Back to School

We made it through the hurricane just fine- though I know plenty of folks were not as lucky. My area somehow got protected- it was like we were in a little bubble of Sandy protection. Maybe that was just the eye of the storm, but it wasn't too awful! For once we did not lose power (unbelievable on it's own), and everyone stayed warm, safe, and dry. Classes were canceled yesterday and today (for the first time since 2008), which not only saved me from missing class, but also allowed me a much-needed breather. I was not trying to drive in that mess. I did end up feeding horses for my neighbor who couldn't get home yesterday or today for the evening feeding (he works for a power company, so has had extra long days). I was only too happy to do it, but it was a pain in the wind and rain last night!

Today was my dad and Mary's last night in Maryland, as they are headed back to CO in the morning. So I spent most of the afternoon playing cards with them and just spending time together.

I did study (a little) for my second organic chemistry exam, which has now been postponed twice and is on Friday.  It is on some more difficult material than the first exam, so I really need to make sure that I fully understand it.

Not too much else to report!

Melissa

Buckling Down For the Storm

Well Sandy is supposed to be hitting this evening. I spent my morning bringing in more wood, filling up buckets with water, bringing everything inside that could blow away and generally just trying to be somewhat prepared. I got some studying in for orgo (I have an exam on Wednesday), and finished off a paper for my Radical American Women class. My dad and stepmother came over for a dinner of hamburgers prepared by the wonderful Jared, and we just sat around and had a very nice time. Dad and Mary helped me move the chicken coop to a little more protected spot, tie the pen to a tree, secure the house a little more fully and protect it by putting boards over the open chickenwire on the house. Hoping to keep them dry and somewhat warm. I will check on them as the storm progresses and make sure they are still doing alright. If need be I may employ the use of trash bags for water protection and lock them in the house to ride out the worst of it. Or move them to a dog cage in the garage, though it would be quite tight.

Gettysburg has, of course, not cancelled classes, though every other university, private or public, has conceded to the storm and shut down for at least tomorrow. I have got permission from my professors to Skype in to class if I still have power, and to move my lab to another day of the week. My professor on Tuesday said that if the weather is bad, we will not have class at all. The rest of my professors live very close to campus and will walk if need be. Considering they are now saying that being out past 2 pm will be life-threatening, I think I will choose to miss class for the first time in my life rather than get in another accident. Freshman year I was driving home in bad conditions and wrecked my pick up truck. I was very lucky to be entirely uninjured. I'm pretty sure I used all my luck up. So if I can be safe and still be a good student, I think I will do so!

Hope everyone else on the East Coast is preparing/has prepared, especially with their animals. Bring them inside if possible, and secure all horse trailers or things that could blow away!

See you on the bright side- I will let you know how we fare! 

~Melissa

It's My Birthday and I'll Post If I Want To...

Hi all! So I guess I've been a little busy....
First of all, it's my birthday! That's right, I'm 21. What am I doing tonight? Studying. Oh. Yeah.

Anyway, the last week has been a bit hectic. I don't even remember all of it... The worst day was Tuesday. We had to go through the applications and evaluate them via point system and essay to pick the seven people who would be able to go to APVMA National Symposium with the club. This would have been easy if it had been all upperclassmen, but the majority of the applicant were our first years. Many of them don't have very much experience yet, and the few that do are highly competitive with each other. We had a really hard time doing it, and I hated every second of having to choose people... luckily my committee was pretty solid about buckling down and doing it and we ended up picking them. 3 juniors, 2 sophomores and 2 first-years. The rejections letters I had to send out sucked... I personally know almost all of them and I know how much I would have hated to get that. At the same time, they do have 3 more years to attend, so it's much less heart-rendering than if they were juniors and I had to turn them away for some reason.

Then my father and stepmother were coming out for a week from Colorado, and they arrived yesterday. So Tuesday I had to clean house and get everything ready. Yesterday my brother and fiance came over and helped me finish cleaning, mow, clean the chicken coop, bathe the dog, and cook my famous marsala chicken. Yes, it's my go-to recipe. We had a really good time with everyone here, and it was so good to see my other parents- this is like my once yearly time to spend with them.

