Third time's the charm?

Last weekend I submitted my third vet school scholarship application in as many years.

And, as the financial section of the application so kindly reminded me, my tuition next year will be around $51,000.

Come on, scholarship committee! It's been 2.5 years with no scholarship (okay, except the $2500 incentive scholarship that was offered to me with my "Hey, you can come to our vet school if you want!" letter).

They tell us that there are more scholarships available for juniors than any other class.

Of course, they told us the same thing about sophomores last year.

But in any case, my student loan debt just keeps increasing each semester, so in that regard I've probably got more loans at this point than at least most of the freshmen.

I won't find out if I got a scholarship until next spring, so until then, keep those fingers crossed!

You can make soup out of anything (really, you can)

Warning: graphic post to follow.

My independent study rotation this week is a cadaver lab at the end of which I will have some preserved bone specimens to keep for my future educational and client needs.

Bones, right? Sounds fun. And not too messy.

Well, yeah, as long as somebody else gets the bones out of the dog for you.

Which was what had happened when we showed up yesterday morning for the first day of our rotation (there are 7 of us this week, 2 others besides me working on small animal skeletons). The instructor had graciously boiled a batch of canine hindlimbs for us on Friday night, hydrogen peroxide-d them on Saturday night, and left them out to dry on Sunday night so they would be all clean and white for us on Monday morning.

Good deal.

Except the instructor has been extra busy with a lot of other things going on. So last night he made some cat & dog soup for us (no joke, we are talking mesh laundry sacks full of dog and cat bits [skin, muscles, tendons, bones, eyeballs, and all] in a commercial soup cooker), and we got to clean the flesh off this morning.

OK, I knew this would be our first task of the day, so I arrived garbed in coveralls, overboots, and dissection smock.

I was also fully prepared to encounter an aroma similar to that referenced in a previous post during small animal surgical anatomy.

However, I was alarmed, and perhaps even more disgusted, to find that our bone soup looked and (especially) smelled almost exactly like pot roast.

(Note to self: I will not be eating pot roast any time soon.)

Now, that's not quite true. Yes, it definitely smelled like pot roast. (One of the worst feelings I've ever had in vet school is getting hungry during an anatomy lab.)

But from the outside it didn't really look like pot roast. The heads looked like, well, a dog head that had been dunked in a pot of water. Didn't look that different from a sleeping dog with a wet head (well, and decapitated, of course).

Until you try to pull the heads out of the mesh laundry bags (4 heads per bag). And the skin and muscles fall off in your fingers. And you just keep grabbing at things till you get through all the musculature and finally reach bone. And then you get the big part of the skull out, but you still have to fish around in the melting pile of flesh for the two mandibles and two cervical vertebrae.

And then you try not to throw up, and wish you hadn't eaten breakfast.

Once you get the bones out, it's not that bad. Yes, it still smells horrible (or horribly delicious, however you prefer to see it). But you just wash off the bones in a nearby sink to remove any tenacious bits of flesh.

But then there's the skull. And what does the skull have inside? The brain.

For any aspiring veterinarians out there, let me share with you a valuable life lesson I learned today -- something I will never forget for the rest of my career:

When using a high-pressure water sprayer to flush a cat's brain out the back of its skull, keep your mouth closed.

Another important lesson I learned in small animal surgical anatomy, and thankfully retained through this point is: double-glove. Then your hands will smell like death for merely 24 hours or (with some luck) less.

On a brighter note, I can use power tools! What we started yesterday and finished this morning was wiring together all the bones of the canine hindlimb: ilia, ischium, pubis, sacrum, 3-4 lumbar vertebrae, all of the tail vertebrae, femur, tibia, patella, fibula, fabella, tarsal bones, metatarsals, phalanges, and sesamoids.

Which requires drilling holes into the bones so you can pass wire.

Which means that, yes, *I* used a power drill. And I didn't even hurt myself (much)! Nor did I crack or shatter any of the bones in my dog's skeleton (unlike the 2 guys I was working with).

My dog leg is pretty much done, just needs to sit overnight so the glue on the sesamoids can dry, then it will be coming home to live in the attic (away from the cats) until such time as I can use it to teach my clients things.

Well, that's about as positive as I can be about this week's lab. At least it's all uphill from here, i.e. we have our bones in H2O2 for the day, they'll dry overnight, and then we'll be back to nice clean bony specimens for the rest of the week. No more face full of flesh-filled water spray!

