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!

 

Three Day Week? Yes, Please!

I am totally fine with a 3 day school week. We had two snow days last week, and I was so thankful because I needed the extra study time! Plus I got to experience my first real winter storm! I'm definitely not a fan of winter, but it was kinda nice watching the snow fall. And SO MUCH SNOW FELL!

 

This was a beast to clean off...

 

 

I'm clearly a superb snowman builder...{yep, those are granola flakes for eyes!}

All this snow has made me a little bit home sick...while we're enduring wind chills of -10 on some days, my Florida friends and family get to walk outside in shorts and tanks with their highs of 70-80 degrees! I can't even remember the last time I wore shorts! And I really hate not being able to take Rhyley on walks {she's not a huge fan of snow} or open my windows and let fresh air in {unless I want to freeze to death}. Getting a little bit of cabin fever!

Speaking of Florida, I've been thinking a lot about where I want to end up when I graduate. Originally I thought I would refuse to live anywhere other than San Diego, but the older I'm getting the more I'm realizing how important it is for me to be near family. A few of my family members are dealing with some health issues and I hate being far away and not able to see them. I do see San Diego in my future, but as of now my plan is to get a job either in Tampa Bay or the Clearwater area {or obviously Orlando if I land an awesome job at a theme park! I've seen enough snow to last me a lifetime!

It isn't easy being a vet student's pet...

ESPECIALLY when said vet student is also a total hypochondriac! Whenever I think something may be wrong with me I do a lot of research on whatever the condition is to help myself "make a diagnosis". Ridiculous, I know, and of course none of the things I think are wrong me ever are actually afflicting me {except paranoia!} but my anxiety transfers over to my dog's health too. So anyway, when I saw this brown mole type lesion on her butt, my brain is screaming MELANOMA! So we took a trip to the vet school today to have the spot checked out {and yeah, I snap photos of my dog's butt and post them on the internet...hahah, totally normal}! Thankfully the doctor didn't seem concerned about it because it isn't raised or invasive, so we'll just watch it to make sure it doesn't grow. Oh and the vet mentioned how "observant" I am...I'll take that as a compliment and pretend they didn't think I was a total weirdo for checking out my dog's butt!

The second reason I brought her in is because I noticed she has gotten a lot thinner since we got back home from Florida. I've had Rhyley on a weight management diet for roughly a year now, and she only dropped half a pound in that time frame, but recently I could tell she had lost the fat pads over the her ribs and her abdominal tuck is more obvious. So we weighed her today and in the past month, she has lost 1.6 pounds - TWELVE PERCENT OF HER BODY WEIGHT! I haven't restricted her food intake at all and she's exercising even less now that it's winter. I think that's a substantial amount in a short time frame for a small dog, so we ran a CBC/chem/UA to see if there is anything obvious and we'll go from there. It just alarmed me because I haven't been actively trying to get her to lose weight. I hope nothing is wrong but at the same time I'm not sure how that much weight loss could happen for no reason. It'd be great if she did just "magically" lose the weight though because she's actually right at her ideal BCS!

My crazy little girl :)

But anyway, I just ask that you keep my pup in your prayers, or at least send her some good vibes if praying isn't your thing! 

UPDATE:  Rhyley's lab work, including her T4, came back normal! Such good news! I'll bring her back to the clinic for a weight recheck in about 3 weeks. Hopefully she maintains her weight so we don't have to do any more diagnostics!

A light at the end of the tunnel...

...well, at least at the end of the lecture learning tunnel! Eight years of college have already flown by, and in just 4 months we'll be learning in clinics. It definitely makes me nervous but I'm excited for the change.

Since I didn't have time to post much last semester, let me summarize it in one word: HELL. Or what I imagine hell would be like...I had truly never been more stressed out in my entire life. Thanks to weekly surgeries and Monday/Friday exams, I had zero rest or relaxation. No weekends off, no evenings off. It was really rough but by the grace of God I made it through, and I really did learn a lot so at least there's that! Nobody said it'd be easy...

