ALMOST a doctor...

Hi friends!

I survived my first rotation, yay!  I spent a week on large animal anesthesia, and we had a couple of pigs, a calf, and a tiny baby mini-horse.  The rest of the time was spent helping out in small animal.  It wasn't until the last week that I felt like I finally started hitting my stride; then one professor was telling me "Late in the rotation, you guys tend to get comfortable..." and I wanted to laugh.  I never did get comfortable, but wouldn't you rather have an anesthetist who is on her toes? :)  One Friday I was assigned to overnight duty in large animal, here's what my awesome schedule was: I had ICU duty the night before til 11 pm, got to rounds at 715 am, got off "early" (3 pm), got to my apartment to take a nap (they were mowing the grass outside. go figure), was back at school at 6 pm for rounds, and did treatments in large animal until 730 am the next morning.  Have you ever gone 27 hours without sleep?  It was a first for me.  I think I'm still recovering.

This past week I started the Oncology rotation.  Once again, I'm surrounded by a great group of techs, doctors, and classmates.  One major difference between this and anesthesia is that now I have clients to work with.  I'm a little bit (OK a lot a bit usually) on the shy side but I think it's been going well, even with the more ... difficult... ones.  A few have told me that I'm doing a good job :)

It's a little frustrating; I'm not sure I'm learning as much as I should be since we've been so busy, but hopefully I'll have time this weekend to look over some notes and be more ready for next week.

Hope you're all doing well!  As usual, sorry for the few and far between updates.

~RED

Well, I'm surviving.  Thank God for the "super seniors" and the amazing anesthesia techs and my wonderful classmates... They haven't let me down yet.  The surgical procedures they do at a referral hospital are way more intense than the ones I'm used to, and therefore so is the anesthesia.  There are tons of drugs and tons of monitors and it's all quite overwhelming.  I gotta admit it, I expected the worse out of this rotation - and while I've had a few mess-ups and it has scared me out of my head and overwhelmed me in so many ways, somehow at the end of the day it's been better than the worst-case-scenario I had in my head.  Next week I'll be on large animal anesthesia so I'll get to spend some time in the barn.  It's a little bit of a different pace down there so even though cows and horses aren't my "thing" I'm looking forward to it.  If there's not much going on down there I'll help out in small animal.  Three more weeks of constant stress... I can handle this.  (This is not to say the other rotations won't stress me out... It's just that anesthesia is so much MORE stressful for me :) )

Oh, let me make a plug real quick for some shoes... they're called I Love Comfort... I'm pretty sure they're from Sears.  While my legs and feet are pretty tired from being on my feet most of the day, they don't HURT, which is an important distinction :)
Last night I slept for approximately 12 hours... I thought I was going to get called in so I went to bed early... the call never came :)   The crazy cat thought that 5 and 7 am were good times to wake me up, but I disagreed.
Today:  laundry, cleaning the apartment, and maybe doing some studying for boards.  Tomorrow:  more of the same, except I'm on call again...

1 year, 1 week, 3 days til graduation.  Clinics, a little thing called boards, and an externship are all that stand in my way.

Hopefully I'll be able to continue giving some boring updates along the way.  I hope they'll be boring, because boring is safe :)  I'm learning lots.  Hopefully I'll be able to keep it in my brain!

... and I don't feel fine.  Actually, I feel like I might vomit.

Tomorrow my wonderful classmates and I start clinics.  So begins 13 months of playing doctor, or at least glorified vet tech!  It's a terrifying yet exciting time.  But between that and studying for boards, time will be limited.  I'm going to cut down on facebook and other forms of communication with the outside world, but I hope to update the ol' blog every once in a while to keep everybody updated on my survival status. 

My first rotation is anesthesia, and that will last 4 weeks.  I wanted to do it first because it's the scariest to me and there is some overlap with the graduating 4th years. 

