Category Archive

So I did my exams, and I passed. Yay!
<little jig of victory>

Wasn’t as bad as i thought’d they be and obviously my scotch habit hasn’t diminished my capacity too much.

OH yes, my blog traffic was very exciting for a while, I thought that my little corner of the web was somehow super interesting but it turns out that simply having the worlds ‘bill henson’ was enough to make this a superstar blog.  I need to preemt the next controversy….

anyways, i ought to go do some busywork - make some more inappropriately reactive software. bah.
Thought puddle was looking a bit empty. And i do apologise that it hasn’t really been a joyful trundle of late - it was supposed to be an entertaining record of adventures.  Hopefully fun times are ahead

bissous

Medicine

• revise
• write up drugs as I come across them
• write up diseases as I come accross them
• look at clinical reasoning/diagnostics/histo/path
• find ways to get onto rounds
• revise clinical skillz and life support skillz

Life

• clean my house more often
• go to gym
• eat real food

Arty Stuff

• make up new dance classes.
• do (dance) classes
• work on interactive extraveganza
• animate Mon Pere
• blog more (thanks yay!)

Hmmm..

Bel from Audaci’s comment made me thunk and will hopefully change my mindset as I’m woeful at taking my own advice.

But really I should try to be proud of the baby steps of progress so far.  I have learnt stuff, I may not know as much about <insert enzyme/hormone here> as some others but I’m learning stuff.

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and now for something completely different

On another note, i saw Leigh Warren and Dancer’s new piece, Seven at the Adelaide Fringe, which was great. It was terrific seeing my friends perform and obviously relish the performance, though it made me more than a little wistful.  But really, despite the workload and the constant feeling of overload, I’m really enjoying medicine and can look back on my performing fondly and without too much sadness.

I do miss being creative though, and have signed up for our Health and Human Rights Group as junior media rep, which hopefully will prove fun.  The cynic in me says that no way a small bunch of wide eyed med students can never make much of a difference which  is balanced against the wide eyed optimism that the sentiment is worth working for and that we certainly can make a difference to communities in need.

I also miss teaching, I really have to find somewhere to teach…

Bel’s post on the transition from creative industries to medicine made me think over my transition too. (just to add to the list, here is another ex-dancer turned med student)

I enjoyed my time in the arts. I loved it. I loved the camaraderie of creating a performance, performing it, touring with it and growing with it. I loved many of the people I met, I loved the thrill of creating my own work, realising my vision.  I guess why I left was of practicality, and also a feeling that I needed a change.  I was satisfied with what I had done. Like Audaci I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it made sense to me, and it seemed ‘right’ and still does despite my whinging and bitching.

There was certainly an element that it was no longer as fulfilling as it was before. Those who’ve read this for a while know my issues with the whole system of publically funded art, the politics of getting the money and also a certain angst of, what is it, cosmically speaking, all for?  I never did get a good answer to that, but along with a feeling that dancing was no longer the most fun I could have and the very real prospect of being ‘damaged goods’ due to bodgy lungs, it seemed ripe to change.

 ”The one thing that art and health have in common is the human experience.  Across both you will see the full spectrum of human suffering and elation.  The former may be a more abstract, disconnected version of, but the link is there.  Across both you will find your mind challenged, twisted in ways you never thought possible, you’re exposed to depths of knowledge hitherto unimagined.  So similar, but so different.  The problem solving too, the starting with nothing and creating a whole picture is so similar.  You need that same arsenal of skills, even though the skills themselves may differ.  And the sense of personal challenge is the same. “

I was just talking about it to a friend of mine, and I really do see a continuum across my eclectic background.  The challenges, the element of the human - its frailty, its beauty and its many faces, the drawing and synthesis of ideas from disparate sources,  the learning, the teaching and sharing of knowledge and experience, it is, as Bel says, same same, but different.

I don’t know if this post makes any sense, but I’ve been trying to get down some thoughts as I muddle my way through this med school thing.

