Scorchio

Another scorching day in Gizzy.

I haven't been updating very much, sorry about that - and it's not like I'm working a full-time job (har har har) so I don't really have any excuse. We've just been settling in over the last few weeks and things have been ticking along just fine, slightly hampered by the OVERWHELMING HEAT which basically leaves me paralytic as soon as I leave the apartment/switch the air con off/move even slightly. Cycling to work is a sticky, sticky trial. My poor patients.

Another reason for not updating is because I don't have many photos - because Gizzy is such a small town it feels quite intrusive to take a camera with me anywhere. I've been waiting to accumulate some, but I've given up. You'll just have to imagine it for now.

So, ophthalmology.

This has been an extremely steep learning curve, and I am extremely grateful that I've got such an easy ride - plopped into a department used to juniors with no experience and with a consultant for direct one-on-one teaching all the time. The only bad thing is that there are no other juniors, of course, so from a morale point of view it's distinctly depressing being the person who knows least and with no one else to commiserate with. Still, I am now no longer trembling with terror at any procedure (tremor: not a Good Thing for an ophthalmologist. True story) and I am sailing through my sub-tenons blocks in theatre now (warning to non-medics: links may suddenly catapult you into a world of gory eye pain) and did my first Avastin injection today. I was also forced into being the scrub nurse for a morning of cataracts and it left me with a deep, deep gratitude for everything those angels in blue do for surgeons. And with a renewed appreciation of exactly how messy doctors are and how much time other people spend cleaning up after them. I don't think it's a coincidence that so many nurses who work closely with doctors (i.e. scrub nurse, clinic nurse etc) are mumsy or dadsy types. Doctors need parental supervision when they play with their pointy toys.

And aside from work, it's all been lovely. We're sort of in-between socially - we're both a bit separate from the house officers, and there are no other registrars in Gizzy - so we've been sort of promoted up the social age ladder to socialising with all the consultants and their families. This means basically that we are fair game for their 1000000 children and Tim got quite fairly tackled when he got into the pool at the theatre party by 2 small girls who decided he was perfect to ride on. Tim emerged with a certain amount of bruising and a fair amount of PTSD but I think he loved it.

That's the other thing here - everyone has ridiculous houses, ridiculous grounds, surrounded by orchards or vineyards, everyone has a pool, and why not a tennis court while you're at it? Land is cheap here because it's so far out - when Tim and I went to the local cinema (we were watching the National theatre's 50th anniversary documentary and were 2 of 4 people in the whole cinema) the lady in charge said, "you're doctors, aren't you? I knew you were doctors. People your age don't want to move to Gisborne, usually. It is so quiet." The local cinema, by the way, is bloody incredible - they serve pizza and beer in the intermission and you sit on enormous, incredibly comfortable bean bags to watch the film.

Not that we're going to be spending much time indoors. Right outside our apartment is the river, and last week Tim and I jumped in and swam from our front door right to the sea- about 1km, but easily carried by the current. Just in front of the beach are tennis courts with a pretty heavenly view, and we've also been paddleboarding and snorkelling so far. We've also joined up to the Arboretum - which is a huge tree park just north of Gizzy - which we went to last time we were here. It is wonderful - shady and beautiful and, like so much of New Zealand, very, very quiet - hardly anyone else there at all. It's like having your own private wood, filled with birdsong. And also, very loud, amorous frogs.

So things are going well. I've started having nightmares about specialty applications, but it seems so far away from this distant, sunny corner of the globe...................................................