Friday, November 17, 2006

Moving On

Wow, I got a lot of responses for my previous blog and it was well appreciated. I 've just started Neurology and I'm feeling a bit ambivalent about it. I don't enjoy the brain. I don't really care what it does, or how facinating most people think it is. It's just a pile of pink jello as far as I'm concerned, or at least that's they way it looks splattered on a gurney.
I suppose I dislike the brain because it's like a very fragile toy, once you break it you generally can't fix it. How boring is that. Some people get a kick out of seeing the neuro problem and trying to figure out where the problem is. I'm not one of those people. I'm not even distantly related to one of those people.
Most of my patients can generally be seperated into two groups. Old people with strokes and young people with brain tumors. It sucks for the young people. There's just no getting around the fact that it's over for them before it even started. Down in the ED you watch their scans come up and we all say" Dammmnn" as you watch this huge mass appear where normal brain should be. There's just not a whole lot you can do about it. Take the trip you always wanted, forget studying for college exams, you will not grow old with someone. You will never grow old. And the old people don't get much of a break either. This is it for them. Today you find out what will kill you. Now it may not be the stroke that kills you but you have now begun the decline that will only end in your death.
I suppose it must be weird knowing what your going to die from. I have no idea what's going to get me. Most people don't until the last minute. I wonder if that's one of the last things that goes through your brain after you get shot or in a car crash. This is how I die. Weird. Anyway....moving on.