Boards... I pass them.

I passed boards.

I passed boards.

I PASSED BOARDS!

(correction: WE PASSED BOARDS!)

It hasn't sunk in. At all. In fact, I woke up this morning and checked again to make sure. I *honestly* was scared I wouldn't pass. When you walk out of that exam, you are in a daze. Actually, half way through the exam you start to feel like you are in a fog. Then, a few hours later, when you try to talk about it - you only remember six questions. And you hope to God that your friends agree with your six answers.

I called my family last night to tell them and I know they are so proud of me and its an amazing feeling! I owe it all to them. I wouldn't be the person I am or have the accomplishments that I do - with school, sports, and life - without their endless support and encouragement to follow my dreams and do what I think is best for me - even when they don't always agree (aka turning down a full ride for a college I didn't think was right for me... even though six months later I admitted to my horrible mistake and transferred!). I love you mom, dad, and bro - you are my strength and my rock.

Four months from yesterday we will graduate as DVMs and be thrown into the real world. I'm terrified and excited. I updated facebook this morning to add my current/future employer - associate veterinarian, at your service!

Husband and I are headed to Chicago for a day trip to celebrate today - we have a lot to be thankful for :)

The times they are a-changing...

... in more ways than one. I'm still alive. Fourth year tried to swallow me up and claim me as its own, but I'm rising above it. Take that fourth year. And our house just got robbed... but I'll get to that later. Take that robbers.

I've been living in a post-boards splendor for a month and a half now and it has been blissfully uneventful... other than the typical grind and headaches of rotations. I just came off of five weeks of internal medicine and am settling into 4 weeks of imaging.

Reality hit today when the NBVME released the NAVLE scores to the states that subscribe to the online portal system... 23 states get to check their scores online and unfortunately Illinois is behind the ball as always. We are sitting, patiently (or not so patiently) waiting... pacing... checking facebook/gmail/various websites for updates and trying to put the potentially life altering news out of our minds until we know for sure. If you do happen to fail, the world doesn't end. You get another chance in April and you still graduate and all is well in the world. I think the tricky part is getting back into the studying mindset for three months knowing that you didn't pass it the first time. Dear God, let me pass on the first try.

Since this year will bring a thousand changes in my life with graduation, moving, and starting my career, I thought it would be appropriate to start with some goals for my mental and physical health. I've been feeling a little depressed lately and I can't pinpoint the reason but recent events have made me uneasy and scared.

So, like I mentioned, our house got robbed. On Christmas night.

YES, CHRISTMAS.

Now, I imagine some of your jaws have dropped and you are thinking "what kind of horrible human being robs a home on Christmas". I agree with you whole heartedly. It takes a certain type of asshole to break into a bedroom window of two poor veterinary students and steal almost everything of significant worth. Thank God nothing of sentimental value was taken and that we and our animals are safe.

We had taken both cars out to Kyle's parents farm (about 30 minutes away) and my parents and brother had come down on Christmas Eve afternoon and we all got to celebrate that night and Christmas morning (after we got home from work at eleven... yes, we worked all through the Christmas holiday). My family left around 1 and Kyle and I had more Christmas with his family. We left around 10 for home in separate cars and I headed to a friend's house to take care of their dog before heading home and Kyle went straight home. I got back about 20 minutes later and as soon as I pulled up, Kyle got out of the truck with Ben and came to my window. The first thing he says is, "Don't freak out, but we got robbed."

So I did what anyone would do. I punched the steering wheel repeatedly and cursed/screamed at the neighborhood. When I had finished my tantrum, he asked for my phone to call 911, since he phone had broken a few days before and we hadn't replaced it yet. Apparently, Kyle had walked in the house with Ben and saw the TV was missing. Of course, he thought the cat had knocked it over because he does that crap all the time. Then he noticed the PS3 (that I bought for his birthday four weeks before), Wii, and laptop were missing. He immediately grabbed Ben and sat in the truck parked at the end of the street with the doors locked until I came home.

The police arrived in three separate cars and had to "clear the house" just like they do in the movies. Guns drawn, they went through each room with flashlights to make sure no one was still in the house. Then we were allowed to come inside. Apparently they had taken out our window air conditioning unit and broken in through the bedroom window. They flipped the mattress and searched the nightstand/file cabinet - of which they found nothing because everything of importance is in my office. They went in my office, which happened to be filled floor to ceiling with shower/wedding gifts in boxes - but only took a single plastic bag, I assume to carry all of our stuff out of the house with. THANK GOD.

