The Importance of Eyes and Brains

Well, today was the first day I actually felt like I learned something useful in vet school.  Which is an extremely sad statement, considering I've been here for almost a year and have put in countless hours of stress and studying, just to learn one freaking thing.  But hey, it's something. 

For an entire semester we were tortured with the horrors of neuroanatomy (the study of the brain structure).  We had names like "spinocerebellar" and "cerebrothalamic" (not even sure if that's a real word) thrown at us every day.  It was pointless.  These obscure structures had all these important functions that we just had to know, but it seemed to me that they were completely useless.  I'd written the brain off as being completely unimportant and irrelevant in veterinary medicine.  Next subject, please. 

Well today, we had a neurology exam lab for physical diagnosis.  Oh-my-goodness.  It was like the clouds opened up, and the sun show through, and I came to this amazing revelation.  The brain actually DOES have a purpose!  All those nerves that we had to dissect (and at the time were just pains in the butt that got in the way of our careful scalpel cutting) have actual functions.  They actually move muscles!  Who knew?  It was fantastic, and for the first time since I've been here, I've found something interesting.  Not that I want to be a neurologist or anything, but the idea sure is neat. 

Two weeks until Spring Break.  I absolutely cannot wait.  One entire week of doing absolutely NOTHING, except sitting on my butt, reading books, sleeping, eating, and running up Derek's electric bill with all the TV I plan to fry my brain (remember, it's important!) with.  It's going to be fantastic.  I can't wait.  To watch TV.  Which brings me to my next point: eyes are IMPORTANT.  Translation: you shouldn't put preserved horse flesh inside your eyes, because (1) it can damage your eye, and (2) it freaking hurts!

I'll set the scene.  We're in anatomy lab.  The lights are low.  The scary music is playing...

No really, we are in anatomy lab.  And once again I'm slaving away on this horse leg that is starting to look more and more like beef jerky every day.  Maybe I'll rip it off and package it and try to sell it as some rare horse jerky delicacy, or something.  Or maybe not.  Anyway, I'm scraping away at a muscle, and it's so dry that parts of it are just flaking off and flying all around like a little snowstorm.  Before I know it, one of the lovely flesh snowflakes has made a bee-line for my eye and has lodged its pretty little self right underneath the globe.  Fantastic. Before I really realize what's going on, the pain in my eye becomes so unbearable that I'm pretty sure I'm going to faint right there in the lab.  Ok, so it wasn't that bad (or even near that bad), but it didn't feel good.  I asked one of my lab partners if she could see anything, and she says, "Ew, oh my!  That's a huge piece of fascia!  How gross; you should probably get that out."  No shit, sherlock.  I grabbed Jamie and we went to the bathroom and she cupped fist fulls of water and tried to lift them up to my eye.  Now folks, here's a little lesson for you.  Considering the fact that the eye socket is concave, and a cup made by your hands would be concave, this maneuver didn't work too well.  So she starts just splashing water in my eye.  Which worked a little better until I looked in the mirror, pulled my lower eyelid down, and saw the disgusting alien staring at me from under my super red conjunctiva.  The blood vessels in my eye were so dilated that I looked like a freaking peppermint.  

We looked at each other at about the same time and knew what had to be done.  We walked back into the anatomy lab, crossed the entire room and stood in the exact center of the lab, where everyone could see us.  I'm pretty sure one of the only windows in the lab was centered right on this area as well, so any one lucky enough to pass by the anatomy lab at this time saw us too.  The dreaded eye wash.  

Check it out: http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/EHSRM/LAB/eyewash2.jpg

Absolutely fantastic.  Jamie pushes the pedal and the gushes of water come rushing out, soaking my shirt, my face, and luckily, my eyes.  Before we realized what was going on, there was a torrent of water coming out of the pedal, and we saw that there was some of kind of leak.  So not only did I have to subject myself to using the eyewash, I caused a lake right in the middle of the anatomy lab.  And a ton of stares.  It was great.  

