Wow, I haven't posted on this thing in over a year. Fail.
For one thing, I've been too busy, but for another, despite the fact I now am a Certified Veterinary Technician (license and everything!), and am working at an awesome clinic, I can't really figure out how to share stories from that on a blog without the possibility of some client randomly finding it, recognizing themselves, and getting mad.
People like getting mad, let me tell you.
So yes, I have amazing stories to share, and yes, I'm keeping track of them, and yes, I'm going to keep contemplating this dilemma, because I know a lot of you really want to hear my stories. But if I can't figure out a way to do it appropriately right now, you might have to just wait twenty years or so until the statute of limitations I just made up ends. Okay? Sorry about that.
Unless somebody wants to get me a publishing gig under a pseudonym?
Here's a teaser for you: HBC (hit by car) came in this week and I ended up looking like a serial killer. Don't worry, the patient is fine. My scrub top, however, is not.
I am so, so glad it's the weekend. This entire week seemed to creep by.
Slower even than this guy, probably.
...and then today ended it off in an insane, adrenaline-fueled haze.
o.O
So to start it all off, I took a radiography test at 7:30 this morning since I won't be here Monday to take it with everybody else because I'm driving to Bloomington, IN with my sister for my Prisca's doctoral recital. And of course this test I studied the most for of any test yet this term and that alone stressed me out. Mrs. R suggested I even take it next week, since she told us it would be hard, but I was all: "weellll... that probably won't go so well since I am not going to study over the weekend."
"Fair enough," she said.
So I took the test this morning and had major confusion on three of the questions, since I overthink everything, but it turns out I got them right after all. After I handed the test over Mrs. R said "was it as bad as you thought it might be?"
"Yes," I said, and she laughed a lot more than I thought my comment warranted. But hey, I love to make people laugh.
Then we fell into this weird time-slog where every class seemed to take forever. I found out, during Exotics, that somebody's grandfather is going to bring his macaw in on Monday and I AM MISSING IT.
"It's okay," says Macaw. "Another time, perhaps."
So then me and four friends had signed up as the first group in our class to do our first ever actual radiography practice with the machine and an animal and the personal protective gear and thyroid shields and everything and like an idiot I was like "YOU GUYS, let's do Lucy, because she's crazy and Mrs. R can teach us how to radiograph crazy dogs!"
Because here's the thing--Mrs. R told us most animals can be positioned and will hold still for radiographs, and you get good at it and don't have to sedate them. So my thought process was "wow, I can't imagine that. I want to see how this is done. Lucy is a bit of a crack puppy, so she'd be a good choice, and we'll get to do the whole trial-by-fire thing under professional supervision!" And my friends, bless them, were like "sure! sounds good to us!"
BUT WAIT; I was trying to be responsible and take Lucy out beforehand to potty and get some of her energy out (a useless endeavor) and along the way I discovered Lucy is now in heat, so her usual crazy had increased ten-fold.
We returned, fifteen minutes before we were due in the radiography room, and I handed Lucy off to my buddy, Erica, while I ran to get treats to keep Lucy calm. Unfortunately, there were only three left, and since I care inordinate amounts about not being "that person," I jogged to the storage room to get a new bag for kennel. Whilst shoving a door stop in place I got accosted by my friend Emily who was all "somebody's having a panic attack in the bathroom and locked herself in so I ran and told the teachers and Dr. D is in there with her!" so then it's like, three minutes before I'm supposed to be in the radiography room, but I'm like "crap."
I didn't want to get in the way if the situation was being handled, but on the other hand, lots of bad things happen while lots of people watch because everybody assumes somebody else it taking care of it. And hey, I've got lots of personal experience with panic attacks.
So I went in the bathroom and I guess it was a good thing I did because the girl in there with the other girl was trying to help but obviously was at a bit of a loss. So I obnoxiously took over and ended up spending fifteen minutes teaching the girl breathing exercises (thanks, Mother-in-Law, for the training!) and she did awesome and got control back and I showed her some relaxation stuff and was totally actually useful, I think. I love being useful.
