Well... My day has had it's ups and downs. I cut a lot of my hair off this morning (over 5 inches), and now have it above my shoulders. I'm pretty fond of it this way! I needed a change.
I also got back my physics exam and did much better than expected (yay for an A!). However, I also found out that I didn't get the dairy internship, which is pretty disappointing, since that is the one I really wanted. I should know about the FDA internship by mid-March, and I'm fairly certain that the deadline for the NIH recipients has already passed, so this one is really my last bet. If nothing pays out, I might be applying to work at Petsmart, Petco or anywhere that will take me. Not exactly what I want to do this Summer, but sometimes we just have to bite the bullet.
Tomorrow morning I am headed to the APVMA National Symposium in Florida with 6 other members of the pre-vet club. The school is footing the bill 100%, so I'm definitely happy about that! It should be a fantastic experience. We are staying at the Hilton, and will have a dinner/welcome on Friday evening, all day at the CVM on Saturday attending labs and lectures, and another dinner/social that night. Friday includes pre-vet olympics which should be... interesting.
I am pretty worried since I have my cell mid-term on Tuesday, and the last exam wasn't stellar. I have already started studying, but I'm extremely nervous. My plane rides will be full of intense study-time. Wish me luck!
~Melissa
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Saturday Night Fever
On Saturday I was in to the ER again. It was a pretty busy night once things got rolling! I was in for 7.5 hours, and on my feet for almost the whole time. The cases included a 10 week old puppy that swallowed a nut (like a nuts and bolts nut), a pom that ate chocolate (but not enough to need to vomit), a cat with a very low temp (92!) whom we also found out was in kidney failure, a dog with HGE (Hemorrhagic Gastroenteritis), a cat who was recovering from a blockage, an old dog who was being hospitalized overnight to euthanize in the morning when the family could come in, a dog with a huge splenic mass (diagnosed over 6 months ago), who had started to go downhill and we ended up euthanizing, a dog with a prolapsed rectum, and a patient whom I recognized from elsewhere.
The vet on staff was really good with explaining things to me between crises, and she told me about HGE in detail, which was very awesome for me. I love learning about new things, and HGE reminded me somewhat of the nature of IBS in humans... that is, it is more of a symptom than a cause, but there are ways to treat it (the symptom), and get it under control so that you can find the cause.
The diabetic dog (the one I recognized) was a very good lesson in client interaction. The owner is interesting. Her dog is 5.5 years old, HUGE, a diabetic, and has cataracts. She has spent a lot of money on him, getting him to an okay place, but is pretty bad with regulating his diabetes. They won't operate on the cataracts until his diabetes in under control, so the poor thing can't see too well. Her appointment at the ER was because the dog hadn't laid down all day and seemed very uncomfortable. The doctor spent a lot of time convincing her that because of his diabetes, it was really important to figure out what was going on. Once we were able to get bloodwork and urine on him, it showed that he had both pancreatitis and a UTI, very common things in diabetics. To convince her to let the dog be hospitalized was like pulling teeth. She obviously did not want to be separated from him. The vet had to explain at least 4 times why this was such a big deal and what needed to be done. Finally, she signed the estimate, remarking at different times, "It's all about the money isn't it?" "Did you read the article in the Times this morning? It's about hospitals ripping people off" and best of all, "It must have been those antibiotics Dr. Regular Vet put him on, they had to cause the UTI." She was a very grumpy woman, but she did what was right for the dog, and assured him she would be back at 6 am to check on him and visit with him.
What did this teach me? Patience. I think the ER is a wonderful place to see client interactions because it is a high-stress situation. The owners don't know what is wrong, are often unable, unwilling or unprepared for the fees, and they are emotional. It takes a special person to work in that environment and be able to calm them down, explain things to them at a level they can understand and accept, and sometimes even coax a smile. Quite often you are delivering awful news to owners, and being able to do so in the right manner can make all the difference. I have a lot of respect for it, and I hope that I am absorbing as much as I feel I am there.
