Category: Health

Overachiever. I cannot believe they had the gall to call me an overachiever. We’re MED students. The whole reason we’re doing this course in the first place is because we’re overachievers, and we wanted to do a job that has long hours, complicated work and plenty of pay at the end. You know…the stuff that overachievers get.

Just because I’m doing a few extracurricular activities doesn’t mean that I’ve flown way off the handle and I’m trying to become some sort of super doctor. That acupuncture course was just because I was curious. Advanced CPR techniques are practically mandatory. Matching blood types with personality…okay, that was a bit out there, but the short course on identifying early signs of lyme disease was totally vital to my well-being, and everyone’s well-being.

And now I have the nerve- oh, the nerve– to book myself into a trigger point dry needling course, because I just think it would give me a more well-rounded medical education if I investigated all avenues of making someone fit and healthy. Does that make me a bad person? Or even a bad future physician? All my med friends are reacting like I’ve signed up for a course in summoning the power of healing crystals via ancient Arthurian spell chanting, which is terribly closed-minded of them. I got a lot out of the acupuncture course, and dare I say, I had quite the keen hand for it, so I’m hoping dry needling is going to be another speciality. It’s going to be big in a few years, and I’ll have the head-start, leaving all my other doctor friends in the dust as they scramble to clamber on the bandwagon.

Well, shame on them for not realising it sooner. There are still dry needling courses scheduled for Melbourne with spaces, but they’re filling up fast. Maybe they’ll get past their view of me as a teacher’s pet and see the light. Or maybe they’ll just get some kind of sporting injury that current medical science is powerless to correct. And then I’ll humiliate their narrow-mindedness by dry needling the heck out of those injuries.

-Rhonda

Okay, so, fun fact for everyone. Decompression sickness isn’t fun. In fact, out of all the things that exist, including playing tennis, baking cakes, walking a dog, walking five dogs and fighting in World War II…it’s in the middle, but definitely towards the bad end. Man, just imagine all the times when people were only first scuba diving and they had no idea this thing existed. All those cases of the bends, and they probably thought it was due to diving too deep and getting some sort of weird ocean brain sickness.

People nowadays really have excuse for it, which is why I feel pretty stupid. Just like ‘hey, I’m done, winch me back up double time!’ None of us were professionals, so…here I am! Luckily, hyperbaric medicine in Melbourne is taking off pretty much right now. Never really liked the idea before. Bit claustrophobic, not entirely into medicine that isn’t a man in a white coat writing on a clipboard and clearly telling you what’s going on before there’s a needle in your arm full of delicious, 100% peer-proven science. Apparently white coats aren’t a thing anymore, so…that’s disappointing. Stock photos really do have a lot to answer for.

But in the same vein, I’m having my opinion changed of hyperbaric oxygen chambers. I mean, this is their main function after all. Decompression sickness is their main jam, totally proven and good for what ails you, if what ails is decompression sickness. Which it is. I’m just counting myself fortunate that these chambers are still around in Melbourne. Someone could’ve just said ‘stuff it, nobody gets the bends any more, let’s chuck them out’. And then I’d be stuffed. Probably walking around with a head full of air for the rest of my life. So thank goodness some people thought Melbourne’s hyperbaric chamber scene needed to be enlivened. As it turns out, I’m very grateful.

There comes a time when an office job is not enough. I’m done with fetching coffee and making copies! Also, making coffee and fetching copies. It’s very easy to get those two mixed up, and that also is a stress I do not need in my life.

I’ve been having a bit of a search for exciting career options, and nothing has really come up. I can’t be a mountaineering guide because my asthma would act up something fierce. I can’t swim and learning would be like taking another degree, so marine biologist. Of course, there are always those dry needling courses in Sydney currently taking place, but I’m not sure about that either. It’s not quite as ‘extreme’ as what I’m looking for.

Somehow, I’m not willing to strike it off the list entirely. Let’s face it: I’m not in the physical shape to be doing extreme sports every day, and something akin to dry needling might be be the alternative career path I need. It’s definitely more appealing than both massage therapy and forensic pathology, both of which came up when I searched for alternative careers. I’m not so into a ‘hands-on’ career like massaging, and forensic pathology would lead to poking around inside dead people, I’m pretty sure. That, also, is off the table. Way off the table. Off the table and into the trash can.

Well, unless I want to become a feng shui interior designer, I guess I’m taking a dry needling course. Me, needling. It’s still a bit too close to massage therapy for my liking, but you don’t actually have to touch anyone (the needles do it all, supposedly) and there’s no blood. I get a bit faint when I see blood, so I better HOPE there’s none of it.

Guess I’m looking around Australia for a dry needling course. There’s going to be one in Sydney, right? I kinda have a fear of flying…

-Terrence