Quite a bit has happened since last time. First, I'm done getting paid for overnight shifts, and in a little of 3 months I'll be doing it as a fourth year... so crazy! When they say time flies in vet school, they aren't kidding. The semester started 3 weeks ago. My classes are Alimentary, cardiopulmonary, urinary, neurology, second half of junior surgery, intro to clinics II, with electives advanced equine II, and food animal surgery. I'll be in class or surgery just about every day until 5 until about 3 weeks before the semester ends. It is tiring. The first week of school I had my last assistant surgery for small animal so I have 6 anesthesias and 3 primary surgery days left. Intro to clinics has been a thorn in every side this year except getting to practice ophthalmology exams earlier this week. We have to spend 8 hours a week every week shadowing different services and they are pre-scheduled times so if nothing is going on (which is typical for most afternoons especially small animal) we are supposed to ask 4th years about their cases and quiz eachother even though 4th years are usually busy doing paperwork. Fun, right?
Anyway, the weekend after we started classes my friend and I went to college station for the texas a&m equine wetlab again this year, and it was so fun. Our labs were field necropsy, ophthalmology, advanced lameness diagnosis, and rectal palpation with laproscopic assistance. We stayed an extra night Saturday because it is exhausting driving 7 hours after the lab and napped, jumped in the hot tub,  and ate dinner at this really fun bar called the dixie chicken. On the way back we stopped at cabelas in fort worth and it was really neat. Had a lot of animal displays and huge fish tanks with huge fish.
Last week we had our first lab for food animal surgery and we practiced doing local blocks like the caudal epidural, proximal paravertebral, peterson, auriculopalpebral, cornual, and 4 point. It was a nice review from last year and good practice for surgery. So, it turns out that only half the class gets to do a section and after picking straws, I of course didn't get to. We did those today. Yesterday, we shaved and prepped our cow, and since they had them induced so they'd develop a bag, we were on call for surgery. We were supposed to do them at 11am today, but ours started calving so 30 minutes into our first class at 830, we got the call. I prepped and did some of her blocks, as well as calf care once baby was out. Our cow was a little uncooperative, especially towards the end, but the calf pretty much came out running. She is super precious. The mom doesn't look like she is going to produce enough milk so we'll probably half to supplement with some colostrum and then milk replacer. Half of  our group has to come back in tonight, tomorrow morning, and sunday night, and me and my friend are going in Saturday night, Sunday morning, and monday morning, to weigh the calf and SOAP (do physicals and such) on calf and momma. Mom kinda rejected her at first but was much better by the time we finally got to leave at 3. It was pretty exhausting. Next week, the other girl in our group that didn't get to do the c section and I are doing an exploratory celiotomy/laparotomy. It'll be fun, but not the same. I'm kind of upset about not getting to do the surgery today because it was pretty much the only reason I took the class. It has a pretty big fee associated with it, too so that's disappointing. Hopefully (for me not the cow) my husband's ranch will need one done soon that I'm able to assist on or at least help with one on my preceptors next year.
Classes are going well otherwise, and we start tests next week with cardiopulmonary and Alimentary. I've been really consistent with working out since school started, even though I've been having to go before school because of the longs days. I got to visit my parents and brother's family last weekend. My niece and nephew couldn't be more adorable. Well, I guess that's all I can remember.

Only one more...

Finals week left in my vet school career! Made it through this one alive and did well this semester. I still find myself comparing my grades to others and it makes me feel like crap sometimes. I know I shouldn't, but up until vet school I was always on top and now I'm not and it kind of sucks. I just have to suck it up and tell myself they worked harder than I did and deserve the grades we got.
I had my 28th birthday on Saturday and my mom got her friends, my sister in law, my friend, and me tickets for the nutcracker ballet. It was so beautiful and reminded me of going with my mom as a child.
In other news my friend and I went down to Jr surgery on Monday to get more experience in and I got to help with a couple spays and neuters and a cherry eye on a cute little beagle puppy.  I didn't get to do a lot in the surgeries because the 4th years were almost done with the rotation and wanted to get as many surgeries as they could. On Tuesday we went to OKC and walked around the national cowboy and western heritage museum. It was really cool and had spectacular paintings. After that we went to the OKC outlet shops. They were okay, but our feet were pretty tired. We went by the mall after that and came home and  I crashed. Yesterday we went back to surgery and I assisted on a couple neuters and a spay.
We finally got our 4th year schedules on Friday. It is exciting and terrifying to have our final year all planned out. I ended up with everything I asked for. My best vet school friend and I have all our electives together, but that's it. We have ranch therio, shelter, ambulatory, and ophtho. I still need to get my preceptors scheduled out, but they're not until March 2017 so I have a while.
We still don't have our schedules for next semester but I got both my electives, food animal surgery and advanced equine techniques 2. I'll be pretty busy still though because I have 10 surgeries left for small animal.
Next week and the week after I'll be pretty busy working overnights. But my last night is the 30th and I'll be done with the job! I don't have a lot planned for the break, except just sitting around and it will be glorious!

