Having technical difficulties

So I wrote a really long blog post right after school ended, but it got stuck in some sort of published, but not published limbo.

Because it was really long, I am not going to try and retype it, mostly because I have no clue what I wrote at this point. I'm just waiting on the blogspot fixers of things to figure out what is going on!

I'll just skip straight to break instead. I have had the most lazy but productive break ever. Having an unstructured day is beyond weird. I don't have to get up at anytime except for when my cat wants to be fed, and I don't really have anywhere I need to be. So I caught up on back episodes of Vampire Diaries and have been doing crafts like a bandit. Our house has so much ModgePodge, beads, papers, paints, everything one could ever need to make everything Pinterest has ever shown me.

I also got my grades back, and while I do have one that I am not insanely proud of, it was in a class that is difficult and where I felt like I learned the most. If I keep thinking about it in terms of learning to be a good veterinarian, it makes everything seem so much better. In general though, I passed everything! In V school, you have to get a C in everything to be considered passing and are only allowed 9credit hours of D level grades. That may seem like a lot of hours to get a D in, but our Physiology class is worth 6 credit hours, so if you struggle in that class and maybe had some issues adjusting to school and couldn't quite pull it up, you pretty much only have one more class you can get a D in before you are "let go". Sometimes they will give you the option to reapply and come in with next years class, but you have to prove that things will go differently this time. Plus you just spent a whole year's worth of living expenses and tuition for nothing.

We have already lost 5 of our classmates. Some of them were 3 and 1 students which means they were in Mizzou's program where you do 3 years of undergrad and then your first year of V school counts as your last year of undergrad. The 3 and 1 students actually dropped out right before finals because if they had not dropped out on their own, the grades would have affected getting their bachelors degree. While a lot of my classmates did not take 4 full years of undergrad, I believe those that did are sometimes more mature and seem more centered and able to deal with the stresses. Now that is a complete generalization because I have friends who did 3 years and are mature and kicking my booty as far as grades go, but I do think in general that the fourth year is important.

We hear a lot from our professors and administrators that as vet students we are ambassadors for our profession, so I am going to try and do a better job of being informative about issues that affect the public. If you don't care about these kinds of things or don't have a pet, feel free to skip the next paragraph.

For example, there is an act called the Fairness to Pet Owners Act which, as always, sounds like a great thing.
Fairness? We love it! Pet Owners? Hey that's us!
But this act is backed by Walmart and is a push to let corporations and random businesses dispense drugs instead of just veterinarians. It requires that for every single prescription that a vet doles out, that he write a written prescription that can be taken to a human pharmacy. Besides the issues that would face veterinarians (waste of time, loss of business) this method would also be unsafe. Most vets already write out prescriptions for medications that can safely be replaced with a human form such as insulin, but there is a reason that vets do not do it for every prescription. It is potentially dangerous.
The pharmacist at your local drug store has no clue if the human version is the same as the one formulated specially for canines.
Is it mixed with a different carrier? Is the coating on pill toxic to cats? What about that other medication your pet is on? How will it react with those? Does this pharmacist even know your pet is on heartworm medications?
This is simply a way for big businesses to encroach in area of science where they have no business being.
The AVMA (American Veterinary Medical Association)  is opposed to this act and is fighting hard against it in congress. Don't let yourself be swayed by the pretty name, this act is not in your best interests.

Sorry for the brief political outburst, but these are things that don't always get talked about. If you ever have any questions regarding animal issues, the AVMA is one of the best sources for a well researched and informed opinion.

I'm off for a long shopping day with my dad and brothers. We always go before Christmas to get the last of mom's presents.  Dad is a little picky when it comes to what she will be getting, so it may take awhile.
Have a great holiday!

Pictures!

My spot, plus people pushing the car down the hill into our parking lot

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Baby it's cold outside...

And also Columbia does not really salt and for sure does not plow until there is 3-4 inches of snow. So the first snow of the year was a bit of a cluster and was very slippery for everyone involved.
Did I mention that the road to our parking lot is about a 50 degree angle? It's decently steep.

But on the bright side, I am still in a wonderful place. I am still loving vet school and I have finally been here long enough that I am starting to retain things, starting to know the teachers, starting to chill out about tests. Now whether that last one is a good thing or a bad thing has yet to be determined.

I am sticking with my morning study routine. Not being a morning person, it is sometimes hard to get going, but I have my coffee on the way to school and by the time I am in my spot - a computer in the lab which is on a corner so I have ton of space for my crap (picture to follow) - I am awake and happy to listen to Pandora and do a little studying. Then when I lose motivation or don't get home till later at night I still have gotten some studying in.

I have really enjoyed the clubs and things I have been doing. I have, of course, ended up loving clubs I didn't originally enjoy or even join at first and of course some other ones have fallen by the wayside. For example, while I love working with the raptors and really do want to work my way up, I have found some of the other clubs to be more rewarding in other ways. I have found it hard to schedule myself for an extra commitment. I think that is what will probably draw me away from raptor rehab club and towards some of the others. It is hard to look at a 4 hour block of time and go "you know what? Let's go ahead and get rid of 2 hours of that".

I have really been loving equine club though. I wasn't even going to join because while I am kind of clueless about horses, I am way clueless about cows and pigs and sheep. But bovine club seemed like a little less bang for your buck as far as wet labs and lectures were concerned. I really enjoy everything I have done with equine club.

