Weekend Studying

After Thanksgiving my weekend went as such:
Friday morning: studied until Jay and Jared met me at school for a tour on their way home from Eureka. 
Studied a little more before heading off to Gramp and Gram's in Tremont.  Ate dinner with them then cuddled up on their couch with my laptop to continue my studies.

Saturday: Studied after showering 'til I ate breakfast with Gramp and Gram.  Studied some more before going and chatting with Aunt Colleen for an hour or so.  Continued my studying until I left for Heather and Andrea's in the mid afternoon after eating a little lunch at Gramp and Grams.  Once at Heather and Andrea's I studied until the girls showed up, around 8PM or so, then hung out and chatted with them.

Sunday: Got up and showered and ate breakfast, had some extra time so got some more studying in before taking off for Congerville church.  Was nice to see a few Rockville folks there!  I left Congerville church and headed straight back to Champaign, where I am just taking a little break from studying some more! Wednesday afternoon is going to find one very relieved and much more relaxed Dave Beutel!

Thanksgiving

I finished out my internal medicine rotation this past weekend.  Had a nice miniature pinscher as a patient, I believe he left on Monday, but it looked like he was back again yesterday so hopefully he's alright.  On Monday I started my imaging rotation.  My first day I was on dictation which means I was in the "reading room" where all the x-rays, ultrasound images, CT images, MRI images, and nuclear medicine images are read.  Throughout the day I looked at various x-rays of different animals and at 4pm, I had to present a couple of the cases.  On Tuesday I was on ultrasound so I spent much of my day at a computer writing down findings on ultrasounds that were being done by the doctors.  We were really busy, the patients just kept coming in for ultrasounds.  Yesterday I was on nuclear medicine, however we had no nuclear medicine patients so I helped with some x-rays instead (and studied for boards). 

I just got home from Thanksgiving service at church.  While at church I had a couple people offer that I should come to their place for Thanksgiving.  However, I already had an offer from somone so had to turn them down but I so appreciated people opening their homes to me.  I cannot be in Tremont with family as I am on call today and tonight for school so can't leave town.  It's times like these that make me thankful for the church family I have!

Tomorrow I look forward to having Jay and Jared stop by on their way back home to CT and then plan to take off for Tremont in the afternoon.  Saturday I will head to Eureka most likely in the afternoon and study for boards at Heather and Andreas.  Sunday I hope to be in Congerville as there will be some Rockville folks there so am hoping to get to see them.  Then, Monday will bring me back to school, Tuesday I will have off (day before boards you don't have to be at school), and Wednesday is boards!!

It's Friday!

Well, week 2 of internal medicine is drawing to a close.  Earlier this week I had a real cute mixed breed dog who came in for bleeding from one side of his nose.  Long story short, we diagnosed him with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the cells that produce antibodies in ours and animals bodies.  While he was showing clinical signs he was not real sick.  We transferred him to the oncology department and he is undergoing treatment.  With treatment, dogs with multiple myeloma can live for two years so hopefully he will have a little while to live yet.  Yesterday I had no transfers and today I have no appointments so I'm trying to get some studying for boards done, just a little over a week and a half 'til the big day! 

6 Months!

Exactly 6 months from this weekend is graduation and that's all I'm gonna say about that!

2 1/2 weeks from now is boards, to say I've been doing a little studying would be an accurate statement.

The rest of last week went well, had a 7 month old kitten that we did a CT scan, bronchoscopy (sticking camera down its windpipe) and rhinoscopy (sticking camera into its nasal cavity) on on Friday.  Unfortunately, it has some congenital problems and the owner will most likely elect euthanasia. 

This past weekend I didn't have a patient of my own but I helped a classmate with her patient both mornings.  The dog doesn't like us getting it out of its cage and tried to bite me numerous times this morning but I was able to get her without getting bit so right now the score is Dave: 1, Dog: 0.  Here's to hoping it stays that way!

This will be my second and last week of internal medicine.  Internal med has been one of my favorite rotations so far, it's very interesting. 

I have submitted my requests for professional development, the fancy name for the last 6 weeks of vet school.  Hard to believe that it's time to get that planned out already!

11/12

Today was a pretty easy day for me.  My appointment was the recheck on the dog who had immune mediated hemolytic anemia and he was doing awesome.  We rechecked his red blood cell level and blood protein level and they were looking good so we sent him home and told him to come back in two weeks so we could recheck his bloodwork and maybe start lowering some of his medication doses! 

This morning we had one transfer.  It is a little puppy who had parvo (a viral disease that causes diarrhea and vomiting in puppies and is contagious) but seemed to be doing better but now is back with vomiting and diarrhea again. So, he gets to spend his time in our isolation ward.  Unfortunately, there is no techs who monitor the isolation ward so us fourth year students get the honor of this task.  That means, that there needs to be a student there at all times.  Luckily there is a camera focused on him so us students can sit in the rounds room and keep an eye on him via the camera.  We split up the shifts into two hour shifts overnight.  I am the lucky one who got the 2AM-4AM shift. Someone has to do it but it's kind of a bummer 'cuz it's right in the middle of the night!  Oh well, hopefully it will be the only time I have to do it!

