End of equine rotation...and now for anesthesia!

Last week I finished my very last week on equine rotation. It was a good end to the 4 week module and we had the final MCQ examination last Friday, which was not too difficult fortunately! After a long 4 weeks on equine, I decided to head down to the city centre last weekend since I had not been down that way in quite some time. It was nice to get out and see something other than my room and the vet school! The rest of the weekend I studied for the NAVLE. I began the anesthesia rotation this week and so far it has been so much fun! Prior to this rotation, I had never seen a surgical procedure done under a general anesthetic. On Monday, we were fortunate enough to have 2 procedures to do. The first case was a horse that fractured its mandible and needed fixation via wires and screws. Unfortunately, the endotracheal tube could not be placed due to the requirement for access to the oral cavity for the procedure. So, they had to place a nasotracheal tube instead and the resident that placed it ended up hitting some of the ethmoid turbinates and caused a massage nasal hemorrhage! Once we had the ET tube in place, we attached the horse to the crane and moved it to the surgery table. About 5 minutes later, the head anesthetist noticed that the ET tube cuff was deflating and we had to place a new nasotracheal tube in. This took about 10 minutes before the anesthetist was able to get it in place, so it was quite stressful and we had to top up the injectable anesthetic so that the horse would not begin to recover. Once the tube was placed, the surgical repair of the mandible was smooth and the horse had a smooth recovery. The second horse had a surgical procedure done in the larynx so we were unable to use an ET tube at all. We had to resort to Total Intravenous Anesthesia (TIVA), which was a mix of Romifidine, Diazepam and Ketamine. TIVA is only meant to be used for about 45 min and after that, there is a ceiling effect which causes the TIVA to become ineffective. The recovery time for TIVA is quite prolonged as well as the tissues become saturated with the drugs. The total time under TIVA in this particular horse ended up being 55min and the recovery time was about 3 hours. We sat in the break room with the TV monitor watching the horse for 2 hours while it was in lateral recumbency and non mobile. The camera has a remote control, so when the horse moves, you can follow it easily. Today, we had a septic tarsal joint case that was coming in for GA to have arthroscopy and joint lavage. All in all, this week has been an extremely good week and I have learned loads on anesthesia so far. I've learned quite a bit about breathing systems and calculating O2 flow rates and interpreting CO2, etc. Has been a very good learning experience. We have some dental cases coming in tomorrow, but they are just coming in for routine rasping so that the students on Soft Tissue rotation can rasp the teeth for practice. We did this 2 weeks ago and now it is our rotation to do the anesthesia for the cases. Should be a good day tomorrow. Anyway, I should head back to study land. Happy Thanksgiving to all and I will see most of you very soon!

Equine Rotation

So I am currently on my equine rotation and just finished my ICU rotation at the equine cottage and have another ICU rotation to go, which I start next Monday. The weekend ICU shift was not bad, there were 21 horses to be treated all through the night. There were loads of grass sickness cases and several colic cases that were on 2 hourly colic checks. There are two at the hospital at the moment which resent anything you do to them. Something as simple as listening to right ventral gut sounds will cause them to hop and kick! Very frustrating and a bit scary as well, especially since I am not used to working with horses! We had a horse yesterday that has been at the hospital for several weeks now. It ran into an electrical fence and managed to catch its lower lip in the fence. The lower lip became necrotic and we removed it yesterday. Whilst we were cleaning the lower lip, the horse decided to rear and leap towards everyone in the room. Was a bit stressful but the horse managed to calm down a bit afterwards. Today we did a sinoscopy today in a case that I have been leading all week. It was presented for bilateral mucopurulent nasal discharge and had previous history of choke episodes that had since been resolved. On sinoscopy yesterday, there was quite a bit of purulent material in all of the sinuses. We placed a lavage tube and sutured it in place. Today we did the same to the opposite side and the horse loves to sneeze during sinus lavage. I was standing in front of the head today scoping the sinuses and he blew the saline we were lavaging with all over the front of me, with the majority of it going in my face...at least he was nice and did it after we removed most of the purulent material and blood clots! I begin orthopedics next week, so that should be quite fun. I am flying back on December 2nd and will be in AZ until January 18th. Will be taking the NAVLE on December 6th! Looking forward to that 7.5 hour exam! Will be very happy to be done with it at 3.30pm that day! Well, I will try and update when I can but no promises. I have been extremely busy since the last posting. Hoping everyone is well and I will talk to you all soon!

I am still here!