For example, in addition to palpation lab (where I got to feel the inside of a horse from inside) I also got to go to a pilot program for AAEP (American Association of Equine Practitioners). They have a certain set of basic skills they want you to have when you graduate if you plan to go into an equine practice and so we had like 3 different vets come in from all over the place (Kentucky, Colorado, etc...) and we did different centers just like kindergarten :-) We did oral meds, checking feet, doing a physical exam (including listening to the heart, lungs, etc...), bandaging, intravenous meds and checking eyes, and palpation. It was so much fun and so good for me to just be around. I feel like a little horse deprived sponge. It was so great to have some equine practice and to have a bunch of vets around who are just so happy to help you out and to help you practice. It was also amazing when the vet was working with us on physical exams and was asking us about all the bones in the body. Now we have not started large animal anatomy yet, but we were able to extrapolate what we had learned on small animals and imagine how it would work out in horses. It was amazing. I also felt like kind of a bad ass at the palpation because it was not my first time.

Another thing we do with equine club is go on rounds. Rounds are where a clinician takes you through the hospital and talks about/asks questions about the animals who are there. Dr. SuperCute Equine Intern was doing our rounds last night for equine so that of course made it even better ha ha! But even though there were only 4 animals there, he did such a good job of talking us through the whole process. Mind you, the first years can rarely answer a question because we don't know s*** about s*** (the catch phrase a friend and I invented after the first rounds) but for the second years? It is so cool when they have just had a test on something like antibiotics and Dr.SCEI asks them what the antibiotics they could use on this horse are. I can't wait. Plus it is, again, great for me to hear people talk horse stuff because I need that in my life so I don't feel so lost. And I really am learning. I have only been on rounds twice and I already feel like I am not as lost.

Subject Change. We have already lost a classmate :(
She dropped last Friday. I was confused about why she would drop before this block ended, because if you want to reapply, wouldn't you want to show that you tried really hard at the end? But she was a 3 and 1 student from Mizzou (3 years of undergrad then your first year of vet school counts as your last year of undergrad) and apparently if you fail a class this semester (as in you don't withdraw, you just wait till they fail ya) you don't get your bachelor's degree either. So by withdrawing she has the opportunity to go finish undergrad if she wants and then she can apply again I believe. Still really sad because she was one of those people that you would never guess are struggling and who would make an amazing vet. I also have heard through the very-highschool-like vet school grapevine that we are probably gonna lose another.

Also one of the girls had her baby this weekend and the other is frantically trying to take all her tests a week early so she can bust out of here before she gives birth! She is do on the 16th but is technically full term, so if she can push through Friday then she will have 3 weeks of break to rest before she comes back. I couldn't do it, but I think she is amazing!

8 days and 6 (more like 7) tests to go! Christmas break, here I come!

Fell off the Thanksgiving deep end

So there were 2 major issues keeping me from blogging.
1a) The week before Thanksgiving we had our last big test on Tues and all of our brains left for break immediately afterwards
1b) I was on break.
2) I worked an overnight Sunday night

but now I am back in action baby!

Thanksgiving break was so wonderful. It was so nice to let my brain have a break and to practice talking to people who aren't in vet school. I relearned how to make jokes that are not anatomy or physiology based, so that was good for my social life.

I also got to walk my dogs and lay around and see my family and family friends. I am refreshed and ready for these last 3 weeks.

Three weeks left of my first semester of vet school? That is crazy. What is even crazier is that in the last 2 weeks of it we have like 6ish tests and I am not freaking out at all. I knew things would get easier, or I would get lazier and I think both have happened. Or I have just gotten even more relaxed than I was (we didn't even know that was possible).

I went to go get a new battery for my car yesterday and it was quite the experience. First of all it took 2 hours. Secondly I spent the last 20 min letting some dude tell me his highly unlikely life story which involved his new house (8600 sq ft without counting the basement), his son who he conceived when his ex-gf was 21 and he was 13, his new car, and his general feelings towards his ex and how he made something of himself by working on a farm during the day and at a restaurant at night. Oh and he was a marine. Very strange.

I also got to chit chat with one of the manager guys about meeting Debbie Turner (google her, Miss America, Mizzou vet school grad, generally awesome) and about vet school in general. I quite enjoyed myself. Which was good  because the dude working on my car was crabby. He was peeved about everything either of the managers asked him to do and I could hear him yelling at them from inside. The yelling involved the fact that he was a veteran. I have no clue how that had any bearing on him running  diagnostic on my car to make sure everything but my battery was fine....

But now it is fixed and I finally got a full nights sleep and I am ready for some learning. I'm working on actually knowing things so that someday when one of my friends or family asks me a question I will be able to answer and sound like I know what I mean :-)

Next time I will tell you a little how the ICU works because I really should get to class.
Have a great day y'all

Vet School has made me a gambler

Playing a little game of chicken with my car battery (will it start? It's a surprise!"

Drinking milk 2 days after the expiration date.

What will I do next?

I'm a loose cannon!

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Addison Marie

Keeping the house safe from wayward crickets since she moved in.

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But it is still hard.

In case anyone was getting the idea that vet school is not a life sucking, fun-sucker.
Because, while you can take a night off, you can rest, you can vaccuum your room and watch Knocked Up and not study, it will make you panic and you will feel behind

Vet school is the one time (besides organic chem) where there is literally not a single moment in time where there is not something I should be studying. Because even if by some insane stroke of luck I knew everything we had learned in this section, I could be reviewing what we learned in the last sections. Unfortunately, animals do not have the decency to only have diseases/problems/processes that you recently studied. Weird and also kind of inconsiderate.

Did you know?
That there are about a bazillion little bits and pieces to every bone on your body? You know that bony bump on your elbow? The main pointy bit? It's your olecranon, part of your ulna, part of your antebrachium, and it is a paired structure (there is one on both sides). Ps there are about 4 different features associated with it.

Surprise information:
Your head and skull have as much information as your leg and your repoductive systems and some of your digestive system combined. Well according to our test system anyways :-) We spent almost 2 full hours today going over the fissures and foramens (holes) as well as the foramina (little holes) and bone bits in the skull. But we got to do it with pipe cleaners and my favorite professor said he would drift back to our group because we are entertaining. We do bust out laughing about every ten minutes which keeps things light and awesome. I love my lab group for exactly that reason.

