I heard an advertisement the other day on the radio, that there was going to be a charity walk in support of Breast Cancer research in NYC this summer. Now, I figured since I was in probably the best shape I have been in since high school, that this would be a nice thing to do - I have several family friends + other close friends that have had breast cancer affect their lives, so I thought taking part in this event would show my support. It is actually a marathon-length walk, so it is no small task.
I went online, wanting to look into it a bit, see how to register, etc etc. Now as far as I can tell (and anyone please correct me if I am wrong),in order to take part in this event, you not only have to pay a registration fee (which I wasn't bothered about at all), but you also have to raise a MINIMUM of $1800......!! I mean, I am all for charity and all that, but where the hell am I gonna be able to raise that kind of money!??! It's not like I work in a big office with a hundred employees. There are about 10-15 employees at my pleace of business. And I doubt any of them are going to give up $100-150 to support me....what the hell am I expected to do, go around door-to-door for donations??? It's one thing to do that when you are in a high school band, selling oranges to fund your annual trip to Florida. But an adult banging on people's doors?? Would YOU open the door if you saw me standing there? Or would you think I was a Jehova's Witness???
Basically, I guess I won't be able to do the walk, and thus another attempt at kindness thwarted by red-tape.
Typical!
Peace,
-B
Monday, March 07, 2005
Saturday, March 05, 2005
As promised...
Here's the previously mentioned article, again in uncut, unedited form...because I couldn't be bothered to edit it. I hope you get a kick out of it.
The Final Countdown
The Journey Begins…
The alarm clock was set for 7 am on that morning of February 18th, 2001. Didn’t need it though, as I hadn’t slept very well the night before. Rotations were starting! Rotations!! I couldn’t believe I had made it – once I saw that I had passed my fourth year exam, I was in absolute disbelief. I had an ENTIRE WEEKEND to prepare for rotations…lucky me.
I attempted to study up on principles of equine surgery (which was my first rotation!), and got through approximately 4 pages of my notes before I got bored. “Ah, never mind,” I told myself, “I have just studied for and passed my fourth year exam. I am sure there’s still enough info in this thick skull of mine to get me through!” So, I proceeded to put the books away and enjoyed my last weekend of peace, relaxation and freedom.
When that morning arrived, I bounced out of bed at approximately 5:45am. Went in to the shower and had a shave, and noticed that all of the rest of my housemates were also awake at the same ungodly hour. By this time it was around 6:30am, and I had an hour and a half to kill, so I picked up a good ol’ equine surgery book, proceeded to read the same sentence 346 times and closed it again. I was too excited to retain any info, I was about to start the elusive ROTATIONS!!!
I attempted to get some food down my neck, but that too wasn’t happening, because I was too nervous to eat. I put on my newly purchased olive green boiler suit and put my shiny new name badge on perfectly straight. I made sure I had a pen torch, thermometer, haemostats, scissors, pad, and about 4 pens (just in case). Oh, and I couldn’t forget the flash new stethoscope I bought!! I opened the door and headed out to start a new and exciting day…
I arrived at the introductory session run by one of the equine nurses. She handed us a 40 page booklet which had tons of scary rules and regulations in them, dress code, etc. She then proceeded to dump me with a clinician who I had never seen before, and I stood quietly aside while she examined a horse, not once looking in my direction or acknowledging my presence. We then took this horse in to x-ray, took approximately 14,000 x-rays of its legs, went down to ultrasound to look at some tendons, and planned to bone scan it the following day. I still had no idea what this horse’s problem was. The clinician finally turned to me and spoke. She said “This is your case. Take it to the top barns and read up on proximal suspensory desmitis.” My first case!! How exciting! I immediately took the horse up to a stall, carefully put her in, made sure she had water, closed the stall door, checking 3 times to be sure it was closed, and left. I saw some of my fellow rotation-mates wandering around like lost puppies and said, “Hey! I have a case! What are you lot up to??” They all had cases too, and were thinking of going to the library. Good plan, I thought, so off we went.
