Happy Birthday!

I know this might become very routine, and I might not be excited about it in a few. There are some moments ...
Al through third year of medical school, you follow the residents/nurses around, hoping to get to do something - set an IV line, close the skin incision in a surgery, check a patient's cervixor whatever it takes.
Specifically on OB/Gyn rotation, you hope that there's a delivery so you can deliver the placenta or someone actually lets you assist while delivering a patient.
I've had my fair share of placental delivery, and delivered a baby or two with assistance (you have to find the resident who'll allow you or the nurse that's not too cranky {the nurses deserve a whole post of their own!}).
So today, I was on the Labor and Delivery floor, the residents had class, so it was the students working with the attending. I had a patient come in in active labor, and I was excited about the opportunity of a vaginal delivery. When it was time to push, I was all gowned up and standing there. The nurse that had the patient is well known as a particularly cranky nurse who is not too pleased about students "messing with" her patient. As I put my hand to the vagina, she shooed me off and beckoned to the attending.
The attending then came to stand there, and I put my hand back there while she was pushing. The attending didnt say anything, so I proceeded to deliver the head, freed the anterior shoulder, and posterior shoulder, and baby was out!
The attending was pretty much assisting me in suctioning the baby, cutting the cord, and I managed to hand off the baby to the pediatricians....without dropping the baby! Lol!

This was my first unassisted delivery, and I guess what made the difference was:
1. Confidence: with confidence you can do almost anything- or bs your way through anything (not like Im saying I bs'ed my way, but if you're being pimped and you guess an answer with confidence, usually most people dont challenge you). Anyways, I think because I moved with purpose, the attending felt comfortable letting me deliver the baby.
I also delivered the placenta...and she had no tears!
2. Talk to the hand nurses!: sorry to my RN readers, but nurses, especially L&D nurses are notorious for having a funky attitude! They wont let you do anything with a patient, but when you come back 6 months later as an intern, they start expecting you to do/know stuff! like how am I supposed to know how to check a patient if I never did it before? schhheeew!

...ok, so I've lost my train of thoughts now, I'm on call and its 12:50am!

When a blogger dies...

Yesterday, I was on the bbm with one of my friends. He was telling me about his friend that died. I asked the usual questions, sent my condolences, and got back to what I was doing. hours later, I found out on twitter that he was dead. A few minutes later, I realize that he was the friend my friend was referring to. It took a minute to sink in.
His was one of the first blogs I happened upon when I started blogging, and also my first and biggest blog crush. I didnt get to meet him, and I only got to find out his true identity yesterday (which is partly why he was my biggest blog crush)

So the question remains, how do you know when a blogger dies? Especially when someone has not updated their blog in months...or even years?

When I first began blogging (feels so good to say that, like I've been at it for ages instead of a lousy four months) I had visions of having a wide, diverse readership, of writing such powerful, thought-provoking pieces, influenceing the world with my ideas and ideals, providing a forum for the misdirected, uninspired louts from whose ranks I had risen, to be heard everywhere around the globe...(well, apparently, that ain't happening... - Ozaveshe

Nonso, you influenced a lot of people with your writings, and you'll forever live on through your words.
Rest in Peace, The cunning Linguist.

Judging a book by its cover

one thing I find myself doing - a habit I'm trying to kick- is judging people before I get to know them. I see someone, and after one, or sometimes no encounter, I determine that I'm not going to like this person. More often than not, I end up talking to these people and end up being best of friends with them! not friendly friend, not acquaintance, but bffs!



my BFF in high school was someone like that. I actually dont know why i didnt like her, but one day when we were changing dormitories, I was looking for someone to help me carry my locker. All my "friends" were nowhere to be found, she asked me to help her, and i said I hadnt moved mine yet. After a couple of hours, it seemed that noone would help us move our lockers, so we decided to move hers together and then move mine. That was the birth of a friendship that lasted over 6 years! It turned out that we were in the same class. I cant talk about my boarding house memories without mentioning her. we lost contact after i transfered schools in ss1.



Another friend that I refer to as the love of my life, my haitian lover(she actually owes me her first two kids :0) is another example. When we started med school, she just looked "mean" to me, and I just decided I wasnt going to like her. She became friends with some of my friends, and as such we had to interact. Inevitably we became close, and even closer than our mutual friends.



I can give examples for days- of classmates turned bestfriends, blogges turned best buddies. Its so bad that nowadays when i go "i dont think I like him/her" that little inner voice reminds me that that's my next bff!



Its a habit I'm trying to kick. Afterall we're all human. Reach out to that person who you think is so annoying, and that could be your future chief bridesmaid!

Life as a fourth year

I'm reading Chimamanda Adichie's "The thing around your neck" for the first time. I've had that book for almost a year now. Yesterday night, I finished "The 19th Wife". I've had that book for over 2 years now. It feels good to be a fourth year!

USMLE STEP 1 .....check
This is the first part in the 3 part licensing exam. most people typically take it at the end of their second year.

USMLE STEP 2 CK........check
9 h0ur exam you take typically at the end of your third year of medical school

USMLE STEP 2 CS .........check
an 8 hour exam where you see fake patients like you were in a real clinic and then examine them, write a note with your findings, diagnosis and plan.

