Today I Left Behind My Former Biggest Fear: Cadaver Lab

I always wondered what today, my last encounter with cadavers, would be like. In the weeks leading up to PT school, I would have told you that I was most likely never going to see this day, that I would give in to my fears and find something else to do besides becoming what I had wanted to be for so long. After my first semester, I would have said that I’d probably bust through the door and collapse on the floor, feeling as if I had finished marathon. It was going to be the greatest feeling in the world.

I took a moment today, as I rotated from cadaver to cadaver in my final to fully embrace where I was at and how far I had come. It has been so long since my panic disorder and I’ve come so far with cadavers that I hardly remember just how absolutely terrified I was a couple years ago. Still, a part of me felt that I owed it to my past self to reflect on the journey. And for a split second, I thought I felt my eyes tear up a bit. The feeling quickly went away.

One of the things that I’m the most thankful for is that I got to dissect in the same lab that I saw the bodies in the first time. Our program is moving to a new building with a new cadaver lab and I really did not feel like starting over at a new place. Just getting into that room at the start of the program was a huge accomplishment for me. Some big steps were taken there and I was really appreciative of the fact that I was going to finish where I had started.

As I hung up my coat in the little area that I had originally called “the safe side of the curtain”, I took one last little glance back into the room. It’s really over. And then I walked out the doors. And while I did not fall to the ground, I did pause to listen to the door close behind me. So symbolic. It not only marked the end of cadaver lab, but also the official closing of a rather long chapter in my life.

If there is anything that I have learned from all of this, it’s that so much awaits you on the other side of your fears. Walking into cadaver lab the first day and facing my biggest fear was a game changer. As ridiculous as it sounds, who I am and where I am at today would not be had I given up that first week. I doubt I would have overcome my panic disorder. Only when I faced the cadavers did I stop panicking. I would have never gotten my cat (and I love this little butt head, so yes, he’s a big deal!). I wouldn’t have gone swing dancing with my classmates because I would have never really met them. Now, my closest friends are swing dancers. I’ve done more exciting things/events in the last year and a half than ever before because of swing dancing. I dance every week (maybe even last night…Yes, I had a final this morning…. 🙂 ). And I would have never met my boyfriend…and man, I love that guy…I’m moving in with him! :O ! Most importantly, I would have never grown into the much stronger person that I am today…the person that now truly believes that anything is possible.

So when things get hard, maybe it is just the Universe’s way of seeing how badly you want what is on the other side. You might not even know what is on the other side. I didn’t. But whatever it is, it’s worth it. Wherever you are in your life, whatever challenge you are now facing, keep fighting and moving forward. You’ll hear that door close behind you soon enough.

Anxiety Tip #5: Diaphragmatic Breathing

Diaphragmatic breathing is also known as abdominal or belly breathing.  I picked this to follow the progressive relaxation post since they tend to go hand in hand.  I started doing this prior to progressive relaxation and felt that it was very helpful.  A person who is experiencing a panic attack will most likely fail to breathe properly.  This is why many people report feeling lightheaded during a panic attack.  Because of this, it’s important to practice slowing your breathing down.  

Diaphragmatic breathing is simple.  Take nice, slow, deep breaths but rather than inhaling and seeing your chest rise, take a nice deep breath and try to see if you can get your stomach to rise.  It feels a bit odd at first, but you’ll get the hang of it.  Inhale fully, pause at the top, then slowly exhale.  

 My recommendation: Just like progressive relaxation, try to shoot for twice a day but maybe only for 5 minutes.  Get into a comfortable position lying down, close your eyes and place one hand on your chest and one hand on your stomach.  Placing your hands on the chest and stomach allow you to get a better feel of how you’re breathing.  Does the hand on your chest seem to be rising higher than the one on your stomach?  Try to make the hand on your belly rise while keeping the hand on your chest still.  Again, it’s a little odd at first, but by the end of even your first 5 minutes you’ll start to get the hang of it.  I, personally, would try to do this along with the progressive relaxation.

Everybody rushes these days so it’s important that you take the time to slow down.  Ten minutes of progressive relaxation and 5 minutes of belly breathing twice a day is only 30 minutes out of your day.   Find the time to take care of YOURSELF!!!!

