Not Yet a Vet…dot net

I stayed up really late last night for absolutely no reason.  There was a Whale Wars marathon and I had a sudden urge to make Jello.  I was planning on sleeping in this morning.

I woke up to the sounds of one of my cats (James, 3 year old, MN DLH) having a what I could only assume was a seizure.  When I was 9 or 10 years old, I watched my dog have seizures almost every day and I saw a case of a cat with cluster seizures at the clinic where I worked 2 years ago.  James looked to be in a pretty similar state.

He seemed to come back to himself about 30 seconds after I started watching.  He got into a sternal position and was drooling something terrible and smelling of urine.  I’ve never seen pupils that large.  He shuffled out of the room and I watched him sit disoriented in the hallway until he came back and hid under my bed.  I gave him a moment and then laid down on the floor and he saw me and came out chirping and rubbing against my hands like nothing had happened.  He let me clean off his tail and wipe the drool off his chest and then went to watch the birds at the birdfeeder.

I have no idea what could have caused this seizure, but his behavior afterward makes me think that this has happened before.  I wrote this post at Thanksgiving.  Maybe it was more than just fear that was shaking the carrier.  Either way, I’m taking him to the vet on Monday to talk through some differentials and make sure he is OK.  We’ll go to the emergency clinic if it happens again before Monday.

I’m worried about my boy but I’m trying not to freak out too much.  I’m going to do everything I can for him.  Like I said, this was not how I wanted to start a Saturday.

Summer is in full swing and I’ve discovered that I am not good at relaxing.  However, I am an expert reader, shopper, cat trainer, and TV watcher.  My new favorite show is “Monsters Inside Me” on Animal Planet.  It’s a show about parasites and the strange ways humans contract them.  The whole thing is very dramatic and there are reenactments and chilling narration.  So far, they have yet to talk about a parasite that was not covered in my parasitology course.  I play a bit of a game with myself to see if I can identify the bug before the show reveals the diagnosis.  You can stop snickering…I know I’m a nerd.

Well, nerd or not, I’m going to be pretty busy on the weekends this month.  I’m going to a wedding on 6/12 and I offered to help the bride with any last minute preparations.  I’m going to visit the Captain from 6/17-6/20 and I am ridiculously excited.  I just booked my ticket tonight.  And then on 6/28, I’m going to the Captain’s cousin’s wedding shower.  I have to talk to my future mother-in-law to make sure we can go together.  That means I need to buy a wedding gift and a shower gift AND I need to figure out what I’m going to wear.  A woman’s work is never done.

Oh, and I had a birthday since the last time I posted.  I went to my parents’ house and we had a barbecue with my aunt and uncle and my cousin and her new husband.  It’s interesting to see how the family is changing now that there are people marrying into it.  I guess it comes with the territory.  I can’t stay young and naive forever.

Well, I’m off to bed.  I have a rigorous day of television and house cleaning scheduled tomorrow.  Oh, and I’m going to see my old coworkers.  At least there is something interesting going on.

Since the semester ended and summer began, I can safely say that I’ve done a whole lot of nothin’.  Actually, that’s not entirely accurate.  I’ve done a whole lot of reading and not much else.  I went to my local library to get a new card.  I’ve moved since my first card was issued.  The circulation desk is staffed with some wonderful people and they had everything sorted out in no time.

My favorite thing to do at the library is play a game I like to call “Library Roulette.”  I walk rather aimlessly between shelves and look for book spines that catch my eye.  After about 3 minutes, I try to think of an author whose books are in my section.  That makes me focus a bit more on the titles and ultimately leads to my choosing a book.  I generally repeat this process two more times (I always seem to check out 3 books at once) and on more than one occasion, a librarian has to come over and ask if I need help finding something.  It’s all part of the game.

In my first round of Library Roulette, I was near the teen fiction section and decided to look for Garth Nix.  When Sabriel caught my eye, I new I had to read it again.  Once is just not enough for a story like that.  I turned around and found myself facing the adult sci-fi/fantasy section and The White Mare (Jules Watson) just about jumped off the shelf at me.  At last, I wandered through some rotating shelves of classics and Shakespeare caught my eye.  I spun the shelf while thinking about high school and my eyes settled on Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle.  And so began my summer reading.

I started with The Jungle, which was probably a poor stepping stone in the long run.  Since it is written using 1900s diction and grammar, it was very difficult for me to kick into my speed reading state of mind.  Nevertheless, I finally get to check it off my reading bucket list.

