4/30/2013

My first real day in ortho! It's a lot of work but it's super fun. I started in the pool at 8, yay hydro! Then I had to get to the other hospital by 9:30. I had 2 patients today that I saw twice. Both inpatients. I also got to assist with a few others. I think that I did really well today! I have a 4 page report to complete for tomorrow morning but I should be able to handle it. Tomorrow I start seeing patients in the out patient clinic too! Yay!

4/29/2013

Oh man clinic was fantastic today. If the rest of my musculoskeletal rotation is anything like today I'll be thrilled. We learned and practiced and had a productive day. I spend half my time in in-patient, half my time in outpatient, a bit of time in hydro, group exercise classes, and fracture clinic on Friday where we remove casts. It seems great and even the "mean" supervisors are concerned with your learning and making you into a better physio:). They are going to be long days. I start at or before 8 and go until 4:30 or 5 but it's packed with information. Yay!

4/28/2013

It rained last night and persisted into breakfast. We got soaked and I was deprived my last swim in the ocean. None of us were keen to stand around in the rain so we packed up quickly and walked back. The rain stopped about an hour in but the entire day was dark and misty. We were back at the car by 1. We toured the park by car for half an hour before heading back toward Melbourne. Fish creek the closest town had some fun art and a nice place for afternoon tea. When we got into the car the front tire was flat. We stopped in every town from wilson's prom to leaongatha and none of them had air compressors. We finally got air when we were half way home. I got back around 6 and had just enough time to shower do laundry and spend the remainder of the evening studying. Good trip. I'm ready for musc tomorrow!

4/27/2013

I had a birdie join me for breakfast and i wouldnt let anyone shoo it away before i got a picture. After breakfast i had a quick swim before we headed off. i saw a walaby on the way to the beach but didnt get to take a picture.
Today we were supposed to hike 5 hours along the coast to our camp site. However when we checked in we were told that the trail was closed due to controlled burns in the area this weekend. So we drove up to the top of a hill and walked 12km to our campsite. It took us 2.5 hours including a snack break. We had lunch at camp and went hiking to find water. We went 30 minutes one direction and found a fantastic view but were still quite far from an unreliable water source. We walked back and then I swam while they walked along side me on the coast for another 20 minutes in the other direction to find that the water source that we thought was thee had been contaminated.we did find 2 nice people who had been camping since thursday who told us that there was actually a natural spring 5 minutes from our tent so they walked and I swam back to the camp. We got back in time to he water, change and cook dinner. We are eating much better on this trip compared to last one but we also only needed to carry supplies for 2 days. After a dinner of chicken curry we went to the beach to star gaze.

4/26/2013

I am officially on my musculoskeletal placement now! Yay! We had our welcome to musc class today. It was a bit helpful. Reminded me that I need to study this weekend.
After class I packed some notes into my bag for the weekend.
I am going away this weekend to wilson's promontory. That is the natural park that I biked to last April. This time I am going with 3 friends and we are driving and camping. I'm going with Dave, Brendon, and Erica.... None of which are physio people.... I'm branching out and being social, they are actually all scientists. We left at 3 and are stopped for dinner at a pub in foster( where i stayed last time). The precamping parma that i had was very good. We got in and were set up by 7:30. That gave us time to relax and talk before taking a walk to squeeky beach. squeeky is a beautiful place with extreamly fine sand that squeeks like a basketball floor when you walk on it. We also saw tons of wild life. wambats( that actually look like pigs with fur), possum, and a dead sea lion. Tomorrow we are hiking and camping in the middle of the park. Coming back with lots of pictures Sunday afternoon.

4/26/2013

I am officially on my musculoskeletal placement now! Yay! We had our welcome to musc class today. It was a bit helpful. Reminded me that I need to study this weekend.
After class I packed some notes into my bag for the weekend.
I am going away this weekend to wilson's promontory. That is the natural park that I biked to last April. This time I am going with 3 friends and we are driving and camping. We left at 3 and are stopping for dinner on the way. To get in late this evening. Tomorrow we are hiking and camping in the middle of the park. Coming back with lots of pictures Sunday afternoon.

4/25/2013

I did not have class or clinic today because it is a public holiday.  Today is Anzac day is celebrated in Australia and New Zealand.  If you remember last year I told you about 2-up the game that is only legal on Anzac day.  Today I was involved in some more Anzac day traditions.  

I left my house at 5:30 to go to the Dawn service at the shrine of remembrance where they remember all the Australian and New Zealand soldiers who have died in foreign wars.  I tried to get pictures but I am short and was far away and thus was unsuccessful.  This video shows the best parts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3Ox8x0yjvM 

After the dawn service I engaged in another main point of Anzac day: sport. 