Anxiety Tip #2: Exercise

I can’t tell you enough about how important this is!!!

I had run on my college’s cross country and track teams and had gotten up to 70 miles a week of running.  Once I quit the team I had started running more for my enjoyment and less for training purposes, so instead of an hour and 10 minute run, I ran for 30 minutes.  It was definitely no 70 miles a week, but it was still providing my body with an outlet for all of the stress.

I had stopped running as much the same year I had started experiencing attacks.  I just lost my interest in it and it was hard to get myself out the door to run without people to run with.  Once I started having panic attacks though, I stopped running altogether.  This made everything worse.  I was already way more stressed out than I had ever been AND I had completely eliminated the one thing that provided an outlet for my stress.  Big mistake.

Once last semester was over and I was home for the summer, my mom started taking me out to run with her.  I didn’t want to at first.  Just the thought of going out for a run made me anxious.  My throat got tight thinking about it.  I didn’t like it when my throat tightened up.  I thought running was just going to make it worse. It didn’t. In fact, it would go away soon after starting the run.  I kept going out with my mom for runs and by the end of the summer I had gotten the love for running back and I had felt that my anxiety had significantly decreased.  

I’ve seen studies that say exercising helps, especially lifting weights! I like lifting weights when I’m too lazy to go run.  Doesn’t matter what you do though, it’s just important to go out and do something!

My recommendation: You don’t have to jump in right away.  Just try 15 minutes of walking or something that you find enjoyable. Eventually I’d shoot for working out at least 3 times a week for 30 minutes.   I’ve found that working out, specifically riding the spin bike, reduces my anxiety significantly after only 15 minutes.  So on days when I wake up and feel my nerves start to kick in about something, I go hop on a bike and ride until I can feel myself start to calm down.  Before you begin any kind of exercise regimen, get the okay from your doctor!!!  Remember, start off slow and work your way up.  And find something that you ENJOY doing! 🙂

First Anatomy and Physiology Midterms!!!

Last week was rough! I had an anatomy lab midterm the Friday before last week.  Put everything into studying for it and surprised myself by kicking butt, especially on the cadaver part.  Whaaat?  Who knew the little stress case had it in her? Definitely not me!

I gave myself a break from studying Friday night but spent Saturday and Sunday studying for my anatomy lecture midterm until I could barely see straight.  Seriously…roughly 20 hours of studying (around 10 hours each day).  Honestly, it was more studying than I’ve ever done for anything…and yet I still felt iffy with some parts.

I took the test and felt that I had done well although I wasn’t sure about a few sections of the test.  There was no time to obsess about it, I had a physiology midterm two days later and I hadn’t spent any of my time, aside from studying for the quizzes, studying for the midterm.

The quiz was 22 questions, 5 points each.  We only had an hour and a half, or an hour and 45 minutes if you decided to skip going on your break, which I did.  It was still hardly any time to answer all the questions very thoughtfully and my hand was cramping beyond belief.  Oh well, no time to think about anything other than what the answers might be.

We had Thursday and Friday off, so after my physio exam a few of us, including my boyfriend, went out to play on trampolines.  We had a ball!  It didn’t matter that we were completely brain dead.  It was nice to finally get out and do something fun…and active! When we finally finished playing on the trampolines, we went and sat down on some couches and took silly pictures.  Somebody checked their phone and saw that our anatomy grade was up.

Want to see a bunch of PT students freak out and frantically check their phones?  Tell them their anatomy grades are up.  “I got a 54 out of 60!” one of my friends had said.  It was a great score! Especially since she hadn’t spent very much time at all studying our last lecture on the foot.  “Omg, the average for the class was 90%” I heard her say.  What?? That’s ridiculous.  Gone are the days where the class average was, at best, a 75%…this isn’t undergrad anymore…these people here are legit.  I was starting to get nervous.  I had studied so hard, and not just on the weekend, I had studied hard from the beginning.  What if after all that studying I still performed poorly?

