My Vet School Days

As good as it has been, I can’t help but feel like the summer is flying by, like an out-of-control train on very rickety tracks, and I am definitely not making the most of it. There are people I want to spend more time with; jobs I need to be more dedicated to, money that I need to make and a career that I have two more months to get set up to the best of my ability before I am stuck in school for approximately 22 months.

22 months til me, DVM. In two, I’ll go back to Iowa and won’t be officially free until May 2010. I can’t tell you how little I’m looking forward to going back. Hopefully I’ll be more ready for it when the time comes.

It’ll fly by, I’m sure. A lot will happen in that time - I have to get through two difficult semesters of school, figure out my 4th year rotation schedule, select and schedule externships, prepare my Grand Rounds presentation, pass the national board exams, decide if I want to do an internship, and if I do, then apply for whichever internships I’m interested in and if I don’t, find a job.

So I really need to refocus myself to make the most of the next few weeks. This means not blogging at work (ahem), spending more focused time doing the work I need to do; picking up extra shifts at the hospital where it makes sense. I’ve really been struggling with my BU job but have decided that I’m going to give myself one more week to really try to figure things out - if I can’t do it, then I’ll make an appropriate decision. It’s stupid to keep wasting time spinning my wheels. I need to talk to and visit a few local clinics, just to start to get a feel for where I want to be and what I want to do. And I have to make more time to see my friends and family, and have boatloads of fun. And maybe run a little more.

We’ll see how it goes.

I know I should be carpe-diem-ing, but there’s too much to go home too, and I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that I really just want time to pass, and I want to go home. It’s been a pretty good week and they’ve been very good to us as always, but really…get me out of here!!!

Time to attack the summer and milk it for everything it’ll be worth.

luau was really fun, actually. However, coffee wasn’t an option and so I drank wine to keep me awake. DUH. Must drink lots of water now. Thank God I’m on Central Time, can’t wait to get a good solid 8-9 hours of sleeeeeeep.

So I’m in St. Louis for pet food company student rep training week. Last year I wasn’t really looking forward to it, and it turned out to be the best week of the summer. They put us up in a gorgeous hotel, cover all of our expenses, give us really nice gifts, take us out for fabulous dinners (alcohol included, naturally) - basically wine us and dine us like vet students NEVER get wined and dined.

All the same, this year I’m also not really looking forward to it…despite the divine nap I just took in the most comfortable bed I may ever have touched. Socializing with students just isn’t my best talent - put me at a party with a 30-something crowd and I’m a happy girl but early-20-somethings whose careers are almost entirely restricted to school are a little…less…my style, I guess. And also, there are bigger goings-on.

First of all, one of my bffs just had her first baby!!!! LAST NIGHT!!! AND I DIDN”T KNOW ABOUT IT UNTIL I GOT TO ST LOUIS!!! This is very irritating because she wasn’t due to deliver until Thurs or Fri in which case I’d have made it there for her all important first 24-48 hours. And now I’ll have to wait to meet her until she’s practically a grown-up.

Second, well, it’s a swamp here. St. Louis is on the Mississippi, and flying in we really got a view of all the flooding. I feel (slightly) like I should be out sand-bagging rather than indulging. And besides, I might get malaria.

Third, is a secret. I know, I’m annoying, but I can’t talk about it, not yet at any rate, for fearing of jinxing myself, but just trust me when I say there is a very compelling reason that I should be in Boston. (And because I can’t keep my own secrets ever, I’ll just mention in passing, that the secret is about 6′3″ and really funny and smart and handsome. But enough about that.)

Fourth, I worked at the hospital last night. Between the 1hr nap I just took and the 30 or so minutes I got on the plane, i’m a ZOMBIE!!! So a little sleep-deprived cranky. And I only had four patients, but they were all kind of strange, with their respective diseases not progressing as normal diseases should so it was kind of a frustrating, dissatisfying night in general.

Soooo, I suppose this means I’ve just written an entire post WHINING about having to spend a week in a gorgeous hotel in a very fun city on someone else’s dime. Poor me. I’ll shut up - and I have a luau to go to!!! With a bunch of 23 year olds! Who-hoo!

Ironic that I’m 10x busier and doing more interesting things while I’m on break, but still there seems to be nothing particularly interesting to write about.

Perhaps about how NICE it is to not be worried about studying all the time, every last minute???