And the girl is really cool, and now I know her name and want to be friends with her.
Well, anyhow. We parted ways and I bolted for the radiography room (no clue how late I actually was--I just ran in and apologized and got filled in on the first part later). But since I wasn't stressed enough, of course Lucy was INSANE CRAZY DOG and would not stay calm. After about what felt like ten minutes of wrestling with her (while we were all wearing heavy, bulky lead-protected mittens), Mrs. R--who had already wrestled with Eugene (an intact, crazy, beefy male dog) earlier--was finally like "NOT DEALING WITH THIS; SHE'S DONE. GET ANOTHER ONE!"
So by golly we picked another one. A beagle mix named Buster. We had to measure him and re-do all the calculations and XRAY settings. Finally Erica, Amy, Mrs. R and I got him down and got our right lateral thorax view. Then we helped Jordan and Victoria suit up.
Sexy thyroid shield not pictured.
Then I and my two buddies spent an awkward and hilarious ten minutes groping each other in the completely dark processing room, trying to get the film out of the cassette, and the photoprinting in the correct place, and then feed the film through the processor (all with absolutely no lights and trying not to mess up the pre-processed film with our fumbling, grubby little fists).
You guys, it TURNED OUT BEAUTIFULLY. I mean, except for a fingerprint in the film. BUT WHATEVS. Meanwhile Victoria, Jordan, and Mrs. R courageously wrestled Buster into VD frog leg position.
This, only with fewer props.
They got their view! Then they processed it while my group cleaned everything, and the whole thing was super successful and we shared high fives all around and Mrs. R said something about it being so nice working with people who are friends.
"How do you know we're friends?" returned Victoria. "We might all hate each other."
"Well," said Mrs. R, "you're doing a really, really good job of hiding it. Thank goodness."
Turns out Lucy would have been amongst that small percentage of dogs that Mrs. R would "immediately torb up" for radiography if she'd encountered her in practice.
Good job, Lucy.
And I guess I never actually refilled the treat container. Whoops.
During all of this insanity I was experiencing, Garrett was at some huge Pittsburgh city-planning shin-dig behind the scenes with super duper special headphones and insane video equipment (including a 16x9 foot LED screen with LEDs for all the individual pixels) while his teammate was in the audience, providing feedback, while one of the company's projects Garrett worked on was presented to a room full of Pittsburgh big-wigs and some people from Copenhagen and stuff. And afterwards the mayor... you know, of Pittsburgh... came by and gushed over their presentation and of course they forgot to get a picture with him.
"Excellent work, Simcoach Games."
Then they picked me up at school and we all went and hung out for almost two and a half hours. It was super fun--we all shared crazy animal stories, and laughed a lot. Then, in a beautiful moment, after talking about insects, a large, black, winged insect with a huge, pulsing abdomen that looked stinger-laden flew into my face and dropped down my shirt and into my bra (we were outside on the deck of the restaurant) and I flipped out. Garrett then spent the next frantic two minutes trying to fish it out without it [possibly] stinging me or injecting my boob with evil insect eggs or biting me, and meanwhile this old dude who was alone at a table beside ours watched the whole thing in helpless mirth.
Glad we provided everybody with some great after-dinner entertainment.
And now we can relax for a day before my sister gets here and she and I drive 7 hours to IN, then Tuesday morning drive 7 hours back so I can make it to the house for the 3pm inspection.
Ramble ramble ramble. Time to play some Minecraft.
Well, term 4 hasn't finished yet, but I think I and my friends figured out why upperclassmen always complained about fourth term. They weren't clear in their explanations, though. From what they said, we thought we'd have a test or two every single day, and they'd all be so hard our brains would leak out our ears.
But thus far this term has still had fewer tests than last term (the final tally for last term was 30 tests in 38 days of class... as of today we've only had nine tests in fifteen days), and they haven't really seemed any harder than last term. The issue appears to be that this term is just HORRIFICALLY BORING. Maybe it's because we're not doing much with any animals in class. Or maybe this is the hump term of school--our Wednesday of sorts, and we just have to get through it, and we'll be over half-done, and time will speed up again. Who knows. But it's been rough. There have been some good moments, though.