~Melissa
The vet on staff was really good with explaining things to me between crises, and she told me about HGE in detail, which was very awesome for me. I love learning about new things, and HGE reminded me somewhat of the nature of IBS in humans... that is, it is more of a symptom than a cause, but there are ways to treat it (the symptom), and get it under control so that you can find the cause.
The diabetic dog (the one I recognized) was a very good lesson in client interaction. The owner is interesting. Her dog is 5.5 years old, HUGE, a diabetic, and has cataracts. She has spent a lot of money on him, getting him to an okay place, but is pretty bad with regulating his diabetes. They won't operate on the cataracts until his diabetes in under control, so the poor thing can't see too well. Her appointment at the ER was because the dog hadn't laid down all day and seemed very uncomfortable. The doctor spent a lot of time convincing her that because of his diabetes, it was really important to figure out what was going on. Once we were able to get bloodwork and urine on him, it showed that he had both pancreatitis and a UTI, very common things in diabetics. To convince her to let the dog be hospitalized was like pulling teeth. She obviously did not want to be separated from him. The vet had to explain at least 4 times why this was such a big deal and what needed to be done. Finally, she signed the estimate, remarking at different times, "It's all about the money isn't it?" "Did you read the article in the Times this morning? It's about hospitals ripping people off" and best of all, "It must have been those antibiotics Dr. Regular Vet put him on, they had to cause the UTI." She was a very grumpy woman, but she did what was right for the dog, and assured him she would be back at 6 am to check on him and visit with him.
What did this teach me? Patience. I think the ER is a wonderful place to see client interactions because it is a high-stress situation. The owners don't know what is wrong, are often unable, unwilling or unprepared for the fees, and they are emotional. It takes a special person to work in that environment and be able to calm them down, explain things to them at a level they can understand and accept, and sometimes even coax a smile. Quite often you are delivering awful news to owners, and being able to do so in the right manner can make all the difference. I have a lot of respect for it, and I hope that I am absorbing as much as I feel I am there.
~Melissa
Birth and Death
This is more a blog of cute pictures than anything else :)
On Sunday we headed out to the goat farm, and got there just in time to see a birth! One of the kid's front legs was twisted slightly, and it had to be rotated. The kid then came out, slimy and cute. I got to help towel it off, and held it while it's umbilicus was cut and treated with iodine dip. There was a twin to it that took about a half hour coming out, but unfortunately this little was unable to take it's first breath. It's heart was still beating, but despite what the vet was able to do, he couldn't get the little thing to breathe. It died very quickly after entering the world. It was the first dead kid of the year for them, so it was kinda disappointing. They toweled it off and laid it outside, to bury later in the day.
We got to play with the other babies, and one of them had bowed tendons in it's front legs, so they got splinted (something the vet had done in the past which had worked well). We also got to see ultrasounds, feet trimming, and got some more goat milk to drink! Here are some cute pictures:
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| The live twin, super cute! He was trying to nuzzle my jacket |
We got to play with the other babies, and one of them had bowed tendons in it's front legs, so they got splinted (something the vet had done in the past which had worked well). We also got to see ultrasounds, feet trimming, and got some more goat milk to drink! Here are some cute pictures:
Remi's Results
Sorry I'm a bit behind! I'm going to update on my experiences in a couple steps, so that y'all don't get bored :) So on Thursday we took Rem over to Doc's office to get checked out for her strange urinary incontinence issue. We did x-rays to look for bladder stones (which were suspicious), and an ultrasound to confirm/reject. We couldn't find anything, which was very good, and we also got a shot with her hips in it, which was also nice. Since she is my dog, I can actually show them to you! We then drew her blood and Doc told me that he thought she had a common problem among dogs her age who have been spayed, wherein they leak only when they are sleeping. This made sense when coupled with the evidence that we have seen, and he prescribed us diethylstilbestrol.It came in today, so Jared is going to go pick it up. After seeing how bad her hips are, we are getting her right on Cosequin DS (something we had talked about for awhile but put off due to the expense). She could really use the surgery where they cut off the head of the femur, but the price and the fact that it would be both hips is just too much for us to be able to do. The breeder was originally supposed to have it done for us, but it just never happened. Hopefully in a few years I will have saved it up before it is too late.