Today was another good day. Of course it was. Jared made me breakfast and my grandparents came up to enjoy it with us before I headed off to school. Jared got me a new pair of tennis shoes (desperately needed), a couple scarves, and the latest book from my favorite author. My dad and Mary gave me a huge box of Land of Lakes Hot Chocolate mix (the best, by the way), so I am in heaven right now. I had a wonderful lunch with some of my friends, and had so many people say nice things to me today... I felt incredibly loved. Gael gave me a coffee table book of my absolute favorite artist who I met the other week- Deborah Butterfield (see below). I am so thrilled to have a collection of her work. It was a very thoughtful present, from a very thoughtful best friend.

I then had lab, which I totally understood today and got finished with in two hours. I got some work done, and headed to a pre-vet meeting, which was the best-attended we have had so far. It was probably one of the best birthday gifts I got today. To have that many people come and to be so interested in what we were doing just was so gratifying and made me feel like everything I do for the club really has a purpose. We skyped with a current vet student for about an hour, picked out t-shirts, discussed the fundraiser, and took the club photo.

And then I went home to find that my mother had dropped off a pan of dark chocolate brownies for me and left me a very sweet note... I am so grateful for my amazing family and friends. I can't remember feeling quite so loved. It is so awesome knowing that my dad is right now just a town over and that I get to see him tomorrow, my mom and her husband live 20 minutes away, my brother lives 20 minutes away, my grandfather less than a minute. My family means so much to me and I am so thankful to have them around me whenever I need a network, and especially to just be able to interact with them so frequently. Life is too short and unpredictable to not spend time with those we love.

Fundraiser

Oh I forgot-
I was messing around yesterday with ceramic paints and tiles, since we are trying to arrange a fundraiser for the pre-vet club by selling painted tiles. This is what I came up with- think they will sell?

This is more likely what we will be doing- just personalized paw prints and horse shoes for people.

These were my own playing with the paints, but I might try to sell them too if anyone wants them. I'll certainly encourage any of the members interested in trying out their art potential by trying animals.

Just Being There

Today was great- I was off from classes due to pure coincidence in teacher conferences and lab dates, and so I slept in, did some cleaning, caught up on my homework  and just relaxed in the warm sun. Remi was thrilled to be in all day with me- no accidents still. She is being so good I can't even explain it. I guess at 4 she finally grew up... I checked out a neighbor's horse at noon since he had just had extensive gelding surgery yesterday (one of his testicles never descended). He was doing great and was as perky and ornery as ever. I call him Princeling because I have been half in love with him since I met him the day after he was born. There is something very wild about him, and he moves like a dream, even as a yearling. I could never afford him, but I hope that one day I might have the chance to ride him just once. He is a warmblood of some sort- I think Oldenburg and Thoroughbred, and has fantastic bloodlines. He is also over 16 hands at a year old. Yikes.

Anyway, I went in at two to the animal hospital (they had a staff meeting, otherwise I would have been in earlier), and had a really good time today with everyone. I got to draw up vaccines, restock things, etc.- they are starting to utilize me which I like quite a bit. One of the dogs in the back, a sheltie, quite took to me and I got him to eat when no one else could. We had a large variety of breeds in both cats and dogs today. Domestic shorthair and longhair cats and a Siamese, French bulldogs, bulldogs, labs, chihuahuas, shepherds, shelties and mutts all came in and out the doors in the 6 hours I was there.

The most interesting cases from today included a cat with weird facial skin lesions- they started out as small scabs, the fur peeled off, and they looked like thumprint size raw marks. He had started with one on Sunday and had at least five today. The poor boy looked perfectly healthy besides that, and wasn't itching at them at all, and they were only on his face. The vet wasn't sure exactly what it was, but suspected it was a reaction to either flea bites or something else new in the environment. He got put on an antibiotic and Frontline for now, and if it gets any worse he will be biopsied to see if it's immune-related.

The second most interesting case was a rather sad one. This big fat orange tabby cat came in on emergency. He was severely dehydrated, unresponsive, with a huge bladder, and one of the girls found he was blocked, unblocked his penis, and he started spraying blood and urine out. He had been unable to go and had gone toxic. His temperature was so low that it didn't register on a thermometer, his paws and ears were cold, his gums pale. He was in terrible condition. We put a heat pad on him, and I of course got the orders to stay with him while the vet went to talk to the family about what was going on and the options. To have the chance to save him would have taken critical care, IVs and a whole lot of time and money. I sat with him for about 20 minutes, rubbing his face and belly, talking to him, while he halfheartedly tried to stay awake and survive, his head and paw over my arm. When the family made the decision to euthanize him, I held him until he took his last breath.  I never met his family, I don't know whether it was a hard decision or an easy one, though from the talk I heard from the techs the family wasn't particularly attached to him, but I know that he was comforted at the end and he went on being surrounded by a pair of loving arms. It was very sad- but I think very important. You can't save all of them, and sometimes you can't even try.