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for bloggers/forum junkies

So as I’m preparing for my university of Newcastle interview, a few things come to mind.
Firstly I have to give props to my friends over at the pagingDr forum are amazing people, they are so generous with their time and advice, and so incredibly supportive.
Secondly, I seem to rely on the fact that I’m the biggest badass, or at least I can pretend I am to actually manage to do anything. Because I didn’t get into uSydney, I somehow don’t think that I’m cut out to study medicine now, and if I can’t believe it, how can I expect to be able to sell it to Newcastle? All this doubt has crept in, questioning why I want to do medicine, and if I could even do it.

I find myself deprecating what I have done, which is silly, I mean I’m proud of what I’ve achieved, and while its very different from some of the other applicants who have several papers to their name regarding drug uptake in melanoma cells or whatever, it doesn’t mean its not valid.  But still its hard to hold your head up when the extent of my research has been in wishy washy bollocks like digital architecture (see previous post about what I think about that) or in something obscurely irrelevant like L-systems to represent imaginary trees in an installation.
But I have directed films, I’ve created original works, co-ordinated multi disciplinary teams, managed technology pipelines and designed systems - its got to count for something?  I just have to hope that the admissions people think so.

On the whole blah-ness with getting into med school, I’ve decided, spur of the moment as usual, to put myself up for a Masters of Art in Digital Media at AFTRS, which is a 1 year research program (which as I’ve mentioned is bollocksy research) but essentially lets me do what I want, and get a MA for it.  Something to keep me occupied at least.

So here I am sitting on the Spirit of Tasmania once more, feeling more than a little bit sore after an exhilarating climb on Sunday and a “quick” run to finally summit Mt Anne and earn me a few peakbagging points. Somewhat quesy due to crap food for which I paid an unholy sum for, and that peculiar stink of the Spirit of Tasmania, my guess being industrial cleaner mixed with Legionairres disease in the air conditioner and puke ground into cheap carpet.
A little sad at leaving Tasmania again. This quick little job reminded me just how much I enjoy spending time on this little Island. I think, plan A is now to finish med school on the mainland, and possibly initial vocational training and then bugger off down to Tas – which would work out great if I have a Bonded Place or and MRBS (Unlikely) as almost all of Tas is considered ‘Rural’ or an area of unmet need.

Sharing with someone your favourite places is an oddly intimate act, and anxiety inducing. These places spoke to me, they somehow connected and grounded me to the planet, helping make sense of my place in it, and I had the anxiety that it would be just another place for her.  Which is of course fine, we each have our places that are special to us, that have a story. I guess it was like my ‘mix tape’ of places and I desperately wanted approval.

So after a period of moping, I was fortunate to receive an interview for the University of Newcastle school of Medicine, and also am a chance at Flinders University, so fingers crossed that it will eventually work out!

Last night we paid tribute to our friend Tanja, taken away too soon at 29 with the world at her feet.

I was briefly involved in a love rhombus.
it involved GBG (Gorgeous Ballet Girl), GBGLDB (Gorgeous Ballet Girl Long Distance Boyo), yours truly and SSRM (Somewhat Shady RoomMate)

So I had a thing for GBG, but upon finding out about GBGLDB decided to do the marginally classier thing of being a little bit cautious and subtle.  SSRM had no such qualms and weighed right in, and due to scruffy shadiness (which I can only hope to one day achieve), swept GBG off her feet.It got far too complicated and so its back to a love triangle.

Love polygons suck.

Trying to hail a taxi now is an exercise that should only be attempted by those with a secure self esteem.  I don’t have that many complexes and neuroses, but blimey, after being rejected by at least 10 cabs, and about half actually stopping to take a good look at me, before decideding that there were better options, I think I very well may have developped a few.  Possibly my usual tactic of ‘Show ‘em your pink bits’ was not most appropriate, but in anycase I’m still quite hurt and am considering a lengthy course of botox, nips tucks and implants.

Phwoar.

Well I finally got my first aid certificate, some of it was quite interesting, but I do worry about the quality of some of the others who went through, during some of the scenario things I was thinking that even if i was paralysed from the waist down, I’d risk quadraplegia to crawl away from some of the people in my group.  (mainly cause I’d get quadraplegic from their ‘treatment’ so called in any case)

Dear lord this study thing is hard. Why couldn’t I choose to do something easy? It could be oh so cruisy now, but no, I’m busting my chops trying to learn a year of chemistry in a couple of months. Baloney.