“I got a 44” my other friend said, clearly upset.  It was a C and in PT school, a C isn’t somewhere you’d like to be.  “I got a 46” another friend said.  She was mad at herself. “I don’t understand, I study for 4 hours EVERYDAY for anatomy and I got a C?!?”.  I felt bad for them.  What an awful feeling.  To work your ass off only to find it wasn’t good enough.  Their grades only made me more nervous.

I sat on the couch with my boyfriend and quietly whispered to him as my friends talked about their grades, “what if I didn’t do well?  I worked SO hard?”  “You’ll be fine,” my boyfriend whispered back.  I was still trying to pull my grade up on my phone.  Why had I decided to check it here?  We were having so much fun.  What if it was a bad grade?  I don’t want to look disappointed in front of my friends and bum everybody out.  Too late, it was clear I was looking at my grades.  I didn’t want to say I changed my mind and was going to wait until I got home, they’d think I saw my grade and was too embarrassed to tell them.  Okay…here it goes…

56.25 out of 60.  Almost a 94%.  My friends were still too busy talking to see the smile start to appear across my face then quickly fade away.  They had worked hard and didn’t do well.  I had gotten the highest grade out of all of them.  I knew they’d all be happy for me, but I didn’t want to rub my grade in their faces.  My boyfriend, with his arm around me, gave my shoulder a slight squeeze and whispered a congratulations in my ear.

 I was not surprised when my friends asked how I did.  Awkward.  I didn’t want to say my grade, ugh it felt so showy or something, I don’t know.  I didn’t want to be secretive though, like I was weird about it.  So I told them I was very happy with how I did and they all said that was all that matter.  I don’t know, maybe that still seems a little too secretive?  I just don’t want to brag!

Anyway, since then I’ve been checking my physics grade like crazy  and I just found out I got a 95%!

And you want to know the best part of all of this?  I didn’t panic during either test!  Nope!  I didn’t even think about panicking!  Well, aside from maybe once during each test when I thought, “Holy moly, I am not panicking!” Sure, I got a little nervous before both of them and my xanax was on hand and ready to go, but once I got to class and sat through a lecture or two I was calm and ready to go!  And no, I didn’t take the xanax.  

So my first two midterms of PT school are done and both have been a very huge success.  I’m so unbelievably proud of myself it’s ridiculous!  To think that 5 weeks ago I was telling myself PT school wasn’t for me and that I couldn’t do it.  Turns out, I think I can! 🙂

 

Anxiety Tip #1: Chamomile Tea

I started writing all my tips out and then suddenly realized I was writing a novel.  So I gave up the idea of writing all my tips for one post and instead, decided to give each tip it’s own little post.  What I’ll try to do is put one up each day so at least I can knock them all out in a short amount of time and make up for the fact that I’m not putting them all together.  Now, I may mention that research has been done on some of these tips, but I will not include the sources.  I have waaay too much going on to look everything back up again!  Most of it is pretty easy to find…or you can just take my word for it.  I’ve included my personal experience with each tip and what I would recommended you do with each.  I’m not a doctor so just be aware that in some cases you may want to speak to one and make sure that you’re given the okay to follow this advice.  Again, this is my personal experience with these tips.  What I did may not necessarily work for you.  Please don’t get discouraged if you don’t experience a profound change immediately, if at all.  For some of these tips you have to keep performing them in order to reap the benefits.  Okay! Let’s get started!

Oh man, chamomile tea has been a lifesaver! This little tip is very near and dear to me which is why I couldn’t wait any longer to share it.  

It all started when I was telling a classmate last semester about my test anxiety.  She told me that her roommate had suffered test anxiety, started drinking chamomile tea right before her tests and found that she no longer struggled with her test anxiety.  She then went on to tell me how she, too, had dealt with test anxiety (including the tingling in her hands!) and no longer experienced it once she started drinking the tea.  I immediately went out to buy the tea, drank it, and absolutely hated it.  I’m not a tea drinker, so the taste was new to me.  I, however, was willing to do ANYTHING to stop having test anxiety, so I kept making myself drink it.  After a few more tries, I found the taste wasn’t bad at all.  I haven’t struggled nearly as much with test anxiety since drinking the tea. Now, I bring chamomile tea with me anytime I go into a situation that makes me a little nervous. Turns out there’s a study that showed chamomile helps to reduce anxiety.  The great thing about this tea is that the side effects are hardly anything compared to some of the other anxiety reducing teas!