Yes yes, it is true! I am still here but busy as ever! Where to begin? Well, I finished 8 weeks of small animal rotations and am currently on Equine. After I completed the cardiopulmonary rotation in small animals, I then began my dermatology rotation. Dermatology consisted of atopic dermatitis...EVERY CASE! There was one case of pemphigus foliaceous that was there for a recheck. After dermatology, I then was on Oncology for 1 week. Oncology was not terribly busy and I had quite a bit of time to study for the NAVLE. Wednesdays and Thursdays were chemotherapy days, so we treated a lot of patients with mainly CHOP protocol and some with COP. All in all, it was a good rotation and I received great feedback from the senior clinician. Everyone in my rotation group received very negative feedback. Out of the five of us, I was the only one to receive excellent feedback! Was quite happy about that! So, I am now on equine rotation. This entire week has been the Dick Vet Equine Practice rotation. The calls that we go on are first opinion and mainly consists of floating teeth, lameness checks, vaccinations, etc. It is quite slow and in the slow times I have been doing fecal worm egg counts for horses and studying for the NAVLE. There was a pony that came in yesterday with seedy toe that had a dorsal hoof wall resection and was at the vet practice to have the farrier fill the defect in with acrylic. Next week I begin equine medicine and next weekend I will be on ICU nights doing colic and grass sickness checks every 2 hours. Have equine soft tissue and then orthopedic following that. After the equine rotation, I come home until January 18th! I am looking forward to working at the clinic over the summer and seeing everyone! Kristen will be coming in December as well so I am extremely excited to see her! This is going to be a great Christmas break! Well, back to NAVLE studying I go...unfortunately. Hope everyone has a great rest of their week! The weekend is near! I am going to go see Skyfall 007 tomorrow! Woohoo!

Week 2 on Internal Medicine / Cardiopulmonary Medicine

Tomorrow is the start of week two on rotation with Internal Medicine / Cardiopulmonary. Last week was extremely busy and I loved every minute of it! Each day we had to take a case that had either come in overnight or was due to come in for that particular day. I had taken on a case that was a cat with chronic neutropenia and lymphadenopathy. It had developed pleural effusion and came in for dyspnea and severe respiratory distress. It was sent home mid-week but was re-admitted, as it had collapsed at home and required thoracocentesis to drain 175ml from its pleural cavity! Lots of fluid for a little kitty! It was due to go home on Saturday but on my Friday 4pm check just before I had to be at a special seminar, I noticed the breathing pattern had changed slightly. There seemed to be more of an abdominal component with each breath. I called the primary clinician over to double check and she decided to perform a fast echo on the cat. Sure enough, the pleural effusion had returned. So much for the seminar! I spent the next 1.5 hours sedating the cat and draining the fluid from its chest. Needless to say, the cat did not go home on Saturday. Not sure if the cat will be there tomorrow or if other decisions were made over the weekend... I had another 2 cases I followed all week. I had an 18 month old cocker spaniel puppy that came in with hypoalbuminemia, peripheral edema and generalized erythematous lesions. It stayed with us for a day and went home the next day as the albumin levels had risen to within normal reference range. We deemed it a hypersensitivity reaction with severe hypoalbuminemia. We worked it up for liver disease initially as PLN and PLE were both ruled out at the referring vet. Question for the vets reading this, have you seen hypoalbuminemia around 17g/L in hypersensitivity cases? There was an argument as to what level of albumin would cause peripheral edema. The last case I had, was a labrador that was 13 yrs old that came in for a month-long cough. We did abdominal ultrasound as the referring vet was worried about an abdominal mass. Ultrasound was insignificant and we then performed CT scan, which again showed no abnormalities. Bronchoscopy revealed a 4cm long grass blade lodged in the right mainstem bronchi! We removed the foreign object and put the dog on anti-inflammatory and antibiotics. Was a satisfying case to have! I went to Perth on Saturday for hiking and spent the remainder of the weekend studying for NAVLE. I can't wait for the NAVLE to be over and done with! I haven't had much time to study for the NAVLE during the week as I have had to prepare for cardiac tutorials and work up my cases for each morning at rounds. Every morning we have to discuss our cases that each of us has with the clinicians. So I have a lot to go over tomorrow! Surely there will be a lot of treatment that occurred over the weekend with the kitty cat. Hope all is well with everyone and I will update again as soon as I have a spare moment!

My first rabbit spay/castration

So this past Monday was my group's rabbit neutering rotation. We had two spays and one castration to perform. So since there is an odd number of students in my group and only 3 neuters that were available, we had to share each one. So, for the first spay, I was on first with another group member. I opened the abdominal cavity and ligated the first ovarian artery. However, the right uterine horn was DEFINITELY not normal in this rabbit! Everyone thought the rabbit was pregnant until I opened it and pulled out what appeared to be several fist-sized uterine masses. One was grayish in appearance and looked like an abscess. The other masses did not look good. We examined the rest of the abdominal cavity and there were nodules throughout the coelomic cavity. We ended up euthanizing the rabbit while it was still under anesthesia. Sadly, my very first rabbit spay died...but it wasn't my fault, as it was the clinician who administered the euthasol! I did half of the castration as well and that rabbit is doing great, as I checked on him this morning! The clinician on duty said that it was the best post-op incision from a student castration that she's seen in years! Ha! It's quite scary that they give us rabbit neutering for our first surgery, as everything inside of a rabbit seems to fall apart! The fat just crumbles when you touch it and the cecum is as thin as a chewing gum bubble! So I finished the rabbit neutering Monday and am now currently on Professional Skills rotation. We had to role play the other day for difficult situations that we may encounter when in practice. Today I sat at the finance desk in the hospital for small animals for two hours and discussed finances with the lady that works there. I have to prepare a presentation for Friday on what I found. That's about all for now. Nothing too exciting at the moment. Oh, I have begun studying for the NAVLE...do I really have to take this 7 hour exam??? Not looking forward to sitting at a computer in December for 7 hours. However, I would just like to get it out of the way! I am looking forward to starting my career! Finally! Well, I should get back to studying NAVLE material. I will try and post more as the rotations progress. Hope everyone back home is doing well and I will post again soon!