Also first ballet class back and holy hell did it ‘urt. Still feeling the pain. Also the above physique is not so good in hotpants. I’m goanna be sore tomorrow.

So a year has come and gone again, and a new one has begun.  Being one to jump on bandwagons and such, I decided to make resolutions to change all my unproductive and nasty habits which I happen to enjoy, and thus will break immediately with a suitable feeling of guilt. Masochistic? Yes.

The biggest one is to challenge myself to sit GAMSAT, the exam for graduate entry into Medicine.  Which is all well and good, except it requires 1st year university level knowledge of physical chemistry, organic chemistry, physics and biology.  I meanwhile have done none of that since high school, which is getting further and further into the past.
Luckily Mr Zombie Bunny is quite the nerd and is providing me with amusement and unproductive time wasting.

The others being to revert to being able to bounce coins off my abs, my current doughiness is disturbing, though if i ever need change for a train ticket I just have to jump up and down, and coins from the previous experiment will invariably tumble out.

Why is it that I can’t program worth a damn except in the wee hours of the morning? It is beyond me why I can only make workable code after midnight.  I can’t even make ‘hello world’ work prior.

So, I made it back. By a stroke of luck, apparently it seems that there weren’t any economy class seats left so I got to fly business class which really is the way to travel.

The first in what may become a series of pointless conversations

So, Ive been having these heart palpitations and assorted fun light nausea, tachycardia, lightheadedness; fatigue blah blah blah. soI decide to see a doctor about it. Its not comfortable and like I said in the previous post, having to have a wee sit after a flight of stairs is a rather serious downgrade for a usually godlike being such as myself.

The following is an abridged but true transcript

Me: Hi, Ive been getting these palpitations, racing heart beats etc at rest and also with very moderate exertion
Dr: Blah blah, lets do an echocardiogram and Holter monitor

620 euro later, 5 days later

Dr: Ah, it appears your heart is beating too fast sometimes.
Me: Yes. Why?
Dr: Why? I dont know. Pfft

So that was that. He actually did the pfft thing, which is very french but i took particular offence in this occasion.

Rest assured the baby penguin hasn’t been abandoned or clubbed to death, just been preoccupied.

So, I’ve finally managed to make it to Anger. I’m really really fucked off. After recovering quite nicely from the whole collapsed lung thing, my heart decides to join in the fun and starts going funny, racing for no good reason and nausea to go with it. Buckets of fun. I was dealing ok with it until I went to the hospital and had my tests taken in the company of incredibly fat, old American men who’ve enjoyed a few thousand too many hamburgers in their corpulent lives. It was just so damn frustrating, I mean I would consider myself rather fit, and being reduced to having a sit after a flight of stairs is rather humiliating. (On the plus side, the nurses were considerably more attractive this time around)
I know I should be making the most of staying in Paris, and it is great and I’m trying, but when those darn squishy organs start packing it in, it arses up the fun quotient.

On the plus side, Unfed has done very well, showings around Europe, and also will, all going to plan, be shown on ABC early next year!

The folks at Noise seemed to like my photography and I managed to be Artist of the day, which is not all that exciting as most everyone gets to be artist of the day at some point. But in anycase check it and there is a vote and I’d much appreciate it if you would oblige and do that. Means I might win some money, which is good considering the whole lack of job and career thing.

Perhaps I’m getting old, and paranoia, senility and general foolishness is setting in, but I find myself scrambling for something to hang my hat on.  While I pretty much always considered myself a ’slashy’, ie, dancer/artist/nerd/ne’er do well, now that I have had to take a sabbatical from dance, and thereby reducing my number of slashes to a number which barely warrents membership in the slashy club, I feel somehow imcomplete, and cast adrift.
Which is just me being a total wanker of course, as I am much more than the sum of my slashes. At least I damn well hope so.  But I do miss it already.  Which is fucking typical.

I also miss my stomach. I had to go back for a chest X-Ray, which of course involves the removal of ones shirt. In days gone by, it was never a great chore exposing the chiseled perfection that is me to the glare of an X-Ray and the appreciative gaze of nubile young nurses, however, after 3 weeks of wheezing, hot chocolate, croissants, chocolate croissants, hot chocolate, confits, tartes and chocolate, I now resemble not much more than pasty weisswurst of roughly the same squidy consistency.

