Merry Christmas Break!

Finals ended beautifully. I ended up with only 1 "C" (in equine medicine... this is why I will OWN horses, not treat them!)... because my "C" in Ruminant health turned into a "B"... a holiday miracle! I actually pulled off an "A" in Large animal surgery, which is awesome and I'm really happy about it! All in all, it turned out pretty great - that is, studying for the cumulative finals the day before :) whoops! I'll try to do better with studying next semester...

Christmas was awesome - I am a very, very lucky girl and got to open a ton of awesome gifts - I'm so excited to bust out my new running tights and clothes when the weather gets a tiny bit warmer and the snow melts a little. We spent Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas day with KJ's family - two Christmases!!! So much fun. Plus the animals were really spoiled this year - lots of treats, toys, new beds for the kitties, etc. Our friend NO bought Ben a fantastic wifebeater tank that says "I heart bitches". It is so perfect for him - he is so mellow and stoic and a such a good, sweet boy :)

Our plans for this week are wedding planning, and RELAXING! Playing video games, watching How I Met Your Mother and Grey's Anatomy and RELAXING. I will be ready on Monday to go back for our last semester of class EVER and I'm excited for what this new year is going to be bringing... We are getting married in 10 months... EEEEEEK!

The Homestretch and Hospitals

6 finals down. 4 of which were cumulative. Tomorrow (Anesthesia) is cumulative too and worth 45% of the grade - but I have a solid A and don't care if I end up with a B! So take that vet school!

I still have my sanity (somewhat) after this hellish, awful week. Finals everyday for a week and a half? Fun! I haven't cried, I haven't freaked out, I haven't had a meltdown - wait - I DID cry watching a rerun Grey's anatomy episode Tuesday while fiance and I ate lunch between study sessions... (it was the one in the second season where the mom won't tell her teenage daughter that she has cancer and is dying - so at the end she tells her in a way that she gives her daughter life advice until the daughter asks why - heartbreaking... not good to watch when I'm at my breaking point).

So to celebrate what I hope was a decent Large animal surgery exam - I came home and made this delicious pasta that Life in Vet School made a few days ago.

Heavenly... words can't describe. Especially after the pizza/cereal/tuna fish sandwich combinations that I've been throwing in my mouth this week. My poor over-caffeinated, exercise deprived body is freaking out right now - but I soothed her over with pasta and clams. I think I can make it until tomorrow when I can run stress my stresses away! I'm not a cook, but it seemed too easy not to try - I didn't have fresh clams, but the sauce was very tasty, and I'll be eating it for dinner tonight because KJ doesn't like clams (score!).

I'm feeling a little apprehensive about today and studying though - I know I need to do it - but at 1 pm I have a doctor's appointment that I'm not looking forward to. Last year, during finals, I found out that I had HPV. Not only that, but that I had high risk HPV - so they made me immediately come in for a colposcopy in order to take some biopsies. DURING FINALS WEEK. As if I wasn't stressed enough. Turns out I have cervical dysplasia - nothing pre-cancerous or (god willing) cancerous, but not completely normal. So if you have a couple fingers to spare and aren't already crossing them for yourselves, cross your fingers that this goes alright and hasn't progressed into something more. I don't need anymore hospital time and visits after my mangled finger this year!

If you are taking finals this week too - GOOD LUCK! If you aren't, then count yourselves lucky :)

Disappointed

As I last mentioned, Ruminant health is slowly killing me. We had a "review" last night (sweet 1.5 hour review on a Friday Night) and we were given our exams back as well as our fluid therapy assignment. After all my bitching, I actually got a 10/10 on it... but that's besides the point because apparently I got a 2/10 in our ruminant parasitology lab.

Lets go back to a few weeks ago to said lab. We enter and are told that this is "laid-back" and all we have to do is "put our names on it and we'll get full credit" and that we "don't even have to do all the stations if we don't want to". So my little group of 5 did all the stations as best we could without notes and laptops (since we didn't know we would need them) - half the groups had notes out, the other half was like us. Then this week, we get lab grades posted - 42/50... damn it parasitolgy, you weren't supposed to be graded! My reaction = whatever, at this point, I'm cool with just passing. I'm all for large animal medicine, but my love of steak and milk outweighs my interest in treating them medically.

