This post sponsored by Hill's and donuts

Hi there; Birdie here!

I'm really glad I don't have any exams next week, but I still can't slow down. Anatomy and histology labs have both been pretty intimidating lately. I got really lucky on my anatomy quiz today and just had to identify the caudal lobe of the caudal lobe of the left lung (yes, the repetition is intentional). I mean, I did know most of the terms on the list of potential quiz questions, but there were a lot of external vessels and such that we couldn't even find...having a fat dog makes it more difficult. I'm still doing well, but I'm not as confident about it. I think I've managed to keep A's in the 4 classes we've finished (I'm not 100% sure where I fell around the border in Anatomy I), but we're just starting these new classes so I don't have any cushion built up. And apparently the next anatomy test (conveniently right after fall break in 2 weeks) is the worst one, according to one of the course instructors. I'm probably going to spend most of my weekend typing up notes...not really catching up from when I didn't have my laptop, since I've finished those classes, but preparing for the TWO tests the week after next. Sunday is another Spay Day, too, so at least I'll get to spend some of my weekend with live animals. :)

My roommate's dog has been a little better with me. Sometimes if the roommate is there she'll get close to me and be sweet. She is very dominant with the other roommate's dog, though, so that's another strike against her. I think she might end up with the roommate's parents if she can't get along with everyone in the house. I'm glad she has a home lined up either way...I just don't want her to growl at me anymore.

This week was Hill's Week at our school, which meant we got free pen/highlighters, baked goods, and (since our class had near-100% participation in wearing red/blue yesterday) a donut breakfast this morning. I'm kind of surprised there weren't any speakers or lunch-and-learn type things associated with it. Well, there is a nutritional speaker breakfast tomorrow morning, but I think I've missed the deadline to RSVP. Also, I'd really like to not have anywhere I have to be Saturday morning.

Yesterday my workout buddy and I went to the UREC, aka the LSU gym. We did a zumba class; she'd never done it before, so she wanted to try it out. It was really fun, and now that we have accounts on the reservation system we want to try some other stuff--probably kickboxing next. The gym here is really neat. There's an indoor track and a rock climbing wall and several group fitness classes in addition to the basketball courts and squash rooms and weight rooms that my undergrad had.

Oh, I did a really fun wetlab this week, too. It was for clinical pathology, on the multihead microscope, and there was a histopath component as well. We looked at cytology aspirates and tissue sections of the same cases, and the two clinicians asked a bunch of questions to get us to think about the case before giving us the answers. I obviously knew approximately nothing since I'm only a first year, so I didn't exactly feel like a real doctor, but I loved it anyway. The bowl of candy probably helped, too. ;) Everyone else there was a third year, but they made me feel really welcome when we were walking over together. That helped me not feel awkward when I had to ask what one of the terms they were using meant (histeocytes--I'm not sure how to spell it since I only heard it, but it's an umbrella term for macrophages and dendritic cells). I'm really glad I went ahead and joined path club. I also went ahead and paid dues for internal medicine club. Their wetlab was really cool, and my dad offered to pay for my dues (thanks, Dad!).

On a less fun note, I went to the first lunch talk that I straight-up walked out of before the speaker was done. It wasn't even a free lunch. The topic was equine nutrition, and I know we don't get an awful lot of nutrition in the curriculum, so I wanted to go find out more. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what I was supposed to get out of that at all. He kept saying he didn't want to advertise his supplement or anything, but that was about all I got. That and one other thing he kept repeating: "water, forage, minerals" with grain as an afterthought. He didn't really seem to have anything to say, and kept trying to open up the floor to questions but no one really had any. I for one went because I have no background on the topic--what am I supposed to ask? Eventually it sort of devolved into a conversation about what this one student did for her horse who kept tying up in his muscles, and the speaker's main response to any questions about what he would recommend was, of course, "I'm not here to advertise my product." It was about that point that I left because I was seriously not getting anything out of it.

In not too long, I'm about to head back to school for a "fall family picnic" thing. My family is heading to St. Louis to see the World Series game, so they won't be here, but I signed up for a shift selling bandannas for Josh Project. And hey, free food.

I can see a light...

Hi there; Birdie here!

