Snow

It's snowing a lot in Edinburgh at the moment. I'm so glad I'm not heading home with everyone. Can't imagine how busy the trains would be. Happy just to stay here alone.

50%

A quick look at the timetable reveals we are half way through our rotations in final year. This is mildly terrifying to say the least! I feel like I know more than when I started, it's impossible not to learn, but do I know enough?

For now there are 3 weeks of holiday that will be spent revising and getting fit again. My fitness has declined over the past 3 months (or maybe years!) and needs a boost. Time to climb.

Parrot Anaesthesia

Exotics this week, and so far, so good. My case at the moment is an old parrot with breathing problems. To find out what is wrong with him we had to take some x-rays and give him a thorough check over. Unfortunately he isn't the most friendly of birds (to some people, he loves me. Or he did.)

To get a really good look we had to knock him out. There are so many bits of kit involved that at times it's hard to actually see the bird. My job was the monitor the anaesthetic during the operation.

It's very difficult to take the heart rate of a parrot - it's normally somewhere about 240 beats per minute, depending on the species. Everything went OK apart from a small panic as his heart rate decreased a bit. It was decided to give up at that point.

The verdict? Chronic air sac infection from several years ago. We now have just 3 days to fix years of problems whilst he stays in. Suboptimal. But at least he's alive!

Back to Earth

Yikes, we are back to proper work. Turns out I spent the weekend revising the wrong thing as did almost everyone else, so we failed badly at the tutorial today. I seem to be working hard for not much gain at the moment. Maybe more is required.

This afternoon was more fun. We got to see actual live animals and had 2 minutes to figure out what was wrong and then come up with a plan. History was minimal at best. It was great.

I don't feel quite as useless now, but still not great. Weird how one day can really make you doubt yourself and I hate this feeling. It'll be better tomorrow.

Holidays

The past 4 weeks have seemed like an amazing holiday compared to the previous 4. Not too much work to be doing, late starts, sometimes (like today) we don't even have to go out to Bush at all. It won't last.

Next week is the small animal practice rotation. We have to fight with dermatology, dentistry, exotics and small animal first opinion practice, although soon it will be more holidays. Christmas already? Don't really feel much further along than September.

As of tomorrow we will be about 37% through rotations. That's just terrifying.

Path

This week is pathology, and it's about as gross as you are imagining. Dead things. Lots of them. Turns out they don't really bother me though, especially after a certain point when dog is no longer a dog but a collection of separate parts.

Final year continues to try to murder us with work and things to be learning. At the moment I have a report to write, a few case reports and a presentation or two. Oh, and I'm meant to be revising state vet med for tomorrow.

In other news I've found a lovely medic who understands the species she treats are inferior in every way to the ones I work with. We spent most of last weekend together except when she had to head home and extinguish a burning sheep on the way. Oh and then everything flooded. Seemingly a weekend to stay away!

Anatomy

I don't normally like horses, but this is awesome. Must go see.

Death in the Family

I have missed a few days posting due to a small amount of badness.

Thursday it all went wrong. Lights were not on, there was noone at home when she was found. No response to any stimulus. She was examined by experts and others were brought in to check her over, to make sure she had the best care available.

Despite this she deteriorated overnight and crashed first thing in the morning. We don't know why. The won't be an autopsy.

I refused to give up and managed to breathe some life in to the old girl. A bit of care and attention and it all seemed to come together.

Now I'm happy to report that, after several days of intensive care, my computer is fixed, but not all there mentally. It went away for a day or so, but thankfully most of my files remained thanks to a timely bit of backing up.

I'm back!

7 hours

Spent 7 hours in surgery on 2 ops. Only a bitch spay and a castrate, this shouldn't have taken very long at all. Maybe 3 hours at the absolute maximum.

Bitch spay was our first op at 9.30. Except she wasn't ready until 10.30 despite there being a plan and all sorts of things meant to be happening afterwards. No problems though, we got around to it and just took our time. She was a rather large Rottie so not great surgical conditions.

After that cue 3 hours of waiting around for the next op. Or not, as they decided at the last minute not to do it. And then another 2 hour wait for the next dog to be ready.

In my limited experiences from EMS these things shouldn't take this long. Maybe I'll appreciate it more when I'm on anaesthesia, but it was just annoying! I can do a dog castrate in under 30 minutes from the induction time, but the waiting around was just dull.

Oh and I don't like being watched, so having a group of 10 or so fourth years watching was not great. Run away!