A week on exotics rotation

Today was my 11th day out at the Hospital for Small Animals (HFSA) between last week's ICU and this week's exotics rotation. I have really enjoyed the exotics rotation this week and have gotten a lot of rabbit and lizard handling/treatment experience. This is the most I have ever handled rabbits and I quite like them. They're quite easy to work with and easy to treat. This whole week has been consultations and surgery with exotic animals. Monday and Tuesday I was on for surgery and was responsible for monitoring anesthesia. Monday was easy as we had a dental on a rabbit with overgrown cheek teeth/incisors. The rest of the day was treatment of the hospitalized rabbits and recovering the rabbit that had the dental procedure. Tuesday, we had a Netherland Dwarf rabbit that was in for overgrown cheek teeth/incisors. During the surgery, the nurse was holding the head up for the surgeon working on burring the teeth. As they were working on the mouth, I noticed the heart rate dropped from 220bpm to about 75bpm. The breathing pattern became very shallow and labored and was about 5 breaths per minute. Seconds later, the heart rate had completely disappeared and I brought it to the attention of the surgeon immediately. The rabbit was slowly becoming cyanotic and the surgeon immediately began CPR. After about a minute, the rabbit's heart rate returned to about 68bpm and slowly increased over a period of about 15 min. We recovered the rabbit and placed it in the incubator for a while. Towards the end of the day, the rabbit had fully recovered from the event and was looking great. Vitals were within normal parameters and he was much more alert. Yesterday, we had our dissection practical of entire female rabbits so that we could practice our spaying skills for Monday's live rabbit spay we are required to perform. The rabbits we were given were immature so their uteruses were virtually non-existent! Everything inside the abdomen was so friable and I had to be so gentle with tissue handling! It was a good practical to refresh knowledge of rabbit anatomy and practice suture tying. They use a particular type of knot here in Scotland called the Aberdeen Knot. It is used at the end of the simple continuous intradermal suture pattern. It's a nice knot technique and is extremely fast to do. Today, we had consultations and surgery. It was my turn to take on consultations with one of the clinicians. I went in on a red-footed tortoise consultation, an African Grey Parrot consultation and a Horsefield Tortoise consultation. The African Grey Parrot we saw was extremely friendly and was good to practice restraining with a towel. The owner of the parrot was a 4th year vet student and the bird had the neatest trick. The owner would have the parrot perched on her hand and aim at the bird with her other hand that was in the shape of a gun. She yelled "bang!" and the bird fell backwards and swung upside down as if it had been shot! Was hilarious and awesome! What a neat bird! After the consultations were over, we treated some more rabbits. The clinician in the exotics ward then had to perform a post mortem on an axolotle. This axolotle had been dead for about 7 days and was in cold storage the entire time. When we got it out and placed it on the table for dissection, the tail started curling and uncurling. Every time you touched the tail with an instrument it would curl and uncurl. I got the doppler probe out to ensure it was dead and there was no heartbeat that I could find. I told the clinician that was on duty that she would need to come out and pith the axolotle just to be sure. So she came out and pithed the axolotle and administered euthasol as well. The tail was still moving afterwards! We went ahead with the post mortem examination with the tail moving the entire time. Was a very creepy dissection!

A week of ICU...

After finishing a week of ICU, I am utterly exhausted! Starting last Monday and ending yesterday, I had to complete 7 days of ICU. For the first few days, we had constant monitors where someone had to be down in the ICU ward constantly to monitor the patients. After Wednesday, ICU was quiet and we had to treat patients in the surgery wards and walk all of the dogs. On Friday, a greyhound with an open distal tibial fracture came in as an emergency at around 1am. I chose to take the case as you all know me and orthopaedics! I was quite excited about the case. When they came in, the referring vet had put on a splint that was not very good at all. The blood from the open fracture site had been tracking down the splint and the dog was leaving a trail of blood all over the floor and my pants. We took the dog to the treatment room and placed an IV catheter and administered morphine ASAP. We moved the dog to anaesthesia where we anaesthetized the dog with propofol. Once intubated and stabilized we moved to radiology and took several radiographs. The fracture was a comminuted fracture of the distal diaphysis of the tibia. Supposedly there was involvement with the articular surface as fissures had formed distally from the fracture site. We put a splint on temporarily until the next morning when the surgery would take place. Well, we came down the next afternoon and they had amputated the dog's leg! Apparently it was going to cost the owner about £6,000 and they simply couldn't afford it. So the dog was on ICU all weekend and the weekends require 24 hours a day monitoring/treatment. So the four of us split the days into two 8-hour shifts with two of us on each shift so that we could get some sort of sleep. I tell you what, the entire week was such a shock to my body for sleep and diet that I felt horrible! Every other day my sleep cycle would alternate from sleeping in the morning to sleeping at night. I am so glad ICU is over...for now until my actual ICU rotation begins, which is 3 weeks long! The week I just did was just for completing my EMS weeks. It was a week of basically seeing how little sleep you could get whilst still trying to maintain a functional mental state and staying alert in case there were emergencies.