~Melissa

Restored Faith in Humanity

I headed in to shadow at 1 today. We saw a dog that was chewing a hole in it's paw (regulated to an E-collar since steroid spray didn't work), two dogs for laser treatment for arthritis, an old dog for a check up, a dog with nasty oily skin and a yeasty smell, and only two cats. The one cat was terribly sad- it was a kitten that had been hit on the road and these people had stopped and brought it in to see if anything could be done. I walked back right as they were euthanizing the little guy. He would have fit in the palm of your hands. His eyes were crusted over and there was blood and mucous running out of his nose. But what actually made my stomach churn a little bit was when the vet tech picked him up to show me the full reason why they gifted him with eternal sleep... He looked like a rubber chicken. All the bones in his back and hips were pulverized, and he was paralyzed from the front legs down. It was fairly disturbing, but I was so glad that the people had come and taken him in to be euthanized instead of leaving him there to slowly bleed to death internally and in pain and terror.

What lifted my spirit however, was the other cat that we saw. These two people were down from the North visiting their elderly uncle who has been dying in a nursing home for the last ten months. He had been a cat collector (originally had 10), but was down to three. One of the cats was friendly enough for them to catch her, but the other two were a little more feral. The clients had built a heated house for the cats, bought food and a heated bowl for water, and prevailed upon a neighbor to feed the cats. Mind you, these are cats that won't allow anyone to touch them and that this woman and her husband have only been around a few times. Luckily her uncle had gotten all of them fixed when they were young, so that wasn't an issue. She was trying to make sure that she could take them to "No-kill shelters", and they told her that with a feLeuk test and a rabies shot they would take them and adopt them out. So she was arranging to try to get them in if she can capture them, and had taken the third cat in for an exam. This one she was going to take with her on a six hour drive, and introduce into her home with the other three cats she had.  The very first thing was a Feleuk test on the outdoor, eleven year old cat to make sure that it didn't have anything it could give to he healthy cats back home. If it came out positive, the cat would have to be put down. I think we were all praying that that test would come out alright. And it did, amazingly. The cat checked out fine besides some awful teeth, despite not having had any shots for at least 5 or 6 years, and was cleared to go to it's new home in NY with these wonderful two individuals who went above and beyond what many, many people would do. I'm sure that cat thought she had actually died and gone to heaven.

Melissa

Update

Remi is doing well with the house training. So far not a single accident. She is still staying locked on the porch or in her crate when I leave, just because I cannot trust her alone in the house yet. This definitely seems to be working for her- she has been very happy and even calmer the last couple of days. The worst problem is that she has started to get into the litterboxes!

This weekend flew by- all day on Saturday the pre-vet club came up to Doc's house for an experiential learning lab. Every person who came learned how to draw up vaccines, got to listen to a horse's heart beat, saw how vaccines and sedation were given, and got to do some equine dentistry! They seemed to really enjoy it, even though it was freezing cold. We all got to work on four horses and Doc was a great teacher as usual. He was in fine form with his rapt audience. He even showed a small animal exam and administered a rabies shot on his little ragamuffin puppy. For some of the kids, this was their first exposure to vet med, and their first five hours of experience. I think we are going to try to do it again in the Spring since it was such a hit, though with a different subject.

Sunday Jared and I headed up to the auction and went scrounging for fun items. We got a whole pile of things, including a new watch for me, a huge painting, a wood basket for practical purposes, and a new duffel bag for me with horses on it (It's a fake Ralph Lauren- thus it features the polo horse without the rider- I was a fan).

Lab took forever yesterday- we were doing a reaction and then analyzing it with Thin Layer Chromatography, and separating the compounds via Column Chromatography. Between that and marching band, I got nothing done yesterday.

Tomorrow is my second exam in Physics, so my day will be spent studying! I am shadowing on Wednesday and Thursday, so that should be another good 11 hours to add onto my SA experience. I will be posting about that of course for those of you interested.


Wish me luck tomorrow,

Melissa

Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks

What a busy last couple of days. Brief rundown:

Friday- class, cousin's wedding (woohoo!)

