Not Yet a Vet…dot net

School has been in session for just over 3 weeks.  I’ve taken two exams and two quizzes and I’ve handed in two assignments.  The coming two weeks are going to be brutal.  I have exams Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Monday and Friday.  I’ve never had a midterm schedule quite like this one and I’m more than a little intimidated.  I’m going to keep my head up and plug on through.  After that, there’s only one more week of classes before I get to go to Florida with the Captain.  It’s our first vacation together and I’m SO excited.

This Monday will mark our 9th Valentine’s Day together.  I had to count it up to make sure (2 years of high school, 4 years of undergrad, 1 year of working, and 1 year of veterinary school have lead to this point).  However, we haven’t spent a Valentine’s Day in the same state since our senior year of high school.  Luckily, I only have 2 more year of school left.  Then the Captain and I can celebrate every single minor holiday around.  I think I’ll bake a cake for our first Arbor Day after I graduate.  Perhaps there will be pie on Earth Day. 

As much as I didn’t start this blog to talk about pathology, I feel that it’s the class that gives me the most to say.  Lately I’ve felt as though pathology lecture is a big, morbid game.  The lecturer puts up a picture of some sort of pathological condition and we try to guess what body part is depicted.  You’d think this would be an easy game given that anatomy is a required course first year.  Well, not all of the body parts they show are attached to bodies.  My personal favorite was a nose.  Yes, it was just the tip of a dog muzzle with some sort of skin condition.  There was also a feline ear pinna with warts of some sort and a closeup of two eyes with horrible cataracts.  It’s times like these that make me realize that my classmates and I are just a little different.  I realize things like this when I talk to my mother on the phone and she takes a deep breath before saying “well, I’m glad you’re having fun…”

On that note, I’m off to bed.  I was in bed by 9:15 last night and it was glorious.  I’ve missed that mark a bit, but I’ve discovered my morning goes a lot better when I’ve had more than 6 hours of sleep.  I’ll try to post again before the exams start.

I played with hearts today.  I suppose “played” is a relative term.  I was the designated heart-handler in pathology lab this morning because no one else wanted to glove up and manipulate the assorted specimens that may or may not be older than most of the people in my class.  Hey, classic clinical presentation of certain cardiac diseases only comes around once in a while.  When you find that special heart with a perfect example of endocardiosis or a wonderful demonstration of chronic passive congestion of the liver due to right heart failure, you hang on to those samples.

Anyway, as the designated heart-handler, I was responsible for piecing together hearts cut in various ways to best demonstrate their pathology.  The exercise was quite interesting but the smell was overwhelming at times.  It usually takes a LOT of different things working together to make me feel nauseous, but these old hearts seemed to strike the perfect chord in my nose that, in turn, tickled my gag reflex.  I was actually pretty amazed that I made it through the whole lab.  It was the cat hearts that made me push through.  They didn’t smell and I was distracted from my bad feelings by how small they were!  I can’t believe that my 12 pound cat has such a tiny structure keeping him alive.

I’ve said before how amazed I am that the body just works. It shouldn’t work.  There are way too many integrated systems that all need to function at a certain level ALL the time.  There are way too many places for things to go wrong.  I suppose I really do heart veterinary school even after all the exams and stress and nauseating smells.  I like seeing everything come together, and I like seeing ways the body fails.  You have to know your opponent before you can begin to fight.  And I plan on saving a lot of lives someday. 

Well, all of my plans to blog sometime during the week were never executed.  I’m not sure why.  I wasn’t exceptionally busy by any means.  Unfortunately, that means that I have to be exceptionally busy today (and this week) to prepare for the mess of exams that will soon be coming my way.

Classes are going well.  I’m really enjoying clinical pathology.  The instructors are great and we’re using this computer program that simulates cases and we have to interpret lab data and make a diagnosis.  I know it’s nowhere near the real thing, but it makes me feel pretty cool nonetheless.

On Thursday, I went to see the Broadway tour of “Rent” with Left and Right Side friends and another classmate.  The show was phenomenal!  Several of the original Broadway performers (that were also in the movie) played the roles they played when the show opened in 1996.  That was my brief brush with stardom for the month.

Last night, I spent some time with Best Friend because her husband is out of town at a conference.  We tried this awesome restaurant called HuHot.  You go up to this buffet and assemble your own stir fry and then they cook it on a huge grill while you watch.  The chefs also put on a bit of a show spinning their cooking tools and throwing bowls in the air and such.  I’d have to say that the best part of the whole evening was our dessert order of cheesecake rangoon with chocolate and strawberry sauce.  I love food.

