bleh.
seriously tempted to get back into bed this morning.



at least, the sun is kind of trying to come up now.

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So. Freaking. Tired.
Not that this was my first 12 hour work day, but definitely my first in a while. It probably doesn't help that this is our last week in the current location since the merger with Heart of Gwinnett finalizes at the close of business on Saturday. The movers will be there as soon as we close, which means inventory has to be done before then. My questions is-- when?

My eyes can't focus on the computer and my head is spinning.


Also, I volunteered to pick up someone's hours instead of an off day, so I'll be in at 7:15 tomorrow morning.




I am dumb. Good day anyway.

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Just got phone ambushed by my step-mother
the thing you have to know is: i have pretty much cut my father out of my life.

it's been pretty easy since he never makes any effort to contact me. my step-mother, however, calls me once or twice a year. usually on my birthday and to tell me about family christmas which i never (honestly) seem to be able to go to. last year i had plans for the nutcracker with my mother and katie. this year i have an engagement party to go to.

i don't know if she used to call me from work and that's the number i had saved or if they got a new number, but i was totally unprepared when i picked up the phone. actually, i was prepared-- prepared to have to go in for treatment crew, because what other unidentified 706 number would be calling me? so i got roped into a guilt-trip laden conversation with first my step-mother (nothing new) and then my father (what? she NEVER passes the phone to him!). i couldn't even tell you the last time i talked to my dad.

she is a good person for trying, but i don't know why she does, since he doesn't. honestly, i think her good intentions in calling me have only hurt any relationship i might have had with my father because i resent with a burning intensity that SHE calls me. marsha-- who is of no relation to me, probably thinks i'm going to hell for being a dirty heathen and didn't even get involved with my father until long after we stopped having any sort of real relationship. marsha who is all of those things cares enough to call me and pretend (or maybe she's not even pretending) to care about what is going on in my life and my father who is half of my genetic make-up doesn't.

he can't even pretend.

totally what i needed to cap off my day of studying between vomiting and stabbing pinched nerve neck pains.

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A big thanks to EYF08 608
...without whom my future dental prophylaxis and extractions would not be as successful.

Dentistry lab was both cool and entirely too long, much like Spay Day. They were both really awesome for the first half and mind numbingly boring for the second half. Probably doesn't help that the second half of both corresponded with my being starving.

Our poor dog head was so young it's canines weren't even all the way in-- holy 9mm gingival sulcus, Batman! They were all part of someone's research project who saves the heads for our lab when they have to sacrifice the animals for their research-- didn't really make me feel any better.


I did successfully place a lovely catheter into Tessa, our second Spay Day cat, last Saturday-- despite the fact that my tech felt the need to exclaim loudly and more than once, "what a great vein! It's right there!" Everyone knows that is the kiss of death for actually being able to get into the vein!

This Saturday promises an interesting Endoscopy wetlab-- yay for living so close that I don't have to rush home for Thanksgiving! I'm pretty sure I only got a space because so many people will already be out of town by Saturday, since we get the whole week for Thanksgiving. I would gladly give up a few days of Thanksgiving break to get more than two weeks at Christmas.




It is super windy today-- looks like winter is starting to sneak in. Of course, by "winter", I mean "highs of less than 50". Bethany is loving the leaves blowing every where outside-- she may not leave the sunroom window all day!

Off to continue cleaning my disaster of a room. My first two classes were canceled within 40 minutes of the first one's starting time, so I was, of course, already awake and not able to go back to sleep. What a way to start a Friday!

Current Mood: cold

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Another reason not to let your cats free-range...


That would be lung tissue filled with Paragonimus kellicotti (isn't that fun to say?)-- lung flukes!

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Wildlife Treatment Crew
is eating my life.

I just admitted a 18 gram chipmunk into the ward. Serious.

Current Mood: exhausted

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1# cause of lawsuits for, i'm assuming, large animal practitioners...
rectal tears caused during rectal palpation in the horse.

i find this a little hard to believe, but my pasquini says that it is so.

