I'm back from hospital!

Update on me includes:

- Taking it easy with sports. Until I will get explicit permission I am forbidden from joining any teams at the university. Bit of a bummer, but that's hardly a price to pay.

- Having to return to hospital for more tests in about a month.

- Surprising most doctors who got to see my results. I took the general impression that they had no good idea how someone with my problem (Major: too small heart, it didn't grew as quickly as rest of my body and still lags some 25 cm behind what it should be for my height) could get so insanely good results in stamina/endurance tests, even for a healthy person. The defect is there, I can even pin-point the moment when I can't seem to steady my own pulse any longer by lowering the pace of the activity tested without just dropping to the floor. But even with defect I'm above the norm! Apparently if you want to have strong heart you just have to run at least four times a week for three years until you are (almost) about to throw up from exhaustion :P. Take that, Gattaca!

- My growth hormone levels are too high, significantly above what is expected even for my age and gender, and I am to visit endocrinologist in a few days. On the plus side, according to RTG, ends of my bones are starting to calcify so I am very unlikely to grow more than 2-5 centimetres.

- I was given an actual recepture for my medications! I need doses specific enough that I have to go to a pharmacy where someone still remembers how to make pills from basic chemicals.

Update on the pain-ridden person who was in my room:

He was here after a major problem that resulted from stopping some medication during his myocarditis (I think that's the translation) treatment in some other hospital. Two days ago he got lucid and 'painless' enough to talk with me. A very pleasant if not outright hilarious guy, a retired mechanical engineer who can consistently win (or to not to beat around the bush, whoop my ass sore without effort) at Go and Chess against me :D. Although it got me thinking that I have never seen anyone visiting him. I am planning on dropping by this Friday when I will be here for my endocrinologist appointment. Considering his state I have a shitty conviction that I will see him in a month when I'll get there again.

Cool stuff that I have learned from medical students:

- If you have leg cramps while lying in bed, don't try to massage it or force it to straighten or yield and bend it along the cramp! What you want to do is to gently put ball of your foot on something. It gets away like god damned magic! This also works on cramps in upper limb, you have to gently put that part of your palm that is closest to the thumb to get same effect. Don't press, you just need to touch something.

- Don't ever use your thumb when measuring pulse, especially on someone else or during CPR. What you should do is to use index and middle finger and locate an artery behind left collarbone. Use limb joints only if you suspect that there could be some spinal damage.

- Put your finger on your jawbone at its lower, interior, right side and manoeuvrer the fingertip through its length. Did you felt some lumpy nodule about at the same place where your fang should be growing from (at the upper side of the jaw :P)? Good. That's a salivatory gland and gentle press can actually be used to induce saliva release.

I might add something more, but I have a class to attend in half an hour. Just as a FYI, in Poland most finals are in late May and up until the end of June. Depends on many factors. Although some of the classes can be attempted at something called 'zeroth-term exam' that usually happens about two weeks before the end of the semester or actual exam.