kinda cliche secretsss

Cool, I just accidentally discovered that if you zoom out of my blog’s homepage, you get a nice background surprise!

Medical verbal diarrhea

Since coming home I can’t help but bring things I’ve learned into every-day conversations.  I’m starting to realize that not everyone is necessarily always interested in being counseled.

Par example:

At a baby shower for my close friend.  It’s my first time getting to catch up with friends from home, and I go get the attention of M, who has a strange skin rash that hasn’t gone away in weeks.  Since we didn’t cover Skin in Pathology, I tell her what I heard from my brother (a doctor) about rashes: that generally speaking if it’s itchy it’s not life-threatening, that if it’s been hanging around for a long time it’s not life-threatening, and that often they don’t bother finding out exactly what it is, but they will prescribe first a steroid and then if that doesn’t work, an anti-fungal.  At least the last part is helpful for M, who thought the doctor was just humoring her by prescribing an anti-fungal when they still weren’t sure what it was exactly.

Later in the shower, Ktown, M and I are talking about high blood pressure.  M is worried because she has had a couple slightly high readings in the past few times.  Eager to ease her worries, Ktown suggests she shouldn’t have to worry because her eyes aren’t bloodshot.  M agrees; her eyes are not puffy like her father’s – he has high BP – and so she probably doesn’t need to worry so much. Later in the day I realize I never made it clear to them that hypertension is typically totally silent and doing it’s damage over the long term while the person is totally unaware until it’s well advanced.  I write a message to both M and Ktown clarifying this and saying that maybe it’s something she can talk to her doctor about.  Ktown responds thanking me for clearing it up and letting M know she probably doesn’t have much to worry about, but later cheerfully tells me that she was kind of perplexed why I sent the message that would likely just make M worry more.

Another conversation Ktown is telling me about, a silly one, about circumcised and uncircumcised penises.  She’s recounting this conversation, laughing at the awkwardness, where basically it comes up that a couple people we know are uncircumcised.  I can’t just laugh at this, but I have to bring up how circumcision isn’t just a matter of religion, there are also health benefits such as avoiding phimosis and paraphimoses, preventing HIV transmission, and decreasing the chances of smegma buildup which would lead to squamous cell carcinoma of the penis (the latter is something I didn’t quite understand until a fellow student kindly explained the whole concept of foreskin and the gunk that gets stuck under it – smegma – to me using his arm, his t-shirt sleeve, and the appropriate theatrics).

The Cup of Divas

Abby was just in my room, checking out my earrings hanging by my mirror, the little Buddha statue sitting on my dresser.  Then an odd cup, sitting inverted on the surface-top.  “Oh what’s this?”  “Oh my God don’t touch that!”  Abby found my Diva Cup. I really shouldn’t leave it out lying around.  But hey, it was a great way to introduce the idea to someone (how else, really, can it ever come up?) and I think she thought it was a great idea.  And on top of that, she and I reached a new level in our friendship.

Julia first told me about Diva Cup, which I wasn’t sure about because of swimming (flip turns, hey!) but I highly endorse it.  Think of how many tampons and menstrual pads you keep out of the trash!

Sexy veggies

With the end of Micro is the start of Medical Nutrition.  In honour of that, and also of upcoming Hallowe’en (with all those “sexy costumes”), here’s to the 10 Naughtiest Vegetables on Earth!

I showed Frond this and he was not as amused as I thought he’d be.  I still chuckled (sophistication has never been my most defining trait).  Tomato has a penis!

Just amblin’

Finished the micro exam today! Just 1 more to go on Monday, Clinical Skills and Physical Diagnosis.

Yesterday there was a “Grenadian traffic jam” when a car was walking down the middle of the road.  It ran off to the side, the cars passed, then it stuck to the sidewalk and passed by.  Then it started running (galloping?), crossed the street and jumped up onto the other sidewalk.  Moo Mad Cow!

I love when cows stop traffic.

Hello nude fat sumo enthusiasts!

Top searches that led people to this blog: (In honour of the recently finished Path exam, here is a rank order list.  Not in honour of the course, you’re told ahead of time it’s in rank order.  That’s my bitterness of the day!)

1. funny guys
2. funny nude
3. fat
4. nude fat women
5. funny pictures of guys
6. funny fat pple pictures
7. funny pictures of fat guys
8. fat people wrestling
9. nude funny pics
10. fat wrestlers
11. sumo fat

I’m happy to see sumo fat and fat wrestlers up there, but not sure why nude searches are pointing here.  Whatever; welcome all you fun-loving Rubenesquians!

Shower cockroach

In the shower last night I saw a cockroach on my shoulder covered in suds.  I yelled and slapped my shoulder.  It took me a few seconds but I figured out that it was my own hair.  I need more sleep or a haircut.

Special sumo fat

Non sumos. (Annie Leibovitz)

Have you ever noticed that sumo wrestlers don’t look exactly like regular fat people?

We recently learned that the kind of fat sumo wrestlers put on is different from the kind of fat us regular folks may put on.  While our fat (giving the classic pear or apple shape) puts us at risk of heart disease and stroke, the kind of fat a sumo wrestler has doesn’t.  The difference is that they are able to train so that they can put on as much fat as possible but in such a way that the fat doesn’t deposit around their organs like it would for us.  Sumo wrestlers actually have rippling jacked bods, but you just can’t tell because just atop their amazing muscles and just under their skin is all that fat.

Sumos do this by tricking their body into thinking they are starving.  Wha-at?  According to the very academic violent hero powerlifting dot com, as sumos sleep, their body uses up all their body’s energy stores (same as us).  But as soon as they get up they skip breakfast and train all morning.  By the time they get to eat in the afternoon, their body is in starvation mode and stores as much energy as it can as subcutaneous fat.  I read that they also eat in big social groups because people tend to eat more when they are socializing at the same time.  I can attest to that last point.  Sometimes I’ll be studying with Frond and he’ll ask me if I’m hungry.  I’ll say no, but then if he replies that he’s actually feeling a bit hungry, I’ll start to feel hungry too.

Fine specimens (Robb Kendrick)

I remember in Biochem that after about 12 hours of not eating your glycogen stores are used up.  I think glycogen is what people in violentpowerlifting.com are talking about when they say “energy stores”.  Once glycogen is used up your body starts to use up muscle then fat stores.   When you eat a massive amount, like what the sumos do, your body first uses the glucose from the food that is absorbed and floating in your blood.  But if there’s more glucose floating around than that your body can use at that moment, you start to store it as glycogen and then fat.  So this is what happens to anyone who eats more than their body is using.  For people who don’t exercise, the fat can deposit around their organs such that someone who looks thin but doesn’t exercise might actually have a lot of fat deeper inside but not the subcutaneous type of fat that sumos are aiming for.  This type of fat, the type that surrounds your organs, is the type of fat that causes all the obesity-related problems.  Since sumos are exercising so much, they don’t accumulate the fat around their organs, but since they consume crazy high amounts of calories all at once, they are still storing fat, but without the obesity-related problems.  That is, sumos don’t have a higher risk for heart disease, nor diabetes, or stroke.  Even the fattest ones!

This is the second time sumo wrestling has come up this week.  What can I say, I loves me some sumos.

Photo1: Annie Leibovitz for vanityfair.com

Photo2: Robb Kendrick for National Geographic

 

 

 

Vigilante crime fighters in Seattle

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1067463–seattle-superhero-arrested-on-assault-charges

have you ever seen Kick Ass?