Soccer and Abilene

This is what I am looking at everywhere I go... the basket on Betsy bike! Usually filled with a water bottle, my bike lock, and some random whatever that I didn't want to stuff in my backpack. 

This is a photo from my very first UCD soccer game from a couple of weeks ago. 

This is the awesome scarf that I got for free at that same soccer game!

Joel showed of the horse brain he keeps under his desk. 

Grace snuggling Pumpkin, the barn cat. 

Kelly out in the baby pasture. 

Joel demonstrating different ways to wrap a leg on Lil Matt, a mare that is used for classes and practice (she isn't part of the breeding herd). 

Kelly and I up in the baby pasture. 

I am a true Aggie, representing my school by wearing my Aggie Pack shirt every Friday. 

The mules are starting to grow on me. 

Abilene is the little doll baby in the corner of the pen. She laid down there and I laid down on her, and we took a nice nap the other afternoon. 

Abilene went on her very first walk on Friday, outside of the pen! I pronounce her officially halter broke. We had a blast running around the lawn, making total fools of ourselves. 

My baby. <3 

I never knew that cattle could be so gentle. Now that she's pretty much tamed down, Abilene is a total doll. I am definitely going to have cows for my children. There is something about their clumsy, curious selves that is good for the soul. 

A cow's life span is around 15 years, but I learned recently that dairy cattle are usually only useful for two repro cycles before being sent to slaughter. They're killed typically before 6 years old. That makes me so sad, because I don't want that life for my sweet Abilene. Unfortunately, the UCD herd is closed, so they don't sell the babies to anyone. If they did, I would definitely work it out that Abilene was sent back to the ranch in Morongo. 

Grace likes Abilene, too!

Abie did not know what to do with this tree. 

An old photo, but still fun! 

The lawn over at the dairy barn. 

Another view of the lawn. 

Abie and her friend Mini Moo. I was tired, what can I say!

Abilene tasted grass for the first time, too!

She didn't like it. 

Classes, Winter 2014

It was "Pass One"for us students of UC Davis this last week. I had a decent pass time, the not the best, not the worst. It was perfect for me, though, since was able to register for all of the classes I wanted. The only thing that might be added is an internship that I will be applying for over at the goat barn, kidding out the babies. I haven't worked with goats since we gave away our four babies (Ferdinand, Petal, Zoe and Kermit) and moved to Palm Desert, so I would love to be around the adorable burpers again. :)

Anyway, as far as the classes go, drum roll please....


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Here are the classes I'm taking!

PHY 7A

General Physics

4 units

John Terning, Daniel A. Cebra

76167

AED 100

Agricultural and Environmental Education

3 units

Margaret Martindale

50595

CHE 8B

Organic Chemistry – Brief

4 units

Staff

56048

ANS 15

Elementary Horse Husbandry

3 units

Janet Roser

51047

PHE 1

Military Conditioning – Intermediate/Advanced

0.5 Units

Kevin Tretter

75235

ANS 49C

Animal Lab Practical – Dairy

2 units

Anita Oberbauer

51070

____________________________

16.5 total units

Mercer Clinic Returns

Today was my second time volunteering at the Mercer clinic for the homeless in Sacramento. It was a bit rough at first, because I didn't go with Krissy this time and had to step out of my comfort zone even more than usual. It seems like I get stretched on a daily basis up here in Davis. 

I stole these photos from Facebook, taken at last month's clinic. I am not in any of them because I was in a room most of the day with patients, but I found photos of the two vet students that I worked with today. Liz is a second year, and is thinking about specializing in pathology next year. Michael is a first year, and I actually met him for the first time at the speed dating event. It was a fun event put on by the Pre Vet Students Supporting Diversity club, and hosted by the veterinary school (my first time inside a vet school lecture hall, so fun!) a couple weeks ago where vet students and undergrad students came together to pair up, mentor and mentee. Michael is probably going to go small animal, but he's keeping his options open. That's the great part about veterinary school, you get some time to figure out what you would really like to do before you need to specialize. Even after vet school, there's the option of residency... anyway, back to Mercer.

We saw two clients today, the first had two kitties and the second had three dogs. The cats were neat, one of them was obese, scored an 8 for body condition. The other had had stomatitis and to combat it, one of the vets had to pull all of her teeth except her canines. My little sister Brittany's cat Hairy had stomatitis when he was younger, but almost all of his teeth fell out on his own. Poor Hairy. 

The dogs were another story. One was so aggressive, we couldn't even get near her. We tried; the owner put a muzzle on her, but when we tried to touch her, she became extremely violent. We just gave the flea meds to the owner to administer herself. The other large dog was nice at first, then realized that we were trying to examine him and started biting. We worked with him for a while, but were never able to even get his TPR (temperature, pressure, respiration). Same deal with him, gave the owner the meds. The final pup was tiny, and extremely sweet. I snuggled with him a lot. 