ERAS application........check
the residency application.



all thats left is to wait for the interview offers to pile in. I really think i should blog more often...

Finding my inner Dougie

Its 2:32am, the morning before my big exam, and I'm on youtube trying to learn how to dougie.


*rewind*


See, I wouldn't call myself a party animal, I go to the occassional naija house parties here and there and also my class parties. Whenever I go to parties - especially house parties- I try to have a good time. I'll dance my heart out, you know and generally have fun. I dont think Im a great dancer or anything, but I normally attract a lot of male attention when dancing and have gotten in trouble because of it. I think it has something to do with enjoying yourself on the dance floor that attracts guys- you should try it. Anyways, so I went to this house party and I was dancing feeling like a bad girl, when the "Teach me how to Dougie" song came on


*screetch*

Baby girl didnt know how to dougie! I mean I can do the stanky leg, swag and surf, walk it out, even the chicken noodle soup, but I realized I couldnt dougie! I felt so old, and I resolved that night to learn how to dougie, by fire by force. Never mind that its the day before my test, but I get on youtube, and I'm watching the official video of the song when I realized that THEY NEVER TEACH YOU HOW TO DOUGIE! in the whole video!
maybe this whole dougie thing is a scam!

I promtly registered my complaint on twitter and I got this response:

@LadyKrysMD: u can't technically "learn" how to dougie, u gotta find it! every1 has an inner dougie! sum are just hidin deeper than others! @bumight

So, I'm on a mission - the search for my inne dougie. If Chris Brown can find his inner dougie, so can I!



If Don Jazzy can find his inner dougie (3:50 in the video), So Can I!




PS: it seems this inner dougie is buried deeper than I thought. *now moving to drastic measures*....by the way, I hear Banky W is still looking for his inner dougie as well!

Medical Foods and Bed Intruder

seems like the people who named things back then had a food fetish or something...
there are a lot of diseases or pathology states that are described using foods. eg the appearance of a child that has congenital rubella is referred to as "blueberry muffin" baby.

Imagine this conversation in a restaurant:

Hi can I have a cup of tea colored urine?
Oh, sorry we're fresh out. Can I interest u in a cup of coca-colored urine?
That would be fine but can I have that with a blueeberry nevus?
Sure! As long as u don't mind a side order of anchovy paste aspirate?
How about a nutmeg liver as a main course?
Very good. Would u like a strawberry cervix on top of a chocolate cyst for desert?
To top it all off, how about a nice cherry hemangioma?
Tasty! Don't forget my cafe-au-lait spots.
- All courtesy: Conrad Fisher, M.D.


coca-cola colored or tea colored urine: blood in uurine
blueberry nevus -
anchovy paste aspirate- aspirate from a liver cyst of someone with a liver cyst
nutmeg liver - how the liver looks if there is too much fluid in it
strawberry cervix - how the cervix looks with trichomonas vaginalis infection
chocolate cyst - the appearance of the ovary when there is endometrial cells in it (bleeding into the ovary kinda)
cherry hemangioma - click on the link for pictures

This was on the news a while ago...




Now Listen to this:

I survived!

I know its been a while since I last blogged, but at the rate things are going, blogging is one of the farthest things from my mind (sowee). Aside from the fact that this year, I never sat at my computer like before, I just had no motivation to blog, and twitter....(lets just leave it at that).

One thing that always scared me about junior year in med school was the fact that the school year runs for 12 calender months. So that means NO SUMMER BREAK! I used to think that would be hard, but I've done it, and I survived! I actually didnt even know when summer started and ended. My life was divided into rotations, so I didnt even realize that I didnt have a summer break.

For senior year, we dont get public holidays or snow breaks. While that seems harsh, Im one week into it and I realize that its not so hard either. I'm gonna go hard for 4 months and basically chill out the rest of the year (this should be fun!....except the little bugger known as the match)

I know I promised to give a breakdown about how the year went, and I have a feeling if I dont do it in this post, its never going to be done. so here goes

Pediatrics: My first ever rotation, and so I was still over-eager and green around the ear. This was where I made all the mistakes, learnt how to write notes, see patients, deal with crying kids. The most notable thing here was I became buddies with an attending that I was scared of, and she ended up writing me a recommendation letter.

Psychiatry: fondest memories. I used to be scared to enter the psych department at first (I still am) but then I found out it wasnt all bad. Had a couple of male patients hit on me, lol.
Most memorable patient was a guy who just got out of prison after 18 years and was admitted because he was going to commit suicide. I was talking to him on the first day and I said "...when there's life there's hope...", and he went "its easier for you to say that, you're young, pretty, gonna become a doctor, got ur whole life ahead of u...". I felt bad, but we later became friends, and he used to look forward to me coming to see him in the mornings.

Family Medicine: CHILLING! I had 3 day weekends throughout this month *sigh* good ol' days! This rotation made me feel like a real doctor, cos I saw patients, wrote prescriptions, did exams and all that.

Surgery: ...and it all went downhill from here - tired days, persistently sleepy, overnight calls. I thought I was interested in surgery. I loved to scrub in for cases (even though all i did was hold retractors, lol) and then I realized surgery wasnt suited for me...then I chilled out.

