Please Leave Your Cows, Pigs, Goats, and Horses at Home

Sorry guys, I'm just not interested in large animal and equine medicine. In addition to the cows, pigs, goats, and horses, I'm also not interested in the chickens, donkeys, turkeys, camels, alpacas, ostriches, emus, sheep, and any other farm animal I have failed to list.

I will however take care of your dogs, cats, pocket pets, and exotic pets, and I am interested in wildlife, marine animals, and zoo animals. I just don't happen to care for the farm critters. I really like specialty medicine too (so don't expect much help for your healthy pets-I'm not likely to be very useful when it comes to vaccines, unless fluffy and meow are having an allergic reaction!).

I'm not really sure why I don't care for farm animals, I just don't. Horses are cool, don't get me wrong, I just don't really have any desire to work with them after graduation. It's not the lifestyle for me.

We had our two hours of cow lab today. We had lectures on Tuesday and Wednesday and then labs were split between yesterday and today. We started by examining a cow in a chute and talking about our observations. Our cow was an adult female red Angus mix. Next a doctor showed us how to halter the cow with a rope and each of us practiced. We used weigh tapes to determine the weight of the cow (1267lbs).

During the second part of lab, we practiced basic physical exam skills on a line of cows in a stanchion. We listened to heart and lung sounds, to rumen contractions, found a pulse in the tail, checked mucous membrane color, determined body condition score, examined for pain, and basically worked our way around the cows. No one got hurt, but I was fairly certain someone in my group was about to get injured at one point! Our cow was very tired of having her back end and tail messed with and was really hoping to get rid of us if she harassed us enough. Silly cows, but can't say I wouldn't feel the same way if people were messing with me for hours! The good news though is that they were going back to full feed bins when they were released back into the yard (nothing like a tasty meal to melt all your troubles away!)

It was fun, just not nearly as fun as playing with dogs, cats and exotics in my opinion haha. Coming home and taking a shower felt awesome, although much to my disappointment, I still smell like the farm. My coveralls and boots smell worse though. I can't wait to do laundry! I promise to add a couple of pictures as soon as I have my camera with me!

***Disclaimer: None of the animals are harmed by placement in the chute or stanchion. These are approved, safe and ethical methods of cattle restraint that allow the cows, students, and faculty to remain safe during handling. ***

Food

I haven't commented on food recently so I think I shall update about my eating situation down here in Grenada (since I just had dinner and don't want to study yet).

Well I haven't really been adventurous in eating (both cooking and eating out), but I'm sure that really comes as no surprise to those who know me. I think I have come up with a couple more meals though. Instead of eating the same 5 things every week, I have increased that number to 8! And then we usually eat out at least one night a week to be social :) I also still despise handling raw meat. Super yucky!!!

I am also still pretty cautious about eating foods from certain restaurants. There is one cluster of hut restaurants right near campus that I don't really trust when it comes to food safety. Everyone really likes the different foods, but it just all makes me nervous (one of these days I'll remember to take a picture of it all). Most people who have eaten there have gotten sick at least once afterwards. I'd really rather take my chances being plain and boring thank you.

I have learned that when it comes to dishes, owning only 1 pot is a HUGE advantage. Basically it never takes me more than 5 minutes to wash all of my things. Love it! It is a pain when I want to cook a meal that requires more than one pot, but patience is a virtue and most of the things I make cook quickly so it's not too much of a hassle. My pantry has expanded and I now store things in one of the cupboards too! Yay for having food-it's a big step up from the completely bare shelves I had for 5 days at the beginning of the semester!

One other thing to comment on, I now eat a lot of yogurt and granola bars. Things I never really used to touch at home. They are awesome snacks for class or lunch foods! The biggest problem is whether or not the grocery store has them in stock! I try to keep extras of all of my foods so that when things aren't in stock for a few weeks, it isn't too big of a deal. Peanut butter was out for the last month, I'm extremely low! Thankfully it was back in stock today :) Grocery shopping is always an adventure here!

It is Officially Time...

To start freaking out about midterm exams!! Woah, these are going to be brutal! I think the scariest part is that they get harder, more advance, and more in depth as the semesters go by! Not looking forward to future midterms and finals.

But enough about the future, I need to survive the current impending doom to move on to future doom. The hardest exam is definitely going to be histology. Mainly because we have what feels like 3 years worth of material from 7 weeks of class on the exam. Not looking forward to it at all. Next after that will be clinical orientation. Hopefully that will be an easy A. Dogs and cats, horses, and farm/food animals are covered on the exam but not too terribly in depth so it should be pretty manageable. Physiology is in the middle of the week. Not too concerned since I have a good understanding of the material in that class (and I feel like I could happily spend forever studying it because I find it fascinating). We get one day "off" which I will use to recharge my energy for anatomy. I think I've pretty much given up on anatomy. I think I will always feel hopelessly behind. And when I think I'm catching up, we do a thousand new things and I get knocked right back into the snake pit. The lecture and lab exam are going to be brutal, but I bet by that time in the week I won't care at all. (p.s. I did well on nutrition on Monday).