Also, I got to draw her blood! Since she was my dog I was allowed to, and Doc instructed me. I felt kinda bad because I had to stab her a couple times before I got in the vein, but it just made me want to learn how to do it right, and get some more practice!
I know I have a huge bill coming, but it isn't as much as it would have been if we had taken her to an animal hospital, and it was worth it to make sure there wasn't anything bad going on. We also got a really nice look at all of her organs and were assured that she is very healthy, minus the hips.
Here are her X-rays:
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| From web-dvm.net |
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| You can see her badly shaped hip cups in this view. |
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Thursday Day Off
Every other Thursday I have the day off due to my class schedule, which is wonderful. It gives me the time to catch up on housework and homework. I only have some light reading today and a few problems, so hopefully only about 4-5 hours of homework to do. The housework has been kept up by sun-and-stars lately (bizarre as that is), and I have been loving coming home to a semi-clean house every day. His standards aren't quite up to mine, but it is one less thing I have to worry about on a daily basis, and I very much appreciate the help.
Taz's neck has cleared up, which I am very happy to see. Of course, we took Rem-dog's urine in because I thought she might have a UTI (she has leaked a few times in the past couple of week, which is pretty weird for her), and they found excess phosphate crystals in it, but no infection. That means ultrasounds and/or x-rays to see if she has bladder stones, and possibly surgery if she does and they are large enough. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's nothing.
So my day looks like homework, cleaning stalls, maybe taking Rem over to get looked at, and heading up to school in the evening to drive wanna-be SPCA volunteers to the shelter. We had over 30 students sign up to get oriented (which I know will be overwhelming for the shelter, unfortunately). Friday I will be up there again helping with their spay and neuter clinic, Saturday I will be shadowing at the ER, and Sunday I will be heading out to the goat farm to meet the new baby goats! So I have a very fun, animal-filled tail end to my week.
~Melissa
Taz's neck has cleared up, which I am very happy to see. Of course, we took Rem-dog's urine in because I thought she might have a UTI (she has leaked a few times in the past couple of week, which is pretty weird for her), and they found excess phosphate crystals in it, but no infection. That means ultrasounds and/or x-rays to see if she has bladder stones, and possibly surgery if she does and they are large enough. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's nothing.
So my day looks like homework, cleaning stalls, maybe taking Rem over to get looked at, and heading up to school in the evening to drive wanna-be SPCA volunteers to the shelter. We had over 30 students sign up to get oriented (which I know will be overwhelming for the shelter, unfortunately). Friday I will be up there again helping with their spay and neuter clinic, Saturday I will be shadowing at the ER, and Sunday I will be heading out to the goat farm to meet the new baby goats! So I have a very fun, animal-filled tail end to my week.
~Melissa
Monday, February 18, 2013
Lab Partner Woes
Having a bad lab partner is like missing a couple fingers. I have so far had to track down mine over three times in the last week, and she has been everywhere from 15 minutes to an hour and a half late for every time we have met to work on our papers. It wouldn't be a big deal if I wasn't a commuter student and could just go home and work on other things... but I'm not. So I just waste time.
Had an orgo exam today, and felt really good about it. And I found out today that our cell exam grades will be curved at least a couple points, which should get me a B-. I will take that with a smile.
