What do you like to do outside of school?

Last week's blog post of the week topic was "What do you like to do outside of school?"

Now, that's a really, really easy question for me but unfortunately, I don't get to do it a whole lot anymore! I love my horses, and that's where I try to dedicate a lot of my time. I started riding when I was about twelve and before I knew it, I had my own horse and in the last few years I've been lucky enough to qualify to show in adult jumper finals in New York and Georgia. I've had a reasonable amount of success, which I won't be able to compare to in the next few years, but I love just going home and riding my ponies.
Reading about riding isn't nearly as exciting as looking at it, so here's some pictures and videos!

The first jumper I rode and showed, Happy. He was euthanized a couple years ago and I miss him every day. 

Nick and I showing in the adult jumper finals in New York, and receiving our third place ribbon!

Marshall and Sterling Finals with Nick
This was SO much fun, but I definitely crawled until the last half of my course when I suddenly remembered how to ride again.

Nick and I competing in the adult jumper team finals in Georgia, last year. And me on the podium, with my team, getting our medals!

Nick in the GP Ring in Conyers
This was our first time in Georgia, at this show grounds, and in such a nice ring! I was definitely holding him back, thus the rail, but I was just so excited about getting to jump a jump on the hill!
Here's a better video
This is of our last trip in Georgia, where we secured bronze for team Florida! There's the awards presentation at the end, which is skippable.

Bruno playing around in the hunters in Georgia

Both Nick and Bruno showing at RMI in Ocala

Bruno and I showing in the SFHJA Medal
I had taken several months off of riding at this point, since I'd moved to California for school! Not a flawless trip, but not bad for both of us being out of shape and never having gone to Wellington!

The bottom one is me on Wally last week! He's grown a lot. 

The most interesting case

The blog topic of the week for last week (I'm a little behind!) was "What has been the most interesting case you have seen?"
I worked in a Banfield, which is a general practice, so I haven't seen a whole lot that was absolutely amazing or super rare but there's been a handful of things that I just thought were cool to be a part of in general.
About a year ago, we had an ADR ferret come in and the husbandry wasn't exactly up to par so our DVM assumed it was hypoglycemia. Apparently, this is something that's pretty common in ferrets, as well as adrenal tumors. So, what do you do to confirm hypoglycemia? A spot glucose! Let me be the first to say that I'm not a huge fan of ferrets. They're essentially a cross between two animals you don't want to piss off: a cat, and a snake. Anyway, I ended up holding this ferret so the other VA could poke his ear, just like we do to cats, and get a drop of blood for our glucometer. Unfortunately, he just couldn't get blood. Okay, so... try a saphenous stick? Nope, that didn't work either. Right, go for the jugular. Nope. We weren't really sure how viable it was to go for either of those on a ferret, but the DVM told us that we should be able to get blood that way. The other VA and I ended up switching, and at this point in time, I wasn't super confident in my blood draw skills, let alone on a ferret. So, I held off, I palpated, and boom! I actually managed to draw blood from the jugular of a ferret. Definitely made me feel good.
Another time, just because I like ortho, we had this 1 yr old MN pitbull come in. He was super cute, his owners had put a little bow tie on him, and he was just the happiest guy ever. He'd been limping for about four months and by the time the owners brought him in, he was three-legged lame. The doctor couldn't find anything on physical exam because there was so much effusion and everything was just blown up. So, to rads we go! As soon as we took the first VD, we could see that he had medial patellar luxation gd 4/4 that had likely caused what looked to be a cranial cruciate tear. It was really cool to me to be able to actually see that on radiographs and recognize it, as well as the fact that it was pretty rare for a big and young guy like this to have that kind of a problem.
One of the most recent cool things I saw had to do with a snake, that, just like the ferret, had some husbandry issues. The owner had fed it a mouse that was a little too big and it essentially didn't break down appropriately. The snake had pushed and pushed to defecate the remains of the mouse and had ended up prolapsing its rectum. The doctor tried to push it back in a couple times but as soon as the snaked moved, it popped back out. So, I ended up being able to give injections to the snake (definitely a weird thing to do!) and she did a pursestring suture to keep the rectum in.
The last thing, that kind of tips the scales, although I wasn't directly involved, was Joe. Joe was a dog rescued by Save A Life in Orlando. Joe had been used as a bait dog before being rescued and his injuries were pretty extensive. One of the doctors I worked with performed several skin grafts to help close Joe's multiple wounds and he ended up being a live-in patient for a few months. Joe still limps, and he had a surgery to repair his patellar luxation as well, but it was amazing to see not only the turn around this dog made but also just how happy he was. He was always genuinely happy to see us come in, in the morning and he loved to run around the hospital at night as we closed. He went to a great family who takes very good care of him. The really amazing thing was the outpouring of support from not just the community, but even people overseas. Joe's story went viral and they raised a lot of money that just kept coming in. Joe's story can be found here. I didn't include the pictures, just because some of them can be considered pretty graphic.
I have a lot of time left in the profession, so I'm sure I'll see some other cool stuff too!