Today really officially starts the panic and many late nights to come (as if I don't stay up late enough as is). On the (small) plus side, we don't have any classes next week, so we will be able to devote all of our time to studying. Joy. Actually, there are many days where I feel like it would be far more beneficial to stay home and study than go sit in class. But I'd feel guilty if I skipped. Gotta work out that dilemma, it's hard to know I'm potentially losing 3-4 hours of quality study time per day.

A Robot Overtakes Walmart

Haven't you heard? Robots are wandering around overtaking Walmarts everywhere, turning their employees into slaves, and capturing the general public!

Okay, maybe only in my dreams. Literally. While I was sleeping last night, I dreamt that a little 1-2 foot high robot over took Walmart, turned the employees into slaves, and captured the public. He was very evil. I think it was Easter time too. And that to complete a scavenger hunt, people had to give children in Walmart a french fry and an ipod. Because they had just had lunch at Wendy's. Yeah...no clue what that has to do with anything...

Anyhow, the really evil robot caused mass chaos in Walmart! And the store was torn apart while people were shopping. Then, to be really sneaky and hide/travel out into the world, the robot turned itself into a silver pendant with a pearl on it. Looks sort of like the one pictured below. Some young woman bought the pendant before it could be hidden and destroyed by the employees (who were excited to have some free will back-afterall, a necklace is not nearly as threatening as a 1-2 foot tall robot. Clearly.). After she bought the pendant, the woman decided to go to the bathroom to try it out. A couple of employees saw her and followed her, and then proceeded to tell her just how ugly they thought the necklace was on her, and how cheap and trashy it looked. Thankfully, the woman had a really low self esteem and decided that there was no way she wanted the necklace any more. The robot/necklace was very angry, but what can you do when you're a piece of jewelry? And that's all I remember.

I posted this story because it keeps popping into my head and creeping me out. I am really glad that there are no Walmarts here, that the necklaces are always made from plants and shells, and that robotic technology is way too advanced for this country where many people still don't even have flushing toilets. However, for all of you in the States, you might want to watch yourself next time you're in Walmart!

A Long Winter's Nap

Yeah, okay, we have nothing that even REMOTELY resembles winter here (it's still 85 and sunny out : D). That did not stop me from getting 13 hours of sleep last night though! Clearly my sleeping issues have resolved haha. The goofy thing is that I didn't mean to sleep that much, and I'm also not particularly sleep deprived (or so I thought)!

I remember sitting on my bed around 8:30p last night deciding where I was going to start studying first. I also remember being really tired. And the next thing I know, it's 9:20a, my lights are on, I'm still in my clothes, my computer is still open, and my room looks completely untouched! Last time this happened a few years ago, I at least woke up in the morning with my lights out, under my blankets, and in my pajamas (even though I had no recollection of performing those activities!).

The only thing I still haven't decided is whether I am happy to have gotten so much sleep, or to be upset because I lost a good 5-6 hours of studying! And midterms are less than a week away, AHH!

Success!

Another successful night on call! My definition of successful is when I have the phone and don't get any phone calls. As a quick reminder, when we work volunteer shifts at the SGU Small Animal Clinic, one of us takes the on call phone home at 12am and is responsible for answering any phone calls that may come through (i.e. people potentially seeking treatment). I have had the phone twice so far and both nights were successful :). All people on the team get called in if an emergency presents to the hospital.

I particularly pleased that we weren't called in last night because we have our nutrition midterm this afternoon. Yikes!!!! We'll see how this goes...the upperclassmen have prepared us for doom in a giant sink hole. Both professors for this section of the test have poorly made powerpoint notes. Misuse of bullet points, typos all over the place, graphs/charts/tables with no labels or explanations, terrible grammar and amusing spelling errors (can you guess what a sward is?) and basically all around unpleasentness. That is the material on the exam today. Should be loads of fun. My reward will be some beach time with the fish later so it should all be worth it!

The Gecko

Well, after having so much fun on the hike tonight, when I saw a gecko outside the laundry room window, I decided that I had to try and catch him! I opened the window and reached out to grab him, but he ran upwards. However, apparently the windows here open on both ends when they aren't sealed shut so the gecko ran right into the building! He ran up the window and over to the wall. Not wanting him to starve or get hurt in the laundry room, I coaxed him down with a pole. I really meant to just have him run back outside, but I saw another opportunity to grab him, so I did. This time I was successful!

Elated, I had to find someone to show (I was pretty proud of myself!). I went upstairs and knocked on a friend's door to show her. She thought he was pretty cool too. One of our other classmates happened to be in the hall so we called him over to show him. At this point I had the gecko resting in my palm instead of holding onto him. My classmate tried to touch the gecko, and much to our surprise he took a flying leap from my hand to the ground, and proceeded to run into my friend's room! Unfortunately we have no idea where he went and were unsuccessful in our attempts to locate his hide out. Poor thing! I feel awful that this little guy is stuck inside :(. My friend and her med school roommate don't really care that he's loose (thankfully) but I'm worried he will die without a good food and water source. Hopefully he is able to make an escape some time soon! Bad vet student!!