That brings me to my day today.  I have a fair bit of studying to do for my anesthesiology exam that’s coming up on Wednesday and I have to make a trip to the grocery store.  I’m going to make this cake to take to Best Friend’s tonight for dinner.  I am beyond excited to see how it turns out!  For now, I think I need some coffee.

I spend a lot of time relaxing this weekend.  I think I needed some down time after my harsh re-entry into the real world.  I know that this semester is going to start piling on the stress soon so I figured I had to take advantage of my ample free time now while I can watch TV and play Wii without feeling guilty.  I also spent a considerable amount of time on the couch with my cats.  All in all, it was time well spent.

I started to get a little bored so I wrote a letter to the Captain’s little sister (who started college last fall) and I cleaned up my kitchen a bit.  When I ran out of enjoyable distractions, I did laundry and started studying systemic pathology.  This unit is on pathology of the heart.  It never ceases to amaze me how one organ can have such a profound effect on the rest of the body.  Granted this is the heart and it is arguably the most important organ, I’m still awed by the interactions between organ systems.  I suppose that means I’ve chosen the right profession.  Either that or I’m easily amused.

I realized today that along with a general lack of pictures in my blog,  I’ve neglected to post a single picture of my fur-kids.  Well, I’m going to fix that!

Lily is my sassy orange girl and her handsome tuxedo mate is James.  Yes, I am a Harry Potter fan.  When I was in the market for my first cat, I told all of my friends that I wanted a long-haired orange female kitten.  Lo and behold, Lily showed up at the clinic where Best Friend used to work.  She was about a year old, but she fit my other requirements (well, she is technically a medium hair, but that’s close enough).  She had a pretty nasty bite wound abscess and was covered in burrs but Best Friend’s clinic sorted her out (and spayed her!). She was about 4.5 lbs when she came to live with me and she had patches of fur missing from where they had to shave out the burrs and lance the abscess.  You’d never know she had such a rough start seeing her now.  Well, that’s until you see her try to play with something and you suddenly understand why she failed at being a stray.  Even though she’s bad at stalking and often falls off of furniture, Lily excels at purring and lap-warming.

Once I adopted Lily, I knew that I would eventually need a James.  I decided that James should be black and white and that he also needed long hair.  At the time, I was working at a feline-only clinic that would do one spay/neuter for an area rescue free of charge per surgery day.  One day, the rescue brought in a tiny, terrified black and white kitten with an adorable spot on his nose.  He was so nervous that even the tips of his gigantic ears were shaking.  I had filled out the adoption papers before the end of the day and his foster family delivered him to me a week later.  He is still a giant chicken, but he loves people.  The ceiling fan is another matter.  James is everything a male cat should be, in my opinion.  He is handsome and sweet.  He sleeps on my bed in the exact same place every night.  He also excels at purring and lap-warming, but he is considerably more skilled than Lily at stalking and balancing.  James’ claim to fame is his wimpy little meow.  It sounds more like “MEEEEEP!” which is an odd  sound coming from a 12 lb cat.

It’s no wonder I have a reputation in class as the “crazy cat lady in training”

Classes have begun and I think it’s going to take me another week to truly switch into school mode.  I have some pretty interesting courses on my schedule and I’m excited to see how things go.  Here’s my list:

• Anesthesiology/ Surgery
• Systemic pathology
• Clinical pathology
• Parasitology
• Toxicology
• Pharmacology

I’m a little afraid of pharmacology and toxicology, but the others have been pretty fun so far.  We were even encouraged to run fecals on our own pets in parasitology and clinical pathology has us analyzing lab data already.  I love it!  I keep remembering questions I had while working at a clinic and now I can answer some of them myself.  Those vets I used to work for were really, really smart.

The only negative thing that happened this week was my cat’s eye infection.  James started squinting and dripping from both eyes early in the week.  He also had some moderate conjunctivitis.  Luckily, his vet squeezed him in at the end of the day when I got home from class.  He is not happy that I have to sit on him three times a day to put antibiotic ointment in his eyes three times a day, but the discharge and conjunctivitis have almost completely resolved.  He still squints a bit and that makes me nervous.  My limited ocular pathology knowledge has me worried about a corneal ulcer or something stuck under his third eyelid.  I have to take him back to the vet for a recheck anyway, so I can get some of my (probably irrational) fears put to rest then.