For one thing, during first term I got really close with a group of girls, but we got split up for second and third terms. I was with one of them through those terms, which was awesome, but I very much missed the others. But this term we're all back together again! In the meantime, I got closer with some other excellent ladies. But this term has definitely been filled with good times with all my friends. Multiple times they've proved how awesome they are; making sure I got study packets when I was sick and missed a day, being encouraging and kind in general, and just generally making time at school a really positive experience... even when I'm not feeling great, and even when we're all just trying to survive the next test.
A second thing happened which has helped make my future career goals more clear. Our Animal Tech class this term is Everything Laboratory Animal, basically. So that means really in-depth info about mice, rats, and other common lab animals.
The professor worked at Pitt's research lab for years and loved it. Last week after class one day she told me that I should try to do my externship at Pitt because "[I] have the scientific mind and would really be able to appreciate the research environment." Now, my head immediately swelled several sizes (I'm a sucker for praise from people I have respect-crushes on).
Visions of accolades danced in my head for days.
Now, I was 95% sure I had no interest in pursuing lab work as a career, but I'm always up for learning new things, so to do my externship at Pitt would be almost ideal; I could see what really goes on in a research lab, be involved in actual research, learn a ton, have a great addition for my resume, but then after the two month externship, move on to vet tech work I'm more interested in.
But the more I thought about lab work, the more I realized I didn't want to do it--at all. It's all well and good to say that laboratory research is going to help other animals and people (which it definitely is), and that there are lots of regulations that mean animals get analgesics and such if they need them. But the fact of the matter is, those animals are still almost all going to be euthanized when research is over (sometimes before, since the researchers need to run tests on body systems or need amounts of blood that a single, live, tiny mouse can't provide and still live to tell about it), and a lot of the research involves giving them terminal diseases... on purpose. I can deal with the animals at school getting poked and prodded because after six month's time they get adopted and [mostly] get really good homes. But lab animals usually don't. I dislike doing uncomfortable procedures on animals at any time, but knowing that it's not even to make them better or healthier, but rather harm them (even for the "greater good") makes me queasy.
Despite all this I was still talking myself into pursuing it. Why? Because I have always hung out with brilliant people. Not just smart people, but brilliant people. I got born into a family of them, some of my siblings are them, a lot of family friends are them... I grew up surrounded by brilliant people. Because of that I've had a pretty great education. But I'm not brilliant myself--I don't have the talent or the drive.
In college, I chose "enough sleep" 9 times out of 10, and tried to split the rest of my time equally between achieving the other two goals, and didn't really care if neither were achieved.
But here's the issue; for the entirety of my life, brilliant has been the norm. Brilliant is expected. It's just sort of assumed. Don't get me wrong, brilliant is pretty cool--I've learned all kinds of really fascinating things, and know people from all sorts of scientific, artistic, and philosophical backgrounds. If I have a question about something, chances are good I know, or have some connection to somebody actively working at a doctoral level in that particular field. I love that. I love learning. I love knowledge. But I have no desire (currently) to pursue further academic degrees.
I don't want to be a vet; I want to be a vet tech.
But I do want all those brilliant people I know and respect to respect me and ascribe to me the same brilliance they have. I like being thought of as "smart." And I am. But I come from a place where the average intelligence is master's level at the least. That's unusual, so I know my perspective is skewed. But being able to say that I have a "background in research" basically assures me a seat amongst the academics.
Luckily the majority of the brilliant people I know respect tradespeople. I know they don't think I'm dumb because I want to be a vet tech. But I think some of them sort of assume it's only a step along the path to being a full-fledged DVM or veterinary medical researcher.
Maybe I could do it. Maybe I could go to vet school and do great. But I don't want to. I don't want to go to school for years or spend months writing research grant proposals. It would drive me crazy. I love working with my hands, and I love animals. I love working with my brain, as well--but more as a sort of hobby.