Also, I fell into a horse fence on Saturday and fried my phone, so I currently have no contacts, and an old hand-me-down phone from a neighbor. I have a reputation as a serial phone killer, but I didn't actually DO anything to this one... it didn't get dropped in a horse trough, in a toilet, stepped on by a 1200 lb animal, dropped on a tile floor, nothing. It just happened to be on me when I, clutz that I am, had my boot sucked off in the mud, and fell forward onto the fence. I'm going to try to get the info recovered so that I can have my life back (and the numbers of all the SPCA volunteers, vets I've shadowed, people I have known since childhood, etc.). I'm not sure if that will be possible though.
The vets didn't know what was up with Taz, but they think it is some sort of under-the-skin infection. He got an injectable antibiotic and Depo for the inflammation. Hoping that one of the two takes care of it! It was really good to see all the techs and vets at the animal hospital. I actually miss being there quite a lot.
Anyway, back to working on my papers due this week.
~Melissa
Had an orgo exam today, and felt really good about it. And I found out today that our cell exam grades will be curved at least a couple points, which should get me a B-. I will take that with a smile.
Also, I fell into a horse fence on Saturday and fried my phone, so I currently have no contacts, and an old hand-me-down phone from a neighbor. I have a reputation as a serial phone killer, but I didn't actually DO anything to this one... it didn't get dropped in a horse trough, in a toilet, stepped on by a 1200 lb animal, dropped on a tile floor, nothing. It just happened to be on me when I, clutz that I am, had my boot sucked off in the mud, and fell forward onto the fence. I'm going to try to get the info recovered so that I can have my life back (and the numbers of all the SPCA volunteers, vets I've shadowed, people I have known since childhood, etc.). I'm not sure if that will be possible though.
The vets didn't know what was up with Taz, but they think it is some sort of under-the-skin infection. He got an injectable antibiotic and Depo for the inflammation. Hoping that one of the two takes care of it! It was really good to see all the techs and vets at the animal hospital. I actually miss being there quite a lot.
Anyway, back to working on my papers due this week.
~Melissa
Saturday, February 16, 2013
My Unshining Moment
This past week has been pretty hectic. I had my very first cell exam on Friday, and, knowing the difficulty of the Professor's exams from other students, I took it very seriously. I had been keeping up with the textbook reading, and felt good about class, but I re-read the book, took notes and made notecards from everything I had learned, and studied with a few other people to really solidify things. I took it yesterday afternoon, and didn't feel so bad about it when I left. There had been four or five questions that I felt a little iffy on (things that seemed to come out of left field), but overall, it wasn't horrible. Heck, it was the first multiple choice exam I've taken in college, and that had to count for something, right?
Well the professor sent out the grade distribution yesterday, and the class average was a 71%. Two people scraped A's with 90's, and 11 students got B's. The other 45 students got C's or below. The worst grade was a 45%. That warned me ahead of time, as did my two best friends in the class letting me know what they got... above the average but not by much, and they were only one point away from each other. So I pretty much knew what I was getting before I got the email. It still hurt though. My first C in college (well, ever), and on an exam I had thought I had done well on. If I had gotten one more question right, I would have scraped a B, which is at least an acceptable grade. I still feel like I have learned a lot in the first part of the class, and I'm sure I will continue learning, but boy did that put a damper on my weekend... It's not the end of the world though. It is after all, just an exam, not an evaluation of me, and I am determined not to let it mess me up.
Yesterday afternoon the PVC took some pre-vet and pre-health kids to meet a veterinary neurologist down the road. He lives about 5 minutes from my house, and is best friends with Doc (the equine vet), and one of my cousins as well, so I have met him a few times. He has a beautiful hospital and rehab center, and was very interesting to talk to. He is quite atypical for a vet, but perhaps not for a surgeon. I think everyone else enjoyed him as much as I did- we were all rolling in laughter throughout the hour and a half we were there, and he gave some really good advice about vet school, neurology, and even just about life. He is pretty eccentric, dropped the F-bomb at least 10 times, and made some political comments that had me wincing, but it all added to the enjoyment of the experience. It was very nice for him to take the time out of his day to have us up, as I know it really is quite a feat to make that happen sometimes. These are the times I wish we had money to pay our speakers back!
