Our case this week is about alcoholism and substance abuse. It is a pretty interesting case and we’ve already had a lot of interesting lectures on it. We also have a new tutor for our PBL sessions. She is not a doctor (she’s doing her PhD in pathology), and she has told us that she doesn’t really know much about what we are learning, but I think she will be good for us because it forces us to look things up in text books. Here’s a picture of my last PBL group. The guy in the red shirt was our tutor.
Last Tuesday I went on a student- organized boat cruise in the harbour at night. It was really nice and Janice and I took lots of pictures.
I strongly recommend doing this when you ALL come to visit me (soon)!
I had a good weekend- but it ended up being busier than I would have liked. I went to watch a Rugby Union game at the university on Saturday with Brooke and Janice. Brent’s friend, Alphabet, invited us to come since he was part of Manly’s first aid team. It was kind of neat to be there (for free too!), but despite having played a season in high school, I really had no clue what was going on. After the rugby game, we went to a housewarming party at Jacqui’s house. 
They had a really good barbeque and a massive gelato cake for Bryan’s birthday- it was probably my first real meal since Fiji! 
On Sunday I got up pretty early and went for breakfast with Janice and Brooke in a really nice suburb called Glebe. If Brent is here by next year I’d really like to live there! (Brooke lives there now and it totally reminds me of the beaches- but with no beach :(…) In the afternoon I went to St. Paul’s college to play croquet with Sadiq, Len and Jacqui. 
It was actually really fun and there were even organized wine breaks added in to the game.
After croquet we had dinner at a Japanese restaurant on King St. right around the corner from my apartment. It was great!! And another real meal! :)This past Monday was “Drug and Alcohol” day at the hospital. We had a couple presentations from ‘drug and alcohol’ doctors and nurses and then got to meet and talk to some patients (and hear their stories).
The first patient my group saw was a 20 year old girl who was almost 5 months pregnant. She had done almost every drug out there, but was mostly only using speed, cannabis and tobacco now that she was pregnant. She said she was planning to quit smoking cigarettes by 28 weeks, but that she didn’t think she’d be able to quit the other drugs. She had tried to commit suicide several times and had track marks all over her body. She’d inject any drug into almost any vein she could find (including the veins in her ankles- which is a really bad idea). She had started university when she was 17 and was planning to become a nurse, but dropped out after about 8 weeks. She also had a fiancé- but he left her after her substance abuse became such a problem.
The second patient we saw was a 62 year old woman. She had polio when she was very young and had been through over 50 operations trying to fix her legs. Eight years ago, she got a staph infection in one of her legs and had to have it removed (in a hurry). Her husband also died two months later of cancer. There were apparently a lot of nerve endings in the woman’s leg that were left somewhat exposed, so she has had severe chronic pain since then. The doctors at the hospital gave her morphine in increasing doses since her leg was removed- until she of course became dependent on it. She has been taking the maximum allowed dosage for the past 3 years. When she decided that she wanted to stop taking it, she went to see a doctor who told her to go home, drink a coffee, take a nap and stop taking morphine all together. Of course, within a few hours, she was in severe withdrawal and had to be airlifted to a major hospital to save her life.
She has not had any morphine since that last hospital visit. She says she felt cheated because she didn’t even know that she was being given morphine (at first), let alone that she could become so dependent on it. She refers to herself as a recovering morphine addict (even though it was medically induced). She’s trying to deal with the pain in other ways now and she says she’s very lucky to have a supportive family around her.
The third patient was a 34 year old woman (who had a 6 month old baby with her) and who was a customer at the hospital’s methadone clinic. Methadone is a synthetic opioid that can be used as a substitute for heroin. (For people who are dependent on heroin, methadone maintenance can help to reduce the harms associated with injecting an expensive illicit drug of unknown strength and purity.) This woman had been taking methadone (at methadone clinics) for over 7 years, and before that was addicted to speed and heroin. She has had two methadone babies (who she claims are healthy). She recently separated from her husband because she realized that they had nothing in common except for their drug habits and they were constantly relapsing when they spent time together. She hid her addictions from her parents for almost 15 years.