Steph and I went bike riding on Yarra Boulevard.  It is 6km of steep hills.  It almost reminds me of riding in morgantown.  We went one end to the other and had just turned around for a second go when Steph got a flat.  She is very fast and has a great bike but she is not the best on bike maintenance. It took 45 minutes and me redoing it to fix her flat.  At that point it was time for me to go to work and she headed home.  

Next I went to footy practice.  A couple of the players had tight legs and we organised supplies for the weekend.  Other than that it was a quiet morning.  

I quickly biked home and changed in order to meet my camping buddies for pre-camp shopping.   We are bringing enough food to feed twice as many people(or 1.5 very very hungry maddies) The grocery store was only open for 4 hours today so it was super crowded when we went.  Note for future: Anzac day is not the day to do your shopping.  

Interesting fact: I learned from my camping friends that Boston is best place in the USA to find community activities for ANZAC day but not until the weekend.

I came home and got back into the sport part of the holiday as the AFL(Profession Aussi rules football) Anzac rivalry game started.  I watched with Kat and Billy. Well kinda. Mostly I talked and did chores and occasionally watched a play or so.  Essendon beat Collingwood 121-79.  I live close to Essendon and everyone hates Collingwood(because they are loud and obnoxious) so I guess I'm excited? I'm really trying to get into AFL but I'm having no luck.  I care about it more than MBA but less than MLB, (Basketball and Baseball for my extremely sporty sister...but I'm sure you knew that;) which isn't saying very much. 

This evening I did chores.  Brought in the laundry that had been sitting in the rain since last Sunday and started the laundry for this week.  I packed for my trip this weekend and made granola bars.  Well...I tried too.  From an entire pan, I got 5.  The rest crumbled so I have some tasty trail mix :)?

ANZAC day appropriately celebrated! 

4/24/2013

It was my last day of clinic. I arrived to find a pile of paperwork and that I forgot my lunch. I got to treat my patients with the helpful supervisor again. I was thrilled and felling awesome. During lunch I got an email from my favourite professor asking about the ironman so I was ecstatic.
Then right before leaving the last day of my 5 week placement my supervisor told me that I failed the exam that I took Monday and that I wasn't safe or competent to treat patients. Sigh. I so want to do physiotherapy and I feel like I could be great at it but I suppose not. I was trying my hardest and got 100% in commitment to learning. So I'm putting in the effort. I enjoy this type of physio but it obviously is not my strong point.
After clinic I went to work. Tonight was the club team they are the best. They offered me free pizza but I had to decline to catch up with the people that I am camping with this weekend to plan.
Next week I start ortho. Which I hope is much better.

4/24/2013

I had the best day I clinic today. First I got to go to hydro which was cool. I also got to work with Andrew today. He is a physiotherapist that we are assigned to work with but he doesn't have any say in our grade. He also doesn't ask us open ended rhetorical questions like the other physios. He actually teaches us, works with us, and helps us to learn. I think that I I learned more today than I have in the past 8 weeks combined. Things made sense and I was inspired to go home and do research. If I had had a better supervisor I think that I could have done really well in Neurological physiotherapy.
I made zucchini and potato stacks for dinner. They were tasty and almost good looking but shrunk in the oven so I was left a tad hungry after dinner.
Tomorrow is the last day of my neurological physiotherapy placement. Sigh. I wish that I had learned more.

4/22/2013

I got into clinic this morning to find that I had my exam this morning.  It was a bit nerve recking but I think that I did well.  I got to see another new patient immediately afterward.  Both were lovely gentlemen who I hope that I can help.  Unfortunately, I had nothing but a heap of paperwork to do this afternoon.  I spent 6 hours writing up all of the details of my patients in excruciating detail.  Almost all done with my neurological placement.  2 days left! yay! then it's onto the orthopaedic clinic.

4/20/2013

This morning's footie game for the fun and good looking club team was only 2km from my house. I was so excited that I brought blueberry coffee cake for breakfast/to share. There were tiny cute birds on the field and I tried to take a picture but it didn't come out so well They won 150-53. It was fantastic.
When I got home I immediately headed back out to bike ride with Steph. We rode 90 in 3.5 hours straight into the wind, which made the way back feel super fast.
This evening I'm going to dinner at the Melbourne triathlon club banquet. Cocktail attire so I get to dress up. I don't have a triathlon club yet but getting involved with one could help me get funding and right now I'm a free agent so the clubs are trying to impress me with their end of season parties. The one I went to tonight was pretty good I met so many nice people but it is far away and training doesn't really fit with my schedule :(