My recommendation: At the peak of my anxiety, I was drinking the tea twice a day.  I would also try to drink it right before a test.  Before you begin drinking the tea, make sure you read up on it as some people can be allergic to it.  Also, if you’re taking any medication, talk to your doctor prior to drinking the tea.  You want to be sure there aren’t any problematic drug interactions.  Remember, there can always be too much a good thing so be careful with this one.  I’ve seen several websites that say no more than 5 cups a day…but really, why even push that? The tea I buy is by Stash.  It’s organic, caffeine free and has a picture of flowers on the front with a little lady bug just above the first “m” in chamomile.

Let me know how this one works out for you!!! 🙂

Panic! At the Physics Class

I was trying to be clever with the title…Panic! At the Physics Class….like the band….Panic! At the Disco…get it?…okay, nevermind…moving on!

I’ve done a whole lot of writing on how I’ve been getting through some big situations panic free, however, I haven’t ever told you about my biggest panic attack and what it was like.  I was hoping to write about it and share what has helped get me to where I am today, but after I wrote this, I decided to split it up. This post is already long without the added tips.  That will be the next thing I write about!

I have experienced quite a few panic attacks over the past year.  The worst one, however, happened last semester during one of my physics quizzes.  Just a quiz, not a test…seems a little silly, doesn’t it?  Well, it wasn’t!  Last semester was a rough one.  I was only taking two classes (physics and anatomy, both of which had labs) but was being weighed down by the pressure of not dropping the ball in order to keep my spot for PT school.  I had already been accepted into a PT program and they only drop you if you don’t pass your classes.  I was a 3.81 student who had never fallen below a B.  It was very unlikely I wouldn’t pass my classes, but still, the thought of coming so far only to mess up in the end and not make it into PT school really got to me.  

Physics wasn’t my strongest class.  I had gotten an A the first semester and found the material to be pretty enjoyable, but by no means was I a physics superstar.  I didn’t do very well in my first quiz of the semester.  An 11/20.  OUCH.  But 1.) My professor throws out your lowest quiz at the end of the semester and 2.) He curves everyone’s quizzes at the end.  So although I had a rough start, I was still in very good shape to do well in the class.

Well, I knew going into my second quiz that I couldn’t bomb it like I did with the first one.  I could only throw out one quiz, and I was counting on it being the first.  Maybe it was the pressure of that, or maybe it was the fact that I had a tendency to panic in these situations, but for some reason, when I sat down to take the quiz my body began sounding the alarms for what would be my worst panic attack to date.

I sat down in my seat.   It didn’t help that my teacher was passing back our first test.  I didn’t know how I did on it.  I thought it was challenging, everyone thought it was.  The last thing I needed to see was that I bombed that too, so I decided not to look at it until my quiz was over.  Apparently that only made things worse.  I was anxious for the quiz and now I was anxious about how I did on the test. My friend kept trying to talk to me and I kept trying to listen but it’s hard to listen when all you can think is, “Oh God, I really need to do well on this quiz….I can’t bomb it like last time…what if I DO bomb it? Then I will have bombed two quizzes and probably this stupid test he’s handing back…what if THIS is the thing that keeps me from PT school…”   It was a typical downward spiral of thinking that always managed to kick off my panic attacks.  This type of thinking leads to my heart attempting to jump out of my chest and my inability to breathe like a normal human being….which now makes the downward spiral of thinking even worse…”Oh God, I’m starting to panic…I can’t panic…Noooo body, please don’t panic!” Vicious cycle. 

The quizzes were being passed out while I was trying to gather myself.  Nothing was working.  I looked at the quiz…three multiple choice questions and two small problems. I started on the first question.  It was easy!  I tried to take comfort in the fact that I knew a question but, unfortunately, due to my poor breathing skills, I was becoming light headed, my legs and arms were starting to flood with adrenaline, and my fingers and nose were starting to tingle. I was getting to the heart of the attack.  It didn’t matter that the following questions were also easy, I was now beginning to panic about the panic.

