Entonces, hasta luego.

Today will be a grueling day. I've driven myself to sleeplessness akin to the sleep-deprivation study we had during medical school. Ha! That interesting study we had in physiology. THAT is a story. I'll tell it anyway, since I have lots of time prior to my lift.

Sleep deprivation is usual in medical students like us, So, we did this study in second year medical school wherein we sleep deprive ourselves for 2 sessions, one caffeine-free session and another one with caffeine. The amount of caffeine was the same for all the subjects (which is us) and that means everyone has to drink whatever caffeine we needed to ingest to keep us awake. Even it means ramming a cup of coffee into someone elses throats--well, this is need to minimize bias. Thank God, we didnt go this far. Everyone was such a Starbucks freak and my anti-capitalist, non-conformist self was totally disgusted.

Then, we measure the latency of our P300 auditory evoked potential. OK, I guess ithat's a mouthful, but simply, we measured the delay of the P300 brain wave using electrodes in the scalp as you respond to a sound stimulus. During the test, you will have to listen to a click sound and buzz sound. Once you hear a buzz, you have to press a button. The electrodes calculates the amount of time needed for the brain to process that sound into an action. How freaking cool is that?? Apparently, it becomes delayed when you are sleep deprived and the delay is shorter when you are caffeinated. It was awesome.

This is the funny part: we had to keep ourselves awake for 24 hours, checking each other if someone is snoozing off. We did a lot of fun stuff -- board games, ball games, TV marathons, anything to keep us awake. Then, we rush ourselves to the Makati Med sleep lab for the P300 measurement, I can still remember the whole group slumped on the ground, craving for sleep, as we took turns in the P300 machine. It was a funny sight. We look like a pack of junkies waiting for sobriety. Haha.

And that is how I look now. I have to STAY awake. I have to wait until night becomes day and day becomes night, so that adjustment is not so tedious and disgusting.

What did we found out? Well, for one, caffeine does stimulate the brain---big whoop...I guess we all know that. It makes us sharp. But, once you're sleep-deprived, caffeine does not stimulate the brain significantly. Consequently, we concluded that we all need sleep. Medical students should be treated as humans and our group argued that mental capacity to respond to stimuli is impaired, despite of caffeine, in sleep-deprived pitiful medical students that we were.

Just the same, it didnt change anything. We still have to go on 24- and sometimes awake for 48-72 hours during our toxic (read: pedia) rotations. I am just so glad I didn't kil any patient during those sleep-hungry times. And now, I am so glad I am so frigging far away from medical school.

I'm getting a cup a coffee. This day will be one LONG day. Hasta luego a todos.