Breathing the Tuesday air

Stress, stress STRESS!

First practical exam in osteopathic evaluation coming up a week from today, with the second one in osteopathic tutorials a week on its heels. Today I sat in on the class I missed last week due to travels, and so glad I did. We learn new things all the time, with very little class time spent on review, and while that seems totally reasonable, practical skills can be much harder to pick up than memorization. Somehow, even after two years, I still have trouble counting spinal vertebrae and palpating transverse processes in the neck. Does it even make sense that I can feel nerve and artery tensions and not bones? Hmmm…. something more to learn there.

Trying to clean house, create some space for my roommate who arrives Thursday bright and early. Two more classes, two more nights sleeping, and then taking the train to London for another epic airport moment. It’s funny, no matter how many tear-jerking airport scenes you see in the movies, it’s no less real when you get there. Never knew I’d get to partake, but no complaints! In the meantime there’s laundry to put away, floors to clean, bathrooms to sanitize, groceries to shop for, and maybe some new decor as my horoscope suggests.

Wish me luck as I clean/organize/study/transition/cohabitate/try to maintain stability! :)

Yesterday I palpated the coccyx

They say the low back and pelvis are the hardest to palpate. And we’ll have to do it all the time. So we start there and work our way to the other, easier areas.

Yesterday was sacrum and coccyx. In case you don’t use these terms everyday, that’s very low back and tailbone. The first reaction, pretty much unanimously, was something like ‘ugh’ but it was actually quite interesting, relatively simple, and surprisingly variable! My first partner had a very obvious sacrum but hard-to-feel lumbar spine, which was exactly opposite what I expected, since the spine has SP’s (spinous processes) that stick out and are generally quite palpable. My second parter had a sacrum with a right torsion, and she is an ectomorph (thin, lanky) so it felt like a very large bump at the lower right end of her sacrum, and almost no coccyx palpable. My third partner was quite simple to feel all of the bony landmarks. Amazing how vastly different the same (assumably) structures can feel from one person to the next. Anatomic variability is really quite diverse, and yet still similar in very important ways.

Today we study more physiology. And probably do out practice exam. Wish me luck!