I quickly answered everything as best I could without examining anything very carefully. I didn’t care anymore, I just wanted to leave the room.  All the questions had seemed easy…I knew I was answering them well…why wasn’t my body easing up on me?!  I felt trapped. I couldn’t breathe.  I was scared out of my mind.  My head felt weird.  I felt sick. My nose was tingly and runny.  My legs felt heavy.  Freaked out by all of this, I finally got up and turned the quiz in.  It wasn’t like me to not double check everything, but how could I?  All my brain was telling me to do was to leave…to run.  

I walked back to my desk, grabbed my phone and quickly left the room.  Damn it…NEVER leave the situation!  It was my rule.  DON’T AVOID ANYTHING!!! The second you let yourself avoid things, the more things you’ll start to fear.  It didn’t matter.  This panic attack was worse…it wasn’t going away when it normally would.  It hadn’t subsided after I saw the quiz was easy.  What was going on?! 

I headed down the hallway, hurrying to make it to the door to the outside.  I couldn’t see straight.  It was the first time my vision had ever been affected.  “Just make it outside” I told myself.  I wasn’t sure that I could.  Then it hit me…”I’m not going to make it to the door…I’m going to pass out and somebody is going to have to find me here in the hallway.”  I wobbled closer to the door.  So close.  “Just your eyes open!” I kept begging myself.

I reached the door, made it outside then slumped along the wall.  I quickly texted my boyfriend, who was across campus, to come meet me and that I thought I was going to pass out.  A few minutes later I heard his footsteps as he ran the six flights of stairs to get to me.  Sweet, I know, but I couldn’t thank him…I was just trying to breathe. 

Then came the tears. I sat there crying.  I kept trying to explain what happened to my boyfriend, but had to keep stopping mid-sentence.  I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t stop crying, and I felt nauseous.  This was nothing new for my boyfriend.  He had sat with me plenty of times before as I sat on the bathroom floor of my apartment, hands to my head, sobbing and asking, “why does this keep happening to me?!”. He had learned from past experience not to try to distract me; that the additional stimulus of his words just added more chaos to my panicked brain.  He knew not to hug me; that I already felt trapped and that hugging only made me feel more so.  So he just sat there by my side until I told him I couldn’t go back to class.  I hadn’t missed class before due to panic…I had pushed myself through other rough days, but I just couldn’t fight back this time.  The panic wasn’t subsiding as much as it had in the past.  He had to go and grab my things from the room and come back outside to meet me. I felt pathetic.

I sat along the wall for quite a while until I could feel the attack start to wear off.  I started trembling, shivering.  As uncomfortable as the feeling is, the trembling is always the last phase of my attacks, so I’ve found comfort in their arrival.  Feeling the trembling kick in made me ease up a bit.  I was starting to joke with my boyfriend again, mainly about what a psycho I was.  I even swiped his iPad away from him so I could play games on it.  

I eventually found the energy to leave the building and walk with my boyfriend to his car.  When we got there, I unzipped my backpack and pulled out my test.  I hadn’t looked at it yet, and feeling much bolder about looking at it than I had before, I flipped it over.  I got an A.  Turns out I probably should have looked at it before my quiz.  It probably would have spared me the panic attack, or at least would have lessened it to some degree.  As for the quiz, well, you can’t ever doubt your ability to succeed even with a panic attack.  I’ve actually found that I perform better at multiple choice questions during an attack since I’m too worked up to over analyze every question.  I, surprisingly, got a 20 out of 20 on my quiz.  

So that, my friends, is the story of my worst panic attack.  Oh and even after it’s done it still finds ways to haunt you.  Once you experience it, all you can think about is how you never want to experience it again.  It made every quiz, test, and lab practical 1000 times harder to walk into.  But, with that being said, I did get through it.  I’m hoping to write a post on the tips I took to overcome all of this. I’m hoping it helps….it certainly helped me! 🙂

 

Overcoming Cadaver Lab

Three weeks ago from this past Friday I stood on the “safe side” of the curtain in wet lab.  I stood there crying as I told my TA that I just didn’t want to go in and see the cadavers.  It had suddenly hit me that there was a real possibility that I COULDN’T do it.  I was terrified to say the least.  It was a year’s worth of anxiety and dread all converging onto one day.  I couldn’t believe the day had finally come…that I was standing where I was, drowning in my oversize lab coat and clutching my clipboard to my chest.  I had envisioned the moment a million times, in a million different ways.  Rarely did I picture myself surviving the experience.