Actual factual interesting information for the day:
Did you know typhoid Mary (the cook who single-handedly started a HUGE typhoid outbreak) actually started 2 different outbreaks? After the first one was traced back to her, they sent her to an island with a mental hospital and left her there for some years. Then they let her go back with the one condition that she not be a cook again. Then there was another outbreak and it was traced back to a Mrs. Brown, a cook who turned out was actually typhoid Mary again. So she got sent back to the island and died there. In total she spent 56 years there.
These random factoids that my 2nd year roommate spits out a me seem to stay in my mind better than anything else!

Now back to studying. I'm glad I took this time to remember that I do still love vet school, it just makes me sleepy haha!

Things that are happening right now
- I am in class
- I am not listening
- I am being taught about things I learned in high school
-I am jacked up in coffee and can't nap
- I am getting excited for the Purina Lunch n' Learn which will teach me things while I eat Chinese :-)
- I am not excited about my big ol anatomy test on Fri
- I am still contemplating getting a rat
- i am avoiding facebook because I am so sick of seeing all the statuses about how much the renal physiology test sucked ( its been over 24 hrs, you should be over it by now, I was over it about 2 min after it happened)
-  I can see 3 people in Facebook from where I am sitting

Basically I have too much brain power and nothing to do with it. Did I mention that the next 2 tests in this class have an average of a 97% because the teacher gives pretty much all the ?s and answers in his review session?
....yea that makes me very unmotivated to listen.

I want to buy a house!  One of my best childhood friends just closed on her house and it makes me so incredibly jealous. I mean I have a partially complete education that costs me about the same....
But you can't paint it, so it's not as fun.

Still pumped for Chinese food!
Also at Zumba in Halloween night, we did the Thriller dance. Zumba is seriously the most fun workout ever. I almost forgot about the bazillion squats we did during the rest of the class :-)

Maybe I'll pay attention now....
But the odds aren't good.

I think my glass has just stuck itself in the nearly full position!

I have so many things to be happy about.

Except that it is early. And that I am typing this on my couch because it's cold out and I don't wanna go outside. Or that I gave blood for the first time yesterday.

Oh, you think that is a good thing?

Well it was good, hit the vein on the first try, but because there was a tissue plug or something keeping the blood from flowing, it wouldn't flow and they dug in my arm for like 15 min. Then they couldn't even get the blood! So my arm is bruised and sore and I didn't save anyone. Sad day man, sad day.

But! In anatomy lab we are going over lab animals, which meant hearing a lecture on pocket pets like guinea pigs, gerbils, hamsters, and rabbits. We also dissected rats in lab and I never thought I would be in a room where you would hear girls squeal things like:
"Look at that teeny,tiny uterus!"
"Oh my goodness! That is the sweetest little spleen I just can't belie- Loooooook the bitty little KIDNEYS!"
I was one of the worst offenders. I have a thing for miniatures.

I also had my first day and AHCC which actually went really well. They showed me what I needed to be shown and it was fine! Except for the technician I had been warned about who treats you like you are a complete moron. Which was fine, because it was nice to have a refresher course, however I had already had training and also am not a complete moron. I mean 1 or 2 practice rounds of checking the patient and writing in the charts was probably ok, but after 4 or 5? I think I can probably do it on my own. But it was fun and I got to buy a sweet digital watch so I could time heart rates.

AND - best thing ever! - One of the dogs had one of the only diseases I have learned anything about. Like seriously it has been talked about in like 3 classes and we just had it on a test. Big big big moment for me. To recognize a disease and have some idea of how it happened and the symptoms? So cool.

And my daddy won tickets to Reba and The Band Perry in St. Louis which is so amazingly cool. I don't love Reba like dad does, but the show should be amazing and I do love The Band Perry. Plus it is me, mom, dad, and my brother, so it should be a blast. And my momma made me oatmeal cookies just cause I said I wanted some.

What a mom :-)

so now I should go study for my anatomy quiz and eat some breakfast. As a rewward for...being busy (?) I am gonna buy lunch at Zou and not make it, so I did have time to type this post.

Everyone have a great weekend!

-OH! and also I am going to walk in the Dog Jog tomorrow morning with some of my girlfriends. It's a 5K and I would love to run it, but I have been doing more Zumba and less running lately and am not sure that I can. Next year I will. But nonetheless, it'll be fun and I believe the money goes to our local humane society.

AND the roomies and I are carving pumpkins on Sunday.

AND I have to make a dalmatian costume because our Halloween theme is 101 Dalmatians so our whole class will be rocking spots on Monday.

Even at 6 am

I get a little tingle of excitement walking into school, because I'm still in vet school and it's still so awesome!

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Vacation from my vacation

Apparently, even though you spent about 16 hours driving this weekend, the world does not stop and give you an extra few days to recoup.

Weird.

So I spent the weekend with some of my best friends, former residents, and of course my boyfriend at my undergrad university. The leaves on the trees have changed and the whole drive there was sunny and beautiful. Plus I listened to the book "The Help" while driving, which is great so far. I also listened to two of my lectures that had been recorded. They were not great. But they happened so....that's that.

