Mexico Medical Student |

Today’s been a near-wasted study day. I hate the Spring daylight savings time change. It’s made even worse by the fact that there’s not a single advertisement or reminder anywhere that lets you know it’s happening. In the States, just about any broadcast channel will say, “Remember to set your clocks forward/back,” and have it emblazoned on the weekend paper, work reminds you, whatever. Here? It’s not like people are on time anyway, so what’s the big deal anyway, right? So I woke up this morning at 7:30, and figured I could roll over and give myself a bit more because it was a Sunday morning. I also decided we should watch a movie this morning after breakfast, figuring I’d start studying at around 11:30-12:00, giving at least part of the day for “couple” time. This was great, except that it was really 8:30, when I got up and 1:10pm when I realized that the time change had occurred. Shit, fuck, fire.

Add to all the above the last two days where my head feels like it’s at 100psi due to horrific allergies. In pre-clinics, we were learning physical exams for cranial nerves (basic stuff, not anything one would learn on a neurology rotation), and for CNI (smell) the first thing we had to do was test nasal permeability (which is oh-so-fun if your patient blows a wad of snot on your finger if they have a bad cold) before introducing any “test odors,” since you can’t really determine smell if you can’t breathe through your nose. Duh. “Good luck,” I told my partner, since you’d need an air compressor to blow through my plugged nostrils. This condition also came in handy for CN VII because I was hardly able to taste anything, either. I have taken 10mg of loratadine and about 60mg of pseudoephedrine, both bid, as well as either diphenhydramine or chlorpheneramine at night and I’m barely getting by. Allegra and other “name brand” non-sedating antihistamines are well over $1/pill here, in some cases approaching $2/pill; it’s insane. I get the loratadine in the States because it’s about 1/3 the price as here, but it’s not cutting it, either because of they type of allergens (1st time in the spring season here, to be fair) or my body is already used to the cheap stuff and needs to switch for its own sake. All I know is that I’ve had a non-stop headache and “floaty” feeling, and it sucks.

Then I’ll look outside at the bright-ass sun at 8:00pm and I know my days will be more rotten soon with the increased sun and heat. At over a mile high, these sun rays are potent. I moved from Texas, where it’s hot and humid, to here where it’s almost as hot and about as bright as a thermonuclear explosion. (Which if you think about it in a science geek way is precisely what the sun actually is, but you get my point) There is a special misery to having bad cold/allergy symptoms and sweating with heat, shielding your eyes from the glaring sun. People who come to school here from northern states just LOVE the warm, sunny weather. Whatever.

I really am OK people, I just needed to vent. (and sneeze, and blow my nose…)