 “I’m just going to take my time going in,” I told the TA. “I promise, I won’t let myself fall behind.”  It’s not in me to let myself fall behind, yet I somehow doubted myself in this case. “You won’t let yourself fall behind?! How the hell are you going to avoid falling behind when you can’t even walk into the lab with the cadavers?!” I thought to myself.  Seriously, how was I expecting to pass a class that consisted of quizzes and exams that involved cadavers if I couldn’t even look at them?!  The TA looked concerned.  It’s physical therapy school.  It moves fast.  It doesn’t take long to fall behind and I was off to an incredibly slow start.

As I mentioned in my previous posts, I wound up walking in and eventually seeing the bodies.  Each day in lab has proven to be more successful than the last.  Only 3 weeks and I’ve conquered so much!  It was the quiz last Friday that would determine just how far I have come.

I got my dry lab quiz score a couple days ago.  A 23.5 out of 24.  Not bad at all! I thought dry lab was harder than wet lab, so I was pleased to find that I still managed to do very well.  The wet lab part of the quiz was still being graded and I was anxiously waiting to see how I did….

26 out of 24

Yes, over 100%.  Unbelievable.  I somehow managed to surprise even myself.

Three weeks ago I stood there crying in lab and saying I wouldn’t let myself fall behind while fully doubting those words as they came out of my mouth.  I stand here, three weeks later, a stronger, braver, more confident person than I’ve ever been.  I didn’t let myself fall behind. I pushed myself and got ahead. I was the the least likely to succeed.  I was the one everyone knew about…the girl that couldn’t handle cadaver lab…the one who cried the first day…the one who the professors have to check up on every now and then to make sure she’s okay.

I’ll always be that person.  Yes, I couldn’t handle cadaver lab.  I still don’t like the idea of going in.  I can’t take back the fact that I cried the first day.  And the professors will continue to ask me if I’m doing okay (mainly because I always look like I’m going to pass out).  But I’m adding something new to the list….I’m going to be the girl that fought her way over the obstacle.   And if it takes all those negative things to form this one positive one, then it was all worth it.  I’m quite happy with this new person I’m starting to become 🙂

 

“Success isn’t how far you got, but the distance you traveled from where you started.”

-Steve Prefontaine

 

 

**I see that I’ve been getting some visitors to the site through searches on cadaver lab.  If you have any questions…let me know!  I’ve been in your shoes!

Fibularis Tertius and Studying For My First Anatomy Midterm!

It’s been a long couple of days.

I have my first midterm of PT school tomorrow and it’s in anatomy.  I swear, anatomy just keeps on coming.  Week 3 we had a lecture quiz.  Week 4 we had a lab quiz.  Now, in week 5, we have our first midterm. 

I had saved my last few lectures to cover this weekend since I was studying for the anatomy lab quiz and it wasn’t covering the last couple of lectures.  I should have started studying on Friday night, but I was so burnt out from the lab quiz that I decided to give myself the night off.  Since then it has been non-stop studying.  I have so much anatomy in my brain right now I’m afraid if I sneeze it’ll all come out!

So the last bit I’ve been studying has been the foot.  I haven’t even had the chance to go over the older lectures…I’m just hoping my studying for the quiz on those lectures will be good enough.  The foot has pretty much taken over my weekend.  It is one complicated region of the body…and it’s pissing me off.

Last night I couldn’t sleep from all my studying.  I had physical therapy school thoughts swirling around in my mind.  I kept waking up gasping for air because my stress induced sleep apnea was kicking in.  I went to sleep around 2 and got up at 8:30 to meet my mom for a run.  I needed it!  But ever since then, it has been me and the 4 layers of muscles that make up the foot. 