4/19/2013

Swimming this morning. It was quite lazy. We swam nearly 2km in over an hour. Then had breakfast. Did a bit of work and then went out for lunch and shopping. We went to a little cafe that I had heard about this week called Beatrix. It is tiny and they only make 2 choices per day. Luckily the choices were quite good and they also had red velvet cake. Unluckily, 1 of the 4 of us brought her lunch and she was asked not to eat it in the cafe.
After lunch Steph and I went bike, dress, and sport shopping. We tried and looked all over .  On our adventure I accidentally made 2 faux pas.  I insulted a Look bike to the sales man.  It is well know that you will pay more for Look just because of the name and the French branding for an equal or inferior product.  Oops....probably shouldn't dis the product to the bike shop but they do sell other brands that I happily would have looked at.   I also accidentally held a dress wrong.  Since I am short I picked up the dress to keep it from dragging but the sales lady was worried about me over handling the garment.  So another oops.  Can't take me anywhere!   I ended up with new goggles while she ended up with new bike tires.
I made sweet potato gnocchi for dinner in a caramelised onion sauce. Yum! With cheesecake brownies for dessert. Mmmm
I also needed to make coffee cake to take to work tomorrow so Kat and I had a quite night at home baking and watching "A knight's tail"

4/18/2013

Slow day in clinic today.  I didn't mind.  It was relaxing and quite educational.  My fellow students seemed pretty worked up over the fact that we only saw 5 patients but we normally only see 3 so I don't get the problem.  Also we had a slow relaxing day why stress?? Because it was so quiet on the ward I got done early.  That meant that I had time to go home before going to work.  I decided that since I had so much time I would run to training.  Great idea except that it was 13.85km not the 10 I expected. oops.  Luckily I wasn't late.  Training was pretty chill I was working with Henrietta tonight who is a lovely person by we tend to disagree on almost everything.  Oh well. It was fun-ish and I got to use evidence to support my positions.  On my way home I stubbed my toes.  Ouch.  I scraped up my foot a bit so at 7.04km I gave up and took the train for 5km and walk the last 2km home.
I'm so sorry about all the drama in the US.  It's so sad. I really wish that people would just be nice.

4/17/2013

I am in the acute Neuro ward of the hospital for the next 2 days.  I am so jealous.  It is a much better experience than I am having in rehab.  I feel like I was actually learning today.  I like the fast pace of Neurosurgery patients so much better than treating 2 patients for 2 hours each 4 days a week.
I meant to go for a run this afternoon but it is getting so hard to exercise in the dark, because the sun sets just shortly after I arrive home.  Instead I opted to study.  My oh my! I am 4 days ahead of schedule on my business homework and I have been very active in my physiotherapy research group.

I signed up for a new event today.  It's called around the bay in a day.  You ride 250km's around port Phillip bay.  Guaranteed to be both beautiful and windy.  My friends and I had decided to participate when we saw it last year but registration just opened this week.  It's the weekend after the marathon so my ironman endurance is going to get some serious training in October.

4/16/2013

I don't even know what to say...2 bombs went of at the finish of the Boston marathon at 5am my time so I woke up to several messages and texts.  Luckily, one of the messages was my sister who lives in Boston telling me that she was ok.   All my friends who ran are uninjured as well.  How horrible.  Teaches me not to complain about the small stuff.  Of all the Marathon related things I read today the only one I feel like sharing is the report that upon learning about the bombs uninjured runners coordinated themselves to run to the hospital and donated enough blood to treat all those with blood loss.

Other than that overbearing tragedy,  I had a pretty good day.  I was able to participate in 2 meetings where I coordinated discharge plans for my patients with the medical team and the patient's family.  I also got to see a botox injection.  It is pretty cool.  They inject under EMG and electrical stimulation to insure that they hit the correct muscle and correct part of the muscle.  The whole process for an arm with contracture spasm is about 30 minutes.

Sending love to anyone who needs a hug today.  Things may stink but there is a shorty in Australia who cares about you.  <3

4/15/2013

I had another exciting day in clinic. I started by creating very detailed discharge summaries for each of my patients. I think it is more detail than the discharge team has ever seen. Then I went on another home visit. This one was a large contrast to the last one. The family was lovely and force fed us chocolate.
This afternoon was more paperwork and a handover to the physical therapist that will be treating my patient after he goes home on Wednesday.
After clinic I went on a long relaxing bike ride. It was only 35km but on a route that takes forever. I came home and made delicious whole grain cous cous with garlic and olive oil. Mmmm!
I unfortunately find myself a tad grumpy tonight. I got in an argument with someone at a stop light about the fact that I am not actually an ironman. Not because it was a short course but because I'm a girl. They strongly believe that it is two different races. That even if I were the fastest person alive I would not be an ironman because they don't let women into the ironman race. Sigh. I know that my awesomeness is intimidating but really? It kinda ruined my night.