I had a great time with Harv and my little nephew dog, we took them to the dog park, partially because I am an awesome aunt, but mostly because the dogs were so excited to see each other that we thought they might break something in Mike's apartment. At the dog park I observed some truly moronic behavior. These 3 girls (turns out they are 15 yrs old) got dropped off with one great pyrenees (BIG DOG), one little terrier mix, and one herding/shepherd/pointy earred dog. Then one of the girls carries a small kennel into the dog park and proceeds to dump one small and one teeny tiny puppy out of it, shut the kennel door, and walk to the far end of the park where she and her buddies scream everytime a dog slobbers on them and giggle over their cell phones. Meanwhile, myself, my cousin, Mike, and a few others at the park proceeded to mother the puppies. Not that the other dogs were bad to them, by any means; they were so sweet and gentle with them. But the poor pups were terrified and just wanted someone's legs to stand between. Also when a bunch of 50-90lb dogs are running in a pack, it is very easy for little puppies to get stepped on. After a long while (like 30-45 min) the girls come grab the puppies, tell us they found them on the side of the road, and leave.... Very strange.

But I had a great time with my guy and my dog just hanging out, cooking breakfast, grocery shopping, etc... I miss him more when I see him. It doesn't help that when I get in the car, the dog puts his paws on the window and gives me the most pitiful face on the planet. Gotta love having a long distance relationship with your guy and your dog. But I don't have to vaccuum up the dog hair, so that's a silver lining I guess.

I did play the evil auntie this weekend because my cousin had me trim my poor nephew dogs toenails, and let me tell you, he is a con dog. He jumps as if I am going to cut his entire toenail off. I did nick him, but just barely, because if you have ever quicked a dog (cut the vein in their nail a little) then you know that it bleeds as if the dog is planning to just evacuate it's entire blood supply in the next 5 min. But he barely bled at all, which means he was fine. However, he had me in such a tizzy about picking on my little nephew that his nails were cut progressively less short until his front toenails got barely cut...I got conned, okay? And I knew it, but it didn't matter. My Harvey sat perfectly still except for trying to lick my hand while I did his, thank goodness because I know he could con me big time.

So I am not glad it is Monday, and I don't want to study, but you can only put it off for so long....

Oh yea, but I still love vet school :-)

Bat!

Happy little bat we got to feed at ZEW club tonight!

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And I suck a little tiny bit at life

...or just at blogging

I really did mean to post every week and then life kind of happened.

Things are moving right along as far as school goes. My exams are all going fine, and I seriously kicked some Physiology butt on the last test which will balance out the badness from the first exam. Summary - Phys grade now semi fixed.

In other more interesting news, our dear dissection dog, Cujo, was awarded a very big honor in lab the other day. Whilst dissecting his manly bits, we enlisted the help of one of our professor, (for the purposes of this blog, we will call her Dr. Nerves 'cause that is what she rocks at!) Dr. Nerves for help in identifying some of the smaller nerves and blood vessels of the sensitive groin type variety. When she came over she first told us that we had done a great job dissecting it (hell yea group 4!) and also that Cujo has

...drumroll....

The very best and well dyed examples of blood vessels and nerves in his manly bits area that she had
Ever. Seen...Ever.

It was such a momentous occasion that she requested that Dr. Badluck (when I describe him later, you will know why) come over and take a photo to be shown to new generations of vet students. We, of course, requested to be in a picture with Cujo's amazing manly bits and if I get the OK from the office, I will post the picture here :-) Thus, Cujo's manly bits will be instructing many years of vet school students about how things are supposed to look down there. Dissection dog win.

We then spend around half an hour discussing with Dr. Badluck the various injuries he sustained in practice and then continued into a conversation about how all the men in the Badluck family seem to acquire weird injuries included but not limited to: being run over by a van, being lifted up by the groin by a horse shoe, having to have a nerve moved to a different place, and having a kidney stone. He also has a very dry and ironic sense of humor. So we really enjoyed that even though we learned very little about anatomy.

Tomorrow is one of the best days of all days. Free Product Day. I kid you not, that is actually the name. All the vet students and residents and such get to come into the conference center and get all the free stuff that different companies want us to try. This means a lot of free stuff along with some raffles for some bigger free stuff. I have no money and am VERY excited about this. It's like a little mini Christmas.

This is another week of meetings which is actually great for me because that means I get fed dinner 3 out of 5 days this week. Plus in ZEW (zoo, exotics and wildlife) club we get to have someone come talk about bats, and that is a very nice change of pace from learning about dogs and cats.

But the very best thing is that Friday I am driving back to Ohio to see some of my favorite people and animals! The boyfriend, Harv-man and I will be chilling all weekend AND my best friend and my best sister/cousin/friend are coming to see me on Sat. And I am going to say hey to my people at my old clinic.


So despite having a rather large pair of tests today and tomorrow, all around this week is going well.
Rock on vet school!

Did you know

The best things I learn in vet school are not going to be on any tests in the near future
Some examples:

• You can make a horse hold its breath by holding its nose
• If you squeeze your fingers along the sides of a dog's spine, the cutaneous muscles will twitch (their skin moves)
• Vultures are the only social raptors
• Birds have little bones in their eyes
• If you want to hear a cat breathe but they are purring, you just turn on the water in the exam room
• Rats can do agility
• There are such things as pigs with flourescent noses

This has been a vet school update, brought to you by ten extra minutes in the morning and not wanting to start a new subject!

Good Morning!

And here I am at the vet school...
Suprise!
Getting ready for a baller week. One quiz (which is really more like a test), one regular test, and then an anatomy exam which is really more like 2 exams.

Which reminds me. I never explained how anatomy exams work. For each anatomy exam we have a list of things we should know about/be able to find/be able to label. For test 2 (this test) that list is almost 4 pages, 2 columns on each page, size 11ish font. That's a lot of terms.

For the written portion we have lectures about anatomy given by our various professors. The written test is about 1.5 hrs long and depending on your alpha number (kind of like an ID number) you will either take the written or the practical portion  of the exam first. Since I took the written portion first last time, I will take the practical portion first this time.