OB/GYN: almost as bad as surgery (long days, overnight calls, etc) but I LOVED IT! There was always something happening on call nights so it wasnt too tiring....then I saw my first delivery and I was g-r-o-s-s-e-d o-u-t! Scrubbed in on my first c-section, got to suture. Assisted in more deliveries that were not as gross.
Fondest memories (apart from suturing :) ) was a woman whom I was assisting in her delivery. She had opted for no epidural and was taking it like a G. Her husband was in the reclining chair (prolly on twitter or texting). I had to hold this woman's hand through each contractions (yes, they almost break your fingers) for almost 2 hours till it was time to gown up for the delivery. She was going to give me something after, maybe Mary kay cosmetics, but I conveniently disappeared.

Internal Medicine: I wont even lie, I was bored out of my mind. I dont even want to talk about it. Maybe because it was my last rotation, and I was already burnt out, but I wasnt excited about it at all.

o well, third year is over, and I survived! yippee!






PS: I'm thinking of going into blogging retirement. what y'all think?

A series of random events...

* In a little more than a month's time, I'll officially be an MS 4. Looking back at it now its amazing how far I've come since the beginning of this academic year. This is really it because all of fourth year is just pretty much applying for residency and showing them what a good resident you can be.

* speaking of fourth year, in three months time, the applications for residency opens up, and from then on its gonna be a nerve wrecking process till March when you find out if you have a job or not. After you put in your applications, u sit around and wait for interview offers, then off you go on the interview trail and then in March, you find out if you matched. The whole process ends in "The match". I'll most likely blog about it in details later

* I promise I'll put up a post summarizing my experiences for the whole year. the good, the bad, the funny parts of pediatrics, psychiatry, surgery, ob/gyn, family and internal medicine. I might have to break it into parts.

*there might be a man....dont want to blog about it :D

* Naija in this World cup ehn? anyways, I guess its time to claim my argentinian heritage! you didnt know? my long weave-like hair should have clued you in!

*Nominations for Category B are up and running! hope you've nominated me for the next big anonymous paparazzi hottest friendliest celebrity blogger award? This is calling all my readers, followers, lurkers, subscribers, effryting effryting to go here ---> Category B nominations and nominate me for all 30 categories - ok, I'll take 29, :)

* After a tough struggle, The LA Lakers are the 2010 NBA champions! let's pop something!!!!!! after nearly giving me high blood pressure, I'm glad we won!

* I got another email from yinka (hope you're blulshing multicolor now? lol)

The Happiest blogger ever!

On Sunday, I was sitting in church, playing with my phone as usual (father forgive me!) when I received an email from an unknown person. At first I thought it was one of my recent toasters (lol!) but the last name was different. I read the email and proceeded to tweet the email in its entirety! I was beaming like I just won a million dollars.

You see, when I blog, I dont do it for anybody, I dont expect commendations. quite frankly, I mostly blog when I'm stressed out with so many exams (which was kinda why I blogged more in the first two years of medical school). This whole blog started out as a form of stress relief (like I've said lots of time) now sounding like a broken record, I signed up on blogger.com in the middle of my orientation for med school when someone said "you will not have a life, people in your life will not understand why you cant hang out with them again..." And so, I opened this blog to "get away from med school". If I couldnt go out to hang with friends, I hung out with my "computer friends" (like solomonsydelle likes to call it). I laughed with you guys, cried with you guys, sometimes I felt closer to my blog friends than my real life friends.

Anyways, here's the email I received.

Bunmi,
I think am not wrong addressing you as such; your blog nick is actually ripe with suggestions of your firstname !

I am Olayinka and I have spent the last coupla hours reading every piece on www.bumight.com .I may not be able to define why you write yet but I must say I had a beautiful time and not one of the pieces failed to tickle my fancy...just how interesting you are !

Your writtings have kept me company this wonderful sunday and I wanted you to know.

Hope the roads rise to meet you in the coming week Bumight M.....(in a coupla months I will add the D)

Olayinka


I, with my big mouth went and tweeted: " I am humbled and tickled beyond words. This is so much more than any blog award!", to which @goodnaijagirl replied " does this mean if you win a blog award, we can give it to the person who makes second place?"

So i think I jinxed myself, Leggy, Ego du Jour and Myne Whitman, that was the only reason you guys won in my categories! that's my story and I'm sticking to it
For real though, congrats guys. even though I didnt win, I wont say im not disappointed, but like I said on d award site, I shall go and comfort myself in baroka's arms! :D


That's my own blog award in that email up there, and so I'm the happiest blogger ever!

Will we ever get along?

Health care is increasingly becoming more of a team work, than a personal sport. Its not all about the doctor anymore, the physical therapist, social worker, nurses and even medical students are all vital parts of this team. Everybody has their own parts to play, the doctor ultimately makes decision about patient care but medical students have been known to take stellar histories and discover things about patients that the doctor or resident missed. Nurses are arguably the ones that spend the most time with the patients, and so could get to know the patient on a level that other team members cant.

However, one thing that I have noticed about nurses from my one year on rotations is that nurses notoriously don’t get along with medical students. Its like the Spartans and the xxx, Ife and Modakeke, Ruggedman and …

On my very first rotation, there was this nurse in the ED, we asked her for the key to the bathroom, and she gave my colleague a bunch of keys and highlighted one. We tried the key several times until I suggested we try others and after a few tries, we came up on the real key. The nurse was in a corner giggling to herself.