The Toilet Paper

"The Toilet Paper" ("Get the Scoop While You Poop") is my class's new monthly bulletin started earlier this semester. You can guess where it's posted.

It contains such monthly features as:

* The Two Flusher ("This Month's Really Big News")
* Queen (or King) of the Throne
* What the Deuce is That? ("Testing your poo ID skills one scat at a time")
* The Last Gas

You may be thinking, Aren't vet students really busy? Particularly juniors, with both clinics and classes? How did they have time to put this together with their heavy course schedule?

Well, I am 90% sure that most of the work that goes into publishing this fine piece of literature each month is actually done during class.

I remain amused by the endlessly creative activities my classmates and I can come up with to kill time.

Pet Hospice rocks

I'm sure I've posted about it before (and if I weren't too lazy, I'd go back on my blog and link my previous posts -- but hey, it's Thanksgiving break, what do you want from me?) but I love, love, love my school's Pet Hospice program.

I start a new Pet Hospice case -- my fourth -- on Tuesday. The patient is a sweet little old man dog, a 14-year-old Pekingese/Poodle cross. (I refuse to call him a Peekapoo. I will not do it.)

As with my last hospice dog, this guy is in kidney and liver failure -- unlucky him. Unlike my last hospice dog, this guy is doing about a thousand times better. He's had kidney problems for over 2 years, and the liver issues are just a recent development.

Hospice Dog #4 (HD4) is supposed to be having SQ fluids every 2-3 days, which for awhile HD4's mom had been driving to a clinic 15 miles away to have done, but the drive and the time at the hospital were really stressful for poor little HD4, so his rDVM put his mom in contact with Pet Hospice -- enter me and my hospice partner.

And what a world of different. We've visited twice now, and HD4 does fantastically with his fluids at home. He sits quietly in his mom's lap, winces when the needle goes in, and then is perfectly happy for the next 2-3 minutes while we load him up with fluids. It's all over in less than 5 minutes, with almost zero stress for HD4.

To make things even more rewarding, I talked to HD4's mom on Wednesday, after our first visit the evening before, and she reported that HD4 was like a completely different dog. He'd been up and about, asking for attention, eating well, and even playing with the other dog (well, as much as he can, since he's pretty wobbly and prone to fall down any time the 18-month-old Chihuahua jumps on him).

It's a neat example of how much difference something as seemingly minor as staying well-hydrated can make. I'm sure HD4 feels like crap when he just can't drink enough water to keep up with the amount of uber-dilute urine that's coming through his failed kidneys, so when we can give him just a couple hundred cc's of fluid SQ, it's like he's a new dog.

As with all my hospice cases, I know it won't last forever. After all, HD4 is 14 years old. Even if he didn't already have known renal and hepatic failure, he'd still only have a couple more years at most. And HD4's mom feels like HD4 has had a good last few years, especially since she was told at the time of his diagnosis of renal disease >2 years ago that he would only have 6 months to at most 2 years to live.

But for now it's pretty heartwarming to see how much Pet Hospice can help HD4 to stay happy and comfortable in his own home. Based on what I've learned from all the hospice families and patients I've worked with, every vet student should get the opportunity to have these kinds of experiences before getting out into practice. It's too easy to see the sick old dogs and cats in the clinic and then just send them out the door without really knowing how life is for them (and their owners) at home.

P.S. This is my 4th hospice case in the last 9 months. And before that, it was about 14 months until I got my first case last February! Guess I'm packin' 'em in junior year....

Clin Path = meh

Sorry no posts for awhile. As you might have guessed from said lack of posts, last week's Clinical Pathology rotation wasn't super-exciting.

Which is too bad. Because Clin Path was pretty much my favorite class from sophomore year. If you know me, you can guess why: reports with lots of concrete numerical values that all have a given set of explanations that you have to piece together like a puzzle and (at least in class) there's usually one right answer? Yes, please!

Junior clin path rotation was basically an intensive 18-hour review of the most relevant points from sophomore year. And since I pretty much remembered everything from sophomore year since I loved the class, that meant that junior rotation was pretty boring.

We did get to do some fun microscope stuff. It included red blood cell pathology, white blood cell pathology, WBC differential counts, platelet evaluation, fluid cytology, and mass cytology. The last thing we were supposed to do on microscopes was learn how to do urine sediment exams (which, out of all the microscopy, was the one thing I need the most practice in) -- but the darned sophomores had to use the microscope lab, so we basically just watched a PowerPoint presentation about urine sediments -- which is totally not the same as doing it yourself. But oh well.

