SCVMA Conference

Wow has it really been almost 3 weeks since my last post?? Time flies when you're super busy!

This past weekend was the Students of the Central Veterinary Medical Association Symposium and OVC got to host it which was great because I didn't have to pay for a plane ticket :) (shout out to our wonderful executive committee who made the weekend go seamlessly despite running on no sleep!)

The first day started with lectures. I chose the following:

- Minimally Invasive Surgery: how laparoscopic surgical techniques are being used in vet medicine to do procedures such as spays, gastropexies and biopsies. The benefits include smaller incisions and therefore faster healing time, as well as less tissue damage. Starting the day with a video of a laparoscopic instrument suctioning bladder stones out of a bladder was awesome!

- Obesity: such a huge problem in pets nowadays, this lecture was sponsored by Royal Canin and taught us how to discuss obesity with owners and let them know that a 9/9 is not a good thig when it comes to a Body Condition Score. We also got free digital gram scales for accurate pet food measurements :)

- Dentistry: for whatever reason, OVC doesn't have many dentistry lectures so I chose this one to get some extra exposure. It's crazy (and some would say disgusting) how mild dental disease can quickly turn ugly. Free gift = pet toothbrushes (which Daisy will be using because yes I brush her teeth)

Free things!!

Then the afternoon consisted of 2 wet labs, I did basic surgery skills and emergency procedures and got to practice things that I had never done before and probably won't get a chance to for who knows how long! Those procedures included:

- Mass biopsy and suturing
- Chest tube placement: for long term fluid drainage
- Esophogastric tube placement: aka a feeding tube
- Thoracocentesis: quickly draining the chest in an emergency situation
- Urinary catheter placement
- Tracheostomy tube placement (the coolest one!): creating an airway in an emergency situation when intubation isn't possible.

..needless to say my spellcheck is going crazy right now. I swear they're all real words!

The day ended with a country-style dinner and social night at the country bar in Guelph - I despise country music soo I had to drown it out with some vodka-cranberries ;)

Saturday was the best day ever because I chose a tour of the Donkey Sanctuary which rescues abused and unwanted donkeys and mules. I've always had a thing for donkeys and seeing 80 of them in one day just made that obsession grow - I'll try not to overload this post with pictures of them but I can't make any guarantees ;) That evening we had a semi formal banquet dinner to end the weekend.

Seriously.

SERIOUSLY.

Overall the weekend was super tiring but also totally worth it. I'll let you all know when I adopt my first donkey! (only half joking). Daisy and Matt came down on Sunday and unfortunately only one of them stayed. So I'm back to early morning walks and no more lunch talks but I wouldn't have it any other way!

-10 deg out? No biggie!

Back to begging for snacks

That's all for now :)

Hello 2016! :)

Happy new year! Writing 2016 in the title was a little scary because my class graduates in 2018 and it's coming faster than I ever imagined. Eek!

Today was our first day back to class after a glorious 2 week break where I got at least 9 hours of sleep every night, saw the majority of my friends and family, and ate a disgusting amount of (unhealthy) food and a pretty good amount of alcohol too ;)
















Notable events included:

• A friend-filled Christmas party - I hadn't seen some of these girls since August so it was definitely long overdue! An excuse to dress up after looking like a hobo during exams was also great. You guys know my makeup obsession so I thoroughly enjoyed breaking out all of my glittery eyeshadows that were collecting dust while I studied.

• A relaxing Christmas eve and day with family - we basically stayed in PJs and that's my favourite way to spend Christmas day :)

• New year's eve party - another chance to see everyone for one last get together before I headed back to Guelph

• Early anniversary celebration in Toronto - Matt and I's (8 year!) anniversary is this upcoming Friday but with our crazy schedules we celebrated this past weekend with a trip to Toronto complete with a harbourfront hotel room, dinner at a French bistro and a night out. My favourite person to party with! (insert kissing face emoji here) (ok I'm done being mushy now)

I think I packed all I could into this break, although those events were interspersed with days where I did absolutely nothing but sleep in and binge watch Netflix (a season of The Affair, half a season of Scandal, and the whole Making a Murder documentary series. Thank god for unlimited internet).

Now we're back to the grind; today was exhausting but we ended the day with another anesthesia lab practicing IV catheters, intubation, checking our intubated "dogs" (see previous post) to make sure our endotracheal tube wasn't leaking, drawing up drug doses, and setting up the anesthetic machine. As tired as I was from waking up early for the first time in 2 weeks, I'll always gladly take all the hands-on experience I can get!