The nastiest nurses I’ve come across have been Ob nurses (nurses on Labor and Delivery) they always felt some sort of allegiance to their patients and almost made it their duty to keep the medical students away from the patients. I’m like “how am I supposed to learn if you wont let me interact with the patients!” These are the months where I’m supposed to learn stuff and when I come back as an intern, I would actually have an idea of what I’m doing.

Yeah, the nicest nurses I’ve encountered are the nurses on the medicine floors. They make you feel like part of the team. Some of them even refer to us as “doctor bumight” (yeah, such things are good for our egos J ) They would tell you everything about your patients such that it makes you look good on rounds. There have been cases like this

Medical student: “ excuse me, are u the nurse for Ms Shokolokobangoshe?’

Nurse; “yeah’

MS; “do you know if there was anything that happened with her overnight?”

Nurse: “nothing happened”

Then MS goes on rounds and reports that “in the past 24 hours, there were no acute events” only for the attending physician who was at home overnight to interject that “Nurse X told me that Ms Shokologobangoshe had a fever overnight, then her blood pressure tanked, and she was given IV fluids, and then she coded, so they had to run a code on her for 15 minutes before she was resuscitated”.

And MS is left looking like a fool! Not cool.

PS: I’m not anti-nurses o! I suspect that a good chunk of my readers (and fellow bloggers) are nurses. My mom is a nurse!

*Now preparing for the onslaught of nurses on me*

PS:

plix voting continues today, click on the picture above to vote for me! tainks!

When One becomes Two and other stories

I haven't listened in on the verastic show in a long time because of my schedule, so it was with great excitement that i signed on to listen to today's show. The topic was "When one becomes two" and was all about divorce. Vera had a male co-host who had been divorced twice.
At first it was interesting- and even funny, when callers seemed to be going in on the co-host (who shall henceforth be referred to as "Uncle Demola"). All of a sudden it was as if the plot of the show was just to crucify the poor dude for having been divorced twice. (Vera, you didnt stop your callers or make any move to rescue him so u are equally guilty *side eye*)

I have been on the chat box when we have talked about various topics that had to do with marriage, and because almost all the callers were single, we werent able to get a realistic view. I understand that the idea of having someone who has been through it, is to give us an sneak peak into the reality of divorce. Most of us say divorce is not an option, or its only an option if...., but we really dont know what we would do if we were in the same shoes.

Now, I'm no fan of divorce, and I believe that its only God that can keep a marriage intact. If you've been married for donkey years, its not by your doing. Many people marry the Loves of their lives, at the right time, with their pastor's blessings and still end up divorced or worse still living in an unhappy marriage. That uncle demola has been divorced twice OBVIOUSLY means he made a mistake somewhere and has been gracious to share his view/experience from an angle that most of us dont have.

I really took offence on his behalf (who send me?) for callers like Mustapha who made it a duty to interrogate- almost rudely, and nitpick at the man's life. I for one think a divorce is a very personal experience and even though he has agreed to be a co-host on the show it doesnt give us the right to interrogate him. He can choose how much to divulge or keep private, afterall he is not under oath or anything.


All that is a long ting, yours truly has been nominated in the Blog awards for:

• Best student blog
• Best use of social media
• Best designed blog

I am truly humbled to be nominated in those categories, that its enough even if i dont win. Especially since it was one nomination per blogger. Ok ees lie! i really really want to win *gets down on both knees clasping hands*
voting begins on Monday!

PS: I am not related to the co-host in any way o! I only started calling him "uncle" Demola because busola first called him so.
PPS: oh, and vote for my girl Avartsy Kitchen for best food blog! she got me trying out recipes that I wouldnt even have dared!

The Best Birthday Party Ever!

You have been invited to the hottest, baddest blogville party ever to take place in this parts. Yeah, its a surprise birthday party and all of blogville is in on it.
So here's how its going to go down. Funmsdrebirth and Mizchif will be responsible for making sure the celebrant doesn't find out about the surprise. They shall take her out shopping or whatever.
Meanwhile the rest of the crew will help set up. Miss LNQ, Tinuo, Juiceegal shall be in charge of arranging the hall and making sure that the cake that Ms O bakes is set in the right place. Avartsy Kitchen shall be supplying us with Jollof rice, Fried rice, designer stew, moi-moi, peppered gizzard and all other mede-medes. We shall import djdonx and djfineboy from twitter to take care of music, you know a party of this magnitude cant possibly survive on one dj.

Hexydre and Realnaijabloke shall organize the shayo and Jayla shall keep blazeotokpa away from the booze till the guests start arriving.


At exactly 6:00pm, the guests will start pouring in, and after waiting around and trying to beat them off the food, they shall be allowed to munch on the meatpie and sausage rolls that Ms. O has been gracious to bake just for this reason. A few minutes later, at 7:15pm, the celebrant shall come through the doors accompanied by the accomplices and the lights shall come on as everyone screams SURPRISE!

Jaycee shall proceed to bless the food, and after almost 5 full minutes of prayer, she shall be interrupted by everyone and the party shall start. Solomonsydelle shall attempt to give a speech about the celebrant but Sir Scribbles will interrupt, hype up the party and get people to the dance floor.