On the plus side there are only a couple more days of ICU to go. Then microbiology. I doubt there will be very many late nights there. Plus I have a degree in that, so shouldn't be too taxing. Wonder if I can get an exemption...

ICU part 2

*Names changed to protect the guilty*

Sooooo....Our one night when SpanielDog is off constant monitoring because he has no chest drains...

First a paracetamol toxicity dog. Not too bad. Fairly simple. Quite pissed off as back to constant monitoring. Just need one night off!!

Become happy that dog is not on constant monitoring. May get to sleep after all.

Some shitty little Yorkie with porto-systemic shunt (4yo!) decided to have a fit at 6pm. Resident puts it in ICU for seizure watch. Not impressed. Back to constant monitoring. I get the 1-4.30am shift.

Dog walking takes from 2030-2200. Ortho decide to take a case to surgery (after ordering/eating pizza for themselves) and takes the nurse and Laura away. Just me and Jane walking.

I'm having to do the midnight walks/meds with Rachel. This will not take long. I will then stay up for my constant monitoring shift and cover Laura's if she is a) too tired or b) still in surgery.

Grand total sleep - from midday til 1400. And maybe 0430-0600 if I'm lucky. I may become homicidal if the weekend is like this, except then I'd have to do all the work!

ICU Part 1

Not too sure if I'll have to update this as much as I'd like, but I'll try.

At the moment I'm covering the small animal ICU here at uni. This involves two separate weeks of night and day work. Currently I'm on the night shift which involves working from 4pm until 10am the next day. It's quite a long shift! Especially the tutorial at the end.

It is said that a difficult ICU week can turn even the most reasonable of people into a homicidal crazy person at the best of times, and I can see why! Most of out time is spent sitting about watching animals all night, or walking everything in the hospital at least 4 times. It does not require a lot of mental power, but it gets tiring.

Tonight I'm on the 0430 constant monitoring shift. And I have to do rounds at midnight. So maybe 4 hours sleep if I'm very lucky and the damn pager doesn't go off. Ah well.

Soft Tissue

Ortho week finished as it started - with no lunch and very little in the way of time off. I did learn quite a bit though, especially on the approach to an orthopaedic case. Very useful stuff.

This week is soft tissue surgery. It started off fairly badly, but now things have got going it's all fine. We are getting quizzed on many things. Today the main topics were wound healing and antibiotic choice. Turns out we don't know very much about it!

And a power cut when you are in surgery is baaaaaaad. Especially when you dog is on a ventilator. She survived though!

Brains!

Apparently there is something wrong with mine. Or at least the doctor yesterday seemed to think so.

I'm having weird signs and symptoms. A few headaches, sometimes forgetting words. Not too sure if this is just my brain telling me it's full of uni and can't cope with the input, but it's embarrassing when I forget a dog is called a dog. My mind is just a blank for the word. Not too great.

Anyway, another MRI at some point, although it'd probably be quicker to do it myself at uni.

Hopefully I'm just getting old and crazy rather than broken and crazy.

Day 3

Wow! There just isn't enough time to learn everything on 1 week of rotations. Not even a little bit. I feel sorry for the poor clinicians left with us students. They just have to get on with things and also consider us.

Yesterday we spent over 8 hours in surgery with 5 mins (literally) for lunch. When I eventually got home at 7.30 I flopped and did no work.

Today I took a half day as it is Wednesday. Had to make sure someone was treating my cases first. I love the nurses. Tried to have a nap at home, but ended up just sleeping for ages. Ooops.

Now I'm just tired. Again. On the plus side I've written up my grand round presentation and have figured out my treatment plan for my cases tomorrow. Nearly survived a week! On a few more to go...

Day 1

Day 1 is over.

I'm exhausted. Not really sure why, we haven't actually done much all day. I now have 2 cases that are mine to watch over. I'm in at 8am to make sure they get their medications and physio. I'll then present the cases to the head of service.

Tomorrow we have a total hip replacement op on. The plan is this will take 4 hours if we are lucky. I've spent most of the evening reading up on the surgical approach but now I'm just too tired.

It's only going to get worse over the next few weeks.

Bed time.

Beginning Of The End

Well everyone survived Wales (mostly) and now it's time for final year to being. Some very kind people have helped out telling me what's expected and what not to panic about.

Next week: small animal orthopaedics.

For now: just enjoy life and prepare the best I can.

Wish me luck. I'm going in!

Hamster Critical Care

Those words hardly even make sense to me, but there you go. At the moment I'm house sitting in Wales, looking after a hamster, fish and a cat. Oh and working EMS, but everyone knows all about that by now - dogs, cats, trauma, life saving etc etc.