I did gain a bit of a reputation in this rotation for being a clin path know-it-all. Since there were only 25 people, I felt a little more comfortable speaking up and offering answers than I usually do in our massed class of 135. Everybody was amazed when I came up with the answer that, yes, a 3+ positive blood pad on a urine dipstick with a specific gravity of 1.003 and no red blood cells seen on urine sediment could in fact have been hematuria (rather than only myoglobinuria or hemoglobinuria) because the specific gravity was so dilute that the osmotic forces would result in lysis of the RBCs within the urine. So there. Go me.

I guess it was a useful rotation -- well, it would be especially for anybody that didn't like or didn't do well in clin path lecture class as sophomores.

But now on to bigger and better things! I've got my first independent study coming up next week -- I'm doing a cadaver project with the semi-creepy instructor in charge of the anatomy lab and obtaining all of the 'specimens.' If all goes well, though, I'll have my own canine skull, feline skull, and canine hindlimb and forelimb to keep for my very own self at the end of next week.

Stop beating the cats!

Poor Johnny has had an acute onset of conjunctivitis in one eye (and a dendritic ulcer, as I learned today when I brought him to school). Looks like somebody sucker-punched him.

Wait -- black eyes are badass, right? Then that makes 2 of us in the family!

High five

When I blogged about my internal medicine rotation last week, I can't believe I forgot to mention the most exciting part of the week.

On Tuesday, a middle-aged large dog came in with a 9 month history of lameness and stiff, painful joints. He was accompanied by about a thousand xrays taken by his referring vet over the previous months.

The senior student and I headed over to the radiology department with the dog's xrays, to see if we could con a radiologist into helping us interpret them.

As luck would have it, one of the first-year residents (who is a very, very nice person but comes across as a total geek [not saying I don't identify with him]) wasn't busy and offered to give us a hand.

As we pondered the various shades of black, grey, and white comprising this dog's ouchy stifle, the senior student pointed out a lucency on the femur and asked what it was.

The resident said, "It's a normal anatomical structure. Any ideas what?"

I offered, "The attachment fossa for the long digital extensor muscle?"

To which the resident replied, "Badass!" and gave me a high five.

For the remainder of the week I was known as a radiology nerd, as I came up with several other correct answers to various semi-esoteric questions.

But I'm okay with it: Because nobody else got a high five.

Quackery

Most of my "Complementary & Alternative Medicine" lectures this semester have focused on particular "alternative" treatment methods, and why they are completely invalid.

Today, we talked about homeopathy.

There are several underlying principles to homeopathy.

1. You can cure your symptoms by ingesting a small amount of something that, in a larger amount, would cause those same symptoms. Case in point: If you have a cold (runny nose and watery eyes), you can ingest a tincture of onion (since onion also causes runny nose and watery eyes).

2. The substances that you use for your remedy are to be diluted greatly in water.

3. The more diluted the substance is, the more powerful it is.

Let's continue with the "I have a cold, I better take some onion" example. Here's how you make your homeopathic onion remedy.

Step 1: Grind up some onion to make onion juice. You now have a "mother tincture."

Step 2: Take 1 drop of the mother tincture and add it to 99 drops of water. Shake thoroughly. You now have a 1:100 dilution of onion tincture in water. This is called a "1C" dilution, as you have diluted your mother tincture 1 time in a 100-part (C being the Roman numeral for 100) dilution.

Step 3: Take 1 drop of the 1C dilution and add it to 99 drops of water. Shake thoroughly. You now have a 1:10,000 dilution. This is the 2C dilution.

Steps 4-infinity: Repeat the dilutions, adding 1 drop of the previous dilution to 99 drops of water. You can continue until you have anywhere from about a 6C to a 30C dilution.

Note, clever readers, that at some point before you get to a 30C dilution, you have a less than 1 in a billion chance of having even a single molecule of onion left in your dilution.

Once you have reached the desired level of dilution, you can "prescribe" the onion remedy for your cold-suffering patient with instructions such as "Take 15 drops under the tongue 4 times daily." As a seasoned homeopath, you will of course recognize that the "stronger" dilutions (30C being much stronger than 6C) can only be "prescribed" by the experts.

And voila, of course your cold will be gone!