Then djdonx shall announce that its time for the celebrant to dance. then Ceberus, Doug, Fineboy Agbero and even Naijaleta shall all stand up from different corners of the room to dance with the celebrant. Sensing trouble, Makxxy, Fabulola, Temite and Vera shall swiflty move to the dancefloor and grab each of the guys respectively, thereby averting potential trouble, leaving the celebrant to dance with her boo, wande coal.

The twitter folks who have come to do "mo gbo mo branch" will be in one corner feeling fresh, , Maynezee, olalekt, ricdizzle. Ojia will arrive with all the twitter celebs of course! and maynezee shall be too busy scoping iamebuka to dance. 4eyedmonk and bubusn will be trying to recruit blogville babes Toluwa, exschoolnerd and goodnaijagirl to their PWAN mansion but Seyekuyinu and baroka will be marking them, heavily!. Medianemesis will be trying to toast Aeedible who will not be listening because djfineboy just dropped vocal slender's hit single and she wants to shake her tail feather!

people dont forget to drop your gifts by the corner!

Happy Birthday to me!!!

I hate...

There are many moments in your medical school “career” that you would think back with fondness, loathing, anger, resentment – or whatever emotion it evokes in you.

Last month, I was privileged to be part of the team taking care of one of the patients. She wasn’t my first choice for patients, but I picked her up as a patient. This middle aged woman presented with nausea and vomiting, abdominal distention. Turns out she had liver cancer mets (meaning the cancer did not arise primarily in the liver but was from some other site). For over 2 weeks before I took her on as a patient, she was already receiving “treatment” in the hospital. By the time she became my patient, she was really sick.

One thing one of the doctors n the hospital said to me and which has stayed with me- cos you know a lot of things hover with u for seconds- was “Do you know how cancer kills you? You die from the failure of the organ involved”

So For instance, if you have lung cancer, the cancer cells outgrow ur normal lung cells, your lungs fail, and you die from respiratory failure. Obviously if you have breast cancer, you don’t die from breast failure, but the cancer cells can spread to other organs and cause failure of those organs.

This lady had liver cancer, so we were essentially treating her liver disease. The liver clears your toxic waste (eg. Ammonia), makes your proteins, and clotting factors. Her ammonia levels were building up, and when these go to your brain, your mental status decreases. Her protein levels were low, so she was swollen everywhere.

Every morning, I dreaded going in to see her, examine her, knowing that there was really nothing I could do. She was in constant pain all the time, and even with the pain meds she was getting, her moans were hard to ignore. She had her children beside her for most of the time. It was just heart wrenching to watch.

She gave up the ghost on my last day of the rotation.

Last week, I started a new rotation, oncology. There was another patient with a similar presentation- almost exact. The only difference was he wasn’t as out of it as the previous lady was. He could talk, and wasn’t as sick. He decompensated in a couple of days, and this morning, we found out that he had passed.

I hate cancer!

we knew what it was baby...

Every morning when I wake up, I push "play" on the iHome box sitting on my bathroom sink. There's a couple of songs I listen to while taking a shower and getting ready for the hospital, Omoba by Dprince, Kondo by DaGrin , Feeling It by Banky W, and any other songs I get to before I have to leave the house. I dont know if I'll be able to play that sequence again- at least for a while.

I'm hardly overly moved by celebrity deaths, and to be quite honest, I didnt get why people were crying when MJ passed. I mean, it was not like you knew him personally. Inasmuch as I dont get starstruck, there are a handful of artistes that make me go ga-ga: TI (we're getting married), Wande Coal (need I explain?) and DaGrin. I cant count the number of people I have shoved Kondo down their throats till they liked it (no pun intended). Even some of my Ibo friends who have no idea what he's saying.

Two artistes I respect are 9ice and DaGrin, for not being scared to do their work in the indiginous languages. I dont mean the customary yoruba sayings here or there just so your song can claim street credibility. Those two went hard on the language, 9ice for the deep sturves he sang about that made me brush up my yoruba notes and DaGrin for being so ill with his lines despite the fact that he was rapping in Yoruba.

The first song I heard was "Ghetto Dreams" and I was blown away by the verse

Mo ni dream lati believe bi Pastor Chris I have a dream to believe like Pastor Chris
but mo wa carried away pel'efizzi Ludacris But I'm carried away by the Effizi of Ludacris
Mo ni dream lati mo we bi Wole Soyinka I have a dream to be booksmart like Wole Soyinka
but problem ti mo ni, awon sisi yi mi ka But problem is there are a lot of chicks around

I was hooked immediately! i thought it was sheer talent. Then I listened to Kondo, and I just lost it. I played that song multiple times daily, and i still play it everyday. I've also had to explain (or translate) to people what the kondo is.

This morning, I was on my way to the hospital, and Kondo came up on my ipod, and all of a sudden I couldnt see. I didnt know why I was crying. I might have to reselect my morning songs.

RIP the man who told us what to do when our moms go to the market and our dads have gone to Lokoja. You'll live on forever on our ipods.

Your Speech Betrays You...

Surely you also are one of them, for your speech betrays you (Matt. 26:73).

