Better late than never!

Here is the afore promised flight blog - a little delayed but here it is, please try and picture a subdued cabin, the lights turned off, but for a few people reading or using laptops under their personal lights. The sound of the jets roar is punctuated by the sounds of obstructive snores:

Ok its 2322 in UK and 0222 in Tanzania
Mayhem has been attempting to sleep for the last 20 mins, in that time he has summarily failed. He has complained that the no smoking sign is shining through his sleep mask, then while ferreting in his bag he managed to rip his finger nail from a previous injury – queue much swearing and cursing, which i managed to sufficiently suppress. He is now looking at me quite bizarrely as he is attempting to staunch the flow of blood by sucking his left thumb.

Ok its now 5 mins later the Great Cleaving of the nail as it is from hence forth to be referred and he appears to have just had a fit, or so the faces and general sounds of discomfort would suggest – however it transpires he actually had a searing cramp in his thigh – or possibly in another part of his anatomy, which I don’t want to consider, looking at the dance his is doing in the isle.

After hopping around in the aisle he found himself unable to resist his kleptomaniac urges and set forth on a thieving trip into the World Traveller Plus section. Returning like some pillaging Viking he held high his prize of luxury head phones, eye mask and, much to his overwhelming delight, a set of ear plugs
- He has just chimed up that he would have rather had a true Viking raid, with the trophy of a kicking and screaming stewardess – although I hurriedly pointed out that her protestations may arouse the attention of the other cabin crew, who i believe are inclined to look after their own at this altitude!

So far this flight could not have been better; the service we have received has been truly magnificent. The staff have been warm and friendly and Chris has nearly managed to drink his own weight in G&Ts. One of the things we have found to be most amusing/entertaining – apart from the cavernous leg room – I can actually stretch full length before I touch the bulkhead with my feet and we don’t seem to get bored of just waggling our legs in space and laughing simply because we can, is the little televisions we have that fold out from our seats.
These little touch screens allows us to bring up what appears to be a Flash programme providing information on our flight. Looking at the screen we are presently over the Libyan Desert, heading on a bearing to Addis Abba, at an airspeed of 562mph, with 2056 miles and 3.55 hrs remaining in the air.
It’s only a little screen, and they are only simply changing statistics, but while we have both been kept entertained watching TV and generally predicting what Africa will hold for us, it has been the watching of our little airplane gradually move across the map and descend across the dark continent that has provided the most conversation. It must be the Geeks within which have kept us so enthralled with these little changing numbers – or maybe it is the general excitement as we head into the unknown – I’m sure you will all have your own opinions

We are seated in the middle of the plane, unfortunately we don’t have a windows seat, but from what I can make out from the little hatch over the emergency exit, there are clear stars above us, and darkness, indicating the desert below, and absolutely no sign of human habitation.

On that nocturnal note I think I’ll close my laptop and attempt to encourage the sandman to deliver me a little sleep which Mayhem seems to have received since I began typing, and given our present location, I would have hoped he wouldn’t have far to travel – we are only 35,000ft way afterall!

TTFN

Kaos

AFRICA!!

Well we made it, after 36hrs of traveling we arrived in arrived in Arusha yesterday. presently I'm sitting in a internet cafe at a very pleasant 28deg C. There is a post written the plane, unfortunately I don't have my memory stick with me today, so that will have to be uploaded tomorrow.

We had as 7 hr wait at Dar Saleem before we were about to catch our connection to Kilimanjaro, during which time we stored our big bags, and took our day packs to the city - probably the main event there was travelling round the fish market - nothing like anything you see in the UK or US. Noise, colours, giant fish, all coming off little sail boats sitting out in the harbour. Although we had deposited our big bags, we still had our days packs, coming in at about 10kg each, and then our camera kit, making walking round quite difficult. The sweat sweat wads actually dripping off us - the panama was coming in quite useful in order to keep the sun off and sweat out of the eyes- even Mayhem conceded it was actually a good idea.