Bah humbug

Melbourne 2005

Word of the day : Oleaginous.

1. Of or relating to oil.
2. Falsely or smugly earnest; unctuous: oleaginous flattery.

Top 3 Occupations

Superspy. Possibly related to my excitement with a new James Bond adventure - this one even featuring my new favourite sport of pakour. Gadgets, women, imminent but never realised death. Brilliant
Liklihood : Well I have had a rendevous at Cafe Adler, so thats one step closer isn’t it?

Opera Singer whilst working with Opera Australia I met Richard, who was, much to my great annoyance, irritatingly handsome, but more than that, he had a voice of molten chocolate. (The swiss kind, which can only be made by absurdly content cows in stupid picture postcard swiss alp type places with blonde pigtailed milchmaids caressing their teats)
Men, women, small children and assorted air borne bacteria all went weak at the knees (or flagella) whenever he said anything, let alone sang. I want to be able to say ‘Where is the toilet’ and have people swoon.
Likliehood : As my singing voice sounds like a sick cat being dragged across a violin I doubt it.

Absurdly Content Swiss Cow for the above reason of milchmaids…
Likelihood : due to a disgraceful life, poor karma bank balance and a non-belief in reincarnation, not very.

So have been reading up about a few surgical options to reduce the chance of another spontaneous pneumothorax happening. Doesn’t sound like fun. The new methods at least are keyhole - they dig 2 holes in your chest, 1 for the tool and 1 for a video camera. They then rub gauze all over your lung which makes the lung very angry and it responds by forming adhesions onto the pleura. This will reduce the chance of another pneumothorax down to 3% which is a darn sight better than 10 - 50%.
Another option, is about the same, but theys spray talc (as far as I can tell, yes, the stuff you sprinkle inside your swimming cap) all over your lung, again, pissing it right off and forming adhesions.

The old method involved going from your sternum to your spine like a can opener…

So possible solution, however, over one blebdisease, the support group for this sort of thing (Hehe. blebs) some people have experienced chronic pain after the procedure and have had nerves removed and lidocaine daily… hmm doesn’ t sound like buckets of fun.

So to recruit the enormous power of the interweb, if you are, or know a, pulmonologist, send em over my way.

So. Thats it then. I have officially resigned, withdrawn, pulled out, retired from dancing.
The thing I have fought tooth and nail for, worked for 10 years towards, and blah blah blah <insert angst & cliche here>
Melodramatic I know, but I hope you can indulge me for just a little while.

I was thinking of gradually phasing out dance for other pastures in the next few years in any case- my interest in filmmaking, choreographing, visual art, medicine… But I am severely pissed off that the decision was removed from me.
Don’t get me wrong, I will admit to enjoying a bit of a rail against fate, a bit of (gentle) chest beating, anguish and angst. Its good for the soul.

So what is frightening now, is the uncertainty. Those of you who know me, know that lately I have developped an unhealthy compulsion to make plans. Lots of plans. This wasn’t in the plan.
Now I’m not one for actually following through with most of my plans, they’re just a security blanket, but I didn’t have a contingency for this one. Its ruined the elegant simplicity of my life. And most vexing of all, is that it has shaken the quite neccessary belief in my invincibility, or even just the belief that all that squishy stuff inside the fleshbag we call a body (albeit a impressively god-like body), will keep on doing its stuff to keep us alive.
I’m not going to let this cramp my style, I can deal with another week in hospital with Mr Pleur-Evac, and hope for a better rotation of nurses. But with performing - will a company take the risk? Can I live with the responsibility, when I have no control over it whatsoever? Will my partners trust me? It is all rather unfair.

So, in an effort to stave off insanity, I have embarked on an early New Years resolution set

• becoming a cool blogger type person (that seems to be the thing to do these days),
• working on my new media art,
• directing guaranteed Oscar/Sundance/Annecy winning films and animations,
• study chemistry -> study medicine -> become doctor -> chicks, money, power and chicks
• obtain generous patroness who will appreciate my genius and support my lavish lifestyle.

But yes, it is quite frightening, its one of those points in life where, in 5 years, I will look back and go ‘Corr blimey gov, who’d have thought eh?’

So, onto a brave new world.