So ladies and gents, remember.  Eyes and brains are both very important structures.  Those are the lessons that I've learned in the past two days, and they're good ones.  And now, I'm going to go use my eyes and brain for the very most important thing.  Watching television.  Fantastic.  

Tornado Warning

Today was the first day that I really wished I was back in West Virginia.  We don't get creep-o tornadoes in WV.  Ever.  We may get three feet of snow and rain, but never a tornado.  There's no "grab your 10,000 animals and TAKE COVER" (courtesy of the local weather channel). There's no wishing you had a basement in WV.  None of that.  But here.  Here is a different story.

I know, I know, it's been forever since I've blogged.  Between down right forgetting that I started a blog and being consuming with studying/all the new shows that have started on TV, I just haven't had time to sit down and write.  And to be honest, there really wasn't anything interesting enough to warrant a post.  Every day: school, eat, sleep, watch TV, freak out...and not always in that order.  I still want to accidentally leave the door open so my cats will curiously walk out and never come back.  I still want to pretend that I'm not really in vet school and just sleep all day and play with my horse when the weather is nice.  Oh wait.  I do that now.  

Today sure was something.  I get home for a seemingly unproductive day cutting on a horse leg, pretending like I know what I'm talking about when Dr. D comes over to have me identify the muscles.  

Me: "This is the..."

Dr. D: "Pectineus muscle."

Me: "Oh right!  Ha, I knew that."

Dr. D: "Oh wait, no it isn't.  This is."

Me: "Of course, Dr. D.  I was just testing you."

And so on, and so on.  Truth is, our dissection was probably so bad that the poor man couldn't even tell what our muscles were.  One of my lab partners and I cut off half of two muscles as we were trying to skin the stupid thing.  

See, now we just have two horse hind limbs.  Everything else is gone, although I'm really not quite sure how it happened.  We sawed the horse in half at one point, but another lab partner and I were too busy making snow men out of the horse's colon-contents to participate in that endeavor.  (Yes, true story.  Didn't even realize it was weird until someone graciously pointed it out...all this after I used stomach contents and skin to make a face on the cecum, which is another part of the intestine).  Anyhow, we had a back half for a while, and after luckily getting out of presenting our horse's well-endowed reproductive organs, we moved on to the leg muscles.

---For you horse people out there, someone decided it would be a great idea to put a white jellybean where the actual "bean" should be in the male repro goods.  That was cute---

Ten minutes into our leg dissection, Dr. D decides that we should saw this poor horse in half, so we would have two legs (count 'em, two!) to cut.  But, of course, us women couldn't do it, so we had to recruit the poor guys from the group next to us to saw apart the horse's pelvis.  Ta-da! Two legs.  Now three of us work on one leg and three of us work on the other, going back and forth frequently hoping in vain that the other trio might have some semblance of a clue about what we're supposed to be doing.  To no avail.  

Which brings me to today.  After a mind-blowing anatomy lab, I come home and resign myself to an evening of studying for a hideous immunology test coming up on Friday.  Around 5'oclock 

my idiot neighbors (who STILL have their busted windowed, flat tired, purple, piece of crap car sitting in front of my house) decide to pretend they're in a rock band.  Oh yes.  A rock band. Now, I've heard one of the stooges play the drums before.  Or, attempt to play.  But tonight, they had the all-out bass guitar, regular guitar, drums, AND singer ALL HOOKED UP TO AN AMP.  That's right, ladies and gents, I was lucky enough to listen to the Green Day wanna-be rock stars.  They were loud, and they were proud.  And there were oh..so..bad.  And they played for 2 hours.  2 hours!  Their last song was so fantastic.  The singer sounded like some kind of dying creature.  He was the screamer in the rock band that everyone either loves or absolutely hates.  Let's go for the latter.  So much for studying.  I looked outside to see 7 cars in and around their driveway.  Must have been a free concert.  Awesome.  