Being a Vet Tech involves a lot of abstract brain work, don't get me wrong--but it's all directly tied to the practical. I need to know all the intricacies of how and why a dog might get infected with Dipylidium caninum, and what to do about it, but I've still got an actual animal standing in front of me. Showing clinical signs. Actual tests I can physically run. Things I can see, things I can do. The abstract knowledge is tied directly to the physical reality, and that's the way I like it; that's the way that makes sense to me.
I know this about myself, and I love this about myself. But I also want to be brilliant.
"But you'd hate it," Garrett said. "You'd hate working in a research lab."
"I knowww," I whined. "But I'd learn so much! People would think I'm a smartie!"
"They already do," he said. "You don't need to be doing something you'd hate to try to prove something people already know."
"But if I did research it'd be OFFICIAL that I'm smart."
Then, of course, I accepted what I'd already known--I didn't want to do it for the love of the thing. Yes, I would appreciate having a more intimate knowledge of how research is conducted. But I can always ask all the people I know who already work in research. I didn't care that I might indirectly be saving thousands of human and animal lives in the future by giving mice cancer now; I would have to steel myself every day and hate myself a little bit more every time I injected another one.
It's not like I'm not going to egg researchers' homes or anything--it is indisputable that they have saved countless lives--but I don't want to personally be involved in it if it involves harming many other little creatures.
What it comes down to is that I just want to convince myself that I'm brilliant, and have other people recognize it.
This is, needless to say, fruitless and vain.
So I'm going to concentrate on regular clinic work, but seize any opportunities I can to also work with exotics and large animals. There: immediate relief.
Or why not both exotic AND large?
But parrots are pretty great...
And I definitely need horses in my life at all times...
Basically, there are a ton of other things I could be doing as a Vet Tech that I would absolutely love.
My mom once introduced me to someone as "our closet academic." I like that. I'll take it.
I love what I am learning at school, and what I'll be doing in practice, and I have found my niche; I am content.
So now that all that rambling is over and done with and given to the wind I'll leave you with this moment from last week...
Clinical Lab this term is all about cytology--tumor biopsies are obvious topics, but also we've covered fertility-related cytology (most common with breeding animals).
Female cytology lecture and lab wasn't too bad. But male cytology... well. Our professor started out the lecture with this comment:
"I'm going to talk about the procedure first, and then we'll go to the powerpoint. The pictures are a bit distracting."
You will understand why if you choose to watch the following video of Garrett reading aloud my notes from that class. I give it a strong Awkward/PG-13 rating. Proceed at your own risk.
And yes, I checked with him to be sure he was okay with me posting it.
"Yeah," he said. "I'm narcissistic enough I don't mind."
I have had Sir Percy since I was 9 years old, and he was <1.
He is now 16. That is a lot of years we've been together.
When I was young and foolish, my siblings and I used to play "birdie ball" where we would sort of chuck him across the living room to make him fly back and forth between us. He still lets me hold him now, so hopefully he's mostly forgiven me. I'm sorry, Pretty Bird.
"It's okay."
Once, Sir Percy was walking along the floor and Dad rolled over his little foot with a computer chair. He's been missing that one back claw for years now since it happened. But he still climbs up and down his cage with ease. The top is his favourite place to take a little snooze.
Zzz.
Until some jerk comes along and wakes him up with a camera.
My parents originally promised me I could have a bird to prove I was responsible enough to have a dog. But, as it turned out, my great Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Mike found our perfect dog for us a few months before I'd even gotten Sir Percy. We all trekked out to their gorgeous farm on the Tennessee river and what they'd tried to convince my Dad of over the phone was made abundantly clear in person--yes, a German Shepherd could be the perfect family dog for four young children.
Playing during a rare snow in TN.
Exploring the new PA neighbourhood with Ben.
She even attended a creeking at GCC during my college years.
Cani and Annabelle.
She remained the best dog until she died in 2011 at age 13, and now there is a dog-shaped hole in my heart, waiting for the time and space to to fill it again.
