Does anyone have a solution?

I have an IT problem, and I am computer illiterate. I have an apple, so my mail program is "mail" (I don't think it has another name). Anyway, it has recently decided (despite no changes to my yahoo settings or to my mail settings on my computer), despite having worked well since I first set it up months ago, to download multiple (try 40 of the first email it ever did it on) copies of all my emails from the yahoo server. Doesn't seem to be recognising that it's already got the emails. I don't want to delete emails off the server, I like having access to old emails when I'm not at home, it makes me feel safe. Does anybody (or their lovely IT-competent husbands for my friends who have those - which is nearly everyone except me!) know what I can do to fix this? Remember, instructions must be very dumbed down and relevant to apples (macs, not the edible granny smith one's). Thanks!

I was also going to post a photo of a cool spider which was a guest in my house before I moved it to the yard but I can't get it to upload. Will have to try again later because I don't know what kind of spider it was and I'd love help identifying it. When i found it, it was eating another spider of approximately similar size. It was of a similar shape and size to a white tailed spider but it was all black and white stripes except the front legs which were a beautiful bright orange. It was far more nimble than a redback - it was able to climb plastic which the redback could not (so I guess it had some kind of cool feet that meant it gripped better). I'll put the photo up next time I'm blogging, but if you have any ideas what kind of spider it was, or where online would be a good place to search, let me know. A spider book is sadly one of the one's missing from my "what ____ is that?" style book collection. I have very comprehensive australian fish, reptile and bird books. I do so like to know little creature's names!

Stranger's Hands

I am swimming in a sea of sensations
I have touched the soil and danced in rain
I have dreamt of stars and warm air
I have heard your voice again and again

I have spoken in the universal language
The smile transcends barriers of speech
I have filled my heart with simple things
Simple smiles have the most to teach

I have reached out with stranger's hands
To connect to something that's not me
I have sighed with the joy of not knowing
And that is surely the badge of being free.

Medical Rant - skip entry if these bore you

I know that the way I look at the world, and my opinions, are not the only way to look at the world. That as a doctor, coming from a medical background, it is important I don't get stuck necessarily on what I have been taught, but that I must be willing to look at a problem from somebody else's view point, and respect their choices, even if I feel that it is not necessarily the safest way to tackle a problem. With adults, for the most part, I have never found that to be a problem (with the exception perhaps with psychiatric problems when it can be difficult to distinguish between illness and a pts wishes). I accept that there are alternatives to the service I offer, and that none of us holds all the keys.

However in the world of paediatric medicine, where the pt is not the one choosing their treatment, I have to wonder, where do we draw the line? Where does something change from being a difference of opinion, and become neglect or abuse? At what point does a parent's refusal to believe something a medical doctor tells them, and refuse to treat their child accordingly, change from being quirky to criminal?

For example, to choose a hot and often emotive topic, when a parent chooses not to immunise their children, they are imposing on to their children their own specific belief, that is not in keeping with the majority of the medical community. We see these parents, primarily as quirky. For whatever reason, they have chosen to believe people who see immunisations (and usually they argue the preservatives) as incredibly dangerous, even damaging to children. Could I say with 100% certainty that an immunisation will not harm a child? No, I can't. What I can say is that in not being immunised, a child is being left at risk of a preventable and dangerous disease. If you looked through textbooks, and saw the side-effects and mortality of the diseases we immunise against, you might understand you are subjecting your child to a greater potential risk from the diseases, then the potential risk from the immunisations. HOWEVER, having said that, the parents who choose not to immunise, generally are doing it because they absolutely love their children and feel that they are doing the best thing for them. They are good parents, who feel they have legitimate reasons for feeling the way they do about immunisations. And am I necessarily right? No. These parents definately fall into the "difference of opinion" catergory. To be honest the thing that distresses me is that these parents are relying on what we call "herd immunity". That is the theory that if enough people in the community are immunised, than the chances of exposure to the disease is very low, therefore their child doesn't need to be immunised. In other words, they are letting everyone else's children take the risk of immunisation for their child. The problem is if enough people think this way, the 'herd immunity" drops and then we have outbreaks of dangerous diseases, that should not have happened.

