Birthday Karaoke

So I am officially 26 years old! I've now gone into the 'late' twenties, boo hoo... Had a great birthday yesterday. Well, first had lectures and a suture tying practical from 9am to 5pm and then had dinner at Daphne's house. Daphne is my landlord and she invited everyone that is renting from her, over for a big dinner. She had this squash, rice and ground beef dish and for dessert, she made fresh tiramisu! It was delicious! I went home around 7.30pm and got on Skype with my fantabulous girlfriend and had two presents to open from her. She had left me a bag of presents before she moved back home so that I would have it here on my birthday. Yeah, I know, she is quite awesome and I love her! She got me a new shirt to go out in, an album of photos that she put together and the most amazing book EVER!!! She got me "100 Facts About Pandas" and it's by this comedian that her and I went to go see during The Fringe Festival this year. The comedian's name is David O'doherty and he is hilarious! Here is random panda fact #1:

Hear No Panda, Smell No Panda:
-The panda smells through its ears and hears through its nose, technically making its nose its ears, and its ears its nose.

So, there is the first panda fact of this book. I will randomly post more facts at random or just whenever I feel like it. I think they are really funny and the pictures that go with the facts are even more hilarious! After I opened my presents from Kristen, I went to Electric Circus (a karaoke bar) and I reserved a karaoke room for 15 people. We had so much fun that we extended it by another hour. We were there until 1.30am and I was so tired when I got home, not to mention my voice was practically gone! Was a great time with friends from class and now I'm ready for a busy weekend of studying.

So I will be working on studying today and trying to keep up with the lectures. I finally received my small animal surgery book and have 11 chapters to read. So, will be busy working on that. Anyway, hope all is well back home and I will see you all soon for Christmas break!

Lost in Transit to COSTCO...

Today I decided to head out to COSTCO and buy some lunch meat and cheese that will last me for the next couple of weeks or so. So the 67 bus is not in service on Sundays so I took the 37 bus instead, THINKING that it would bring me right to COSTCO. I headed out around 10.30am and got on the bus. As we neared COSTCO, the bus stopped behind another complex, but I could see COSTCO in the distance. I decided to stay on and wait to see if it went any closer. Unfortunately, there was not a closer stop and I had to stay on the bus for another 30 minutes! On top of that, I had to wait for the bus to finish it's route and turn back around. Once the bus neared COSTCO, I got off and walked about 15 minutes to get there. I grabbed my food and headed back out to the bus stop but had to wait about 30 minutes for the next bus to come since they only operate every hour on Sundays. So, just to get a few food items at COSTCO it ended up taking me about 4 hours to finish! That's the last time I do that again... I am now in the midst of organizing all of the drugs I need to memorize for Pharmacology and it is going well so far. I got a small notebook that I am recording them in and then I will make a table and study from that. So far I am caught up on all of the lectures, which is very good and much better than last semester. Last semester it seemed as if I had an entire stack of notes that were just lying there and when it came to exam time, I had a difficult time finding certain lectures and certain lecture topics.

I signed up for a lecture that is taking place on the 28th of October. It's a lecture that anyone can go to, even the public. It's not a mandatory lecture, I just thought it would be interesting. They lecturer is very good too. He was one of the speakers in San Francisco when I went to the University of Edinburgh conference. Anyway, the name of the lecture is "Murder of a Heart Valve: An Open-and-Shut Case?"

Also, my birthday is coming up soon and I'm going to be OLD! 26! Ahhhh! Hahaha, just kidding. However, that means in 4 years I'm going to be 30! I have a present to open from Kristen since she left it with some of her things in Edinburgh in my room. So I have that and I think I am going to be organizing a big karaoke event at this place called Electric Circus. I first went to this place with Kristen and sang karaoke. It was just me, Kristen and about 10 of her friends. All of which were women, I was the only guy. This place is actually really neat. You get your own private room and you select songs on a touch screen TV. I think it's a lot of fun. So I will be doing that on Friday. I have practicals on Friday until 5pm. I also have a Suture Pattern practical that I am excited for. Anyway, I better get going so that I can get some sleep for tomorrow's lectures (hopefully none of them are with the Spanish lady I had on Thursday that I couldn't understand because she spoke at 200mph with a Spanish accent!!!) Talk to everyone soon! Hope everyone is doing well!