Finals week is upon us...

I know everyone has been on the edge of their seat waiting for me to update... Sorry, I've been busy. Like busier than I've ever been in my life!  I've already finished up a couple classes. First was my advanced equine techniques. That class was amazing! So much hands on. We got to practice suturing on some cadaver legs, bandaging and hoof casting (on real horses), practice rads, Abdominocentesis,  passing nasogastric tubes, placing jugular catheters, and I'm sure I'm missing more. The weekend after we learned ng tube passing a colic horse was in the hospital for my overnight shift and the resident let me pass the tube. It was super exciting!
My systemic pathology elective turned out to be so helpful. It really cemented in common bloodwork abnormalities and clinical signs and coming up with differential diagnoses. I'm so glad I took it.
Bovine therio is also over as of Monday. We got to palpate more and ultrasound, as well as doing a breeding soundness exam on a bull (I'll spare you the details on that one) and do a tuberculosis test. Also, a guest lecturer came and talked about regulatory medicine and meat inspection and while I know that wouldn't make me happy in the long run it's really good money and set hours so I guess I'll keep that option open. The final went well,  especially since it was a grade your own final.
All the while we were finishing up the cadaver portion of junior surgery. That ended well and the lab final went better than expected. We got to perform a dental, a hard and easy tooth extraction, dental nerve blocks, a temporary tarsorrhaphy, an eyelid tumor removal, an enucleation, half a spay and scrotal castration, and an intestinal resection and anastomosis. I've also learned how lucky we are to get to do cadaver surgeries at our school (explanation to come.)
Test wise, everything has been going pretty well. I bombed the first toxicology test, but got my head out of my ass for the next two and got mid to high A's. We finished musculoskeletal and the second test and final brought my grade down to just below an A :(. Next Monday we have dermatology,  Tuesday ophthalmology,  Wednesday theriogenealogy,  and Friday toxicology.
Yesterday I had my first assistant surgery on live dogs. Nothing went wrong, but things could have been better (disclaimer: in no way am I putting any school down, just highlighting the advantages of my school and the confidence they have helped instill in me.) So, my primary surgeon walked in and was a 4th year from Ross on her first rotation (which is shelter medicine where you pretty much just do spays and neuters from shelters in the area all day for 3 weeks and I hope to get selected to be in that next year). She had never performed a spay and neuter on a cadaver, much less a live animal and had little to no confidence. She was unsure of how deep to go on the scrotal incision and how to push the testicle out so I had to somewhat instruct her. On the spay she couldn't find the uterus so the instructor let me get it with the spay hook, avulse the suspensory, and ligate and cut the first ovarian pedicle. I had to help along my primary with the rest of the procedure. Upon closing she couldn't get the right amount of rectus sheath without getting muscle and took forever to close a 4 cm incision just on the body wall.  I got to close the subQ layer and she was suppose to do the intradermal layer but was unsure of where to place the suture so I did the first throw working towards my dominant hand (which isn't the easiest). She still wasn't getting it and the procedure was getting pretty long and the instructors were getting impatient since we were the last table still going. She finally got it closed and we added some extra skin glue just in case. After she left I had to stick around to discharge our patients to the proper shelter and the instructor found me and told me how good I did and how patient I was with her. It felt really good. I've never thought of myself as a super confident person. One of my professors gave us a speech Friday about how when she started practicing she was all alone and had to do so many things she'd never seen or done but she was a doer. It might not have been perfect, but she got the job done because she was confident in herself. That has to be my motto from now on. With our advanced equine class I walked in with confidence and performed a lot of things first try. I had to walk into surgery like that because it could have been a total disaster if one of us didn't step up.  (That's the end of my I'm proud of myself speech). After surgery, I came home, slept until 2am then had to work from 330am to 8 am. I got some good studying in though, but had to mess with some babies with nasty diarrhea.
I'm sure a lot of people heard about it, but OSU experienced a major tragedy during the homecoming parade this year. Well, one of the sorority/fraternity groups put on a memorial run to support the medical cost of the victims and my friend and I decided to run. It was pretty fun and we kept pretty good pace with everyone in our heat.
A couple weeks ago the college held its veterinary fall conference for continuing education and one of our classes required attendance so we went and listened to a lecture the first day. The second day we were required to go, our other classes that day said we could stay and skip, but instead my friend and I only went for a couple hours then went down to OKC for the quarter horse world show. There wasn't a lot going on so after looking at the trade show we went to the mall where we just goofed off and tried on fancy, expensive dresses, ate at the food court, and got a crap ton of candy. It was so nice to just get away and do something pointless and fun. We decided to go back after finals and visit the cowboy and western heritage museum, the mall again, and maybe the outlet shops.
A couple weeks ago I saw a flyer at school that the parasitology dept was rehoming a bunch of research cats so I got in touch with them and adopted... 3... I'm not proud, but they were free (cost them $1000 per cat), they were spaying and neutering them, as well as heartworm and flea and tick prevention. I am using these as barn cats, but keep in mind these cats have never seen daylight before so it has been an interesting adjustment. There are 2 boys and a girl. They started out in the paved part of the barn for about 2 weeks and have recently expanded to the horse part. Dirt and horses were terrifying at first but they're getting better. Well, the boys are, they girl just hides constantly.  We let them outside for the first time Thursday for a bit and they really liked it. Hopefully we can let them out full time soon.
And last but not least, my ole trusty truck took a crap on me so the hubs and I traded it in for a low mileage diesel. Not really wanting payments right now, but we knew the day was coming so we held out until a really good deal came along.
Well, that's all I can think of for now...