While we were there, I asked him if he would mind if I shadowed him sometime, and he said yes! So I might look into doing that in the upcoming year/Summer. It is so close to my house that it would be silly not to, and I would get to see a ton of brain and back surgeries (as this is the bulk of what he does). I have this bizarre thirst to see as many sides of vet medicine as I can, not because I don't know what I want to do, but because it is so interesting! Everything is applicable to everything else, I am constantly learning about new and better ways to do things, and the differences between practices.
Today starts the next hectic stint for papers and exams. I have to work on a lab paper at one with my lab partner (who, so far, is not working out well), due Tuesday. I also have to study for my organic exam on Monday, and finish a paper due Wednesday. And I'm taking Taz to the vet to have his chest looked at, as I feel some suspicious lumps that I'm hoping are not mass cell tumors. On the bright side, tonight is Snowball at the college (yes, it is actually a ball) and I'm pretty pumped about that. We have a live jazz band and Swing music for half the night, and a DJ for the other half. Along with a candy bar, a chocolate fountain and a photo booth this year! Stay tuned for pictures :)
Well the professor sent out the grade distribution yesterday, and the class average was a 71%. Two people scraped A's with 90's, and 11 students got B's. The other 45 students got C's or below. The worst grade was a 45%. That warned me ahead of time, as did my two best friends in the class letting me know what they got... above the average but not by much, and they were only one point away from each other. So I pretty much knew what I was getting before I got the email. It still hurt though. My first C in college (well, ever), and on an exam I had thought I had done well on. If I had gotten one more question right, I would have scraped a B, which is at least an acceptable grade. I still feel like I have learned a lot in the first part of the class, and I'm sure I will continue learning, but boy did that put a damper on my weekend... It's not the end of the world though. It is after all, just an exam, not an evaluation of me, and I am determined not to let it mess me up.
Yesterday afternoon the PVC took some pre-vet and pre-health kids to meet a veterinary neurologist down the road. He lives about 5 minutes from my house, and is best friends with Doc (the equine vet), and one of my cousins as well, so I have met him a few times. He has a beautiful hospital and rehab center, and was very interesting to talk to. He is quite atypical for a vet, but perhaps not for a surgeon. I think everyone else enjoyed him as much as I did- we were all rolling in laughter throughout the hour and a half we were there, and he gave some really good advice about vet school, neurology, and even just about life. He is pretty eccentric, dropped the F-bomb at least 10 times, and made some political comments that had me wincing, but it all added to the enjoyment of the experience. It was very nice for him to take the time out of his day to have us up, as I know it really is quite a feat to make that happen sometimes. These are the times I wish we had money to pay our speakers back!
While we were there, I asked him if he would mind if I shadowed him sometime, and he said yes! So I might look into doing that in the upcoming year/Summer. It is so close to my house that it would be silly not to, and I would get to see a ton of brain and back surgeries (as this is the bulk of what he does). I have this bizarre thirst to see as many sides of vet medicine as I can, not because I don't know what I want to do, but because it is so interesting! Everything is applicable to everything else, I am constantly learning about new and better ways to do things, and the differences between practices.
Today starts the next hectic stint for papers and exams. I have to work on a lab paper at one with my lab partner (who, so far, is not working out well), due Tuesday. I also have to study for my organic exam on Monday, and finish a paper due Wednesday. And I'm taking Taz to the vet to have his chest looked at, as I feel some suspicious lumps that I'm hoping are not mass cell tumors. On the bright side, tonight is Snowball at the college (yes, it is actually a ball) and I'm pretty pumped about that. We have a live jazz band and Swing music for half the night, and a DJ for the other half. Along with a candy bar, a chocolate fountain and a photo booth this year! Stay tuned for pictures :)
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