The practical portion is kind of awesome but also a little scary. About 3am or 4am the morning of the exam, the anatomy professors go into the lab to start setting up. We have left all our dogs and cats out and the professors tag things on them, on lab specimens, on dried bones, and on radiographs (x-rays). A tag might be a pin stuck in a muscle; a string tied around a vein, artery or nerve;  or a circled portion of a radiograph. It really could be anything and there may be 2 parts. For example, a muscle may have a pin in it labeled 27 and #27 might read "#27 a)Identify the muscle (if it's a certain portion of the muscle they may add "BE SPECIFIC") b) what innervated this muscle?" So you have to not only name the muscle, but also what nerve sends it signals.

You have exactly 60 seconds at each station with your clipboard and then once everyone has gone through once, you have another round with 20 seconds at each station. So it goes pretty quick. It is kind of neat to see what your brain has retained, but it is also kind of terrifying. And since I write so sloppy, I had the worst pains in my left hand from trying to hold my clipboard super steady. But the professor was still able to read it, so Win.

The littlest brother was here this weekend which was fun! We made a pilgrimage to 3 different pet stores. Mostly cuz it's fun, but also because I am investigating getting a pet rat. Yes I know you may think it is gross, but they are actually very smart and friendly, and I think it could be fun. And I'm a vet student, I need a little fun in my life :-)

Rat Agility Example. I know, who knew rats did agility?

Surprisingly little bro was not a hindrance to my studies because whenever I looked distracted he would ask if I was really studying, which I wasn't. And we played Cash Cab in my car where he would read me questions from my flashcards and I would answer them. Fun times with the big sis huh?

But never the less, I have a quiz in Micro Anatomy, also known as Histology, also know as looking at stuff on slides. Woo.

I really love vet school, I do! (not sarcasm...well not at this moment anyway)

What could and should I be doing?

I have learned one thing that I never ever ever thought that I would learn in vet school.

I learned that I really love getting up early. Ok that's not true, but I do love the feeling of being a little ahead of the game. I am at school and I don't have class for another 50 minutes. While I really meant to use this time studying for micro anatomy (because cartilage is kind of a pain in the butt), I am instead blogging while  listening to Pandora.com and drinking my coffee. My life is hard.

I had my training meeting for After Hours Clinic Crew (AHCC), which I never explained because I had to take my test. Which kicked my booty by the way. Like hard. Physiology and I are going to have a major duel this block, but I will be the victor..I think

Anyways! AHCC is basically being an assistant when the ICU is not actually open. For example, from 5pm-7:30am and on weekends. There are 4 different shifts you can end up on and you get one shift a week. You will either work 5pm-12am, 11pm-7am, or be on back up which means you help with the major walking shift at 6:30am and then check in again at 4:15pm and stay if they need you or go home and get called back in at any point during the evening, and surgery on-call which means that you check in at 4:15pm and if there is nothing to do then you go home until you get called in. I don't get paid unless I get called in and there are half undergrads and half vet students working on the crew.

Most of the stuff they have taught me I already know how to do in some form, but the clinic I worked for in Ohio, was a) not high tech and b) not an overnight/critical care facility. So learning to check on patients and perform certain things every hour is a whole new ball game. I am really interested to see how my first shift goes (I'll know when that is soon). I am nervous for my first overnight because I have never worked over night before and because it is just you and a technician unless something bad happens. Eep!

Oh yea some of these animals are critical enough that we may have some on ventilators (like when a person is a vegetable and has a machine breathing for them) and that there is occasionally a "code". Yea like where something stops breathing and people are running all over and shouting stuff. Just like ER. Scary but still, win.

I am going to get to learn where everything is in the ICU and the surgery suites which will be so incredibly helpful when I get to clinics, because all the vet students start out a little lost. I mean you may know how to do a treatment on a dog, but if you don't know where the equipment is or if you don't know the technicians, it will be much harder. So hopefully I can spend that time practicing not killing things instead of learning where we keep the gauze. Notice that I am actually starting to worry about the vet care part of this and not just the school work?

Yea. It may have hit me recently that I will at some point be the one coming in to DO the surgery, not just open packages and get stuff....

But anyways....Mike and Harv were here this weekend which was so incredibly nice! It was so great to just hang out and show him my school. Which was a shit show because there was a vaccine clinic and there were dogs and cats everywhere. I brought Addie and she must have felt really crappy after because for the first time ever, she holed up under a bed and didn't come out for a good 8 hours. But she's over it now.

And my dog was very well behaved considering he is a 2 year old Aussie and runs very fast. He and my roommate's dog had a blast and he slept the whole way home.

Mike and I were so happy to see each other! This long distance thing is totally working but it was still so nice to have him around. I even got some minimal studying done, showing that I can do it while he is around, so that was nice to know. We are both ok being apart because we are so busy and we talk at least once but usually multiple times a day so I was okay with him leaving. Mostly. Okay I got a little teary eyed. The dog was looking at me like "hey mom, get in the car!". Okay so I was kind of pitiful for about 5 minutes, but I got over it I promise :-)

Now I am actually going to study because even though this is one of the few weeks we have with no tests, I have So. Many. Meetings. 5 meetings in 4 days plus a training session at Raptor Rehab. But at least it'll be fun.

I have a Physio Test in 3 minutes

But I would rather blog quickly!
I'm listening to Only the Good Die Young anyway, definitely not studying. At this point what good is 3 more minutes gonna do ya?

I am having the most fun with things outside of vet school. I went and trained with the little kestrel yesterday and was so excited that he behaved perfectly for me. He stepped onto my glove, only had one little mini freak out and generally looked happy to be sitting out in the sun with me. I also cut a rat in half with some shears....but that is besides the point (sorry ROR). I also got to feed some of the bigger birds and am generally feeling like I know what is going on down the hill (and the Raptor Rehab Program). So that just put me in a phenomenal mood.

And in anatomy lab we have reached a real rhythm with our group. We are learning well during lab time and we laugh a lot. And seeing as we spend 9 hours in there a week, there is seriously nothing better than laughter.

