Thursday, January 23, 2014

The last few days have been interesting to say the least. Neuro block has been just as difficult as anticipated, but I feel like I might finally be starting to get the hang of it (that is until we get our next set of disclosures tomorrow). I try not to mention the cases because I'm pretty sure the school has rules against that and I don't want to ruin it for any future students that may read this but what we've been learning about this week is essentially the neuromuscular junction and the role of acetylcholine in that. Definitely easier than the case last week, where I'm still not really sure where the focus was.. maybe proprioception?
Over the weekend, one of my roommates locked me out of the house on purpose and then drove out of town leaving me alone for over four hours. It was fine, I broke in through one of the windows with Piper, but thank god none of the neighbors found that suspicious.
Then today, we had a weird situation where some older man rang our doorbell twice -- I thought I was the only one home and I don't answer the door if I'm not expecting anyone. When I looked out the window, I saw him take a clipping from one of our trees, get in his truck, and leave the neighborhood. About ten minutes later, I heard people talking and laughing outside of my house. I looked out the window and saw two younger guys stepping off of our porch with a blue bag in their hands. They walked down the street, got in a truck, and left. It was all rather strange. One of my roommates wanted me to call the police, and I kind of agreed with that, especially if our house is being used as a drop for something. Ultimately, after talking to my landlords who were immensely helpful, I didn't call the police. My landlords actually said if it happened again to let them know, and they'd call the police. I've gotten really lucky to have such nice landlords for my first time living on my own, they really do a lot for us and they're always reachable which is nice.
SC-AVMA is doing something pretty cool and hosting a casino night where something like $20 gets you $10 of chips and two free drinks. Which would be great if I could actually drink! I'll be 21 soon enough, I suppose.
I got Piper spayed over winter break by one of the doctors at home and actually had to take her in to our on campus clinic today because she'd developed what looked like an abscess at the cranial part of her incision. She'd had some oozing at her recheck, so I was a little worried about it being an abscess or something bad but they ended up telling me that it was likely a suture reaction and if it doesn't go away in 2-4 weeks (or it gets worse) that the next step would be antibiotics and surgical removal... Not super stoked about a possible surgical removal since I just paid for one surgery and getting anything like that done at school is way more expensive than at home, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
I don't know if I included this in my last post, but I found out I officially got all As and Bs for my first semester of vet school! I actually ended up only getting one true B, and that was in MCB (sad! At least I got an A on the final) and then I got an AB in VBS which basically means for the 16 credit course I get 8 credits of an A and 8 credits of a B. I got an A in clinical skills which apparently no one did well in, so I feel really good about myself -- I can do this vet school thing!

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

The last couple of days have been interesting. Our second week of neuro block consisted of... a lot of neuro! I'm not a huge fan of the stuff we're learning mainly because I don't really feel like I'm getting anywhere with it. I have zero experience with neuro and I think it's definitely kicking me in the butt. Basically, we're learning about the spinal cord and lesions isolated to the cervical vertebrae -- particularly the caudal cervical vertebrae.
I got to do a bovine physical exam yesterday, which was so exciting! I like cows a lot more than when I started. For anyone curious on how to do one, there's amazing videos on YouTube and the Penn CVM site has a lot of handy pictures and descriptions as well. I was amazed at just how loud rumen contractions were! I'm not fantastic at auscultation so I was pretty proud of myself for knowing where to listen to the heart and lungs on both sides as well as cecum, rumen, and other fun gut sounds! We were also able to do something called ballottement, since the cow was... PREGNANT! It was super cool. Basically, you push your fist into the cow's side repeatedly, almost a punching motion, and that swings the fetus away from you until it comes back and hits you back. Too cool!
I had an ophthalmic exam lab today which I really liked. I'm liking ophthalmology way more than I expected but I'm still on the fence as to whether or not that's a viable career option. I really like my surgery, and I'm not sure how much of that ophthalmologists get to do. Piper came in as a volunteer and I'm assuming she was good, since I didn't hear otherwise! She's volunteering as well on Friday. I figure it's free screening as well as it's good for her to be poked and prodded as much as possible by as many people as possible. We learned how to use the transilluminator to monitor direct and consensual PLR. We also used the direct ophthalmoscope which is something I've known I need more practice with. I've been able to use that a few times thanks to the doctors at our Banfield rotation but it definitely takes a lot of practice. We also performed indirect opthlamoscopy (no idea if that's a word!) which I'd never seen before, so that was pretty cool. Basically, you shine the transilluminator in the pet's eye until you see the tapetum essentially reflect back at you and then you place a huge magnifying glass in the middle and boom! The whole retina is there for you to exam, as well as the optic nerve and blood vessels. One of my friend's facilitators said he'd take her and her dog in next Monday for some more practice so I'm hoping to crash that.

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Starting block 3

Winter break was incredible but I'm definitely ready to get back to class! I ended up finishing the semester with all As and Bs which was definitely a great feeling. I managed to get a 90 on my MCB exam, which is the one I was really worried about so that was a huge relief.
The first weekend that I was home, I went to Ocala to show the horses and ended up doing fairly well, all things considered. I got a couple good ribbons on the boys and had a lot of fun. Christmas was fun, and my parents ended up getting me a new laptop which was perfect. My laptop was getting older, the battery wouldn't charge (even after replacements) and it had warned me a few times that I was facing impending hard drive failure. The new computer is much lighter, slimmer, and easier to use. It's amazing to have a computer that boots up as soon as you hit the power button! I didn't get to see Taylor for Christmas, which was sad but he did come home for my friend's debutante ball a few days later so we got all dressed up and went out, which was fun!

Piper, the horse show dog

Bruno's Christmas braid

All dressed up

He really does love me

Taylor being a good sport in the cold

The books I came home to

I ended up working quite a few hours while I was back home which was great. The doctors were all nice to work with, not that that's a change. I got to see a couple cool things like a gastrotomy, where the doctor removed a sock and clumps of hair. Then there was the one year old pitbull that had medial patellar luxation gd 4/4 and a CrCL tear as a result. One of the doctors went over the pathogenesis and pathophysiology of kcs (keratoconjunctivitis sicca) in a case we saw which was great, because the first thing we're learning this block is eyes!
New Years was fun, I watched Ocean's 12 with the family at home before I went out to a bar/club by my alma mater with some friends. I was able to ring in the New Year with Taylor, so it was nice that we got to do that much together.
Piper handled the trip really well, and loved everyone. She wasn't able to socialize with my dogs at home because they don't really like other dogs, so that was a shame. She adjusted well though, and I think she's all the more well-behaved as a result. Right now, she's sleeping at the foot of my bed which is something I couldn't get her to do before our trip home!
Like I said before, this first week is all about eyes. I've been reading a lot about how images are perceived, how vision works, and diseases like glaucoma, lens luxation, and uveitis. Eyes don't seem horrible so far, but I also haven't officially been back to school yet, so we'll see how it goes today!

Taking over the bed