Elephants and bone infections

Several weeks of feeling horrible and tired and about two weeks of trying to get in contact with my infectious disease specialist came to a head yesterday afternoon, leaving my clinicial shift at one hospital early to head to the emergency department at the hospital my surgeon works at, aborted shortly later to rush to a third hospital to have an impromptu appointment with infectious disease.

To sum it up, I have lots to talk about. But I am way to tired now. No, not tired. Exhausted. Every inch of my body, down to my fingers taping like a drunk chicken on my keyboard, are drained. My brain too... thank god for spell checker! I didn't think it was possible, but I am pretty sure I have passed my wall. The one you hit when you think you can't go any further. Guess what? You can... it feels horrible. Chronic bone infections suck.

I will try to update this weekend, but make no promises.

Instead, here are some pictures of bronze elephants. I see them every time I drive up to Hamilton for school or to go to the hospital. At Christmas someone put a Santa hat on one of the little ones. Mum and I stopped to get a look close up on the way home from Hamilton today. I had to go back this morning because the lab, or "Specimen Collection Area" as the hospital calls it all fancy and such, closed for the day before I saw my doctor yesterday. I was exhausted from the moment I opened my eyes this morning (after nine hours sleep...), but mum thought I needed some cheering up. It worked!

 

On another fun note, a corpse flower bloomed last month in the McMaster University greenhouse. It had bloomed earlier in the year, so it was quite unexpected. I didn't have time to see it then, and was a bit bummed out what with surgery an all requiring me to take two semester off which would mean not being able to go see the flower if it did come up, but it did! One of my classmates told me about it, so we went to see it. I liked it so much I went back in the evening (extended viewing hours until 11 pm!), and got a few quick pictures with the cell phone. 

This is the corpse flower. The school had a naming competition for the plant. The name that won was Magnus.

These are moon cacti. I heard you can order these online and would love to get a hole of one.

My favorite plant in the greenhouse - living stones, or Lithops, a type of succulent.