My next conquest was The White Mare.  It’s beautiful blue cover is what caught my eye on the shelf.  It’s a historical fiction set around 80AD in Scotland around the time when the Romans were invading to expand their empire.  I was amazed at how Watson was able to weave together a plotline with several threads, the development of multiple characters, and the intricate rites of the Scottish civilizations.  While it was a bit violent at times, I really had a hard time putting the book down.  I enjoyed it so much that I broke one of my library rules and went back to get the sequel, The Dawn Stag, before reading Sabriel.

I blame my intense thirst for literature for the fact that I’ve done almost nothing with the first two weeks of summer vacation.  I’m still waiting to hear back from my old clinic to see if they can use another assistant.  I’ve come to terms with the fact that I probably can’t sit at home and read all summer and I’d probably go nuts if I tried.

OK, time to tackle that office before I lose my edge!

I am now officially a third year veterinary student.  I am still waiting on my grade in pharmacology, but everything else has been assessed.  I took 4 final exams and turned in two take-home exams.  I turned in my keys to the microscope cabinet and the drawers that held the slides for pathology, clinical pathology, and parasitology.  Second year has finally drawn to a close.

I’ve spent the first two days of my break relaxing.  However, sitting on the couch and watching TV seems like such a stark contrast from what I was doing before that my body is really resisting this whole “do nothing” ordeal.  Monday and Tuesday were spent tackling gigantic messes in both the kitchen and the living room.  Today, I’m hoping to get my office squared away.  Course notes and shoes are literally covering the floor.  Before I get to work, I’m going to the local library to pick up some books.  I bought a book on Saturday on my way home from my last final and finished it Monday morning.  There is just something about reading for fun that makes me happy.  I spent the summer between my second and third year of college reading upwards of 3 books a week and since the library is so close to my apartment, I’m hoping I can do the same this summer.  Oh yeah, and I have to find a job.

We had a picnic on Sunday to celebrate finishing second year.  There was a contest for who could make a food item look the most like a pathology or parasitology specimen.  There were some strikingly accurate entries covering a wide range of pathologic conditions.  The winner for most accurate was a cake shaped like a liver with a bacterial infection that also had liver flukes.  Disgusting but quite tasty.  I made carrot cake in the shape of a liver with multiple abscesses and while I did not win in any of the pathology categories, I did win for overall best tasting.  My Grandma would be so proud.  :)

I just can’t come to terms with the fact that there is nothing I’m required to do right now.  My brain can’t accept the fact that I don’t have any studying to do.  I think I’ll take the rest of the week for myself/job hunting and then head to school this weekend to work on some SCAVMA things.  I’ve gotten pretty behind in my duties and I’d like to get up to date sooner rather than later.  On that note, I’m off to the library!

When I went through orientation for veterinary school before first year started, a common topic was support.  I was told that there was no way to make it through veterinary school alone.  ”You have to have your support system in place or you’ll go nuts,” the discussion leader said.  I had my parents and the Captain  and Best Friend.  I thought they were all I needed.

I started first year and had a rough time adjusting to the course load and the pace of the classes.  I leaned on Best Friend since she was a wise second year at the time.  I talked to the Captain about how much I had to learn.  I told my parents that I was happy to finally be in vet school.  At that point in my veterinary school career, I didn’t realize how much I needed to form bonds with my classmates.

I sat between Left Side Friend (LSF)  and Right Side Friend (RSF) for all of first year.  We talked a lot about school but nothing really went deeper than that.  Looking back, I don’t know why it took me so long to get close to LSF and RSF.  In any case, it wasn’t until the beginning of second year that LSF, RSF, and I could call each other close friends.  Now, at the end of my second year, I don’t know if I could have done it without them.  Yes, I still have the Captain and I still have my parents and I still have Best Friend.  However, it is comforting to be able to talk to people that know exactly what you mean.

When I tell the Captain about school, I usually have to include a lot of back-story before I can get to the point I wanted to make in the first place.  The jokes that had the whole class in tears are not nearly as funny the second time around when I have to spend 5 minutes explaining the punchline.  This is why I am glad that I have people like LSF and RSF.  We joke about everything.  There is no need to explain.  They know exactly what I am going through and that is a different kind of support than what the Captain and my parents can provide.

While having a support system is important outside of vet school, having one inside of vet school is important, too.  My classmates are going to be the people I can call when I’ve been out in practice for 10 year and I see something I’ve never seen before.  My classmates are going to be the people I mention when talking to other veterinarians.  I am thankful that I’ve discovered my support system is a lot broader than I thought.