It is the first weekend of the semester and I am torn between studying and relaxing.  I don’t have anything pressing that I should do right now, but I also want to be as far ahead as possible when things start to get tough.  I think I’m going to try to do a little of both.  I think it’s going to be a good semester.

I am reminded of my days in elementary school when school was commencing after winter break.  I was always excited to see my friends and to talk to my teacher again.  I was always much more comfortable speaking with adults than I was speaking to my peers.  I remember walking in to school and stomping the snow off of my boots before heading to my coat hook to change into my gym shoes.  I was usually one of the first students in the classroom.  In fact, I used to come in to school early to play on the computer when I was in 6th grade.  My teacher had The Incredible Machine 3.0 and I was slightly addicted.  School just felt…right.  I was supposed to be there.

Starting the second semester of my second year of veterinary school brings back some of those same feelings.  No, I’m not going to get to school early to play computer games, but I am still a little excited.  At a time when most of my classmates sound depressed that there are only 5 days of freedom left, I am planning out how many new binders I need to buy so that I’m prepared on the first day of class.  I got a new backpack for Christmas and I’ve already transferred all of my pens/highlighters into the appropriate pockets.  It feels like the right thing to do.  This is where I am supposed to be.

I know this is going to be a tough semester.  We’ve been told that this semester seems to be a “trough” for a lot of students.  The current 3rd years referred to this semester as “the emotional pit of vet school”.  We’ve been encouraged to stick together and not leave anyone behind.  Watch out for each other.  Don’t let anyone disappear.  I know staff from the personal support and wellness center will be in to reiterate those points.  It’s going to be a tough semester…they’re really trying to batten down the hatches before anything happens.  People are worried that something may happen.  It’s more than a little intimidating.

I’m preparing for the absolute worst in the hopes that I am pleasantly surprised when things do not go too poorly.  I’m still excited for new classes, new instructors, new things to learn.  I’ve been feeling an odd shift lately…one that makes me feel like I’m actually on my way to becoming a veterinarian.  I’m learning things and they’re actually staying in my head.  I’m thinking about cases in a totally different way.  I’m learning which questions to ask.  I don’t know what’s come over me, but I like it.

So I say this, on the brink of what is supposedly the most psychologically-challenging semester of my life: I am going to be a veterinarian someday.  So, like the elementary school student I used to be, I’m excited for school to start again.  This is where I am supposed to be.

I’m blogging from my phone at my parents’ house. I’m really enjoying my time off of school. I think I had forgotten what it was like to sleep through the night. Those last few weeks were tough…tougher than I could have ever predicted or imagined. I’m just glad we all made it through.

I had a wonderful Christmas with my parents & the Captain & the rest of my family. It was a dream to get to spend so much time with the Captain. We stayed with my parents until Dec. 29 when we headed to his parents’ house. I am always amazed at how much fun we have doing perfectly ordinary things. I suppose it’s something to do with the fact that I don’t care what we’re doing as long as we can spend time together in person as opposed to over the phone.

It was a rougher goodbye than usual & I’ve been a little down since I got home. I’ll be ok soon. A very wise person pointed out that it is hard to see everyone around me getting engaged & married while I’m supposed to enjoy my 9 day visit and then go back to normal 500 miles away. It doesn’t make it any easier, but it’s nice to look at the big picture. Soon it will be our turn. For now, I’m going to enjoy the rest of my break. It’s going to be another tough semester but I’m going to make it through!

When I was little, my parents would only let me be in one extracurricular activity at a time.  I chose band.  When “all of my friends” signed up to be cheer leaders for the local pop warner football teams, I was told that I had to choose between that and my clarinet.  I stuck with band.  Now, several years later, I’m wondering if I’d have made a good cheer leader after all.

This has been the toughest semester of school I’ve ever had.  I think that holds true for a lot of my classmates as well.  I used to roll my eyes when the class above ours would talk about “the emotional pit of veterinary school” thinking that it didn’t exist.  Well, my class has found it.  This is the first time I’ve ever looked around the classroom and wondered if we’ll all make it out together.

I’m an optimist.  I always have been.  I’m the one people come to when they need a good pep-talk about getting through finals (or exams or presentations).  I am the cheer-leader.  Most of my classmates will never see me as anything different.  Only a few have really seen me flip out, and I’d like to keep it that way (for now, at least).  I just figure we’ve all invested so much (money, energy, time) to get this far, I’m going to do what I can to make sure we’re all doctors on the other side (regardless of what the job market looks like).