As we sat there in the library, with books open to pages talking about proximal suspensory desmitis, neurectomies, colic and teeth extraction, we immediately got f**ked off with reading and decided that this would be a good time to sort out the out-of-hours duty rota. How exciting!! We would be solely responsible for treating these sick horses overnight! How grown up and vet-like! I immediately volunteered for the first night’s shift. We examined the duty rota, and were hard pressed to figure just what the hell it was going on about. How many of us were supposed to be on duty per night? 3? 4? Some of the duties were supposed to be covered by the equine medicine rotation group, but how many? What about weekends? How many people per shift? After an hour or so of arguing, we managed to sort it out, and had our first week of duties scheduled. We each had to do approximately 3 shifts per week – including one weekend shift – in order to be fair. I would do that first night, as well as Wednesday afternoon and Saturday morning. Sorted.
After pissing about in the library for another few minutes, we saw that it was nearing noon. Time for our 12 o’clock checks! Yippee!! Responsibility!
Off we went to our respective horses, being sure not to dare enter the horse box without one of our classmates present as well – that would be unsafe! Upon examining the files of our horses, we were confronted with 4,000 different coloured papers. After 30 minutes of attempting to figure out what the f**k each of these papers was for, I finally found the appropriate sheets – the yellow ones to write our daily SOAP’s and any other comments on, and the pink ones to see what drug dosages to give and when. All the rest might as well have been loo roll as far as I could tell. We carefully administered our respective drugs (how cool to be giving IM injections on our own!!!), and took their TPR (temperature, pulse, respiration rate). Then off we went for lunch.
After lunch, 3 new cases came in. Two lameness work-ups and a colic. The colic obviously had to be sorted first – it was determined to be medical, chucked in a stall and observed. The lameness work-ups took us well beyond 7pm – both had to be trotted, lunged, x-rayed, nerve blocked, trotted and lunged again – and were both scheduled for further work up in the morning. Just as I was about to head home, completely exhausted…the colic decided to go from medical to surgical. Seeing as I chose to be on duty that night, I had to stay and help.
Equine surgeries are interesting events – seeing as how they are usually emergencies (in the case of colic especially), they routinely take two to three hours TO GET STARTED. Yes, that’s right. By the time the surgery was over, at 2 am, after lots of standing around while the clinicians cut, cursed, yelled, cursed some more, did some maneuvering and suturing, cursed a few more times, and closed the poor horse’s abdomen, it was time to call it a day. I got home at 2:15 am, shoved some food down my throat, and passed out, just to awake 4 hours later to do it all again.
By the end of my four weeks on equine surgery, I would roll out of bed at approximately 7:40am (to be in for 8am), brushed my teeth, ate a breakfast bar, and put on my smelly, dirty, barely recognizable overalls. My nametag was all beaten up, I lost all of my pens, and my haemostats may have been left attached to some bloody mess somewhere for all I remember. I stumbled in to my horses’ stalls alone and gave them their drugs. Their TPR was routinely 38.5/32/12, as I couldn’t be bothered to measure it. When I left the stalls, I slid them closed behind me, never bothering to check how well they had shut. Any free time I could manage, I slept. Social life? Ha! However….I could recognize a lame horse and identify the lame leg. I could tell you all about colic. I could tell you about location of nerve blocks. I could tell you about tendons. I could tell you about bone scanning, xraying, and ultrasound. The amount of practical information I had learned astounded me.
Rotations. The privilege to bust our arses all day long, all night long, and all the hours in between….for free. Some call it an exciting learning experience. Others call it slave labour. In truth, I think it is a combination of both. In retrospect, although it was extremely hard work and you often get frustrated, the times I have spent with my rotation group have probably been the most fun I have ever had. You bond quite closely with your group-mates, as you are going through the trenches together. Not only is it fun, but you learn so much more than you ever could from books. Responsibility. The practical stuff. The good stuff. The Vet Stuff. And that’s what its all about, baby.
Ah the good ol' days, when all that mattered was responsibility, graduating vet school, and becoming a doctor. Now I am married, and starting to think about buying a house. Amazing how priorities shift, isn't it?
Til tomorrow,
-B
The Final Countdown
The Journey Begins…
The alarm clock was set for 7 am on that morning of February 18th, 2001. Didn’t need it though, as I hadn’t slept very well the night before. Rotations were starting! Rotations!! I couldn’t believe I had made it – once I saw that I had passed my fourth year exam, I was in absolute disbelief. I had an ENTIRE WEEKEND to prepare for rotations…lucky me.
I attempted to study up on principles of equine surgery (which was my first rotation!), and got through approximately 4 pages of my notes before I got bored. “Ah, never mind,” I told myself, “I have just studied for and passed my fourth year exam. I am sure there’s still enough info in this thick skull of mine to get me through!” So, I proceeded to put the books away and enjoyed my last weekend of peace, relaxation and freedom.