Well, I managed to heroically resist scratchin off the scab, and it finally fell off by itself et voila! So no more hole!

Wandered around Rue Mouftard today, which was great, there was an antiques street market and I managed to purchase this -

A completely useless, giant old school padlock. Its going straight onto the nearest door.

And just to make this particular post completely incoherant, here’s a link to the best hubble images. Just simply extraordinary images. I believe the old girl is going to get an optical upgrade next year which is great, but then it will be decomissioned 2013.

Continuing the theme, my friend, Sascha, aka Aevoc has just released a few new tracks. check it out.

I wish I had started this blog earlier, and I know this is just my inherent paranoia setting in, but I can’t help but feel that the last few years have been really amazing with adventures and mischief, and now its all going to slow down a bit.

So, in an effort to make my life seem far more interesting, I’m going to randomly throw in pictures and annecdotes from the past to brighten up this blog.

Oh and the reason that I’m so into it right now, other than being feeble, is that I have to compress a 6:25min film into 5mb and make it look good. Its taking forever to encode. On the plus side h.264 - its magic.

French accents are outrageously sexy.

They are also incredibly dangerous, bypassing all normal cognitive processing

Examples can be seen right around the bottom of Sacre Coeur, masses of French Africans selling ‘Traditional African Bracelets’ and normally sane people (myself included) for some reason succumb to this and fork out between 10Euro (if you are lucky) up to 20Euro (if you are american) for a piece of braided cotten thread. Like I said, dangerous.

In a remarkable derail of thought, I have this bad habit, and Freudian psychologists will no doubt claim it is some latent Oedipus thingy, but when waking up after general anaesthetic or ungodly doses of pain killers, I will try to hold hands with my girlfriend, even if she is not in fact there, and even in the case that I don’t actually have one.
I remember once, a couple of years ago, being quite upset because I kept trying to hold hands my lovely girlfriend (I actually had one at this point. I think…) but she kept slapping my hand away, which of course, only made me more determined. About 5 minutes later after I had given up and was feeling dreadfully sorry for myeslf, I realised that I had been groping the hand of a rather large, hirsuite, mannish nurse who had been trying to take my pulse.

I need to reasses my pick up skills.

I have to regain trust in my body.
Its strange, ‘ve had plenty of injuries, but they’re external, they’re managable. I can strap it, ice it, limit the use of that limb, but with this, I can’t do anything, I can’t not use my right lung, I can’t protect it in any way but it can go at any time.

I’ve never had to think about my lungs, its a part of my body I pay very little attention to - it generally just works. I mean I have mild asthma, but never a grave concern. Now I am super aware of the insides of my chest, strange phantom pains, sensations. Nothing like a collapse, but disconcerting nonetheless.
I’m going to try put it out of my mind - there is nothing I can do about it, if it goes, it goes, I might as well continue much as I was before, and if I’m lucky, it’ll stay fully inflated.

Currently I’m frustrated by my extreme, Mr Burns-like feebleness.  A bottle of wine in one hand, 10 euro worth of chocolate in the other, and a 10 minute walk is enough to warrant consierable exertion now.

The wine and chocolate was totally worth it though.

So our tale begins with the obligatory, experience-of-a-lifetime, Europe backpacking trip. A series of arts-funding related snafus had left me sans work for a period, my film was accepted to the Zebra Film Awards (and hence a handy excuse to live it up on the red carpet), so it was decided to hop on a plane.

So fast-forwarding through Berlin, Prague, Geneva, The Swiss Alps, Luzern, Zurich and the Glarner Alps and onto Paris. Wonderful Paris. City of a million clichés which are annoyingly fairly accurate.

This is a repost from my mass email, so if you’ve read that, well don’t worry about it.

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I’d been happily wandering around Paris for a few days, enjoying this beautiful city. And on Monday, I had designated my Lourve day.
So anyways, to cut a very long story short(ish) (this is me after all and I can’t keep anything brief) I got a intense pain in my chest, shortness of breath, raised heart rate, but me being convinced of invicibility, continued to wander around for 12 hours before deciding (on the advice of a Dr friend.) to go to a hospital.
In hindsight, this was rather stupid as I couldn’t walk for more than 25meters before having to have a breather and preferably a sit down.