There was a small party on Friday night, leaving me feeling slightly under the weather on Saturday morning. It was quite nice to have the cat come up to see me and lie on the bed for a bit. The cat is warm. He was also not bothering me about breakfast which, for him, is fairly unusual.

I wander downstairs to check on the other animals. In the lounge I am confronted by a hamster cage on the floor, sawdust everywhere and the top of the cage open. And a smiling cat.

Fuuuuuuuuck.

After a small amount of panic (oh god it's dead, what do I do now, what if it escaped and is running around, oh god) I figured the best option was to assume the hamster was still in the cage, stressed to heck, so I placed the cage back on the side, re-arrange the water and food, and head back to bed to convince myself it was all a bad dream.

By midday I had come to terms with the fact it was not just a bad dream and something had to be done. Luckily for all involved hamster solved my stress by calmly walking out of its bed, having a drink of water, then returning to bed.

Success!! Well, mainly due to luck, but I'm calling it a victory anyway. All that was left to do was tidy up. And count the fish...

Chill Out

My relaxation week seems to be going well so far. I've done very little! So far time is spent reading, climbing, walking, visiting friends or going to the pub. It's doing wonders for my sanity.

We are worked so hard in, and out, of University it can be difficult to switch off and just relax for a change. The ones who don't manage it go slowly crazy. There is so much to learn, and so many things to do, I must remember to take a step back and let my body fix itself.

So the rest of my time here will be spent much the same. I have a whisky fringe ticket for tomorrow, there is recovery planned for Sunday, and then not a lot else. Apart from climbing.

4 weeks

I've just completed 4 weeks of EMS in Wales.

4 weeks of solid work, two Sundays off.

It's taken it's toll, because now I'm exhausted. This isn't much of a surprise because I haven't really stopped since starting 4th year. I've even spent most of my nights on call. There are a few cases that stick out, and that I will probably write about later:

The good jobs - Tom the bleeding spaniel, Meg with her puppies, Jess with her bad paw, Ralph who couldn't breathe and Buck the sick cat.

As always there are the bad jobs too - the injured sheep, Scamp the dying dog, Mot the angry puppy, numerous sick cats and the caesar cow.

And the just plain daft cases - mostly these are cute puppies for their first vaccines, but Meg with the ear and the pregnant guinea pig are hot contenders too.

Most of the vets I know have a slightly strange sense of humour which is necessary to stop us all going insane from the daily grind. I'll try and tell a few of our stories, sorry if they offend! As one person wisely told me - "No-one wants to hear when it's gone well. They don't care that you made an excellent diagnosis and saved the day. They do however love to hear about when it goes horribly, horribly wrong." Thanks Pete!

Wedding

Internet access is a rarity in Wales, and finding privacy to write on here is even more rare. I've hidden myself away for a few minutes to write a quick post about the past few weeks.

The main event, James and Anna's wedding!

I don't think I can sum it all up in words, it was an amazing day and an equally fun evening. There is photographic evidence of me dancing in a kilt, and apparently even a video somewhere that I have yet to see.

The wedding itself was lovely - Anna looked great , James was looking all pretty in his kilt, and I didn't lose the rings. The only slight hitch was that several people were delayed by bad traffic and trains (you know who you are), but in the end everyone was there.

This was followed by the meal and speeches. My speech went quite well, or at least it was over quickly and people laughed in the appropriate places. Then came the drinking and dancing section of the night. I think the less said about this the better...

Breakfast was a painful affair - I managed to concuss myself during the night, and combined with a hangover I was feeling quite ill. If there is a next time I shall prepare for this with IV fluids, metaclopromide and rehydration salts. I continued to feel bad for the next week in fact! Definately concussion coming in there.

From wedding there was a day of lazing at James's house before heading off to Wales. Some lovely people said goodbye at the station, then I faced the rail network on a Sunday. I eventually arrived home and slept - I was working the next day.

The To-do List

Seeing as my life mostly consists of EMS at the moment various things that needed to be done have been left. Small things like changing a broken lightbulb, or big things like writing a best man speech just haven't been done as there was very little free time.

Now it's my summer holidays! Four whole days off to get through the huge list of tasks. I got quite a few out of the way yesterday, including climbing the bathroom walls to changes lights (I can see in the shower! Not sure if that's a good things though.) and getting a new railcard.

The afore-mentioned best man speech is due to be delivered on Friday and I still haven't written it. That's today's task. It's going to be a long day.