When that morning arrived, I bounced out of bed at approximately 5:45am. Went in to the shower and had a shave, and noticed that all of the rest of my housemates were also awake at the same ungodly hour. By this time it was around 6:30am, and I had an hour and a half to kill, so I picked up a good ol’ equine surgery book, proceeded to read the same sentence 346 times and closed it again. I was too excited to retain any info, I was about to start the elusive ROTATIONS!!!
I attempted to get some food down my neck, but that too wasn’t happening, because I was too nervous to eat. I put on my newly purchased olive green boiler suit and put my shiny new name badge on perfectly straight. I made sure I had a pen torch, thermometer, haemostats, scissors, pad, and about 4 pens (just in case). Oh, and I couldn’t forget the flash new stethoscope I bought!! I opened the door and headed out to start a new and exciting day…
I arrived at the introductory session run by one of the equine nurses. She handed us a 40 page booklet which had tons of scary rules and regulations in them, dress code, etc. She then proceeded to dump me with a clinician who I had never seen before, and I stood quietly aside while she examined a horse, not once looking in my direction or acknowledging my presence. We then took this horse in to x-ray, took approximately 14,000 x-rays of its legs, went down to ultrasound to look at some tendons, and planned to bone scan it the following day. I still had no idea what this horse’s problem was. The clinician finally turned to me and spoke. She said “This is your case. Take it to the top barns and read up on proximal suspensory desmitis.” My first case!! How exciting! I immediately took the horse up to a stall, carefully put her in, made sure she had water, closed the stall door, checking 3 times to be sure it was closed, and left. I saw some of my fellow rotation-mates wandering around like lost puppies and said, “Hey! I have a case! What are you lot up to??” They all had cases too, and were thinking of going to the library. Good plan, I thought, so off we went.
As we sat there in the library, with books open to pages talking about proximal suspensory desmitis, neurectomies, colic and teeth extraction, we immediately got f**ked off with reading and decided that this would be a good time to sort out the out-of-hours duty rota. How exciting!! We would be solely responsible for treating these sick horses overnight! How grown up and vet-like! I immediately volunteered for the first night’s shift. We examined the duty rota, and were hard pressed to figure just what the hell it was going on about. How many of us were supposed to be on duty per night? 3? 4? Some of the duties were supposed to be covered by the equine medicine rotation group, but how many? What about weekends? How many people per shift? After an hour or so of arguing, we managed to sort it out, and had our first week of duties scheduled. We each had to do approximately 3 shifts per week – including one weekend shift – in order to be fair. I would do that first night, as well as Wednesday afternoon and Saturday morning. Sorted.
After pissing about in the library for another few minutes, we saw that it was nearing noon. Time for our 12 o’clock checks! Yippee!! Responsibility!
Off we went to our respective horses, being sure not to dare enter the horse box without one of our classmates present as well – that would be unsafe! Upon examining the files of our horses, we were confronted with 4,000 different coloured papers. After 30 minutes of attempting to figure out what the f**k each of these papers was for, I finally found the appropriate sheets – the yellow ones to write our daily SOAP’s and any other comments on, and the pink ones to see what drug dosages to give and when. All the rest might as well have been loo roll as far as I could tell. We carefully administered our respective drugs (how cool to be giving IM injections on our own!!!), and took their TPR (temperature, pulse, respiration rate). Then off we went for lunch.
After lunch, 3 new cases came in. Two lameness work-ups and a colic. The colic obviously had to be sorted first – it was determined to be medical, chucked in a stall and observed. The lameness work-ups took us well beyond 7pm – both had to be trotted, lunged, x-rayed, nerve blocked, trotted and lunged again – and were both scheduled for further work up in the morning. Just as I was about to head home, completely exhausted…the colic decided to go from medical to surgical. Seeing as I chose to be on duty that night, I had to stay and help.
Equine surgeries are interesting events – seeing as how they are usually emergencies (in the case of colic especially), they routinely take two to three hours TO GET STARTED. Yes, that’s right. By the time the surgery was over, at 2 am, after lots of standing around while the clinicians cut, cursed, yelled, cursed some more, did some maneuvering and suturing, cursed a few more times, and closed the poor horse’s abdomen, it was time to call it a day. I got home at 2:15 am, shoved some food down my throat, and passed out, just to awake 4 hours later to do it all again.
