My last post was April 3rd and oh, how much has changed in my life in the past 5 months. Here’s a quick summary of the latest life happenings:
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| Clinic kitty & his crown. |
I survived the end of my second
year (yay!) and moved back to my hometown in Western Kansas to finish my last
two mentorships this summer. I spent the
first six weeks working at the vet clinic I worked at during high school and
undergrad and putting all of my knowledge to use. Once a mixed animal clinic, it’s now a small
animal only clinic. It’s amazing the
things I never thought would be important suddenly were. I
watched and assisted in more surgeries than I can count, “perfected” drawing
blood and giving IV injections - however, I’m quite possibly the slowest nail
trimmer in the world. I suppose after I’ve
done a couple thousand those skills may improve. One of the best parts about this mentorship
was it 100% confirmed that this is exactly how I want to spend the rest of my
life and gave me a bit of motivation to work harder in the next couple years of
school.
During my small animal mentorship,
I took some time away after my grandpa had a stroke. Just a few months short of his 99th
birthday my favorite old man passed away.
However, at 98 years old he was still active and living at home by
himself. He passed away with no apparent
pain or suffering - so it’s hard to ask for anything more. Some of his babbling during his last few days
included, “people who like cats and dogs - they’re nice people.” What words of wisdom :)
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| Wedding Favors |
After a
few weeks back “home” in Manhattan I headed back out to my hometown to complete
my food animal mentorship. This definitely
got me out of my comfort zone. Luckily I
worked with the vet who bought out the large animal side of the practice I
worked at in high school and he was very aware of the extent of my knowledge
about large animals (aka - my lack of knowledge). The highlight of the week was performing a
rectal palpation of a cow. Yep - I stuck
my arm up a cows butt. Although I was
told I was feeling the head of her calf, I mostly just felt warm mush around my
arm :) After growing up reading James Herriot books
as bedtime stories with my mom I definitely felt this was a rite of passage
that must be completed by anyone who wants to be a vet.
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| Wedding Favors |
Then
the best part of the summer happened - I got married. Cole and I got married at the beginning of
August and we couldn’t have asked for a better day to get married. All of our family and friends were there to
celebrate and support us as we made the biggest commitment to begin the next
step in our lives together. After a
week-long honeymoon in St. Lucia we were back to the real world. Cole was back to work and I was left to
attempt to move in, unpack, and organize our apartment. Here we are a little over a month later and
we are finally settled in! Little Bear made the move with his momma and
he is adjusting to apartment life much better than I could have hoped for. After 2 weeks of hiding under the bed he now
has decided he loves laying in the bathroom sink and snuggling up on our feet
at night. |
| Cole's new bed buddy. |
What
really threw me back into the real world (not the surreal world of being a
bride) was starting my third year of vet school. Words do not even describe how hard it has
been to get back in the routine of school - especially getting up at 6 every
morning :/ The best part about third
year is that most of the classes I am in actually feel like they are important
to my career. Prepare yourself because here
comes the novel describing what they are...
Surgery 1: This class is split into lecture and lab. Right now in lecture we’re still discussing
the basics of anesthesia and how to put your patient under for surgery. We also have discussed (very in depth, I
might add) how anesthesia machines work and the specifics of the
equipment. This has been my least
favorite part. It’s SO hard to pay
attention when we talk about this. I
think I will enjoy this class a lot more once we start discussing actual
surgeries. In lab we have been
practicing suturing, proper aseptic techniques, how to pack instruments for
sterilization, etc. We are split into
surgery groups of 4 and I am so very blessed to be in an amazing surgery
group. We all get along and have been
really successful at working as a team these past few weeks. Starting October 8th we begin our
first spays and neuters on real live patients and I’m the first head surgeon in
my group. I CAN’T WAIT!
Medicine 1: So far this is
my favorite class. We have been discussing
endocrine disorders, which are pretty much hormonal disorders such as Diabetes,
Hyperthyroidism, Addison’s Disease, etc.
We discuss how an animal may present to you with their history, their
clinical signs and how you would go about handling that situation. We discuss what tests to run and what results
to expect and once you diagnose a patient with a certain disorder what the next
step is in treatment. I find this to be
the most interesting because it feels like stuff that I actually will be doing
in a few years.
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| 3rd Year Shaft |
Food Animal Medicine: I have
mixed feelings about this class at this point.
We’ve learned how to do a basic bovine (cow) exam, large animal ophthalmology
(eye stuff), and now we’ve spent the past 5 lectures discussing udder and teat
health in dairy cattle. While I have
great respect for dairy farmers and those veterinarians that work on dairy
cattle, I personally find this subject kind of gross and have no interest in
working on cow udders or staring at pictures of infected teats on the big
screen :/
Exotic Pet Medicine: I also
have mixed feelings on this class. Right
now we are learning about reptiles... which I have absolutely zero interest
in. However, the best thing about this
class is most problems exotic animals have are related to animal husbandry -
things like diet & housing - which means that most of the words used in
this class are not medical terms and therefore words I understand :)
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| Best future vets ever :) |
Clinical Skills: This class only meets on Fridays. Eventually we will practice our animal
handling skills - restraining patients, drawing blood - really hands-on
stuff. The past few weeks we are working
on communication and body language when we interact with clients during an
exam. Most of it feels pretty common
sense to me, but it has been fun to watch videos of the 4th years in
exam rooms and how they interact with clients.
Ethics and Jurisprudence:
This class also only meets on Fridays.
Today we discussed the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA)
Code of Ethics.
Theriogenology: This class
is split into three 5-week sections.
General Therio, Companion Animal Therio, and Food Animal Therio. We are only required to take General Therio
and one of the other two, so I am taking Companion Animal. Right now everyone is started off in General
Therio, which is basically the study of reproduction - physiology, behavior,
diseases, etc. Today in class we learned
about sperm morphology and motility :)
Pain Management: This is one
of my two electives this semester. It is
actually one of the hardest classes I’m in... so we’ll see how the first test
goes and I’ll let you know how I feel about it after that. I keep telling myself this is a very
important subject, but I’m not sure if that’s enough to make me feel better
about taking it.
Lab Diagnostics: This is my other elective. This class is online and all of the tests are
online which means it’s already the best class I’m in. It’s essentially an extension of Clinical
Pathology from second year. We are
looking at lab work and understanding what it means.
That’s enough rambling for now. I can’t guarantee my posts
will be very regular, but I’ll be attempting to blog a little more this semester :) All I have to say is thank God it’s Friday!
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