I also had my first training shift thing at the After Hours Clinic Crew which was great! But I'll have to write about it later because the test is starting...

Woops!

Vet School is a Rollercoaster...

...And I am always stressed but happy. And it is that last bit that is the most important.

Have taken 3 (but really 5 because 2 of them had 2 huge parts) and have done decently on all of them. However, now that I realize I probably won't fail, that has made me a little more particular about the grades I get. Whether this makes me more stressed or not, we will have to see. But right now? So happy to be doing alright!

As for the Raptor Rehab, I said I would give more details, so....

Hoot Camp was great. They gave us a tour of the facility and explained a lot of handling techniques and ways to get more involved with the program. I learned how to put together the jesses, leashes and such for the birds. It sounds easy, but you have to put everything together and attach it to the bird with only one hand (because the other has a glove with a raptor sitting on it). The bird I got to work with was Hephaestus, a little kestrel. He is full of personality and it was so neat to have him on my hand and to just see him watching me. Unlike dogs and cats, who usually portray their feelings rather well, it was so captivating just looking at him because I have no concept of avian body language. Plus it is a huge show of trust when they step onto your hand because they cannot fly away (you have a hold on the jess and the leash so they can't fly off) and they are trusting that you will be a steady perch. The steady perch is a lot easier with Heph because he only weighed about 100 grams and didn't make my arm very tired.

Heph and I

I really should be studying, so I will just explain about the education side of things for now.

After I set up a few more sessions with the trainer (about 5 hrs) with Heph, I will have a chance to be "checked off" on him. This means another trainer will make sure that I know how to feed him, know where things get put away, am able to put the jesses on and remain calm and in control while handling him. Once I am checked off, I will get the code to the compound and will be able to go whenever I want to practice handling or I can sign up to feed the birds, etc... I will also be able to be the handler for Heph when we go to education things such as school presentations about raptors.

Once I am checked off on Heph, I can work with any of the other Tier 1 (easier) birds. There are about 4 or 5 including Owliver the great horned owl. I go through the same checking off process as before and then will be able to handle him or her at presentations as well. If I get checked off on all the Tier 1 birds, I can move on to Tier 2.

Tier 2 birds are little more shy, or a little harder to handle for various reasons. The main reason I am dying to get there is to handle the vulture we have - Sir P. Vultures are the only social raptor, so unlike the others who tolerate our presence and handling, he actually wants interaction. What makes him Tier 2 is that he is social and therefore has a literal pecking order. If you go in without confidence, you may get a little beat up by the big man :-) I just love vultures' goofy personalities, so that is my goal.

So I am very excited about this club. I can devote as much time as I want, and I can advance as my schedule allows. Plus how many people can say they have the opportunity to handle big birds of prey on a regular basis?

Also I got a job working with the After Hours Clinic crew in the ICU. This is a great way to make some money, learn more about the teaching hospital, meet the technicians, and generally get to practice a little medicine. I have been really missing my job at my clinic in Ohio, and I am hoping that this will help out a little. Plus I will get to work on my technical skills so they don't disappear.

...oh and sometimes I will work  overnights.... 11pm -7am....

We'll see how that goes...

Loving it still though! Not during class, but those in between times, and when I realize that I am ACTUALLY learning things? That is fantastic.

Me, Loving Vet School :-)

Vet School = Busy

So I cannot believe I have been in school for 3 weeks already!
It has been going very quickly, but I am really enjoying myself. I never knew how much my brain can hold but let me tell ya, school is testing the limits.

We had our first few exams. Luckily the first was a Cell Biology class which undergrads can take and which is more basic than a lot of our other classes. So it was like a little wading pool/kiddie pool type test before they tossed us into the deep end with anatomy.

Oh anatomy? Only 3 hours worth of test. 1.5 hrs written and 1.5 hrs of practical exam which consisted of us correctly identifying tagged muscles/veins/arteries/nerves/bones etc... and knowing what they do. But it's over and I did alright. Woo!


Then we had the Smoker which the second years put on the night after our first anatomy exam. Beer, shots, cigars, dancing, funny videos, and all around good times ensued and we really needed it. It wasn't that the test was so bad, but the stress leading up to it? Wow.

In addition to Anatomy (study of the actual body parts) and Cell bio (study of things inside cells), I also have physiology (study of how the body actually works) and microanatomy (study of cells and tissues and such).

My schedule looks like this (ish) most weeks.

• Monday - Class 8-10; Micro Lab 10-noon
• Tuesday- Class 9-10; Anatomy Lab 10-1pm; Lunch!; Class 2-5 (ew)
• Wed - Class 8-10; Break 10-noon; Micro Lab noon-2
• Thurs - Same as Tues
• Friday - Class 9-10; Anatomy Lab 10-1pm; Lunch!; Physio Lab 2-5 (but sometimes this is on Wed instead....)

So it is busy, but good!

I also got to go to Raptor (big birds of prey) Rehab boot camp today and actually work with a bird on a glove. Which is sweet (and worth 2 in the bush! ha ha....) But I'll give you more details on that later. I have to get back to work on the subjects I blew off last week!

...or play with my roommates dog.....

We'll see.

The First Week

I've heard from various people that vet school is like trying to take a drink from a firehose.

It is exactly like that so far. I just get a ton of information thrown at me at once, and so far it isn't hard, it isn't complicated, it's just a lot. For example: the shoulder blade, or scapula, has around 15 little bits on it. Different faces, sides, bumps or tubercles, cavities and tuberosities. And that is the easiest of the bones we have learned so far.

But we do get to dissect things.
We each have a dog and cat to dissect. They are kept on the left side of the freezer and we can get to them whenever we want to. We have to walk past the cows and horses that are chilling in the freezer (haha accidental pun) for us to dissect next semester.