The last patient we saw was a 36 year old man who was an alcoholic. He was well-spoken and looked unbelievably put-together and relatively healthy, except for some freshly sutured wounds on his face. He went to Sydney University for his undergrad and then to teacher’s college. During university he drank a couple times a week as well as some binge drinking on the weekends (which is not unusual for a university student). He became a history and science teacher and taught for 8 years before he lost his job. He also got married when he was 24, but his wife left him when his alcohol abuse became really bad. He had been through detox programs over 20 times, and had even stayed sober for over 2 years at one point- but he’s always relapsed. He says AA works for him, but only when he goes. On Sunday, he was looking into homeless shelters that he was planning to stay at when he got discharged from the hospital on Wednesday, but luckily his parents decided to let him come home for a few months to give him one last chance. He always had somewhere to go in the past, so this was the first time he was going to be homeless. It gave me a little bit of a different perspective on some homeless people after hearing his story. I really hope he is able to stay sober.
I’ve been trying to scare Jamie into drinking less (jokingly) by telling him that he is going to get man-boobs, become impotent and will have shrunken testicles- but it doesn’t seem to be working. He he he. (Those are real effects, though!) I’m going to list the long term effects of alcohol for all of you- since most of us drink at least a little- and it is really interesting to see what it can cause! Here they are: mouth, throat, esophagus and lip cancers, brain injury, loss of memory, confusion, hallucinations, high blood pressure, irregular pulse, enlarged heart, changes in red blood cells, muscle weakness, loss of muscle, flushing, sweating, bruising, inflamed stomach lining, stomach bleeding, stomach ulcers, greater chance of lung infections (including tuberculosis), severe swelling and pain of the liver, hepatitis, cirrhosis, liver cancer, inflamed pancreas causing pain, tingling and loss of sensation in hands and feet, impotence, shrinking of testicles, damaged/reduced sperm, damage to fetus if pregnant and lots more. In case you are wondering now- a recommended safe amount of alcohol intake would be 2 standard drinks per day for 5 days of the week (slightly less for women)…and you can’t save up all your drinks for the weekend!
In the afternoon, we learned some more about the different kinds of drugs. Heroin, Inhalants, Analgesics, GHB, Alcohol, Cocaine, Ecstacy (and other amphetamines), hallucinogens, cannabis… etc. We have to learn everything about all the drugs: street names (ex. GHB is sometimes called ‘Georgia Home Boy’), what it looks like, how it is made, how it is administered, what systems it affects, short and long term effects, what happens in an overdose, if there are any antidotes, tolerance and dependence issues, withdrawal symptoms, treatment options, mixing with other drugs, pregnancy and breastfeeding issues, and first aid.
Here are a few other funny street names that I definitely hadn’t heard before!
Heroin- “elephant”, “big harry”, “horse”, “homebake”
GHB- “grievous bodily harm”, “soap”, “Georgia Home Boy”
“Piss” is a common name for alcohol here- but I’m sure you’ve all heard that one before. This is a picture of one of my good Australian friends- Harry- possibly after having a little too much to drink... he he he
Anyway, enough about the drugs. After the hospital on Monday, I got a ride to Ikea, which was great since I needed a few more things for my apartment. Tuesday I had a long day of classes and Wednesday I had no classes at all, so was able to catch up on cleaning and some studying. Only 52 days till I get to come home! I can’t wait!Here are a few pictures of my ‘kitchen’ and my bathroom.
One more quick thing from me! This is really random- but Dad is always telling me to floss my teeth and I’ve never been very good at keeping up with it on a daily basis-! BUT I’ve recently started flossing my teeth in the shower and I seem to be able to get it done every day that way! I don’t know why it seems like less of a chore this way- but it does! So if you’re not very good at your daily flossing, I highly recommend trying it! (I’m not sure what Tom would say about its affect on my ecological footprint and wasting water, but better oral health could equate to a lot of money, time, and resources being saved, so maybe it would equal out?!?!) he he he.Miss you guys!
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