By the end of my four weeks on equine surgery, I would roll out of bed at approximately 7:40am (to be in for 8am), brushed my teeth, ate a breakfast bar, and put on my smelly, dirty, barely recognizable overalls. My nametag was all beaten up, I lost all of my pens, and my haemostats may have been left attached to some bloody mess somewhere for all I remember. I stumbled in to my horses’ stalls alone and gave them their drugs. Their TPR was routinely 38.5/32/12, as I couldn’t be bothered to measure it. When I left the stalls, I slid them closed behind me, never bothering to check how well they had shut. Any free time I could manage, I slept. Social life? Ha! However….I could recognize a lame horse and identify the lame leg. I could tell you all about colic. I could tell you about location of nerve blocks. I could tell you about tendons. I could tell you about bone scanning, xraying, and ultrasound. The amount of practical information I had learned astounded me.
Rotations. The privilege to bust our arses all day long, all night long, and all the hours in between….for free. Some call it an exciting learning experience. Others call it slave labour. In truth, I think it is a combination of both. In retrospect, although it was extremely hard work and you often get frustrated, the times I have spent with my rotation group have probably been the most fun I have ever had. You bond quite closely with your group-mates, as you are going through the trenches together. Not only is it fun, but you learn so much more than you ever could from books. Responsibility. The practical stuff. The good stuff. The Vet Stuff. And that’s what its all about, baby.
Ah the good ol' days, when all that mattered was responsibility, graduating vet school, and becoming a doctor. Now I am married, and starting to think about buying a house. Amazing how priorities shift, isn't it?
Til tomorrow,
-B
Friday, March 04, 2005
Idiocy...
People never fail to amaze me. Picture this: I am handed an appointment at work yesterday, and am greeted by a 7 yr old cat. This cat (who will remain unnamed to protect the innocent) is normally brought in and sedated in order to shave the matted fur on its back...so you can imagine I was getting into battle mode as I went into the exam room. Keep in mind, I had never seen this patient before. So I took the cat out of the carrier and put it on the scale. It was 12.6 lbs. Looking back at the card, the last time it was weighed (in 2003), it was 25 lbs . OK, so this cat has lost half of its weight. This is abnormal. The cat also is drinking and peeing like an elephant. Also abnormal. Diabetes was on the top of my list, because of the cat's age. Checked a blood sample, and indeed the kitty is diabetic. The owner was informed of this fact, and were told that this was probably the best of all possible outcomes, because diabetes can be treated fairly easily and cheaply.
The owner then declined treatment.....basically opting to let the cat die.
Now all I have to ask is...why bring your cat to the vet and spend a bunch of money if you are unwilling to follow through with our medical advice?? Why? WHY???
Like I said, people never fail to amaze me.
But then, for every case like this, I get 2-3 cases of people who will do anything I suggest in order to give their pets the best care possible. This makes me happy, and does give me some renewed faith in people's love for their animals.
I sometimes get into these funks where I wonder what the hell made me want to be a vet. I am not currently in one of these funks, I am actually very pleased with everything right now....but the funk can hit at any time. When I get funkdafied, I often think back to vet school and get happy. I suppose those days truly were the time of my life. Of course I am happy now, married and looking forward to married and family life, but things will never be the same as the RVC days. Those days were different, they were, at the risk of sounding super cheesy, magical. Reminiscing about them makes me happy, and the knowledge that I could call any of the 118 people in my year and talk with them about anything, picking up right where we left off at graduation (in 2003) is just an amazing thing. So, basically, to sum it up, my vet school classmates serve as an inspiration to me in many aspects of my life. I can only hope that they all know this to be true.
I was looking through some more of my old articles I wrote for my vet school website again, and I thought the first one I ever wrote was quite funny. Perhaps tomorrow I shall post it for everyone's perusal and enjoyment. It discusses the first day of rotations, the naivety we all had, and how we came crashing down to earth very shortly after starting. Its a good laugh for all of us vets, and hopefully entertaining for the non-vet.
This post has rambled on long enough, so I won't post it today, but unless something really interesting happens tomorrow (or some epiphany strikes me which I feel compelled to rant about), it will be posted.
Bedtime!
-B
The owner then declined treatment.....basically opting to let the cat die.
Now all I have to ask is...why bring your cat to the vet and spend a bunch of money if you are unwilling to follow through with our medical advice?? Why? WHY???
Like I said, people never fail to amaze me.