Around this time I start hearing the sirens.  Not that I knew that's what they were, considering I've never heard tornado sirens before.  I didn't think much of them after I realized they weren't the police coming to break up the party across the street.  But then, the band stopped playing (thank you!), and the 7 cars dispersed.  I turned on the TV in time to hear the weatherman stating that there had been a tornado spotted in my county and anyone in the surrounding area needed to take cover immediately.  Holy crap.  

I grabbed Ellie and Juno and threw them into the guest bathroom.  Then I grabbed Gidget and Pyper out of a sound sleep with one hand and threw them into the bathroom.  I couldn't find Tysan at first, but after I looked in my bathroom, I found her in the shower (her new favorite place).  I grabbed her and threw her in with the rest of the crew, got in, and sat in the tub.  For 30 minutes.  Gidget was in the sink (she was being smart), Tysan was on the side of the tub, Juno and Ellie were in the tub with me (what I thought this was going to do, I'm still not sure), and Pyper was rolling around the bathroom floor.  All I could hear was the wind, rain, and TONS of thunder.  Completely scared out of my mind.  I immediately gripped onto the tub faucet, and it twisted sideways.  I'll have to work on getting that fixed, since clearly it won't be any help to me in any future disaster.  I settled for grabbing onto the side of the tub.  Like that would help at all if a tornado decided to rip my house apart.  

Luckily, we all survived, the warning turned to a watch, and my entire crew emerged from the bathroom.  Not more than 5 minutes later, the 7 cars from across the street came back (they must have had some secret underground basement that I was unaware of), and the rock band started up again.  

Fridays are painful...

I think Fridays are the most painful days of the week.  Our schedule has allowed us two hours for lunch for the past two weeks, EXCEPT on Friday.  Translation: We have 3 classes in the morning Mon-Thurs, and 4 classes in the morning on Friday.  Why in the world would they do this?  It's torture.  So, I've had to find other ways to entertain myself.  Ethics class was a great time to catch up on my e-mails that I needed to get through.  Immunology I actually paid some attention to, until the prof started on some graph that just blew my mind.  So, Facebook and Mahjong stole my attention.  Virology I slept through, literally.  And the last class of the day, Career Opportunities is serving as a great time and place to update this blog.  FYI: Researchers should NOT be speakers.  Ever.  

I set off my alarm twice in the past week.  I've been living in this house for over 6 months and I've never done that.  It's probably the loudest noise that I've ever heard.  And it's the loudest at the keypad where you have to turn OFF the alarm, so you basically lose all function for lack of hearing, and it takes twice as long to turn the stupid thing off.  That combined with the fact that I set them off at 7:30 in the morning.  The first time I got it turned off fast enough that the security people didn't call.  Next morning, not so lucky.  

"ADT Security calling, is everything alright?"  

"Yes, thank you, I'm fine."

"Can I have your security code?"

"Sure, it's **********"

"No mam, that's not it."

Excuse me?  Is this lady serious?  It's 7:30 in the morning, my dog has to pee, I have to pee, and she's telling me my security code isn't right?

 "I don't know what else it would be, that's what I set my code as when I signed up for your service."

"Well, mam, why don't you look at the folder that we gave you when we set you up and see if you can find your personal identification number, which we can use."

"Look lady, I'm exhausted, I have to go the bathroom, my dog is taking steroids for her horrific wheezing which could be asthma, or even worse, tracheal collapse, and they make her have to pee all the time, so I can't go looking for that right now, b/c I have BETTER THINGS TO DO!"

Ok, so I didn't say that.  But I wanted to.  Instead...fine, sure.  I'll just go through my house, turing on all the lights, ignoring my dog who's doing an awfully frightening steroid-induced pee-dance, looking for this form.  I get into the study where I keep all my folders and the cats materialize out of nowhere, begging for food.  I ignore them.  Bad idea.  Pyper tries to get in the file drawer, while Gidget is walking all over my desk, staring at me.  Ok, found the folder, found the PIN, changed the password, thanked the lady for ruining my morning, fed the cats, let the dog out, let myself out, and started the day.  

Headed to Mississippi this long weekend to visit Derek and force him to go shopping for his place.  I'm excited.  He's not.  I don't really care though, I love shopping.  So, Juno and I are headed out after this horrendous morning is over. 