We then stumbled out of the heat at 9:30am to a bar, where Mayhem had his first Kilimanjaro beer - which was quickly followed by me running through a series of alcohol abuse questions - for those of you not of a medical background one of those questions is "Do you ever require a morning eye opener" which at that point in the morning was quite appropriate of course. As for myself, having not been able to find my life giving Fanta yet settled for Cola

As for Africa itself - Dar Saleem was HOT and that is coming from someone who is happy at 35deg C. Mayhem has been very vocal about the heat as our video diary can atest. As for Arusha, its warm, but there is a constant light breeze which is helping us to survive as we walk around

The view from the balcony's in house are amazing. We can see three peaks, one of which is Mt Meru - a 3 day climb, and two smaller peaks I havn't found the name of, but they look like more day trip size. The gardens of our house have mangoes and avocados growing in the grounds.

Its a really great house, beautiful inside, lots of dark wood and white walls and very cool. The windows are barred but with a fine mesh rather than glass, allowing a constant breeze to pass through.

On our tour today we were shown the dead Centre of Africa - a clock tower in the middle of Arusha, from this joint it is equal distance North and South.

Mayhem has just popped up behind me and told me to say hi to the world.

Right we are off to change some money now and look at the prices of climbing Kili and Safari's,

TTFN

Kaos

Tick Tock

Right well I'm packed and ready to go, and boy was that a difficult task. I had been trying half heartedly to pack on thursday evening, but decided to give up on the geometry puzzle that is an Osprey backpack - OK it is beautifully engineered, but would it have killed them to have but a couple of side baffles/pockets on it??

After a surprisingly mudane mock exam - never while at the medical school have I seen of group of people going into an exam with a more cool and collected attitude. There was a feel of "In the last 24hrs I have sat your dreaded ICE exam AND also been for a ride on the emotional rollercoast that is the collection of the result, so frankly, this is mock, bring it I'm good"

Ok maybe the general consensus was more along the lines of "Mock...huh...ok fair enough" but I'm sure there were a couple of students who had slightly more expansive monologues going through there heads.

But back to the packing - 3 HOURS later i had managed to compress, tease, beg and plead what seemed to be at least 100L of clothing and gear into a 68L backpack and frankly I was quite pleased to find that I was a pifling 100g over my luggage allowance. Frankly I would have thought it would have been a problem, and if it is, I'll just eat one of the plethora of chocolate bars I'll be travelling with - either that or one of my pairs of socks- they do have a fairly appetising chocolate/caramel look going on.

As for Mayhem, I believe that the issue of where or not he would need another pair of shoes came up, and whether an alternate pair would clash with the African decor of the Serenghetti. Perhaps that is stretching a point, but in a quest for reduced rate, I am sure that the Maasai will not mind if he was forced to leave his hair straighteners at home (for those of you keeping score at home you may have noticed a recurrent theme regarding Mayhem and his desire for excessive use of hair manipulation devices - just for the record, I think that anything beyond a brush is overdoing it, but then again I also think I have a parasitic organism on my head rather than hair - I'd probably have more control over it in that respect I think!

Well the hour grows late, and an all together unwelcome train journey awaits tomorrow before a 9.5 hr flight to Tanzania, so on that note I'll say good night

TTFN

Kaos

Actually I think you'll find it's Kaos who receives a gloved finger after i subtly comment on the stash of drugs he is carrying within his GI tract.

In all honesty i think we'll be too busy trying to convice BA to upgrade us to business (or at least "world traveller plus"). Kaos can use his Jedi mind tricks. Anyone who knows him is aware of his ability to ask for things in such a way that a shopkeeper will not only give him the product free, but probably throw in an extra free gift too! *Mocks* "look into my eyes, not around my eyes, into my eyes..."

Anyway, yes, Africa. Kaos is hell bent on turning up dressed like a colonial british ruler. i'm half expecting a photo of him in a beige linin suit (for the benefit of people like kaos who see in only 16 colours... that's yellow) and panama hat, holding a rifle, with his foot on the carcass of a recently shot lion....
I'm wondering if he'll get himself shot first.

Next stop Africa!

Well, Mayhem was correct, a refreshing event in itself, but we did it! Quite how I did it is completely beyond me, particularly in view of Mayhem's debrief - frankly his patients sounded vastly more preferable than my brush with extreme psychiatry.
But we are through, through to discuss the meaning of an elective report, fret slightly that we will shortly be moving over to the "SENIOR ROTATION" (please note block capitals to convey horror and general auora of apprehension), and generally sit in the departure lounge in 2 days time contemplating our navels (I hear you can loose hours to that pass time!)

So next stop Africa, well actually next stop is a 2hr mock at the medical school, but it is only a mock - if a time consuming one - so not really am event likely to produce much feather ruffling in either of us - now that we are hardened veterans of the ICE exam - but then Africa did I mention that?

i think the packing for this trip will highlight considerable differences between Mayhem and myself - namely his excess of shoes and hairstraighteners (oh dear) vs my walking boots, survival kit and colonial-esq panamar hat. Either way we will probably cut quite the pair at the check-in desk! (my money is on Mayhem getting the full body cavity search)

TTFN

Kaos

Time to celebrate!

So after all his "knowing" he'd cocked up the exams.... Kaos passed, as did I.
It's official, we're both one exam away from being doctors. There's a scary thought if i've ever heard one!

Finally it all feels real - 69 hours from now we'll be airborne.
And i still havent packed.

It's going to be hard though - new country, working in a run down 3rd world hospital, and for me extra hard spending 7 weeks away from the love of my life (my girlfriend not my bike before anyone says it!).

I'll cut this one short anyway- well done Kaos, you deserved it!

It came, it went, we returned back to revision

Yes dear readers/family members/curiously fascinated medical students/general hangers on, a Mayhem pointed out, there has been a slight dearth of communication from our odd and slightly egg shaped partnership of late, however what can I say, attempting to swallow Kumar and Clarke (not some bizarre sexual act, but surely the largest, and most scary of our medical texts) with sufficient time to spare before turning up to our exams is, challenging shall we say.

With that in mind, a half digested copy of Kumar and Clarke was ruminated over for the last time this afternoon, following which we steeled ourselves, pretended we were knowledgeable and capable – and walked straight into the laughing jaws of a psych patient.

For those of your playing the home game – we, or should I say I (Mayham has his exam tomorrow) has the first part of ICE this afternoon and frankly it didn't go *quite* as well as I had hoped. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth - not coming from my steel set jaw - the only noise emanating from my direction was a gentle seething as I re-confirmed my vow to have as little to do with people who like to talk to green and pink, man sized, flower arranging parrots called Terrance as possible!

Yes my first case in the exam was Psychiatry - specifically a bi-polar patient having a manic episode, and I was completely unable to control her, she was utterly off the wall, and developed what can only be described as an unhealthy fascination with interior decoration which resulted in the selection for the colour yellow for the medical waste bin.... anyway, as a result of being completely overwhelmed by a barrage of chatter from the patient, I simply was unable to think of the correct way to phrase my questions (that said the amount of time I spent around Mayhem you’d think I would have been able to cope!). Still my mind was steamrollered sufficiently that I bungled the exam sufficiently that my hopes of being able to get by without having to take the second part of the exam have been fruitless. My second case, a patient with an atrial fibrillation was much better - a terrific history, excellent patient rapport, a couple of mind numbingly stupid mistakes on my part during the physical examination, however I’m almost certain of overall a pass for that station

The upshot of this is that I will now have to take the second part of the exam - essentially if you have a brain like a Cray super computer and you complete your first two patients perfectly, or more likely you are lucky enough to simply get cases that you just "know", then the medical school gives you a waiver for the second part of the exam, and then the rest of us, normally ~ 30-40% of the year get to have another go at Patient Lucky Dip, but this time with three patients to unwrap rather than two - I'm desperately hoping that I won’t get another prize of a psych patient - either way time will tell come Thursday, but right now you’ll have to excuse me I need to clean some bile from the cover of my copy of Kumar and Clarke!