There were a ton of puppies and kittens today, an unusual amount according to the vet students and vet aids who have been doing Mercer for a long time. It's strange, too, because spring time is usually when there's a surplus of babies, not November. The general theory was that the clinic's generosity might be being abused. The methods they were using to check to see if the clients were truly homeless are no longer available, so they just take everyone now. They're going to be working to improve the system, it's constantly changing so we constantly have to adapt. 

A fun perk of helping out with Mercer is the food. It's not nearly as good as the Solano feral cat clinic (that one is the bomb diggity, the best by far), or even the Sac feral cat clinic (which is good), but I will always have fond memories of those delicious little mini cinnamon rolls. :)

Liz

Michael

Olympus

On orders from Sean to take some time off and rest, I watched a movie last night that was just added to Netflix. It was one of the ones that I have been wanting to see for a while now (what can I say, I like Gerald Butler and Morgan Freeman), an action flick called “Olympus Has Fallen.” The movie is about the White House being taken over. Without giving anything away, I just wanted to share a bit about how it affected me, personally.

Be prepared, the movie feels a bit corny and the gore lies somewhere between Bourne and Django, leaning a bit more towards the latter. The thing that got to me was how they killed off so many people. I mean, everyone dies. The terrorists come in and mow down the secret service members and military personnel like they’re not ever there. Bodies. So many bodies. It was awful. I was crying through those parts, but the worst was when the terrorists shot up the American flag, and then climbed up to the top of the White House, tore it off and threw it to the ground.

That was like a knife in the heart. I never expected to have such a visceral reaction to a clichéd film, but watching the flag be destroyed left me feeling despondent.

My sister and her husband are both active duty in the Navy and some of my other family members and dearest friends are/were in the military. They serve their country every day, and I will never be able to express my gratitude. What's more, I just cannot wait to join them in the ranks. I want to be a soldier almost more than I want to be a veterinarian sometimes (the goal is to be both!). I want to honor the flag and fight for my family. I want to fight for the values this country was built on.

Back to the movie, if you’re the type who likes shoot ‘em up movies, the more blood the better, you’ll be just fine watching this movie. If not, you’ll be saving ninety minutes of your life. A word to the wise: it’s best not to watch this film right before Veteran’s Day.

First Quarter at UCD: Progress Report

I wanted to share some of the things that I have been doing my first year as a junior transfer student at the University of California, Davis. It's been a whirlwind so far! The classes are hard and getting harder, and they're fast! My largest class has almost 530 students and is taught by a grad student. My second largest class has just over 200 students, and is also taught by a grad student. That's not something I was expecting, but I am enjoying it very much. They're kind and really seem to want us to succeed. There's not a lot that they can do, since the class is based on a midterm or two and a final, but it's nice to know that they're sympathetic. 

I am an intern at the Center for Equine Health (http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/ceh/) which is located in Davis. This is the horse barn for the veterinary school, so as interns we (two other undergrad students besides myself) have the privilege of working with Dr. Sonder as well as a group of veterinary students looking to expand their equine experience. 

This red mare is one of the horses that was donated to CEH. One thing that I've noticed here 

This is my friend and I spending time with a warmblood over at CEH. 

This is #2513, my 8-month-old Holstein heifer that was assigned on October 21st to me for the Little I Stock Show that is hosted by the Young Cattleman's Association here on campus. The show is on November 23rd, so we have about a month to take a fairly wild dairy calf and tame her down, clip her, and get her ready for the show. I named her Abilene. Abilene the Holstein. :) 

Abilene and I made a big breakthrough today! (11/6/13) She allowed me to walk right up and halter her, which is a big step! She is getting great at leading, let's me run my hands all over her, and today she laid down next to me and we took a nap together. 

This photo was taken during my animal science 49 lab. It's the only fun, laid back class that I am taking this semester. Being able to spend time at the undergrad horse barn has been a wonderful experience! Even better are the friends I am making! I'm still not used to being around people who are as crazy about animals as I am. Well, almost as crazy, anyway. ;)

When I need to find a quiet spot to study, I typically go to the coaches room over in the ARC Pavilion. I have my own locker with my name and everything. In certain spots I get internet, which is nice, so I can really buckle down and study in the silence. 

My sleep schedule has changed dramatically while here at UCD. I used to need to sleep from about 9-10pm to 5am, but now, I am lucky to get five or six hours. Some nights I'm running a hard day off of three hours. The hardest nights are after men's club volleyball practice, when it goes from 9pm to 12am. Sometimes I don't handle the lack of sleep very well, and crash out in strange places...like at work! 

One of the silly horses over at CEH. This guy cracks me up! 

Castrating 4 month old mules during ANS 49 lab. 

My game face, just before a home game with the women's division one volleyball team. 

Here's my studying for midterms. I was very pleased, got my first "A" grade on a university level midterm, without the curve! 

The women's D1 volleyball team assistant coach has an adorable son, who I get to watch sometimes when she brings him to practice. One day, the gymnastics coach let us play in their giant foam block pit. It was a blast! 

For Halloween, I dressed up as a fire fighter! 