But anyhow, after getting Cani-dog all those years ago, my parents decided they'd still get me a bird, so I received Sir Percy for my 9th birthday a few months later. He was hand-raised by a breeder in Jackson, TN, and Dad went and watched that batch of babies for an afternoon one day before picking out Sir Percy to be my companion.
He was a pretty great pet. I mean, other kids didn't have little parrots, and I did. It was awesome.
Sir Percy has witnessed a lot in his time with me, and quite a few pets have come and gone since he's been here. We've had a random variety of snakes, a few turtles (including a little snapper!), a couple goldfish, and some wildlife.
He ignored Weepers, a sparrow I raised.
"Why is that thing here?" he said. "Who even keeps birds as pets? Ugh."
I don't recall him having any animosity towards my squirrel, though.
Me and T.J., both of us still young.
Sir Percy lived through encounters with a number of cats.
Figwit, who liked jumping on the side of his cage and trying to pull it down.
"Just one little taste? Pleaassee?"
Betsy's little kitty, Gillie of Ockham
Guen
Tiny Kitty
Sir Percy has also had to accustom himself to me acquiring a husband, and said new husband's pet, Rad Cherenkov, the beta fish.
So Sir Percy moved to the city with me.
He was fine with the husband.
New perches are always welcome.
He met Rad, decided he wasn't worth bothering about, and never mentioned him again.
Rad is basically a flower that swims around.
Rad, for your information, is almost 4 years old. He is a very hardy beta fish.
Well, I've been trying to read more about cockatiel care on my own, but going to Vet Tech school has opened my eyes to a lot more information that you can't get just by googling "cockatiel care." I decided Sir Percy should probably go to the vet. One of my favourite professors works with exotics and large animals, and when I approached her about it, she recommended a couple clinics nearby. I picked one, made an appointment, and today Garrett and I took Sir Percy to the vet for the first time in 16 years.
I learned a lot.
Firstly, while it's good to fast dogs and cats before vet visits in case they need bloodwork, it is not good to fast cockatiels because they'll tend to hypoglycemia.
Secondly, I learned how a healthy cockatiel's body should feel, and where natural little divets are, and how to tell if the cockatiel has fatty liver disease (a common complaint). Sir Percy has a perfect little body, with no signs of fatty liver disease.
Thirdly, I learned there is this thing called the "choana." It's sort of the nasophanyngeal opening, but it also consists of lymphatic tissues dangling from the top. Basically, it's cockatiel tonsils. In birdies, you want it to be spiky-looking. If they're blunt and dull, it would indicate bad diet and immune issues.
See the little tooth-like things? That's what I'm talking about, and they should look like that.
The vet showed me Sir Percy's choana, and, much to my disbelief, his are super sharp and pointy and not dull at all. So now all I can think about is---did dinosaurs have choana? Like, it wasn't enough they had dinosaur teeth... even their little throat lymph tissue needed to look like teeth?
I think we're going to need a bigger speculum.
See figure J-51.
The vet also commented how nice Sir Percy's crest looks. Usually they're kind of sparse and short by his age. This surprised me, since I'd thought Sir Percy's crest looked a bit ratty. But no, the vet thought it was super fine, even though it bends off to the left a bit.
Super fine neck feathers.
I decided to get him tested for psittacosis (a fairly expensive test, but the disease is zoonotic). I mean, it's been 16 years, but I figured we might as well do it right. We'll get the results from that in a week and a half.
Fourth thing I learned: the vet said that because Sir Percy is so old, he's probably set in his ways, and he wouldn't recommend getting him a birdy buddy, because he probably thinks he's part of our flock and doesn't recognize that he's a bird (which explains why he didn't know what to do with Wheepers). So I guess we're off the hook for that. I do think I want to invest in a new cage for him, though. This one is as old as he is, and actually looks its age, unlike Sir Percy, apparently.
Fifth thing I learned: I love exotics medicine and I definitely want to try to pursue that in addition to large and companion animal medicine.
Sixth thing I learned: Sir Percy weighs 77grams, a nice midway between the 70-85g the vet usually sees in cockatiels. When the vet first saw Sir Percy he thought he was going to be overweight, because he's fluffy-looking, but nope! Healthy birdy weight.