Escape

Sometimes you just need to get away. You've had enough of the place, the people and the things you are doing every day and some time in a different area is required for sanity. Or at least that's how things are with me.

With uni finished for another term I was stuck in Edinburgh but longing for time away, and the opportunity came up, so I left for Wales. I didn't tell my family I was down, but stayed with a friend and relaxed. Most days I went to my vet practice, but it was a pleasant walk along the river with the dog instead of pavement, buses and humans.

Dolly on the train

One day we decided it was too nice to stay inside, so we fled to the beach on the train. The dog seemed quite happy to sit and watch the world go by as long as she had her own seat. We went for a walk along the beach, then for ice cream, then more walking. It was a lovely warm day so we just carried on walking for miles. When we got to the end, we just came back again.

Scary waves

I've returned to Edinburgh now feeling happier about life in general. Most of this is thanks to a certain friend and her hound who followed me for miles over the space of 2 weeks. It's nice to have a bolt hole when city life is just too boring.

Gratuitous dog pic. Because I can.

Final Year

It's been 2 weeks since the results of the equine and exotics exam came out and sometimes I still don't believe it, I have to go back and check I've passed, because all this means I'm in final year of vet school! With any luck there is only 1 year between me and the wide world.

I was talking to a friend from home yesterday. We hadn't spoken for a while and she had no idea what I was up to. There were quite a few people who doubted that I'd ever get in to study vet medicine, and some who thought I wouldn't cope if I did get it. I know pride goes before a fall, but I pleased with what I've accomplished so far.

Next year is when it gets serious - rotations all day every day. We switch topics every week and are expected to be on the ball with everything. It's going to be hard work, but hopefully it will be fun. My final year group is fun, we seem to get on OK, so I can't wait. In fact the waiting is the hardest part.

I start ICU cover in just under 2 weeks, but until then I'm fairly free. Depending on what others are up to I may go to Wales for a bit, go climb or just be lazy. It's odd having free time...

Results

And the results are all in for this year - aaaaaaaaaaand it's a pass!!

I'm so happy about having got through the equine and exotics exam. Didn't stop grinning for a week!

We have also just finished the CLIC course with the open book exam. I'm not too proud of the distinction, it was easy, especially as we did it as a group.

Soon we start final year, but until then we get a bit of time off. Woo! There are plans to climb and maybe do a bit of walking first.

Ow ow ow

Went in, read James Herriot. Got stabbed. Went to sleep. Got stabbed some more. Woke up. Got stabbed yet again.

Well that about covers it. Gruesome details on request.

I don't think I'm far off in saying that was one of the worst experiences of my life so far and I'm never EVER doing it again. Hospital is very stingy with their analgesia.

Now I can just about see again and can open both eyes. One is horribly blood-shot which I shall be using to my advantage to scare small children whenever possible. Can't read for very long, but on the plus side it does appear that everything is in single vision at the moment. Yay!

Going In

Yet another pre-op check has been accomplished and I've had a tour around the room of doom. Everything is set for next week, now all I need to do is get up on time! A few minor changes - they plan to operate on my working eye which has a few more risks but a better chance of outcome. It does however mean I'll be effectively blind for a few days post-op. Can I get a guide dog?

All Done

Finished again. As predicted the equine and exotics written exam was a quite evil. There were never any easy questions, except for one about a ferret, and even the lameness work-up of a horse was made more complicated than necessary.

I had a plan to be lazy this weekend, but my room is a tip post-revision. Cleaning is required.

Now starts the most boring 3 weeks in the vet school calendar - the CLIC course. We won't even be learning about animals, just communications skills and other fun stuff like how to write a CV or use a computer. We could finish the course in about a week if we worked at it and get down to more important things like hands-on experience. I'm sure I'll bitch about it quite a bit over the next few weeks.

This does mean we get some time off however. Next week I'm only in for 2 days! There are plans afoot to disappear somewhere and climb. All I need is a partner.

Revisin

It goes badly. For some reason equine and exotics doesn't seem to be sticking too well. Probably because I never actually intend to go anywhere near a horse in my professional career, and definitely never plan to operate on one.

Ah well. Back to it.

Blood

Most people have problem finding sheep veins, especially in larger breeds such as Texels. My personal problem is finding calf veins. Still!

This time around I've found plenty of sheep blood (even in a small lamb), dog, cat and cow blood, but still no luck with the little calves. Perhaps it's because they are dehydrated or just wriggly. I need the practice, but it's difficult to justify catheterising a calf with decent veins.