Sadly, well no, I’m actually legitimately very excited about this, but for a normal person it’s kind of sad, the highlight of my day, shoot, WEEKEND, has been the fibularis tertius.  Not everyone has that muscle.  I was very excited for lab on Friday when we were going to find out if we did or not.  I was so hoping I would! But then I didn’t see it….kinda bummed me out…I wanted an extra muscle! 

So today when I was studying I looked down and what did I see? The fibularis tertius.  Guess I was too hopped up on xanax or something to see it in lab.  But I do have one and that has made up for the fact that I have had to study it all this weekend! 🙂

Cadaver Labs 5&6: First Anatomy Lab Quiz!!!

Today was my first anatomy lab quiz.  To prepare, I went into lab for a practice quiz on Tuesday then went into lab again yesterday to study with my friends.  Yes, 2 cadaver days this week with a 3rd one today.  Even better….I did both days without my half a pill of xanax!  So I was pretty excited.

Going into lab twice before my Friday class felt like a huge accomplishment.  I never pictured myself going into lab when I wasn’t expected to, but I did!  Although I felt the practice quiz and study session were very helpful, I think I maxed out on my tolerance for cadaver lab this week.  Something about going into cadaver lab for a THIRD time this week, especially when I was still getting used to having to go in once week, bothered me.

I woke up this morning and instantly felt the nerves kick in.  Ugh, 2 days in a row of cadavers…and today is the quiz.  My class wasn’t until 1:30, and I didn’t have my usual appointment with my counselor, so I had saved a few small things to study at the last minute.  I could feel the nervous energy creeping in, so I grabbed my notes and got on a stationary bike.  I biked for 30 minutes, which worked to drain a lot of my excess energy.  I showered then returned to studying.  I started to feel my nerves kick back in as I was just finishing my studying.  Wonderful! So I fixed myself a cup of chamomile tea and did my 15 minutes of progressive relaxation.  Ahhhh MUCH better!

I got to school and sat with a few of my classmates.  A couple of them had heard from students in the earlier class that the quiz was very similar, possibly easier, than the practice quiz we had been given. I thought I had done pretty well on the practice quiz, so I felt slightly at ease.  We moved to the hallway outside the lab and waited for the TAs to open the door.  The hallway was crowded and filled with nervous energy.  Every now and then I’d catch snippets of conversations between last minute crammers that made me doubt myself. “Yea, it reduces friction” I heard someone say.  What reduces friction?…Oh God, I don’t know!!! “What reduces friction?!” I frantically asked.  Oh, hyaline cartilage.  Makes sense, it’s on the articular surfaces of joints.  Duh.

I could tell that everything around me was starting to get to me, making my nervousness worse.  I started to feel lightheaded and my fingers began to tingle.  Well hello there panic attack….I should have known you’d come around one of these days.  I had taken my half a pill of xanax 15 minutes before…why isn’t it working at least a little bit?  Oh my God, what if it doesn’t start working and I panic during the quiz…with the cadavers…oh God…the cadavers….a quiz AND cadavers!!!  Just days before I had jokingly told my friends how I had panic attacks last semester in undergrad over quizzes and that cadavers make me panicky…so a quiz involving cadavers must equal the most epic panic attack ever! I was only being silly, but now I was starting to think that maybe I was really in for the big one.  I looked over at my friends and started babbling on about, “my hands…my hands are tingling…why isn’t my xanax working?…OMG I DON’T want to panic NOW!…ooooh I’m light headed…do you think I need a the 2nd half of the pill?…I’m sorry guys!  I just want you to know that I’m not panicking because I don’t feel ready, I just don’t do well with the nerves.  But know that we are prepared for this…don’t let me freak you out!”  At that point my one friend stepped in and told me to take the other pill and that that way I’d know for sure it was in my system by the time I got to the cadavers.  And the second I popped that baby in…instant relief!  No, xanax doesn’t work THAT fast…but my mind thinks it does (I’m the perfect candidate for placebo studies!).

