phew

Done with half of the classroom work of my vet school career! I had a class turn out better than I had expected and a couple not what I was hoping for, but overall better than first year by far. It was very stressful the last few weeks. I pretty much lost all motivation and really didn't retain as much as I would have liked.
Anyway, let me try to remember everything I didn't mention from the last month, or so. I got to help with AQHA world show check in and got paid for that last month. It was fun to get to see a bunch of fancy horses. Went to my parents for the Thanksgiving eve bonfire. I worked some overnight shifts at the hospital.  Not very many interesting cases, but one of my best vet school friends got the job, too, so she was training with me one night. I tried to adopt some cute dogs from the shelter, but hubs wouldn't let me. Husband's boss almost bought a new, bigger house at auction last week, but it went too high so that was no bueno.
Last Friday some friends, hubs, and I went out to the bars to celebrate my birthday and end of finals. It was really fun! Yesterday I went to my parent's and celebrated all the December birthdays and it was good to see them. The rest of break I work a couple overnight shifts, a horse show, and hopefully get to visit a friend that works at a nearby equine hospital and hang out.

I've been putting off writing lately partly because I've been busy, but mostly because it has been too difficult to put into words. Amongst all the quizzes and tests I lost my most precious fur baby. It was the most difficult experience I've ever had. I guess I can go back to where I left off. We decided that since she wasn't improving any and not eating well to finally be more aggressive in treatment for the hepatocutaneous syndrome (which is what I wanted to do from the beginning, but couldn't get the community practice doctors to talk to the internal medicine doctors because they were all too busy). So we transfered her to internal medicine and started amino acid therapy IV to help with all that she was losing from her crappy liver. She would eat 1 type of meat for a couple days then not touch it, so her diet was constantly changing.
The day after her 2nd amino acid treatment she had an awesome improvement so we decided to do more than 1 a week. Her lesions were looking a ton better and her appetite was voracious. The day before her 3rd treatment she totally quit eating and was regurgitating a lot. Her 3rd treatment was on a Friday. By that Saturday night she still wouldn't eat so I started syringe feeding her. By Sunday night she couldn't stand on her own and I decided it was time. I held her all night.
The next morning, which was this last Monday,  I took her in before class and held her furry little head one last time and we ended her suffering. I was and still am beyond devestated. She was my soul mate, best friend, and more than I could ever ask for in a dog. This all happened in a little over a month. Everyday was a rollar coaster. My doctors on internal medicine were so awesome, and shed a few tears with me that day. I've lost family members and lots of other pets, but nothing prepared me for this overwhelming feeling of loss. It hasn't quite been a week yet. The pain still runs through my heart, but the tears aren't falling as often. Trying to take comfort in that I'll see her one day on the other side.

Another tiresome week done. Monday was bacteriology exam. I didn't do the greatest, but I maintained the letter grade I had in the class. Wednesday was clinical anatomy and still not sure how that one went. Didn't feel too great walking out of it. We got our pharm grades from the previous week and it wasn't the most pleasant. We have parasitology 2 lecture and lab exam on Tuesday.  I really want to do better on it than I did the last one.
I think I forgot to mention this, but in January I got selected to do an equine wet lab at Texas A&M. I'm pretty excited. Hopefully i get into the ones I want.
Friday we had fall break and my friend and I needed to log 3 necropsies for our intro to clinics class so we went to OADDL that morning. Of course they ended up not having any so we stayed at school and studied parasit until after noon then went to buffalo wild wings for lunch. It was pretty tasty, but may have had some adverse effects on my bowel at work that night. It was pretty busy, too, and we had quite a few interesting cases.
The next morning without any sleep my husband and I went to my parent's and loaded 75 square bales, ate lunch, visited a friend that is moving to Florida soon so she is giving me all her stuff from her barn, came home and stacked the 75 bales, took a shower and crashed! I was so tired, but we went to church this morning and went grocery shopping afterwards.
My dog update is that she is doing 'ok.' She won't eat unless I soak her dog food in water, slather it in a high quality beef and gravy baby food, and literally spoon feed it to her. She is officially off phenobarb and on levetiracetum. We took her off almost all her other pills to help her appetite. She is on dasuquin, Denamarin, and a couple more days of simplicef. I guess that is it here. Time for some more parasit!

It's been a somewhat stressful week. Monday we had our equine therio final. It went oddly... Our professor for the class ended up going into early labor with her human baby a couple of weeks ago so we have been having a few other house officers teach the class. So, for the final the head of the therio dept walks in (kind of an intimidating guy) and hands out the test and asks if we have any questions.  We all just took that as, if you need any clarification you can ask a question. So 8ne person asks about a question and he pretty much just gives us the answer. Then, I ask about 2 more and he flat out tells us the answers. It was weird and felt like cheating, but I wouldn't mind if that happened for all my finals. So I have 1 down, 9 to go for finals this semester.
Monday night when I got home my dog that was thought to just have pododermatitis and some arthritis was doing much worse. She could barely stand up and was just not doing right. So when I talked to my student Tuesday morning she and the clinician on the case said to bring her in immediately. So I skipped clin path and went home and got her. They drew some blood to recheck her values from last week (which were pretty much all in normal range) and did radiographs to rule out hemangiosarcoma. Luckily they didn't see any evidence and her hips didn't look too bad. So they started to lean towards pemphigus foliaceus, a rare autoimmune skin condition. I brought her in the next day so they could sedate and do a biopsy of her feet. I dropped her off and went to class, but when I came back they were in the middle of ultrasounding her liver and it was covered in lesions. Her blood work indicated a spike in liver enzymes, too from the wek before. Her lesions had also begun to spread to her lips and vulvar area. A new differential popped to the top of the list: hepatocutaneous syndrome. They think it was brought on by being on phenobarb for so many years. I haven't got my discharge papers back confirming the diagnosis yet, but for now, she is on a high protein food for her liver, we cut the phenobarb dose in half and hopefully be able to cut it all the way out, started on a new anticonvulsant levetiracetum, still on antibiotics, added a new pain control and took out the NSAIDS,  and now has twice daily foot, elbow, and vulva soaks. Needless to say, I have been spending a lot of time taking care of her. Prognosis is ok, since we can hopefully eliminate the source of the problem. She seems ok, but definitely not her normal self. It is really heartbreaking because she is my soulmate dog.
On to the rest of the week. We had a pharmacology quiz Wednesday that went alright. Friday we had a pharmacology exam... not really sure on that one. Then for a lunch meeting a guy from the Oklahoma aquarium gave a talk on parasites found in fish. It was actually really interesting. Then, we had clinical anatomy lab for the GI system and I got to put an esophageal tube in a cow so that was exciting. I can't really think of anything else, so I better get to studying for my bacteriology exam that's tomorrow.