I've been reliably informed we don't have to do anything like this in final year, or for our final exams. I just feel sorry for the first sick calf I have to look after on my own.

Another Week

Another week of EMS, more fun stories about the various "oh shit!" moments and stupid mistakes I've made. Thankfully not too many this week except for some pretty terrible bandaging and covering a vet in cold drip fluid. Ooops.

Despite washing every day (go me!) I seem to always smell of cow or sheep and miss a spot of blood/poo on my arm or my shirt. In fact I've scrubbed up so many times over the past few days my hands are starting to take offence and are in desperate need of moisturiser!

Moment of the week - getting an IV in a fat dog with crap veins first time. Doesn't matter that I missed in a cow with veins the size of a hosepipe, the dog was a good shot.

After on call tomorrow there are a few days off (!) which so far I haven't filled with climbing. There will be a puppy walk on the beach, buying of some climbing gear and maybe time sleep if I'm not too busy revising.

EMS Again

So I'm back in Wales once more seeing a variety of cases in both small and large animals - which is probably a good thing as we have a large animal practical exam after easter!

The trip down was fairly long, but not too much hassle. Then the real work started. So far I have:

Killed a sheep. She was toxic and going to die anyway, but still not optimal.
Made a HUGE hole in a dog's leg.
Examined various eyes, ears, noses and, of course, bums.
Only been covered in blood once.

Apart from the dodgy sheep start everything is OK at the moment. I need to write up my technique book before I forget everything! Not tonight though as I'm on call and may just go to bed whilst I can.

Zoo Trip

I had an amazing experience yesterday - I was chatting to a lecturer I know about exotics work after our lecture and somehow got invited to go and assist her at the zoo!

Our first task was to sedate and examine a hog deer with an abscess on his face. To do this we needed to first dart the animal to get close enough to give more drugs. Fun! I was lead through all of the equipment and drugs involved, and then briefed on my task - anaesthetic monitoring for the procedure.

It all went fairly smoothly as the abscess was lanced and radiographs taken of his head to look for signs of dental disease. Unfortunately it looks like he may have to be knocked out again to get a tooth removed to stop the problem. Photos when I can find them!

We spent a few hours checking out various other animals around the zoo, my favourite being the rhinos again. I was tasked with distraction duty (food!) whilst the vets examined an injury to his horn, trimmed bits and flushed it all out. The rhinos are brilliant, I love being close to them as they are so big but can be very gentle when hand fed.

I'd love to go back again, but first we have a few exams and the Easter holidays. Fingers crossed for next term!

Teaching

As part of our course we are expected to teach the other years when we eventually get to final year, a prospect that terrifies most of us. We not only have to know our subject, but pretty much anything else that is going on as well, for example we may be presenting equine ortho cases and be asked questions about neurology or anatomy. I guess it's good practice for finals!

I decided to get some practice in this week and went along to help the 2nd year students with animal handling and some 3rd year students with suturing and hand-washing. We mainly covered the basics of dog handling - breed, age, sex, restraint for blood samples, tape muzzles and how to give a tablet. Some people didn't have a clue which seemed really odd to me, although I guess my inability to handle horses must surprise some people.

These things become second nature in the later years, especially when you get to see practice - they won't be very impressed if you can't handle a dog for a blood sample. Some people got the idea fairly quickly, others took their time.

Overall I think it was useful for everyone. It was good revision for me, although I may have developed bad habits in the past few years. Good luck with the handling exams 2nd years!

Motivation

It's nearly the end of term and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to focus and actually do some work. We have an exam in under a week and I really need to do some revision but it just doesn't really feel real yet. Just getting bored of the constant sitting in lectures learning stuff that just isn't that interesting for me.

Post-exam I'm off to see the tortoise post-hibernation checks which could be quite exciting, then covering ICU for the evening. Then back to Wales for 3ish weeks of EMS, so hopefully some fun stories. Just need to survive the week.

Busy week

Another long one! For some reason things start to pick up towards the end of term giving us more information and less time to revise before the exams. It doesn't make much sense to me, but then again nor do a lot of things.

In just over 2 weeks, after a whole load of lectures, a few practicals and 2 exams I'll be heading back to Wales to work in practice again. It's lambing time at the moment and things are fairly swamped so hopefully there will be a great chance to learn new things and practice the old things such as a sheep caesar, but this time with new knowledge.

