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!

An actual vet school post? Sure... ;)

I decided that I should probably make a post about vet school, rather than all the random dramas of my so-called life... :)

I sometimes find Micro Anatomy to be absolutely ridiculous. I am extremely OCD so when professors aren't organized, I get a little antsy. The syllabus is kind of all of the place, from liver cells to kidney cells, to skin cells and bone cells....it doesn't have much logic (though I will say it is starting to flow a little better now, thankfully!) Although I do enjoy looking at slides, I have an overwhelming amount of information to study for the exam which is in a few weeks.

We have begun our canine dissection in Anatomy lab. I have never dissected a dog before, but after teaching anatomy lab in undergrad, I would say that I'm pretty skilled at the art of skinning, cleaning fascia from muscles, and all of that fun stuff, so it has definitely come in handy! That lab is also really disorganized and frustrating. In undergrad, we learned muscles of the entire body, with one side of the cat showing superficial muscles and the other side deep muscles. Once we took that exam, we removed the muscles and learned the cardiovascular and nervous systems, as well as the organs. In this lab, we're doing limb by limb, and had to actually remove the forelimb from the body. I can't understand how severing muscles is going to help me learn them? Seeing everything connected together seems much more logical, so I'm having a really hard time adjusting. Despite that, I am enjoying learning about canine anatomy, especially since I can apply it to my own pet!

After my test I stopped by Walmart to pick up a few things, and decided to get my glasses adjusted at the vision center. Bad decision. They weren't fitting very well on my right ear, and now they're even worse! They're super crooked unless I rig them to sit a certain way, grr. Later I got my last rabies vaccine (which is definitely by far the worst in terms of how sore my arm is!). I am so glad that is over with! After class I rushed home to be there for the carpet cleaning person. He did a pretty dang good job on removing most of the old stains. I feel much better :) Once he was gone, the maintenance man finally came (after a week of no a/c) and fixed everything back to normal. My apartment is actually below 85 degrees now, something to celebrate I'd say.

Now that I feel like I'm in the groove of things, I can finally get a conductive schedule set. I need to start working out, going to church, planning activities for Rhyley, making time to go to the teaching hospital, and studying just a little more effectively because things are about to get real crazy!