I hope I've convinced you that this type of homeopathy is utter nonsense and can clearly have no effect other than as a placebo (which, granted, can be pretty awesome).

And, of course, when you've diluted onion (or whatever more dangerous substance you choose to use, such as lead, rabies virus, arsenic, or tuberculosis-infected cow tissue) to this degree, the odds of it doing you any harm are very slim. So a lot of mainstream veterinarians, when their clients inquire about the use of homeopathy in their pets, will advise the clients that they probably won't be hurting their animals.

The problem comes when a pet owner (or even a veterinarian or self-proclaimed homeopath) chooses to use strictly homeopathic remedies instead of pursuing a traditional diagnosis or treatment for their animal's condition.

You have got to watch this hilarious spoof video of a homeopathic ER doctor unsuccessfully treating a patient, followed by some commiserating with a fellow doctor at the bar after his patient dies. It's only 2.5 minutes long and it's totally worth your time! Click here.

Internal medicine

Try as I might, I just could not come up with a witty title for this post. Check back after winter break...

This past week's rotation was small animal internal medicine.

I'd heard from friends and classmates that internal med was a cool rotation, that you would get to see some neat cases, and learn interesting stuff.

Well, that was and wasn't true.

Here's the basic layout of internal med:

There are 2 "teams," called Med-1 and Med-2. Each team has 1 clinician (usually a faculty member, but in my case a 3rd-year resident) who is in charge. Then each team has 2 other DVMs (usually 1 resident and 1 intern), 4 senior students, and 1 or 2 juniors. The seniors get assigned to either Med-1 or Med-2; we juniors just get to pick on the first morning of our rotation (usually based on seeing the names of the clinicians on the doors of the 2 rounds room, and picking whomever you like better).

Med-1 and Med-2 function basically separately from Monday through Thursday. As internal medicine cases arrive at the hospital or are transferred from other services, they get assigned to either Med-1 or Med-2, and that same team will deal with that case for the remainder of its visit that week.

The general schedule, Monday through Thursday, is as follows: Inpatient rounds from 8:30-9:30 am (which was pushed back a little later on Monday since we started with a brief orientation). From 9:30 to approximately 1 pm, the team sees cases and attends to inpatients. The afternoon (while us poor juniors are in class, of course) is reserved for a few appointments but mostly procedures (like endoscopy or biopsies).

The 2 main ways that Med-1 or Med-2 get cases is by either new patients coming in (usually referrals from an rDVM who has tried to work up a case but the patient needs diagnostics or procedures that are beyond the rDVM's ability or scope of knowledge), or from transfers (a large number of the cases that come in on emergency overnight get transferred to internal med in the morning, and periodically throughout the day the Urgent Care service will transfer some of the more complicated cases to internal med; there is also an occasional transfer from Community Practice, such as a case this week of an apparently healthy dog that had a huge number of abnormalities on routine bloodwork).

On Monday and Wednesday, Med-1 gets all of the transfers and Med-2 takes the new cases arriving at the VTH. On Tuesday and Thursday, it's switched. On Friday, everybody teams up and sees things together. Also on Friday, we start with Grand Rounds from 8:30-9:30 and then inpatient rounds from 9:30 till 10:30 or 11.

Overall the thing that surprised me most about my internal med rotation was the amount of time we spent sitting around and discussing cases. On an average morning this week, there would be perhaps 1 or 2 inpatients, and 2 or 3 new cases: for a team of 8 people to work up. So perhaps 80% of the time, we weren't actually doing anything with the animals: we were sitting around the table talking about histories, physical exams, problem lists, differential diagnoses, and potential treatment plans.

That being said, I did get to do basically one cool thing each day of the week:

Monday: Watched part of an echo on a cat with acromegaly. Aspirated an enlarged superficial cervical lymph node on a sweet dog named Mack suspected of having malignant histiocytosis (yucky cancer). I didn't get a good sample from the LN, but neither did the 2 people who tried after me, so there.

Tuesday: Performed a buccal mucosal bleed time (BMBT) on the dog from Monday who was supposed to be going to surgery to have a lung mass biopsied. Unfortunately, Mack had been having some issues with thrombocytopenia (lack of platelets = badness) for a few weeks, and on CBC on Monday his platelets were only 40,000 (normal is 200-500,000). The BMBT basically tests how well the platelets are working -- you can have a normal number of platelets, but if the platelets don't function correctly, then you still can't clot your blood. The BMBT entailed laying Mack on his side, taping his upper lip to his muzzle so that the underside of the lip was exposed, then making a small cut in the mucous membrane of the lip and waiting to see how long it took to stop bleeding. Normal BMBT is less than 5 minutes; we called it a day (and an abnormal test result) when Mack was still bleeding at 14 minutes. Needless to say, the poor guy did not go to surgery.