In the end, the vet was awesome, and gave us almost a 50% discount because I'm a Vet Tech student. Yay! Basically, he just charged us for the psittacosis test they have to send out. Sir Percy will be getting yearly check-ups there from here on out, and I'm thinking perhaps I could see about developing a relationship with this practice and either working there, or making other exotics connections through them.
And once I know Sir Percy is cleared of possibly having psittacosis, he can go back to his favourite past-time--cleaning people's teeth.
"Yum. Let's see what we've got back here..."
Special thanks to Garrett, for being my chauffeur and errand-buddy, and Dr. Glenn Marsch, for taking a lot of these photos, and siring me. Here's his flickr account.
We've been covering the reproductive system in A&P, so, naturally, there have been a lot of good quotes.
During these discussions, I've had one burning question building up inside of me. We were discussing the male parasympathetic reflex caused by olfactory cues and behavioural changes in the female, and my time had come. I raised my hand.
"Yep?" said our prof.
"I have a weird question," I said.
"Okay," she said.
"So I used to work with these stud horses... and I swear that whenever I was ovulating, they'd get pushy with me and I had to be a lot firmer with them and, and..."
By this time the whole class was laughing, including the teacher.
"Am I crazy?" I asked.
"No!" said my prof.
"Thank goodness!" I said. "Because it was getting pretty weird when I'd have to come home and tell my husband that the horses all got boners when I walked into their stalls."
"I'm guessing," said my professor, still laughing, "they weren't picking up any behavioural cues from you, right?... but they could definitely pick up hormonal cues. Actually, that reminds me of this gelding I used to have. Zippy. And Zippy shouldn't have been behaving like this, being a gelding. But Zippy would get an erection whenever the farrier pulled up in his truck. It was so awkward."
Hey, hey, hey!
~*~
"Dogs don't have bulbourethral glands. Bulbourethral glands are also called Cowper's gland, after the guy who discovered them, I guess." She paused. "I don't think I'd want an accessory sex gland named after me."
~*~
Discussing mammary glands and that females will continue lactating as long as they are regularly being suckled.
"That's how you end up with people still nursing their toddlers and stuff. Eesh. If you're old enough to go get your own drink, it might be time to move on."
Good grief, look at that kid; he's ready to join the local flag football team.
I guess it's a great diet plan for mom, anyways.
~*~
Fun facts:
Armadillos always give birth to identical quads.
Really interesting and only kind of horrific facts:
1. Those cute little pot bellies that puppies and kitten have are actually caused by Toxocara spp (roundworm). Puppies are born with it because it goes transplacentally as well as transmammary, and kittens get it immediately after birth because it goes transmammary for them. Also, virtually every single adult dog/cat has encysted roundworm. You can deworm them, but it won't kill the encysted ones, which will just wake up and become adult worms whenever they want to later (which is part of the reason why you have to deworm regularly).
Irresistible!
2. Toxoplasma gondii is the protozoal parasite pregnant women are told to watch out for and why they are warned not to change cat litter for fear of catching this. In reality, you are much more likely to get it from unwashed fruit or improperly cooked meat, but anyways... normally people just fight it off and it's not a big deal, so if a pregnant woman was exposed to it prior to pregnancy, and then exposed again, it wouldn't be an issue because she'd have antibodies to fight it off. But if her first exposure was while pregnant it can cause miscarriage if contracted in early pregnancy, and severe developmental issues in the baby if contracted in later pregnancy.
But besides that, here's the really fascinating thing; it also might be giving normal, everyday people the crazies.
Read this article about it!
Just plain horrific facts:
If you want to know what the parasite Echinococcus granulosus does when it gets into a human (which is not its definitive host, and we'd be better off if we were), you can watch this video. It merits a solid 12 out of 10 on the ick scale.
I've been having issues staying awake in classes this term because of it still being dark when I get up in the morning. I've never drawn so much on my notes before, just trying to look busy.
Please note the obvious lack of actual notes on this particular slide.