4/14/2013

Homework and accounting took up my entire day.  I started on my homework and got an email from one of the other trainers that we needed to figure out our pay.  I was a tad concerned since I had already figured out everyone's pay last week.  I emailed the person responsible for paying us and he said everything was already set but while I'm at it could I organise everything for the rest of the season.  Great... So 2 hours of organising footy money and then I started on managerial corporate finance.  I promise the best part about the class is getting to tell people that I am studying managerial corporate finance.  6 hours later I had finished all my models and discussions for the week.  Then I finished my problem lists for clinic tomorrow, made my lunch and it was time for bed.  I was quite disappointed that I didn't have time for a bike ride today.  I so wanted to go but I didn't wake up early enough.  I'll just have to try to fit in a long ride at some point this week.

4/8/2013

Back to clinic today and you know what, I liked it. The questioning supervisors looking over my shoulder is annoying but I was happy to be back to treating patients. I have 3 patients this week and one of them is from the acquired brain injuries unit. I know compared to the 30 patients per day that the therapists see in Pittsburgh it's nothing but this is intense rehab so 3 patients actually keep me running around for 8 hours.

4/12/2013

Back to uni for the first time in a couple weeks. We discussed treatment techniques and reviewed some articles. Mostly it was a good excuse for a swim workout, breakfast, and lunch with friends.
This afternoon Kat and I did out group project and interviewed a lady with chronic osteoarthritis. We did half an hour interview and chatted with tea and brownies for about 2 hours.
We got to drive on the M1 which I love because it is where we bike the ironman. On the way over we Kat had some errands to run for her parents and we stopped by her great aunt's house. Yikes!!! It's over grown, rotten out and full of pests but in a really nice part of town so it's worth over a million dollars. Scary!
I ditched climbing tonight for dinner with friends. It was lovely and extremely tasty.

4/13/2013

Oh goodness. I went to post my blog tonight and i found that several hadn't gone up this week. sorry. Kat is having terrible computer problems and is using my laptop so it's all from phone this week. :(

First game ever for the Richmond under 18's. Away at William's town which is exciting for me because it is a bit closer to me than the home ground is. I had to get up at 6:30 to be there plus they lost! I'd say it was a productive day but I needed a nap by the time I got home.
This afternoon I had a house warming party at my friend Laura's. So I made cookies and headed over. The 30 minute ride ended up being extended because the train was out of service:( I would have ridden my bike but I wanted to wear my nice skirt am it's about 15km away so I opted instead for public transport. Sigh. It's never worth the hassle. Anyway. The party was lovely. I only meant to stay for an hour or so but it was quite lovely and I stayed for about 4. I wish my ride home had been quicker but I guess it was entertaining. Lots of funny people. Sigh. So no time for homework by the time I finally got home. I guess I'm I'm for a long day of work tomorrow.

4/11/2013

I woke up at 5:30 so that I could get to work by 7am this morning. I had a bit of paperwork and planning that I needed to do before lunch. This afternoon I got to go on a home visit. Lucy(an occupational therapist), my patient, and I drove an hour out to his house to see the set up and his ability to navigate inside his home. It was thrilling as we discusses installing rails and personal alarms. I got back just in time to leave for the day. I have a tiny bit of paperwork to finish over the weekend. After clinic I had just enough time to look at bikes before going to footie training. This is the one I was looking at today.
http://www.cervelo.com/en/bikes/p-series/p2.html
It has some benefits like better gears but/and it's smaller. Both the length of the bike and the size of the tires. I don't know how I feel about that.
Footie training was fun, we had 3 people to do the job of 1 so we were relaxed and productive although I was a tad brain dead from a long day.

4/9/2013

Two highlights of the day: I had a patient with an acquired brain injury. It was quite sad but really cool. Most of his injuries are actually orthopaedic and not neurological. I like it so much.
Also I went bike trailing this afternoon. It was great. The bike didn't even fit and still felt awesome. I really like this bike but I want to keep looking just so I can test out bikes.
http://m.specialized.com/us/en/bikes/road/shiv/shivcomprivalmidcompact

4/6/2013

Back to footy today.  I feel like I have completely ignored the past month.  Today was the last of the pre-season.  We started at 7am and had 4 practice matches.  In the first day I had an MCL tear and dislocated shoulder, other than that the day was pretty calm.  I left at 2:30 and stopped by the bike shop to stare dreamily at bikes for a few minutes.
My friend was in from Adelaide so I went rock climbing.  Afterward we went to a comedy show and met up with some more friends for dinner.  Being smelly after rock climbing we expected a low key dinner.  Instead we went to a very fancy Japanese steak house called stone grill.  We cooked our own food on a 400degree Celsius stone.  It was delicious   but we were too large of a group for the resturant to handle so it took 3 hours to get our food. Good thing we all like to talk.