Saturday- emergency call at horse rescue, helped rescue horses. Party for a cousin turning 50.

Sunday- Homework, homework, homework, dinner out with both Jared and my families for his 21st birthday, farm sitting

Monday (I had off school)- farm sitting, went to school with Jared and did more homework, then went shopping for household necessities and groceries, dinner with my brother, farm sitting, rest of the evening in front of the wood stove enjoying Bones on Netflix with Jer

Tuesday (I had off school)- Farm sitting, Shadowing for surgeries in the morning (spay, neuter), got to see two ultrasounds and an echocardiogram, a couple clients (including a dove and a woman that didn't know what Amazon was), then went thrift store shopping with a friend in Hanover and got myself a second pair of scrubs (yay!)

Today- woke up with a migraine at six am, got up, put on sunglasses, went to farm sit, Basset hound had diarrhea-d all over the house, cleaned up. Running super late, fed horses, ran home, showered, dressed, fed my animals, ran out the door. Fell asleep in organic chemistry (first time I have ever fallen asleep in class- I blame the excedrine), then in physics my phone starts going off. I finally left class and answered after the third call- Remi somehow ignored her shocker collar or turned it off and was running down the road- a neighbor found her, called in the dog registration tag info and gave me a call. Nicest woman ever- she put her in her backyard until she talked to me and then when we discussed options of what to do, walked her over to the house and put her on the back porch for me.

It was entirely out of character for Remi- the dog never leaves the house, even if she doesn't have her collar on. She normally just waits for me to come home and greets me enthusiastically in front of the garage. Went through my last class, drove home to get Remi. Decided that she would finally become an inside dog since I can't worry about her running away and getting hit... so I have been working with her all day. So far, no accidents. We never made it past the potty training stage when she was a puppy, plus my mom didn't like dogs in the house since they brought in dirt and hair, and Remi was an especially bad chewer. I am keeping my fingers crossed that this works- I think it would be good for her, though it might take my cats forever to get used to it. I'm praying that I have the patience for this.

Anyway, that's the run down for now- more later.

Melissa

Aborted Pups

Sometimes things make no sense. Like me- I make no sense.

The first thing that happened today when I walked in the clinic and was looking over the animals in the back was that the doc on staff (Dr. K) offered to let me check out some aborted puppies from the morning spay. I had seen the little poodle looking depressed and asked what had happened to her, they said she was a pregnant spay- she had been bred by her son. Oops. Having never seen one of these before, I asked how old the pups were, etc. So Dr. K asked if I wanted to see them- of course I answered yes because I'm sick like that and I think these things are terribly fascinating.

So he dug around in the trash can, pulled up the uterus and plopped it on the table, gave me a pair of surgical scissors and told me to go to town... It was awesome- I got to look at the different layers of the uterine wall, check out the umbilical sack, the placenta (which is very differently arranged than what I am used to with horses), and the dead pups ( which I did not dissect because I thought maybe that was a little too far). It was bloody and oozey and there were dead things... and I wasn't bothered at all. Not the slightest bit of dizziness or anything else. Dr. K. explained the bits to me and showed me where everything was and talked to me about the case. It was awesome.

The rest of the day was pretty exciting- I got to see a torn ACL and the wigglage of the knee joint (which you usually cannot see at all in a healthy dog), and got an explanation of all the bits and parts. We saw a ton of puppies and kittens today- 6 kittens and 2 puppies, all from different places. All the kittens probably had worms. Everybody was flea infested (talk about getting a case of the ghost itches). We also saw two dogs with bad bacterial ear infections, and a chihuahua with the strangest skin condition I have ever seen, where just it's poor ears were peeling. Dr. K. wasn't sure if it was fungal or bacterial, but it sure was weird.

I very much enjoyed Dr. K- this is my first time shadowing with him, and he is a very personable guy. He reminds me of Doc (the equine vet) quite a bit- same extreme intelligence and teacher quality. He was also genuinely interested in my life, what I've done, who I know, that sort of thing. Turns out we know a lot of the same people and he is involved with a lot of the places I am involved with, so it was very fascinating. He also runs a multi-vet equine practice in the same town, and so I asked him about shadowing opportunities for the club- it is a bit closer than Docs, and the more practices we can get students involved with, the better. He said no one had ever asked him about it, but he would look into it to see if it would be okay and then let me know. He also was great about teaching me things today- I love when vets take the time to explain not only what it means to see a certain bacterial culture, but also how it affects the animal, the name of the disease that it causes and how to treat it. I hope one day to do the same to my interns!