Wednesday: Wednesday morning was extra slow case-wise, but I did get to feel a thyroid slip on another service's kitty. A thyroid slip is one way of tentatively diagnosing hyperthyroidism, which is an overactive thyroid gland usually caused by a benign tumor in older cats. The thyroid gland often physically enlarges, which you can sometimes feel on physical exam as a "popping" feeling as you slide your thumb and index finger down either side of the cat's trachea.

Thursday: I got pretty involved with a case on Thursday. The patient was Charlotte, a 3 year old Boston Terrier with a 2 week history of regurgitation, and a chronic history of well-controlled IBD. Charlotte had been worked up at her rDVM with bloodwork, survey radiographs, and a barium study -- all of which were basically normal, and yet Charlotte had been able to hold down almost no food or water in the last 2 weeks, and was losing weight. Charlotte's mom was in nursing school so had been giving Charlotte sq fluids every day, and syringe feeding her, but Charlotte needed some answers soon. We repeated a CBC, chemistry panel, urinalysis, and survey chest and abdominal radiographs, performed an abdominal ultrasound, and did a barium contrast esophagram -- all of which were, again, essentially normal.

Friday: Charlotte came back in on Friday morning for endoscopy of her upper GI tract. I was unfortunately in rounds so didn't get to observe the procedure, but Charlotte's esophagus actually looked normal (we were expecting esophagitis or a mass or stricture or foreign body). Her stomach and duodenum, however, were horribly inflamed -- the resident doing the scoping said that he had never seen such inflamed mucosae. So Charlotte got some biopsies and I'm very interested to see what they show next week.

So that was internal med. I'm sure it will be more interesting as a senior (well, it better be more interesting, because I have it for 4 weeks!) when I can be more involved in the cases and be around in the afternoons to watch the procedures.

Next week: on to Clinical Pathology! A subject that I love on paper (i.e. interpreting lab results), but unfortunately most of our 4 hours a day next week will be spent at microscopes -- which I also don't mind, but tend to get a bad headache after more than an hour or so of looking into the microscope. So Advil, here I come!

Subject lines

"Bottoms up: Things you can Learn from a Rectal Exam"

It's when I get emails with subject lines like the above that I just have to step back and marvel at the strangeness of my life.

Distraction wanted (but not needed)

I'm studying dermatology right now.

(Okay, not technically right now, because I need a break before my brain explodes.)

Dermatology is so boring. So, so boring.

And the most annoying part is, most general small animal practitioners will tell you that about 50% of their cases they see on a day-to-day basis are derm cases.

So it's important. And I have to learn it.

But come on. Acute pyotraumatic moist dermatitis, otitis externa, dermatophytosis, glucocorticoid use, and that's not even getting into the entire 50-minute lecture that was devoted 100% to shampoos.

Shampoos!

Gaahhhh.... guess I'd better get back to it, since I still have to get through pemphigus, lupus, and the ever-dreaded shampoo notes tonight...

Consider me fully vaccinated

Hey, between heading up to bed at 8:30 on Friday night and the 10 (yes, count 'em, ten) vaccines I've had in the last 2.5 years, there's not that much difference between me and a baby!

I got a meningitis booster on Friday -- which added to the MMR, tetanus, H1N1, 3 influenza, and 3 rabies vaccines I've had since starting vet school in August 2008.

Some people get all upset about various vaccination guidelines for dogs and cats. The standard used to be, basically, every dog (and every cat that actually went to the vet, which wasn't that many) got all of its vaccines every year. For dogs that would be a distemper-parvo combo, rabies, and maybe something like lepto or bordetella or corona.

Well, nowadays people have done more research and proved that in adult animals, most of those vaccines create solid immunity for at least 3 years -- so current recommendations are generally to vaccinate adult dogs for distemper-parvo every 3 years, and rabies as far apart as legal guidelines will allow (ranges from requiring annual vaccination to every 3 years).

However, even still some pet owners (and some vets) are hugely reluctant to vaccinate their adult animals (or even their puppies and kittens) that much.