We had the chance to practice our farm animal clinical examination this week - possibly the only chance before the exam after Easter. I found the clinical findings were fairly easy but my main problem lies with the more basic knowledge - the breed and ageing an animal. Time to resit the old animal husbandry notes I think. And I finally found the pre-scapular lymph nodes in sheep!

Over half way!

I've just had to work it out and we are over half way through the term! This is great is some respects, there are no more horse lectures, and really bad in other respects, such as there being no more horse lectures. I don't miss them at all, but I wish I knew more and had more time to learn more.

Vets from Wales have been complaining that I've been away too long and are asking when I return too! It seems that they only want me for my innate ability to repel phone calls when I'm on call with them, but still it's lambing time and there are many things to be learned still. Can't wait for my first sheep caesar of the year. If I can remember how they are done...

Not that it is the end of term yet. There is a lot more work to be done before we get there, and very little time to relax.

Walkies

Recently I've been a little grumpy which is probably attributable to being stuck in the city or at uni most of the time. I can usually fend off these feelings by regular trips up the Crags and Arthur's Seat, but there just hasn't been the time. Even climbing didn't help.

A friend from uni was feeling similarly annoyed with everything so we decided to take a day trip up the Pentlands. We had a great day! We started at the ski slope and quickly ascended to the closest peak, and then we tracked along the ridge all the way to a reservoir to Balerno. Only about 10 miles, but more walking than we had both done recently.

There are now plans to go up again, but this time track a different way and take in more peaks. We may also just disappear for a weekend to the west coast or the Caingorms to bag some Munroes. And all this makes me happy, even in the light of a stats exam.

Horses And Revision

It's been a while! I can't really say I've been that busy really, but various things have meant there has been little spare time. So...

My Red Cross course has finished - I'm now a qualified first aider (again) and a member of the Red Cross. Now I have to complete the manual handling bit and some child protection nonsense before I can head out on duty. I think the course may help me be a better vet, and it has definitely improved my communication skills.

Friends I haven't seen for a while came up to visit this week. I haven't seen them for ages! They are getting married in July and now I'm tasked with creating a best man speech. Time to break out the powerpoint and embarrassing photos!

In less exciting news the equine and exotics course continues, and scarily we are close to finishing being taught about horses. Only a week to go! It's gone really really quickly and at the moment I know nothing. Mix these lectures in with some public health lectures and practicals as well as farm animal tutorials and practicals to keep us on our toes and we spend quite a bit of time out at Bush.

Next week is a statistics exam so we are all meant to be revising hard. Unfortunately it just isn't happening for me at the moment. I need some time to relax and catch up on sleep, but that time just isn't available.

On the plus side I now have a regular climbing partner and get to play at least once a week, and possibly twice. So far this week I've climbed about 200m on various routes. I should really make a note of this and keep adding to it.

Eye Update

It's been another really long week starting with 2 lectures that didn't happen and finishing with a load of public health lectures and some equine soft tissue stuff.

Midweek I had to revisit the lovely eye doctor people and decide what is to be done. Basically the operation I had last year didn't work as it should and I still get double vision without the prism on my glasses. This usually isn't too much of a problem, except for when I attempt to do fine work, for example like operating. Small problem there.

So the plan is to cut me up once more. We will start by doing bad things to the side that was operated on last time, then the lateral side. The next bit of the plan is where my problem lies - I have to wake up and take an eye test whilst they finish suturing my eyeball to make sure everything is lined up. I don't know how I'll react to this, but it probably won't go well for anyone involved. In order to combat me hitting anyone and running away there will be someone talking to me nicely and a big syringe of knockout juice on standby.

In the few days afterwards I'll have an eye full of blood (again) and be crying blood sometimes as it heals. Woo!! Roll on March. I'm going to terrify people on EMS.

Exam Results

Weeeeeeeee I passed the farm animal course.

I drew a picture of a smiley face, but it wasn't pleasant. Here's one someone else made earlier.

Horse Medicine

It's started!! So far it is going OK, but the horses aren't my thing. The first lecture series is in a book that's big enough to kill a horse with 4 more similar sized topics to come and only 11 weeks to learn it all. Not that anyone is starting to panic just yet.

Belonging

How to tell that a vet practice has accepted your presence:

Your name and preference of hot drink goes on the list in the kitchen.

Happy New Year

Once again I was on call, but it was quite quiet. Not too sure if this was due to the annual phone failure around midnight or just because everyone else was drunk. Last night only resulted in once call too. Go us!

It's been an annoyingly bitty week, but I got some good things done. Only 1 week of EMS before the evil horse lectures begin so I'll make the most of it.