Subaqua Sternal Rubs

Upon checking my campus PO box this afternoon, I found two envelopes: one from the school that basically stated that the Stafford funds had been dispersed (whew, I can now rest easy knowing SGU was paid a month ago! Yes, that's how long it takes mail to get down here), as well as another envelope whose ominous return address was, "Department of Pathology, St. George's University, Grenada, West Indies."

Were they writing to tell me that due to some just-recently-discovered huge Scantron error, I had actually failed Pathology, and would have to go back to Grenada to retake the course. As these thoughts of doom were running through my head, I gingerly opened the envelope. The enclosed letter read:

RE: CPC 5 Submission - 25 November 2005.

Dear Carsten,
I write to congratulate you on your excellent analysis and write-up of the Clinico-Pathological Conference #5. Your submission demonstrates your ability to scientifically and logically analyze the difficult clinical problem provided. Incidentally, your submission is one of the ten best analyses.

Do keep up the good efforts.

Signed,
Pathology Course Director

Wow, I don't even remember what CPC #5 was. My submission couldn't have been that good however, as I spent the previous week in the decompression chamber in Barbados, and I tended to be succinct with these submissions, using bullet form and not even real sentences. Oh well, the letter is appreciated, and in my permanent record for inclusion when I apply to residencies. Don't know what kind of weight is given to something like that in the Dean's Letter, but I guess every little bit helps.

Being back in Grenada for the weekend was a surreal experience; seeing all the people and places I thought I wouldn't see for a while, if ever again. Actually, it wasn't too bad, mostly because I knew I was just visiting and would be leaving again. And best of all, it was all free. The trip started out on Thursday evening when I boarded a Dash-8 turboprop at the E.T. Joshua Airport in St. Vincent. The 25-minute flight ended up being over an hour, since we had to circle the Point Salines International Airport repeatedly while we waited for some rain to clear up. My first thought was, "Rain? At least it's not snow, why don't they just land already?" When we finally did land, I understood the pilots wise decision to delay touching down, since even with the rain abating the plane ended up slightly off the center line and skidding. When I tried to get off the plane, it was another half an hour of waiting while the flight attendant passed out rain ponchos and everyone had to put them on one-by-one. Really people, you won't melt from a little bit of water. I doubt Grenada has enough polluting industries to cause significant amounts of acid rain.

Read the rest of this entry »

It's now official — I officially get to leave the island of Grenada and move on to St. Vincent next term. That's right, I passed today's Pathology final exam so there is absolutely nothing that can keep me in Grenada for another term.

I didn't do as well on the exam as I would have liked (actually it was my lowest of the 3 Path exams), but I still scored well enough to get the grade I wanted, so that's all I care about.

So 1 exam down, 2 to go (ACS/Physical Diagnosis practical Wed, and Written Fri), a weekend of working storage duty and then checking people out, and then home! 7 days! (Did I mention that yet?)

Why can't forces of nature adhere to the arbitrary "hurricane season" that ended 6 days ago?

In a stunning move, Hurricane Epsilon has made an unexpected left-hand turn and is heading back for the Caribbean. Hopefully it won't cause any problems for me getting out of here on Monday. (7 days- woo hoo!)

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!

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…