[I think after antibiotics, immunisations have been one of the greatest lifesaving advances of medicine. I want to say right here and now, I definately support immunisation. However I also support that if a parent has been well informed and has performed a well rounded research of the issues (that is to say they have read literature from both sides of the argument), that they are their child's advocate and they have the right to not immunise their child. I respect and support parents who think about their children's health, and are doing their best to make what they perceive as the right decision for their children. I would rather have a well informed parent disagreeing with me, then an uninformed one agreeing with me (unless I was really tired and having a bad day), I like people who think.]

Then there are parents who's children have potentially dangerous conditions, who refuse to accept that their child has the condition and refuse to treat it appropriately as directed by specialists. The question is, is this a difference of opinion? Or is it criminally negligent (after all some people may argue not immunising is refusing to treat for a potentially dangerous condition)? Are these kind of parents doing this because they love their child or because they love the idea of having a normal child? I am not a parent. I don't know what it is like. I don't know what these parents have been through. I don't know how I would react were I in their situation. But is frustrating as a doctor, to see a sick child, with a treatable medical illness, not being treated, and having further potentially dangerous events.

So endeth my rant.

Good news is I'm on 6 days off and I'm in a better mood today.

Blue

Exhaustion
Uninvited
Has seeped into my bones
An unwanted guest
An unwarranted guest
And not physical at all
A soul tiring
Emotion sapping
Sadness for the plight of the living
For the left behind ones
For the ones standing in the hall
Stiller than the statues
As the world bustles
And wails, and yells
Pretending to care
Futilely playing at reviving
That which the statue loves
Their life and their hope and their future
Their dead

I am feeling quite angry about my new roster. I am basically being used as a fill in at the Angliss Hospital for all the other O&G residents, which means it really is a relieving job and I already have a relieving job at the end of the year for 10 weeks. It means I have a very very shit roster. Also I told them I needed to have a weekend off for my sister's wedding, including the monday because it was on Sunday and in Brisbane, and they gave me the weekend, but not the monday (and I work till 9pm the friday before so I can't even get an evening flight out on the friday). They said they will change the monday shift, but they wouldn't swap my week with someone else's who has three days off after the weekend, because it will screw their roster up and the rosters are done if 5 week blocks. Except of course my roster's not, it's all over the shop with random shifts, but that doesn't seem to matter. I hate Melbourne today. I hate melbourne today with everything in me. I wish I were still in Brisbane.

I am listening to a Sixpence None The Richer song called "The Waiting Room", the first lyrics in the song go:
"Fight 'til your fists bleed, baby
Beat the fate-walls enclosing you, maybe
God will unlock the cage of learning for you
Fight 'til your fists bleed, baby
Kick and scream at the wicked things, maybe
God will unlock the door you need to walk through"

I feel like being stuck in the public hospital system you are always fighting fate-walls that enclose you, that you have no control of your own life. I guess that's why I'm so desperate to be out and to try and take back some of the control of my life that being in medical school and then the public hospital have stolen from me. I feel like quiting medicine. Today I wish I weren't a doctor, and I wish I didn't have to go to work. I am so jack of the whole thing. So sick of screaming, demanding people. Sick of slack specialties who don't do their own work and leave it all for the evening people with no proper instructions.

Easter Weekend

Easter weekend was a hard busy slog at work. Worked Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. And am working until friday this week. Once again a certain specialty I cover provided many a difficult moment, as some patients are just a little more trying on your patience than others. You just tend to come away feeling like your time could have been better spent, and generally the patient isn't happy either.

The Whitlams CD is quite good. There are a few songs that are already standing out to me. I've already mentioned "the curse stops here" which is as good as I remember. "Little cloud" the title song from the first disc, has a certain quality I quite like, the first verse starts "Little cloud is searching, For a sign of something stirring, in the hearts of those below and they all sleep". One of my other favourite lines is from another song called "12 hours" - "Some drown their sorrows, mine they like to swim, Pour another one barmen 'cause the Rodent got back in". "Year of the rat" "white horses" and "I was alive" have more of the classic Whitlams rock feel. Some of the other things _almost_ have a more folk feel to them. I think The Whitlams would cringe to hear me say that, but I quite enjoyed it.

I am currently cooking up a big batch of pumpkin soup. I'm also baking the seeds as they make a yummy snack, but you have to watch closely to make sure they don't get burned or under cooked. There is a perfect "crunch" they must have.