So here goes: I have two finals left and they’re going to be pretty terrible.  I can do it.  I can study my butt off and take these last two finals and then I can enjoy the holidays.  I can watch TV without guilt and I can play video games and I can read a book FOR FUN.  It’s all going to be worth it some day.  I can do it.

Sometimes even the cheer-leader needs some cheering.

I think I’m getting a cold.  I’m no nutritionist, but I’m not sure that living on coffee, cherry coke zero, macaroni and cheese, and cereal is the best way to fortify my immune system.  I might have to switch to tea…(and don’t worry, I made a real meal tonight with turkey sausage and pasta and asparagus).

I hate finals.  I know that no one actually likes taking several tests in a row, but I feel that my distaste for this necessary end to the first semester of my second year of veterinary school is somehow more terrible than usual.  I think it’s because my last final isn’t until December 23rd.  Granted I don’t have a long way to travel to get to my parents’ house for the holidays, it takes me a bit of time to pack clothes, gifts, 2 cats, and a betta into the car.

In any case, I took my virology final and my bacteriology/mycology final.  I have epidemiology on Sunday, immunology on Tuesday, and systemic pathology on Wednesday.  Sadly, I think they’ve saved the worst for 2nd last.  I’m really quite worried about immunology.  It’s 160 multiple choice questions.  I could feel my grey matter leaking from my ears after the 100 questions for virology.  I don’t know how I’m going to do 60% more questions than that.  I have a good amount of time to cram in some last minute knowledge, though.  For now, I have to think about epidemiology.

Such is life.  I’m going to get through it and I’m going to do my best not to get full-blown sick right before Christmas.  It’s still my favorite season and I’m still smiling listening to the Beach Boys Christmas album.  It’s the little St. Nick…

It’s that time of year again.  Finals are upon us.  This is my last full week of classes.  There are only 3 class days next week before the first exams begin.  I have a lot of work ahead of me.  I’m going to stay positive because there really are a lot of great things about being a second year veterinary student.

No one looks at us like we’re babies anymore.  Granted, I miss some of the hand-holding of first year (actually, I miss having the lecture notes provided in class as opposed to paying to print them out myself), but I like getting to class and being expected to know something about what we’re discussing that day.  Granted it’s really intimidating when I don’t know the answers, it is a really big pat on the back when I DO know them.  It helps me to see that I am learning and all of these facts are getting stored away somewhere.  Looking back on this semester, I can really see how far I’ve come as a student and it feels wonderful to finally feel like I belong.

I had a chance to do some volunteering this weekend for a local organization that’s run by one of my instructors.  It is a means of certifying dogs to be able to visit children in the hospital and the dogs have to go through health screening twice per year.  This was one of those screening sessions.  Each dog gets a physical exam, skin cultures (to make sure they aren’t carrying anything on their skin that children with weakened immune systems could catch), oropharyngeal (throat) cultures, blood tests, and fecal and urine screening.  As students, we do the physical exams and all of the sample collection and there are clinicians walking around if we need help.

I was paired with two first years who were rather nervous about doing physical exams in front of an owner.  Granted these are some of the coolest owners you will ever meet, it’s still intimidating.  Everything was going well until they started asking each other if the dog had a tumor.  It was an intradermal lesion.  Technically, the word tumor means “any abnormal growth of tissue,” but tumor means cancer to a pet owner.  I got them straightened out until it came time for them to listen to the heart.  Then they got the brilliant idea to say that the heart sounded really abnormal and slow.  However, neither one could tell me how many beats they had counted.  I donned my stethoscope and heard a beautiful respiratory arrhythmia.  It took a few long minutes before I convinced the owner that this was totally normal finding and that the dog was not dying of cancer and a heart condition.

That whole scenario really got me thinking; did I make mistakes like that in front of owners?  Oh yes.  Did I realize I was making the mistake?  Not a chance.  I just hope the two first years can realize their mistake and move forward and not do it again.  It was a learning experience for me, too.  I had the chance to really work on my communication skills.  I don’t know that I’d have been able to explain a respiratory arrhythmia to an owner a year ago.  I don’t know that I’ve have been confident enough in my auscultation skills to hear one in the first place.  I’m learning a lot and I love having little opportunities like that to show myself that it’s all worth it and I’m actually getting where I need to go.  Second year isn’t so bad after all.

That said, I have some major studying to do.  If anyone knows why the ophthalmologists use so many phth-es in their eye-related words, please let me know.  I love spelling but that’s a little excessive if you ask me.