The end is near

Well here I go again waiting 2 months before updating this - remember when I thought I would do it weekly?? hahah ;)
My Christmas break ended up not being as laid back as I expected but it was still great to not be at school. As soon as I got back it was right back to non-stop rotations until now; I managed to squeeze in a week off :)

Raptors game with Matt :)

Catch ups with the girls :)

The most notable event that has happened since my last post: I PASSED THE NAVLE! Such a relief - especially after an almost 2 month wait!

All that's left now is a few more rotations and graduation. It's pretty surreal to realize that I'm almost done!

Next week a bunch of us are going to North Carolina to do 2 weeks in a spay-neuter program called Humane Alliance. I'm really looking forward to it and am going to have to use all of my willpower to not smuggle a shelter dog home..

That's about it for now, I'm going to take advantage of this week off and go do some non-school related things! Bye :)

On to the Next

Wow, just like that my externship is over!

Those 8 weeks went so fast and I learned so much. One of my favourite parts of my experience was being able to follow cases from start to finish - appointment, physical exam, diagnostics, treatments, and rechecks. I loved being able to get used to the process of approaching cases individually. I also brushed up on my medication knowledge such as typical post-op meds, antibiotic choices, and doses. That was one thing that we didn't spend too much time on in class so I went into my externship feeling pretty useless but now I think I have a better ability to choose which drugs a patient needs.

Solo surgeries were probably the highlight of my time at the clinic - although one day I will likely be bored of spays and neuters, that day hasn't come yet! Being in the middle of a surgery and having the vet pop in to ask how it's going and feeling confident when I say "good" is a damn good feeling :) On my last day I wasn't planning on doing a surgery but the vet asked at the last minute if I wanted to neuter a dog, and I realized I wasn't nervous when I agreed to do it. Thinking back to the past year when our group would feel nervous all week about our live animal surgeries, this was a pretty big milestone. Now I just have to work on my speed, but that'll come with time :)

Fell in love with mini horses during my externship

My first solo spay patient :)

A sweet 7 week old puppy who had a roundworm impaction..

..and the roundworms that were stuck in his intestines (spaghetti anyone?)

In the meantime I've been seeing friends and family as much as I can, hanging out with Ricky, and enjoying the time I have before I have to start seriously thinking about NAVLE studying (eek!)

Canada day selfie :)

So now I have to finish up some externship paperwork (yuck), but I have this week off to catch up on that as well as things that I've been putting off since I've been so busy (like cleaning my closet...so much fun). Next week I'm going back to Guelph for a week for my Neuro rotation at school, then I'm back in London and surrounding area for most of the summer.

If 8 weeks flew by, I can't imagine how quickly my 1 and 2 week rotations are going to go!

Bye for now :)

Phase 3!

Hiiii!

Well I'm ~48 class hours into third year and I'm still alive! Third year?! That sounds craaaazy to be saying out loud. Today there was a phase 2 to phase 1 info lunch talk and I was like "I'm not in either of those". Eek! The end is in sight!

Anyway, brief overview of my past week - I'm living in the same apartment this year so moving back in was quick and easy. It was (and is) super weird not having Daisy here - on one hand I can take advantage of not getting up early and missing lunch talks, but the cons definitely outweigh the pro s and I'm dying for another dog. Not gonna lie, I've been hardcore stalking greyhound rescues because they are the perfect dog for a lazy person like me...but I think I need to wait until the craziness of 4th year is at least mostly finished.

Like come on....I need

We got right back into the swing of things with 8:30 - 5:30 class all last week. I may have worked 40h weeks during the summer, but being mentally tired is a whole different thing (fellow students, you get me). It's ok though, coffee and naps will get me though :)

Each year the program gets more and more clinical and I love it. We have an entire course on medicine and surgery of dogs and cats (and one for horses and another for food animal - damn!) in addition to our surgical exercises course and I'm looking forward to feeling more and more "vet-ty" as the year goes on :)

This year's courses

I'm in the process of finalizing an externship for the summer and already have a list of to-dos for this weekend (aka notes I was too tired to make last week). Hot dates with the library coming right up!

My actual desktop sticky note...it keeps growing

Overall, we've heard multiple times this week that third year is a lot of work but also a lot of fun, and that balance is basically what I strive for all the time :) let's do this!!

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!

Hands-on Learning and FREEDOM!

Helloooo lovely people,

Let me just take a deep breath before this post because it's going to be a long one. The past 2 weeks have been some of the busiest and most hands-on weeks I've had so far in vet school.