I discovered you have to be quick off the mark to get any lindt chocolate in the post easter, easter egg sales. Matt and I went the monday after I finished work, and they were all gone. We had to buy other easter eggs. But excitingly we got to eat our easter egg while watching "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" or whatever the movie is called. It is so funny and quirky.

Anyway, this has been a bit rambling so I might go and give my cooking some attention.

Melbourne Trapdoor Spider

Well, as some people who stayed with me might know, I have been tormented by a spider who's web I could see, but I'd never seen the spider, making it somewhat difficult to identify them, and I like to know who lives in my garden. There were basically funnel type webs into the ground. Recently, I had the good luck to catch the spider responsible (Yay!). It is most likely that it is a Melbourne Trapdoor spider. Despite their name this spider does not have a trapdoor, but does have silk lined tunnels going into the ground. It's bite is not dangerous. Manson (my melbourne trapdoor spider) seems to be quite a shy spider, and sluggish when moving around. I will probably let him go back into the garden. I haven't managed to get a good photo of him:(

Today I was a bit naughty and I bought The Whitlams latest cd. I'm listening to it now, it is a bit different to some of their older stuff, and I will have to listen to it a few times before I can decide which songs I like. One song I definately like is "the curse stops here" which I heard at a concert of theirs once. Many of the original band members have died of suicide and alcohol related deaths and in fact Tim is the only one left.

Yesterday Matt and I bought a mushroom farm box thing. Basically so you can grow your own mushrooms. It's our easter present to each other. I am very excited about it! I do hope that it works and we get our own mushrooms. If it does, i will certainly put photos on here. They'll be very dull as they will just be photos of mushrooms, but they'll be mushrooms I grew myself! Obviously Muppit won't find such a concept exciting, having worked in very poor work conditions in an actual mushroom farm, and I'm glad I haven't had that experience to spoil it for me!

Matthew's latest bread experiment is going quite well. He has made a very, very yummy lightly malted sourdough fruit and spice loaf. It has big bits of dried figs and apricots and other yummy things in it, and is sooo good to eat hot out of the oven! The other day there was a hot-cross bun making class at the bread supply store matt goes to, and we forgot about it and didn't go... Now Matthew is saying he can't make hot-cross buns as he didn't get to go.... So if anyone knows how to make them, don't hold back - email him! I actually have this memory that when I was quite little and lived in Townsville my mum maybe went to some kind of cooking thing and that one time they made hot-cross buns in that... Maybe I'll check with her if she remembers that.

Sad news on the leopard slug plague. Unfortunately for the leopard slugs they decided to turn on us and started to eat our spinach and lettuce and other plants. Our plants are still a little bit too little for sharing with the wildlife, particularly the non-native pest ones. So last night we laid out some snail/slug pellets..... This morning there were 8 or so slugs in their dying throws on our garden... I feel a little mean, but what can you do?

Well, I'm going to go and keep Matt company, I think he's getting a little lonely.

VISITORS

Well recently everybody has come to visit me and it has been very fun:) The Matt's and Bec's all went to the mornington peninsula where we frequented some lovely wineries. One of them had an olive grove as well, so there was yummy olive oil to be had also. We went for a walk on the beach, we went up to Arthur's seat, and there was a nice view from there, although the actual seat didn't do too much for me.

Other than that all of us - the Matt's and Bec's, Sally and Floss all had a picnic in the botanic gardens where we dipped yummy fresh sour dough into the olive oil we bought at the winery and balsamic vinegar. We then walked around the gardens, but my feet got sore because I was trying to break in the new shoes I'd bought the day before when we all went shopping. Here is a photo of my two pairs of new shoes:




We also visited federation square and wandered around the art gallery there. Mostly I think we went shopping, although I did try to show some self control (the shoes were necessary as I broke my favourite work shoes at the end of last year).

Now however I am on night shift. It is very sad because I was working night shifts when daylight savings reverted back to real time, that meant I had to work I had to work an extra hour because 2am-3am occured twice that night. Anyway, I think I'm probably too dazed to continue this post, having woken up not too long ago.

Today is Tink's birthday: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TINK!!!! I have called her and tried to convince her to come skiing with me because everyone else says they can't:( But I'm not convinced she'll come back from England for it.