To be fair, when selecting a vaccine protocol for an individual animal, you need to take in risk assessment. Maybe that dog that goes to the groomer every month, plays at the dog park every weekend, and hangs out at doggie day care 3 afternoons a week is more at risk for getting contagious diseases like distemper or parvo. Versus "mommy's little lap dog" who is white and fluffy and whose feet never touch the ground, much less actually leave the backyard.

And there are some serious risks to vaccination, don't get me wrong. A prime example would be vaccine-associated fibrosarcoma in cats -- wherein a cat can develop a huge, nasty, aggressive, malignant soft tissue tumor at the site of injection, which has often spread to the body wall by the time the tumor is diagnosed, and then bye bye kitteh.

Now, if you're the owner of the one cat in however many thousand that actually develops FSA after a vaccine, then I don't blame you for being super head-shy about vaccinating other or future animals you have. Or if your pet has anaphylactic reactions to vaccines.

However, for most of those run-of-the-mill cases where people don't have a great reason for not vaccinating (and I've heard some "great" reasons such as "Well, vaccines cause autism in children, so I don't want to hurt Sparky's brain"), I'm all for the vaccines.

And now I can point out my personal experience with getting more vaccines in a 2.5-year timeframe than I would ever intend to give to an adult dog or cat. And look at me, I'm doing fine! (Well, you could argue that point, but please don't.)

Anyhow, I got my meningitis vaccine at a huge vaccine clinic held on my university's campus. There have been 7 cases of meningitis in the county this year, with the most recent case killing an undergrad student who worked evenings and weekends as a receptionist at the VTH. Hence, there was an enormous push by the administration to get as many students vaccinated (or boostered) as possible.

I knew it was going to be a big affair, but I was mildly alarmed when, as I was driving to school on Friday morning, they said on the radio that over 4000 students had pre-registered for the vaccine clinic in the preceding 48 hours. Yikes. And who knows how many people showed up as walk-ins.

So I felt glad I'd planned ahead and brought a book to pass the time until I got my vaccine. After all, even when I'm the only patient in the immunization department at student health, it can sometimes take 10-15 minutes to get a flu shot.

However, I was totally amazed upon arriving at the student rec center about 5 minutes before my 3:10 appointment. There were signs up for blocks around the center, directing foot traffic to the appropriate entrance. Volunteers wearing astonishingly neon yellow vests directed us as we entered the rec center, and herded us into the appropriate lines. I had to wait for about 5 minutes to print out my registration ticket (I didn't have access to a printer when I registered on Wednesday), but after that it was just a short walk down a hallway to a huge gym, which was Vaccine Central.

There were about 10 "screening stations" set up on tables along one wall. As you walked into the gym, you took your registration ticket to whichever screener was open. They asked the requisite questions ("Are you feeling well?" "Have you eaten today?"), then took your ticket and gave you a vaccine form to take to the next station.

Station #2 was the actual vaccinations. There were about 10 groups of tables set up on the other side of the gym. Each group of tables seated 4 nurses, each of whom was administering vaccines, and a fifth person who was helping draw up vaccines and complete paperwork. Yes, that's 40-some nurses doing vaccines at once.

I was pointed almost immediately to an open nurse's station, got stabbed in the arm, and shuffled with the other vaccinated students over to a food-and-water station aimed as prophylaxis to avoid fainting.

It was literally no more than 12 or 13 minutes between the time that I entered the rec center and when I was walking out the door on the other side. I was completely floored by the efficiency and organization of this undertaking, and said so to several of the volunteers -- they must have been having a long day, because they perked up right away and said "Thank you for sharing that! We really appreciate it!"

This wasn't really a vet med story, but in a way it was: with all the bureaucracy, rules, guidelines, and procedures you encounter every day in a great big organization or business (such as a university), it's always refreshing to see that they can sometimes get things right (even if it doesn't really happen in the vet school per se...).

P.S. The vaccinations were FREE! My last vaccine was as a freshman or sophomore undergrad, and it cost $90-something. Heck yes, I'll take a free booster!

6 lessons learned today

#1: If I never again in my life eviscerate a cadaver dog, I will still have done it one too many times.

#2: As bad as you think the stench can get, just leave the cadavers alone in a cooler for 24 hours then open them back up again. Decomposition is a stunning process.

#3: Double glove. Two layers of latex = half as much unavoidable death smell on your hands for the rest of the day.

