Spring Break

I feel like second year I'm busy all the time, but it's nothing interesting enough to blog about. My choke horse is doing great and out with the boys in the pasture again and much happier.
School is going good I guess. The week before last we didn't have any tests so since they had an over night tech quit they've been needing help so I worked a couple 4 to 8am shifts. One of the shifts we ended up having a snow day with no snow. We took a virology and radiology test last week and still haven't heard grades from that.
We started our food animal techniques electives and it is so fun! I've gotten to do a caudal epidural, give a bolus, place a jugular catheter, do a paravertebral nerve block, and a Peterson eye block. So exciting!
In small ruminants the Friday before spring break we went out to a goat farm and trimmed get, did famacha scoring, and determined whether the goats were near kidding. It was pretty fun, but it was in the rain so that was no bueno.
So spring break a class mate and I decided to do extern ships at equine clinics in Texas. Unluckily, we couldn't get in at the same clinic so I went to one and she went to another about 10min away. I had so much fun! I feel much more competent with lameness exams and iv injections. I got to tube a horse, too which was cool. On the last day I got to palpate one of their blood donor mares so it was nice to brush up on my palpating. There were some cool procedures and stuff that I got to help with and I would do it again in a heartbeat.
I guess that's about it for now.

Just to add to the fun last week, when I got home Tuesday afternoon it started sleeting so I got the horses in their stalls to feed them. About 5 min later one started coughing and I looked at her and she was showing classic choke signs: swallowing constantly, drool, etc... I called local vets to come out but no one could so I had no choice but to call OSU. Luckily I know one of the equine residents and called her to see if there was anything they could possibly do since they were technically closed because of the ehv-1 quarantine. She called the on call rest and we decided to just have him do a farm call and tube her. By the time I was off the phone green goo was coming out of her nostrils. I gave her some ace iv to help her relax until he could get there.
Right before he pulled up she was laying laterally in the stall and straining. The vet immediately thought colic the way she was acting but once he saw her nose realized I was probably right. He sedated with xylazine and gave some buscopan to relax the smooth muscles in her esophagus as well as an NSAID. He tubed her and got some reflux out and she immediately felt better.
We started her on banamine BID for 3 days and sulfa abx BID for 10 days just in case she aspirated. She gets her feed soaked into a mash and her hay in water and can't go out for a few weeks, but she is doing really well. Stall cleaning isn't exactly what I want to spend my free time doing and she is really disliking being away from the boys as well as oral meds, but it could be worse.
School wise could be better. The first 2 tests of the semester I rocked but the next 2 were very bad. I pretty much threw myself a pity party when I found out. Hoping I get my shit together and do better.
My workout buddy and I decided to start doing elliptical and weight lifting Tuesday and Thursdays instead of yogalatis. While I really enjoy it, it was no fun getting up so early and I was exhausted the whole day. Other than that, I can't think of anything new.

is 2nd year over yet...

Every vet I talked to when starting vet school said after 1st year it's down hill.... Then after first year they said after 2nd year it's down hill.... Liars! Second year classes definitely aren't any easier and the topics aren't fun at all either. Emotionally, it has been so much harder with the loss of my dog and now my mom's horse tragically passing last week. I'm constantly tired and I never feel caught up. 

My first test of the semester was hemolymph and oncology and it went really well. Last Monday we had virology and I'm not really sure how I felt about it. Last Friday we had radiology and it was awful... The entire class was not happy. Yesterday we were supposed to have a virology quiz, but it got canceled, then we ended up having a snow day. Today we had an anesthesiology exam. It was tough but I don't think it kicked my butt like radiology. 

I've been doing really good about running 3 miles 3 days a week and doing yogilates or something of the like twice a week. I didn't end up running yesterday because of the snow day, and may have eaten a ton of brownies...

Work at the school has been a little crazy. A horse came in sick and turned out to be ehv-1 positive. Luckily I didn't have to work with it before we knew and my horses are pretty safe. I did work Friday night and stayed on the food animal side. I'm also a foal team captain this year so I'm having to coordinate a couple vet students and a bunch of pre vets and that had been interesting to say the least. Now that we have to quarantine at the hospital we can't have foals there so if one comes in it will be at the vet med ranch which is about an hour from my house. Hopefully nothing comes in soon. I'm also on mare watch on Friday. I'm hoping nothing at the ranch is due to foal! I need some catch up time this weekend. Ugh I need some sleep!

Umm, it's been a while....

Not too many exciting things happened over break. I went to a clinic I had shadowed at in undergrad and had a lot of fun. We saw some routine vaccines and I got to practice doing physicals, and actually found a little mass on one, run some fecals (which were all boring not showing evidence of parasite infections), pull some blood from a cat, and look at and interpret a bunch of blood work, which was perfect timing since since I had just got done with clinical pathology. I hung out at my parents' house a couple times, too. My nephew is really getting attached to me and is such a cutie. I also got together with an old friend and got to see an enuleation at an equine practice where she works.
I worked at the school for overnights quite a bit, which it was nice to get some money. I also helped collect urine at a quarter horse show and it made me really miss showing. Hopefully I get to some this summer.
Classes this semester are unbearable. We are taking hemolymph/oncology, radiology, anesthesiology, Food safety/zoonotic diseases, virology, pharmacology 2 for core and my electives are intro to beef production (which is basically an animal science class), small ruminant (which I had high hopes for, but not too excited about the 3-5 lectures on Thursday afternoons), and advanced food animal techniques which should actually be pretty awesome, but we only have it 6 times and haven't had it yet. So, another 20 hour semester. I've really tried to stay on track for studying and going over lectures the evening of when I get home. I think it helped in anesthesia lab today so hopefully it will help for the tests.
Last weekend a friend and I went to College Station for an equine wet lab. We left Friday around noon, got stuck in a ton of traffic in Fort Worth, and finally made it to the hotel a little after 9... long drive. We went for a quick run on the fancy hotel treadmills and went to bed. We had to be the vet school at 7:15 so we spent more time driving than we did at the hotel. We walked around the large animal hospital and wow... it was amazing, and huge, and sooo nice. Super jealous. Our first wet lab was laceration repair and since we haven't learned any suture pattern it was way over our head since it was mainly practicing what you already knew. Second we had abdominal exploratory and got to see what you'd see and do in a colic surgery which was pretty neat. Then, we had farrier lab which I was expecting to be my least favorite, but turned out to be the neatest. We got to actually trim a hoof and pretty much work one on one with a farrier to get our technique right. I have so much respect for farriers now. I have never sweat so much in my life, my legs were shaking and had bruises, and my ab and back muscles were killing me. Lastly we had a field anesthesia where we learned how to tie up a horse for field castration, as well as propping up for leg laceration repair. We had a mediocre lunch, but a hilarious speaker that works in Lamesa that offered anyone to come extern there. That might be a possibility next summer. We finally left around 3 and I got home about 11 so traffic wasn't as bad.
Coincidentally my farrier came out Sunday and trimmed my horses' feet. Monday it was so nice so I rode 2 of the horses. Tuesday I started doing yogalates again and I forgot how it made every muscle sore in my body. My friend and I have continued running from last semester and we can run jog slowly for 30 minutes straight. Every one might lap us, but we can run a lot longer than they can. Hopefully running and yogalates combined will help me lose some weight.
We have our first meeting of the semester tonight for VBMA, but the crappy thing is the same person is doing a mandatory 2nd year lecture on finance for personal and professional management Friday from noon to 5... yay, two long days in a row :/.
Well, I guess that's it for now. Hopefully I can blog more than once I month.

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!