Isle of Skye Camping Part 2

At about 8am the next morning we got ready to go hiking up the 900 meter mountain that was nearby. We started off with warm clothes on since it was a bit chilly. However, 30 min into the hike I had to remove all of the warm layers as I was roasting! It was clear out and started to warm up quite a bit. We began our ascent up the trail and walked by a large waterfall and a nice little stream. We continued up the trail and as we got closer to the top, the trail disappeared and we had to climb over large boulders and very loose rock. After a couple of hours, we finally reached the top and you could see the entire island from the top. There was a group of climbers at the top as well that were preparing to climb "Inaccessible Pinnacle" or "Inn Pin" as the Scots call it. There were still some patches of snow at the top and we were so hot that we decided to make a slushy out of our energy drinks we brought up to the top with us, and they were really good! After relaxing on the mountain ridge for about 20 min, we began our descent. It was an easy descent until we got to the part where the trail disappeared and turned into a giant hill of loose gravel. My buddy ran down the hill and I have know idea how he did because it took me about 40 min longer than him to get down. I literally went "surfing" down the gravel and fell on my bum several dozen times. We finally got to the bottom and headed back to the camp site. After packing the tent and car, we drove to Talisker Whiskey distillery. I got a whiskey blending glass as a souvenir. We then drove back to the Fairy Pools because my buddy wanted to go swimming under the underwater rock arch that we saw. We got to the Fairy Pool parking lot and began walking the trail to the pools and there was a large group of people in wet suits jumping into the pools. He finally jumped in and swam under the arch. It was pretty cool! I got some amazing photos of him swimming under the arch. I did not go in this time around as I knew how painfully cold it was from the previous day. We walked back to the car and headed back to mainland Scotland and ate at a pub near Eilean Donan for fish and chips to end an amazing trip. After a weekend full of sun and clear skies (I even got a sun burn!) we drove into Glasgow and it was pouring rain! Apparently it had been raining the entire weekend in Glasgow/Edinburgh and we were enjoying the sun. So that sums up my epic camping trip to Isle of Skye and the crazy things that happened. Hope you enjoyed reading all of that. I will post pictures of the trip in the next couple of days. Talk to you all soon!

Camping on Isle of Skye Part 1

Well, as promised, here is the post about my camping trip to the Isle of Skye in Northwest Scotland. A couple of weeks ago, my buddy from the university and I decided to go for a weekend camping trip to the Isle of Skye. We had our exam on Friday and hit the road immediately following exams. It was a 4.5-5 hour drive to get there and on the way up we saw several herds of deer. I managed to capture some AMAZING photos of some of the stags and the scenery on the way up, including a couple of photos of Eilean Donan Castle on the water. We drove into Skye at about 8.30pm and found a camp site that was only £6 per person to pitch a tent for the night. We had portable grills and cooked burgers with haggis patties on top along with a couple beers each. Great first night of camping! In the morning, we woke up, packed the tent and drove up to a town named Uig. Near Uig, there was a Glen called the Fairy Glen. We arrived to this so called "Miniature Scotland" and it was exactly just that! Small rolling hills with ruffled grass and a small loch in the middle of it all. It was a small scale Scotland in the middle of nowhere! We explored the area for about an hour and left. After Seeing the Fairy Glen, we drove to the Old Man of Storr where we hiked up about 2,500 feet and explored the giant rocks for about 2 hours. It was absolutely amazing! After hiking Storr, we stopped at Kilt Rock and took some photos of the waterfall that pours into the North Sea. We then headed to our next camp site in Glen Brittle. On the way to Glen Brittle, we stopped at the Fairy Pool trail head and hiked down the trail until we reached a series of blue pools of water and waterfalls everywhere! There were several pools that were quite deep. I'd say about a 10ft depth...trust me, I know! Ah, yes, about that... Well, we stopped at the first deep pool where there was a waterfall. I told myself before we left Edinburgh that I would jump in the Fairy Pools no matter what the temperature was. After gathering up enough courage, we both took turns jumping into the pool. I must say, it was the coldest swim I have EVER taken in my entire life! It literally felt as if I was covered in hot needles! The part of my body that felt the most pain was in my feet. I jumped out yelling and after about 5 min I felt amazingly refreshed! I've got photos to prove this...will post them soon! After the Fairy Pools, we drove to the camp site and pitched our tent. We then played French Pool on the beach whilst drinking beers, which is a grand game! After about an hour of that, we decided to go for a walk along the coast and check out the waterfalls that were nearby. This was at 8.30pm at night and it was still light out. We began our walk, what we thought was just an ordinary walk but ended up being so much more than ORDINARY! While we were walking, my buddy spotted a sheep in the distance lying on its side and thought it was dead. I saw it as well and it looked quite bloated. We started walking closer and the sheep's head popped up and she looked right at us for about 2 seconds and then put her head back down. That wasn't a normal response because the sheep on Skye are always running from you! So my buddy went around the backside from about 20 yards away and didn't see anything. However, upon closer inspection, I got closer and saw that there was a lamb's head sticking out! I yelled to my buddy and we dropped our stuff. I told him to go around the back and that I would approach from the front and tackle her. He approached from behind and she saw me getting closer and decided to try and bolt. As she began to run, my buddy dove at her and grabbed onto her fleece and was about to lose her...until she got to me. She ran right at me and I just dove into her and tackled her to the ground. She wouldn't go down at first so I had to reach and grab her leg and pull it out from under her. She finally went down and I restrained her while my buddy pulled the lamb out. The lamb came out, he handed it to me while he checked for a twin. I tried reviving it and massaging its chest, but the head and mouth were ice cold. The ewe must have been pushing for a while and was unable to pass the lamb. Sadly, the lamb was dead. We left her to lick the lamb and headed on our merry way. What a crazy end to a day! We got back to the campsite, washed off and went to bed. Will type the rest of the trip in Part 2!!!

