I'm Alive...Promise

Getting a **serious** tongue lashing from my friend Jen on her blog, I figured it was about time I did an update. I didn't realize how many devoted fans I have to this boring log of my life. It's been very busy, even though I have been on 'Radiation Vacation'...there at 8:30am and home by 5:00 or so. No patients in the hospital to worry about, very minimal ICU duties, and a lot of free time to actually cook a meal, play with my mutts, and go letterboxing. All that shall come to a screeching halt in about 3 weeks, though as I start my Large Animal Medicine rotation.

Speaking of LAM: last Thursday was a very disheartening day. I volunteered to do the large animal radiology requests. We started with a mare that had a broken lower leg. The owners felt she would be good enough to be a brood mare (momma) so, that was her only saving grace from euthanasia land. We radiographed her surgical site, pins and a cast had been placed, and it seemed to be slow healing, but it was healing nonetheless. She was so sweet and didn't even want to get up in her stall for us she hurt so bad.
Next, we had to go radiograph a big ole bull that had a lameness in his front leg. They had put him on the special table which holds them down (very tightly) and on their side so the doctor can work on their feet. After smelling that NASTAY foot from a mile away, you could see the nastiness draining from his foot abscess. Yep, owners say, 'don't do anything else for him'. So, the doctor put on a block (something placed on the bottom of their feet to help with pain). Then, we moved onto our next patient. As I walked away, I knew that he was being made comfortable enough to make it to the slaughter house.
I then went to lunch...hoping for something positive to happen in this death and gloom day...
I went over to find Cindy, who is in LAM, and I couldn't find any of the students or clinicians ANYWHERE. So, I knew **something** was going on **somewhere**!! I found it!! The doctor was in up to his shoulder and had been working his butt off to get this little calf out of his severely stressed momma. The owner had brought the momma in because she was having difficulty having this baby. While the doctor was working for 15 minutes, a technician was shaving and prepping her side for an emergency C-section. If he couldn't get this baby out within the next few moments, they were going to have to cut her. Well, the doctor is sweating and completely exhausted (there is no way I would have been able to do that) and all of the students were putting all the muscle in their bodies against the chains that were wrapped around the baby's' front legs, he finalllly came out. From my point of view, he looked a little cyanotic, but I thought I saw him move his tongue. They immediately took him to the mat and started all the measures to get him to come around. Oxygen, heat, stimulation, etc.. I heard them tell the doc and the owner they had a heartbeat. I almost started crying. The intensity of the whole situation was so overwhelming it was unbelievable. Then, just as the owner walked out of the room, I saw them start CPR and ask for the epinephrine. The little precious black hairy baby was gone just that quick. Momma in stress, the muscles of 8 people to get him out, he has a heartbeat, then he is dead all within 30 minutes. IT SUCKED BIG TIME. Oh well, such is life. But, seeing a baby who didn't even have a chance in the world just plain sucked.
Looked around the corner and a different momma cow who looked like she was near dying earlier in the day was now loaded onto a forklift to be put in the back of a pick-up and taken to the pathology lab to find out why she died. She left behind a baby in the stall moooing for her momma.
Bad day...No other way to put it, plain sucky day.

Thursday night I hear the air horns outside. I assumed they were tornado warnings, but I couldn't find any notification on tv or the computer anywhere. It did seem like tornado weather and it freaked me a little bit. I called Cindy to ask if she had heard anything, no she hadn't. So I told her if she didn't see me the next day to come to Kansas and look for me. =)

Friday night, I got a movie from Blockbuster, ordered a pizza, put on my pjs and snuggled with my dogs on the couch!! I finished carving grandpas' stamp and getting gma and gpa boxes ready to take to Anderson.

Saturday morning Jim calls. He had Brett and was apparently up early...haha I was still in bed. We talked for a few minutes then I said I was gonna get up and get moving to plant my boxes. Well, Jimmy called back at like 10am (apparently expecting me to be awake HAHAHA) and I was like "helllllo?". Jim says, "You're still ASLEEP?" Yes, Jim, I am taking advantage of this while I can!!! That time, I really got up and started my day...now that it was half over!
Drove to Anderson, planted the Remembering my Grandparents boxes at the cemetery where they are buried. It was a cold, windy, slightly rainy day. It was a good day for me. So, I planted the 2 boxes and headed back to Lafayette. I stopped in Zionsville to grab 2 boxes on the way home. They were pretty easy to find and the town is SO DANG CUTE!! I want to go back on a better spring day, I think it would be absolutely adorable!
Last weekend I hiked at Shades State Park where I nearly died from hiking exhaustion, but got 7 new finds. Then I went and ate at A Hole in the Wall, proceeded to Turkey Run where I planted my Deer Meets Elk. When Jimmy and I first started talking online, I saw a website that described animal totems. I asked him which one he thought he was and which one he thought I was. I am *not lying* here, but he picked the exact same thing for himself and for me as I had picked. There were about 30 animals with paragraph descriptions of the people who possess that specific totem. So, of course, I had to plant those boxes.

Plans for the next few days: determine what my radiology project is going to be. Radiology ends in about 2.5 weeks. We will have an exam at the end (look at the films and tell what you see, further diagnostics needed, what's wrong, how to treat it?) and we have to profile a certain interesting case. I think I know what I want to do, but I will work on that tomorrow. Everyone loves to work with me over there (how can they not??!!)
In Large Animal Medicine (which I start after radiology ends) we have an oral exam at the end and have to give a 30 minute powerpoint presentation on some topic of our choosing. It has been suggested to me that since I will be so busy over there, that maybe I should begin working on my project while I have time on this rotation. Dang, that's not a bad idea. I know what I want to do, so if I have down time tomorrow, I am going to head to the library and get some research done. I want to focus on management of critical care cases dealing with deep burns in horses that have lived through barn fires and/or fires from overturned (accident) trailers on the highway.

For this weekend: try to plant 3 more boxes for a series P's Favorite Movies. I have a stamp carved for Seabiscuit, Ladder 49, and I need to work on the stamp for Forrest Gump. THEN I just need to figure out where to put them. Seems like I have the same block as mom does!! We have the stamps, just can't think of the perfect place to put them.

For now, time for me to quit rambling and I will try and post a little more often. I had a slight, ok MAJOR, panic attack because I was not able to get onto my blog for a week or so. No response from the webmasters at blogspot, Kimmy finally worked her magic (as always).

More later, as the happenings at vet school unfold!