Happy Easter everyone, I hope that the time was spent with family and friends.  Sadly, in these expatriate days, I do not spend my time with family.  Last year, I did, which was great, but that was a long time ago now.  To add to my reminder of that time, I even went out to dinner to Ahmet’s on Thursday.  It was a good friend’s girlfriend’s birthday, and lots of fun.

It has been raining all weekend, especially today, in which I have not gone far from the house. Earlier in the weekend, I took a run up to see an old friend who lives on the sunshine coast, and try a little fishing up there.  It was no good for fishing, despite the number of hopeful fools on all the docks, jettys and beaches.  The water was just too dirty I think.  There were some pretty major floods in the last few weeks, especially some down south in NSW and on the sunshine coast.  I think all the runoff just made the water too turbid to have any luck with the fishes.  I might add that I still did catch a fish, the only one of the trip. 🙂 The size is somewhat irrelevant.  John, my housemate and I headed up and spent the night at a friend of his from Uni.

With Easter over now, I am staring at the last run down to the mid year exam, and all that involves.  I hope it will be ok.

Tags: Australia, Life by David Graff
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As I sat there on the beach, looking out to the vast Pacific expanse before me, I wondered how I was so lucky as to be there.  At 4:45 am, the tide was coming in.  I was awake, and sitting there in my sleeping bag, watching the water come closer and closer.

Then I noticed something strange in the sand.  When a wave would run up onto the sand, and would touch new sand, there would sometimes be a little yellow-green glow that lit up in the sand as the water pulled away, just at the edge.  I don’ t know what it was, or if it was a real or not, but it looked pretty cool.  I loved it out there.

Tags: Australia, Beaches, Life by David Graff
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This year we are seeing a lot more actual patients.  It is really interesting, and when you see, touch, smell and talk to a person with a condition, it seems to be much more memorable.

I thought I would just take a few notes of when I see these patients, to help me remember, and to plot my development in understanding the massive field of medicine.

Some of the conditions I have seen this year include atopic dermatitis, bullous pemphigoid, Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia-1, Pityriasis Rubra Pilaris and mycosis fungoides.   You may or not be able to tell from that list that my clinical coach for this block is a dermatologist.  We have put much effort into elucidating the subtleties in the differential diagnosis for erythroderma.

This past week we saw a patient with Hidradenitis Suppurativa.  This is such a horrible disease of the skin in which it is so badly chronically inflamed by a form of acne that over time, scars, tracts and comedoes form such a disfiguration of the skin that it looks like someone had recovered from massive burns.  Often the skin remains ulcerated and open.  The chronic inflammation often precedes development of cancer.  This patient was 43 but it looked like he was in his 60s.  It is so severe it destroyed his life.

I won’t be able to forget that for quite some time.  Hopefully I never will.   If I do, I can maybe look back at this to remember.

Tags: Australia, Life, Medicine, UQ by David Graff
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Since you can’t just come visit me every year, I wanted to let you all see where I’m living now. It has been good to find a place that works for me and be grounded again.

The place is kinda like a townhouse, with a parking garage below, and walk up doors to 6 units, I am unit 5. I am living with a guy named John, who is originally from New Zealand, and has lived in Tasmania and New South Wales for the last few years. Our bedrooms are on the first floor, and the living room/kitchen is upstairs.

It’s nice to have air conditioning and a big open kitchen. The gas range is something I really love too, and one of the little things I missed from my old house.

Without much more ado, I’ll let you see it for yourself. Just follow the link for a video.

[Read more →]

Tags: Australia, Life, Video by David Graff
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It’s been a while since I have made an update, but I have been busy trying to settle into my new home. I am loving it and it is so good to finally have a place that is somewhat permanent.

For the last ~3 months I have been a nomad.  Without a permanent home, coasting on the good hearts of my friends and family.  Now that I have found a place, I realized that I was so anxious to just live normally that I did just that.  I am getting quite comfortable, even though I haven’t completely set up things yet.  There are things that I need to do right now, or they may never get done!

I also don’t have internet at home.  I have a connection through my cell phone, which is pretty handy, since I don’t have to march over to the hospital to check one thing, but it’s a little restrictive too, since it is bandwidth limited and a little touch and go for staying online sometimes.  That should be fixed some time this week, if all goes well.

It’s Mardi Gras here today, which isn’t a real event down here that I’ve noticed.  I’m at the hospital because we had PBL this morning and now we are just chilling at the library waiting for Pathology at 2:30.

I took a bit of a camera tour on the place a few days ago.  I’ll put it together and put it here to let you all know where I’m living soon.

Tags: Australia, Life by David Graff
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These are a few more photos from Australia Day and the fireworks.

It was a fun day.

Tags: Australia, Photos by David Graff
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It was green, and I think it had a white stripe running it’s length.  It was maybe two centimeters in diameter and about 1.5 m in length.  It was on the boardwalk between the lecture hall and the Green Bridge.  I tried to take a picture of it, but it was gone before I could even get close.

Just a part of life here…

Tags: Australia by David Graff
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How am I going to get to the hospital in any sort of respectable condition? It’s a 45 minute walk away from here, and you guessed it, my umbrella is buried deep in storage somewhere.

I doubt the photo will show the true tropical downpour that I am about to march through.

Tags: Australia, Photos by David Graff
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Here are a few more photos of the place that I’m staying temporarily.

It is a good place to be temporarily, but is definitely a dorm, complete with strangers everywhere, loud music and late loud talkers.

It’s cheap tho! Depending on where I end up living, it is about half to a third of what I will pay for my own place.

Tags: Australia, Life, Photos, UQ by David Graff
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This is the green bridge, the link between campus and the other side of the river.
It’s suprisingly long, and once while crossing it I saw a dolphin playing in the water below.

It’s going to be a much bigger part of my life this year no matter where I live, since half of my life is on one side, and half on the other.

Tags: Australia, Photos, UQ by David Graff
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