Sunday, November 7, 2010

Bones

I spoke to someone today who has been a huge advocate towards my path in Oriental Medicine. She is a wise doctor and friend. While she was reminding me to keep my wits throughout school, we started sharing thoughts on how interested we have become in specific fields of medicine... she in Oncology and myself in Osteology for example. I have recently become obsessed with the show, 'Bones' (damn you netflix) which is about a forensic anthropologist and FBI agent who solve murders at the Jeffersonian in DC. I accept that this viewing is taking up quite a bit of my time that I should be dedicating to studying, but keep telling myself I am drawn to watch for a reason and it is educational to some extent. I love hearing the anatomical structures exemplified throughout the show such as 'medial humeral epicondyle' and 'distal interphalangeal joint' along with many other body parts that I am in the midst of memorizing and reciting for my living anatomy and other classes. I cannot seem to get over the desire to collect posters of muscular skeletal systems or x-rays and post them on my walls. Better yet, fantasize gathering x-rays from individuals... say an arm (or humerus) from one patient and a femur from another to form one complete skeleton... a skeleton of strangers.

I dislocated my thumb on tour in Germany a few years ago where my friend and client escorted me to a hospital in France where he acted as a translator, beautifully fluent in French that he is. I ended up taking home an x-ray of my hand and have it proudly hanging on my wall. I also had an x-ray in Austria of my knee taken which I sadly never confiscated. Man, that was a rough tour for my bones. What is it about looking inside the human body that I find so fascinating? I suppose it is always coincided with my interest in the unknown, although science is hardly that, considering it is based on evidence and we are actually discovering more and more each day.  I am not sure if it is next quarter or the Spring quarter, but our class will have the obvious requirement and privilege of learning the true anatomy and physiology of the human body by visiting a cadaver. I simply cannot wait for this date with the dead and will show great respect to that soul who dedicated their body to science. My Grandfather was in medical school in Europe to become a doctor when my Mother told me he was standing over the cadaver his first time and fainted. He went on to become a pharmacist and writer. I am certain this will not happen to me, but I am amused every time my Mother shares that story with me. I suppose the interest in medicine for me at this time is that science is something that cannot let me down, bore or otherwise disappoint me. It is irrefutably challenging, completely different and always fascinating.

While I do not know what else I might pursue when I receive my degree in this particular path, I hope I will have the option of taking out a bit more money in loans to satisfy my need for the obvious continued knowledge I am daydreaming about. Perhaps Astrophysicist/Acupuncturist/Anthropologist???  I will have to wait patiently, continue to palpate my radial styloid process along with my navicular or scaphoid bone, remember that Yangxi point : Large Intestine 5 is located in the anatomical snuffbox and realize I have enough information to keep my brain busy for the time being. There will always be time to learn and there is no end all...  just constant transformation. Damn you, yin yang theory.

1 comment:

  1. I love your writing voice Joy. Smiled my whole way through - I really like the idea of making a skeleton from intentionally placed random x-rays. I wanna see that!

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