That's all for now, I'm going to go make dinner with the sad amount of groceries that I have left - an empty fridge is the worst part about coming back from vacation.

Bye!

It's beginning to look a lot like ....exams

Happy December! Instead of reflecting on how ridiculously fast this year is going, let's focus on what's been going on lately :)

Tests: Since my last post we've written another 3 tests - this Monday coming up will be the 6th straight Monday that we've had a test. As tiring as it is, it's always pretty amazing to think of how much we are learning and how quickly we've adapted to the schedule of vet school. Fellow vet students, give yourselves a pat on the back! And then maybe have a nap ;)

My study distraction - that face! :)

SCVMA conference: OVC is hosting a vet student conference this year and since it rotates through the Canadian vet schools, it won't be back here until after I graduate. So of course I had to register! I was lucky (and quick) enough to get registered for pretty much all of the labs, lectures, and tours that I wanted so I'm excited for that weekend in January :)

The events I signed up for :)

Quick visit home: I went home with Daisy this past weekend and was only home for about 24h but in that time I squeezed in Matt's work Christmas party, some fishbowls at Boston Pizza when we decided we didn't want to pay so much for drinks at the party, catching up with my family, and seeing my 2 best friends - all while "studying" for neurology here and there. Needless to say that was the trickiest test of the year so far, but the weekend was worth it! Daisy is sadly back in London now, and although I miss her snoring in my bed at night and making me go for walks, I'm taking advantage of the extra freedom to spend more time in the library.

Awesome breakfast this weekend with a disgusting Movember addition - thank god it's December now!

Therio shadowing: I'm part of the Theriogenology club (fancy word for reproduction) and they set up a program where we can shadow OVC's small animal therio specialist. We actually have an entire Therio course this year, but so far all we've done is large animals so I was excited to see some dogs and cats - I was hoping for puppies but instead we had a female dog (yes, the proper term is bitch) who was going to be bred later in the week. We checked the stage of her reproductive cycle using a vaginal scope (which I got to place), and followed up with a swab to check the cells and an ultrasound. It was great to see some real-life applications of what we learned in class and I'll definitely sign up for more shifts in the future - hopefully one of which includes a C-section!

I wanted this.. (picture from Google)

..but I got this (picture from Google)

I think that's about it for now, time is flying by lately and in exactly 2 weeks I'll be home for Christmas break! Good luck to everyone with upcoming exams - start chugging that coffee!

Sleep is a wonderful thing :)

Hello from a girl who just had 11 hours of sleep!!! *cue party music*

I can't even remember the last time that happened, but damn was it necessary last night. The month of November has been crazy since we have tests at 8am every Monday, and the past week made it even more tiring because we had a really long week of classes. Leaving lecture at 5:30 when it's already dark out is pretty depressing. On top of that, I don't think a lot of people realize how much work it is to have a dog at home. I get up earlier than usual to feed and walk her, come home for most lunch breaks to let her out, and then after all day of being alone she needs a good walk when I get home at the end of the day (when all I want to do is eat dinner and nap). Of course she's 10000% worth it, but it's an extra thing to add to my to-do list and gets exhausting during exam time! So needless today, I went to bed last night with every intention of really sleeping in - ignoring the fact that we have 2 test this Monday..

Last weekend was the Royal Winter Fair where I got to bask in the beauty of soo many horses. I'm a small animal person and will probably never work with horses in the future, but I've always loooved them. Lots of adorable cows were there too, and the highlight was the little petting zoo area they had set up with hilarious goats, alpacas, and sheep. My list of future pets is forever growing :) Matt and I hung out afterwards and then Sunday was spent cramming for Monday's virology test (which wasn't exactly my priority since it was only worth 3.5%).

HOW CUTE IS HE :)

Daisy's boyfriend

Last night (I'm surprised I stayed awake) a bunch of people from my class went to see the new Hunger Games movie which was soo good! I read the books a few years back and wasn't that into them, but the movies are awesome. It's probably the first series that I can say I like the movies better than the books.

Other than crazy hours of class and test after test, there isn't much else going on in school lately. I got my simulated client interview over with this week' the ones that we do to mimic real appointments and that get recorded so that we can watch them back and critique ourselves - eww. It went pretty good though and they definitely get a bit less awkward every time we do them.

I'm going to London next weekend because Matt has a work Christmas party that I'm invited to, and then I'm gonna catch up with my friends and family for a few days since I haven't been home since thanksgiving. Of course we have a test the following Monday so I'll have to manage my time as always, but I'm getting pretty good at that now!