How many times have you tried to deny you're nigerian, you might even be able to get away with it for a few minutes with your yankee/brit/canadian accent, until someone spots your name tag: A Goldfish has no hiding place, same with a twithead. See, I'm on twitter with my blog name, so technically, I'm a semi anonymous tweeter. Yeah, its been hard keeping that part of my life separate from my real life because it indirectly jeopardizes my blog identity. So imagine the 007 i have to do to maintain the separation, not easy since I'm usually on my phone and people are wondering who im "texting" 24/7.

Even if you keep mum, there are some things you do that can invariably expose you as a twithead
1. #hashtags
Yeah, I dont care what you say, but this is one of the ultimate give aways. You know when you send text messages, put up BB status updates, emails, and you put hashtags.

Dear Professor Woodly,
I'm sending you this email to protest the grade you gave me on my anatomy final. I answered all your questions accordingly #notcool. #imjustsaying I deserved a 100 on that test, and thats #keepingitonehunn

2. *DEAD*
this one creeps into facebook from time to time. Someone puts up a facebook status, and one of your friends who you had no idea was on twitter, comments on the status and writes "*DEAD*.
I dont know where this expression came from, but 9/10 of people who are "dead-ing" on facebook, or even hi5 are from twitland


3. An excessive knowledge of whom RevRun is
This one is I have to explain. Of course everyone knows who Rev Run is. If you didnt know him from his RUN DMC days, then you've probably watched Run's House. What you might not know is that Rev Run is full of "wisdom" which he graciously dispenses to his followers from time to time. These boluses of "wisdom" are subsequently retweeted with a diligence by most of his 943,467 followers.
I have seen Revrun tweets quoted in blogposts, heck! I've even seen them on facebook!

Those are the major 3 that i could think of. know anymore? please feel free to share!

Almost made the list: An excessive knowledge of naija music and underground artistes, #Gbagaun-ing someone in real life (or on facebook), ...

PS: It is no news to everyone that one of our favorite artists DaGrin was involved in a gruesome car accident. What I dont get is people going on twitter talking abou how wrong and unethical it is to spread pictures of him from the hospital. I mean, the guy is a celebrity with a huge fan base, his fans want to know that he's alive and well, so of course people will be curious. If we want to be treated like our western celebrities, we have to be able to accept the good with the bad. Afterall, we all diligently scanned the internet for "news" on Tiger woods' accident which subsequently led to the unearthing of his numerous affairs, we combed the internet for pictures of Rihana's busted face. Like seriously! take a chill pill, people WILL inquire about him.

Grin baba, we wish you a speedy recovery!

When I had my first baby...

I’m here studying for my Ob/Gyn final exam, and I suddenly get the urge to write. I have accepted that my desire to blog is directly proportional to how stressed out I am about upcoming exams.

We’ve all heard it described as the Joy of Childbirth, the Miracle of Childbirth, and such glowing descriptions. Of course I was excited to have my own second-hand experience of this joy. It wasn’t to come till almost the third week of my rotation, I was on call and alas someone had gone to C/C (complete dilation of the cervix, OB speak for “we’re ready to push”) so I donned my gloves, held her legs and got ready to watch this miracle happen. Babies have this notorious wish to be born late at night or in the early hours of the morning, so I was yet to be part of a delivery. When I finally got my chance, to say I was disgusted would be an understatement.

What they don’t tell you when they tell you about the miracle of childbirth, is that with each push various bodily secretions including blood, urine and feaces are fair game. Every time she bore down, she pushed a big one out. Also she had hemorrhoids, and trust me, it wasn’t a pretty sight- definitely not the sight I wanted to be seeing my first time around.

While I was holding her leg, the thoughts going through my head was (in retrospect) just hilarious. See, at that time, I had decided that Ob/Gyn was going to be my specialty. So here I was, holding her leg, thinking to myself “are you really sure you want to do this for the rest of your life?”

So there and then, my desire for an elective Caesarian section was further strengthened, until I scrubbed in for my first c-section. Make no mistakes people, a c-section is actually major surgery. Don’t be fooled by the version you see on Discovery Health or Kendra. The way we were pushing, tugging and pulling the woman’s abdomen till we got the baby out, err…that was when I started thinking of surrogacy! Lol

Five vaginal deliveries and 3 c-sections later, I must say that my views have been slightly modified. I don’t see vaginal deliveries as nasty anymore. I saw some pretty neat ones. I saw a teenager push out a baby, and a couple of people deliver without epidurals. All in all, I’ve been touched by the miracle of childbirth. The truth is, childbirth is not easy either way. However, our bodies were created to accommodate it. The look on the mothers’ faces when we go in to see them hours later, is just priceless.

What I know is that when I’m doing so my husband better be standing beside me going through it with me. Don't even get me started on the analysis of the different fathers I've seen in the delivery room - the dotting father, the supportive husband, the omg-what-am-i-doing-here husband, the nervous teenage father, the i-dont-wanna-see-any-of-this-gross-stuff husband.

I truly believe there's something about the Labor and Delivery unit, or how else can I explain the extreme baby fever I felt for the past 2 months. I kept imagining myself pregnant, with a baby bump, during delivery....if you know ANYTHING about me, you'll know that I am extremely scared of childbirth! I felt very...err...fertile. I swear if a guy as much as sneezed on me during that period, it would have been a goal! o well, I think I'm over it now - or am I?

PS: contrary to the title of the post, I'm G0 P0 (never been pregnant, dont have a child )!

