Day 63-65 Making My Mark

     Yesterday was uneventful but today made up for it three fold! Today was my first official case on Equine Medicine! My case is a 3 year old thoroughbred filly that has had three episodes of colic (extremely painful abdominal pain that can be caused by a variety of things) in the last month. Unfortunately, all the other rotations in the large animal barn were not very busy so all the other students came over to Equine Med to witness the excitement! This meant I had a 25 person audience watching me examine my horse and listen to me answer the unrelenting string of diagnostic questions from my senior clinician. Needless to say I peed my pants at least once and threw up in my mouth twice! Everyone had there eyes and ears pinned on me as I nervously struggled through my questions and tried with all my might to diagnose my horse correctly! After about an hour of shaking knees and nervous sweats the crowd started to clear and I was blessed with a "good job" by the senior veterinarian.
       My little filly is now resting quietly in her stall and I will be ending my midnight shift here in the barn in the next hour. But no rest for the weary tonight! As I leave here at midnight after a long 16 hour day at the Equine Barn the next stop is 6 miles up the road at the recreation park. An annual endurance race begins horse/rider check-in at 1 am. We have to do physicals and lameness exams on all the participating horses and give them the ok before they can enter the race. Once the race starts we repeat these exams at check points along the 50 mile course to make sure horses are in good enough health to continue! This will last well into the morning. Then my next stop will be back at the barn at 7:30am to check on my horse and perform more test as needed to treat her colic. No sleep for me tonight but I am so excited to see what this night will bring!