Ahhh... so glad this week is over!

Wow, this was an intense week. Stressful, busy, long... and wonderful. All through the application process, I had what I think are probably pretty normal fears for anyone, but especially for a nontrad, about whether or not I would like medical school and if uprooting my whole life would be worth it. The answer is indubitably yes. It was worth it and then some. I am loving this experience even more than I ever thought possible. It is sooooo amazingly, incredibly, awesomely cool that I can't even begin to describe how much I'm enjoying myself.

Case in point: in anatomy lab today, we were looking at the deep muscles of the back, the vertebral column, and the spinal cord. We had an anesthesiologist come in to do a "clinical correlates" presentation on lumbar puncture and epidural and spinal anesthesia. He had a really cool powerpoint presentation about the relevant anatomy and general principles of the procedures, and then he showed a video of a resident placing an epidural catheter in a woman. Afterwards he and three gas residents circled around the lab for quite a while (maybe an hour?) to answer any questions we might have. I jumped on my poor resident! (I don't think he minded, though.) I asked him all the questions I've ever thought of about epidural anesthesia but never asked because they were irrelevant to nursing practice or because I didn't want to look like a moron or because I or the CRNA or anesthesiologist didn't have time. He seemed really excited to teach about it and we talked about the procedure, indications and contraindications, complications, etc. We didn't get to see a whole lot of epidural stuff on my floor (this started changing as I was leaving, but since I worked so little then I really never got too familiar with it), so I learned a lot and it was just so cool to have such a great resource there just to teach me! (Well, to teach other people too, I suppose, but I'm greedy.)

It also was just about the neatest thing ever to see a spinal cord. How many people get to do that? It was larger than I expected it to be (I don't know what I was thinking, really, but my first response was, "Ooh, that's thick!") and the dura mater was tougher than I had envisioned. The cauda equina did not look quite so much like a horse's tail as advertised but I can see where they got the idea. My dissection techniques still leave a lot to be desired but I did improve, I think. I'm also still not quite sure that I'm seeing everything I'm supposed to be seeing, but these first two sessions have been pretty rushed, apparently, in comparison to what comes next, so I'm hoping that the next labs will be a little less frenetic. I think I'm going to like spending extra time in lab. I also really like looking at other people's cadavers to see the differences. I think I'm going to try to pay special attention to other people's backs, because I'm kinda doubting that they're going to flip my guy over for the practical... it just took too many of us and was really, really difficult.

In other news, I had my first biochem test today. It was OK... I feel relatively good about it. I know I missed up one question for certain, but I'm OK with that. (Apparently this prof includes a question on every test that you can only answer correctly if you remember a certain obscure detail from the notes... it's not something you can really reason your way through.)

We finally got our anatomy exam grades today. My whole class passed both the practical and the written, which was cause for much rejoicing!!! I did much, much better on the written than I thought I'd done, which of course makes me very happy. I couldn't possibly be more pleased with my score on the practical, too, so I'm just one bundle of joy right now.

After lab I went to social rounds (best idea EVER) and from there I went out to dinner with three of my classmates -- wonderful people. So, all in all, it was really an amazing day. I know this is going to sound incredibly cheesy, but I am inexpressibly grateful to have the opportunity to do this. It's even better than a dream come true, because it's even better than I dreamed it would be. I really feel, more than I've ever felt before, that I am in exactly the right place and doing what I was, for want of a better word, made to do. This fits me like a glove.