In other news, I thought I'd post a list of our last round of classes since that seems to be a tradition of mine. They're mostly food animal/equine focused this semester. We have surgery 2 (large animal), medicine 2 and 3 (one small animal, one equine), practice management/finance, nutrition, clinical pharmacology, advanced exotic animal medicine, public health, and surgical skills. Sounds a little intense but so far I've had way more free time than last semester (granted we are only 2 weeks in). We have Thursday/Friday exams, which means I can use Friday evenings to refresh my brain and recharge. We also only had one equine castration for the semester, which I've already completed. It was pretty exciting and was on a client owned horse! We just have a few more afternoon labs - an advanced equine lab this week, small animal ophtho and a few food animal handling labs later in the semester. It's nice to touch a live animal every now and then :)

Our first surgery exam is coming up this Thursday, the day after my birthday of course. As if that isn't lame enough, Kansas is VERY sweet and has planned a low of 5 degrees for me on my birthday... -_- Bah! Can't wait till spring gets here! It's actually slightly above 50 today though, so time to head out for a walk with Rhyley!

Oh and before I forget - please check out my flickr account by clicking this link! I've had it for 4 years now and always forget to mention it on here. I've recently had some really great opportunities to shoot photos of wildlife in Florida, so check it out if you're interested :)

Just breathe....

Quick blog entry while watching the spay video to say....I'M KIND OF FREAKING OUT.

Whoever said third year is "easier" than second is kind of insane. My day tomorrow consists of a 200 point exam from 8 to 9, class from 9 to 12, a clinical skills lab from 12 to 1 (no lunch break for me), and then a lab from 1 to 4. And unlike a full time job, I can't come home and relax. I have to study for my next exams, because I have another one this Friday, and another one next Monday, and another one next Friday...and the Monday after that. Sounds fictitious, yeah?! And then throw in my first surgery in the middle of it all. And externship applications. And maybe a shower or two...

Not quite sure how I'm going to make it through this, but the thought of having to pay another 25 grand to repeat this semester is enough to kick my butt into gear! Doesn't mean I'm not panicking though. Where is time travel when you need it?! I could use an extra 12 hours in a day...

And back to it.

That moment when...

...you finally get how to do a hand tie

It's the little things, people.

3 weeks in to 3rd year!

Well it's official. The weekly tests have begun! Today we had our first medicine exam, which actually went fairly well. It was over endocrinology, which I really enjoy, so what I was most stressed about was the time constraint. Up until now, we've had at least a few hours to take exams. Now we have 50 minutes. This exam was 60 questions, so I was really scared I wasn't going to finish in time. I kind of just flew through the questions and picked whatever answer matched closest to my first instinct rather than slowly reading through them and analyzing each option. Luckily I had just enough time to go back through slowly and confirm my choices, so it wasn't so bad. Definitely pressures me to REALLY know my stuff though, because there is no extra time for pondering over questions I don't know!

So these first three weeks have been relatively uneventful, but here's what has happened so far. We entered the senior rotation "lottery" system. What that basically means is we picked what rotations are the most important to us (EXOTICS!) and entered our preferred dates for our core rotations. I spent WAY too much time thinking about it, but overall I'm pretty happy with what I chose. Food animal and equine before the NAVLE (because those are what I'm least familiar with), a week of vacation before the NAVLE for studying, anesthesia FAR away from the NAVLE (way too much stress to have to worry about both at the same time), and I attempted to leave open a 6 week block (unlikely to happen) for an off campus externship. For my on campus electives, I chose exotics, advanced surgery, and cardiology. I REALLY need to start working on my externship applications though. There are so many places I want to apply to! The NMMP, San Diego Zoo, SeaWorld, CROW, the marine mammal center...I actually have a list of about 60 places I'd like to apply to, but that's slightly unrealistic so I need to work on narrowing that down, getting my LORs, and perfecting my CV. Most applications are due Oct/Nov, but ultimately I'd like to have everything done before I start surgery.

And speaking of surgery...MY FIRST ONE IS OCTOBER 9TH! I'm a little bit nervous. Okay, I'm really nervous. I don't know why...I've watched a million spays, and even assisted with one. And a neuter is really no big deal. I guess my biggest worry is dropping a pedicle. I have anxiety on a regular basis, so of course I'm going over all the things that could go wrong in my head. How do I break down the ligaments without rupturing arteries? What if I can't even FIND the ovary? What if I faint?! Oh Lord, please don't let me be the one who faints. Or vomits from nerves. I would just die. But seriously, it is HOT when you're scrubbed in. I don't doubt that I will be drenched in sweat (and I will be layering on the deodorant!). But yeah, it should be fine though...it's a part of vet school I know myself and the vast majority of my class has been anticipating for a long time, so it'll be a great experience :) I'm excited to find out what kind of dog I get! While the small dog-lover in me wants something like a chihuahua or OBVIOUSLY a min pin, I'll take whatever I can get :)