#4: Removing the heart, lungs, esophagus, diaphragm, kidneys, liver, spleen, bladder, intestines, stomach, gallbladder, colon, and major blood vessels, fat, mesentery, and other connective tissue from a Rottweiler does not make the remaining cadaver a whole lot lighter.

#5: You can spread apart a dog's ribs an incredible distance before they crack (but they do eventually crack).

#6: I never, EVER plan to do heart surgery on a living animal (or, hopefully, on another dead one).

Pet peeve of the day (off-topic)

(Disclaimer: I love having a blog. One of the neatest things about your own blog is that you can choose to write about whatever you want. Sure, the general topic of my blog is vet school, but now I'm going to write a post about something completely unrelated, and I can, because it's my blog. When you have a blog, you too can write whatever you want. So there!)

I got all riled up today during a midday trip to the grocery store. (I wanted to hit up the discounted post-Halloween sale candy and was particularly in search of candy corn, because I'm going to make these cute cupcakes for our next bake sale, that have yellow frosting with candy corn all around the edges to make a sun. But I digress.)

As I pulled into the supermarket parking lot, lo! I espied a prime spot almost immediately adjacent the door.

There was a woman parked into the spot next to my desired parking location. She had just finished loading her groceries from her cart into her car. As I waited patiently not 10 feet away, the woman pushed her empty shopping cart into the space I was waiting for, and leisurely strolled around to the other side of her vehicle and got in.

Now, come on.

The spot this woman had parked in was literally the second closest non-handicapped parking spot to the entrance to the grocery store. The spot I was aiming for was the closest spot, aside from its adjoining handicapped spot, which was now also semi-blocked by this woman's cart.

I cannot stand it when people do this.

How difficult is it for you to walk the extra 20 feet to bring the cart back to the store entrance? Or even to walk the 10-15 feet away from the store to bring the cart to the nearest "cart corral"?

Why block not one but TWO free, desirable parking spots, one of which is a handicapped spot??!!

What is wrong with people?

(Okay, time to step off the soapbox. Just don't let it happen again, lazy, irritating woman!)

Eau de rotten Rottweiler

I have smelled like death all day.

It is not a good start to my week.

This morning I started Small Animal Surgical Anatomy (SAA). In contrast to last week's pig lab, this week's procedures are all practiced on cadavers.

Fresh cadavers.

Well, "fresh" in the sense that I mean "unembalmed." Not "fresh" as in "lack-of-stinkyness" or even "recently dead."

Although I did read the syllabus section on what to bring and wear to this morning's lab, I gravely underestimated the horribleness I was going to face.

Today we practiced spays and cystotomies on our cadavers. The recommendation was to select a shorthaired dog, for ease of seeing the structures we were looking for under the skin with only minimal clipping.

My partner and I were among the last students into the dissection room. So, unfortunately, we ended up with the last shorthaired dog: an 80-lb or so female Rottweiler.

I knew the day could only go uphill when, as the two of us (both short in stature) struggled to carry this uncooperative beast of a canine over to our "surgery" table, giant strands and globs of bloody froth from the dog's mouth and nose were flung all over my lab smock and unprotected jeans.

Ahhhh... nothing quite like the feeling of cold goo from a dead dog soaking through your pants and making itself at home on your skin.

If you thought that was bad, then be glad you weren't there for the rest of the lab.

Suffice it to say, when an animal dies, one of the first parts of it to decompose is the GI tract. Obviously, our GI tracts are full of nice friendly bacteria that, in life, help us digest our food into bits that we can absorb and use in our bodies. After death, however, those same bacteria go wild breaking down all the tissue they can get their grubby little non-existent hands on (anthropomorphize much?).

So when the 22 students nearly simultaneously cut open 11 rotting abdomens, the ensuing stench was truly almost vomit-inducing.

As I spent the next several hours with my hands almost elbow-deep in this dead dog's frigid, soggy, slimy, stinky abdomen, I kept thinking to myself over and over: "I want last week's pigs again!"

Here's the bright side: we sutured up the abdomens at the end of the morning, and tomorrow we're just working on chests (should be less offensive, odor-wise), with a brief entrance back into the abdomen at the end of lab to practice gastropexies. After our pexy, we get to eviscerate both the thoracic and abdominal cavities, and use the limbs for orthopedic surgery practice on Wed, Thurs, & Fri.

Don't you wish you were in vet school?