Herping Trip!!

I went on a herping hike tonight with our herpetology club. About 30 people went and we took taxis up to Grand Etang, one of the national forests in Grenada. The drive is about 45 minutes from campus along the winding, narrow, and steep roads that are characteristic of Grenada.

When we arrived about 6pm, the sun was already mostly set. We got a few good sunset pictures (our elevation is about 1900 ft at that spot).

 We went down two different trails and saw a whole bunch of different critters! Frogs, anoles, a tree boa, a moth, and a mouse opossum! We had an amazing time! Another thing you can see really well out in the mountains are the stars. The sky is so beautiful here and it just gets better when we're out away from light. I've never seen anything like it before!

 

The tree boa we found was about a foot and a half long high up in a tree. He was a reddish brown color and had some faint dark green bands and lots of black spots on his belly. They are an endangered species only found in Grenada, and one of the professors here is currently doing a research project on them with the help of several students and colleagues. They were very excited to find the snake and pulled it out of the tree (they have a nifty snake pole that helps them retrieve the snake). They took all sorts of measurements, swabs, blood, and many pictures of the snake for their project. It was fascinating to watch! I can't wait to read their published work some day!

 

The trails were pretty muddy and I came home covered in mud! My sneakers are absolutely filthy! I had mud all over the bottoms of my pants, my socks, my ankles, and my white shoes were brown. I washed them off and then stuck them in the washer for 2 rounds of soap and stain remover, but they look almost as bad as when they went in. Good thing they were already designated as being dirty hiking shoes!

 

I can't wait to go hiking again! I had so much fun and there were so many things to see! Too bad I have to study for midterms now haha.

More About the Horses

And then I swear I will find a new topic! (it will be cows next week hehe).

We had lab number two today. This time they split us in half and we practiced haltering a horse for a bit and then switched to compare/contrast three horses. We were given a list of questions and asked to pick "which horse" essentially. Example: Which horse has 2nd degree AV block? Horse 1, Horse 2, Horse 3? 2nd degree AV block is essentially a skipped heart beat. So you hear a steady rhythm, and then all the sudden you'll hear nothing for a little bit longer than the normal rhythm. Sounds bad, apparently it's normal in resting horses. The way you find out if it's actually related to a cardiac problem is to exercise the horse and then listen. It should be gone, it it's not it indicates a problem. Dogs and cats should not have 2nd degree AV block. The fun things ya learn in school.

The things we had to compare on the horses were heart rate, heart sounds, temperature, mucous membrane capillary refill time (Google if you want to know), weight, height, and gut sounds (borborygmi). It was a lot of fun! I took my first horse rectal temperature today! It was very useful to be able to compare 3 different animals to each other. How do we measure weight in horses? A measuring tape! Kid you not, we have a measuring tape-like strip that you wrap around the horse in a specific location and it basically tells you how much they weigh. It's really cool! http://www.wikihow.com/Use-a-Tape-to-Weigh-a-Horse

Anyhow, next week we're onto cows! Should be interesting. And even further out of my knowledge and comfort zone!

Horses-Update!

Fun afternoon with the horses during clinical orientation lab! We went over basic physical examination skills in groups of 6-7 with a horse and veterinarian. We had a chestnut thoroughbred mare. Unfortunately I don't remember hearing her age, so my signalment (age, sex, breed) will have to remain incomplete. I also have no idea what her name is (I don't think we asked for some reason).

She was fairly patient with us and only started getting really cranky towards the end (I think I would too if I had 7 curious vet students poking and prodding me). We noted that she had facial asymmetry between her eyes which the vet thought was likely due to an injury that crushed her left sinus (apparently pretty common in horses because all they need to do is give their face a good whack on something solid). We felt for submandibular lymph notes, the transverse facial artery, and the facial artery (this took me FOREVER to find!). We auscultated (listened to) heart and lungs sounds and noted that her heart rate was within normal limits (36 beats per minute, range of 24-44 bpm in horses) and pretty much didn't hear any lung sounds at all-you could with the stethoscope over the trachea though. At the end of lab, I listened to heart sounds on two other horses and got to hear a diastolyic murmur and second degree AV block (normal in horses-heart drops a beat from time to time). The other thing you do with a stethoscope with horses is listen all over their abdomen for borborygmi (normal gut motility sounds). It was really entertaining to hear the gurgles and bubbling!

We pretty much ran our hands all over her to feel for any abnormalities and to determine body condition scoring. Horses are graded on a 1 to 9 scale where 1 is skin and bones and 9 is as fat as they come (so 5 is a nice healthy average animal). We initially thought she was maybe a 5/5.5/6 out of 9 but the vet kind of scolded us for this. Apparently shes a 4. That's what we get for not knowing anything about horses! Only one girl in our group has any real horse experience.