Fast forward now to last night's review. Our class rep very tactfully asks the course coordinator (the only faculty member at the review) about this grading mishap. He sort of implies that he can go and change those grades since we were told it wouldn't be graded and since he is the one with the computer and power. Moving on to the review... But like I mentioned, he usually isn't organized or prepared, so he runs to his office to grab some papers.

Now enters Dr. F - the parasit man and the man responsible for half of the new material on our upcoming final. A girl in our class raises her hand and mentions this lab grading issue again in a very antagonistic manner. And. Wouldn't. Drop. It. Finally, he gets pissed (and rightfully so, in my opinion) and says something along the lines of "I was at a conference this past week and without being handing notes or powerpoints, I was able to take away information and implement those idea already this week." Without a pause, a guy in the front row says, "And how long have you been in practice?" with an attitude.

UGH.

The class gets uncomfortably silent and Dr. F responds with, "I'm not even going to go there with you."

Come on guys, this man is writing our exam. More importantly, this man is a respected clinician that we will be working with next semester and next year in clinics. Use your heads! Do you honestly think we as a class deserve their time and respect when we are acting like children? Yes, my group got a 2/10... we probably deserved it... and yes, we were told it wouldn't be graded. Instead of dropping the issue like the professionals we are aspiring to be - we drag the issue out like children and get slapped in the face.

I was so angry last night and embarrassed to be a part of this nonsense, as were many of my friends that I was sitting with. This isn't the first time situations like this have come up and it won't be the last time... but I wish people would learn to have a little common sense, a little common courtesy, and a little tact.

Glad I got that off my mind :) Work today was fun, took some videos and pictures of the little pittie at the animal hospital that is in need of a home. She is a diabetic and going blind and cannot live with cats - so it is sort of a tall order to ask of her future owners... but we are looking because she is a complete sweetheart and I absolutely adore her. Unfortunately, KJ and I have cats... or I would take her in an instant.

Have a wonderful weekend! Hope the weather is better elsewhere (we have storms - snow AND rain) coming up in the next two days... it is the perfect weekend to stay home and watch movies and snuggle with animals!

Ruminant Health

It is one of our core classes this semester and it is giving me the most trouble. Mostly because the notes are completely disorganized (if we even have them at all) and the faculty in charge are terrible lecturers. For example, we were given a really extensive assignment a couple of days ago that was due today in lab. The clinician really stressed the importance of it and that we needed to work INDEPENDENTLY by making a questionable threat via email to us. Apparently, it should have taken 3 hours max to do it. Around hour 4, I started getting irritated and the quality of my work definitely decreased. Why weren't we given it before break to work on it? Because he is too disorganized to get it together. So while we should be studying for the 6 finals coming up, we are struggling through a pointless assignment that is unrealistic. And that I don't are about since I will never treat a cow. Anyway, so at 10:30 this morning when lab was beginning, we had all turned in our problems at the front of the room and sat down. 10:35 passes... 10:40 passes... finally he shows up over 10 minutes late with no apology or explanation. Of course, for the first 3o minutes (of a 1.5 hour lab), he starts discussing some other random case that we weren't assigned to do. Plus he was completely unprepared to actually "discuss" the cases we had actually done. He considered running back to his office to get a copy of the cases, but decided to wing it. THIS is a professional curriculum? If my entire class is on time to lab, shouldn't the faculty be required to do the same? Shouldn't they be required to be prepared for class?

Side note - we have multiple faculty members that come to class late and then keep us during our 10 minute break. I (and many others) use that break to use the bathroom and grab something to drink... please don't take that away from us.

So many other things to rant about in relation to the faculty and curriculum at this god-awful school, but that will wait until another day. Have I mentioned how much school sucks right now?

I'm off to cuddle with piglets at the swine farm. Happy Friday!

Thanksgiving BREAK

I feel like I have been waiting months for today. Oh wait... I have! Today marks the beginning of a lovely 10 days of break. Class and all the extra things we do at school has kept me super busy. Exams, surgery, more exams, more surgery...

