Friday, April 22, 2011

It is official - We are 4th years!

Finals are over and we survived (so far)! We are still waiting on grades from our last 2 finals (radiology and large animal surgery) - but so far, so good. I may have a C in special small animal surgery (haven't calculated the final grade yet), but I'd be okay with a D as long as I get to be a fourth year!

Our white coat ceremony was very nice - it is weird to think that that will be the last time we are all together as a group for awhile. It is a little sad... I can't believe the last three school years have gone so quickly - I never fully appreciated it... or the people. I hope this year goes well - I also can't believe in just over a year, I will be a real veterinarian. How incredible is that?

Since I am off for A block, I have a lot of awesome things planned. Tomorrow, Kyle and I are working our last official Saturday morning before 4th year starts. After that, I'm headed to my family's house to meet mom for a wedding shower for a family friend. Then, we are headed to Chicago to meet A and E from Two Pitties. After all this time blogging and emailing and what not, I'm really excited to meet them and Ms. M and Mr. B! After everything they have done for us and for Shy/Khloe, it will be very neat to meet them in person.

Sunday is Easter and my brother will be home! We get to spend Easter together as a family! I am SO excited! I am also planning a mini egg hunt at our house at school as a surprise for KJ and the pups :)

Monday, I am meeting the pups that we are helping - I can't wait to meet them in person! After that, I'm headed to Minnesota to visit friends that I haven't seen in a LONG time - I'll be back Thursday, doing a cat spay on Friday, running a 5K on Friday and then... MARATHON SATURDAY! It is finally here! And it is close enough that I can check the weather forecast - for some reason, that always makes races real for me. They are predicting light showers and 56 degrees - I'm totally okay with that. If the light showers don't show up, I'll be more fine with that - I just don't like running in soggy shoes or socks!

So much going on! I'll update with a more in-depth post soon :)

Thursday, April 14, 2011

The Last Go-Round

So it begins, our last finals week. EVER. We had our Critical Care exam yesterday, which seemed to go very well. I already had a great grade (her tests are very easy and straight forward) so I'm not worried. My issue right now is FOCUS. We have two finals tomorrow - Ruminant and Small Animal Surgery that I just started studying for.

Why didn't I do anything except organize my notes last night? I decided that it was now or never for my 20 mile run. I had looked up the forecast for Wednesday the night before and it predicted 60-65 degrees, partially sunny and only 5 mph winds. How could I pass that up? I was supposed to do the run on Sunday, but we were at a wedding in Michigan, so I only ended up doing 10 on Saturday through the golf course community that we were staying at. Which, by the way, was beautiful and I saw lots of white tailed deer, turkeys, and quails - very cool.

My 20 miler started out awesome - I was holding about 8:30-8:45 miles and I felt great. At mile 13ish, I hit a wall - and I also realized that my iPod was not calibrated for my NikePlus running thing to track mileage. My iTouch is calibrated, but its been having some issues - so I decided to try using my new Nano (won it in a raffle at school - AWESOME). I had created a beautiful 20 mile course for myself on mapmyrun.com - but when I got a little closer to home, I realized that I was about 2 miles off - Nano was telling me congratulations, I only had 5 miles to go - but I knew I had about 7. I also made the mistake of doing the last 4.5 miles in a loop around our house - I really wanted to just go home and forget about the rest of the run... but I waved good-bye to our street and continued on in what turned out to be the slowest 4 miles of my life. When I finished, I had about a 0.25 mile walk to the house - it was incredibly painful and I was so tired! When I got home, I stretched a bit, drank chocolate milk and gatorade, took a shower, and decided a nap was in order if I was going to attempt to study. When my alarm went off at 8 pm - I made the snap decision that i would "organize notes" and pretend like that counted toward studying!

I feel MUCH better today, not terribly sore which is amazing for how awful I felt last night. Sitting in the library is making my leg muscles cramp up, but I'm loving the fact that I got tan yesterday. Its nice not to look like pale vampire that never sees sunlight!

I can't believe this is the last time I'll have to study for finals. I also can't believe that we are done with class. Forever. I start clinics in less that one month - which seems insane to me since I feel like I still don't know much about veterinary medicine... but I suppose that will come through experience :)

Monday, April 11, 2011

Vetscapades

Every year, all the students at my school gather for a night of "sharing our collective talents" complete with dinner and kegs. This past year, the administration took the beer privileges away - but we were not "prohibited" from BYOB (win!). A friend of mine that is really creative made a trailer for a movie - "Intussusception". It is a spoof of "Inception", but much more awesome. I starred in a 0.5 second clip in the movie - I am wearing a purple shirt - my friend JW and I are skipping away from the camera holding drinks, signifying the "outside" world - I guess you can compare us to Leo's children in Inception? I've got the link and the blooper reel listed below. I'm also including a link to the 4th year's skit, a parody of Cee-lo Green's "Fuck you" song. If you are offended by profanities, don't watch - but I promise you, it is amazing if you can catch most of the words! Our clin path prof and parasit prof, Dr. AB and Dr. AP, are the hosts every year and they are AWESOME. This year, in between skits, Dr. AB did a parody of Tom Petty's "Free Falling" - "Freemartin". Watch till the end - the whole school gets into it :)

Click on the links below to get to the YouTube videos and let me know what you think!

Intussusception

Intussusception Bloopers

Cee-Lo Green's "Fuck You"

Freemartin.

Enjoy!