I've been bad...spank me please!

I know I've been a bad, bad blogger!I promised to blog all through my third year clerkships, but I haven't done so. I neglected to blog throughout my surgery rounds, and that mysterious itch that only comes around when you're gowned up in sterile fashion. I didnt blog about my Ob/Gyn experience and my first deliveries. I didnt blog about my chosen career path (well, I decided that post could be used as fodder for my Residency personal statement so that one was deliberate.)
In part, I could blame twitter (can't we all) because once I tweet about certain things, I lose the excitement to blog about it. I've tweeted about things I once would have rushed to create a post about: contraceptives, abortion, etc. However, I cant blame everything on twitter. Life as a third year is just not the same as it was in year 2 when I was practically chained to my laptop. However, I do solemnly swear that I shall make amends...from this very minute.

Today, I was in class listening to a classmate give a presentation on Abortion. Coincidentally Jaycee had tweeted briefly about it earlier. I tweeted throughout a whole lecture on abortion and got some very interesting comments on twitter. As Nigerians, abortion is a very taboo topic. I do remember when I first started blogging and people used to write posts on abortion, the anonymous commenters were always quick to lash out in all their self righteous glory.

Let's be clear on one thing, I do NOT support abortion, however I dont think it should be illegal. One of the reasons why the mortality rate from abortion is very high in places like Nigeria is because it is illegal. People have to resort to quack doctors like the one I blogged about here, to get one. They end up with infections, uterine perforations and subsequently not being able to have a child because of this. I tweeted that the mortality rate from abortion in the United states is less than 1% . Obviously there are other options available for people who would rather not, and as a result fewer people resort to abortions.

In Nigeria, abortion is illegal, and having the baby out of wedlock brings you scorn and ridicule. So people are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. I dont know if I'm making sense, but what do you guys think?

Stop it! Really

A lot of times, we see people, read about them, or follow them on twitter.
She's that girl who has been dating her boyfriend since she was 19. They dated for 4 years, and now at 23 she's married with kids or engaged, and you are neon green with envy.

He's that brother with a 6 figure paying job at Goldman Sachs. He's tall and handsome. You follow him on twitter, and all the twitter chics seem to love him cos he's got a way with the ladies and you really wish you had his life.

She's middle aged like you are, has a high profile paying job - at least, that's what it sounds like from her blog- she has an amazing collection of shoes (you've seen them on facebook) and she only rocks designers. You think to yourself, can you swap lives.

Too many times, we see people's lives for wha it is on the outside, and all we see is the "perfect" side, the part people want us to see. We do not see their pain, their hurt, their insecurities, because it takes a special person to write/blog/facebook/tweet about their shortcomings.

The "lucky" girl who's married at 23 doesnt tell you about her over-bearing inlaws, or how her husband hits her, or how she secretly wishes that she had pursued her dream. That young dashing twitter ladies' man doesnt tell you about how he gets no play in the real world and as such is overcompensating on twitter. The go-getter business savvy designer wearing chic wont tell you about how much she desperately wishes her personal life was more balanced.

If I have a penny for every time I see a comment about how people wish they have someone else's life, I'd pay off all my student loans!.

Cupid Line

So it must have seemed like the gods heard my desperate pleas for a valentine, cos valentine’s day came early for me on Saturday. I got impromptu unanticipated gifts from people who reminded me how much they love me. Jewelery, Chocolate, cards and flowers. As cliché as it may sound, it was the thought that almost reduced me to tears

The above card is from one of my best friends. Yeah, the bum of awesome Might is real, fo'real! lol. Underneath is my bouquet of flowers. cute innit. Pink, orange, yellow, and peach roses.

(the flowers n chocolates are from a man who knows me only too well :D )

So on Valentine’s day itself, I asked my twitizens to tweet their favorite/sweet/corny/silly/fun “Roses are red”

lines. Under the hashtag #cupidline we tweeted the sweet, corny and downright funny lines. Freaksho had blogville citizens do something similar 2 years ago, and I thought it was gonna be fun to recreate something similar on twitter. Here are some of our lines:

@aeedeeaeeble

roses are red
violets are blue
diamonds may be irreplaceable
but like he-ck you ain't!

@bubusn:
Roses are red
your pata is blue
hop in my bed
lemme patawash you!

@bubusn:
Roses are red
my balls are blue
you suck in bed
why am I still with u?

@Ehi_remen
Roses are red
Violets aint exactly blue
If u had opened a book
U would know that too

@Ehi_remen
Roses are red
Violets are blue
I'll rock u in bed
and ur sister too

@Ehi_remen
Rosie is in red
Victoria is in blue
I wonder what will happen
If I mix the two ;)

@Ehi_remen
Roses are red
Violets are blue
When I look into the mirror
All I see is you

@bumight:
Roses are red
My rabbit is blue
If you don't give me head
your friend's gonna be my new boo

@bumight

Roses are red

Violets are blue

It would be my honor

to spend my life with you

@bumight

Roses are red

Violets are blue

That I'm in your bed

is proof that I love you

Em4Mario

roses r rd,
violts r blu
sugar z swt
& so r u
Bt d rses r wiltn
,violts dead.
d sugr bwl z mpty
& so is ur head!

and my personal best:

@jaenius
Roses are Red
Chelsea is Blue
We are taking the FA cup
and the Premiership too

Can my blogville citizens come up with more?