My first official surgery was a couple of weeks ago, and it was awesome. Each week, the surgery lab switches between spays and neuters. Although the powers that be try to provide females for spay labs and males for neuter labs, there aren't always enough animals, so you never really know what you are getting until the day before. Which is fine, I was ready for either - but I did end up with a neuter. And after two weeks of spays, it was nice to have a neuter for our group and get done a little earlier. The first two Tuesdays of surgery (surgery is done every Tuesday), we barely had time for lunch before class in the afternoon! That is not to say our surgeons were slow (they were great!) but it takes time for the animal to be pre-medded, clipped, induced, prepped, etc. And then the animals are required to be at a certain temperature after surgery before we are able to leave them in a cage... so if it takes 2 hours for your animal to raise its temperature a sufficient amount... then that can really prolong your surgery day :)

My surgery day turned out really well. My group had had two relatively stress-less weeks because the dogs were pretty healthy. Switch to week 3 and we received a maniac. Really very sweet boy (loved to give hugs), but a maniac nonetheless. He was a cage biter and often looked like his jaws were stuck on the cage door (he was "rescued" by many other classmates). He had really diffuse alopecia (hairloss) all over this body, severe otitis externa (basic ear infection), and interestingly colored teeth. I say that because his teeth were silver. From chewing on cage doors. He had a pretty amazing grill if I do say so myself :)

Surgery was completed, no complications. I was stressed going into surgery, but once I was standing at the table and the dog was prepped and ready to go, it all just clicked into place. I knew what I had to do and although I don't have the muscle memory yet and my hands were a little shaky, I was able to neuter our pup with no problem.

Fast forward to Thursday morning, the day that the animals go back to the shelter. His incision looks awesome and is healing well. He has left it alone - which is good, because he successfully chewed through 2 e-collars during the week (within 30 minutes of having it on). The powers that be decided a second go at the e-collar would be okay... but it wasn't. He is a little Houdini. It was on tight, it was the right size... yet, he was able to rip it to shreds. I don't know... We also moved him to another kennel with different doors, because we were getting worried about his jaws actually getting stuck on the door when no one was around to save him. This dog was super brilliant. Plus, he was aptly named "Ace", and halfway through the week, we actually had to Ace him due to his anxiety. Anyway, Thursday morning. We arrive to find that he had been moved back to his regular run (by the powers that be) and had ripped off about an inch and a half of skin/tissue off the top of his nose - presumably from getting stuck in the run door. It was as deep as it could be without damaging bone, so we clipped and cleaned the area after calling a resident to check him out. Luckily, an hour later the dogs went home and my stress level was able to go down.

At least there were no surgical complications!

Today we are headed to Chicago (after a few hours of work) for the Illini v. Northwestern game - at WRIGLEY FIELD. Free tickets, free unlimited food and drinks... HEAVEN! I am so excited. Happy Thanksgiving break everyone!

Third Half-Marathon = Success!

I ran the Indianapolis half-marathon this past Saturday and had a fantastic time with a few good friends/classmates. My friend C and I drove to Indy on Friday afternoon to check out the "expo" and pick up our race packets. It was a very small expo, but still fun to walk around and check out all the races I want to do next! I bought a super cute hot pink headband to wear for the race that says "I run for BEER" which I thought was very awesome and totally me. Afterwards, we met up with four of our classmates and went out for a fabulous Italian dinner in Indy - so incredibly delicious my mind waters just thinking about it. I had a seafood pasta (with shrimp, scallops, clams, squid, and mushrooms) in a white wine garlic butter sauce. HEAVEN. We were all sad that we couldn't try out the wine list to go along with our amazing meals, but we ate just enough of the freshly baked bread and olive oil to sustain ourselves. Anyway, this sort of sounds like a restaurant review, so I might as well tell you where we went! It is called Mama Carollas Old Italian Restaurant. Go try it if you are ever in the area!

Saturday morning, we woke up at 6 am (5 am our time, yikes!) and I ate my standard Thomas blueberry bagel with peanut butter and a banana. I always eat this before races, its one of my weird quirks. I swear no other blueberry bagel tastes this good. I got dressed, tried to put on my paceTat (tattoo with mile times - basically where you need to be - time-wise - at each mile to get your goal time) and forgot to remove the plastic... so I tattooed the plastic and wondered why it wasn't sticking to my arm... fail. I wrote them in pen, which gradually faded during the race, but oh well!