But then, for every case like this, I get 2-3 cases of people who will do anything I suggest in order to give their pets the best care possible. This makes me happy, and does give me some renewed faith in people's love for their animals.
I sometimes get into these funks where I wonder what the hell made me want to be a vet. I am not currently in one of these funks, I am actually very pleased with everything right now....but the funk can hit at any time. When I get funkdafied, I often think back to vet school and get happy. I suppose those days truly were the time of my life. Of course I am happy now, married and looking forward to married and family life, but things will never be the same as the RVC days. Those days were different, they were, at the risk of sounding super cheesy, magical. Reminiscing about them makes me happy, and the knowledge that I could call any of the 118 people in my year and talk with them about anything, picking up right where we left off at graduation (in 2003) is just an amazing thing. So, basically, to sum it up, my vet school classmates serve as an inspiration to me in many aspects of my life. I can only hope that they all know this to be true.
I was looking through some more of my old articles I wrote for my vet school website again, and I thought the first one I ever wrote was quite funny. Perhaps tomorrow I shall post it for everyone's perusal and enjoyment. It discusses the first day of rotations, the naivety we all had, and how we came crashing down to earth very shortly after starting. Its a good laugh for all of us vets, and hopefully entertaining for the non-vet.
This post has rambled on long enough, so I won't post it today, but unless something really interesting happens tomorrow (or some epiphany strikes me which I feel compelled to rant about), it will be posted.
Bedtime!
-B
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Tired....
....so...tired...need...sleepy.
Not much to report today, just worked 9-9, now home and am tired, my entire body is sore from yesterday's gym session, and I am ready to collapse. So, I shall collapse, now that there is no ER on this week....
So, sleepy time for poppa. Day off tomorrow. Will sleepy. Sleepy good for poppa. Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep time.
Out,
-B
Not much to report today, just worked 9-9, now home and am tired, my entire body is sore from yesterday's gym session, and I am ready to collapse. So, I shall collapse, now that there is no ER on this week....
So, sleepy time for poppa. Day off tomorrow. Will sleepy. Sleepy good for poppa. Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep time.
Out,
-B
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Snow Day!
God damn do I love the snow!! Yesterday, we were supposed to get slammed by a big snow storm - they were predicting 6-10" - so, after morning appointments, at around 11am, my boss gave us the rest of the day off!! Even though the snow didn't start til 3-4pm!!! How awesome! So, I went straight to the gym (for the 4th day in a row), and after 30 minutes on the bike, my legs were non-functional, so I decided to call it a day. Went home, de-funked (i.e. showered), ate lunch, and passed out for a few hours. Afterwards, I made some dinner for my lovely wife and I, and we watched TV and went to bed.
Woke up this morning, and this "massive snow storm" probably dropped 3-4". The roads were clear as a bell. No problem, mon. Headed to work, banged out a bunch of spays and neuters, saw a couple of appointments, and back home! Then, we got a phone call from our wedding photographer, who said he was gonna drop off the proofs from the wedding photos!!! That made Angela and I very excited - the pics came out great, and now the job before us is to decide which ones to pick for our wedding album, thank you's, prints, etc etc. Angela is chomping at the bit to get started...
That's about all for today, another day off tomorrow, which I will put to good use by sleeping and....just sleeping. Sleep = good. Maybe I will look into making a prototype for my previously mentioned mini-camera for my previously mentioned experiment....Nah, sleep sounds like the way to go. I shall now scan and post a few of our wedding proof photos....like you haven't seen enough pictures of my wedding already....
Big-Poppa...out!
-B
Woke up this morning, and this "massive snow storm" probably dropped 3-4". The roads were clear as a bell. No problem, mon. Headed to work, banged out a bunch of spays and neuters, saw a couple of appointments, and back home! Then, we got a phone call from our wedding photographer, who said he was gonna drop off the proofs from the wedding photos!!! That made Angela and I very excited - the pics came out great, and now the job before us is to decide which ones to pick for our wedding album, thank you's, prints, etc etc. Angela is chomping at the bit to get started...
That's about all for today, another day off tomorrow, which I will put to good use by sleeping and....just sleeping. Sleep = good. Maybe I will look into making a prototype for my previously mentioned mini-camera for my previously mentioned experiment....Nah, sleep sounds like the way to go. I shall now scan and post a few of our wedding proof photos....like you haven't seen enough pictures of my wedding already....
Big-Poppa...out!
-B
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