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!