Got to the race start, waited the customary 30 minutes to use the port-o-potties, didn't really warm up at all and got in my spot in the B corral. Apparently I had signed up with a really excellent goal time when I registered... classic me. Between registering for the race and the actual race, I barely trained. I ran twice a week... if that. I wasn't good about my long runs - my longest run was the Monday before the race at 9 miles and I thought I would die on the side of the road... so I was using this race as an experiment to see how little training I can do and still have an okay race. The neat thing about Indy was that they had printed our first names on our racing bibs, just above our numbers - so people cheering could actually yell out our names, which I thought was just awesome.

Race starts - I cross the start exactly 2 minutes after the start in the usual pack of people. I love the start of races. I love jockeying to find a spot and passing person after person in the first mile. I love seeing what people wear, and their running styles, how they use their water stops, if they are running with a friend, and a million other things. This is why I enjoy racing. I know I won't win awards (not in a field of 9,000) but I know that I can compete against myself and have a great time doing that. Plus, I get to people watch for 2 hours!
I was exactly on my goal time for the first mile. I wasn't really happy about that - I like to be under and give myself a buffer for later in the race - so I picked up (a little) speed. We hit a large uphill and downhill that I ran my little heart out on - then I realized I should conserve some energy! At mile 2, I was a full 30 seconds under my time - and as the race went by, I worked myself up to a full minute under. I was feeling okay, but my body was getting a little achy as the miles passed. I ran past my friend M around mile 7, and on the way back, I passed C (at the same place I had seen M, but on the other side!). Mile 11 is where I hit my wall. I was right back even with my pace time... and I had started to die. I knew I could gut it out for two more miles, but right when that thought passed through my head, we turned and approached what looked to be a monstrous hill. I didn't walk, but I definitely shuffled up the hill and my pace slowed dramatically. At mile 12 and 13, I couldn't really see my pace times anymore because sweat had blurred my writing. My goal time was 1:52.30 according to my paceTat - I finished at 1:53.29. Not bad! My personal best is 1:52.14, so I can't complain about this time with the little training/preparation that I did!

My next race goal time (if I train the way I want to) is going to be breaking the 1:50 mark. I know I can do it, I just have to be relatively injury free (unlike this time!) and train properly. I'm proud of my accomplishments, but my competitive nature always wants more.

Congratulations to everyone who raced at Indy! They put on a beautiful race with fabulous volunteers - what a beautiful Saturday for running :)

Unknown History

KJ adopted our big black and white "holstein"/loveable pit bull from the junior surgery ward at school where he was neutered. Exactly two years ago, he came into our lives and I've been in love with him since then. I sometimes wonder about his history, since they (and we) estimated his age to be about 2 or 3 years old before he found his forever home. He has a calm, gentle disposition - he wants nothing more in life than to snuggle on the couch with you and grab a few rays of sunshine in the backyard on a beautiful day. He is moderately leash aggressive, but at the farm where he gets to play a few times a month, he gets along with everyone and does his own thing (mostly grazing and half heartedly running after other dogs). He is a little frightened of water deeper than a foot. He loves everyone and greets every visitor to our house with a big toothy grin and a wagging tail that resembles a helicopter... but where did he come from? The other night, we were sitting on the couch watching a TV show and the doorbell rang on tv. Ben shot up like something had bitten his butt and ran to the door. We don't have a doorbell, nor has he been in any homes that have one/use one. Usually he'll check out the window first if he hears something, but this time he ran to the door. Apparently he must have lived somewhere with a doorbell... in a house. Which makes me sort of happy because I hope that he was treated nicely before he found us. His rare and random aggressive tendencies (on leash ONLY) make me wonder how he came to be that way or if that is just how he is. He is completely fine with dogs smaller than him, but if they are his size or larger, he is not a dog I would go nose-to-nose with, especially if that other dog postures in an aggressive or challenging way.

I'll never know where he lived before he came to us, but I like that if I am perceptive enough, I can pick up on small details about his previous life. He's my good boy now, but I thank the people before us who took care of him and shaped him to be the dog he is today. He's an incredible dog and it is because of him that I am in love with the breed.