How nice it is to be in a city with tons of good-looking, well-educated, unmarried men??

How gorgeous the weather has been? (I am a native Mainer, after all)

How gorgeous it is to have money coming in…every week?! LIke every week, poof! I work, I put in my hours and money just pours in my checking account. Nice thing, this work.

Lets see, I could talk about how much fun I’m having with my friends, how nice it is to see people and be able to drive to Maine and see my family?

I could write more about the hospital but that subject seems a bit beat to death. Though the other night I did have the single most disturbing moment at the hospital ever (which goes along with my messiest night ever), but it’s too icky to even write about here. Animals are crazy things though, that’s all I’m sayin’.

So perhaps I’ve got a bit of writer’s block, but I’m having a lovely summer and am trying to think of something, really…

I had a good night at the hospital. Every night I’m reminded how lucky I am to be there. In a year I’ll be doing similar stuff at school but competing with 120+ classmates for hands-on experience. But for now, if a dog comes in and needs an emergency tracheostomy at 3AM it’s the doctors that are ‘competing’ for my assistance (not that I’m invaluable, mind you, but that I’m a warm body who can help maintain a sterile field). And quite frankly I think that the case load at this hospital is leaps and bounds above what I’ll see at school, unfortunately.

My patients last night were generally unremarkable medically, but extraordinary otherwise in that they were all as sweet as could be. I’m amazed by animals who are sweet while in the hospital - they don’t know what’s going on or why they’re there, or that we’re trying to help them. All they can really know is that they feel like crap, they’re in a strange noisy place without their family, and strangers keep bugging them with thermometers, needles and blood pressure cuffs. An animal that can maintain its sweetness in those situations is completely extraordinary. An animal that growls and barks and tries to bite? Completely understandable, I think, with perhaps a stronger survival instinct than his sweeter counterpart.

It’s nice to have the sweet animals though, as you can make over them and give belly-rubs and under-chins scratches as appropriate. I like to come away from the hospital knowing that I have at least improved a patient’s medical care, but it’s even better when I can think that I might have actually made the pet more happy and comfortable as well.

Unfortunately it was also about the messiest night I’ve ever had at the hospital, which, after 5.5 years there is really saying something. But several of the cats were renal failure cats, and so were peeing constantly; and I had two patients, a little kitten and an older dog, afflicted with near constant diarrhea. The icing on the cake was when one large, hypersalivating dog with excellent blood pressure disconnected his venous catheter line and so started bleeding profusely. By the time I had managed to reconnect, clean and rewrap his catheter I was covered up to my elbows in his blood and just one good shake f his head was enough to drench me in disgusting drool. And this was within the first hour of my shift.

This animal fixing business is so incredibly glamorous.

(I wrote the back in early May, but never posted it for some reason…better late than never!).

I bought the cats this “SuperScratcher” cat toy which seemed to be a board the cats would like to scratch. We’re going to be traveling, and I’m not taking their current scratching post (which is a big roll of old carpet). The packaging says that it is “packed with catnip”, which I took to mean the cat nip would be on the inside of the product somehow, further enticing the cats to scratch.

Well I opened the box and it is this crappy block of cardboard over which LOOSE catnip has tossed. When I opened the box the catnip went everywhere and the cats just started licking the floor neurotically. When I swept up the loose cardboard then they just started licking the scratching block - scratching was the last thing on their minds.

Boo!

Monday evening before my hospital shift, I slept as soundly as I ever could have wanted for a good 5 hours…I woke up feeling immensely more chipper.

Last night I had a few margaritas in town with one of my bffs…I haven’t really gotten much one-on-one time with her since I’ve been back so it was really nice to just sit and chat, the two of us. The margaritas were good too.

Yesterday, I wore a skirt!! The bruising on my leg has really cleaned itself up remarkably well. At least if I bruise easily I can heal easily as well. I completely agree that it was a bizarre thing to have happened, but I don’t think it was quite worthy of blood tests. Around the same time of the leg injuries, I smacked my upper arm pretty hard (SUPER clumsy), and got a very reasonable (and contained) bruise there - I think if my issues were more systemic, that bruise would have gone all wacky as well. So I think/hope that the extremeness of the leg problem was because I hit in in almost the exact same way just a few days apart, and with a lot of force.