I just have to get through this physiology final on Monday and then the week after I'll have a whole week with no exams! I'm really excited about it. I've been finding it really hard to study for physio and for last week's anatomy exam. We haven't gotten the written exam grades yet, but I got an A on the practical, so I guess I managed to study enough anyway. I'm hoping to finish writing study guides for the physio notes today and then go over them tomorrow, and hopefully that will be enough. Then I can take at least a few days off studying...kind of like I did after the anatomy exam, actually, only this time I won't have to feel bad about it.

I still am aiming to update this on Fridays, btw, but I wanted to hold out so that I could write about the wetlab I went to this morning. It was put on by Internal Medicine Club, which I'm not actually a member of--apparently they got a grant of some sort, so they could open it to non-members. And I figured, why not? One of the club officers there was talking to me at one point during the wetlab and basically giving me a spiel promoting the club, and she seemed kind of impressed that I was going to this wetlab as a first year. Well, that's the kind of person I am--if I've got an opportunity to do stuff like that, I'll take it whenever I can, basically. It's not like I'm going to get less busy during the later, harder years. I still don't think I'll be joining this club, though...I'm already paying probably too much in dues.

We got to do a bunch of procedures on cadaver dogs: CSF taps (getting cerebrospinal fluid samples--a procedure that can be pretty scary, since if your needle goes in too deep you hit brainstem!), thoracocentesis (drawing out fluid from around the lungs), and bone marrow biopsies from a couple of different sites. We also had a few cadaver cats to practice placing esophageal tubes on, and I got to put in my first suture with it! Not that I was at all good at it--turns out, cat skin is really tough. The doctors make suturing look so easy, but it wasn't easy at all to get my needle through, much less in the right place. One of the dogs had a strange abdominal mass--it felt like ribs on palpation. Once everyone had gotten to try the procedures (and third years were getting ready to practice surgery on the dogs), they went in to see what it was...turns out, it was his stomach, FULL of dry dog food. It was absolutely bulging; we could see individual pellets distorting the surface of the stomach.

I'm glad I managed to do well on the wetlab procedures...it makes me feel a little better about how bad I messed up in anatomy lab. Between my partner not having looked at the dissection guide for what we were about to start, neither of us having looked at the demo dog yet, and misinterpreting part of the instructions, we managed to (rather messily) cut into our abdominal cavity when we're supposed to be working on the thorax. Not that we managed to cut the thorax very well, either, apparently, since we can't really see anything in there...it worked rather better on the big demo dog. Luckily by the time of the exam we'll have gotten to the abdomen anyway, and dissection skills aren't a part of our grade unless they interfere with us being able to answer our quiz questions. Apparently we did something right on our last dissection, though; I didn't notice as we were going through the practical, but judging by the fact that the left pelvic limb was removed when we went to get him out yesterday, our dog was one of the stations.

I've been having a little trouble with live dogs, too. Well, one live dog in particular--my second roommate (the other first year) is fostering/potentially adopting a dog from the local shelter. She's really cute, but she's super scared of me and starts growling and barking at me every time I go downstairs. I don't think she understands where I come from since she can't get up the twisty metal staircase herself. She does that somewhat to our other roommate as well, but she gets over it or at least doesn't do it as much. It's kind of frustrating...I like to study downstairs sometimes, but now if I try she'll just want to bark at me the whole time. And it's really not convenient that I have to go through that roommate's bedroom to do my laundry...

One last thing: on Tuesday I went with my friend to the weekly 5k downtown, as we often do. We usually meet up with a bunch of our classmates, but no one else was there (most likely because that was between the anatomy practical and written exam). We did the run anyway, in about 30 minutes (which, with the way we were running, makes me think that wasn't really 5k, but eh). When we finished, we saw a bunch of runners trailing off somewhere, so we joined the trail. It turns out, they were shooting a commercial for a catastrophe-themed "run for your life" 5k in the spring--and we got to be in it! We had to run up a hill (but not too fast) and look scared, with "military" waving us on and an "ambulance" in the background. It was really fun! If you happen to be in the Baton Rouge area and see a commercial like that, I'm in it. :) We all got free entries to the race for participating in the commercial, and I might actually do it; if I do, it'll be my first 5k since I really started running! And after that part, there was a horror scream contest, and my friend won the girls' part. She won a $50 gift card to a sports & outdoors store, though she hasn't gotten it yet. So if you see that commercial and there's a close-up on a girl screaming--I know her.