4/7/2013

I had a very lazy day today.  I meant to get up and go for an all day bike ride but I missed my alarm and then proceeded to be lazy for the rest of the day. I am absolutely going to get over my lazy phase tomorrow....
 I did look into what I need to do for my global placement in December/January and did a bit of organising for that.  I had originally been dreaming of going to France but I think that being able to do Physiotherapy in French is a bit much.  My two options right now are Tel Aviv 2-20December or Aukland, NZ 7-27January.  I am happily taking suggests and advice if you have any insight for me.
I also spent a bit of time looking at new bikes.  I have a test ride scheduled for Tuesday to try out the type of bike I would need to custom build.  I like any Ironman want to buy a Specialized Shiv TT but that may not be possible.  It is only constructed in a few lengths that all fit tall men :( So I am looking at several other options that will allow me to ride comfortably.  I love my bike but if I'm going to continue with this sport I need a bike for racing that I don't beat up every day riding to clinic.  I'm looking now because I am most likely going to end up on a 3 month waiting list.
Other than that I just did homework and started getting ready to go back to clinic tomorrow.

4/4/2013

I spent most of the day cleaning and skyping. I washed the tent, did laundry, and went shopping. I made vanilla bean ice cream. yum! and put it on the apple crisp that Kat made.
At exactly 12pm I signed up for ironman Melbourne march 23rd 2014. It again sold out in less than 5 minutes. My friend Bruce is coming over from Pittsburgh to run it with me! Yay!
I went for a nice 4km swim on my way to work footy training. Footy training has more injuries now but mostly just aches and pains. We have practice matches this weekend and the season starts next week.

4/3/2013

Day 6 of the walk. We got up early and made quick work of the 14.8km. I made a wrong turn and added a couple extra and went from front of the pack to the back. We made it to the end around 1:30 then we packed the car and walked down to the beach. We had decided not to swim here but wait till after lunch. As Kat and I laughed a Bird trying not to get wet, we were swamped by a wave. Kat escaped but I was pulled down and was soaked for the car ride. We drove the length of the hike in less than an hour and a half. For late lunch we went to a fish and chips shop(for chicken). once we were well fed, Bird and I went for one last swim in the Pacific Ocean. It was cold so the others wimped out though I thought it was great. Then it was 2.5 hours drive back to Melbourne. When we made it home Kat and I depleted our hot water tank, very excited for a shower after 6 days.

4/2/2013

Day 5 of the great ocean walk. We made it from Ryan's den to the last campsite at devil's kitchen. On the way we saw more spectacular scenery and some grey kangaroos. Bird and I walked fast and were trying to make it to camp by lunch. We did but lunch was a bit later than expected and we rushed the end of the walk as we were excited to eat. The others follow, not to far behind us. At around 3:30 we took a side hike down to the beach to see some ship wrecks. The beach was impassable so we didn't make it to the shipwreck site but we did have a nice swim. Tonight was more relaxing, cards, and my first post Passover hiking meal. It was glorious I had risotto, rice, a musseli bar and popcorn. Mmm:) this camp site has the world's most scenic toilet. There is a full wall window across from the toilet overlooking the ocean. It was the only place from camp that we could see the sunset. My camping buddies were getting a bit cold this evening so we called it a night early. Up early to get 14km back to the car.

4/1/2013

I woke up to find a rainbow over my perfect campsite:) Today was a shorter walk so we took it a bit slower. Only 13.8 today but it was steep trails with a good deal of climbing. It was spectacular but I think I would have enjoyed it more if I wasn't carrying a pack. We saw an akidina and then about an hour later another one. They are so cute. Along our walk there was a house in prime location and they set up some buried treasure for passing hikers. We got to camp around 4 and relaxed again with amazing views.

3/31/2013

Day 3 of the great ocean walk. Today we walked 24 km between campsites and took a 2km detour to see rainbow falls. This morning the cost was absolutely beautiful and by lunch we made it to a lookout where we can see the end of the walk. The second half of the day was a bit harder and we were struggling a bit more to make it to our campsite by dark. The last 4km were across a beach and up a hill. Walking along the beach is beautiful but can be quite difficult with a pack and boots. The campsite was worth every step. It was absolutely beautiful overlooking the ocean and the stars were so vivid on a clear moonless night.