So far we've learned about anesthesia induction and monitoring, and this week we learn surgical techniques - what types of instruments we'll use, different suture patterns, how to scrub in, etc. And next week is our lab practical and the following week we do a mock surgery. To be honest, I'm usually kind of bad about really keeping up with classes. I tend to just start studying everything a week prior to the exam (rather than reviewing every day, which really is impossible anyway), but for surgery.......no. Keeping up is a good idea mainly because an animal's life is at stake if I don't know what I'm doing, but also because the professors LOVE to call out random names and ask them a question in front of the whole class. Nothing like looking like a moron in front of 100 and something classmates :) LOVE IT. I actually haven't been called on yet, but I know it's coming. I can feel it in my bones!

Alright, back to work! But first...

Last few days of summer!

Well, it has officially been over four months since my last post, so I figured I would try to update this thing while I still have some time :)

Second year ended pretty well for me, despite the fact of how stressful it was. It's like you get to this point where your brain literally will not comprehend things because you have crammed so much information into it. It even becomes hard to hold a normal conversation that doesn't involve school, hahah. Luckily this summer has helped me regain my ability to act a little more like a normal human being :)

So speaking of this summer, it has flown by WAY too quickly! Sea Vet was incredible, I met and learned from some very esteemed aquatic animal veterinarians, got to play with dolphins and work with manatees, and finally was able to see Winter the dolphin in person (she's incredible, btw - I definitely recommend going to Clearwater to see her!). We learned so many different things - dolphin surgery, cetacean, sea turtle, sting ray, shark, and manatee medicine, ophthalmology of marine animals, health assessments and a whole lot more. I loved every minute of it! :) After that was over, I had Brittney's wedding to go to which, believe it or not, was the first wedding I've ever been to, and I was a maid of honor for the first time too! It was one of the most fun events I've ever been to, and I could not be happier for my best friend. I've actually known her now-husband since we were like 5 years old, and I've known Brittney since we were 10, so it was amazing to see them joined in marriage! A few days after that I started my job at Banfield, which has already come and gone. Despite some of the negative things I've heard about the student job program, I actually really enjoyed it. It definitely helped that I love the people I worked with. They have amazing attitudes and I know that they're passionate about what they do and take it seriously, but still know how to have fun. Besides my lovely coworkers, I gained a TON of experience. When I started out I was a little rusty on my small animal skills because I've been working with marine animals for so long now. I feel so much more confident now in basic skills - prepping for surgery and monitoring anesthetic depth, drawing blood, restraining animals, having good communication with clients, asking the right questions to get a good history, what types of diagnostics are good for certain clinical signs, reading radiographs, reading cytological samples and a whooooooole lot more. I saw a lot of interesting (and some terrifying at the time) cases that will definitely stick in my mind for a long time - suture dehiscence, death from parvo (VACCINATE YOUR PETS!), open pyometra (SPAY YOUR PETS!), osteosarcoma, heartworm positive animals, liver cancer, liver failure, mastitis, pyelonephritis, foreign body removals, CHF...I'm sure there are tons more I just can't think of right now but my time at Banfield really helped me feel more prepared for the future and I'm glad I decided to spend my summer the way I did! I managed to stuff some fun in there too - obviously some trips to the beach, Sea World, Disney, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood studios (tried to get my roller coasters fix while I can) and seeing my friends whenever possible! It has been nice to be home, but I'm starting to get really excited to go back to school. I miss my apartment so much that I actually had a dream last night that I was back in it..hahah. I'm getting a little stressed out looking at our schedule for the fall but we get to do so many new and exciting things so I'm pretty ready to get started! My schedule consists of general medicine, food animal medicine, exotic animal medicine, surgery (!!!!), theriogenology, ethics, clinical skills, lab diagnosis, and pain management classes. We finally get to spay and neuter pets, learn how to perform physical exams, draw blood (which thanks to this summer I now feel pretty pro at), learn how to communicate with clients...and basically finally apply the knowledge we've acquired over the past two years and through our experiences. I AM PUMPED!

So I'll try keeping this updated a little more frequently this year, since it should be a little bit more fun/interesting than the past two years of sitting in a classroom all day ;) For now I'm off to enjoy my last 3 days in Florida...I get to ride a horse for the first time tomorrow!

Oh and I may have fallen in love with bats this summer...probably because their faces remind me of Rhyley HAH! Anybody else see the resemblance?!

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!

