I'm still here

Hi there; Birdie here!

Today's post title is a reference to the song from Treasure Planet, which has been in my head for the past hour or so. It's also about what I'm feeling regarding vet school right now--however difficult it continues to be, I've gotten this far and I can get through it.

I've currently got a cookie sheet of snickerdoodles cooling, and I'm pretty sure it's the first time I've baked since the semester started. It's been a while! It helps that I've got people to share the baked goods with; I'm going to a potluck tonight (it's the first one of those in a while, too, huh?). We had our cardio final today, and it wasn't too bad. There were a few I wasn't sure on, but especially with how well I did on the first exam, I'm not too worried about it. The farm animal exam earlier this week is a different story--for that one, I'm hoping I guessed well and relying on the fact that it's less than half the points of our last exam, plus we still have 2 more exams to go. Luckily one of my classmates recorded the audio for the lectures I missed so I at least heard everything on this week's exams, but I still have two hours of lecture to catch up on in exotics (hopefully tonight). Then I can go on and miss two MORE days of class that I'll have to catch up on next week.

This week we also had our first surgery lab (my group went on Monday), and it was kind of incredibly intimidating. Now that I've caught up on the first two lectures for that class, I realize I was pretty unprepared for lab. I didn't wear my lab coat because I didn't see why we should when we're just changing into a gown--turns out it's because in real life we're supposed to wear a coat over our scrubs when we leave the surgery suite to reduce contamination. I also didn't get the memo about not wearing nail polish (the reason for that is because where it's chipped can create reservoirs for bacteria that you can't reach with your scrub) and blatantly had on nail polish. She didn't notice (probably because it was still the pink I had for DC), but I could easily have taken it off that morning and replaced it at night if I'd known. Still kicking myself for that. And that's not even mentioning the intimidation factor from the lab itself. Our first lab was all about how to create the sterile field: scrubbing, gowning and gloving, and draping the patient. The first thing we learned is that it's critical to fold your gown the right way when you wrap it so that you can put it on without contaminating anything but the inside. Then we learned both open (normal, with just your hands, like for a castration or something where you're not fully gowned) and closed (with your fingers tucked inside the cuffs of your gown the whole time) gloving, and how to scrub, and how to drape the patient. Said "patient" was actually a pillow with a xyphoid, pubis, and mammary chains drawn on it. It is surprisingly difficult to towel clamp drapes to a pillow. Like, incredibly difficult, actually. I managed to do everything, but it's so precise I'm really anxious about messing it up. At least I had the right type of cap. The caps in our packs are all guys' caps (which is a terrible idea on the bookstore's part--they don't give us a choice in buying them, but well over half of us can't use them), so some of the girls had to wear bouffant caps underneath. Luckily, I have a cute purple one with gold fleur de lis that I got from a feline club fundraiser. Over the summer I'm planning to find some cute material and make one or two more.

On Tuesday we had a small animal abdominal ultrasound for Diagnostic Imaging Club. It was pretty cool, except that we split the big group into two hour-long sessions--but as an officer, I had to stay the whole time. The dogs at my station both hours had some interesting issues: a thickened intestinal submucosa (potentially Heterobilharzia) in one and some bladder sediment in the other. I got to do the ultrasound myself once, naturally. I even got the right kidney on the first try, and found the duodenum! After we flipped the dog into left lateral, but still. But basically I spent most of the second hour hovering around, trying to be useful or learn something or at least not get in the way, and thinking about how I needed to be studying cardio. I'd definitely say it was a good wetlab. We had over 20 people (which had been supposed to be our limit), so I'm pretty happy with that!

Then on Wednesday, we did a mulitheaded microscope wetlab for path club. And by "we," I mean me and my li'l sib, because that's all who came. We had a few other people RSVP, but they couldn't make it for various reasons such as worrying about oncology, or forgetting about it. Couldn't get any of my classmates to come along, either. We looked at a few oncology cases, and I'm really proud of my little--it seemed like he learned a lot. It was mostly a review for me. We talked about the 5 round cell tumors (TVT, mast cell tumor, plasma cell tumor, histiocytoma, and lymphoma) and how to tell a sarcoma from a carcinoma--all of which I still remember from clin path and from going over again recently in oncology.

I also got to ride twice this week! There were lessons on Monday to make up for last week, when there were no Thursday or Friday lessons. I got to ride Sailor again, and we did some really cool stuff. My instructor put me on the lunge line and took away my reins and then had me canter without the reins. And, what I think is more impressive, after a few canter transitions she had us sitting trot with no reins. I'm really proud of how well I did at that. I remember when I was much younger and taking riding lessons, I mentioned to my instructor that I'd read that you should stop a horse with your seat first before using the reins and asked how to do that. Back then, they told me at my level I shouldn't be trying to do that. Well, now I can! And yesterday I rode Cajun, which I was really into. He was a lot better about not jumping huge, and I'm really proud of him. Well, but then the last jump in our line got moved for our last time through, and he still jumps really big when he gets a long spot. Still, I stayed with him! My position wasn't great, and I had a hard time keeping my heels down. It was a fun lesson though. My instructor thanked me a couple of times for riding him, but I had zero problem with it. I rather liked him yesterday, actually.

It helps that the book I just finished, Catch Rider, is all about a girl who wants to be able to ride any horse. I'm glad I read it on the week I had two lessons! I'm also pretty glad I read Snowman first. In Catch Rider, the main character goes to the Maclay finals at Madison Square Gardens, and I recognized that show site from the other book, so that was pretty cool. Before that, I finished Counting by 7s, which I liked a lot (my disliked characters got a lot of development, too), and The School for Good and Evil. I'm not real sure what to do with that one--I'm still not sure what happened at the ending, and I had some problems with it in general. There's two more, it's a trilogy, but I don't think I'll be picking up the others (at least in the near future). Since Terry Pratchett died, I decided that I need to re-read Going Postal immediately. I'm not even sure whether I'll count it for the challenge; it might be outside of that. It could probably count for funny book if I wanted it to. And at some point I need to finish Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (a book recommended by a friend, which is due back to the library before symposium unless I renew it) and read my Temple Grandin book (before Friday!). Oh, and study for oncology still. Right, studying too.

Tomorrow my family's coming up and we're going to the St. Patrick's Day parade. I'm pretty excited. I didn't get to any Mardi Gras parades this year, and I generally like St. Patrick's parades better because they throw a wider variety of stuff, including vegetables. One time I caught a pack of sour straws. Vegetables are much more useful than doubloons, too. I don't understand the kind of parades where people don't throw you anything--I'm a Louisiana girl at heart! Then on Sunday I'm running in the Great Rover Road Run 5k. I haven't actually been running in at least a month probably, so that's not really ideal. At least I have been riding so I should be sort of in shape? I just want to run the whole thing, I know I have zero chance of placing at all. But the entry fee goes to local shelters and the Dream Clinic, so it's a worthy cause. I'm glad I'm doing it, regardless of how unprepared I am.