Shingles Outbreak Finally Regressed!

So I finished my last antiviral pill this morning and I can say that I have officially gotten over the shingles outbreak! Thank god! My head was in so much pain, even with the Ibuprofen and Tylenol I was taking. My lymph node below my ear was so swollen that I couldn't even turn my head to the left! Anyway, am very happy that I don't have the head pain. Now I just have numerous scabs that are very itchy and scabbing over. Tomorrow we begin our Oncology lectures, and I am still trying to catch up on a couple of lectures that I missed from staying home. I don't start class until 11am tomorrow and only have lectures until 1pm. I will most likely come home and immediately review the lectures and write up my own notes on each lecture. I finally got some of the books I ordered off of Amazon. I ordered the Plumb's Veterinary Drug Handbook (unfortunately I didn't realize that it was the full size and not the smaller size version) and a Five Minute Veterinary Consult book. I figured that it would help prepare me for final year exams since they will be asking questions regarding certain cases that we may be presented with in the clinical situation. I have yet to organize all of the drugs that I need to know. I am thinking of making a table of all of the drugs with their pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, contraindications, spectrum, etc. and studying them that way. For the doctors looking at this, what was the most successful way you studied for Pharmacology? Did you just throw together a big list and memorize it? Should be fun...

I am going out for a chinese buffet dinner on Friday with a bunch of people from class for a birthday party for one of them. I am possibly thinking of going fishing up in Busby this weekend, so not quite sure yet. I may go hiking too, will decide by Friday. Anyway, I should be getting back to writing up notes for this Radiology computer lecture. It's very long...

New Photos

Just posted photos of Perth, Scotland if you are interested at looking! Will post again soon!

Shingles...and not the ones that belong on the roof of a house...

So, after going to Perth with cold/flu like symptoms, I came home and had noticed a bump on the left region of my cranium. It seemed as if it had been caused by bumping my head. It was painful to touch and I just thought that it would go away on its own. Well, it did regress, but it regressed into a group of small red bumps that were VERY sensitive to the touch. The lymph nodes along the entire left side of my body were all enlarged and I was having horrible thoughts going through my head, "I'm too young for lymphoma! I haven't even finished school yet!". I'll have to admit, with the swollen lymph nodes, I was a bit concerned. So I scheduled an appointment with the General Practitioner (GP) near the flat. I waited an hour and when I was finally called in, I told the doctor all of my symptoms and that I was worried it was an ear infection because behind my ear was so painful. She said that it was probably a virus and that I would have to let it run it's course. She told me that in 2 minutes of seeing me. Waiting an hour for the doctor to briefly tell you that you should just go home and wait it out, grrrr. So the next morning, I woke up with intense pain on my face and head. The large bump on my head had completely regressed into smaller bumps all over that were very painful. There were two blisters forming on my forehead with one on my eyelid. Those were painful too. It felt as if there were red hot needles poking my skin in the areas of these blisters. So I called the GP's office and scheduled and emergency appointment since I was getting more and more worried and whatever I had seemed to be progressing even further. When I got there, the doctor saw me and noticed the blisters on one side of my face and immediately she diagnosed me with Shingles. So I am now on an antiviral medication 5 times per day. I'll have to admit, the first couple of days on this medication I wasn't noticing anything and the virus seemed to be spreading to more of the left region of my head. I look like I was in a brutal fist fight since some of the blisters are starting to heal and look like scabs. My head is still in a lot of pain and I am taking lots of Ibuprofen to cope with the pain. I woke up this morning and my eyelid is a bit more swollen and vision in the left eye was blurry and worried me, but it was my eyelid pushing down because when I held my eyelid open with my finger, my vision was fine. It doesn't seem to be spreading anymore and the spots where the blisters are, are no longer as sensitive, they are just giving me a headache now. It will probably take a couple of weeks for all of these areas to completely heal. I am going to the GP again today just to have my eye looked at to make sure it is not spreading onto the sclera/cornea. I don't think it is otherwise my vision would be severely affected and I'm sure it would feel like bits of glass in my eye if it had spread to the eye. All in all, I am doing better today I think and will hopefully be fully recovered by the end of next week. I don't know why the stupid chickenpox virus decided to come out and play again. I have been reading all over the internet that it just shows up for no apparent reason, more common in elderly people but does occur in younger adults under stressful situations. Anyway, I'm going to upload new photos to the photo section here. They are pictures of my hike in Perth. Enjoy!