They must have grabbed everything they could in the living room and headed out the backdoor (which they left open, luckily the cats didn't go on any adventures that night). My laptop was sitting on the kitchen table, but they missed that.

All in all, it was terrifying and a huge invasion in our privacy. To think that strangers purposefully broke into our home and took our belongings makes me feel incredibly vulnerable and exposed.

The following day, we ventured out to the stores and priced out new TVs. Even though we had purchased our 32" less than a couple of years ago, we were able to buy a 37" that day for about as much as we had originally spent and a new playstation 3 (our insurance should be covering nearly everything). Later in the week, I went up to visit my family and we went shopping at Costco where we discovered a floor model that was 47" and only 20 dollars more than we had spent on the new TV. It was much better quality, 120 Hz, 1080p, wireless capabilities, 3D capabilities, etc - I bought it on the spot and returned our other one with no problem (thank you Best Buy). Its pretty awesome - way different than our little 32" - but it wasn't fun shopping for new stuff knowing WHY we were doing it.

Anyway. Lock your doors and windows. Get a guard dog. Or an alarm system. Your choice.

...

So about those goals - I have a bunch. Here they are:

1. Graduate.

2. Run in at least 3 races in 2012. Already training for the Illinois marathon April 28. Doing the Shamrock Shuffle in March. Possibly the Chicago marathon in October.

3. Lose 10-15 pounds. I gained back all the weight I lost over the summer for the wedding... its time to get back on track.

3b. Calorie counter. Joined Livestrong.com and have been tracking my calorie intake... I'm not going to be a crazy person about it because I enjoy drinking and ice cream but to have some idea of the kind of nutrients I'm taking in on a daily basis. I just want to make sure I have enough protein, fiber, etc.

4. Learn to budget and manage my money. Joined Mint.com and have been good about keeping up with it and checking which keeps me from spending more money.

5. Read for fun. I'm on my third book of the year so far. It helps that I am on a very laid back rotation right now, but I forget how much I miss reading. I have loads of books that are waiting to be opened.

Sorry for the long catch up. I'll be back to updating more regularly :)

The Final Countdown

5 days until I take the biggest test of my life. Sometimes I feel like I am going to rock it and sometimes (most times) I worry about failing.

Failure is my ultimate enemy and my worst nightmare. I loathe failing at anything - I am competitive and driven and I usually succeed in the things that I try. I ran a marathon after the orthopedic surgeon told me I'd never be a marathon runner. I applied (and was accepted) to multiple vet schools after my undergrad advisor gently suggested choosing another career path. I'm currently studying using VetPrep to study for boards, in addition to some other reading materials. It is a bank of 4000+ questions (about 1/3 or so are repeats) that you do as separate practice questions or timed 30 question exams. It tracks your percentage as you go through and tracks your strengths and weakness by species and by category (cardio, derm, anesthesia, toxicology, etc). Up until I got back from the honeymoon 3 weeks ago, I was at a stellar 15% or so. I finally made it to 85% today, with only 600 or so questions to go... KJ made a joke the other day about me not sleeping until I go to that 100% because that is the type of person that I am. Its so true. I'm a freak when it comes to goals. Which is actually a problem sometimes because I get so caught up in accomplishing my goals that I lose track of having fun... not that this particular goal has any relation to fun. You get the point.

Anyway, I'm still alive and here. I can't wait to return to the real world. Im my head, I keep telling myself, "I'll do this when boards are over, I'll do that when boards are over."

I seriously can't wait to do laundry and clean the house. For real.

Whoa Fourth Year!

I can't believe it has been a month since I last posted! The year is flying by and I can hardly believe it is NOVEMBER! So much has happened!

The highlights:

1. KJ and I got married :) YAY!

2. We went on our honeymoon! YAY!

3. I chopped off all of my long, gorgeous, slightly obnoxious long hair and donated it to Wigs for Kids. YAY! My flowing locks that fell past my boobs are now chin length and angled so I feel like I have no hair, which is awesome after two years of growing it out for the wedding!

And now that we have been back in the swing of things for a couple of weeks, I can comfortably begin to freak out because I take boards in TWO WEEKS. So, in two weeks you will be seeing a ton more posts about fourth year adventures and animals and my next marathon. Maybe married life as well ;)

I'm on the diagnostic medicine rotation right now... meaning that I do necropsies everyday and pretend like I have a starring role on CSI: Vet Med. The beauty of it is that all my patients are dead and don't need weekend treatments.