And as scared as I am there is plenty of hope.  I spent Saturday afternoon working at Open House (where we... open... the hospital to the public) and I counted 16.5 girls who want to be vets (one wants to be a human doctor. she'll change her mind).  I also got to answer countless questions about vet school and my profession, and there were some amazing people - complete strangers! -  who expressed soooo much gratitude for what I'm doing.  Sometimes it's overwhelming how lucky I am to be living my dream.  Instead of vomitting, I think I might cry now.

Please send up prayers/think happy thoughts for all of us!

Love!

RED

i put my sheets in the dirty clothes hamper, and there, right on top, as big as my hand... was a spider.  ok, it wasn't nearly that big but it might as well have been.  you know i'm an animal lover, and while that doesn't exactly translate to a love of creepy-crawlies, i usually at least let them be.  Unless.  unless they take me by surprise in MY apartment.  i flushed the spider down the toilet, after apologizing to her of course.  i then proceeded to stub my toe, almost breaking the nail, on the door frame that has been sitting in the same spot for the last two and a half years i've lived there.

oh karma.  you got me there. but i DID apologize  

i know it's been a while.  ok, a really long time.  it's just that every time i thought of something to write, it was really random or silly and i didn't think it worth sharing.  then i realized that's kinda what blogging is about, and i enjoy reading YOUR random or silly stuff so maybe it will be mutual.

anyway, back to the topic at hand.
so there used to be this little fan in my room: mostly just to keep air moving through my apartment, partly as white noise to help me sleep.  well it kept getting stuck and making this weird noise and i haven't been able to use it all semester.  this has resulted in me not sleeping very well, and honestly i'm just now figuring that out.  actually i figured it out saturday morning at 3 am when i was awakened by a woman screaming bloody murder.  i thought it had come from outside so i was about to go look out the window, until i heard it again.  next door.  another scream, quickly followed by a lot of "yes! YES! YES!"

oh my. 

i see a trip to walmart in my future.

sleep well, my friends!  ... and here's hoping sleep is all my neighbors do tonight.

Hey all, 

I'm posting these pics for a friend of mine that's moving and trying to sell her stuff on craigslist, but it's stupid and not letting her post them.   If by chance you're interested, click here.

Today is almost tomorrow, and with tomorrow comes the answer to the question we've been asking for 4 years.

Who's gonna take over this mess??

Because the truth is, no matter who "wins" tomorrow, they will be inheriting a country with issues.  Who in their right mind would want that job?? 

I hope you've voted, if for no other reason than it preserves your right to complain about the next president.  And in his defense, whoever it may be, let me say that it's taken things a while to get this bad... so it will take even longer for them to get better. 

So whether it's "Robin Hood" or "Sad Grandpa" - best of luck, sir. 

Someone stole all the Obama signs from the parental's street.  Yes, all four of them (versus the 12 or so McCain signs).  Don't take that as an accurate poll... we're talking about the very RED state of Tennessee here. 

Well, Dad, being Dad, replaced the stolen sign with one of his own.

"You might have stolen my sign, but you can't steal my vote!
... It's too late!"

Ha, I love it!

In the two or three days following my last update, Ryan began speaking and standing up and writing again!  He was in a pretty constant state of irritation, though, and someone had to keep an eye on him 24/7 or he would pull and tug at the tubes connected to him.  He managed to get away with a couple of times anyway :)  The therapist would quiz him on where he was or who people were and he would just get frustrated and not answer. 

Thursday was another huge day.  He got all the answers right.  He was confused about how long he had been in the hospital, understandable I think.  He got on the computer... and proceeded to get on Facebook and have multiple conversations with friends.  What?!?  haha! I love it.  You know someone is doing well when they're on Facebook!

Friday morning the family realized Ryan would not be able to go to the rehab center they wanted him to go to, because he was doing TOO WELL.

Friday afternoon he was discharged from the hospital and sent to Vanderbilt's rehab center!!!!

He is doing well there.  So well there that they think he can become an outpatient as soon as THIS SATURDAY.

They still aren't sure how long this rehab will have to go on and they don't know what, if any, permanent damage there will be...  but needless to say we are all simply overjoyed that he has made it this far.

Go ahead. Be amazed.  The doctors sure are :)