I went to the British hospital which wasn’t interested as I wasn’t a pregnant woman and turfed me to the American hospital who assured me that it was probably nothing serious and I couldn’t afford them in any case, and then finally onto a local French hospital. It was apparently a 2minute walk, which turned out closer to a 35min one wheeze and stumble.

So into the French ‘urgences’, where no one spoke English and when they did, they promptly demanded to know if I “believed in French”. To this rather confusing question I was quite prepared to say oui and if they asked if I believed in xenu the evil alien dictator who was affecting my thetan levels, I would have said yes as I was thoroughly fucked off, short of breath and generally uncomfortable.

But to their credit I was on an EKG within 10 minutes which came back abnormal, got blood taken (they were considering infection) and then a chest x-ray which revealed a ‘complete spontaneous pneumothorax’ as the radiologist cheerfully told me.

This is, in common terms, a collapsed lung. It comes in various degrees, but being hyper competitive, I managed to collapse the entire goddam thing. The x-ray is gnarly; usually a chest x-ray is more or less symmetrical, and mine had a big black gaping hole where the lung usually as. Wicked.
So I was promptly bundled off to a step-down ward (one down from ICU) and a French doctor was to ‘drain’ my chest.

A note on the French, they have a wonderful way of understatement. He was quite adamant that there was nothing to be impressed about as these are very common and not very dangerous (though occasionally life threatening), and that if I had both lung collapsed then it might be slightly more complicated. (These are referred to as a fatal bilateral pneumothorax).
But anyways, treatment consists of morphine (not as exciting as I had hoped) and a scalpel, big fucking needle and a tube. They slice under the armpit, punch a needle in, and then thread a tube in. I was under the impression it’s a small tube, but it turns out its nearly 30 centimeters of polymer fun inside your chest. Which would explain why it is so goddam uncomfortable. This tube is stuck to you, and connected to my friend the pleur-evac; a water seal which bubbles cheerfully as it removes the air from your chest cavity.

So that’s the procedure.

The next few days were marked by boredom. I was on bed rest; being hooked up to Mr. Drip and Mr. pleur-evac meant no moving around.
In fact I was so goddam bored, that the highlights of the day was

• The incredibly bad food. It makes airline food seem like 3 star Michelin fare. You don’t actually eat the stuff, but it’s the event which is important.
• My top of up pain killers…
• Pissing in my pistolet (like a funky teapot you piss in) because then someone would have to come in an empty it.

Now this is quite a loss of dignity, but after a few days, even having someone come in to empty your piss was preferable to the insanity that creeps in when you’ve been lying in your own funk for a few days with only yourself to keep company.

I did have my super wonderful friend who I was staying with in Paris who came in and brought me lovely French pastries and snackies (which I totally lived off), her ipod (greatest thingy ever) and reading materials so huge thanks and hugs!

Nurses - presumably the upside to the whole situation. I unfortunately drew the short straw and missed out on hot French nurses for the first few days. I did better for the last day and a half, where I managed to score a sponge bath. Highly recommended)
But for the first few days I got a trainee nurse, who also had her final examination and was nervous as hell. Her hands were shaking and she arsed up my drip causing a lovely burning in my left arm (and an awesome yellow bruise which is still there). She also was insisting to write down that I was feeling fine (when I was anything but) and didn’t want to give me drugs until after her examination.

But all in all, I was very well looked after by my doctors and medical staff.

I can’t fly for 3 weeks, and am supposed to take it easy for 3 weeks.

I will say I am more than a little concerned as I have a 10 - 50% chance of reoccurrence. If it happens contra laterally I have a good chance of that slightly more complicated problem of a fatal bilateral pneumothorax. I also have an even better chance of one happening when lifting stuff, a slight problem being a dancer, no scuba diving, no parachuting, trumpet playing and even long haul flights are a risk.

But I am out of hospital now, have the fun of fighting it out with insurance. Am still short of breath, my lung capacity isn’t back to where it was, and it still hurts a bit, and I guess the worst is the fear that it will happen again.

Mum had a freak and came over, which was nice of her, and now have an enforced 3weeks in Paris, which I guess, could be much much worse.
I am very glad that I got it in Paris and not while tootling around in china.