Day fifty - Monday

Last week in Western Isles hospital - come round so quick! In just before 10am to a quiet department. After catching up with Stephen about his recent trip to NYC I saw an acute exacerbation of asthma that came in by ambulance. They'd received excellent care in the community, had oxygen going, been given salbutamol nebs in the ambulance, GP had loaded them with prednisolone, ipratropium had been given. The only thing missing was theophylline but as they walked into the department smiling and chatting, with sats of 95% on room air I don't think they needed it! Was good revision though, got me thinking about O-SHIT and O-SHIM again (mnemonics for treating asthma/COPD).

Lunch with the Aberdeen lot in the mess, heard about their weekend on Uist and I regailed them with with tales of hardship and bravery on Skye. Back to A&E, everything was quiet until around 1500 when a patient came in that occupied all of our time until the early evening. This blog is so frustrating at times. It was a milestone for me in my time as a med student.

Rainbow on the walk back to the flat

Left back to the flat around 1830, beautiful rainbow on the way home. Hopped in car and drove to the pool to have a swim and chill out after a big few hours at the hospital. Bumped into the Aberdeen lot down there, random! Did some front crawl work again, definitely improving. Managed 75m without stopping, can do 50m comfortably now and not as out of breath. 10mins in the hot tub = amazing, followed by 10mins in the sauna = the perfect stress buster! Drove back via Co-Op to pick up some supplies. Chicken, then bangers and mash for dinner - double cream in the mash again, oh yeah! Gotta love the calories.

Chatted to Alice, she's just finishing her last few shifts as a student midwife = milestone! Went over the events of today as well, good to talk it through. Arranged drinks in Edinburgh for next Tuesday, the night before my Potential Leader Course with World Challenge - really psyched, the next step in becoming a leader for them! Meeting up two friends from London, hopefully crashing on one of their floors!