Sorry, I lied, one more thing: I finally got my laptop back. :D

A little bit of Life

Hi there; Birdie here!

It's been a busy week--so busy I didn't have time to update my blog yesterday. Well, most of that particular business was from taking two hours to try and get my computer back (as far as I know they haven't run any diagnostics, and they've had it for nearly two weeks) and finding them closed. Coupled with the fact that I have an anatomy exam next week (which is basically two exams since it's a practical and a written), I didn't even have time to cook a proper dinner, much less tell y'all about my life. Hopefully I'll be able to make my pasta bake tonight...I've been wanting to all week!

As I mentioned last week, my family came to see me last Saturday. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 was REALLY fun! It was full of food puns and The Power of Friendship and I really enjoyed it. It was also really nice just to watch things with other people...I used to do that all the time in undergrad, but I haven't really got people to watch with here. I miss it. Since they didn't come until evening, I also spent the morning at the work day with Raptor Rehab. I helped with physical exams on a red-tailed hawk and on Professor, the owl I was also feeding. He was definitely much better than BAMF about climbing on my fist, even if sometimes by the third time or so he would get sick of it and try to just squeeze my hand and not put the other foot up. I also trimmed an owl's talons (I think it was BAMF? Don't really remember) and apparently I was pretty good at it. :) There was a potential hurricane in the area, so we moved them inside to the exotics part of the teaching hospital, but the hurricane never came through.

This week's tests were physio and diagnostic imaging. I'll be happy with my grade as long as we can get one question thrown out, which we definitely should because there were no correct answer options. I rocked everything that wasn't therio...luckily, there's no more therio in our physio class or on the next test! Diagnostic imaging wasn't too bad; our grades just went up today and I did well. We're all getting pretty sick of the constant tests thing, but we're halfway through the semester now. And in a couple weeks (after anatomy and the physio final), we actually have a week with no tests! Okay, it's followed by two tests in a week, but I don't have to think about that yet. I'm really looking forward to the break.

Besides the exam, I also had my diagnostic imaging lab this week. It's split up alphabetically so there are about 6 groups spread throughout the semester. I was in the second group, so my lab was the second hour on the first lab day. I honestly didn't get too much out of it. Part of that is because I already saw the x-ray room with the club tour, plus I could largely visualize the concepts we discussed in class from working with an x-ray machine in a clinic for vet experience. For the other part of the lab, it was just radiographic anatomy, which we've had in anatomy class alongside our studies of the skeleton (sidenote: the spine is on our exam, and I've decided to call the vertebral column from my bone box Leviathan. It's a Skullgirls refrence). We didn't even get to hang up the radiographs ourselves, despite how much emphasis they put on the proper orientation. The groups were small enough that we could have had a little personalized attention, like in anatomy lab, if we'd only had a little more time. Instead it was mainly just an opportunity to ask questions. At least I got the 10 points for showing up?

I'm still not sure what I want to do over the summer. Really I should have already contacted a teacher if I want to do Summer Scholars here, but I haven't. Kind of worried I might have already missed the boat, even though the deadline isn't until February. I did get an email about a NASA internship that looks really cool, and I think I'd really like to do it, but I don't know all the details yet; it's a lot harder to follow the links when I don't have my computer. I might be able to stay with family in Houston, so that should work nicely, but I'm sure that's super competetive as well.

I've officially joined farm animal club, and I'm thinking about joining integrative medicine club as well. Our anatomy professor gave a talk on Thursday about her acupuncture certification, and apparently there's a way to work it into clinics so that you get the certificate when you graduate. I'm definitely thinking about doing that; I don't see any downside to having more skills in treating animals.