Tomorrow will be pretty busy- I get out of class at noon and have to leave for my cousin's wedding at three. I am very excited though- I'm sure it will be a wonderful occasion.

~Melissa

Green Pastures

Today began with egg collection, animal feeding and my normal drive into school, followed by my first two classes and my Chesapeake Bay Ecosystem exam. I have no idea how it went- some of the questions were extremely random (such as "what is the name of this person that created C14 incorporation?") and seemed to not be the main concepts or of too much importance. Based on what I think I got right and what I was not so sure about, I probably got a low B. However, there was a bonus essay so I'm hoping that will bump it up. I studied for this exam for over four days, but I feel like what I studied was the wrong things... I studied concepts and details of plant reproduction, of different types of algae and their roles in the bay, of the food web as we have talked about it, gradients of salinities, nutrients, light, etc., but the exam was a compilation of facts, not concepts. Of who did what, orders of phytoplankton, things people said about the bay, etc. So I'm kinda worried... it's out of my hands now though, and he said he would get them back to us by Friday, so at least I should know fairly quickly how I did.

I then headed to lab to get some melting points, and only got to three of five compounds before I had to sprint to get food and changed. I then booked it to my shadowing hospital for the evening. Dr. J was there tonight, so that was enjoyable. We saw a cat who had a spraying problem, a couple dogs with fleas and hot spots, a dog with an ear infection, and most memorably, a kitten with hydrocephalus.

Hydrocephalus is something I had never heard of before, but apparently it is quite common both in animals and in humans. It is essentially where the Cerebral Spinal Fluid does not drain properly, normally due to a blockage in the Aqueduct of Sylvius, a channel through which CSF drains, is carried to the spinal canal and reabsorbed into the body. In humans, a stint can normally be put into place from the brain down to the abdomen, and the body can properly cycle CSF. In animals, this is normally far too expensive. The physical features of this disease normally include a huge, fat head, with all the features squished down to the lower part of the face.

Like so:

 

The kitten we were looking at also had an oversized heart, as seen on x-rays, being about 4-5 times the size of a normal cat heart. She was also six months old and weighed 2 pounds. She could practically fit entirely in your hand. Her breathing was labored and she had fluid in her lungs. A good Samaritan had seen her and offered to pay for an x-ray, a feline leukemia test, and to take her home if the owners would let her- she was one of a litter of ten, and the owners couldn't afford more than one xray- no bloodwork or anything else. Dr. J. explained to me that hydrocephalus normally comes with other complications, and it had here- congenital heart failure. She would have bad bouts where her heart would start to give out and her lungs would fill, and eventually one of them would kill her. On top of it, she was feline leukemia negative. She would live at most for a few months. So the poor little girl was euthanized today, as her prognosis was terrible. Upon being euthanized, all the fluid in her lungs came flooding out her little nose in bloody discharge. It was so sad, but the peaceful little sigh that escaped from her as her labored breathing came to an end really made me feel for what a mercy the euthanasia was for the little thing- to look at her was to see the extreme suffering that just breathing and walking caused her. One of the few good things that came out of the situation was that because the incredibly nice stranger took an interest in the little girl and paid for a feline leukemia test, they now know that the rest of the litter has it as well- which means they can begin to be treated for it before it starts to break down their bodies. So this one little girl may have saved and prolonged the lives of all her litter mates.

I'm back to the hospital tomorrow from 1:30-7 pm. I'm hoping they like me there- I can never tell, and I get so awkward in some situations that I occasionally say and do things that could be misconstrued- and of course I obsess over things, so I obsess that others do misconstrue them and then dislike me. I think it's part of my Type A personality...

I'll let you know how tomorrow goes!

~Melissa

Busy Busy

Few things to report. Today was Jared's birthday, so that was fun.

Got my orgo exam back- 98% and physics- 92% (what teacher makes T/F questions worth 5 points each??). Pretty darn happy about those grades. My first ES exam is tomorrow morning, and I should be getting my first paper back from my Radical Women Writers class back on Thursday.

Tomorrow and Thursday I am shadowing (gotta get those hours in!).

My chickens have started laying! Only one egg more a day right now (and it's white... weird).

That's all I got time for right now... some more studying and then to sleep. I promise I'll post more later!

~Melissa