So yes, I am finished! degree: tick!

the "two tanned euro and white + freckle sandwich"

oh yes, thats US



chillin and drinking in the sun

the best flatmates, morning before our final exam

Hard to believe but I had my very last exam on Tuesday. I am a qualified physiotherapist. That is just crazy. I have to work on my introduction to patients so that I dont say "Im your physiostudent for today" Our motto was "Woodstock" so we all rocked up in our best hippie outfits to sit that exam. Everyone was more hyperexcited than nervousl. The exam went well, was not too hard. Couldnt study for it unless you wanted to revise the last four years...NOT! Ok here some Woodstock impressions....

Kirsten played half of the afternoon in her little pool :-P

wet bottoms - but soo refreshing

So cute how I wrote in my header of my website "and i have already finished my 2nd semester" well now I actually have completed 8 full semesters, 4 years full time uni in Australia. Crazy to think that I have been here for that long and not have been living at home for that long. Wow wow wow. Thats pretty much all im thinking at the moment.

The last few weeks

so that is what happens when anna gets busy ... clothes dont find their way into the cupboard....ohoh....now my room is all cleaned up again. i got really annoyed by the mess.

volleyball tourney last weekend

we had 4 british girls playing, they are here in australia to train for the olympics. oh my god, they were soooo good. it was a "queen of the beach-comp" so everyone swaps partners. it was so much fun to and also against them. they were just soo skilled, amazing skills, strength, speed, tactics...just everything. thats their job i guess but i was quite impressed and pointed out how much we "suck" if compared to them. thats why i play socially cos its my hobby!!

U gotta love the beach

Vicky, me and Mandy. We are all training and playing casually. Great to have training sessions with them when our busy schedules can fit it in. One season I want to train full time and see how much I can get out of my body :)

Alana (very ambitious player, training for a marathon atm and she also just openend her own clinic as a massage therapist and Claire (she is a machine, she does nothing but training and wants to play overseas for australia...)

Played one event last week and it was just soo much fun again. Beachvolleyball is the best sport in the world, hanging out at beach all day, have friends around, go for surf or swim, be on the beach, eat icecream....perfectemundo :) there was the coolangatta gold event on, so we had heaps of spectators. that was an "ironman" type comp with surf life saving, funny as and tough check it out http://www.coolangattagold.com.au/ they have to ski (standing on long board with paddel), swim and run on the beach for crazy distances. the sea was quite rough so they just got absolutely smashed when they tried to get out. must be so exhausting.

This saturday there is another queen of the beach event ie u swap partners and its within a festival
http://www.kirrasurfstock.com.au/ yay will be an awesome day again. cant wait.

Intensive care unit

In the last two weeks we were going to ICU for some physiotherapy with the critical patients. Very overwhelming I have to say. Not a big fan of seeing human beings being so sick, so "life less", out of control of their human instincts and most importantly relying on sooo many machines. It is crazy that so much equipment is needed to keep that body alive. So we had to learn to identify and analyse all those machines and know what all those traces on the numerous monitors mean, what all those lines are and all the time staying sane and not losing control if one of the alarms go off. And believe me, there is ALWAYS something beeping....

Our role is to look after the patient's chests ie lungs and respiratory system esp if they are intubated and ventilated or newly extubated because their lung function is very compromised after surgery for example, due to pain relief or just malfunction and disease. So if the patient is unconscious we can do manual baging ie take over the role of the ventilator and ventilate the patient with a bag (how crazy is that, if u dont squeeze the bag, they wont get any air....HUGE responsibility) and by doing that giving different sort of breaths with holds to prepare the lungs and sputum for suctioning ie mobilize the sputum off the chest wall and then suction it out with the machine by putting the tube down their throat until u reach lungs and then suction it out. OH WOW! If u lucky u trigger a cough by inserting the tube which makes the suctioning quite succesfull. So strange with a patient who doesnt respond and just lies there unconsciously not even being able to breath on their own.

We also look after their arms and legs and move them so they dont stiffen up. Also bit scarry because they have lines in every possible artery and you have to be SOO fr***** careful to not disconnect or dislodge anything. While you do all this you always have to keep the monitors in sight to see if something drops, if the heart goes outta control etc pp....not easy.

Quite an experience....esp the bagging and suctioning (click it)

Apart from that you can see all sorts of gory stuff, ie insertion of a ICC (intercostal cathether) where the put a tube into lungs between ribs to drain a pleural effusion ie liqiud for example. The one I watched was crazy, they drained like 1.6 litres of greeny water instantly....

i could ramble on forever of how much i learned in there but I think that gave you an impression of this particular role of a physiotherapist.