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just like old times
my uterus seemed to know that i was going to tkd, for the first time in a long time-- going to tkd, not my uterus knowing things. there was definitely a time when, like clockwork, my period would start around 7pm on a tuesday, just in time for tkd and white pants. A+.



so why would i go when i haven't gone in forever and the world is obviously telling me not to? lee and jonathon-- two guys in my class want to start going and they asked me if i was still going. no, i'm not.

hmm, well, i always like tkd. it makes me feel accomplished, like i've done something. so, now i have people to go to tkd with again and i'm going to go when i can. luckily, lee and jonathon have the exact. same. schedule. as i do, so that is really nice.

i was a little sore from the 30 minute miracle class i went to yesterday, but not much. now, however, i can barely move. life tomorrow should be fun.




you might ask, what did i do with the rest of my day? i had bovine physical diagnosis today. yes, that's right, cows. my cow had lymphosarcoma and her left eye was protruding alarmingly, sad. i successfully drew blood from the jugular and tail veins on the first try! woot! now, the cow jugular is about as big as a garden hose-- you can literally see it fill and empty if you hold of the vein for a few seconds and then let go. i was pretty proud of myself with the tail vein though, since you can't see it, it's pretty much a blind stick.

also, a rectal exam-- not as cool, but i'm still kind of proud of myself for doing it. i definitely have it in me to be a prissy, small animal girl and i like it when i control that.

what this all means it that i had to take two showers today, because i ran errands between lab and tkd and couldn't very well go out in public smelling like stinky cow.




tomorrow will be filled with renal studying-- after the 9 or so hours of class i have tomorrow.

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i just got off a 3 hour conversation with Katie Smith.
it was nice.

i heart her a lot.

now, i have get back to studying after such a lengthy hiatus.

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week in review
is it sad that i had to open up three different documents on my computer in order to remember my week in enough detail to do this? possibly. could i remember monday without them? not so much.

well, first of all, anatomy lab four times a week for three hours each time is starting to wear on me. i don't care if it is three species and that we're now throwing the reproductive tract into the mix. twelve hours a week is just unnecessary and it's making me worry about motivating myself to study for the up coming exam. we did have our radiology quiz this week, which made class somewhat more interesting. it was only over the distal limb of the horse, so not too complicated.

the highlight of my school related week? physical diagnosis labs started!

i got to break out my shiny new stethoscope and everything. small animal lab on tuesday was kind of boring, but, as they keep reminding us, an accurate physical exam is one thing you can't look up in a book and the more you do the better you'll be at it. performing a physical exam definitely enforces the anatomy from last semester. what could be cooler than feeling organs through the body wall?!

the small ruminant lab was about 15x's more exciting. i think, i might actually be interested in treating small ruminants (goats, sheep, etc.) on the side when i'm out in practice. they are cool little creatures and their owners often have a hard time finding a vet to treat them because they're not exactly large animals, though a lot of their physiology is, and they're not very similar to anything small animal vets would be used to treating. who treats things no one else is used to treating? your friendly, neighborhood exotics vet!

ok, back to the lab-- it was a blast! i got to "set-up" a sheep for examination and then, well, perform the exam. then there was the drawing blood from a goat-- thanks for the help, Dr. Woolums! last, but certainly not least-- ultrasound on a preggo goat! there were baby goat spines and ribs and hearts and i totally found them-- yay, me!

oh yea, and i had an exam on wednesday in virology, but i kind of already posted about that. still don't have the grade back, still not too worried. i did get my LA anatomy exam back and I got an "A"-- barely, but i'll take it. if i could get an "A" in anatomy, that would pretty much make my semester-- it's worth something like 4.6 credit hours.

also, way back on monday, i had an OTS meeting and i am now a co-rush chair. the other girls who are doing it are cool and i'm actually kind of excited to plan stuff with money that is not my own-- takes the anxiety off. we need to meet soon-ish to plan for the meet and greet after open house, which the freshman class plans and organizes, so it will be a busy day for us.

on top of all that, i even managed to spend a decent amount of time with my, admittedly, awesome boyfriend and make it to two drop-in aerobics classes. hoping for more of both next week, but we'll see.


right now, i'm lounging on my loveseat in the sunroom with all of th windows open-- enjoying this fine, sunny, 65 degree weather with bethany and gearing up for next week.