Final...ly

Just finished my first final of third year this morning, but I guess I should bring you up to speed from the rest of the week. Monday was pretty boring, just classes all morning then working out. Tuesday, we had a little quiz in ophtho in the morning, then in the afternoon went out to the vet med ranch to palpate some cows. We started out by giving caudal epidurals, which I feel much better about even though these ladies were full of scar tissue. I also retracted the uterus and felt both ovaries, including the corpus luteum on one side on a couple of them. Ran after that and decided I needed some new running shoes. So Wednesday after class I went by academy and got some shoes and a really nice swim suit for lap swimming since they were on clearance and pretty cheap, then went and worked out.
Thursday afternoon went back out to the ranch for advanced equine lab. We got to do transabdominal ultrasound and got to sex 2 fetuses, transfer some embryos in a petri dish, and prepare semen for transport. It was pretty fun. Decided to do a quick run in the new shoes and I can't decide if I like them or not. After that we had to go to Jr surgery and do our QATs on our spay and neuter for our anesthesia practicum we had today. It took a lot longer then I was hoping and both our dogs needed muzzles. Then I came home and tried to stay awake to study for our Jr surgery lecture final we had this morning. It went OK, but I don't think it was as good as muskuloskeletal turned out last week.
After our therio lecture I decided to skip a couple classes to try and take a quick cat nap and review for my anesthetist rolls. I was super nervous, but everything turned out OK and both our dogs made it thru surgery without any major complications and our group got done over an hour before anyone else. I really lucked out in my placement for my group. After that, a friend and I decided pedicures were required to reward ourselves for the last 3 weeks of several hours in surgery.
I think that's about it. Next week should be pretty boring being a short week, no surgery, and no tests! I won't know what to do with myself not dragging butt into the house barely keeping my eyes open every night.

This past week seemed to never end! The Friday before last a pretty big storm went thru Stillwater and knocked the power out there so a friend came over and brought her dogs (since no power=no air conditioning) and we did a little art project in the barn...

Then we made little suture pads out of felt and this square stuffing material. Sunday I went to my parent's for my niece's baptism. She is getting so adorable and chubby! Also studied some... Bleh.

Monday was pretty uneventful. After class my friend and I ran three miles and went home and studied. Tuesday after class we went down and prepped our surgery packs, gowns, gloves, etc for our first cadaver surgery Wednesday, then had a bovine foot and bandaging lab for muskuloskeletal. After that I decided to go to a friend's house to watch videos to get ready for surgery and ended up taking until about 930, so instead of studying when I got home I zonked out. 

And then the stressful Wednesday came. I spent most of my classes ready junior surgery manual prepping for my neuter, celiotomy, gastropexy, and gastrotomy; but then we got an email saying that they weren't going to have enough dogs. When we got down to lab at 1230 they only had 1 make dog that was already castrated and a bunch of females, most of which had been spayed. I started freaking out a bit because I had prepared for a neuter not a spay. Well, I ended up splitting with my assistant surgeon because we didn't have a dog and joining another group that had a female that was also supposed to have a male, so we had 2 primary surgeons and an assistant surgeon. Once we got it we realized she was already spayed so that was good I guess, but I also lost a primary surgery and don't get to neuter a dog until we start on live animals :S. I only ended up performing the gastropexy, too. I closed half of everything on the abdomen though, and the surgery intern was impressed with my speed and how nice my patterns looked. I did an intradermal on the skin because of time, but apparently we were supposed to do simple interrupted. 