We also had a VBMA meeting yesterday about "marketing yourself" which turned out to really be more about marketing your veterinary clinic on the web. I actually took a bunch of notes on my phone...parts of it were about how to trick Google so your result is one of the top, but she also talked about marketing to pet owners rather than other vets (aka don't have a giant unavoidable picture of heartworms on your home page). I'm really glad I'm in VBMA because I really like learning about the non-medical part of veterinary medicine, too. Of course, the free food at their meetings helps too. ;)

On the medical side though, I actually went with several of my classmates to New Orleans for the Dream Clinic, to "practice practicing medicine." The Dream Clinic is a free clinic in downtown New Orleans--they have human medicine, dentistry, and veterinary services. It's run under a couple of tents in the parking lot of an abandoned church, and a good number of people came. Definitely over 40...I think we only had about 15 vaccines left from the 70 or 80 we started with. For the most part it's physical exam, rabies and 7-in-one vaccines, and deworming from us; then they get sent home with flea and heartworm preventatives. All of us students who came are first years (apparently I'm part of a particularly active class!), and there were about a dozen of us. It was largely us as the "doctors" giving the physical exams, with the husband-and-wife team in charge floating around to diagnose anything abnormal and prescribe medications. There was also a vet from the community, whom I was working with. I thought it would be a good way to ease into it, but mostly it meant that I was relegated to tech work running for vaccines, drawing up dewormer, and holding dogs. Next time I'll try to work with a student who's been a couple of times instead. I know one of my classmates who had a stethoscope from his old clinic used it plenty of times. At least I got to see some really cute puppies, including a litter of five pit bull puppies and an adorable little Catahoula. I definitely want to do this more often...maybe not next month but definitely in the spring semester, every time I can.

This week I learned...

This week I learned that I'm incredibly boring. A friend from undergrad messaged me, and I had nothing interesting to say to him--and he was just commenting on comics he was reading! I guess that means vet school is officially eating my life...although I did manage to watch 4 episodes of Supernatural yesterday. I went over my therio lectures, too, don't worry!

I still haven't got my laptop back yet, either. I dropped it off at a place in town on Tuesday since the IT people at school couldn't do anything, and they still haven't called me back about it.  I hope it's not too expensive, and that I can get it back soon!

So what have I done lately? Not much. Took yet another exam and finished off our cell bio/histo course with an A, so that's good. We're starting histology and developmental biology in its place next week, but today we also started our intro to diagnostic imaging class, which I think I'm going to like a lot. It's not a big course, largely just one hour a week. But I'm really interested in diagnostic imaging, and the course coordinator is awesome. She's also in charge of diagnostic imaging club, and she's really cool. Maybe I should email her about research this summer. I'm also feeding an owl again this week--Professor this time. He's a lot more chill than BAMF, and he lets me fist him--multiple times even, although by the third time yesterday he really didn't want to put his second foot up on my hand.

I did also go to a couple of lunch talks. One was by VCA and was all about how their company is great and you should do an internship, which I'm not sure I trust fully. The last thing I read is that doing an internship means you earn less over your career unless you do a residency and specialize, but the speaker claimed that people who do internships get significantly higher salaries. With an example from her practices, of course. The other talk was with critical care club, about colloidal fluids.

I guess I should write about last weekend, too. Dr. DeBowes was awesome and really inspirational, although I liked the first day much better than the second. If I get a chance to do the VLE program (leadership workshop/retreat sort of thing he created), I'm definitely going to go for it. We walked around with a blindfolded partner and talked about a bunch of topics. I can't even remember them all now...I should have written it up over the weekend, really, but I didn't have a lot of time then and I spent most of it studying. There was a lot of Meyers-Briggs Type stuff on the second day, which I was kind of over. Then on Sunday I volunteered at my school's Spay Day. I was on surgery prep: doing subcutaneous injections of vaccines and antibiotics and clipping and scrubbing surgical sites on anaesthetized cats. I'd never given an injection before, but I gave a ton of them on Sunday! I also learned that penicillin can be really difficult to inject when it's been sitting for a while (we pulled up a bunch in the morning to use throughout the day). I'll probably try to work somewhere different next time, just to change it up.

Luckily, this weekend won't be nearly so busy. I have a test next week, as always (physio again), but I don't have so much school stuff. I'm going to try and get a couple of the books Dr. DeBowes recommended from the library since this will probably be my best chance for a while to read them. Also, my family's coming up to visit tomorrow. We're going to go see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2; I think my little brother is really looking forward to it.