Well today was a bit of a mixed bag. I should have been in US the whole day but as it was only arranged yesterday afternoon the sonographers weren't expecting me and as it turned out it was a bit of a bad day for students to be observing. The plan was to spend the morning in ante-natal and then switch to generic US in the afternoon but it turned out that the afternoon was going to be purely a testes clinic which wasn't ideal. So off I went to generic US for the morning with the intention of heading back to ante-natal in the afternoon. However, once over in generic I was informed that ante-natal was actually going to be running a termination clinic that afternoon which again wasn't really ideal for a student to be sat in on for the whole afternoon. With me so far?
Anyway, I stayed in generic US and after a bit of an odd start got to see all sorts of things. Mainly vascular stuff where we were looking at and listening to the blood flow in veins and arteries. I saw the common, internal and external carotid as well as the veterbral arteries. At first I didn't know what I was looking at really but the radiographer was really good at talking me through it as they were doing it and explaining what we we looking at.
From what I gather from my very brief visit to ante-natal and the time in generic it seems that liquid appears black, bone is white and I think fats and anything in between is greyish. Not 100% sure on the fat so I best look that up, but anyway it was really interesting. You could really see the difference between the arteries and veins in how they reacted when pressure was applied to the area. Because the walls of the arteries are more muscular they were more resistant to pressure and didn't seem to collapse beneath it whereas the veins just completely flattened until the pressure was removed. Great to see what you learn in action!
Listening to the blood flow in the veins and arteries was also very different. In the arteries it was more of a pulse whereas it wasn't in the veins. I saw the veins in the lower limb examined including the iliac, femoral and peroneal (I think) veins. Need to brush up in the blood vessels me thinks!! It's in my to do list somewhere and I've made a start but it's getting through it all isn't it!? Hmmm.....what else did I see?
Well I saw a few organs scanned including the pancreas, a gall bladder filled with multiple large stones, lots of kidney exams and also a bladder. I think I enjoyed looking at the urinary system best to be honest.....maybe because I found it much easier to see and understand what was on the monitors. It was easy to see the outline (cortex) of the kidney and the pelvis and the bladder was easy to see because obviously it is full of liquid so was very black and you could see the shape and outline of it much easier. Also I was able to make out the liver because of its proximity to the kidneys. I think I probably enjoyed looking at it as well as I've been doing lots of reading about the kidney lately as this is what I'm going to do my assignment on. So I was bombarding the radiographer with lots of questions which they seemed only to happy to answer and were very keen to do what they could to help me with my assignment which was fantastic. They made me feel really welcome and when I mentioned I might pop in again tomorrow to look up some bits for my assignement they made me feel so welcome it was lovely :-)
I hadn't really given much thought to sonography up until today and even on my journey to placement when I thought I was going to be in ante-natal I was wondering if I might like it and if it might be something I'd like to do in the future, but at the same time I was hoping I wouldn't because of pre-conceived notions I had in my own head if that makes sense.
I think in my mind I was going to try and steer clear because it seems to be something that everybody wants to do because they want to scan babies which I never thought I'd be interested in and you hear of staff getting bad wrists, shoulders and elbows due to the repetitive strain which also put me off, but after today I think I'm sold on it.
Before I went down to generic US I got the chance to see a 20 week scan and it was soooo amazing! I've never seen anything like it and you could feel the happiness and excitement in the room, it was fantastic! I felt it for them too and it was a lovely thing to see and feel a part of. It probably sounds sad but I appreciated and felt honoured getting to share that moment. I don't think I'll ever forget it. In that moment I think I knew that I was sold on it and it was something I would absolutely love to do in the future. I never ever thought it would have that effect on me as I'm not particularly into babies and all that kind of stuff....well let's be honest....i'm not into it AT ALL but seeing and being part of that kind of thing can make a girl feel broody! But shhhh, it's our little secret hehe :-) !!
So then when I went off to generic and had a fab time there I guess it has sealed it and given me something to aim for. It's early days and obviously I've not even finished the degree yet but I've spent a bit of time one way or another in other departments such as nuclear medicine, MRI and CT and I've never been as exciting or felt as buzzing as I was today. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing other modalities in action yes, but today was different. It just goes to show doesn't it.....I'd written off US in my mind as "not for me" but you don't know til you try which I learned today. On Friday I get to spend another day in US but I'll be spending it in ante-natal which I'm looking forward to. Should be a nice way to end the week.
The rest of my day was spent in general x-ray which I always enjoy. A clinic was running this afternoon so it was non-stop and pretty busy. I ended up doing lots of knee and chest x-rays but also managed to squeeze in a pelvis x-ray too which I managed to get right first time. I seem to be improving with those and feeling a bit more confident about my positioning which is always nice when you can see yourself making progress. I feel like I've had the best day on placement in a long time and it feels good. I got really good feedback from my mentor as well which I didn't expect at all as I didn't think they were paying to much attention to what I was up to while I was quietly working away, but they don't miss a trick and it felt nice to be appreciated and get the positive feedback. So all in all i'm a very happy bunny tonight.
Tomorrow I'm in mammography so I'll be back then with an update. Have a good evening guys and sorry for yet another long post. I'll get it right one day x
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