I started off in dry lab.  I felt much better once I started writing down a few answers.  The worst part was that my stomach was growling the whole time.  I then moved to the wet lab which I felt was easier than the dry lab.  I didn’t feel bothered at all by the cadavers.  At one point I saw one of their skull caps just laying out on the table.  “Eh, skull cap..” I thought to myself and then moved on as if I hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary.  Sheesh, sometimes I just love xanax.

All in all I think I did well.  It’s hard to totally say when you have such little time to identify structures/give their origins, insertions and innervations…you could easily mess up and not know it.  I was a little bummed about taking the second half of the xanax.  I was so proud of myself that I didn’t take xanax at all the other two times I was in lab, so to have to take a whole pill was a bit discouraging.  I did, however, give myself the benefit of the doubt.  I took a big quiz with cadavers…that’s scary!  So if that’s the only time I have to take my pill, fine by me! 

 

And so cadaver labs 5 and 6 ended on pretty interesting notes.  Day 5 ended with me actually seeing the cadaver who has the same colored nails as mine…not something I was hoping to see.  My friend tried to cover it up but was a half a second too late.  I told some people in the dry lab that I saw the nails and that one of our classmates said my nails reminded me of the cadaver.  One of my classmates responded with, “maybe that’s your future self and you’ve come back to learn what is wrong with yourself so you can change it and save yourself from dying!” Thanks, now every time I see that particular cadaver I’m going to think of myself dead.  Day 6 ended with one of the TAs telling me to take a good look at one of the cadavers knee implants since that’s going to me when I get older (I have a really crunch knee…not popping or clicking…like rice crispy treats being stepped on).  So again, yet another cadaver to envision myself as.  Oh, and then there was that REALLY lovely thing my TA pointed out at the end of lab…he showed us how one of the cadavers nails were still growing…to which I responded with, “EWWWW!!!!!! Now that concludes my lab experience for today!!!” as I quickly turned and headed for the door.  And since everyone knows I’m the girl who hates cadavers, they all started cracking up.  Hey, if my phobia gets people to laugh then at least it has a positive 🙂

You’ve Been Through Worse, Trust Me

Imagine this…

You’re laying in bed, all snuggled up in your blankets.  You’re nice and warm and all cozy.  Next thing you know your liver is growing….and your brain….and your heart.  They are getting bigger and bigger and BIGGER!!! Meanwhile, your G.I. tract is running out of room.  It doesn’t want to get squished, so it looks for a way to escape.  Where does it go?  It pops outside of your body.  Great, now you have your organs just hanging outside of your body! But hey, your ever-growing heart and brain, and liver didn’t squish your guts…that’s a positive, right?……right???

Sounds like a horror movie….or something from House.  It sounds absolutely horrible, disgusting, and gruesome.  Now if you had to choose between the experience you’re going through now and one like what I just described to you, do you think maybe the things in your life right now don’t seem AS bad? I’d definitely go through my rough year with a panic disorder all over again just to save myself from the horror of having my guts pop outside of me.

What’s that you say?  It’s hard to compare the two when one is something that you’re currently going through and one was some impossible situation made up by some stupid girl on the internet?  Well, I have news for you my friends…1.) I didn’t make it up…2.) It isn’t impossible…and….before I get you all panicked over whether or not it’s going to happen to you…3.) It’s happened to you before.

Around 10 weeks after your conception, your little body popped its guts outside of you to save them from being squished by your other organs.  I learned that today in developmental anatomy. I was in complete awe as I heard this and watched as my teacher skipped to the next slide of her notes with a picture of a fetus with its little guts hanging out.  And this is where I got the idea that, “wow, I have truly been through much, MUCH worse”.  Granted, I was just a tiny little blob, and I have no recollection of it, but honestly….YOUR GUTS POPPED OUT OF YOU AND THEN MANAGED TO POP BACK IN…and you are a fully functioning human being today!

So the next time life gets you down or things aren’t going your way, just remind yourself that you’ve been through much worse.  And go read a developmental anatomy book…if only you knew how absolutely CRAZY the process is for making you who you are today you’d see 1.) just how fortunate you are to have had most of those steps go as planned 2.) how precious life is and 3.) just how amazing you really are! 🙂