I’ve been studying for most of the day and I’m feeling a little loopy.  I started this morning by studying for parasitology.  There are a LOT of organisms I have to know for the final.  Luckily there are only a few organisms I have to know from previous exams.  I can’t imagine how hard this final would be if it were cumulative.  I think my favorite part of this exam are all of the tick species.  Seriously, Amblyoma is a pretty cool name for a tick.  I made some pretty, color-coded diagrams to help me remember the protozoa of interest and I’m feeling pretty good about my progress.

I took a brief break from studying  to go shopping with Best Friend.  Since she is entering her clinical year, she needed to buy some professional-looking clothes.  I think she just needed someone to tell her what looks good and give her some direction.  I was a HUGE nerd and I brought my pathology flashcards to the mall.  Hey, if I was going to spend that kind of time sitting outside of fitting rooms, I figured I should do something productive.  I learned about the liver and pancreas as Best Friend tried on clothes.  It was a nice system.

Now I’m trying to solidify my new-found hepatic knowledge by looking at pictures of livers affected by various pathologic conditions.  I really have to get started on toxicology.  That’s the only exam for which I haven’t even begun to prepare.  Finals feels so different this semester when I try to draw comparisons to how I felt last semester.  This time, it feels like I have a chance to do well.  Last time, it felt like there was no way out and no end in sight.  This really is a welcome change.  I just hope it pays off!

..the Captain and I started dating.  I’ve been reflecting quite a bit today trying to remember exactly what it felt like when I first started calling him my boyfriend.  I was 15 years old and we were coming to the end of our sophomore year of high school.  We had gone to every school dance together, but after each one he would remind me that dating in high school was pointless because we were so young and there was no way to know where we would be headed after graduation.  One night, it all seemed to change.  He said something along the lines of “I think we should make it official…”  and that’s that.  We held hands at school and all of our friends said “FINALLY!” and “It’s about time!” for the next few days.  I suppose the rest is history.

I’ve been spending my days studying for finals.  As luck would have it, the weather is pretty dreary today and so staying indoors and focusing on lists of parasites and chemotherapeutic protocols has been rather easy.  Well, I should say that it was a lot easier when I was at school and there were no purring cats trying to lay on my notes.  Best Friend and I are getting together tonight to do bloodwork on all of our animals.  It’s one of her last freebies for working in the clinical pathology lab since, as of today, she is a fourth year veterinary student. While I love getting the opportunity to get a baseline panel on my cats, it means that I have to collect blood from both of them.  That is a task easier said than done because I have to deal with my own “mommy fears” at watching someone restrain my animals, and I also have to be the one to do the sample collection.  Best Friend and her husband and I make a pretty good blood-draw team (we’ve obviously done this before), but I am still nervous.  That said, I am excited to look at the labwork now that I actually know a thing or two about clinical pathology.  I’m all about looking on the bright side.

I suppose I should get back to work.  These parasites will not study themselves, you know!

Four finals and two take-home exams are the only things that separate me from being halfway through my veterinary school career.  I don’t know where the time went.  I’m amazed at what I’ve learned in these nine short months. I can answer all of the silly questions I kept to myself while recording lab results when I worked in a vet clinic.  I know why the vets chose certain tests while trying to decide between different diagnoses.

I don’t mean to imply that I know everything I need to know.  There is so much to learn.  I have another entire year of classroom learning to do before they can unleash me on the clients in the teach hospital.  I keep thinking that it’s a long ways away, but with how fast this year went, I’m not so sure.  I have a feeling my third year is going to fly like the previous two.

I’m trying to keep that in mind as I study for finals.  Luckily, I can get the two take-home exams (pharmacology and surgery)  out of the way before finals week even starts.  There is one thing that is bothering me about my pharmacology exam, though.  The first two questions, each worth 20% of the total exam, involve so much biochemistry that I may have to get out my notes from last year.  Seriously?  Why in the world is the instructor testing us on information from a year ago that was not explained in the context of the course from THIS year?  I’ve just never heard of doing something like that.  I’m beginning to think that the rumors this instructor hates my class are true…

On that note, I had better get to bed.  I have a LOOONG day of classes tomorrow followed by another LOOOONG day of studying (with some laundry thrown in for color).  Fun times, friends!