Equine and Exotics Exam

Well it has been a while since I last posted...slightly over a month if I'm not mistaken! Have been extremely busy studying for this past examination on equine and exotic animals. We had the exam last Friday and it was VERY difficult! I would say that it was one of the most difficult exams I've taken since I've been here. I had been studying for a couple of months in preparation for this exam. The questions that came up on this exam were not representative at all of the material that we were lectured on. There were 4 equine questions, which were very difficult and 3 exotic animal questions, which I knew quite well. I answered the questions as best as I could but not sure what to expect for a grade. I will find out in a few weeks. Last Tuesday I also had to perform two clinical examinations. At the first station, I had one of the sheep vets ask me all about sheep breeds (which I nailed), skin diseases (which was very random) and had me perform a thoracic auscultation and ruminal auscultation as well. Before beginning, the examiner asked me if I preferred Dan or Daniel. I told him that Dan was fine by me but if he wanted to call me "Fonz" he could do that as well. This triggered an entire 4-5 min conversation on Henry Winkler and Happy Days, which was an odd but funny icebreaker before he began questioning me. We finished early and I moved on to the next examiner. I was presented with a group of calves and had to assess two from a distance and guess the weight and body condition score of the two, which I am sure I butchered! I then had to get the calf that was lying down to get up and move into the crush. The calf would not get up for me and finally after struggling for about a minute, she decided to get up. I had to put a halter on and lead her into the crush. The halter was a non-slip halter so I couldn't adjust it and it took me a minute or so to figure this out. I finally decided to just throw it over the head to see if that worked and it went on with a tight squeeze but worked. Once restrained, I had to perform a clinical examination. I finished slightly early with that station as well. Once I was done I was very relieved and had to begin studying more for the written portion that was Friday as I talked about above. So now I am waiting on results for the veterinary public health exam, the two clinical examinations I did and the equine and exotics examination before I purchase a plane ticket back home. I sure hope I passed everything! Especially equine and exotics! Immediately following the examination, Olly and I headed to the Isle of Skye for a weekend camping trip. Details on our trip will be posted on another post, as it will be a long description! Hope everyone is doing well and will see you soon!