Love is in the air.....or is it?

Valentine's day: The day when millions of girls all around the world realize that they are just the sidechic.

Yeah, I’m one of those annoying chicks that always had a val- and when I say always, I mean ALWAYS. From the time I was 9. I was in boarding school then, and between my school mother, school sister, school shindodo (don’t ask me what that means), I was always covered. Then I got out of boarding school and had my first boyfriend, and valentine’s day took a special meaning, you know, it started involving species of the opposite sex (get your mind out of the gutter!). Three separate years, I broke up with my boyfriend before Valentine’s Day, but my exes (same dude, twice) still came through and made the day memorable for me.

I say all this because this year will be the first time I really and truly don’t have a val. And so what? U might ask. Knowing me, I would have gone into a pre-depressed mode. But for some reason, this year, I’m uncharacteristically (long word, ehn?) calm. I haven’t freaked out. I haven’t put up depressing status updates, my tweets are not soppy. Even I am worried about myself. I prepared myself to be sad this past Christmas, Last year when I knew my birthday was going to fall in my study block, I moaned about it for almost a month!

Even Vera’s valentine themed radio show was not enough to send me into pre-valentine depression.

I won’t lie and say there’s no biggie about Valentine’s day, neither would I deny the commercialization of the day. I know that love gestures don’t mean more because its valentine’s day, however, no matter how commercialized it has become, the day has been set aside to celebrate love which invariably makes it singles awareness day

Don’t get me wrong, I would like for someone to bring me flowers, share the day with or cuddle up and watch the All star game with. Yeah, this year, valentine's day falls on d day of the NBA all star game. I shall be rooting for the west side.

I am theorizing that the reason for my non-chalance is

1) Valentine’s day this year falls on a Sunday.You really dont want me to explain this, do you?

2) Its All Star weekend as well. Really, who can afford to be depressed with 10 delightfully gorgeous men running across a court? #kobeIsmyVal

3) I have an exam the very next day. I totally refuse to gloat on account of all the people who’s lovey-doveying will have to be cut short cos they have to go study.

PS: the jury is still up on whether my sentiments might change anytime from 12:00AM, but if I currently feel the way I feel, i doubt its gonna change.

PPS: dear secret admirer, do not let this post dissuade you from sending the flowers you already planned on sending.

Everyday is For the Thief

There are some days when it just seems like everything is going downhill- Murphy's law is in full effect, out to get you. Thursday was one of those days.
I just came out of a two hour bullshit exam, and decided to make a quick dash to go settle another pressing issue that had been giving me headaches all week. My plan was I'd settle it all and be back in 20 minutes in time to go over the exam like the instructor said.
I get to the parking lot, pressed my car alarm........silence.
Sometimes I dont remember where I park my car, but that day, I was quite certain of the spot where I had parked, I looked round and didnt see Aduke (my car) and it just hit me!

As soon as it hit me, tears welled up in my eyes! - MY CAR HAD BEEN TOWED!

**** ***** *****
In my school, freshmen are not gauranteed parking, so you have to try to find a spot on the street, and continuously feed the meter. The problem with that is, the parking patrol like witches are always on hand to slap your car with a ticket immediately your meter expired. If your ticket goes unpaid for two months, your car gets booted ASAP.
So what most of us did was park in a nearby school lot. The school also gives tickets, however, the school doesnt boot cars. Also, if your car is not registered with the school, you can escape paying the ticket.
A lot of people picked up on this, and very soon a whole lot of us were parking in the parking lot- which is not that big, and as such people with parking passes were finding it difficult to get parking spaces.
Very soon, the school started towing cars from the parking lot. Instead, we learnt how to be on the lookout for the tow truck. As soon as we spotted the tow truck, text messages, IM messages, phone calls all went out and we would run to move our car to avoid it getting towed.


*** *** ***
Fast forward to now, I had accumulated about $1500 in parking tickets. yes, you read that right: one thousand five hundred dollars in parking tickets! So immediately I did not see my car, instant tears welled up in my eyes, cos God knows I dont have any (pajawiri) one grand to give anybody!

I went to the parking office, and was just bawling my eyes there. The kind young lady took pity on me and an arrangement was made. Its almost ironic that I used to joke that if my car was ever towed, I would just ask them to let me take my shoes out of the trunk. I actually thought I had over $2000 in tickets!

Anyways, I got my car back, and I only had to pay the towing fees for the moment. So Im accepting donations o! :D

Registration has commenced...

...For "Twitter High". The prefects have already been elected.

Head Boy: bubusn

Assistant Head boy: Akingbayo

Head Girl: Funmsdrebirth

Assistant Head girl: Miss Jayla

Social Prefect: Nobsdaslushhkid

Food Prefect: EzzieB

Sports Prefect: Blazeotokpa

Chapel Prefect: Exschoolnerd

Health Prefect: Ms_sassy

Labor Prefect: Juiceegal

Time keeper: TBA (To Be Announced)

If you read Jujufied Harry Potter goes to Ijebu, Snow Rapunzel meets Ayefele, and the Samson and Delilah Story, then that means you might be interested.

Registration forms are available by DM or Email (bumight@gmail.com).

Application Deadline: Till all spots are filled!