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

Day 110- Pack, Unpack, Pack, Unpack.......

Well, it is been a rewarding yet exhausting two weeks as I wrapped up my dairy medicine externship in Texas. On my last day we started at 5:30am and palpated 150 cows in about 2 and a half hours. Needless to say I can still barely move my arm! Hopefully I honed in my palpation skills and I am ready to impress my possible job prospects in Florida! CAUSE I AM COMING HOME!!!! You can't even imagine how excited I am to do my next two externships at home. The travel and time away from family took more of an emotional toll than I expected. Although I do not regret my decisions to travel and do the externships I chose, I was extremely homesick throughout the last 5 weeks. I was advised by one of my professor to do some of my externship time in my hometown as these can sometimes turn into job opportunities, which I am desperately praying for! But aside for the possibly of a future job, I am looking forward to spending some much needed time with my family who I miss desperately! So today I am packing up my bags once again and will be heading to Florida tomorrow! Hello sunshine state!!!!

Day 106- Dirty Jobs

      It seems as in many careers, being a dairy veterinarian has some thing that can be monotonous, and in the dairy world this being palpation. I wanted to do a dairy externship so that I could get good at palpating for pregnancy, and boy o boy did I get what I asked for! You see in the beef industry, when cows are checked for pregnancy status we typically only grade them by trimester. Cows carry their young for 285 days so we just call them 1st, 2nd, or 3rd trimester bred. Or if they are not pregnant the are classified as "open." This is because in the beef industry we select for fertile animals but typically only need to know if they were bred early, late or not bred at all. However, the dairy industry is much more dependent on time. The dairy cycle leaves very little room for error. Cows depend on being pregnant so it will stimulate their hormones so they will produce milk, it is essential to know almost to the day when they will calve. There is an unwritten rule that dairy vets are better at palpating for pregnancy than beef veterinarians because of the pressure they feel from producers to classify pregnancies.
       Well, I hope I am getting good, cause every single day without fail I am showing my arm up a cows butt! No matter how many times I wash my hands they still smell like poop. No matter how many times I wash my clothes they are still stained with poop. Yesterday I was soaked down to my brazier in poop! And no matter how many times I wash my hair, you guessed it, I still find poop! I hope all this poop is worth it....

Day 103- Keep Um Coming

     It is official, my arm is done! After palpating about 200 cows in the first three days of my dairy internship I officially can barely move my arm! Today was insanely busy, just the way I like it! We went on a call this morning for a "downer." There are two primary causes for this in dairy cows, most commonly it is from what the call milk fever. This is where the cow is producing so much milk that there is not enough calcium to make her muscles function. Calcium is a vital component for muscle contractions and when cows produce high volumes of milk it uses up the bodies calcium stores. The other is what we call calving paralysis, this is where the nerves that supply the hind limbs are pinched and thus damaged between the pelvic bones and the calf during birth. In both situations, the cow is down and can't get up..."downer" or down cow syndrome.


   After our milk fever case we went to other farm to see a sick cow. There we also saw a few prematurely born calves one of which was the cutest freaking thing I have ever seen, born 2 months early and barely weighed 20 lbs.


     We made our way back to the clinic and were met with a string of trucks with trailers full of cows waiting to be seen! These included a vaginal prolapse....


       A left displaced abomasum (the cow's true and forth stomach compartment which twist around and gets out of place blocking her digestive tract) in which we did a procedure called roll and toggle. This is when you lay the cow down on her back and  listen the the stomach with a stethoscope while thumping her abdomen to locate the abomasum by the sound/pitch difference and then jab it with a needle and tack it to the skin when it's in it's proper location.

     And many many more cases...but I can barely keep my eyes open or my left hand typing so more tomorrow.....