North Berwick Engagement April 6th, 2012

So, I am now officially engaged to Kristen as of yesterday!!!!!! VERY EXCITED!!!!!! As most of you knew, I had planned on proposing to Kristen for a while, buying the engagement ring back in October of 2011. I called Shane Co from Edinburgh using Magicjack and made the purchase over the phone. I had originally picked out a ring that Kristen really liked. The engagement ring had a slot in it so that the wedding band that came with it would fit right in. After a couple of months of making the payments on the ring, we happened to be looking at some more rings, as I was trying to distract Kristen from suspecting anything about me purchasing a ring. I thought I would keep on showing her rings as my strategy...and it worked! So, there I was talking to Kristen on Skype as usual and I showed her this ring from Shane Co. We both really liked it and I sent her a picture of the ring I had already begun paying on and the new one that she really liked. I told her to tell me which out of the two she liked the most...well, guess which one she liked? Yep, the one that I had not started paying on. So, I had to call Shane Co back and change the ring, which was very easy and took all of 5 minutes to do. I arrived in Arizona for Christmas and waited for the ring to arrive. I received an email with the shipping confirmation and noticed that on the order, only the diamond was being described as being sent. There was no mention of a setting. So I called Shane Co back and asked if they had actually set the diamond in the setting and not JUST the diamond. Guess what they did? Yep, they were sending me the diamond that had not yet been set in the setting. So they had to cancel the order and set the diamond in the setting then resend it. I finally received a delivery card at my mom's house for the ring. I had to go down to Fed Ex to pick up the ring. Let me tell you, the ring was absolutely gorgeous and more sparkly than it was in the photo! I was so glad I changed the order when I did. So, after showing everyone in Arizona the ring, I had to fly back to Edinburgh and hold on to it for about 4 months until Kristen was to arrive. I planned on proposing to her in North Berwick, as it was the site of our very first picnic on the beach there together. On our second picnic there, we had purchased a wine called "Caire no Mohr" Strawberry wine. Well, I happened to be at the farmer's market below Edinburgh castle in Castle Terrace (where the farmer's market is every Saturday) and came across the "Caire no Mohr" wine stand. The happened to be selling the bubbly version of the strawberry wine!!!! I thought to myself that it would be absolutely perfect for the engagement day on the beach! So, I bought the bubbly wine and found a good hiding spot for it in my room so Kristen wouldn't see it when she arrived. I then booked a room at a bed and breakfast in North Berwick called "Seaholm Bed and Breakfast". I spoke with Lorena over the phone and told her that I would be coming by that week to drop off rose pedals and the strawberry wine. I told her that I wanted the rose pedals spread out on the bed and the floor and she was quite happy to oblige to my requests. She was a very nice lady and I would recommend that anyone ever going to North Berwick book a room at this place. After talking to her and booking the room, the next step of the plan was to visit North Berwick to drop off the wine and rose petals and find the perfect proposal location on the beach. Ideally, I wanted a view of Bass Rock and the sea. I went to North Berwick with a buddy of mine and found the perfect spot on the beach. It was difficult to see that day because of the fog and the tide was in, however, I knew where I wanted to propose to Kristen. We dropped off the goods at Seaholm and headed back to Edinburgh. April 6th rolls around and it is day 2 of Kristen being in Edinburgh. We wake up late and we eventually get out of the flat around 3pm and catch the train to North Berwick and get there just before high tide. Was a VERY close call since the tide comes in around 5pm or so! I had the ring in my jacket pocket as we were walking down a path to the beach. I had also secretly stashed special wine glasses and overnight stuff. Once we were at the spot on the beach, I took a few photos of us to make it seem as if we were just taking pictures and having a good time. I was about to ask her and then people showed up! Bah! I wanted it to be just the two of us and no one else! So we waited for the people to leave, which was luckily about 10 min or so. Once they left, I told Kristen that I loved her so much and wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. Then I got down on one knee in the wet sand with a view of Bass Rock in the background and proposed to her. At first, all I got from her was, "oh my god! oh my god! Dan! Oh my god! Really?! What?!!!! Oh my god Dan!", to which my reply was, "and your answer is???" and she said "Yes of course!". So, after celebrating with wine and jumping off a giant boulder because we were so excited, I told her I had booked a place to stay the night in North Berwick. We went to the place and Lorena had set up the room with the rose petals and champagne in a bucket of ice. It was PERFECT! I couldn't have asked for a more perfect day/night. We had dinner at The Grange and had burgers that were amazing! After dinner, we called it a night. On Saturday, we walked around North Berwick and took lots of photos of us. We went home late afternoon and continued to celebrate our engagement to one another. What an amazing break and I am so glad that everything went as planned!

Lectures over forever, one exam down and 5 more to go...

Lectures have finally ended with the last two lectures covering clinical cases of exotic animals. We had our Veterinary Public Health exam on Friday and it consisted of a pathological spot component in which we had to look at images on a projector screen and answer the questions that went with each picture. I have never been so pressed for time on an exam before! All of the questions were fair and I remembered all of them from lectures (say for two or three questions that stumped me). We had 6 minutes to answer questions that went with 10 photos. Each photo, on average, had around 7 questions that required a lot of writing for the most part. Once we finished the first part of the exam, I went to the main library and studied for 2.5 hours before part 2 of the exam. At 2.30pm we had the written component of the exam that consisted of 10 short answer questions and we had 1.5 hours to complete the exam. I was writing non-stop for this examination as well and came to finish the exam 10 minutes before the timer ended. All questions on the written part were quite fair as well. I will find out in about a month what I received for a mark.

Over the next 3.5 weeks I will be preparing for the written examination on equine and exotics medicine and prepare for the spot examination on the clinical examination of the cow and sheep. It has been in the 70's here in Edinburgh over the last two days, which is the warmest I've been in this time of year! It was so nice out yesterday that I went for a very long walk to the park. Apparently this is mating season for frogs...I came across 6-7 frog pairs in the park with a couple of male frogs fighting for the female. Was funny to watch. I did manage to take some photos so I will post those as soon as possible. Hope all is well with everyone and I am looking forward to seeing you all at the end of May!

Only two more days and I am done with lectures FOREVER!

Yes, you did read that right. We now only have two more days of lectures remaining for the remainder of the BVM&S program. That's not to say I won't have lectures here and there from guest speakers. As far as the core course material goes, I am completely done with the lectures as of next Tuesday. It's taken how long for me to reach this point in my life? Seems like I have been in school forever and I am very excited that I will be finished with didactic learning and moving on to practical education. This will be a great change and I will finally get to perform surgeries and obtain some hands on experience. We have our Veterinary Public Health exam next Friday that will consist of a spot exam, which is going to be 10 pictures of diseased meat/carcasses along with multiple questions for each picture. We have 6 minutes to answer each of the 10 pictures/questions and later on that day we have to head into town and take the written portion of the exam that will consist of 10 short answer questions that we will have 1 1/2 hours to complete. I have been studying for the past 4 weeks for this exam to try and get a head start so I wouldn't have to rush at the last minute and I feel quite confident with what I know. It is nice to have such a big head start on studying because I can relax a little and not panic about the material that I haven't studied yet. Wish me luck!