Spring break!

Spring break, as well as exams, have come and gone. Exams were not horrendous, especially considering all the horror we hear about neuro block, and endocrinology is not my specialty! We have a couple grades back, and I'm excited to say that I'm maintaining my A in clinical skills! Sadly, I got an 89.57 on VBS... So close, yet so far! I didn't challenge any exam questions because I forgot about it, so that's kind of a bummer too. I was just excited to get home.
I left for Orlando on the Friday and got in Saturday at 5 AM. I immediately went to the barn and rode Nick and Bruno, and they were great! I schooled both of them on Monday and even got to jump Wally over a couple things. For almost never getting ridden, Wally was fantastic. He still misses his lead every once in awhile, but it's much better than it was and I have to consider the fact that he's only three. I was supposed to work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, but I got super sick and was throwing up at work on Tuesday so that was a no-go. It was still nice to see everyone at work when I wasn't vomiting, though!

My little man is getting so big!

I went to HITS Ocala on Thursday. I still wasn't feeling 100% and I was super out of shape so we stuck to some smaller classes with Nick, and I don't mean the entries were small! There were 50+ people in all of my classes, I think, and I still managed some good ribbons! Nick and I were champion in the adult jumper lows and got second or third in the one 3'3" class I tried. Bruno and I played around and didn't do fantastic in the equitation (surprise, surprise, I don't ride so pretty anymore) but I was still so proud of him for being good and jumping around all the rings. One of our medals was even in the jumper ring, and we haven't gone in there for at least three years and he handled it like a champ.
I went home Saturday night and got to ride Wally on Sunday. We jumped a little course for the first time ever and he was great! It was just two lines, but we finished with a big red gate with a pole over the top. It was probably 2'6", so the biggest he'd ever jumped and he loved it! I'm so proud of how far he's come.

I bought Piper a blanket

Bruno being all cute

I got back to California around midnight, and have been doing the school thing ever since! I'm still working on setting up an ultrasound wet lab for surgery club. I have the go-ahead from the professor who's doing it with us, so that's super exciting! We were focusing on bladder and ureters the week before spring break and this week is kind of the same thing, plus kidneys, and feline urinary behaviour. I'm not a huge fan of behaviour, but I guess I'll deal.
I got called in for foal watch on Tuesday from 2-6 AM and it was awesome! There were two foals there: one was an orphan, and the other had neonatal isoerythrolysis. They were both doing really well, which was awesome especially considering the only other time I'd been called in was for a dummy foal that was ultimately put down. I flushed both of their catheters and gave them kpen IV, and then flushed again. That was super fun to do all on my own, especially since they both felt so great that they wanted to play. All good experience though, especially since I'd never flushed an equine catheter before!

Back to studying!

Done with neuro block!

I'm done with exams, and I'm done with neuro block! I'm glad I actually survived. A lot of people are talking about how they just know that they failed everything and I definitely don't feel like that... I already know I only missed 4 or 5 questions on our anatomy practical, which is loads better than I've done before. I kind of screwed up radiology, but I find spinal rads to be pretty difficult to identify all the bits and pieces... Anyone got a good way to learn that or a good resource for it?
The clinical skills practical was interesting... I definitely did well as it was things that were suited to my strengths: suturing, dosage calculations, identifying instruments... Not too bad. Unfortunately, at one of the suturing stations, the professor commented on how my horizontal mattress was a little loose and asked me the differences between vicryl and PDS, made me go and wet the suture, and then told me I needed to hurry up because there was someone waiting... The suture station was literally just suturing! So, that was a little frustrating and inappropriate.
I had been called in for foal watch the night before, so I didn't get home until 6 AM and then my exams started at 10:30 AM so I was exhausted by the end of the day. Foal watch was super cool though, I got to help reflux the foal and give it milk through an NG tube... poor baby ended up being euthanized after I left though. Super sad, but it was the right decision.
A bunch of us went out to Elephant Bar last night so that was a good time, and I came home and passed out! Today I'm going to go see the sutures get removed on the mare that had her enucleation last week and tomorrow I'm helping with a TNR in Burbank all day!

How did I choose WesternU?

The topic for this week is how you chose your school and what you like or dislike about the location.

