O2 are going to kill me...

Ok, so the thing is- I'm not actually having an amazing time here. Yes, the sun is shining, the skies are a glorious cloudless blue and looking out the window it's hard to see anything that isn't a palm tree. Yet I want to get away.
I suspect it is a combination of tiredness, being somewhere completely different where I don't know anyone, feeling like I'm in everyone's way and not knowing how to work the washing machine. So I am leaving.

A friend of mine from my first uni who now lives in Australia is coming over for a week, so I changed my flight with the intention of touring the North Island with her for a week, then returning home, cutting the trip short by several weeks, and finishing my elective in a hospital back in the UK.
However...
A new option has presented itself: it may very well be possible to finish my elective in one of the bigger cities in New Zealand. I've been put in touch with a couple of guys who seem very keen to have me there and are happy to set something up for the remainder of my time, which is pretty damn decent of them.

So, the plan: I'm meeting these chaps on Wednesday to discuss the options and if it sounds workable, I shall be switching hospitals, putting a whole new swathe of patients in danger!
The upside being if I do take them up on it, I will have first spent a week doing touristy stuff round the North Island with a friend, so it can't be too bad.

The bigger issue is I've been using my phone so much to try and arrange things that O2 felt the need to send me a text this morning to the following effect:
"We thought you'd like to know you've spent £39.59 over your line rental so far this month"
It seems kinda like their way of saying:
"WTF are you doing?! Stop calling people in other hemispheres you moron!!"

As an aside, did you know that Kiwi keyboards do not have a pound sign?? I had to Google pound sign just to find one. £. Just to make a point.

Other than trying to sort things out and coming to terms with my general idiocy, things have been pretty average. I attended a clinic yesterday afternoon (my first since getting here) and spent most of it tapping people's wrists in order to cause them pain (there was a medical reason so it's ok). What I've learned from it is that a lot of people in New Zealand seem to have carpal tunnel syndrome. Also had a chat with an ex-pat Liverpudlian, really nice bloke, who'd been living out here since about 20 years before I was even born. Still hasn't shaken that accent though.

Today I went to a fracture clinic and tried desperately to remember all the different ways of classifying all the different fractures that I once knew and have since forgotten. There's Salter-Harris, Weber, Lisfranc, Jones, Mason, Monteggia, Galeazzi, Hume, Holstein-Lewis, Smith, Colles, Bennet, La Fort, Greenstick, Hangman's, Boxer's; Fractures can be transverse, linear, oblique, spiral, closed or open, complete or incomplete, comminuted, impacted, they may be displaced or undisplaced, angulated, shortened etc etc....

Basically, the bottom line is- it's broken.

This afternoon I got to assist with a hip replacement- ACTUALLY assist, rather than just holding the odd instrument or adjusting the light, or trying not to trip over the portable X-ray machine (Possibly the most embarassing way to de-sterilise yourself AND ensure you aren't invited back to that theatre). Well, I say assist, I mostly just held the patient's leg, but dammit it's a step up from a retractor!

And thus concludes my time at this hospital, tomorrow I shall be boarding a bus for Auckland to meet my friend and see what happens from there I guess.

On the upside, if I do have to return to the UK to finish I've already got a snappy new name for the blog- "Clouds, concrete and casts" Whaddaya think??

Doesn't have quite the same ring, does it?

Hitchcock was right...

So it's coming to the end of the weekend here in New Zealand. We've apparently had a storm with gale force winds, which would explain why there's been roofing tiles, bits of tree and small children whizzing past my window all weekend.

I decided to wander down to the local town/city on Saturday to see what it was like. Turns out it's kinda like Weston-Super-Mare but with palm trees really. I did find this amazing little fresh fish market though which served up the best fish and chips I've ever had (even if the chips were just deep fried McCain's oven chips. Seriously, I saw the box!) and for $5.40, it was a bargain! I thought I would take a walk along the water front and eat there overlooking the bay, so I took my F&C - wrapped in actual newspaper no less! - and found a comfy spot to sit and enjoy my delicious and healthy meal.

It was then that I was overcome with this bizarre feeling like I was being watched. I slowly looked up, chip in hand and, essentially, this is what I saw --

"Mine"

I had to fight off about two dozen sodding seagulls for my dinner, who'd followed me (on foot) all the way down from the market. I'd wondered why people were giving me funny looks as I walked along the waterfront, I must've looked like some kind of Pied Piper with mystical influence over seagulls.
Anyway, I emerged victorious, with only a few minor beak-shaped lacerations.


But goddammit, it was worth it.

Best laid plans and all the King's men...

Yesterday I actually finished early, for the first time all week I finished before 5pm. I had every intention of going to the little hospital gym for an hour or two, coming back, cooking some food then going to check my e-mails. And possibly write something in this.

'Well, 5 minutes nap first can't hurt'

4 hours later and it's 9.30 at night, I've finally woken up from my 5 minute nap having done bugger all, all evening. No gym. No dinner. No blog. Frankly, I was too tired to actually care so I just went back to sleep.
Yesterday was actually pretty cool, I finally got to do SOMETHING rather than just stand there desperately trying not to desterilise the operating table and wind up with an angry orthopaedic surgeon chasing me around with a big hammer. Granted all I actually did was cut someone's foot open then stitch it back up after, the registrar did most of the stuff in between but I like to think my contribution mattered.
I'm sitting here trying to think what else I did yesterday but I haven't got a clue. Ah well, can't have been that important.

Today, however, I do have some minor recollection of what happened! Actually got to assist with a mammoth operation (that is to say, an operation that was lengthy in duration rather than an operation on an actual mammoth. I would definitely be up for assisting on that too, though). The patient apparently took on a truck in his car and, needless to say, lost. The X-rays of his legs looked like...have you ever seen one of those 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles all jumbled up? Yeah, his legs looked like that, not pretty. The ortho team had the fun job of putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.

All in all, it took about 6 hours. For one leg. Which, considering both femur and tibia were shattered, is pretty good going. My huge part consisted of putting traction on the leg (pulling like buggery) to try and help re-align the shards of bone; normally not a problem, but when part of the tibia is sticking up out of the skin and every time you move a milimetre it makes a horrible crunching noise and blood starts bubbling out, you do tend to feel pressured to keep still. And then, naturally, the urge to sneeze strikes. One leg down at least, which means (if 4 years of medical school has taught me anything) only one more to go. And the best part was, early finish! Which means I can now try and get down the gym and actually cook a meal.

I might just have 5 minutes nap first......