All in all an excellent lab! No one got hurt (which I happen to think is very important haha). Although apparently at one point when I crossed under her neck (they told us that we could either closely walk behind the horse or duck under the neck if we felt more comfortable to change sides) she reached out and tried to bite me! So it's either teeth or hooves. I'd really prefer neither. One more horse lab tomorrow!

 

Animal Nutrition

I can't remember if I have mentioned anything about this class in the past, but I really don't care for it. The main problem is boring/impossible to understand professors and my general lack of interest in the subject (maybe that will change when we get into equine and companion animal nutrition with the two awesome professors).

Our midterm exam is this Monday-yikes! Much to my delight though, we do not have any classes that day! This means that I will have a 5 day break from anatomy lab!!! (I really hate that class, mainly because one of my lab partners is unbearable to work with and be around). For our midterm, we have 15 lectures to cover and this will be our first exam for the class. We were supposed to have a quiz a couple weeks ago but it was cancelled because we had a physiology exam the same day and a histology exam a few days before it. Very generous of the moderating professor!!

Our first professor was from Nottingham University. He presented 7 lectures on general nutritional elements (proteins, lipids, carbs, etc.). Potentially sounds interesting, but don't be fooled. His charming accent does not make up for the fact that his presentations were terrible, his notes were atrocious, and he was really boring and constantly making fun of Americans. His only redeeming feature was his adorable and entertaining accent. I'll admit to rarely paying attention in class (why stare blankly when you can put that hour towards studying for another class or catching up on the rest of life?). He seems like a perfectly nice person, but we have been warned by the upperclassmen that his test questions are BRUTAL. He apparently tells you "oh you don't need to remember this" and "don't memorize these charts and numbers" and then turns around and puts them on the exam, along with many other obscurely worded questions. We are all frightened. Luckily, the SGU professor in charge of the class (for the first time) threw out a bunch of his test questions on the basis that they weren't even in the notes (his new redeeming feature-I may have been known to call him ugly boring guy, but not anymore!).

The second lecturer we've had is from Grenada. Or Africa. I'm actually not really sure which (he grew up in one and lived in the other for awhile before now). His topic is ruminant nutrition. Unfortunately for me, I have no interest in cows or ruminants so I don't find the lecture material to be nearly as fascinating (or relevant) as one of my friends who wants to go into mixed animal practice (companion animals, equine, and farm as needed basically). His notes are very straight forward and easy to read, however, he is IMPOSSIBLE to understand. For every sentence he speaks, I'm lucky if I've caught at least two of the words. I am no good with accents (although I've adapted quite well in histology! but that is perhaps because he repeats everything he says 5 times). Needless to say, I also don't pay attention to his lecturing either. It is a more productive and stimulating use of my time to study for histology or physiology or anatomy (depends upon what the next upcoming exam is haha).

Anyhow, that is the current overview of my nutrition class (which I really don't care for). Hopefully I'll do well on the midterm (I know you're currently skeptical since I don't pay attention in class but I'll let you know!).

Horses

Okay, so coming to vet school I knew that I knew next to nothing about horses (and cows and anything that isn't a dog, cat or pocket pet/exotic really), but I didn't think that lack of knowledge would feel so overwhelming!

This week were are covering horses in Clinical Orientation. The week starts off with two 50 minute lectures and then ends with two 50 minute hands on labs at the clinic and farm. Yesterday's lecture was all about breeds and basic terminology and today we covered the equine physical exam. Although it overlaps with the companion animal PE quite a bit, the fact that these are gigantic, powerful, and potentially dangerous animals terrifies me! Horses are gorgeous, but I think I prefer my dogs and cats thank you! Working with them on Thursday will be interesting. I really need to study before I go out on the farm so that I am not a complete idiot! This post is to be continued on Thursday and Friday...

AVMA Accreditation!

Today the SVM gathered all students, faculty, and staff to announce that St. George's University School of Veterinary Medicine has officially been granted accreditation status with the American Veterinary Medical Association!

This is a big deal for our 12 year old school! This means that students no longer have to take foreign licensing exams to qualify to practice in the United States upon graduation. This also recognizes SGU as a veterinary school on par with all of the other US vet school programs. We are quite thrilled :)

Congratulations to everyone who has played a part in helping SGUSVM to become what it is today! We now really can claim that we are the best vet school. After all, in addition to living in paradise, getting unique life experiences, playing with all sorts of random critters, and meeting awesome people from around the world, we don't have any extra hoops to jump through at graduation time!

And...the frog/toad I caught after dinner tonight (special because he's super tiny unlike all of the gigantic cane toads!)

Edentia

Quick, can anyone guess what that word means? (no cheating!!!)

Before I give you the definition, I am going to tell you the story behind it.