Of course I quite likely would have gone to the doctor if not for one shameful thing: I don’t have health insurance. I know, I know, it’s terribly risky and potentially life-threatening and makes me a terrible American. And really the most honest excuse is that it’s EXTREMELY hard for me to fork over a few thousand more dollars when I’m on an extremely tight budget as it is. Health insurance, or four months rent? But there are also excuses like the school health insurance (I think) only covers you when you’re at school…which I’m not, for one-third of the year. And IVMA insurance is considerably more expensive, but better, which complicates the decision. But really the bottom line is that I took a bad risk (and so far it has paid off…KNOCKING ON WOOD). But I definitely know how stupid it is, for whatever that’s worth. Especially like when I was skiing at Sunday River and found myself alone at the top of a very steep peak. You best believe that I was reassessing my health insurance decisions at that point.

Anyway. Anyway. This is my horoscope for today:

Here is your horoscope
for Wednesday, June 4:

Your mind is incredibly active today and you should find that people are more receptive to your latest ideas. Pop them off as soon as they come to you — the ones that stick are the ones to go with!

I think it’s telling me to get to work.

The summer is not working out too well for me, schedule-wise. It is as I had feared - too much to do, and not enough time to do it. The two weeks (just two? two already?) I’ve been back in business have flown by, maybe more than usual, it’s hard to tell. My work schedule, which in theory seemed quite reasonable, just doesn’t seem to work in reality.

A big part of the problem is the nature of the computer work - it just takes a long time, figuring things out. And there are two big projects that I’m trying to figure out. I still don’t feel like I’ve been very productive doing the stuff I’m doing at BU, and the project for the professor is craaaaaawling dangerously. Of course the fundamental problem is that i want to be a vet, and so I’m not really all that into the work. But I do really want to do a good job. It’s just not easy work and so it’s kind of like school - when I have any free time I’m twinged with guilt thinking that I should be working on it.

Another part of the problem is SCREAMING children next door. The neighborhood I’m living in is adorable, but relatively tightly packed being as close to Boston as it is. The house in directly behind this one houses three children, probably from ages 2 to 7. And they, with their parents, are outside playing from about 4PM to 7:30PM (hours I’m trying really really hard to get some sleep if I’m working at the hospital that night). On the one hand is very nice - they’re outside, playing with obviously involved parents, but on the other hand the children are SO LOUD it’s ridiculous. Yesterday the youngest was screaming (screaming, really, I’m not kidding) DADDY!!! DADDY!!! DADDY!!! over and over and over again (and the father was right there in the backyard). I had fitful dreams about how their backyard had a big pool with a lifeguard and a megaphone and I was trying to figure out how I could very politely ask them to shut the bloody hell up without myself getting beaten up. I know kids are energetic, and I don’t think I’d even be bothered if it was just normal volume voices but the yelling….am I just a cranky old grump to think the parents could ask them to tone it down just a tiny bit? Considering how close we are as neighbors? Even now, I can hear them screaming “ONE! ONE! ONE!”…No idea why, but two of them are at it.
In unrelated news, Martin has acclimated to life with a dog pretty well, considering his bizarre self. Chuck the dog is the best, looking at Martin when he comes in the room (if Chuck isn’t asleep), but never chasing him or making a move towards him. He has even almost overcome his abject fear of Martin, and they can pass each other in a room without Chuck getting a mean-spirited hiss (most of the time). Martin is having trouble (ha!) being friendly and sociable when I’m not here, sticking mostly to my room and hissing at anyone who comes near. He’s much better when I’m here, though, and I do think he’s improving. Best of all, he’s down to 17.6lbs! I really think his bowling ball belly is shrinking a little.

Anyway, it’s time for me try to nap. I should probably invest in ear plugs.

Good news! The cankles are mostly a thing of the past - the “good” foot is still a bit swollen but at least I do have ankles. The bruising is worse, but that’s to be expected.

As promised, pictures. First here I am with my new! blonde! hair:

I’m going to have inch-long roots in approximately 4 hours, but whatever, I like it. Change is good.

Now, here is where it gets scary: View from the top:

and to show that the brusing extended down through the arch of my foot (those aren’t shadows!):

And the damaged tongue:

The tongue is all better and the leg is getting there. The right leg is 100%, but the left is still well bruised and the ankle a bit swollen. Fully functional though, I even went for a really good run last night and managed to stay upright the whole time.

And just for fun, this is a picture of my little friends in my grandmother’s bathroom in Indiana. We were having a family conference - Roy, obviously, was in charge: