Freedom!

Not only did I survive all my exams, I only went and passed them all too! So I'm officially a quarter of the way through on my journey to becoming a doctor!!

I always come out of exams thinking oh that was awful, definitely going to be retaking that. But after my last exam, the spotter, I really convinced myself I was going to have to retake it. I felt like I knew the answer to about 10 of the questions, gave educated guesses on half of the rest, and the remainder we hadn't even been taught so were complete guesses! Luckily everyone else felt exactly the same so I think there must have been some heavy moderation for me to get 60%! The other three exams weren't too bad, I felt like I'd forgotten a lot in the OSCE and messed up a couple of stations but it ended up being my best exam so I just think my standards are too high!!

I've now been back home for a week and a half. Still in my annual adjustment phase of getting used to living with my family again, but I think I'm coming to the end of it...but that may just be as I've been out of the house at work a lot over the past few days. Have done a couple of shifts at the hospice and a couple at the hospital. At one of my hospital shifts the other day I went into theatre with a young girl having a CVP line put in, under the guise of holding her hand and being a familiar face, which I of course did, but I also ended up having the anaesthetist talk me through the procedure at the same time, amazing!! It actually worked out pretty well for the patient as the anaesthetist didn't really explain what she was doing (despite the patient specifically requesting she did!), so I was filling the patient in at the same time :)

Now that the pressure of potentially having to do resits is off, I can enjoy the summer...by working every hour I possibly can! I'm hopefully going over to Germany for a few days to visit a flatmate so that'll be something to look forward to. I'll also have 2 weeks break from my family as they're off on holiday, plus I'm moving in with my uncle for a couple of weeks to look after my cousins (as my aunt that died recently was their main carer)...so I'm sure in no time I'll be heading back up to London with all my things ready to start 3rd year. Going to try not to think about the forthcoming year at uni too much as I fear I'll have a complete freak out about the amount I've got to learn and having to be a spare part on the wards, I need to find some confidence from somewhere! Saying that though, everyone says that 3rd year is a walk in the park compared to the GEP first year, phew.

Faye
xxx