I think Daisy will be staying at home when I come back to Guelph :( I have a week in December where I will be shadowing a 4th year student in small animal surgery (so excited!) so that means I'll be at school for super long hours and may not get the chance to come home during the day. Then finals start the week after, so it'll be best for Daisy to hang out with my family until I go home for Christmas break. Time is going so quickly! Speaking of that, I should probably get back to studying. Bye for now :)

Same old schedule

I'm procrastinating grocery shopping right now, so why not post an update? :)

Not much has happened lately, our class schedule has been pretty repetitive and boring to be honest. I've been going a little crazy sitting in lecture lately and I think it's because out of all of the classes that I like, we seem to have the most hours of the classes I don't like. Yawn.

Halloween was a blast though, it was a great night to hang out with everyone outside of school and I had way too much fun just doing my makeup. Now that November has started, it's back to the library (where I am right now) because of those damn Monday exams.

Galaxies, demon child, kim possible, and cleopatra :)

Skeleton pirate and cleopatra after the party - I'm surprised our makeup lasted through all the sweat!

Right now I'm studying for our surgery course, which is actually enjoyable since we're learning things that will actually be relevant to our life in practice. We had another surgery lab yesterday and got to practice more scrubbing, gowning, gloving, and "patient" prep/draping (a piece of fake skin wrapped in furry fabric made to look like an animal). Everything is coming together and our next lab will involve all of the steps of patient and surgeon prep from start to finish :) 

Next weekend is the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto, an agricultural show with various horse shows and other events. Matt is coming down and will join my friends and I for some animal watching , so that'll be a nice study break.

Other than that I've just been studying and hanging out with Daisy - hopefully my next post will be more exciting!

Sleeping with her lover aka Matt (Daisy is a traitor)

cutest ever <3

Rain, rain and more rain - and Daisy!

Greetings from the depressing city of Guelph where it rains 24/7 and sunshine does not exist! Can you tell I love rain???

When it's not raining here, it looks like this :)

Moving on - hi everyone! I thought I'd take a few mins during this annoying week to update you all on my life. The week after I got back from Thanksgiving was a great 3 day week; I finally did the real cow palpation lab and it was much more poop filled than I expected. At 8:30 in the morning. YUM. Hahah but now I can say I've done it, even though I plan on being a small animal vet which thankfully only requires a gloved finger, not an entire arm!
Also that week one of my friends from class invited me to a gala in Toronto for OVC's Pet Trust. Pet Trust is a group within OVC that raises money to build new research and diagnostic facilities to better help people's pets. It was amazing to see the generous donations the guests gave (while we sat there like the poor students we are), and to see the power that pets have to bring so many people together. There was a delicious meal, wine (!!), some famous Canadian faces (Ben Mulroney and Meagan Markle from Suits), and overall it was great to dress up and see what OVC does behind the scenes. They ended up raising half a million dollars!

Such a pretty set up :)

On the "green carpet" - of course I was mid sentence

The following weekend was spent studying for our first POD (principles of disease) test; the class that every second year dreads. I survived the first test and actually felt like I had learned a lot. Having awesome professors makes all the difference!
This past weekend Matt visited (and brought Daisy!) and we had the ultimate lazy night filled with takeout from the Mandarin, wine (do you see a theme here?), and lots of pointless YouTube videos. Sometimes you just need to do zero homework/studying to stay sane :) This month classes have been really boring and we've had a bunch of group assignments (barf). I'd much rather study for an exam than work on an assignment.

My girl and my adorable new canvas 

This weekend is Halloween and I'm being Cleopatra so I'm pretty pumped to do some awesome makeup! We have a test every monday in November so this will be my last weekend to have some fun for awhile :)
I think that's it for now! Thanks for reading :)
- oh one more thing, I've checked my blog stats lately and have seen some readers from Europe and India! So cool! If you're reading this and you're from another country (or even if you're from Canada), comment below on how you came across my blog :)

A Scary Few Days

As everyone probably knows by now, I have a 10 year old beagle named Daisy. I've always been thankful for her good health as beagles are usually pretty hardy. Other than a minor ear and bladder infection years ago and some recent aging-related back pain, she rarely sees her vet other than for her routine vaccines. That being said, I guess I can't complain about it taking 10 years before I had to pay a $1200 vet bill ....let me explain.