 By the way, Juno is doing much better!  The steroids are working, so it seems like an allergy problem.  She hasn't had a wheezing episode since Monday, and she's back to her old self.  Keep your fingers crossed that we've seen the end of it.

The Bane of My Existence

She's evil.  I mean, just look at her.  Take a closer look.  The cat's sole purpose in life is to ruin mine.  Her name is Pyper, and she is the bane of my existence. 

Now, let me be clear.  I love the cat.  Anyone would love the cat.  She loves people, she loves to be touched, and above all, she loves to be carried around like a baby.  Weird, right?  Trust me, you have no idea.  But in all of my run-ins with animals, this is the only animal that I've ever been around that has convinced me that she can think.  And reason.  And plot.  I am 100 percent positive that Pyper spends the entire day coming up with new ways to make my life miserable.  Every time I leave the house, I can see her staring at me through the kitchen window, and you can almost see the thought bubble materializing from her head.  "Let's see what kind of crap I can pull off today."  

Her favorite thing is to sit in an obscure place in the room, pretending to sleep, but really watching me putz.  Put things away, change some things, buy new things and find places for them.  No matter what, she will get up from her slumber, amble over to where the change has taken place, throw a couple meows my way, and promptly knock over whatever I've just put into place.  The best part is, once she does it, she runs over to me, rubs on my leg, and starts whining.  Really, Pyper.  Like I didn't see you do it?  Get serious.  Take yesterday for example.  I usually keep my cell phone on the buffet table next to my kitchen door.  It's safe there.  But I just finished a call and set my phone on my kitchen table.  Big mistake.  I walk over to the sink and here a thud.  "Meeooww."  Obviously.  My phone's on the hardwood floor and Pyper is whining away on the kitchen table.  

And she steals things.  Straws.  I mean, I know straws are absolutely enthralling, and I'm fighting an inner battle every time I see someone with a straw.  But I hold back.  Not Pyper.  She steals them.  In the sink, in the dish drainer, in a full cup.  I can't count the times I've found her with a straw, only to find the trail of liquid she left in her path as she whipped it out of the full cup it was occupying.  

You know those tiny little cover caps that sit on top of some unknown entity on the base of toilets?  Yea, I don't know what their purpose is either, and I most certainly didn't know that the cap was removable.  It's not like it just falls off spontaneously.  And it most definitely isn't in a place that you could accidentally kick it off.  You think that would stop Pyper?  I find her one day playing with an unknown white cap cover.  It took me 30 minutes to figure out where it went, and I'm still trying to figure out how she got it off or how she even figured out it could be moved.  She must have been plotting.  Are you starting to agree with me?  She's evil.

She's also mastered the element of surprise.  This, I believe, she does just to catch me off guard.  I think she's trying to stop my heart.  It's almost worked a few times.  Twice in the past 24 hours.  Juno gets up at 5 this morning, right?  Well, that's just too early to be getting up, so I put her out in the living room in her pen.  I'm just about ready to sleep walk back to bed when the weather man starts blasting me from my TV about the weather in some unknown state.  Woah, WHAT?  It knocks me off my feet and almost sends me running for the hills.  Not only did it scare the hell out of me, but the volume was up fairly close to the highest level it could go.  Oh my goodness, what monster is hiding out in my living room, trying to scare me to death with the weatherman?  None other than...PYPER!  She rolls over from her spot on the couch, meows, and I see the remote control peeking out from under her belly.  Amazing.  Good one, cat.  

Twelve hours later and I'm getting ready to fold some towels that were laid out to dry on my washing machine.  Just 2 simple towels, laid flat on the washer/dryer.  Seems harmless.  I gather them and get ready to throw them in the dryer to finish drying and it seems like they're a bit heavier than they should be.  Suddenly I realize I'm holding dead weight.  I scream and drop the bundle on the dryer, scrambling through the towels trying to find what I'm sure is something unpleasant.  Oh, I was so right.  Meow.  You guessed it.  Jess-0, Pyper-2.  

