Day 192- Quiz Time!

On my last weekend of radiology I was called in three times on Saturday from 8am to 10pm. I wish I could complain about having to go in so many times but my very first case was amazing! As I shot the first x-ray and looked over my shoulder to check the quality of my radiograph (x-ray) I also saw my diagnosis.....

Can you tell what is wrong with this picture........







If you guessed hernia you are right! This is a diaphragmatic hernia, see how there are intestines over the heart in the thorax. They should be behind the diaphram in the abdomen and you should be able to see the heart in this picture!


This week I started a new rotation...Anesthesia, which I have been dreading honestly. Anesthesia is very scary because things can go wrong quickly and the drugs we use can easily cause death in our patients if not used appropriately and carefully. For example my very first patient turned blue and quit breathing after I administered his anesthetic induction agent yesterday in which I had to quickly respond.

 Can anyone take a guess as to what very popular anesthetic drug I might have been using that caused my patient to quit breathing and turn blue????


If you guessed propofol...your right! The very same drug that killed Michael Jackson is a commonly used anesthetic, however it causes apnea (fancy word for not breathing) so when using it the patient must be monitored closely and put on oxygen immediately if they have difficulty breathing, something that the pop stars doctor was not as diligent about!

Day 185- HALF WAY THERE!!!!

     I am now on my third week of radiology rotation, which as you may have guessed from my blogging activity is not the most exciting of all rotations! Our day consist of the "Hot Seat" rounds for the first two hours every morning in which we go to the front of the room, in front of our rotations mates and clinicians and they put a radiograph on the big screen and we have to interpret the film, diagnose the animal and give a treatment plan. To say the least it is one of the most stressful things of all time, so I spend every night devouring my notes to make sure I am not caught like a deer in the headlights on my next hot seat experience. The later part of the morning and the afternoon is spent taking and reading radiographs from patients throughout the hospital from horses and cows in the large animal barn to dogs and cats from the small animal department or last week we even had a baby kangaroo in from the zoo department that accidentally fell out of his mom's pouch and broke his leg!
      On a not so boring note, we have surpassed the half way mark! God willing, I am set to graduate in 173 days!!!! I can't believe it is finally that close, it still doesn't seem real. I constantly lay in bed at night and dream about the "what if's" in my future. What if this time next year I am a doctor working my dream job with my own mobile veterinary truck, driving from ranch to ranch living out my life long dream? What if we can buy a cheap house and finally begin our lives where our hearts belongs in Polk county? What if I can actually afford to go to the Publix and buy something other the market ground beef and figure out 7 different ways to prepare it for the seven days of the week? What if I can finally think about starting a family, something that makes me tear up every time I imagine been blessed by pregnancy, something I have longed for since the birth of my nephew but had to dismiss due to my career goals? The "what if's" seem closer than ever and push me to the light at the end of the tunnel!

Day 170- The Earth is Shakin!

      Last night I got a rude awakening...as I slept peacefully in a NyQuil comma trying to fight off the reminents of a chest cold the walls started shaking around our apartment then the bed, get your mind out of the gutter people, Chad was snoring away. My first thought was we were getting robbed, then due to all the Halloween movies I watched during my bed ridden flu induced weekend, I thought for sure it was a poltergeist. Then I realized it was an earthquake, the largest one in the history of Oklahoma to be exact. Now I think it was my sub-conscience revolting against my up-coming rotation.
       Tomorrow I begin my Radiology rotation. This rotations is known to be torturous as we travel around the hospital doing cat scan, MRI's and x-rays of patients, this seems all fun but the clinicians have a reputation for being ruthless! But it will be nice to get back to the land of the living as my patients during the last three weeks have all been deceased!