calls me up to ask for some assistance back boarding a student that fell on slippery, wet, outdoor tile stairs. Believe it or not, the campus "ambulance" runs with only 1 crew. They have to improvise if it's anything more than a sore throat and the patient actually needs care on the way to the hospital. Crazy. And did I just spell improvise with an "s"? Wow, I've been in an English-English-speaking country too long. [Edit: It's even funnier now that after running spell-check, that even my spell check seems to think it is spelled with an "s," even though the server is located in Houston, TX. Well, I guess they did give us that brillant scholar we have for a president.) Anyways, up to the hospital for some x-rays and an overnight observational stay for "pain management." Or maybe the census was low at the privately run hospital, and the opportunity for income was seized?

Anyways, today someone knocked on my door to tell me that someone hurt themselves playing basketball (a seemingly-daily occurrence). A 23-yo male had an anterior-inferior dislocation of his right shoulder (for the 7th time.) Ice, immobilization and a trip up to the General Hospital. After films, and the orthopedic surgeon reducing the shoulder, the patient possibly has a second surgery to repair the labrum to look forward too. Which would kind of suck 3 weeks from the start of finals…

Oh well, that's all the excitement I get around here…