Thursday, I was assistant surgeon for spay, celiotomy, and chest tube insertion. Everything went pretty well, but all I got to do were some simple interrupted on the skin closure, which I realized that is my worst suture pattern. It is really hard for me to keep my spacing apart and from the incision edge as well as making sure it's not too loose or too tight. 

I got home exhausted Thursday night after spending 2 days in surgery for 5+ hours and had to study for our first exam (only 2 weeks into school, but we had double lectures for that class so it was like 4 weeks of info and 2 weeks to learn it).  I think the exam went pretty well on Friday. About 11 my friend and I were starving so we skipped therio and went to pie five and it was delicious! We went back to school and I met with my fellow surgeons and wrote up or surgery reports. 

Oh I forgot to mention I may have accidentally picked up another 2 hour elective, systemic pathology. So after our surgery reports I got together with another group to discuss the case for that class. The professor had told us not to jump to conclusions because it probably won't be it and we all jumped on chronic kidney failure and just kept circling around thinking it wasn't going to be that, and ended up being exactly what it was. It was super frustrating at points, but also felt really good putting everything together and coming up with a diagnosis. 

My friend and I went and worked out after that and didn't do much because we were too stuffed with pizza. I came home, barely studied, and crashed. Yesterday and today I pretty much have just been studying. Guess I better get back to it for the surgery lecture final on Friday.

Three days in to 3rd year and I'm exhausted. I forgot what it's like to be out of the house all day long. Scheduling for third year has been awful. They changed our schedules from block to regular, all semester long classes and it has wrecked havoc on the elective schedules. I've ended up dropping both the small animal and equine radiology electives because of conflicts. It'll be nice to only take 18 hours, but surgery is definitely taking more time than I had anticipated.
Monday we were out of class at 2 so I did elliptical and lifted weights with a friend. Yesterday we got out at noon so we went to a local store and got some new scrubs and a surgery cap. I'm so excited about these scrubs because they are so comfortable! Then we ran 3 miles.
Today we had class until noon then had to be at junior surgery for orientation. They showed us how to gown and glove, how to fold and wrap stuff, drape for surgery, reviewed anesthesia equipment (we have a new anesthesiologist and she is super awesome!), learned how to do QATS (quick assessment tests), and practiced suturing. Luckily I've been down to junior surgery and worked at a decent clinic before so most of it was pretty much review. It took about 4 hours and I'm definitely a little tired. This Friday some people have their first anesthesia or assistant surgeon assignments. Luckily I don't have mine until sept 4th but it would be nice to get it out of the way since our first test is next Friday and the Friday after that is our surgery lecture final. When we do we have to come in the day before between 4 and 7pm and do our QATS, then come in again at 9pm and walk and feed, then come in again at 7am and walk. I think I might try to get my anesthesia partner to do the 9pm walking and I'll do the 7am walking so I don't have to stick around Stillwater that late.
I was in a group with the girl I'm going to be doing surgery on the cadavers with and while I thought she would be kinda cool, she actually was totally unprepared so I'm a little nervous about that. Hopefully she steps up her hand before next Wednesday and Thursday when we practice neutering, celiotomy, gastropexy, spay, and chest tube insertion. Better get to studying...

Am I really a third year?!

We got our cadaver surgery schedule yesterday so I guess that means yes! I truly can't believe how fast the first 2 years went by. I was just thinking the other day about the summer before vet school started my husband and I had dinner with some friends and one of them was about to start 3rd year and I was so jealous he was halfway thru vet school and now that's me. My surgery partner is a girl that seems pretty cool and the best part is we are about the same height so we won't have to fight over table height and I don't have to stand on a stool. My first "surgery" is the 23rd... And school starts in less than 2 weeks.
We still don't have our day to day schedule so I haven't dropped any electives yet, but I know the time is coming. I know more than likely it will be the shall animal one, but I guess I'll just have to see what conflicts the most with my schedule. The only 2 times I work for the rest of the month are this Friday and next Friday. We have a 150 page syllabus and surgery videos to read and watch so I have a feeling that's what I'll be doing in my down time at work. The night tech that has been at the hospital for several years just quit so they are wanting us to work half shifts once school starts. I don't know how busy I'll be but I could always use the extra money.
I've been working out almost every day the past couple weeks and i feel like my arms and legs are more toned and that I can run longer without feeling like I'm dying at the end which is awesome. I've also been reading a ton of books over the summer. I started with the Grimm series and it really got me hooked on fantasy books. Another series a liked was the grey wolves series. There were a few other random books then the last one I read was called finding Fraser and it was about a girl trying to find me right based off the outlander series. Right now I'm reading true to the highlander which is the first book in a series also about a girl traveling back in time to 15th century Scotland and its been pretty good. Well I better get all my fun out of the next couple days and enjoy the rest of the summer.