And it happens to fall over Thanksgiving, meaning that I take boards Monday the 21st, I have Tuesday the 22nd off (all of the fourth years get two days off for boards and since mine is a Monday, I'll get a blissful day of freedom after the exam), and I go to school Wednesday the 21st. I figure I'll then drive home Thursday morning, enjoy an awesome, stress-free day with my family, enjoy some nice stress-free shopping on Friday, followed by a stress-free weekend. Then Dad has surgery on Monday, so I requested my first personal day off (you get 5 for the year). I get to be home for FIVE WHOLE DAYS. AND I don't have to worry about studying for boards anymore so I can be stress-free for the rest of the year... relatively speaking.

I cannot tell you how excited I am to be *almost* done with board studying. Its been looming out there on the horizon since we started vet school and it is finally *almost* here. I'm getting my butt in gear for the two week haul of cramming/learning and then its nothing but freedom to have a life again.

And send out those wedding thank-you notes...

Long Overdue... and Foster Pup

I can't remember the last time I blogged... which means it has been far too long. I finished a month long rotation on anesthesia and moved right into equine medicine and surgery. This meant that my "cushy" 7:15am-5pm hours turned into 5:30 or 5:45am to 6:30pm (or later) every day. Weekends were only 6am-12pm... but still, lots and lots of time spent at school and not a lot of time doing other things. Like wedding planning. I'm getting married a week from tomorrow. Holy sh*t. I'm excited, but nervous because the coming week is going to be busy!

Equine has been amazingly fun. Aside from the long hours, I've had a couple interesting cases and have had an awesome rotation group - and really awesome clinicians. This is the first rotation that I've really felt comfortable with the clinicians and can make jokes and feel more comfortable in my own skin. This is kind of ironic because equine medicine is what I am LEAST confident about - I definitely know infinitely times more about small animal medicine. Nevertheless, I have never laughed this much on any other rotation and our trio of clinicians are really great. Its a group of three younger guys that are really chill and laid back and not intimidating at all (as some equine folks can be). Us fourth years, on the other hand, are a group of four girls that are constantly giggling and cracking jokes - we try to be entertaining and not distracting!

On a side note, KJ and I are currently fostering little Ally, a small 12 pound long haired Dachshund mix. She presented to orthopedic surgery 6 weeks ago with bilateral angular front limb deformities with short ulnas. She was actually "walking" on her carpi - completely weight bearing, although she did like to sit up on her haunches like a meerkat. They performed a bilateral radial and ulnar osteotomy in order to correct the curved long bones and lengthen her ulnas. A few weeks later, she came back for recheck radiographs and she had a fracture across the most proximal screw on her left radius... so then they put on an external fixator. At that point, her new adoptive mom had just adopted a two year old child and was having back surgery, so she asked our rehab specialist if she could find a temporary foster home for Ally - they thought of KJ and I right away because we were frequent visitors during Ally's first two weeks after surgery and rehab.

So now Ally lives with us for awhile - we will have had her for one month tomorrow. Last night, we were sitting in the living room and KJ was sitting in the leather chair with Ben and I was on the couch with Ally on my lab, playing with her like a baby and talking to her, and he said, "You are getting attached...". I just looked at Ally and replied, "I know... but I just want her to know love". It will be so hard to give her back, but I just want her to know that so many people love her... how is that not the best gift you can give to someone - human or animal? She is an amazing little girl - a real fighter and she tries so hard - we can slowly see her little personality come out as she has started feeling better - she plays with toys that the big dogs throw around and they are too good of dogs to steal them back from her. It melts my heart to see how good our furballs are with her.

As good of a time as I've had with little Ally, I'm not sure fostering is for me - I get too attached and have a difficult time letting go :(

Workout Update... and Girl Fights

I have lots to update about my anesthesia rotation - but I still have two more weeks left, so during downtime this week, I'll catch up with that.

I decreased the amount of P90X to 3 times a week and started running and swimming again. Plus, since I've been on anesthesia, its been tough to find time to workout unless I do it at 9pm at night (hell no). But, as of now, I can do 5 whole pull ups now which is kind of awesome... my arms look super toned and I'm pretty sure I can kick anyone's ass now.

