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?!