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
1 Comment »

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
No Comments »

My sister and her husband had a baby today (March 13 North America time). I’m so excited about him. He is my third nephew, and Jenn and James’s first baby. Born early in the morning, he is a happy and welcome blessing. I can’t wait to meet him. I have seen a few photos and he looks great. My prayers are with you three!

Tags: Canada, Life by David Graff
1 Comment »

Looking back over the last few months, and all that has happened, the music I have listened to kinda captures a lot of what was going on. Does the mood make the music or vice versa? Anyways, here’s a tour backwards through time.

[Read more →]

Tags: Life, Music by David Graff
No Comments »

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
4 Comments »

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
3 Comments »

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
2 Comments »

He was 24. He looked just like one of us. He took too much heroin that time.

Tags: Life, Medicine by David Graff
No Comments »

A few days ago I watched the movie ‘Gran Torino’ with a few friends.  I had a good time and it was fun and relaxing to go out, but the movie was terrible.  The characters were walking, talking stereotypes, with their volume turned up 125%.  Nobody acts like that.  Even people who think those things don’t act like that.  People who DO think or do those things, don’t turn around after a week and behave in the opposite manner.

There were a few ideas that were forced too hard as well.  The whole church-hater-ending-up-a-Christ-like-sacrifice figure seemed like it was crafted with a blunt instrument.

Throw on top of that a few terrible child actors and Clint Eastwood trying to solidify his reputation as the old gravel-voice,  and it was just not worth it. Just my thoughts.

Tags: Life by David Graff
4 Comments »

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
2 Comments »