In fact (long side note), Saturday night, I found out that our "friends", that are getting married on the same day as us, were in town. Last week, the girl (fiance of our friend) sent me a facebook message asking me not believe any rumors about her and that she isn't the reason that they choose to get married on the same day, it was just their circumstances, etc etc etc etc blah blah blah blah. I haven't given the situation a thought for months, but here it was, being brought up again. The next night, KJ and a few of his friends got an email from the guy (who is actually our friend) saying the same thing and not to blame his fiance for anything and etc etc etc blah blah blah. My god, this drama is ridiculous.

So anyway, when I found out that they were in town, I was already drunk and watching Survivor play at the world famous Urbana Sweet Corn Festival (be jealous) and I decided I needed to kick someone's ass... namely hers. A minute later, Survivor finally played Eye of the Tiger... which got me super pumped up and I started practicing for the ass kicking that would ensue later that night in the event that we ran into them.

Now, I've never punched anyone in my life, nor would I normally want to - but this whole situation has caused people to lose friendships and other ridiculous awful drama that I want nothing to be a part of, but it keeps coming up and hurting people's feelings. However, I was thinking about none of this at the time - just that it would be fun to get in a girl fight.

Anyway, at some point during Eye of the Tiger, I turned around and saw A LOT of clinicians from my school/hospital just feet away from us... embarrassing but awesome at the same time. Eye of the Tiger ended and in my drunken state, I forgot that I even wanted to fight and I just wanted to go to the bar for something better than Miller Lite. All in all... a typical night.

Because of my new-found ass kicking abilities, I decided to sign up for a triathlon and kick figurative ass. It is October 2nd here in town - its only a sprint, but its been three years since my last one, so I need a shorty to get back into the swing of things. 325m swim, 14.5 mi bike, 3.1 mi run - awesome! I'm so excited to be doing another one - I'm planning on breaking 1:30 for sure (I'm afraid to get too ambitious) - but I heard T1 is a super long transition, since we are swimming in the rec center, so not sure how long that will take... but if you are in the area, you should sign up too :)

Lions and my other favorite patients

LIONS. Can you believe that in two weeks, I've had the opportunity to help out with not one, but two lions! A 15 year old lioness and a 22 year old lion to be exact. Both are living at the Exotic Feline Rescue in Indiana, and both were recently rescued from a "bad situation" in Texas a few weeks ago. For the first lionness, I was on Dentistry at that time and we did a double root canal on her left sided canines. To see a lion intubated and handled up close was incredible - since we didn't really get to assist with the root canal, we spent a lot of time taking pictures with the lionness - by her head, with her paws... super educational and productive, right? But awesome nonetheless. Her paws were much bigger than my hand... so we took pictures of that too.

It was refreshing to see the clinicians (including our head of surgery) down with the lion taking pictures on their phones - a lot of times so many of them walk around like nothing impresses them and that they've seen it all - but to see a simple lion make the most seasoned professionals act like children at the zoo is really cool. Our profession is so unpredictable and awesome - most MD's don't walk around with pictures of their favorite patients on their phones and can't entertain at parties with hilarious tales about their crazy patients. Well, maybe the latter is true - but if my doctor is walking around with a picture of me on his phone, I'll be a little alarmed!

Me on the other hand, have already accumulated lots of pictures of my favorites - my unforgettable Shy, who allowed me to put myself out there and fight for a dog I truly believed in and who never let me down; my lovely Lillian, a sweet 2 year old chocolate lab with aggressive hemangiosarcoma who wagged her tail and gave me kisses up until the minute she died; the two litters of puppies who were successfully delivered via c-section that we helped resuscitate and bring back to life; and the lions, two very large cats that made me marvel at their greatness and see that deep down, the clinicians are just like me - I know that in 20 years, patients like that will still impress me and veterinary medicine will never cease to amaze me.

Enough about lions. We got the results back from histopath about Bubs - NOT A MAST CELL TUMOR! Crazy inflammation, yes, but tumor, NO! Regardless, he does have a history of cancer, but at least we know it hasn't returned! My sweet, perfect boy is cancer-free. Since his incision wasn't able to be closed all the way, we have been doing bandage changes every other day. My bandaging skills have improved greatly and he is such an angel, that I was able to do it all by myself today while he just laid on the floor and literally fell asleep. What dog does that?!?!?

Have a lovely weekend - the end of summer is here...