Last week I was doing my regular volunteer shift at the animal hospital when my mom called to tell me Daisy had collapsed after stumbling around a bit. She had peed and pooped while she was lying on the floor, so we all immediately thought she had a seizure (we're still not sure if she did, since no one actually saw it happen). As upset as I was that I wasn't home, I was sooo thankful that my family was. I don't even want to think about her lying on the floor alone :'(

I rushed home and when I walked in the house, she wagged her tail but couldn't even lift her head. Her breathing was laboured and although she had a good menace response (for non-vet students: http://vmerc.uga.edu/CranialNerves/mrr.html), she wasn't blinking like normal. I wrapped her in a blanket and we rushed her to the vet. Side note - I used to volunteer for this vet and he is one of my favourite people - he also wrote one of my references for vet school :)

On the way there, I was of course thinking of the worst case scenarios. If I had an epileptic dog I wasn't sure if it was worth having her on meds for the rest of her life when she was already getting up there in age. What would her quality of life be like? Would she be happy? Would I be able to go to class and leave her home alone without something happening? It was the strangest mix of emotions because as I was sitting in the car crying, I was also trying to think logically. The clash of pet owner and vet student was pretty weird and confusing.

The vet was immediately concerned about her breathing so he did chest rads and then called me in to look at them. I was still upset but being a part of the diagnostic process was awesome. He thought her heart looked a little big - I thought so as well, despite my limited radiology experience - but her lungs looked fine. He sent the rads off for a specialist's report and told us to go home and leave Daisy to get fluids and a full blood panel. A few hours later he called me saying fluids were definitely helping, the radiologist report didn't reveal much that was concerning, but her blood results showed messed up electrolytes and elevated kidney values. When we brought her home 5 hours later she was much perkier but I was still thinking the worst - kidney failure. The vet said that was unlikely since she would have been losing weight rapidly - and her weight hadn't changed at all since her last exam. She should have also had a very decreased appetite, and with her being a beagle we definitely didn't have a problem with that. I was instructed to bring her back in the morning with a pee sample.

After a restless night (for me - I slept on the couch beside her while she snored away all night), I collected a sample and immediately thought there was blood in it. The vet confirmed that and also said it was loaded with rods (bacteria) - finally we had somewhat of a diagnosis = kidney infection. They sent the urine for culture and we're still waiting for the final results, but in the meantime Daisy has been on antibiotics and was pretty much back to her normal self within 24 hours.

Talk about a whirlwind of emotions! I am so thankful for my amazing vet and how he involved me in the process. He knew that although I was extremely worried. the vet student side of me wanted to know everything that was happening. It was scary and inspiring at the same time. It also showed me the ups and downs of diagnostics - the rads we did ended up being pretty much useless (slightly enlarged heart was probably just due to aging), but we had to do them because of her laboured breathing. Thankfully my little girl is doing great and will be coming to school with me in a few weeks, and in the mean time I'm going to focus on the fact that in a few years I am going to be able to make many people and animals as happy as my vet made us this week :)

PS - one week til Phase 2 begins!!!! :)

My little trooper looking stylish in her vet wrap :)

Goodbye classes!

Wow, can't believe it's already been over a week since I posted last! In that post I was talking about our big practical exam (the OSCE) so I'll go through that first.

We basically had what felt like a scavenger hunt all over OVC. I started in the computer lab doing a multiple choice exam which was a good station to start at because it gave me a few minutes to wake up and get my brain working. Then I changed into my large animal gear and went over to the barn for 7 stations involving horses, cows, sheep, and various bits of info about nutrition, infection control and history/medical records taking. My animals were all (thankfully) cooperative and although the 5 min per station time limit was a little stressful, I survived. Then I had 5 mins to run back to the main building - literally run, in steel-toed boots and coveralls...not the most ideal - and change into my lab coat to start the small animal portion. We had similar stations as the large animal part, just substituting the barn animals for the sweet little teaching beagles :) much more within my comfort zone. Next thing I knew, the 3 hours were up and we were done! Obviously people lost their minds like some people always do during exams (see my rant post from a few weeks ago, I'll spare you my sass in this one), but I felt confident and it was really a moment of "wow, I've learned so much this year". Before September I knew next to nothing about large animals!

That weekend the University of Guelph hosted College Royal, an agricultural fair. The only thing I cared about was the barn because they brought in a bunch of animals - donkeys, bunnies, goats, and mini horses (!!!) to name a few. Matt and I went to check it out for a bit and now I think I need to have a donkey in the future - along with my multiple dogs and potential horse - yes, I have a problem.

Other than classes, nothing much exciting has happened in the past week or so. I went home this past weekend because we had a long one, I got to catch up with my family and friends and also got to go to Matt's improv comedy show - finally, I've had to miss the last few because I've been in a different city!