School has gotten to the point where it feels like something is looming.  That “something” is final exams.  We have one more midterm before finals are pushed to the forefront of our minds.  That also means that we’re in the main “meat” of our classes…the topics are more interesting and the instructors expect us to know things.

This reminds me of a quote I jotted down in pathology lecture today.  My instructor was apologizing for giving us lists of brain and spinal cord diseases.  She felt bad for just throwing information on the screen and not telling us what to do with it.  She shared, “I was a math major in college.  I was always looking for the theme to everything.  Then I got to veterinary school and I couldn’t find the theme.  So you really expect me to just memorize all this shit?”

I’ve spent the past semester and 3/4 memorizing lists in one form or another.  What causes mastitis in a dairy cow?  What causes coughing in a dog?  Which diseases do you have to report to your state veterinarian if they are diagnosed?  What is the clinical presentation of kidney failure?  I didn’t know I had room in my head for all of this stuff.

It was nice to have an instructor validate my feelings about memorizing lists.  Every other class has just put the information on the screen and expected me to commit it to memory in one form or another.  Bacteriology apologized for being a “bug parade” and pharmacology was proud to call itself the “drug parade.”  There was a second bug parade in parasitology.  Unfortunately, there is no witty title for toxicology.  You just have to know it.  All of this memorization makes me wonder how much I will remember 5 years down the road.  This is why I am holding on to my course notes…

I have mixed feelings about the upcoming final exam season.  I had such a horrible time at the end of last semester (lots of exams, the last of which was on 12/23) that I’m afraid I will develop some sort of finals anxiety before the tests even begin.  I suppose acknowledging the elephant in the room is the first step to avoiding a real problem.  I’m going to do my best to study along the way and hope for the best.  At the end of this semester, I’ll be half a doctor.

It’s been another rough week.  Instead of taking a ton of exams (I only had one this week), I sat around and received grades on all of the exams I took last week.  That was a…sad experience.  I’m trying not to get bogged down thinking about grades.  I’m passing.  I got mostly B’s this time around.  However, I did so well on the first round of midterms that I’m upset with my performance on this time around.  I’m chalking my poorer performance up to harder material and a ton of exams in a short period of time.  I’ll study differently next time.  The big thing I need to remember is that my grades are for me.  I feel like I am always trying so hard to please other people that I’m letting them down when I don’t get above-average grades.  Step 1 is changing my attitude.  Second year has gone worlds better than first year did grade wise and I’m going to have to take it all in stride.

My major stress-relieving activity lately has been looking at tons and tons of bridal gowns online.  I’ve had a vision for this wedding for a very, very long time.  When the Captain and I were in high school, I pictured a princess dress akin to those worn in Disney movies and a tiara.  I was set on lavender as the main color and I wanted lilacs and white roses.  When I went with Best Friend to help her pick out her wedding dress in 2008, I realized that my preferences have changed quite a bit.  I don’t want a dress that is wider than most standard doorways.  I like lace more than beading.  Don’t even get me started on the color choices…I have considered nearly everything on the cool side of the spectrum from olive green to teal to navy to french blue to plum and back again to emerald.  And we haven’t picked a date yet.

All of this wedding talk makes me really miss my grandmother.  She would have LOVED to be involved in planning and deciding and dress shopping, especially.  She really would have loved the Captain.  My grandmother would have been impressed by how courteous and respectful he is.  She would have been floored by his cooking skills.  But if she ever had any doubts about whether or not the Captain was the one for me, I would have only had to mention one tiny thing and all of her qualms would disappear…

Black jelly beans.

My grandmother loved black jelly beans.  Every Spring when the stores started selling bags of assorted jelly beans, my grandma would fill several crystal dishes around her house with the sugary treats.  Her and I would then be sure to pick out all of the black jelly beans because they were the best flavor of all and no one else in the family liked them.  “People who eat the black jelly beans are very special,” she’d tell me.  We both endured eye rolls and wrinkled noses from family members on Easter Sunday when the jelly bean bowls were replenished and there were new black beans to eat.  After my grandmother passed away my freshman year of high school, I kept my love of black jelly beans to myself.

Several years ago during my first year of college, the Captain and I were talking about Easter traditions.  I told him about picking out all of the black jelly beans and eating them first fully expecting to hear sounds of disgust on the other end of the phone. Naturally, when the Captain almost shouted, “I LOVE BLACK JELLY BEANS!” I knew that I’d eventually marry him.

As my grandmother said, only special people like black jelly beans.