On Friday during Clinical Orientation, one of our dogs was missing a tooth. The dog happened to be one of the doctor's dogs and she asked us if we had noticed during our physical exam. None of us had (but in our defense, its a really obscure missing tooth and short of counting all of the teeth on top and bottom-which the dog would not have liked-we would not have caught it). After she pointed it out to us, one of my friends asked her if there was a term for missing tooth and what it was. She laughed and told us that she was 100% certain that there was a term for it but had no idea what it was (something about her being a veterinary internist and not a veterinary dentist was thrown out there haha).

I went home and forgot about the term until much later when I was studying. Then I of course had to find out the answer (curiosity is a very god trait for a veterinarian by the way). After some extensive searching, I found out that in our veterinary dictionary, edentia means the absence of teeth, edentulous means without teeth, and edentate means an animal without teeth but is more commonly referred to in terms of the animal order Edentata which includes anteaters and sloths. (if you didn't learn anything today, no worries, I just made your quota : D )

So now you're thinking, if this happened Friday, why are you posting about it on Sunday? The answer to that is that the word is sitting on a post-it note on my wall and I randomly started thinking about it. In order for the word to truly mean absence of or without, it really should begin with a- or an- since that's what latin roots tell us. Basically, I am just moderately annoyed that the creator of this word chose an e- in stead of an a- because of the 100,000 terms I will need to know and remember, it is substantially less helpful when they do not follow rules. And yes I checked, there is no adentia in the dictionary :-p.

Average Weekends

Weekends here can be pretty boring. This is mainly because we have so much studying to do for up coming exams that no one really wants to do anything else. Today was a mixture of histology, anatomy lab, and physiology. We have another histology exam on Monday, yay. Today I finished go through all of my notes from the past two weeks (doesn't sound like much, but believe me it is!). Tomorrow I plan on reviewing everything again in an overview format.

It took me about 4 hours, but I have finally worked through all of the components of the cardiac cycle (including the cycle itself, how it translates to ECG readings, and how it translates to cardiac auscultation). I feel very accomplished! It took lots of drawing, coloring, reading, re-reading, and generally starring at the papers looking puzzled, but I think I finally understand what is going on! I spent more time drawing things out in my shower too-let's hope that when Crayola says that markers are "washable," this applies to more than just clothing (i.e. my tile wall haha).

 

(final product of hard work)

Week 5, Check!

Week 5 of vet school is complete! The semester is going so quickly, midterms begin two weeks from Monday. Yikes!!!!

In my 3 am histology studying and room cleaning spree, I totally forgot to post last night-oops!

Last week we started a 3.5 week class that 1st term students take called Clinical Orientation. The object of the class is to introduce us to the basics of clinical veterinary medicine. We have lectures and labs most days of the week. Last week we went over cardiac and pulmonary auscultation and spent some time in our campus simulation lab. So much fun! This week we learned the basics about dog and cat physical examinations. We had two lectures and then spent yesterday and today at our small animal clinic practicing! I am very excited to start applying what I know and understand now to all of my future patients. Playing with dogs and cats was also an awesome break from studying and classes and I look forward to learning about cows and horses over the next two weeks!

Grenadians...

I had my first truly weird Grenadian encounter today. After classes ended for the day, a couple of my friends and I decided to celebrate the end of our anatomy exams from today with a swim at the beach. We went for about an hour and got out at sunset. As we were packing up our things, a Grenadian walks up to us and begins chatting. We stuck to polite and friendly but were trying to edge away so we could catch the bus back to campus. The guy happened to have 2 large pieces of aloe vera in his hands and decided that he was going to rub the sap on my legs! I was pretty much frozen and in shock for a few minutes while this strange dude was rubbing sap on me!!! He kept calling me "princess" and I was quite creeped out. My friends just kind of watched and continued to chat. Thanks guys. We were finally able to make a break for it and left telling him over and over that we needed to go to a review session (we did). A very very strange experience that I never want to have again. I could have come up with a thousand reasons to leave or back away but instead I froze. Very helpful. Lesson learned though, and at least he was harmless (though if I never see him again during my lifetime I won't be terribly disappointed haha).

When You're On An Island...

Resources are limited! One of my favorite ways to study during undergrad was to write and erase things on dry erase boards. I have tons of them! I had initially planned on bring them with me, but then I ran into weight problems with my suitcase and decided not to even bother. I also decided that if I didn't have my boards, I probably didn't need my markers. Sadly, this is not the case. Since moving here, I have vastly expanded my imagination to use my limited resources in ways I would not have thought of before. For instance, I have perfected the art of cooking steak in a pan on my stove. It is delicious!