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Shy and Saving New Dogs

Because of all the funds that were raised for Shy/Khloe's surgery, A from Two Pitties in the City found TWO pups this weekend that are really special and will be receiving the donated money. Go to her (and her husband's blog) and tell them how awesome they are for everything they have done these last four months to help Shy, to help me, and to help raise an incredible amount of money that is going to be used in a special way.

Read about them here.

Like my friend JH said, "This just seems so right. I know Shy is smiling down on you from heaven right now and probably wagging her tail too."

I hope she is! I know God has a reason for his ways and for why things happen - Shy wasn't meant for our world, but I know that she's up in heaven just having a blast - because all of you cared about her and cared about her story - TWO dogs will be helped that will make wonderful family members for some lucky people. I'm trying to find a way to get up to see them soon, so I'll keep you updated!

Stressed, Surgery.. and Naughty Dogs

I feel like I'm under a world of stress these upcoming two weeks. Today was our poultry final (thank God that class is over, hope we all passed). Wednesday is our Critical Care final. Friday is our Ruminant and Small Animal Surgery finals. Monday is our Radiology final and Tuesday is our Large Animal Surgery final. Tuesday afternoon is our white coat ceremony (which signifies our transition from a third-year-classroom-student into a fourth-year-clinical-rotation-almost-doctor), Sunday is Easter and Monday starts clinics!

YIKES SCHOOL.

Plus, we have a case presentation due, and ICU case to turn in, a handful of online quizzes due at random times, and surgery responsibilities this week and next week. PLUS, I am trying to catch up on emails and plan my visit for home in a couple of weeks and plan our trip this weekend for the wedding in Michigan (right before finals... GREAT).

Anyway, I had my third spay yesterday on a sweet beagle that reminds me of our 18 year old family dog, Gypsy. She is about 2, has clearly had puppies before and happened to be in heat. Surgery was very uneventful compared to my pregnancy surprise four weeks ago, which was nice, so I took it as another opportunity to better my surgical skills. I located the linea like a champ and found the left uterine horn on my first attempt.

The only odd thing to happen was bleeding from "external" structures - which was coming from outside of the body, such as the ovarian artery after the left ovary and uterine horn were exteriorized - so we just clamped the artery since we were removing the structure anyway. Our surgery tech walked by and asked if she was in heat (which she was) because of all the blood on the drapes and offered to bring more sponges, but we just replied "It looks MUCH worse than it actually is!" And it did - there was no blood in the abdominal gutters, no blood anywhere IN the abdominal cavity - we only used four gauze squares for the whole surgery, but it just looked like a mess on the drapes.

All-in-all, a successful surgery - patient woke up a little cold (98 degrees), but was conscious and wanting to move around after we tried to warm her with the heating blanket and towels, so her and I took a few laps around the surgery ward to increase her temperature. She said hello to a few groups and by the third go around, her temperature was 99.7 and increasing, so she got to go back to her run and sleep for the rest of the day.

I always breathe a sigh of relief when I check on my patient a few hours later and they are doing well. Then I check again a few hours after that... and again early the next morning, and so on. I just want to make sure my animal survives :)

I was on a high after finishing surgery and I studied for the rest of the morning and afternoon. KJ and I got lunch on campus (Chipotle for me and hot dogs for him) and we chatted for awhile, prolonging our break from studying for poultry. Around 5:30, I decided to go home to let the dogs out and feed the zoo. I get home and Jazz doesn't meet me at the door which is VERY strange. I see her trembling in fear on the couch... so I know she did something wrong. I see little black plastic remnants on the floor, which look like a plastic bag was ripped to shreds. I wondered what she had gotten into this time as I tried to read the writing on the plastic, but it looked to be written in German. I then happened to glance down the hallway and see a HUGE (20+ in diameter) pool of BLUE vomit with blue chunks. At that point, I saw a cardboard box sitting on the floor that was missed a corner (eaten by Jazz) which contained an opened bag of blue paintballs

Oh crap.

I immediately rushed over to her and checked her mucous membrane color and CRT (capillary refill time) - those indicate perfusion and oxygenation. She was pale, slightly tacky, and CRT = 2.5 to 3 seconds. Her abdomen was significantly distended and hard as a rock. I checked the cardboard box with paintballs again - the bag was mostly full, so she hadn't consumed that many of them. Plus, she had vomited - another good sign.

(What did I learn about paintball toxicity in toxicology? Didn't we just learn about this in critical care?)

So, I freaked out. I called the animal hospital immediately, talked to Dr. MD and she suggested I call Dr. SH, since she used to work at the ASCPA poison control - I couldn't get a hold of her, so I call my friend JA, who worked as poison control over the summer and is super smart - she told me that paintballs are an osmotic and cause hypernatremia along with other signs. Jazz and I jumped in the car and drove to the animal hospital where they calmed me down and gave subcutaneous fluids and ran electrolytes (specifically checking her sodium level).

At this point, Jazz had really perked up, her color was great, CRT less than 2 - so I relaxed a bit. Her electrolytes were normal and she handled the visit like a pro. I decided to study at home for the rest of the night to keep my eye on her (obviously, I wasn't about to leave her so she could try to kill herself again...) - but I lose massive focus when I study at home. I finished going through my poultry notes, typed up my surgery report and waiting for Kyle to call so I could pick him up (he was still studying at school, even though he offered to come with me to the animal hospital and all at - I didn't think it was necessary for both of us to lose out on an afternoon of studying, especially since I'd already studied more than him for the exam).

All in all, a very long, exhausting and stressful day.