1. two more physical diagnosis labs (SA neuro and LA- bovine)
2. two more exams (endo/repro on monday and renal on thursday)
3. valentine's day-- i know it's not a real holiday, but it provides me with guilt-free boyfriend time, since the anatomy exam's been moved to next monday
4. studying for the moved anatomy exam
5. aunt pam's surprise 50th birthday party-- shh! don't tell!

i think that's it, but i'm probably wrong.

Current Mood: good

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the highly caffeinated beverage i got with my jj's free drink card last night literally made me shudder with each gulp-- i say gulp, because that's the only volume that i can drink it in my normally timed sips and finish before it is digustingly cold. i feel like this is my body's way of telling me to stop, but i couldn't-- must. stay. up. all. night. to. study. i end up feeling like a zombie, but the work gets done and it's all over soon enough. i think that this is what most of vet school is going to be like, though so far i would say that this semester is going much more smoothly and in a less sleep deprived manner than last semester. sure, there is the errant all nighter, but there is less staying up until 12 or 1 every night of the week.

i have also noticed that my mild dyslexia gets worse the longer i stay up, but i think that that can mostly be attributed to mental fatigue. still, there's nothing funnier than noticing the next day that half of your notations from the night before contain errors.


also funny-- i still don't actually like any type coffee beverage. i've found a few that i can semi-tolerate in order to stay awake, but that's about it.


on the bright side, my virology exam went okay this morning-- to the best of my knowledge. there were a lot of questions from the old exam, which kind of makes me sad that i stayed up so very late, when i could have probably studied the old exam and my note cards from the charts and done just as well.

i've been pretty happy with all of my exams thus far-- all four of them. granted, i haven't gotten my anatomy or, obviously, virology grades back, but i feel good about them.

i have my second physical diagnosis lab today and i am pretty excited about it. not only do i get to us my super awesome, shiny new stethoscope, but it's the small ruminant lab, which looks to be a bit more exciting than the small animal lab i had yesterday. small animal was your basic dog (and one cat-- Quest's cat is the shit by the way) physical exam. while really important and helpful, since i've never actually performed one before, isn't exactly fireworks and laserbeams of excitement. we get to do a ultrasound in the small ruminant lab and they exam have some abnormal examples set up for us. yay-- see if you can really perform an exam!

also, there are two baby alpacas and a camel in the large animal barn. exciting!

why do i have so much time to be writing this crazy long entry? my anatomy class has been canceled, so i've got an hour to kill and no motivation to study for my endo/repro exam that's on monday.

Current Mood: good

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epstein-barr is a herpes virus
hhv4. i feel dumb for not knowing/remembering this. i mean, i did research with herpes-- granted, it was hhv8 and not hhv4, but still.

too bad my favorite barista isn't here to give me double stamps for this little bit o' trivia. i'll have to hold onto it until the next time our paths cross.

Current Mood: studious

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and her name shall be "Bonnie"


while, i miss tippy terribly-- she was such an informative companion (if a little cranky with strangers!), it is time to move on. large animal dissection officially began today and i am honored to be taught by a shorthorn heifer we have deemed "Bonnie". we even arranged for a "Clyde" to be positioned nearby so that she won't get lonely-- girl's got needs! of course, "Clyde" is a black stallion, so the interspecies relationship is causing a few eyebrows to be raised.

yes, this is what i do in vet school.





back to the studying in a silly attempt to stay ahead of the game this semester.

