Tri-3, Wk13, Days 189 & 190, Wed & Thur

My attitude has been rather lackluster lately. For most of today I've just been thinking I want to get off this Merry-go-round. I want it to stop, I want this to be over. Normally, I don't think I'd blog such despair but I also realize that one reason I wanted to complete the program at Logan and become a DC was that such completion would necessarily force me to become a better person and I have learned throughout my life that it usually works best if I am in a situation where I'm forced to improve and that's certainly where I find myself now... forced to improve.

Metaphorically speaking, I feel like I'm clinging to a buoy out in the ocean and clinging for dear life, just waiting for the 17th of December to come save me and hope that I don't ingest too much sea water & drown before being rescued.

Anyway, blogging the truth about how I feel can serve as a baseline for where I'm at right now and, hopefully, (ideally?) I won't be downtrodden with so much despair in future trimesters.

I've got three classes which could sink me - Pathology, Diversified & Microbiology. Tomorrow I have an opportunity to gain some ground with Pathology and I feel like I should get no lower than a C on tomorrow's test which would be fantastic. Micro is kind of in the middle - it will sink me if I fail either of the remaining two test or don't pass the lab portion of the class. My Diversified final practical is on Monday so I still have time to mount some kind of defense and hopefully get my grade up a notch or two.

I could really use some people to practice on for Orthopedics this weekend.

OK, what's new with pathology? I'm still going over Immunity stuff here and I think I've got down some of the immune deficiency diseases

• XLA, Brunton's dz - the XLA stands for X-linked agammaglobulinemia which seems like a mouthful until you break it down a bit - recall the 'a' stands for "without" so, we're without gamma globulin in the blood - the emia part always seems to refer to blood. The disease makes a bit more sense w/ a picture (guess I'm a visual type learner) but, the B cells never quite make it out of the bone marrow with this disease which is why you don't find much of their consequences out in the blood.
• CVI - (or CVID) - Common Variable Immunodeficiency dz - with this dz the B cells make it out of the bone marrow but not much further. Instead of agammaglobulinemia we have hypogammaglobulinemia. which is to say instead of without that stuff, we have hypo or low gamma globulin in the blood.
• Isolated IgA Deficiency - this is the most common of the immunological deficiency diseases and occurs in about 1 out of 600 people and it's asymptomatic - ...there's that letter 'a' at the beginning of the word again so, it literally means "without symptoms".
• DiGeorge or Thymic hypoplasia - this is a defect in the thymus gland itself and that's where T cells grow up to become adult T cells.
• SCIDS - Severe Combined Immunodeficiency - This is really bad. Do you remember that show, the Boy in the Bubble? I think John Travolta may have played that little kid in the bubble. With this dz, the stem cells with the potential to be either B or T cells is thwarted at the very beginning.

....OK, I've got 1 week to get everything submitted for Part I of National Boards. I learned today that the $510 fee for those test has to be paid by a money order. I have no idea what the policy is if I don't pass all my classes in Tri-3.

I do know, assuming I pass everything, that I'll be going to Logan for 19 days in a row to begin my fourth trimester because the Irene Gold study sessions are from 3-8 p.m. on Friday and from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sat & Sunday. Then, I'll have two days off then another 12 days in a row because of the third study session. I did work out the issue of getting my application filled out and printed properly so now I just need to get a photo taken in our Media department at school then get the money order so I can submit everything to the registrars office.

To be licensed, a chiropractor needs to pass a series of four national boards test along with physiotheraphy. The areas to be tested in Part I include General Anatomy, Embryology, Spinal Anatomy, Physiology, Chemistry, Pathology, Microbiology and Public Health