Matt on the left doing "jazzercise"...improvisation at its finest!

Got to spend some time with this cutie :)

Today was exciting because we officially finished classes!!!!!!! About time, as I mentioned before I was going crazy sitting in class for the past month. Time to get into the exam zone - we have a small test tomorrow and then 4 exams starting a week from now. Bring on the coffee!

An eventful week!

Hey guys! Soo my life has gone from one extreme to another - the past week or so has been crazy busy! Let's get right into it:

• Blood smear: A few weeks ago I mentioned that we were practicing blood smears in Histo - recently we got to stain them and look at the cells under the microscope. Baby steps! Mine was pretty good, and marks the first and only time Histology has seemed clinically relevant (insert unimpressed face here).
• Having a life: A few of the girls and I went out last Friday night, it made us feel old (seeing undergrad students at the bar that seriously looked 14 years old..) but it was nice to be doing something other than school :) We ended the night with poutine which made it even better!
• Horse care week: I just finished with our assigned horse care week. The horse people probably found it boring to walk and groom horses every morning, but as someone with zero horse experience but who has always loved horses, it was fun :) other than the 7:30/8:30 am start times in -22 degree weather, of course. The teaching horses are such sweethearts and it just strengthened my neeeeeed for a horse! Like right now would be great...I'll keep it in my room. That's allowed, right??
• Physical exams: Finally feeling like a vet! We finally got to use our stethoscopes and do physical exams on horses and cows (small animal is next week). I learned that you can (sometimes) make a cow pee on demand...of course mine didn't cooperate, but I saw it happen! We also all had a lightbulb moment with one of the cows that had a left displaced abomasum - translation: one of the 4 chambers of the stomach in cows is usually on the right side, but if it becomes filled with gas it can actually move to the left side. We've been told repeatedly in lab and lecture that it sounds like a basketball hitting the pavement due to the air, but when we all got to hear it we got suuuper excited. So cool! :)
• Hunger games movie night: Last Wednesday our social committee organized a hunger games movie and pizza night in anticipation of the 3rd movie that came out on Friday. Since there are 12 districts in the hunger games and OVC has 12 practice groups, there was also a costume contest. Group 9 has the worst district (grain farmers??) so we wore plaid and then decided to mix it with the OTHER district 9 (aka the alien movie). Our creativity made us win the group prize so now we have a restaurant gift card to use :)

Whew I think those are the highlights! Tomorrow we have our histo midterm so I've been just studying lately. I'm going home on Friday to drop Daisy off :( but it will be for the best, because our 4 December exams start next Monday. I actually cant believe it's almost Christmas break! I'm getting excited to catch up with everyone back home, and of course eat, eat, and eat some more. I'll be posting some time next week, once exams calm down for a few days. Bye for now!

We had a good snowfall this past week and Daisy loooved it!

We can't take pics of the teaching animals, so here's my lovely coveralls and boots

My blood smear! That's a neutrophil in the middle :)

Night out :)

Thanks to Rachel for this genius idea

Little update

hey guys :) just thought i'd post an update while I have time, because this week is gonna be a crazy one!

Daisy has been settling into my place very well, she is in love with my bed and hasn't slept in her own bed until she did today for about an hour. Spoiled brat! Since I really haven't been working out since I've been here, having my dog with me has been a good way to force my butt to go for multiple walks a day :) it also makes me even more obsessed with her than I was before because we spend all of our time together....like I watch her sleep because she's the cutest (crazy dog lady, I know!)

Our 3 day week seemed way longer after having 4 days off, I think everyone was dead by Friday. I had my orientation for the dog enrichment program (volunteer dog walker for the beagles/hounds that are on campus for teaching purposes). I can't wait to get started because that just means even more beagles in my daily life :) Then on Saturday I had my first shift at the Primary Healthcare Center. It felt great to get back in the clinic environment (spoken like a true vet student). There were back to back appointments so I got to observe 4 of them from behind a 2 way mirror. They have microphones set up so that you can hear the whole appointment, since it is a teaching hospital. It was really cool and made me really feel like a vet student, especially since we got to wear our lab coats (yes I'm easily pleased!)

Other than that, we have another Histo test tomorrow so I spent some (definitely not all) of the weekend studying. This week I have another PHC shift, and we have 2 field trips to dairy/swine/poultry/beef farms. Since most of my vet experience is with small animals, I'm looking forward to seeing some new things :) We aren't allowed to take pictures but I'll definitely do an update next weekend. That's it for now!

Settling in just fine :)

My morning....so exciting!