Arthur's Seat Run

So yesterday, I decided that it was so nice out that I would take a run out to Arthur's Seat. There is an old building that I have always seen from a distance but have never actually walked out to go see. I decided that yesterday was the day to do just that. I ran from the flat to Arthur's Seat and through the valley between Arthur's Seat and the Salisbury Crags. The old building was interesting to see and it overlooked a small lake. This small lake had hundreds of birds swimming in the water with about 80% of them being swans. It was really neat to see! I ran down to this lake and around it and took several pictures of the swans that were being fed by some man who had a bag of bread crumbs. I would also like to note that he was feeding these swans directly in front of a sign that specifically said "Do not feed the birds." I guess he didn't "see" the sign...

I have started studying for the Veterinary Public Health examination that is coming up in 4 weeks' time and the material is not too difficult to understand. Basically, it's determining whether or not to locally reject meat or totally reject meat based on the the pathology that the meat has. We have practical sessions each week where we have hands on learning with real examples from abattoirs. On Friday, I pulled my very first rabbit maxillary incisor. I also gave an intraosseous injection to the rabbit, flushed the nasolacrimal duct (which is quite difficult in a rabbit as their duct is TINY!) and performed a spay. I also forgot to mention to you that these procedures were performed on deceased rabbits. Was great experience though. We have our avian practical tomorrow where we learn about air sac intubation, ET intubation, blood sampling techniques, surgical procedures, etc. So that should be a lot of fun.

Well, that was the update since my last post. Nothing exciting has happened since then. I did go to a birthday party this weekend that was a lot of fun and I also went to the farmer's market last weekend and had a fresh pulled pork sandwich that was delicious! I will try and post the photos from yesterday's run soon. Hope all is well! Talk to you all soon!

Ben Nevis!

So a couple weekends back I decided to attempt climbing Ben Nevis (tallest mountain in Britain) with a buddy of mine. The elevation is around 4400ft. The day that we decided to go the forecast was predicted to be 60-70mph winds with whiteout conditions in the early morning and clearing up in the late morning. We left Edinburgh around 5am and headed up to Fort William (where Ben Nevis is located). Once there, we prepped ourselves for the climb. I basically wore my ski clothes and had also brought my goggles as I wasn't sure if it was going to be snowing or not, and with the wind the way it was predicted I decided to bring my goggles. We began the ascent with no problems (my knees were doing great this time around). At around 400 meters up we ran into the typical Scottish rain, which was no good if the temperature was going to drop at the top. Not a good combination of being wet and then walking into freezing temperatures. The rain stopped at about 600 meters up and it started turning into ice/snow/slush coming down. The trail was maintained quite well and we walked by several groups of people. As we increased in altitude, breathing became more and more difficult and the trail began to collect snow. Further on, we encountered snow covered trail and ice as well. At about 900 meters up, the trail was all snow and the wind really began to kick in. I would say at this point the wind was about 45-50mph. We kept on pushing and eventually the trail disappeared and we decided to head up and make our own trail and follow the compass. As we did, the conditions progressively deteriorated and the white out conditions began. I would say that we were about 1100 meters up and the wind was about 60-65mph now. I was getting blown over and losing my balance constantly. The wind hurt my face as it was blowing snow so hard that it felt like a sand blaster was abrading my face. We finally reached a cairn that was about 4 feet tall. For those of you who don't know what a cairn is, it is a pile of rocks used to mark a trail. We knew we were in the right spot for the trail at that point. However, the wind was persistent and the visibility seemed to be getting worse so we made the decision to turn around.

We were unable to pick up our tracks from the original route so we had to head west and intersect our trail somehow. The entire descent we were battered with strong winds and had to maneuver around icy rocks and loose snow. There was enough snow, however, that we were able to slide down on our rear ends. The snow slopes were quite long as well. I would say that on average, we would slide down about 50 yards at a time! Which definitely makes descending easier and much more fun! We reached a point where we had to walk alongside a waterfall (or on top of it at some points where it was partially frozen). At one point, I was sliding down alongside the waterfall and when I went to push my hand up, it sunk down through the snow right into the small frigid stream below. We finally made it down to the main trail and I was so happy to have reached firm ground that wasn't icy or rocky! After an hour of descending via the main trail we arrived at the car park and were soaking wet! We changed and went into the pub that was near the car park. After we enjoyed a nice pint of lager we headed back to Edinburgh. That is our story and here are the photos of the climb.

Ben Nevis, Scotland - February 2012

Hemsedal, Norway Photos

Ok, so here are the photos from Hemsedal, Norway. Enjoy!!

Hemsedal, Norway 2012

Back from Norway!