Anyhow, back on topic! The post is really about how I turned my shower into a dry erase board this evening. We have our first anatomy exam tomorrow, and along with a ton of other things, one of the sections is drawings. We were given 12 drawings and told to know and memorize them for the exam and that a few of them will show up (we will be asked to draw them basically from memory). Generally, the best way to go about a task like this would be to draw the pictures out a few times. I could use paper, but paper happens to be pretty precious (and rather expensive! ~$7-8 for a normal pack of printer paper!!) so it is preferable to use as little as possible. The obvious solution would be a dry erase board, but since I don't happen to have one, creativity had to kick in. Can you think of any common household surfaces that could erase easily? My classmates and I have come up with bathroom/kitchen tiles, the mirror, and the window. The window isn't so great once it's dark out (especially if you only have a black marker). Since my shower was dry, it suddenly seemed like the ideal place to practice! Here are the various drawings, now you can marvel at my extreme lack of artistic talent!

 

 

 

 

Beware of Puddle Sharks!

It rained quite a bit here this evening. Whenever it rains on the island, things tend to start flooding quite quickly. An area outside our dorm walkway is particularly prone to puddle and pool formation. Luckily, amongst all of us boring students, we do have a comedian! This is what I found when I returned home earlier:

In other news, I am almost 100% certain that the bites I received the other night were from sand flies. They can be found along the coastal beaches apparently. I must have brought a few home with me after walking along the shoreline on Friday :-/. I was initially relieved to find out they were likely sand flies until I read that they spread leishmaniasis! Go Google it if you don't know what it is. I'm a little concerned since I showed up with more than 30 bites! Yikes! To add to the mental image, I took a picture of my leg earlier to give you an idea of how bad the biting really was. These welts itch like crazy and it takes TONS of self control not to sit there and scratch them all day long. Pants make everything so much worse! The picture was taken just after I showered which happened to make the itching unbearable, thus there are some red marks there, but I promise I'm being pretty good otherwise!

Munch Munch

Well something made a buffet out of me last night while I was sleeping. I woke up this morning with 30+ new bites covering my arms and legs. The crazy part is that I sleep under blankets and had a fleece sweatshirt and pants on. I am rather unappreciative of the itchy welts my feasters left behind. I washed all of my blankets, so hopefully that will solve the problem. If not, I don't know what I will do besides go crazy from itching so much! I look diseased with all of these bites! As long as the biting bugs did not have bad tropical diseases like Dengue Fever, I will live with being itchy. However, I am very afraid of getting some horrible illness from all of these!

For entertainment's sake, this is pretty much what I imagine happened to me last night:

What Day Is It?

 Vet school pretty much makes all of the days run together. There are pretty much two types of days: days with classes and days without classes. The days without classes have that time replaced with independent studying. Midterms are fast approaching, it is going to be insanely busy and stressful during those 2 weeks!

Today's weather was overcast so it wasn't really difficult to spend the day inside studying. It's much harder when it's all tropical and gorgeous out. I spend most of my study time in the lab still. It's a really good place to study and it means that there's a chance for human interaction (staying in my room means 0% since I live alone). It gets pretty lonely in here with just me, even though having the extra space is nice. Apparently there is a chance I could get another roommate (which had better not happen!). I will not be pleased if I have to suddenly share my space after so much time (particularly when I was supposed to be sharing it with someone I know and have been friends with for years). I will feel bad for that person in advanced, because I know I will probably be a really crappy roommate for awhile if it happens haha. What can I say? I don't like to share and I am very happily settled in my space!

One Month On The Island!

As of today/tonight, I have officially been in Grenada for one month! The time has gone so quickly! I can't believe we are already done with our first week of classes, have taken two exams, and are only a few weeks away from midterms-time flies! I am still very much enjoying my time here and it has been fun to start to get to know the island and culture here.

I have a few more mosquito bites now than I did a month ago. They have currently left me wondering why i prioritized antibiotic cream over hydrocortisone cream. Itchy! Hopefully none of them contain diseases :-/. It's a long story as to why I am awake so late, perhaps something for another time.

In other news (quickly), maintenance knocked on my door today to fix the leak. Apparently they just looked at it yesterday. Except now it's gone. But I also now have my hot water back, so win-win i suppose? We'll see haha.

2 Exams Down!

Well this week contained my first two vet school exams. A lot of anxiety and at least 100 hours of studying in the last week and a half, and I have an A on my physiology exam and a B on my histology exam. Not too bad. I understand these two subjects really well currently (we'll see if that changes over the next 3 months...). I worked harder than I ever have in my life and am really pleased that it has also paid off well. I have learned a lot about myself over the last week or so.

Anatomy unfortunately still remains another story. I literally don't understand or remember any of the material no matter what! I can go over it a thousand times and still not quite understand. It's really frustrating and stressful. We have our first exam next week and I don't even know where to begin with the material. So many sources and tiny bits and pieces to know, it's very confusing. I need a plan of attack to get me through, but I'm so lost I just can't even figure out where to begin! Ahhh!

As an aside, the leak was fixed in my room today, yay! The towel I put down in front of the door saved my bedroom floor from a bath thankfully. Unfortunately, they didn't remember to turn my hot water back on, so I still have no hot water. Hopefully they will be able to fix that tomorrow, I don't really want to have to go to other rooms to shower!