11/11

This morning I checked the transfer list and found that I had a transfer from ER.  It was a very nice female pit bull who was yellow (jaundice) and had elevated liver enzymes.  First thing we wanted to do was an ultrasound of her abdomen.  During the ultrasound we found a mucocele which is essentially a buildup of mucus and sludge in her gallbladder.  No one really knows exactly why they form but they cause back up of bile into the liver and leads to a yellow animal and increased liver enzymes.  So, we transferred her to soft tissue surgery this afternoon and when I left, she was recovering from having her gallbladder removed.  So, I have no in house patients right now which is fine.  Tomorrow I have a recheck appointment on a mixed breed dog who was diagnosed with immune-mediated hemolytic anemia last week.  In this disease, the body's immune system begins attacking the body's red blood cells making the animals anemic and thus weak, lethargic, and pale.  Hopefully it will be doing well and we can send them on their way happy!

Internal Medicine Take 2

Today I officially switched from orthopedic surgery to my second internal medicine rotation. And it was great.  I only had one appointment at 1:30 and it was a cat who had heart problems, pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas), and kidney problems.  And, it was doing awesome.  It's currently on no medications and doing well so we drew some blood to check its kidney values and sent it on its way! 

One of my classmates had a real nice german shepherd with pneumothorax (air in its chest).  When an animal has air in its chest, it makes it very difficult for the animal to breathe.  They pulled air off its chest but it didn't take long and it was filling back up again.  Unfortunately, the most likely cause in this dog was bullae which is when the a few air sacs near each other become weak and turn into a big balloon of air instead of little sacs and the bulla can then rupture and air flows from the lungs into the chest.  The only way to fix this is to go in surgically and either cut out the bulla or remove the lung lobe that is affected.

I am also glad that I am not on surgery anymore because it looked like there was going to be up to 3 emergency surgeries going on tonight.  So, while I study this evening and hopefully sleep peacefully in bed tonight, some of my classmates will be in the operating room.  Guess I snuck out just in time! 

This past weekend I gave a vet school tour to a bunch of Congerville folks.  It was fun showing them around and they seemed like they enjoyed it well enough! 

Ortho

I believe that this orthopedic surgery rotation has been the fastest moving rotation so far of all of them! I am admittedly not really into orthopedic procedures and will probably never be an orthopedic surgeon, however, the days tend to be quite busy and I've had a lot going on at school so the times just moves!  On Wednesday I had a black lab that had a tibial plateau leveling osteotomy (TPLO).  This involves cutting a piece of the tibia close to the femur and rotating it so that the tibia no longer moves forward when the dog walks.  This moving forward rotation doesn't normally happen but my dog had ruptured its cranial cruciate ligament, the ligament that prevents the tibial from moving forward.  While I'm glad I saw one, I did not find the surgery super interesting and am fine knowing that chances are pretty good that I won't  see another one.  Today I took over a case for one of my classmates who is gone today and this weekend.  She is a super sweet pitbull who last Friday sat down for a treat and couldn't get back up. She is not walking at all since her hind legs don't work but hopefully she will start at some point soon.  We will see.  

My classmate who is in surgery at this moment with her dog has another pit bull that is very aggressive.  It spent last night in the ICU and it couldn't go outside since no one can handle it.  It had a long tube attached to its IV catheter so that the anesthesia people didn't have to open the door to sedate it before bringing it to anesthesia.  It has a basket muzzle on at all time but lunged at my classmate when she tried putting food in its cage.  He will remain in the anesthesia recovery room after surgery sedated until his owners come to pick him up.  

I don't have any surgeries today which is fine with me so it's a little slower day for me which is nice.  This weekend I plan to be in Champaign so will hopefully get some studying done as I take boards three weeks from this Wednesday.  I also switch rotations to internal medicine on Monday so hopefully won't have quite as long days as I have been having on ortho.  In closing, here is a picture taken of me and two of my classmates watching a surgery through the surgery suite windows.  We sat like this just to make the surgeons uncomfortable and someone wanted to grab a picture of us (proof that not everything in vet school is serious):

Orthopedic Surgery

Just a quick update.  I finished my equine surgery rotation last Monday morning.  While I do miss working with the horses as that was a lot of fun, I don't miss the rudeness and insensitivity of the clinician. 

I am now on my small animal orthopedic surgery rotation. Just like my soft tissue surgery rotation, I am putting in a ton of hours.  I get to school between 545 and 630 in the morning depending on the day, and don't leave until between 630 and 8 in the evening.  I had a shih tzu who we had to do back surgery on this past Tuesday.  He was doing real well after surgery and I got to send him home yesterday.  He was in the ICU overnight Tuesday night after his surgery and man, he was a little stinker.  We couldn't get a muzzle on him and he was trying to bite us and screaming.  It was a party.  Luckily, once we got him back to the orthopedic ward Wednesday, he calmed down and only occasionally tried to bite when we took him out of his cage. 

Also, this past Monday I took over, and subsequently sent home, a great dane who had broken her radius and ulna in her left front leg.  Unfortunately, she came back Wednesday for increased lameness and discharge that was soaking through her bandages.  When we unwrapped her bandage, her leg was full of fluid and dripping through the pin tracks from her external fixator.  So, she has been with me since Wednesday and we have been changing her bandage every day.  It's looking much better so I am hoping to send her home Monday.

Last weekend I was just here in Champaign.  Tomorrow I hope to make it to Fairbury for a baptism.  However, I am on call tonight from 8pm to 8am tomorrow morning so we will see if the ball rolls in my favor or not!