Oh man, WesternU... I feel like I'm one of the few people at this school that didn't have them ranked at the bottom of their list. When I applied to WesternU, I had no idea about the controversy surrounding the school, how it had just received accreditation and how so many people were unhappy with it. A lot of the students here are constantly talking about how they're only going here because they didn't get into UC Davis or some other school... there's a lot of bitter rejects from UC Davis. It's funny because, talking to them, they only applied to Davis and WesternU, and now they're upset they're "stuck" at WesternU! I think regardless of where you are, you should be so happy and so excited that you're even in any vet school.
I originally applied to WesternU because I was intrigued about their PBL curriculum. I applied to Guelph as well, who uses a similar curriculum, although they adopted it earlier than WesternU and do not use it as extensively. I thought the PBL program was an interesting way to learn and, honestly, I was kind of sick of the same old same old. I skipped a lot of classes while pursuing my BS because the professors just read off of their Powerpoint slides. If they posted the slides, and I had a textbook, why go to class? I got a lot of crap from people for the very reasons I just stated. "So, you're going to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to teach yourself?" "You know you can't just teach yourself vet med. That doesn't work." "Why don't you go to a real university?" It was pretty disheartening to hear all these comments when I was so excited to tell people that I was going to be a vet! That being said, WesternU does not just allow you to teach yourself. They have a structured curriculum, using the systems approach. Every 4-8 weeks is a new system that we're learning and while PBL makes up most of our curriculum, we do have standard lectures as well. Vet Issues has lectures, MCB is seminar style so lecture and discussion, and then BSL can be either lecture or lab just like clinical skills.
I absolutely love that I don't have to sit in lecture from 8-5 every single day. I love that I get clinical experience so early in the curriculum. I'm not even done with my first year and I already feel comfortable in performing a routine physical exam, picking up on abnormalities, performing an ophthalmic exam, neurological exam, and otoscopic exam, I've been able to suture on live tissue and scrub in on a surgery! How many other first years can say that?
The thing that sucks about WesternU? The location. Coming all the way from the east coast, I knew absolutely nothing in the area and I would quite often find myself in a sketchy looking area without knowing how I got there. Pomona on it's own, where WesternU is located, is not bad. There are very nice parts of Pomona and I wouldn't be too worried about living there. However, a lot of Pomona is bad. They're trying to build it up, which is awesome. I can see where it used to be great, and where they're working on improving it but the problem is that the bad parts of Pomona are really bad. Holt Ave? Yeah, that's bad... It honestly doesn't affect my life all that much because I'm smart about it. I lock my doors, I don't go walking down the street after dark; school even has security officers that will walk you to and from your car and I make ample use of that just like I did in undergrad.
The best part about the location? I'm 45 minutes away from mountains and snow in one direction, and I'm 45 minutes from the beach in the other! I really want to get to the beach soon because I went whale watching but I haven't visited the actual beach and stepped in the sand. I was planning on going this weekend but I had foal watch this morning (up at 2 AM!) and then two exams, now I have the suture removal from the enucleation tomorrow, and Catnippers all day Sunday. I'll get there eventually! I love the mountains though, and I love that I always have a great view no matter where I am or where I'm headed.

Favourite thing about vet school

The blog post of the week, which I'm kind of late on, is your favourite thing about vet school.
I love vet school, which is weird to say because I know a lot of people hate it and, for them, vet school is just a stepping stone to their dream career. I love the long nights, the early mornings, the "Oh my god, what does this even mean?" I love all of it. It's kind of hard for me to pick one specific thing that I love the most. I love my rotations, because I love getting to practice my physical exam skills, see new things, and work on describing lesions and coming up with a list of differentials. I love PBL because I love comparing what I know to others to see if we can solve a problem. I love the extra opportunities I get, like closing that spay, helping with that necropsy, and observing the enucleation.

I guess what I love the most about vet school is that I'm finally surrounded by people that have similar interests and goals as me. It's still kind of odd to me -- I went to an undergrad with 60,000 students and our pre-vet club was very very small and out of those members, few go on to vet school. I never really had a class with anyone who wanted to be a veterinarian, although I met plenty of future doctors, pharmacists, dentists, and public health officials. So, it's nice to finally be in a location where there's hundreds of students that want to be a vet, that understand the toll it takes on us and how difficult the road is. It's really nice to be able to talk to someone about my classes, or what I want to do in the future without having to backtrack several steps and explain what I mean by an internship or board certified, or even having to explain that yes, veterinarians have specialties just like human physicians! It's so nice to be able to talk to someone about how seeing an overweight cat that's drinking a lot and is walking with a plantigrade stance is so obviously diabetes and not having to explain the how or why (although that's important to know!)