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!

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)

One Week Down...

I made it through the first week! The days are really long, but I don't dread studying like I used to. Most of the material (except for Phsyio) is stuff that I actually want to learn, so that makes it a little easier to hit the books.

Thursday felt like it would never end...3 hour lab in the morning, hour lecture, lunch, another hour lecture followed by another 3 hour lab! Integration was pretty cool though, during each lecture we have a case presented to us that allows us to apply information that we're learning in our other courses. The topic was "complications associated with lateral fabellotibial suture surgery for cranial cruciate ligament injury in dogs"...I loved it! After school I went to dinner with my sophomore buddy and a few other freshman-sophomore pairs at So Long Saloon. The food there is delicious, and it was fun getting to know everyone!

Friday morning I headed over to the teaching hospital, originally hoping to go to internal medicine rounds. However, everyone was in surgery so I went to endoscopy to get a peak at the procedure. It was awesome! I don't think I'm allowed to post the details on here, so I won't...just to be safe. After that I saw an x-ray of a dentigerous cyst in a dogs mouth, watched a dog in underwater treadmill therapy, and had yet another tour of the hospital. It's so big that it will probably take months to finally know where everything is...haha. All in all I had a good time :) My elective on Friday (cognates), however, was NOT at all fascinating. I was so restless because of how bored I was - I kept shifting my sitting position, stretching, trying to find things to occupy my mind otherwise I would have fallen asleep! It was literally torture :( I also had to get my 2nd rabies vaccine, which I think may have also made me a little sleepy. It also killed my arm...it hurts so bad to move or lift it! Only one more to go, thank the Lord.

Random side note of the day...there were these morons racing their motorcycles in the parking lot of the stadium (which is pretty much across the street from my apartment), so all I could hear all afternoon was revving engines! So annoying...some people need to get a life.

Anyway, I've basically studied all day, reviewing information from each class from this week, focusing on the bones of course. I definitely need to get a head start on the skull...I don't even want to think about how many foramina there are!

I finally have some down time (an hour between classes, during which I should probably be studying...) to post an update! Orientation on Friday was really cool, we had some cases presented to us, and then toured the entire teaching hospital which is absolutely fantastic! They have every department you can possibly think of, and they welcomed us to coming in whenever we want. I will definitely be taking advantage of that this semester! I'm particularly interested in small animal surgery, zoological medicine, and radiology..but there is so much that I can't choose just a few!

Over the weekend I moved into my apartment, which is unfortuntely not what I was expecting...of course the model they showed us was spic and span and in great condition. I walked into my apartment and the carpet at the door is literally black, there were stains everywhere, and the area of the carpet that connects with the kitchen tile is all ripped and frayed and has the board exposed!! The kitchen cabinets are all water damaged and peeling, and the bathroom was so dirty I don't think anyone had ever cleaned it...and lastly, the intake vents for the air have inches and inches of thick dust in them. I've been in there less than a week and already have terrible allergies because of all of it. Like right now, my nose isn't running at all, but the second I go home I have to constantly blow my nose. I'm so grossed out...I'm also going to call the main management company and complain that if they don't do something (like change the carpet), I'm going to file a complaint with the people who are in charge of building/health codes. I'm also a little freaked out because the water heater is gas powered, and seeing how the don't keep ANYTHING up, I doubt they've had it inspected recently, which makes me worry about carbon monoxide poisoing...so I guess I'll be buying a detector later today so I can actually sleep tonight and not worry about it :/

In other news, today is my third day of classes. Everything is going okay so far! Microanatomy and physiology are probably going to be the toughest classes for me. I'm so glad that I took comparative vertebrate anatomy in undergrad, because it's really helping me so far. Our first test is on the bones of the dog, which is next Friday. I'm not too worried about it...so far the lab is formatted exactly like my undergrad one was (thank you, Frank Logiudice!) I love what I'm learning and I'm so glad to be here :)