It hasn't been long since I wrote, but it feels like quite a bit has happened. Had our bacteriology lab exam on Wednesday and they put grades out Friday and I forgot to check mine so I'm still in the dark on how that went. We had a small ruminants meeting Wednesday night about dealing with cranky llamas and we actually had the llama at the meeting.

Her name is Delilah and she is the school's blood donor llama. She has some anger issues, but isn't too bad. 

Then the rest of the week something weird happened... we didn't have a test or quiz the rest of the week. I could have been a good student and get ahead on studying... but I wasn't and it was wonderful! I did start kind of studying for my final in equjne therio which is tomorrow. I'm sorda worried about it aince its half our grade, but I feel pretty good about the material. We have a pharm quiz Wednesday and an exam Friday which I need to get going on, too. 

Friday I brought my horses in to the school to get Coggins down and float there teeth. I hauled them in before class and got them set up in some stalls. They screamed neighed almost the whole time I was there, but finally started to calm down. One was across from a mule, and one of the residents told me he sat and stared at it all day. They had the vet school picnic in the rain on Friday. It was different this year. They had food trucks instead of a cookout, and while it was delicious, it was no fun standing in line forever in the rain. Went back to the hospital for my appointment and the resident let me do some of it with the hand floats and it was pretty exciting and I actually did a decent job! There were a couple other 2nd years getting their intro to clinics hours and I let them practice blood draws and injections on my horses. This weekend has been pretty laid back and it's been nice. Better get to studying though.

Forgot my Sunday update for the past week, so lets see if I can remember everything.  We had our clin path test last week and man is a scratch off test stressful,  especially after you miss a question. I ended up doing well though. Bacteriology quiz went better than the first one, and while didn't really study enough for the pharmacology quiz, it went all right.
Last week, one of my older dogs started to seem a little off. It has been harder for her to get up and Friday I noticed she was kind of limping. I looked at her feet and saw some redness in between 2 toes and it was a little painful. I brought her into the vet school to get her checked out today and the 2 toes spread to both front feet. Turns out she has pododermatitis (foot infection.) Also has some hip arthritis so she is now on antibiotics, daily foot soak in antimicrobial solution, and NSAIDS for her arthritis. Hopefully she gets to feeling better soon. Just to add to the vet bill for the week I'm bringing my horses in to get their teeth floated and Coggins done on Friday, so that should be fun.
Saturday we had or wetlab on distal equine limb. First we got to surgically transect the distal check ligament, amputate part of a 4th metatarsal bone, and do a nuerectomy. Then we practiced joint injections on both thoracic and pelvic limbs. We also learned some suture patterns. It was totally cool and I'm so glad I did it.
We had a signs and symptoms test yesterday that I felt ok about until I started talking to everyone else about it... hopefully I did ok. That afternoon i went with another group and did a uterine culture on a mare for equine therio elective because they ran out of horses in my group. It was pretty fun! I feel so much more comfortable rectally palpating now. We have our final for that class next Monday.  Tomorrow is our first lab exam for bacteriology that I can't make myself study for. Better get my **** together and just do it.

ketchup

I don't think I'm ever going to catch up. Monday night we had the first meeting for our joint injection/distal limb surgery in horses lab. It was ok, but I definitely should have been studying for our parasit exams we had Tuesday. Those went ok, but should have done better. Tuesday night we had the second meeting for the lab. Wednesday we had a Pharmacology quiz that I way over studied for. We got our pharm grades from the first test back and I did REALLY well, so that was exciting. Thursday we had a web based lab exam for clinical anatomy and that went pretty good.
I had to work Friday night and it was quite busy. Got home Saturday morning, slept about 2 hours, got up and headed to the Tulsa State Fair with a classmate. We got there and parking was a cluster and kept getting griped at by police about how disorganized the birthing center was, so that was fun getting griped at for something that you have no control over. Finally found where we were supposed to be and there were a ton of pre vetters there that were trying to take over and pretty much just stood there holding babies the whole time while my friend and I cleaned stalls and talked to the public. Definitely not a great experience and I won't be doing that  again. Hopefully the public got something out of it. My parents, brother, sister-in-law, and nephew came by and I got to show them baby goats, sheep, and pigs. Also ran into my husband's brother's wife and kids which was a nice surprise. We did get some good fair food, though: corn dog, strawberry lemonade, and dip n dots, mmm. I got home around 8 pm and watched tv for a bit, but crashed by like 930 and slept really hard untik morning. I need to start studying for everything next week which includes a clinical pathology exam Tuesday, bacteriology quiz wed, and Pharmacology quiz Friday. *yawn*

Cute mamma and baby!