End of Week Two and Heading to Perth

Friday has arrived! This week was not bad at all as I was out of lectures at midday and had Wednesday off. On Wednesday we were supposed to meet with our Director of Studies (DoS). However, I did not make it to my meeting with my DoS (there is a good explanation for this, so no, I didn't decide to sleep in). The night before, I had checked my account to see if there were any important notices on the notice board prior to going to bed. There was a notice saying that my DoS had changed her meeting time from 11am to 9.30am and it had the room number of where we were meeting at. So, I went to bed and woke up around 8am. Not remembering what room number she was going to be in, I went to go check the notice board for a second time on the morning of and it was no longer on the notice board. So it got me thinking, "did they revert back to the original scheduled time or did the notice just get taken down for some oddball reason?". So I figured I would just catch the 8.23am bus to the school. Unfortunately, as I walked out the door, the 8.23am bus drove right by before I was able to make it to the bus stop! Doh! So I went back inside and studied for a couple hours and then went back to the bus stop for 10.23am. I got on the bus and about 2 minutes into the ride, I had a feeling that the meeting was kept for 9am and that I should check my email on my phone before I get all the way to the school. Sure enough, there was an email in my inbox from my DoS stating that the 9am meeting was kept and that I had missed it along with several others and that I should reschedule the meeting. So, I stayed on the bus and got off at COSTCO and IKEA. I have never been inside of an IKEA before and it was ok. I had breakfast inside (asked for a breakfast ciabatta and got a full Scottish breakfast instead. Wondering how that happened?) Oh well, I didn't say anything and just took what was given to me. After breakfast, I went to COSTCO and it made me feel like I was back home! Everything is set up the same and there are quite a bit of the same products there as back home. I got a space heater, HUGE box of granola bars, steak and cheese.

I brought along a duffle bag and a backpack to bring everything back in, worked out quite well! I got home and tested the space heater and man does it work well! Heats up my room great! No one at the flat here has turned on the heat yet and it has been down in the mid 40's at night. Too bad for them, I've got my handy space heater so my room is nice and toasty all of the time now.

Today, before the tutorial, I also bumped into Wilson, who works out at Langhill Farm. I had my placement there before last year and Wilson gave me my cattle handling examination. Well, unfortunately I bumped into him and got stuck talking to him...Ha! Just kidding Wilson... Was nice catching up with Wilson and always enjoy the laughs buddy! Not sure if you will read this, but just wanted to give you a hard time... ;)

Today we had a bandaging practical where we had to learn a Robert Jone's Wrap, was quite easy since I've seen it done a number of times back home at the clinic. I was the only one in the group of 30some students that had ever wrapped a dog's leg with a bandage. We had a springer spaniel that just laid on the table while we bandaged the leg. We also had to learn how to wrap the head in a bandage as well for things like aural surgeries and such. Was quite easy and then I got on the bus home. I just purchased the university bus pass which gives us access to the hired coaches up until next year for 78 GBP versus paying almost 400 GBP on the city bus pass for 9 months! The bus that I was on today broke down and the driver had to call a smaller van to come and pick us up. I thought I was going to die it was such a rough ride home and the driver does not know how to drive manual apparently because he's always letting up on the gas too much and the bus/van jerks forward constantly. Got home safely though, so thankful for that!

I will be heading to Perth tomorrow on the 8am train, so I need to get myself out of bed around 6.30am, blah! Should get to Perth around 10am and am just going to go check out the city and go hiking in the nearby woodlands by myself. I find it relaxing to just go and do things on my own sometimes. I will post some pictures up on the photos link tomorrow, so check for new photos! I'll just make a new post tomorrow and the pictures will go up at the same time. Anyway, off to bed so I can get out of bed in the morning (or attempt to get out of bed in the morning). Talk to everyone soon!