Just to let you all know, my beloved rescue Juno hasn't been feeling well.  She's been coughing violently, and the vet thinks it's either asthma due to allergy or (gulp) tracheal collapse.  The first can be controlled with drugs (so I've been told), but the tracheal collapse is more serious.  It occurs during excitement or stress where the tracheal rings collapse, which prohibit air from moving through the airway into the lungs, thus preventing Juno from getting the air that she needs.  She's currently on steroids, which will help with the allergy if that is the problem.  So, we'll know within 5 days.  If not, it's off to UGA Vet Hospital for more diagnostic testing.  Please keep her in your thoughts.  

Reminiscing...

So before I start, make sure to take a look at yesterday's post. I got super computer savvy and added some pictures of poor Tysan. Although, I must say, those pictures were taken BEFORE she went for the dryer ride, so I can't be held completely accountable for her insanity.  

I wonder if the future pet owners that will be our future clients have any idea of what their trusted veterinarian did in class first year. And in our defense, I say, if they had any, ANY idea of what we have to go through on a daily basis, maybe they would pardon our behavior. Today was the first day that I broke down and surfed the internet during class. And I was proud of that! And again, in my defense, I was productive. I checked my e-mail, read about the years worst dressed stars, surfed facebook, and shopped for a book online. Hey, that's better than my online beer pong game playing that went on last semester. Trust me, it's addictive.  By the way, the above picture is taken with IBooth on a Mac computer.  It's fantastic and extremely entertaining.  It passed the time in class last semester.  I always wonder what the professor was thinking as we gooned at the computer.      

Check this out:

Radicals (unpaired electrons) are formed all the time in the host’s body. (You can stop reading now, I'm just trying to be dramatic.)  They are found inside the cells, free in the tissues, and in the circulation. Free radicals of antimicrobial killing are used with O and NO to kill bacteria. Respiratory burst is associated with the release of an electron in the mitochondria or in the cytosol. This is the main source of free radicals that the cell uses to kill bacteria. This is highly regulated and controlled with enzymes that scavenge free electrons when not needed. The respiratory burst occurs when anything tweaks the membrane of a phagocytic cell (initiates oxidasis in the cell to produce free electrons). To from a free radical with O, all that is needed is O2 and an electron (this occurs spontaneously).

I mean, what does that even MEAN?  I took crazy insane notes for, oh, about 10 minutes and then re-read them and thought I was reading Swahili.  Come on.  With this crap, no wonder I can't pay attention.  Hey, at least it isn't beer pong ;)

So I mentioned yesterday about being milk-attacked by a dead horse.  Since there is nothing else worth blogging about today, I think I'll clarify.  We are in large animal gross anatomy this semester, and we have to dissect a horse, cow, and goat.  We get in there the first day and the instructor stares at us blankly (after lecturing us about...wow, I can't even remember it was so important) and expects us to hang these dead animals that are strewn all over the lab.  Hang them on these metal racks lined up in the room.  Really?  Sure, Dr. D, we're all over it.  To our surprise (since these instructors are always super prepared), there is only one lift in the entire lab, which is located in an obscure corner on the opposite side of the room from the majority of the horses.  We were informed that we had to hang the animal that we wanted, so our group of 6 (wanting a horse, obviously) went to work trying to pick our animal.  By the time 5 of us decided to start walking towards a rack, my good friend Jamie had thrown down 15 people, stolen a rack from the class secretary, and pushed her way to the best horse in the room (right under the lift).  Rock on, Jamie.  

