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!

Day 155- Back the Reality

    This week was my first week back in Stillwater, Ok after completing 9 weeks on "Off Campus" rotations. As I traveled from Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, then to Texas I was overwhelmed by homesickness and excitement to be in Florida again. As I packed my bags after a month in Florida I couldn't help but wonder where the time went. As the old saying goes...time flies when your having fun, and so it did. I enjoyed family, friends, and seeing my country.....the Spanish moss hanging on the giant oaks, the fog, the orange trees and the smell of the cows and the leather on the saddles of the horses as the cattle where driven into the pens at day break. Now that is home and the food for my soul. So I can't say that I was happy to return to Oklahoma, but I know this is my final stretch to freedom.
     My first rotation back began with Diagnostics, a rotation consisting of diagnostics procedures such as reading blood work, fecal (poop) samples and doing necropsy's (like an autopsy in a human). I am learning a ton and feeling more like a doctor each day but the longing for home persist. We have had some interesting cases such as a Boa Constrictor (snake), Koi Fish, a bull, a possibly rabid horse and many dogs. I still can't believe that by the end of this rotation I will have surpassed the HALF WAY POINT. Still seems crazy that in just over six months I will be a DOCTOR!!!!!!!

Day 144- Old Cotton Tail

     As I started my second week as an intern for a large animal veterinarian, it has been every more apparent that my dream job will include being a women in a man's world. My first day on the job we palpated almost three hundred cows and as I prayed for a lunch break so that I could take a pee break I noticed a truck coming up to the cow pens in which I frantically prayed..... please don't be someone bringing lunch....please don't be someone bring lunch, and low and behold it was someone bringing lunch. This meant for me that their was no pee break in site, I was either gonna have to hold it or find a tree to squat behind, well I held it, all 12 hours of it! With each new set of cow pens we visited and each new set of hundreds of cows I palpated, I constantly prayed for a lunch break that would have what I now refer to as a porcelain paradise.
     This weekend my sister came into town and I started to feel like a women again as we spent some mommy daughter time shopping with dinner and a movie during her weekend visit. But like everything in life things don't always work out as planned, I awoke Saturday at midnight with chills, cold sweats, and liquids shooting out of every orifice. As I prayed for daybreak so that someone could help pump me full of Pepto, I realized it, yup I had food poisoning.
     I had no choice but to pull on the big girl panties and cowgirl up Monday morning as I was too tough and too proud to call in sick! So as I played off the nausea as a simple gas of indigestion I prayed that our location would be porcelain paradise equipped....but you guessed it...NOPE. As I tried to force down the vomit that tried to creep its way up after lunch I was contemplating an escape route for my inevitable "episode" that was about to be the most embarrassing and possibly career ending moment. As the afternoon rain started to fall, Dr. G asked me to run to the truck and put away anything that couldn't get wet and I knew this was my one and only moment to escape the reticule of the cowboys who can fortunately whip it out at any moment when the urge hits them. I ran to the truck and desperately looked for "assistance" in the form of a paper towel and of course we were out, just as I thought it was too late I found a roll of cotton used to wrap horses legs and dashed into the bushes just in the nick of time. I escaped being completely mortified in front of half a dozen cowboys but will forever be known to my family as Luder Cotton Tail.

Day 135- Nervous Nelly

       The last two weeks have flown by in a whirlwind! Between working diligently during my first internship in my hometown and keeping up with school work as well as spending precious time with my family who I will not see again until next year at graduation, time has been cut short for blogging, but I promise to make a better effort!
       This weekend I attended the Florida Ranch Rodeo finals in which I had the honor of being a volunteer/time keeper for the forth year in a row. My dad, Fred Waters, has been a committee chair person for the rodeo since it's conception and puts his heart and soul into every aspect of it's organization. I couldn't have been more proud when they brought him into the arena at the start of the rodeo to thank him for his efforts. I found myself fighting back tears as I was over come with a since of pride in my family. Then I looked back at the rest of my family as well as Chad's in the stands and realized how very blessed I am to have such an amazing and supportive family. The rodeo went off without a hitch and was once again a huge success! If you weren't there I suggest you make plans to attend next year as you are severely missing out!
       It is 6am now I am wait with overwhelming nerves to leave to meet Dr. Gukich for my second internship in Florida! I am the most nervous about this one as Dr. Gukich has been a mentor to me since I was young and my biggest fear is that he would be disappointed in my progression as a vet student. So send some prayers my way!

Day111- Home is Where the Heart Is

Home sweet home....last night I landed in Orlando to start my Florida externships. I am spending 2 weeks with Dr. Lori Shank in Ft. Meade and 2 weeks with Dr. Gukich in Lakes Wales. I was overcome with happiness this morning as I drove to Ft. Meade for my first day. The fog, the orange groves, and the Spanish moss almost brought me to tears as I realized how much I miss home and long to live here once again. My heart defiantly belongs to this country life and I am counting down the days until I can once again be a member of this rustic community!
      Today was a day filled with puppies and eyeballs! We saw many puppies in for vaccines and had three eye cases, one of which we performed a tarsorhaphy, which means to sew the eyelids shut so they eye can have protection to heal! I am somewhat familiar with this, as most people who have ever owned a Hereford cow most likely are as well as pink eye is very common in this breed. We also got to go out to see a horse with Founder, or in vet terms laminitis. The farmers term, founder is actually from the Latin term sinking ship.This is where a diet change or rough ground makes the hoof wall detach from the coffin bone and it "sinks."

Founder