Is it time for our break yet?

Not a whole lot went on this week at school. We're down to only about a week and a half left of classes before finals start kicking in. Compared to other finals weeks I've had at U of A, this quarter's finals week really doesn't look too bad :)

After our test on bacteria/viruses/antibiotics on Tuesday (which went pretty well), I was pretty dead tired and went to bed early that day. I woke up the next morning (Wednesday) and felt like I caught some type of stomach bug, so I spent the majority of the day resting in bed and sipping clear fluids (I had no appetite all day).

Then Wednesday late afternoon I had to go take a 3 hour CPR training and certification class (that I had signed up for a few months ago) for school. I managed to make it and felt okay through almost all of it. They did make us do 6 full minutes of chest compressions to the beat of "Another one bites the dust"... haha. So if anything, keeping that up was a little tiresome.

I'm feeling much better now, but still very tired. And unfortunately I'll have to do a bit more studying this weekend to make up for all the class I had to miss. I guess these things happen though.

We studied vital signs in my methods lab and practiced taking everyone's blood pressure. My blood pressure had been a tad high a few months ago, but I'm pretty sure all the running I've been doing lately has brought it down to a relatively normal level, so that's good to know I'm doing something right. The weight loss is still going pretty well also. I backtracked a little when family was in town a few weeks ago (we went out to eat quite a few times), but I managed to get back where I was and am down a total of 7 pounds, which I'm still pretty happy with considering everything I'm trying to keep up with :)

And speaking of running, my 5K is coming up and is next Saturday. I didn't get a lot of running done this week with being sick and all, but I'm still looking forward to next weekend. Should be pretty fun since quite a few of my class mates are doing it as well.

And really...that's about it. Until next time, hope everyone has a good week! :)

Optometry Fact of the Week

Esophoria

In optometry, when we talk about "fusion", we're referring to how you just see one image even thought you're using two eyes. I'm sure most people have seen someone with a strabismus, or a "lazy eye", where one eye tends to turn in or out from the other, but there's also something called a "phoria" that most people have without realizing it (like me).

A phoria has to do with how our eye muscles work "naturally" and where our eyes naturally want to turn when they're not actively looking at something. Fusion is still possible (meaning anyone with a phoria won't see double), but when we just use one eye, the other eye will go to it's "happy place" and rest in its natural position. We detect this with an alternating "cover test" where we cover one eye and quickly uncover it and cover the other. In someone that has a phoria, the eye that was just uncovered will generally move either in or out a little bit to refocus on what they're looking at.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyIA-dl49Lg

This is a really good example of an "esophoria" (eso meaning inward). See how her eyes turn out a little whenever they're uncovered? Meaning her eyes naturally turn in when they are covered. (And actually, this girl has a tropia as well, meaning her left eye is like a "lazy eye")

Anyways! Esophoria is also what my eyes exhibit when only one of my eyes is covered. I'm only one of a few in my class. The rest are mostly exophoric (meaning their eyes naturally turn out) or they are orthophoric (meaning their eyes are aligned straight all the time). This isn't really a big deal or anything to be concerned about, but I find it interesting.

And I'm aware this is way more complex than what I usually talk about, but I find this stuff super interesting. And if I explain it out on here, it helps me study for my upcoming tests :)

White Coat Ceremony Shenanigans

Hey all, so I skipped blogging last week since my parents were in town and I was busy doing white coat ceremony stuff, but I am here now! And we only have 3 weeks left of this quarter before we get a little over 3 and a half weeks off for Thanksgiving!!! (Can you tell I'm excited?)

So yeah! Our white coat ceremony was a week ago today and what an awesome/fun experience it was. If you haven't heard of a white coat ceremony before, it's basically a small ceremony that schools will have for health-related professions to somewhat "signify" the student's transition into clinical practice (ya know, since lots of doctors wear white coats). So we all had our turn with our names being called to walk up on stage, have our coat put on us by the dean of the optometry college and some of the head faculty, and take lots of pictures with all of us wearing our snazzy white coats.

The entire Arizona College of Optometry Class of 2017

All of us getting our white coats!

So the picture above was put together by a brother of one my classmates who was kind enough to take pictures of ALL of us having our coats put on and then arrange it like this. We all thought (and still think) this is the coolest thing ever, especially since we're a relatively small class and are finally getting around to knowing everyone.

For my methods class, we had learned all about visual acuities and such (like if you can see 20/20 or not) and how to test for them. One of our assignments was to make our own visual acuity chart and bring them in the day of the white coat ceremony (we still had class that morning) so that we could hang them up in our lab so that all the parents/family could see them too. I decided on a music themed one, as seen below :)

"If music be the food of love play on" - William Shakespeare
20/20 (bottom) line: Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do

This was kind of a fun assignment, but I decided to make it hard on myself apparently and draw out all the letters myself. All of the sizes had to be accurate for a proper test distance (like 20 feet away), so I was literally using a straight edge ruler drawing out every single letter both to measure it, and to get the lines as straight as possible. So that took some time, plus doing all the math for the sizes of the letters and doing calculations to figure out the "critical detail" of each letter, which is optometry talk for "1/5" of the letter size (like the arms on the I are 1/5 as tall as the entire I itself). But I thought it still came out well.

My parents were able to come down as well and got to see some of our cool classrooms with all our equipment as well (which I have several pictures of up on facebook).

But yeah! We are literally down to only 3 weeks left, which means my "finals week" starts 3 weeks from today with my proficiency practical in my methods class (doing all the eye tests in front of someone) so over these next few weeks I will probably be spending some time in our lab practicing on people to make sure I have our skills down. I can't believe how fast this is going.

Classes are still going well! I've taken another 3 exams since my last post (2 basic science tests, 1 methods/theory test) and I did really well on all of them. I think I've finally gotten my study system down and know what works/what doesn't work for me. 

Until next week!

Optometry Fact

Snellen Eye Chart

This is the typical "eye chart" you probably see somewhere when your vision needs to be tested. Basically, the way it works is the lowest line you can read from a certain calibrated distance is your "visual acuity". So if FELOPZD is the lowest line you can read, you have a 20/25 visual acuity. In layman's terms, what you can see from 20 feet away, other people with normal vision can see from 25 feet away...indicating your vision might be just a little bit worse than normal.

This isn't the exact science definition of what 20/20 or 20/30 means, but generally is what makes the most sense to people when we explain it. If you're REALLY curious to what they mean, you can ask me and I can give you all kinds of definitions and words to explain the laws behind it. But....it might be kind of boring :)