Now we have named our dog Cujo. Because his face is frozen in a snarl and he is a pit bull. During dissection I frequently pat him on the head and when I bump into him, I apologize. Because as much I like dissecting him, I like seeing the muscles and how things work, I get excited when I see an organ and know what it is, but I also appreciate that he used to be a dog. And because I think that he was a shelter dog and probably unadoptable, I feel bad that he didn't get a family but at least that means that I get to learn about how a dog is supposed to work so that I can fix them when they are broken.

But I have been having fun with my CVM classmates, both my year and the year above us are really fun and great so far. I'm hoping our class stays that way so that anyone could show up at anything and everyone will think it's fine.

But the week is pretty good. I am out at noon on Mon and at 2 some Wed and Fri. It's the Tues/Thurs that suuuuuuuuck. We get there around 8:30 for our 9am class and then we are there until 5pm with a one hour lunch break at 1. And you think to yourself, "well if you had a full time job you would be there from 9-5." But there is a major difference, once we come home, we have studying to do. But it is going well so far.

Ask me again when it gets closer to test time :-)

Trying to study

I have very little to study since this is the first day.

We mostly went over syllabi and some very basic info, but as this may be the only time I am on top of things, I am trying to stay motivated.

On a non school related note, I ran 2 miles and tonight I'm gonna go check out free week at the rec with some of my CVM girls. That means ZUMBA which I love!

Also can you tell that Addie is incredibly helpful to the study process?

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It's 12:23

And I still haven't fallen asleep.
The night before undergrad started I read Twilight straight through til 6am, so I finished my book, but still....nothing.

I am so excited to start this big, terrifying thing. Knowing that it will be very hard makes me nervous, but it doesn't cancel out the knowledge of the very big thing I will be doing. I am going to learn the way animal's bodies work. Every little piece, of a very good portion of species, that is huge!

So I have my backpack packed with my dissection kit and my scrubs, my pens and my notes for microanatomy. I am overly organized and still feel like I should go downstairs and pack my lunch right this instant. Addie is less than impressed with the new direction our lives are taking and has been trying to go to sleep in my bed since about ten pm, stopping to meow and give me a dirty look every time I wake her up.

At least pure adreniline will get me through tomorrow, I'll just put on Friends and drink a big cup of coffee in the morning. For the Facebook statuses my classmates have been posting, they won't be getting much sleep tonight either :-)

Orientation

I liked:
Free breakfast and lunch
Presentations about potential jobs
Free Backpack!
Seeing my anatomy lab
Printing my syllabi

I did not like:
Presentations about insurance
Presentations about the health center
Being there from 7:15-3:30

But I get to start class on Monday! Woot!

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Swag.

List of Free stuff from VET:
Carry on sized duffel with VET logo
Pen
Sweet name tag + holder with VET logo
Purina beach towel
2 hardcover self help type books
Nice leather journal with VET logo
VET t shirt
Calculator clip board
Luggage tag with VET.logo
Stainless water bottle with VET logo

Yay free things!

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Climbed the iceberg!

I was playing on the big inflatables in the lake today and they have a big climbing iceberg. (I put a pictureof the exact model!)

All the little short girls got up, but I tried and it was hard so I gave up. But because this group of people is so encouraging that it would make ResLife people proud, one of the guys coached me and 3 other girls up it! Then I slid down which was even scarier, but it rocked and I was so proud!

Way to go VET!

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Love it!

Quick updates!

I am a goof who got goose bumps when they showed the class of '14 at VET

I also got freakin pumped that I am in vet school!

We had a former Miss America/ Mizzou DVM grad who spoke to us and was so incredible!

I, Breanna Erwin, threw a frisbee around with a group of people. It was dark and they lit up and I wasn't good but it didn't matter and I had fun.

Pushing my limits on the first day already and meeting a ton of purple? Winning.


Ps. Our team name is
The Muzzlers: Shut yo mouth!

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Update

Just reread the schedule....
On Tuesday night.....we karaoke.......

I will keep you updated but so far there is no mention of alcohol, so we'll see how the karaoke goes!

My life is just packing and unpacking!

So far so good on the vet school front...
I mean I haven't done anything vet school related, or had a class, or even met a significant amount of my class, but still!

Got myself all moved in and my room looks pretty sweet if I do say so myself, and I do :-)  Addie as settled in just fine although she only takes short adventures downstairs when Dynia the dog is nowhere in sight. I am, almost,  completely unpacked which is great because today my roommate M and I go to VET. That's the big get to know each other partay at the Lake of the Ozarks! 120...no wait, one person isn't coming so 119 people....a high and low ropes course, ice breakers, speed networking at the very least we will know our classmates well by the end of it :-)

Well off to check my packing skills for the third time, fit it all in my backpack but I feel like I may have forgotten something. I hope I am not the lowest maintainance person there. Watch, everyone else brought full carry one or something.

I'll blog from my phone if I get a chance!
See ya!

So pretty much packing is my life!

Pretty much since my parents decided where/when we were going for our vacation (Florida! and on Sunday!) Mike and I have been dealing wth the logistics of my vacation/ moving me out of the apartment/ moving my cat/ moving all his stuff to his new apartment. Sound like fun? But wait! There's more!

The Saturday before I leave for Florida is our friend's wedding! Which means Mike's brother and our other friend are staying in our apartment....which is a bit of a cluster right now...

But wonder of all wonders I think it's working out! I have most of my stuff packed (I didn't bring all that much thank goodness), We have started packing/cleaning/purging the useless crap in the apartment and my wonderful parents decided I could fly to KC and then fly back here thus avoiding the 9 hr drive the day after the wedding followed by a 15 hr drive. Fantastic!

