4/28

The rest of last week went pretty uneventfully.  I left for Eureka Friday night and went to check out an apartment Saturday as well as checked out the new clinic that the place I am going to be working for will be moving into in July.  Sunday I was in Peoria, then headed back to Champaign.  

This week I began my last clinical rotation of school.  I am on small animal internal medicine.  Yesterday I had two appointments, a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel with enlarged lymph nodes and then a cocker spaniel who wasn't eating and had a fainting episode on Sunday.  Now today I have nothing.  Hard to believe I'm on my last rotation already!

Last Tuesday night I believe it was, I went over to the Brittanys' apartment to say good-bye to Brigitte, their roommate who I've gotten to know quite well over the last three years. She left this past weekend and will be gone for a month so I won't be seeing her anymore.  BMac took a picture of us since we didn't have any pictures together:

Catch Up

Wow, it's been awhile since I've wrote here.  Amazing how fast the time goes.  Last week I was on diagnostics so I was doing lots of necropsies and looking at slides of tissues under the microscope.  This week I'm on advanced dermatology so it's all things skin again.  I even had a german shepherd who was my patient two months ago when I was on my regular dermatology rotation.  I find dermatology interesting so it's nice to be on again.  Three weeks and two days 'til graduation!

4/11

This past week was semi-slow on critical care.  I currently have a cat who's urethra was blocked with either a stone or sludge, hard to tell.  He is scheduled to have a perineal urethrostomy done on Monday where they essentially make the urethra come out higher up, closer to his butt thus eliminating the tip of his urethra which is the smallest in diameter.  He is okay if you are just petting him but has a tendency to freak out and get aggressive when you start messing with him.  He has already bitten one of my classmates.  Monday morning I will hand him off to a different student as I will switch from critical care to diagnostic medicine (necropsies and looking at tissues under the microscope).

Went apartment shopping yesterday.  Checked out six places, was pretty burnt out by the time we got done.  Andrea wasn't burnt out but that's probably because she has built up a much higher shopping endurance level than I have ;)  Haven't settled on one yet but was nice to take a peek at a few.

Only one month and four days 'til graduation, can't believe it's so close!

Update

This past Saturday I was at school from 645AM til 230PM.  I had an 11 month old weimaraner who unfortunately was going to be euthanized Saturday evening.  Sunday I didn't have a transfer so was able to leave school earlier and head to Tremont for Easter.  Monday I had a dog that got into rodenticide and was able to send it home yesterday afternoon as it was doing well.  This morning I had a cat who had a string removed from its stomach and intestines transferred to me.  It will be going home tomorrow.  I've enjoyed critical care, had a good amount of varying cases between myself and my classmate Kelly. 

This Friday I am taking off of school and going to go apartment shopping, I'm sure it will be a blast!

Critical Care

This past week was my first week of two on critical care.  It was quite busy.  I had only one patient the whole week.  How does one patient keep me busy for a week? Well here's how:
15 year old dog
kidney disease
diabetes
bladder stones
head tremors
jerky head and front limb movements
minimally responsive at times
mentally dull
unable to use hind limbs
cataracts in both eyes
not eating at all
diarrhea

He was doing better near the beginning of the week but later on in the week he just seemed to go downhill.  It was too bad to see him get worse but when you're an old dog with failing kidneys and diabetes that isn't controlled it's just not a good deal.  I took over his case on Monday and I sent him home last evening with a tube going directly in the side of his neck into his esophagus so that he could be fed. 

While I kept this one case all week and didn't have another patient, my classmate who is on critical care with me had five animals.  Everytime she would get a patient it would either die or go home the next day so she was always available to take a transfer from the ER in the mornings.  So, while she changed patients a lot, I just kept chugging.  My guy was a ton of work though with his many medications and all the lines and tubes hooked up to him so I don't think I was slacking.

Today I had a young dog who has had some health problems and unfortunately will end up being euthanized tonight by another veterinarian.  So, if there are any transfers to critical care tomorrow morning I will be up first to take the new patient.