Twenty minutes and 4 heads scratched later, the professors decided to lift the animal up by its feet, put straps around the lower abdomen and chest, and flip it right-side-up at the last minute.  Right, great idea guys.  After nearly breaking one of the legs, we had the horse on it's side in the air, being suspended by these straps.  "Alright, guys, on the count of three, we're going to turn the horse upright!"  This is going to be done by having the lift pull the straps around the horse's body, shortening them, thus flipping the feet downwards, the head upwards, and leaving the horse in a perfectly upright position.  Ok.  "One, two, three!"  Well, the geniuses that we are have our heads down by the straps, just waiting for this thing to fall out and crash on the floor, crushing about 2 profs and 3 students (myself included) who are supporting the legs.  Now, I forgot to mention that this horse had clearly just foaled (had a baby), and her mammary glands were still very full.  On three, the straps tightened around the chest and (you guessed it!) the mammary glands, thus shooting a 3 foot stream of milk at all the faces of the people on the ground.  Fantastic.  

After a short drink, we all recomposed ourselves and cheered in victory.  Only to realize that the horse was still being help up by the straps and the lift, which were going to be needed to hang the other 15 animals in the room.  Dr. H starts to get out a huge screw drill about a foot and a half long and drill a hole through the horse's chest.  Messy, yes, but effective.  A steel bar followed the hole made by the drill and the front of the horse was suspended.  Next up, back end.  It was figured out quickly that a steel bar would be too short to go through the hind quarters, so Dr. D busts out these huge steel hooks and a huge mallet.  Of course.  Why didn't I think of that?  He starts beating these hooks into the horse's hip muscles.  Once that's done, we start to hang it from the hooks and the bar in the front.  Drum roll, please.  We removed the strap...and voiala!  The hook on the right flank ripped out of the hip muscle and the horse started to drop.  Perfect.  You would think that 3 professors, 2 lab techs, and 97 students would have figured this out long before 2 1/2 hours passed, but you'd be so wrong.  Take 2 and the hook stayed in, the straps came off, and the animal stayed put, looking beautifully embalmed hanging in the air.  Exhausted, our group left satisfied, knowing that our horse would be ready for cutting the next lab.

Update: We came into lab the next day, only to realize that the professor decided to do a lottery on the animals, and we got stuck with a nasty looking cow we call Bubbles.  Stay tuned.  

My grandparents got here this evening, so I'm signing off to hang out with them and try and keep my cats out of trouble.  Wish me good luck in getting a good night's sleep tonight.  Juno (my dog) woke up howling at 3:30 in the morning from her cage.  She went to town for about 20 minutes and then finally got bored with her behavior.  I spent the rest of the night dreaming about someone breaking into my windows with those silent glass cutters you see on TV.  Needless to say, I didn't get too much sleep last night.  However, I did learn two things.  One, Juno is a fantastic alert dog.  And two, don't watch Prison Break again before bed.  

  

The Beginning..

I'm convinced that my middle child is not all there. She's completely obsessed with the bathroom. I haven't figured out why, or how, but for whatever reason she has this unnatural, semi-creepy obsession with all things bathroom. I find her laying in the tub, on the toilet, on the bath rugs. Every time she hears the water running or the door open, she makes a bee-line for the bathroom and stares blankly at me. "What is WRONG with you?" I would love to ask, but it wouldn't matter because she won't answer me. The kid's just a freak. Oh, and by the way. By kid, I mean cat.

See what I mean?






I finally gave in to my aunt's wishes...OK, her begging, and decided to start a blog. For those of you who don't know, I wrote one while I spent a month in England a few summers back and I guess it was a big hit. This way, I can keep in touch with my family and friends (and by keep in touch I mean you can read all about me and laugh at my completely boring life).

As you all know, I'm a first year in vet school. I moved to Athens, GA in July and have been prisoner to the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine for almost 6 months now. University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine. It sounds so prestigious, so wonderful, doesn't it? Well, it's not. It's Hell on Earth, and I'm sure you'll begin to see why.

So, keep up with me if you'd like. Add me to your favorites and stare obsessively at the page until I write again. Kidding. I have 3 insane cats (see above), a quirky dog, and a horse (whom I'm currently pissed off at), so maybe my posts won't be as boring as I fear. I constantly find myself going "Why me?" or "Did that seriously just happen?" Between locking my cat in the dryer and being milk-attacked by a dead horse, my life can be pretty entertaining at times. Enjoy guys. I'll try to write often.