Current Mood: studious

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yay, rain!!
boo, leptospira.

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nothing gold can stay
i thought that fall would be crap-- what with the record-breaking, severe drought and all-- but it's actually been quite gorgeous. one of the best we've had in years, in fact.




i wish i was not studying for bacteriology right now. this week would be so relaxing without it.

Current Mood: studious

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anthrax
do not mess around with this shit.

it is reportable in any infected species and usually the state and FEDERAL vets won't even let you treat the animal, because they go ahead and condemn it.

"Infected carcasses and contaminated bedding
and soil should be burned or buried 6 feet deep
with quicklime (anhydrous calcium oxide)
added."

six feet deep with quicklime, indeed.



bacteriology, more and more, makes be feel like good health insurance is vital.

Current Mood: studious

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Four Inches
The Four-Inch Law refers to a regulation passed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1975 outlawing the sale of turtles with a carapace length of less than four inches. Exceptions are present for scientific and educational use, export, and private sale.

The law was enacted, according to the FDA, "because of the public health impact of turtle-associated salmonellosis". There had been reported cases of young children placing small turtles in their mouths, which led to the size-based restriction.


Thank you, Wikipedia. Actually, we talked about this in my Bacteriology class first, so thank you Bacteriology? Let's not get ahead of ourselves.


In other news, my boyfriend is A+ amazing.


Due to a clerical error, Apollo's bloodwork was tested for a few extra things. He's heartworm, FELV and FIV negative, which I kind of already knew, but I guess there's nothing wrong with affirmation.

One downside to being in vet school and I know, you're thinking, "only one?"-- vets talk to you like you know what the hell you're talking about. Um, not really. Ok, well, some.

And the kitties might actually, kind of like each other. It's probably going to be too late for awesome Halloween pictures though-- next year, next year.

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Oh my God, it's only Monday!
We're finishing up Anatomy lab today and Dr. Roberts is going over the stuff we'll be doing next time and finishes with, "I'll see you Friday."

I don't think anything of it and continue cleaning up when one of the girls at a nearby table says, "Wait, so we don't have lab on Wednesday?" We do. Which leads to the sneaking, sad realization that it is only Monday! How am I going to make it through the rest of the week?! At least, my next exam isn't until next Thursday, so it's not like I'll be up studying until 3am like last night. However, the idea of all of those classes I still have to sit in until the sweet release of the weekend seems a little daunting.


In other news, the introduction process for Bethany and Apollo is going a little slow, which is to be expected since Bethy is a big scaredy cat. Apollo is roughly twice her size. Luckily, Apollo is so laid back-- he's making the whole process much easier. Though Bethany did come out for Nate the other day, which is pretty exciting


Also, our chair has been reupholstered and my mom is bringing it down on Wednesday and cooking dinner with us. Woot!

Ok, shower time-- I am beyond gross from a pleasant mixture of 2 hours of Anatomy lab plus one hour of aerobics. Then it's on to maintenance studying so that I don't have to cram for any of my future exams (the ones I'm having every week for the rest of my life or semester--whatever) and more kitty introductions. I'm hoping by the end of the week they can be left alone together without any hissy fits.

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Kitty!
Our new kitty, Apollo, came to live with us today. His other mommies loved him very much, but their apartment complex did not. He is lovely-- bigger, male version of Bethy with darker amber eyes. He seems pretty chill and I'm hoping that he and Bethy will be fast friends. Right now, I'm hanging out in Amanda's room with him.


Bethany was sitting outside the door while I ate dinner-- she definitely knows someone is in here. She doesn't seem scared, so I'm taking that as a good sign.



Back to the Anatomy that owns my soul.

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after spending an afternoon studying outside jittery joe's,
i have come to the conclusion that way too many people in athens drive big, loud trucks.


that and that merely having hemeoglobin in one's urine causes it to be clear red, while having red blood cells in it will cause it to be a cloudy red.

Current Mood: studious

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