Water Water Everywhere!

Okay, everywhere *might* be a little bit of an over exaggeration, but by 9am tomorrow, i do believe there will be water fully in the bedroom portion of my dorm room.

Where is the water coming from? Well it appears to becoming out of a hole in the wall where the tile of my shower joins the wall. In my bathroom. The water also has a slightly greenish/yellowish tint to it. Lovely.

So I'm not sure when this all started, but I can tell you with certainty that it wasn't there when I went to bed last night and I'm fairly certain it wasn't there this morning (after all, I would hope I'd notice wet socks! Anyhow, my schedule goes lab from 9a-12p, lunch from 12p-1p, and class from 1p-5p. While I was in lab this morning, water made its way out of the hole and onto my floor. At this point, I had a bath mat down so it absorbed most of the fluid. When I came home from lab, I walked in a decided that I wanted a shower (eww dead things and formalin!) so I walked into my bathroom to get stuff together. All of the sudden I realize my sock is wet! Very confused, I look down to see that half of the mat is soaked and that there is a small puddle near the hole in the wall (I have actually seen water here before, but it was no more than a few milliliters and it didn't expand in size before disappearing).

The first thing I did was pick up the dripping mat and set it over the shower to drip dry. The next thing I did was cancel my shower plans for my room (wanted to be able to say with certainty that it wasn't water dripping from the shower!). I instead borrowed a friend's bathroom to solve my problem (there is nothing I'd love to do more than scrub myself from head to toe with bleach after lab everyday, but I refrain and settle for soap instead).

When I returned to my room, I noted that the puddle had increased in size a bit. I decided to monitor it over the next 20 minutes and make a plan from there before class. When time was up, the puddle had spread farther across the floor so I submitted a work order and crossed my fingers that someone would come in while I was gone. I also had the foresight to lay and hand towel across the door opening to prevent the water from spilling into my room.

When I returned from class 4 hours later, it was clear that the water had really spread. The towel was saturated (and slightly yellow/green) and water was visible on the floor. It is important to note that the water is mostly spreading via the grout on my tile floor. Rather than forming just one big puddle, it kind of branches out all over the place randomly. My RA decided she would call on-call maintenance when I returned in an hour from a review session.

We put in a call, but I kind of assumed maintenance would take their sweet time to come. Turns out I was wrong, it only took an hour! I was expecting it to be 10p not 8p before anyone showed up! The man was very nice and came in to take a look. After a quick examination, he decided that it must be the hot water pipe leaking and decided to turn the hot water off for the night (glad I showered earlier!!!). He explained to me that it would have to be fixed tomorrow, because he did not have the right tools to deal with the problem tonight. He also seemed quite certain that turning off the hot water would fix the problem. I smiled and watched him leave, and remained very skeptical.

However, I didn't have much time to contemplate whether he was right or not, because I have a physiology exam tomorrow and I was ready to head to the lab to study for 5+ more hours. When I got home a few minutes ago, the water had seeped out into the kitchen and is headed for the bedroom. I'm hoping that tossing another towel down on the floor will help to stave off it spreading into the rest of my room, because I don't really want it going under my bed (even though there's nothing under there).

The real question right now is, will I remember to put shoes on before I get out of bed in the morning? Because if I don't and I end up with wet, gross feet, I will be grumpy. Probably also amused though too.

    

(hole)   (you can't really see the water, but maybe the idea carries through?)

The story is now to be continued...

Insomnia

Over the last few weeks I have randomly developed an insomnia problem. For those who know me, I'll give you a moment to pick your jaws up off the floor ;). Anyhow, every night, I pretty much lie in bed awake for at least an hour before I can fall asleep, and as soon as I awaken in the morning (whether it's from my alarm or an external noise), I'm pretty much up for the day (rather than my usual going back to sleep for hours). Its getting annoying, because it basically means I get 6 hours of sleep every night. And I know you're probably thinking "well why doesn't she just go to bed earlier??" but this is vet school, and my learning requirements are a pretty solid 8 hours of studying after classes end at 5p. I kid you not, I literally go home and study, go to groups and study, or go to the lab and study till about 12:30a-1:30a every night. Even on the weekends I can't manage to get a reasonable amount let alone catch up!


So why can't I sleep? I'm not really sure, because no matter what I do during the day (doesn't matter how much running around I do), I'm still wide awake come bed time! It's very frustrating. I find myself lying in bed awake with anatomical structures, physiologic problems, and histopathological slides floating through my brain. I've never had this problem before-usually I want to sleep way more than I should or have time for! I'll keep you posted on how I solve this problem!

The Work Never Ends

My life is study/class, sleep, eat in that order. Oh, don't forget the whopping side of stress that accompanies it all. There is so much to know! I can't even begin to describe the volume of information we're expected to know every day, week, month, and semester! It's currently feeling impossible!