Here's the entire volleyball team for our Halloween practice. We had a game on Halloween night (vs. UCR, we won), so I didn't do anything this year for the first time in the history of my life. It's times like this that I can't wait for Sean and I to settle down and have little baby Millers running around, dressed up in adorable costumes and carving pumpkins, watching cartoons and eating buckets of candy. Maybe I'll even take them to Howl-o-ween down at the Living Desert, see if they can follow in their mom and aunt's (Holly's) footsteps of winning the costume contest they hold down there. 

My Fish

Here's a link to a video of my two fish tanks. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53ZWaf1Fito

Anesthesia

I passed out twice today.

Well, not literally passed out. I got super close the first time, and the second time, since I knew it was coming, I got out of there before I actually hit the ground face first.

Where is “there,” you ask? Well, today I was at the Coalition for Community Cats (http://www.coalition4cats.org), hosted at the SPCA in Sacramento. I was invited to come help out here by my friend and mentor, Krissi, who also writes a blog about her journey to and through veterinary school (http://livingmydreamkn.blogspot.com). She is a 4^th year vet student at UC Davis, and has been an immeasurable source of help and guidance as I figure out what the future holds. Krissi picked me up at 7:30am this cold Sunday morning, and we headed out of Davis into Sacramento, itching to alter some kitties.

I was a bit shocked when we arrived and I found out that I was the only undergrad student that was going to be helping out that day. Usually there is a whole group of us there, bustling around and helping out the vets and vet students. Thankfully, the vet students are not intimidating. Far from it, in fact; they’re very kind and helpful, and encouraging! I guess they remember how it feels to be me.  Maybe the yummy donuts from one of the grateful cat trappers that gave us a sugar high of niceness, who knows? My maple bar sure was delicious!

Back to the passing out part of this story. I have always had an inkling that I might have some kind of adverse reaction to anesthesia, but I think today my suspicions might have been realized. I started the morning out helping out in the surgery room, monitoring the cats and making sure their color was good (pink tongues/gums, good capillary refill), their heart rates were solid (not less than 80 bpm, and not more than 160), and their O₂ saturation stayed around 100. I also had to make sure they didn’t wake up, which was the beginning of the problem.

The first cat started to wake up while I was listening to the heart rate of a cat across the room. I didn’t hear the vet student when he said his cat was light, so by the time I got over there, the cat was actually meowing while open on the table. I came over and started the isoflurane, placed the mask over the cat’s face.

After a few moments, I started to feel strange. Very nauseous, then my skin when cold. Like the blood left me. My head spun, I started seeing spots, and then I saw all black. I was on the ground right after that; caught myself in a crouch but I dropped the mask. I reached up to press it on the cat’s face again before leaving the surgery room.

Suffice it to say, I lost the donut. That wasn’t fun, but I felt better after that, and after getting some fresh air.

I went back into the surgery room and assisted again for a while. I did fine until once again, until one of the cats started to wake up. I walked over and got the mask going on the cat, watching closely to see if she was going back to sleep.

The feeling started again, almost immediately. I started feeling nauseas, my skin went cold and the room spun. When I started seeing spots, I excused myself and ultimately had to switch to another station.

I went over to post op, and had a blast! I vaccinated, administered pain medication, cleaned ears, gave ear mite and flea treatment, and, for the first time ever, tipped ears! It was very cool, the process is very simple: all I had to do was clamp the ear near the end, cut off the tip with scissors, and pack the wound with a blood clotting agent. The pace is very fast at time, when we’re rushing around to draw up vaccines and get the cats finished before they start waking up. Then, at other times, we had a lull and could catch up from the previous flood of anesthetized cats.

They look so pitiful when they come to you, all spread eagle on a spay board, paws tied with strings. It’s a nice feeling to be able to release them from that and run your hand over their soft, relaxed bodies. They’re all feral cats, so they would never want to be petted while they were awake. The colors are fascinating, and striking. I will probably never cease to be amazed at how many colors cats can come in. In fact, last month a male calico came in! What’re the odds? (They’re actually about 1 in 3,000).

After the car accident, when I had to have my knee straightened under anesthesia, even though I was only under for a couple minutes, it was really hard for me to wake up and when I did, I was very sick and freezing cold. The same thing happened after they gave me gas at the dentist when I was a kid. My mom was with me when I passed out in the grocery store, sick and green and freezing. We thought I had some kind of reaction then, but the doctors laughed and said it was nothing. Now that there have been a few similar instances, I think there really might be something to this.

It’s not necessarily the end of the world, though, if I do have a reaction to anesthesia. Obviously it isn’t the best thing, since I want to be a doctor and perform surgeries, but there are other types that I can try beside isoflurane, or I can not use it at all, or I can only use it on a tube administered through intubation instead of with a mask. There are all kind of options. Sean even said they have special masks that can block that tiny of particulates.

To finish off a nice day, I came home to two happy, healthy kittens and a crazy happy dog. The best part was checking the score on my statistics midterm and finding out I got my very first A on a midterm at the university level. And that was raw score,  without a curve.