After 5 days in Norway I am back hard at work for semester 2. Norway was absolutely amazing and was better the second time! There were 8 of us that caught a flight over to Oslo Torp and then took a bus to the main city center of Oslo that was about 2 hours away. Once in the city center, we found our hostel that we booked and went to sleep. In the morning we walked around the city center in search of a car rental agency. We managed to find a place to rent 2 cars for 3 days. After the cars were settled we decided to explore a bit of Oslo before we began our journey to Hemsedal (the ski resort). We went to the city hall of Oslo, the boat docks, this park called Frogner Park that had dozens of statues of naked people and babies and then through some random neighborhoods that were very pretty. We even walked passed the Greek Embassy that looked like a regular home. I guess that's all that they could afford for their embassy! After we saw a bit of Oslo we began our road trip to Hemsedal. After about 2 hours of going in circles around the city center of Oslo, we finally made it out to the main freeway. The GPS system kept telling us to take the wrong exit and at one point we entered this extremely long tunnel and lost satellite connection so we were lost in the tunnel for about 20 minutes. After a rough 6 hour journey to Hemsedal, we had finally made it to the ski resort around 11pm. The directions to find our loft were horrible as we spent another 1.5 hours trying to find our place. We had to go through a security gate and then drive up the winding roads of the mountain pass. The loft was very nice and it was ski on ski off. The first day was ok for snow but there hadn't been any new snow for a while. The runs were nice but groomed and a bit on the icy side unfortunately. We made the best of it though and were able to get quite a bit of runs in. Over night, a snow storm moved in and dumped a lot of new snow for us on the second day and it snowed the entire day so that there was fresh powder EVERYWHERE! It was so wonderful to have a lot of new snow to ski in. We were on the slopes for a good portion of the morning and at noon we went in for lunch to the ski lodge. Afterwards, we were out on the slopes until 3.30pm and then went back to the ski lodge where there was a live Norwegian band singing nothing but American songs such as Sweet Home Alabama! After the lodge we went back to the loft and packed our things so that we would be ready to head out in the morning. Around 2am we all decided to head to bed. I got into bed and suddenly there was this pounding noise on the neighbor's door. It went away after a couple of minutes and about 10 minutes later the pounding was on our bedroom window and scared me half to death! Jon and I jumped up and went to the front door to see what the commotion was all about and it was this twenty something year old Norwegian guy. He claimed that he had no key to his place and all of his friends were back in town still. He had apparently been sleeping on the back patio of their loft for 30 min in the freezing cold. We let him in and Jon and I sat at the kitchen table with him and phoned the front lobby back in town to have someone come up to let him into his place. After about 15 minutes of talking to this drunk Norwegian guy that had horrible English, the guy from the lobby arrived and took him off of our hands. We finally went to sleep around 2.40am. The next morning we packed our things and headed out of Hemsedal for our 6pm flight.

I am now back in Edinburgh and ready for the week to end. Have had a busy week of practicals and long days and I am for sure ready for the weekend to arrive. I will eventually get the Norway photos up for everyone to see (probably by tomorrow). Hope everyone is doing well. Miss you all! Will post again soon! Oh! I also passed the farm animal integrated clinical exam and found out a couple of days ago. Woohoo! Now we have to take the equine and exotics exam after Easter break. Can't wait for final year to get here so that I can finish and finally start working!

Back from Christmas and the beginning of Semester 2!

So I have not posted anything since before Christmas and I have definitely been slacking on my posting. Christmas break was great and seeing family and friends was nice. I got to work a total of 2 days as my break was quite hectic with family medical emergencies and such. I am glad I was there for everything though as I would for sure be stressing out if I had been in Scotland with everything happening while I was away. I managed to get work started on my research paper that Dr. Prevatt and I will be working on. I had to obtain all of the radiographs on 20 different patients and then copy them to Dr. P's computer. With that successfully completed, I plan on beginning evaluation of the radiographs next week and completing the research component of the paper in about a month's time. The paper is not due until my final year so I have plenty of time to finish it.

This week, we had a good practical with horses. We went over the neurological exam of the horse and got to practice walking the horse while pulling on their tails and performing other tests. The practicals that they incorporate into our program are very helpful and it helps get your mind out of the books and gets you to think in a more practical sense. Today we had a 9-5 day with 2 practicals and several lectures. They were quite helpful, but I am tired! I am so used to the 11am to 2pm class schedule and now we start at 9am and have a 2-3 hour gap before the next lecture. Oh well, gives me some extra time to work on notes.

I am heading to Oslo, Norway tomorrow at 6pm Scottish time with 7 other people from the course. We are going to go skiing in Hemsedal Friday and Saturday and are hanging out in Oslo the first couple of days. It should be a lot of fun! Unfortunately there is only 26 inches of snow as the base at the ski resort and no new fresh powder :(

It is supposed to snow tomorrow and Friday so maybe there will be some fresh powder to ski on. I really hope so! I still have to pack everything in a carry-on-bag because a checked bag on Ryanair is really expensive. Maybe I will wear all of my ski clothes through security. That would save room, right? Should be a lot of fun once we are in Oslo! Last time I went, we arrived at night and were unable to explore Oslo itself.

Before I finish this post, I wanted to post something. Tina has been asking me, for the longest time, if there is a place where she can purchase The University of Edinburgh sweaters, etc. Well here it is. This is the link to the university's website for purchasing clothing, etc. :

http://www.giftshop.ed.ac.uk/site/department.cfm?id=21D52893-B0D0-D0C9-3C2C58466ED2386E

There is a catalog for the veterinary school but I have to order it through the students that run the vet school store. I will find out more information on this next week. I should get back to studying though. Hope all is well back home and I miss everybody! Will post again soon! Probably when I return from Norway!