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”

I'm back in Florida so I finally have some time for an update!

This semester went great and I learned more than I ever thought I could! I was so afraid of second year because everyone always talks about how horrible it is, but I didn't find it to be that terrible...next semester is supposed to be worse though. And don't get me wrong, I had to sacrifice a lot and work extremely hard (non-stop...literally), but nothing worth having comes easy. And just like the quote in the subject line says, if you love what you're doing, you will be successful. So true! I love this profession wholeheartedly. Even though it's not easy, it really is enjoyable. And there is nothing like seeing hard work pay off!

My favorite course this semester was pharmacology. I found it interesting how much drugs can affect the body, and how one drug can literally save a life! I enjoyed first year a lot but this semester was much more interesting overall, and everything has started to tie together. There were many instances where I used information I learned in one class to formulate test answers in another class (saved my butt a few times!) Parasitology was really interesting, but by the end of the semester it got a little dry. I have a harder time learning about food animal medicine, and that's all we were learning for a while. I love cows, but I don't ever see myself working with them!

2012 has been a really amazing year. I learned a lot, made new friends, lived in a new place for the summer, and experienced a lot of firsts! Now I get to spend the rest of year relaxing and catching up with friends and family. I really need to get back into an exercise routine too - hopefully I can solidify it as a habit over the next 4 weeks. And in the beginning of next year, I'll be doing my week long mentorship at UAH and attending the NAVC conference! Fun things to come :)

^ true life!

It ain't no joke.

It has been a pretty ruff 6 days.

You know you've got issues when...

You are simultaneously eating your food and viewing images of gangrenous necrosis, hemorrhage, inflamed intestinal tracts, and parasitic life stages.

You literally begin to SING your study material. "Bunostomum", a seemingly ordinary, large animal parasite is now turned into a "Bunostomum, the rastaman" rap [using a Jamaican accent of course] and every time you see "Cooperia" you start singing Salt n' Peppa's "Shoop" replaced with "Coop".

Yeah, that's when you know you have issues...

But I have issues for a reason. I had to cram in a months worth of Pathology material in a 3 day span for the test we had yesterday. It wasn't my most graceful moment, but I'm hoping for the best! I have a parasitology exam tomorrow that covers over 40 different parasites - names, preferred hosts, location in host, life cycles, pathology, diagnosis, treatment, how they look under the microscope...I'm just praising God that we're allowed to use our reference manual for the lab exam, and that the test is multiple choice/matching this time around. It has just been a lot of cramming, which I really never do because it makes me insane! Wah wah wah.

I know it will all be worth it though, and I haven't lost my love for what I'm learning. But sometimes a gal needs a break!



Second year of vet school...

H2O

Our next test is in Physiology this Friday. I was a little nervous about it, but after going back over the lectures and old exams, it seems like it will be relatively straight forward! I definitely have a lot more studying to do, but I feel brain dead now that I've been studying for 7 hours straight with a few short breaks in between...aahh!

I follow a bunch of veterinarian blogs, and I saw a post the other day that I thought was really cool. A bat was brought into the clinic, and although unfortunately it was euthanized (due to possible rabies), they were able to get some really awesome photos. You can check them out here!

So I know this will seem kind of random, but I've been forgetting to mention this. I'm pretty sure that I should have been put in the hospital a few days ago for dehydration. It was 100+ degrees outside for the past two weeks, and I was really only drinking 1/2 to 1 bottle of water a day. I was having extreme migraines about every other day, and on Friday night it really hit me. I (stupidly) had beer Friday night, which dehydrated me even further. I had also been hot all day long due to my broken A/C and the venue for Shaft that was extremely hot inside. When I got home I took Rhyley out, and when I was walking back up the stairs I couldn't even make it up one step without my heart racing and feeling short of breath. It was so bad I had to stop every few steps!! I laid down once inside to calm my heart back down, but for the rest of the night I could feel it pounding of my chest, I could feel my pulse throughout my body, and I was still feeling short of breath. I called my mom in a panic and told her I thought I might be really dehydrated and told her all of my symptoms (she's a nurse), and she said it sounded like I was. Turns out that if your heart is affected by dehydration, you should pretty much be in the hospital. So I forced down 2 and 1/2 bottles of water before bed, and then made sure to drink at least 3 on Saturday and Sunday. I feel so much better now! I know that I never really drink enough water, but actually being so dehydrated made me realize how important water is. So the tip of the day is to drink at least three bottles of water everyday! (Preferably not from the toilet)