Surgery ward shadowing:

I completed my week of no sleep aka shadowing week! I got to follow a 4th year around during her rotation in the small animal surgery wards doing pre and post op treatments on patients. Due to confidentiality I can't explain exactly what I saw, but some of the reasons that our patients were at the hospital were: amputations, mammary tumors, septic peritonitis (2 different cases), and ectopic ureters. Although as Phase II students we aren't ready to be able to give medications yet, I got to practice plenty of physical exam skills (I'm now a pro at taking a rectal temp on a grumpy cat) as well as giving fluids, calculating drug doses, taking blood pressure, and getting to cuddle with dogs as I heated or iced their surgical sites. I also gained the title of magician because I was able to coax all of our not-so-hungry dogs to eat. It was a tiring week because I had to be there before class (started at 6:45 most mornings) and then from 7 pm til 9ish for evening treatments. But it was so worth it, I learned so much and my student was great - she taught me tricks about things here and there and gave me "homework" to prepare for the types of questions I will get asked during 4th year rounds. I'm super glad that this week was mandatory for our Clinical Medicine course, and seeing our patients go home to their owners was so rewarding.

My new stethoscope served me well :)

Labs:
We had a week of useful labs that it made it seem like we are actually learning real-life things! Class can obviously get a little monotonous. First we had a small mammal handling lab, aka bunnies (love) and rats (ew, sorry to the rat-lovers out there). I've had a little bit of rabbit experience at the clinic I volunteer at, but there were lots of people in my class who were shocked at their crazy fast heart rates (250-350 bpm - our prof described it as "if it's too fast to count that's a good thing). Next we had a surgery lab where we got to remove "tumors" (sponges) from cadavers and learn how to properly suture them up, depending on the incision size and shape. Finally there was an anesthesia lab where we got to practice intubation and catheter placement on simulation models. Yay for practical labs!!

The rabbits looked like this and they were the softest things ever <3

Intubation models because we're not quite ready for the real thing yet ;)

After that whirlwind of a week we had 3 back to back finals - Pharm/Anesthesia (trickiest one so far and it covered a TON of lectures which was annoying), Art of Vet Med (basically ethics and communication...needless to say I didn't study much for that one), and today we had Radiology which went better than expected and I'm slowly getting more confident in my ability to actually see things on radiographs.

My view in the library all day yesterday

And now I'm free for 2ish weeks! We're celebrating tonight and then I'm heading home tomorrow to see DAISY (and my friends and family...)! My girlfriends and I are going to a Christmas party on Saturday and then Matt and I are exchanging gifts and hanging out on Sunday and Monday because I havent seen him in 3 weeks!

Vet school work never ends and there are a few things I want to get done over the break, but the majority of my time will be spent sleeping and eating. Time to catch up on all of that lost sleep :)

Bye for now and Merry Christmas!

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!

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

A little overdue update

How has it been 3 weeks since my last post?? That basically describes how second year is going - sooo quickly!

Recap:

- IMATS/Toronto: my friends and I had a great girls weekend and took advantage of the amazing makeup sales at the show - I won't need to buy anything for a looong time now.

Best friends since elementary school :)

While everyone else in TO was at the Jays game, we were here :)

- Cow palp: the lineup at the palpation lab was so long that I only got to try out the simulation model, but it had a real uterus in it so it was pretty close to the real thing. I didn't expect the ovaries of a 1500 pound animal to be so small! Tomorrow is the next lab so I'll be able to actually put my arm up there - the things that vet students get excited about :)

- Classes in general have been much better this year, I've really taken a liking to hematology because I find it amazing how we can look at a blood sample and uncover so much of what is going on inside the animal's body. We've gotten the chance to perfect our blood smearing techniques and also got to practice tissue sampling last week. Yay for learning clinical things!

- Shadowing opportunities: this year we have a mandatory week of shadowing a 4th year student on rotation. Mine isn't til December but I'll be doing it in small animal surgery and I'm so excited! it'll be a great chance to see what I'll be doing in 2 years (that is also a terrifying thought). The surgery club that I am a part of has also set up shifts for the small animal emergency team, where we're "on call" for a shift and if there is an emergency surgery we will get called in to observe.

- Asepsis lab: we had our first surgery lab last week and after practicing a full surgical scrub, I have never had cleaner hands (perfect for a germaphobe!). We learned scrubbing, opening surgical packs, gloving and gowning - sounds simple enough, but it is quite a process when you have to keep all the rules of sterility in mind.

Feeling like vets!

- Tests: we've already gotten 2 (very small) ones out of the way, so I'm finally getting back into the studying routine. Coffee coffee coffee!

This past weekend was (Canadian) thanksgiving so I got to go home and spend time with my family, Matt's family, and my friends. It was a nice few days of relaxation before getting back into school mode. Daisy is unfortunately still in London, she is doing much much better after her kidney infection has gone away but she is still showing some signs of her ongoing kidney inflammation (nephritis) - peeing in her bed occasionally is the one that I'm most concerned about, especially because she sleeps in my bed when she's here in Guelph with me. We have her on the vet prescription kidney diet now and once things are under control hopefully she'll come down. I miss her a lot and I don't like to have my parents take care of her every day but it's what's best for her health and my stress levels right now. (Thanks mom and dad, if you're reading this!)

Looking pretty good for everything she's been through! <3

Snuggles 

Today is Tuesday and we got the day off, so I'm looking forward to a 3 day week! I'm supposed to be spending today catching up on homework though, so I'm gonna end this here. Thanks for reading :)