We had our first exam today and I did moderately well. I was very well prepared, I just changed a few answers I was on the fence about to wrong ones at the last minute, oh well. Overall, I was pleased with my performance, it's just the pressure of having excellent grades to be competitive for spots after graduation that has me bummed.

I studied really hard and was pleased with how I felt going into the exam. One of my friends and I were joking the other night that if we had studied this hard in undergrad and high school, we would have been straight A students! However, I do like having a life, or at least some down time where I'm not cramming a million facts into my brain! Unfortunately, the next "free" week we have from exams doesn't come until after midterms, which are the week of October 4th. It makes me very sad and kind of stressed to know that I'm going to feel like I currently do and have for the last few days until mid-October. Guess no one ever said vet school was easy or fun though...

Any how, back to studying for physiology. Our first exam is Thursday. I'm not feeling over the top stressed yet, but check back Wednesday night or Thursday, I bet I'll be in full blown panic mode by then!!

The Coolest Lizard Ever

I made an attempt at swimming today. Studied all afternoon and then went to Grand Anse. I got to the beach, pulled out my scuba mask, and went exploring. I swam a little ways out from shore to the first rock I saw to look for fish. I found fish, but I also found...JELLYFISH! Dozens of them! They instantly sent me swimming back to shore. :( All in all, the excursion lasted 5 minutes. Oh well, better luck next time I suppose.

While I was waiting to take the bus from Grand Anse back to campus, I saw an awesome looking lizard! On closer examination, He had a blue, green, and yellow body! I was very excited! I need to take some time out one of these days/nights to hunt around for lizards and geckos on campus. The fauna here is unique and fun to look at.

Tomorrow I have my first exam, I'm terrified! Yesterday I felt really good about my knowledge level. Today I feel like I know nothing. I spent a few hours this evening feeling totally panicked, but now I'm just tired and kind of beyond caring so much. The stressful part is knowing that I pretty much need to get all As in school because I potentially want to do a residency when I graduate. To be competitive, an excellent academic transcript is a must. Otherwise I'd be happy to do moderately well knowing all of the important stuff and some of the less important details. Argh.

Fish!!!

And no I'm not eating them :-p

I took a little break today and went for a swim at Grand Anse (campus beach). This time it wasn't nearly dark out and I remembered to bring my scuba mask. I saw so many fish today!!! I saw at least 10 different kinds, one of which I'm fairly certain was a lion fish and 2 of which were probably some sort of tang. A school of fish (most of which were over 12" long) swam right in front of me! I also swam way out and saw sea urchins! They are large, purple, and have white spines. I couldn't get too close because they were probably 20 feet deep and my sinuses weren't going to let me go more than 8 feet under. All in all, it was an amazing trip! I can't wait to go back and I am definitely borrowing my parents' waterproof camera next semester so I can take pictures!

Three Weeks Down...

...151 to go! Yes I am keeping track haha. The time is going by quickly though! Occasionally days seem to drag by forever, and thats usually when we have 3-4 boring lectures crammed together (aka we have no anatomy lecture in the afternoon to stimulate us). In the upcoming week, we have our first 2 exams to look forward to, yikes!!! Histology on Monday and Physiology on Wednesday. To balance this out though, we start our 4 week clinical orientation class which means going to the auscultation lab, learning to do physical exams on dogs/cats/large animals/cows, and probably some other incredibly fun stuff too!

After class today, a couple of classmates and I made a short grocery run. Have to make sure we have milk before it runs out! I refuse to drink powdered milk so I will go without if the store no longer has "normal" milk. The highlight of that trip was finding non-spicy steak seasoning! They've had the spicy one for the last several weeks but this is the first time we've seen the original recipe!

A few of my friends and I went to Prickly Bay in Lance Aux Epines for dinner tonight. Picnic tables outside near the water and under endless stars with live music makes for a lovely dining experience, especially when the mosquitoes stayed away! We took one of the school buses to the restaurant and back. It was dark out and on the way there, the driver took us through a bunch of back roads (it was pretty creepy!). The food was really good and I definitely had a good time.

After dinner, we decided to go to Bananas, a local club just down the road from campus. When we got there, it was about 11pm and the place was deserted! One thing that was highly amusing was when we entered and paid the cover fee, they gave each person a jello shot. There is no IDing involved in this process what soever. They also don't card you at the bar (observations from my friends, I'm not drinking :-p). We stood around chatting for awhile and just like most other things on the island, it is mostly outdoors (which is awesome). At one point we found a really weird looking millipede (initially thought to be a centipede!). We played with him for awhile-he was black with yellow stripes! I absolutely refuse to have anything to do with centipedes, but I'll admit that millipedes are really cool! When it started to get more crowded, we went inside to the dance floor and hung out for awhile. More like my friends danced and I stood there holding everything (it takes time and patience, we'll see where I am in 3 years :-p).

Overall, a really fun night! I think I'll put another hour into physiology and histology and call it a night!