Spring Break & Cows!

What. A. Week. I faced my fears head on and worked with over 700 cows!

My week long mentorship started at the sale barn. I had no idea what to expect, just that we would be "processing" 200 cows. So basically what happened was someone would gather a group of cows and put them in to the chute, and then one by one we would age them (based on their teeth), record their tag numbers, and preg check them. It's a very quick process (less than a minute per cow). We did this again on Tuesday and Wednesday. The sale was held on Wednesday, so I watched it for about an hour. It was...interesting! They put groups of cows into a pen in the center of the auction room and people bid on them. One person bought a group of cows for 44,000 dollars! I couldn't believe my eyes!

  

On Thursday I visited KABSU, KSU's bull stud service. I watched how they collect and evaluate semen samples. The bulls will mount a steer, and someone will collect the semen in an artificial vagina. Even though I plan on never working with cattle, I can use the knowledge of semen evaluation in both small animal and aquatic animal medicine. During the day I was also able to do a physical on a Jersey steer named Rocky. He was adorable! On Friday, I went back to the sale barn and helped the vet process another 100 cows. Afterwards I was able to watch the vet band some calves (a method of castration), and I gave some injections and palpated some more cows.

It wasn't terrible, but I can't say it was the best week of my life...I have a lot of pretty strong opinions about the food animal industry. It's just hard for me to understand a type of medicine that revolves around keeping costs low for the producer, even if that means slaughtering an animal that could've been treated. So with that being said, I would've much rather spent my last spring break doing something I enjoy rather than working with cattle! But all in all, I'm glad for the opportunity to expand my knowledge, meet new people, and to really be aware of the type of medicine I do and don't want to be involved in!

 

I've been a slacker!

I can't believe four months have gone by since my last post. I stayed really busy during the holiday break, catching up with family and friends, completing a mentorship, and attending the NAVC. It ended too quickly and I've already been back in school for almost 3 full months!

For my non-vet school friends (and soon to be vet school friends), our course schedule this semester consists of systemic pathology + lab , clinical pathology + lab, virology, toxicology, integration, radiology + lab, and we already completed our half semester of pharmacology 2. This has been the hardest semester for me so far. The best way to describe it is like drowning. It's an overwhelming amount of material to learn, but somehow I'm keeping my head above the water! This semester is also the most social I've been since I started veterinary school. I don't know if that's helping or hindering me, but I at least feel less stressed out when I give myself a break to go out on the weekends :) Roughly 6 weeks left of school and then I will be on my way back to Florida! I'm pretty excited about this summer. On the agenda: between May 20th and June 14th is jammed full of friends, family and the beach, my best friend Brittney's bachelorette party, followed by 11 days in Gainesville with Misty for the Sea Vet course, followed immediately by Brittney's wedding (so excited!!), and then I start my job at Banfield for the remainder of the summer! It's going to be busy, but when am I not busy? Pretty used to it at this point. I just hope I have enough time to relax a little on my days off from work, because this is my last summer...ever! Next summer I'll be in  the clinics, which is crazy to even think about...

So while I'm here, I wanted to talk about my running progress. I started a 10K training program 7 weeks ago, and I've made quite a bit of progress. I wish I had made more progress by this point, but I have never been a long distance runner (always was a sprinter in high school) so it's taking me longer than the average person (at least I feel like it is!). So I thought I'd record my progress so far. Maybe it will make me feel better about how far I've come, or maybe I'll feel bad enough about myself to push it a little harder ;)

Week 1 Day 1                   1.65 miles, 30:00 minutes
Week 1 Day 2                   1.75 miles, 30:00 minutes
Week 1 Day 3                   1.76 miles, 30:00 minutes
Week 2 Day 1                   2.00 miles, 31:00 minutes
Week 2 Day 2                   2.00 miles, 32:00 minutes
Week 2 Day 3                   2.00 miles, 31:18 minutes
Week 3 Day 1                   1.97 miles, 30:00 minutes
Week 3 Day 2                   2.03 miles, 30:00 minutes
Week 3 Day 3                   2.03 miles, 30:00 minutes
Week 4 Day 1                   2.21 miles, 31:30 minutes
Week 4 Day 2                   2.27 miles, 31:30 minutes
Week 4 Day 3                   2.38 miles, 35:00 minutes
Week 5 Day 1                   2.42 miles, 35:00 minutes
Week 5 Day 2                   2.54 miles, 37:00 minutes
Week 5 Day 3                   (skipped - whoops!)
Week 6 Day 1                   2.58 miles, 37:00 minutes
Week 6 Day 2                   2.73 miles, 37:00 minutes
Week 6 Day 3                   3.15 miles, 39:00 minutes
Week 7 Day 1                   3.12 miles, 35:00 minutes
Week 7 Day 2                   3.31 miles, 39:00 minutes

So as of now I've added 1.66 miles to my distance and 9 minutes to my time. Right now I'm mostly focused on increasing my distance rather than my time, but definitely trying to not go over 40 minutes. I have a 5K this Saturday and my goal is to at least beat my time last year (45 minutes), and based on my stats I should have no problem with that! But I'd ultimately like to be able to finish the 5K in 35 minutes. I'll have Rhyley with me, so her wanting to sniff/bark/attack people might slow me down a bit, but hopefully not too much, haha. And my goals beyond that? I want to keep training for a 10K and look for one to complete sometime this summer in Florida, or one in Kansas in the fall. If anyone knows of one, let me know! Really I just want to keep up with this because not only have I lost weight, I just feel a lot better inside and out. Running has been my time to release my anxiety and tension, and to regain composure and collect my thoughts. This summer will prove challenging, because not only is Florida super hot and swampy in the summer, but I'll be working 30 to 40 hours a week and the commute is 50 minutes. So we'll see how dedicated I am to get up in the morning or stay up after work to run!

Orientation, Day Two

9:00 AM Hours of presentations on scholarships, required pre-clinical mentorships (which I am BEYOND excited about!), student health insurance, etc

12:00 PM Lunch...pizza & soda (my stomach hates me!)

1:00 PM Question-answer forum with the officers of SCAVMA

2:00 PM Leadership activities...a lot more fun than I thought they would be! They had us standing in a huge circle with paper plates in front of us, and the person in the middle would say something about themselves. If you had it in common with them you would have to run around to find an unoccupied plate...hilarious! I had a quite an enjoyable time watching people sprinting to plates...hahah. For our last activity, we had to build a tower out of cardboard boxes. One group was done in like 2 minutes, but our group was scrambling at the last second to finish by putting on this huge antenna on the top, which collapsed almost immediately, hahah. So fun :)

I passed out when I got back to the hotel, and then headed back out to the CVM club fair. I was surprised at how many clubs I want to join! For instance...SCAVMA, canine club, christian veterinary mission fellowship, AAHA, behavior club....ahh! Tomorrow is the last day of orientation (which looks like it will be really fun), and my mom will be here tomorrow as well. If all goes well, I will be moving into my new apartment tomorrow afternoon! Very exciting :)