So it was my last day at Agri-Pet on Thursday which was so sad just because I love everyone there and they have been a HUGE part of my undergrad experience. Figure since the Fall of my 2nd year I have been working at least 12 hrs a week but usually a lot more. It was so weird trying to thank people and say goodbye. How do you thank people enough for giving you the experience you needed to get into vet school? For teaching a million things you didn't know how to do? Just to name a few things:
-Give pills to a cat
-Draw blood (okay still not great at it but I've done it!)
- Clean surgery packs
-Assist with surgery
- Get a puppy breathing after a c-section
- Trim nails
- Give fluids

And tons of other things that are now second nature. AND I got paid too? Really how does one get that lucky? Luckily I will be coming back to visit Mike and can stop by to visit!

Everything is coming up daisies ( I prefer them to roses :-)

Tonight the boys get here and we have chicken enchiladas from a fantastic recipe my former boss gave me!
Then tomorrow night a wedding between two people who are wonderful and seeing all of our friends at the big reception!
Getting up super early Sunday morning to drive to the airport for my super short flight to KC then getting started on the drive to FLORIDA!!!
A week on the beach/in the pool chilling with the family :-)
Two days packing my room in my parents house/playing with the dogs
Short flight back on Tuesday.
Help Mike get his new apartment set up
Put my stuff in my car on Friday (or Thurs, not sure yet) and drive with miss Addison to KC!
Go move my stuff in and get unpacked on Sat!
Spend a week at home running errands
Go back to my house in Columbia to live for the year then go to the Ozarks for our VET (it's a vet student retreat in the Ozarks!)

Bring it on :-)

Bulldogs, Buddy, and Bree!

So a few days ago I got to help with my first C Section!

It was on a bulldog because bulldogs almost always give birth by Cesarean section because they cannot give birth normally. I think if you can't be born naturally then maybe you weren't supposed to exist. Bulldogs can't breathe, have horrible skin, get fungus in their wrinkles, can't give birth, general badness, and I really don't think there should be more of them. I think this in theory course.

Now in actuality, I think this little bulldog has a fantastic personality and the 8 (can you believe it? 8!) little pups that she gave birth to were precious. And since there were 8 of them, it was all hands on deck for the puppy shaking. Yes you heard me right. In order to get the fluid out of their little noses, we rubbed them hard with towels and - with their heads facing away from our bodies - lifted them up a little ways and then down towards the ground. This uses gravity to get the fluid out. But it really really looks like you are trying to shake a baby.

There is nothing quite like waiting for a little pup to take a breath and once it starts breathing? You feel so proud that you got that started! And she was such a good momma! She was falling asleep sitting up but she never stepped on a puppy or kept them from nursing. Imagine waking up from surgery to 8 puppies. Ack!

That's her falling asleep with the hungry little monsters!

***

In addition to the births, we have had a lot of dogs coming in late in the evening with possible heat stroke. One of them, a dog we'll call Buddy, could barely move his back legs. So you run the cold water over them, in the case of a really over heated dog you even put ice packs on them, and then just give them fluids and support. The reason Buddy was special is because he couldn't move his back legs and there was nothing wrong with him that we could find. But with 3 days of feeding him canned food and cleaning up after him every time he peed GALLONS in his kennel, and being available when he needed his temp taken because he growled at other people and liked me, he was starting to move a little better and got to go home. What sucks is that while I babied him all day long and got kisses and happy tail wags for my trouble, there is no way of knowing how well his owners will keep up. So you send them off with what support you can, and hope that they keep up and he gets going again!

****

In news with me, I am going to FLORIDA!!! With the family and what is even better is instead of going
Sat - Wedding
Sun - Drive 9 hrs to KC
Mon - drive 15 hrs to Florida

Now I get to fly to KC and then fly back and help Mike set up his apartment! This is gonna work out perfectly because I get family time and time to pack up my room at home and then I get to hang out with Mike and Harv for a few days before Addie and I trek the 9 hrs to KC. Oh and my girls Kira (our golden) and Ivy (our Bernese puppy) are gonna be there too :-)

And Mike and I got to play with a kitten I'm helping a co-worker socialize. Nothing is quite as nice and a kitten snuggling up to you with her little purring motor going full speed :-)
Not too shabby :-)

Have Tablet, Will Post

I am so very very very ready to start vet school stuff.....or at least move...or do any of the other exciting things that are coming up!
But I also don't want the summer to be over, so I'm obviously hard to please.
Things done for vet school:
- Read "How to Study in Med School" book they sent all of the class of 2015....okay read it twice
- Sent in all the info they needed for our VET retreat (time for all of us to get to know each other at Lake of the Ozarks while being fed and housed and entertained with things like zip lines and water sports for free!)
- Figured out when I'm moving - Aug 6th
- Thought and read about vet school, animals, and vets allll summer
- Made as much money as possible to supplement my negative money
- Prepared cat verbally for 9 hr drive and resigned myself to 9 hrs of Addie bitching about having to be in a car
- Bought badass android tablet for notetaking, am downloading fun apps until summer is over and it has to become a working tablet :-(

I am really going to miss Oxford though. I wasn't sad when I graduated, I think because I wasn't leaving but now that I am, I'm really nostalgic about my favorite places and foods and hikes. Oh and I'm leaving Mike and Harvey which is also really sad. Luckily I'll have no time to miss them in vet school. And one of my three new roomies has a dog who is very much like Harvey, so I can get my dog fix.
Now I'm off to watch some Netflix before bed. Two more weeks of work at Agri-pet! And of course now that I'm leaving Dr. k decides to do surgery on and try to rehab a barred owl! At least I got to watch the surgery!

Revamping the blog

So I am gonna keep using this blog in vet school.

Figure this will be a good way to keep everyone in loop as far as my life goes and hopefully vet school will be interesting enough that I have a lot to write about :-)