Clinical EMS

Hi Folks!

So first off, it's been a long long while. Going back a bit, There is good news! I passed my driving test (on the second try), and am now a fully-qualified UK driver. Scary thought, eh? I find the manual driving much much easier when I can drive like a normal person instead of trying to drive to the standards of the test. I also retook my suturing test, and passed! Yay! I'm not quite sure why, given how much my hands were shaking, but the important thing is I know I can do it well when I'm not being examined on it. I also did fairly well on the multiple choice questions we had. This wasn't something you really had to pass, it was more of a 'get-as-many-points-towards-the-next-test-as-you-can' type thing, but I was still pleased to see that I 'passed,' as in I got over 50% on that section. So that puts me in fairly good standing for May.

This past weekend I had a bit of fun with Andrew. We went up North to Inverness for Saturday, and then travelled west to Fort William. On Sunday we drove to Malaig, a cute little fishing town on the coast near the Isle of Skye. It was a lot of fun, and we saw some really pretty sights. Plus, the weather was absolutely gorgeous, so we picked the perfect weekend!

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Our route. A is Inverness, and the blue pin is Loch Ness, which we saw on Saturday.

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Inverness Castle

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Loch gates on the Caledonian Canal

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Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness

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A pretty waterfall on Ben Nevis (the UK's highest 'mountain')

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Andrew and Me!

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The second leg of our Journey, from Ft William to Malaig, and across the ferry over Loch Linnhe

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Glenfinnan Monument

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Glenfinnan Viaduct

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They were huge!

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If this looks familiar it is because this was the railway they filmed the Hogwarts Express on in Harry Potter!

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Driving along the coast

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Malaig Harbour

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The walk out to Castle Tioram

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Castle Tioram

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Apparently in the time between when our guidebook was made and when we got there, Castle Tioram was unsafe and couldn't be entered. Although I stood here for 10 minutes debating whether to just squish through those bars, my better judgement won out.

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So anyway, now we are caught up to the present. Today I started my first day of clinical EMS. I was a bit aprehensive about this, because despite having gotten this far, I still don't feel like I know a whole lot. Granted, at this point they're not expecting us to be able to diagnose anything, but still.

The clinic I chose was in Livingston, and let me tell you, they were SO nice. All of the staff like each other, and it was a very friendly environment. Definitely a good place to see practice at. I didn't get to do a whole lot today aside from a few injections, but I think that's understandable on the first day. After all, they have no idea who I am, so why should they trust me to let me do things?

Even though I didn't personally do a whole lot, I followed the vets and nurses around all day, and actually learned a lot. The morning was full of surgeries (mostly spays and castrations, with a rabbit dental thrown in), a road traffic accident (which sadly we lost after battling all day to save this poor dog), and a bunch of regular consults (dogs, cats, and another rabbit!).

The vet I followed for most of the afternoon was really helpful and explained what he was doing, and let me see what he was seeing in the pet. I'm starting to put the pieces of the puzzles together, and when a vet calls for bloodwork on a pet, I'm beginning to see what they might be looking for. For example, when we did a urinalysis on a dog and the urine was dilute and had protein in it, a little lightbulb clicked in my head that thought *check protein:creatinine ratio* and sure enough, that's what the vet said next. I'm not sure off the top of my head be able to remember why I'm doing these things (specifically anyway - I know it has something to do with kidney function and whether the problem is in the kidney's ability to dilute or elsewhere), or what to do when the results came back, but I feel like the first step is at least knowing what tests to do when.

So while my feet are aching (being a student you forget how much standing up all day hurts!), I'm happy. I'm really glad we have to do clinical EMS, because as much as I would love to have more holidays (I mean really, who wouldn't?) I think that it's important that we're reminded why we're working so hard, and what's at the end of it all. :D

Tales of chocolate, long walks through the wilderness, and Marco Polo?

It's been awhile, again. Life seems to have gotten busier and busier since the last time I updated! Not much new has happened in the way of classes or practicals. We have had a few classes called 'Differential Diagnoses' classes, which is where we're presented with an animal and have to work out what's wrong with it. I do like these classes a lot, however, I wish there were more of them with less people in each. There are about 25 people in each class, so only 2 people get to take a history, and 2 more people get to do an exam on the animal. So I think having more opportunities like this, with fewer students would be helpful.

There has also been this annoying problem in classes recently. According to the powers that be, it is due to interference from the construction workers' walky-talkies from across the street, causing the speaker system in our lecture theatre to LOUDLY buzz on and off throughout our classes.

Now, I can understand if this happened once or twice. But it has been a MONTH, and still every morning our lectures are running late because the teachers can't speak over the noise of this stuff. Now, I don't know how long they've actually known this was the cause, but it seemed like it should have been dealt with before now, and every day it gets worse and worse, and the teachers are shouting over it and we still can't hear them. It is ridiculous. I can't even imagine how frustrated the professors must be, because I'm sure it throws off their concentration just as much as ours, and is incredibly disruptive to our learning.

Aside from that, life has been extremely good. I've been getting lots of studying done, and although I'm still way behind and need to do a lot more, I actually feel like I'm beginning to put the pieces together, and I feel a bit more confident so far in my studying than previously.

At the end of January, I went orienteering with Andrew again for an afternoon. This was an urban orienteering event within the city of Edinburgh, and it went all the way from Holyrood Park to Calton Hill. It was kind of nice because I got to see some parts of the city I hadn't been to before, and the views from Calton hill are really amazing.

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Punching the first control outside Dynamic Earth!

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I found another one!

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Punching the control on top of Calton Hill

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Then the first weekend of February, Anik joined us for a smaller orienteering event out at Lauriston Castle. I never even knew this place existed in Edinburgh, but it is really awesome! It's a small castle (more like a very large estate type of thing with a huge manor on it), and it also had a small Japanese garden on the property. Anik and I went around together, and even though we were walking most of the way, we managed to not come in last, and had a lot of fun!

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Oh, by the way, I dyed my hair brown!

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Lauriston Castle

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Anik punches a control!

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On Valentine's day, which also happened to be Andrew's and my 5th monthiversary, we didn't really make a huge deal over it in favour of doing something extra special for our 6-monthiversary next month. What I did do (because I can never just do nothing) was make a fondue dinner for Andrew and Anik and myself. First we had cheese fondue, and for dessert we had chocolate fondue. DELICIOUS. Probably took about 5 years off my life span, but it was totally worth it.

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The dessert spread!

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This was the result, oddly enough of Anik sitting on a raspberry the kitten had dropped and mushing it all over her bottom and the floor. Clearly the sugar had gotten to us at this point.

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And finally this past weekend, Andrew and I went orienteering again on Newtyle Hill, which is near Perth. This was the first time I'd done an event completely under my own orienteering skills, as Andrew did his own run. I would have done fairly well, at least in the average range, if I hadn't made a really dumb mistake at the very beginning of the course, and followed the wrong fence and got hopelessly lost for 10 minutes. I figured it out eventually, though, and managed to find all the controls, with only one other slight mishap, which was when I lost my SI card (the electric doo-hickey you use to punch the controls) in a large patch of bracken. But aside from that I did alright, and managed to not be last! I really do enjoy the orienteering thing, and I'm excited for our next adventure, which will be in 2 weeks!

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Sasquatch? or Andrew?

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Andrew getting warmed up

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View from the top of a particularly onerous hill to climb, but I made it up eventually!

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And, in my final patch of news for this entry, I have purchased a car! I decided that for practicality's sake, as well as to help open up more opportunities for doing EMS work, that having a car would be a good thing. So after searching around a bit I found this little approved-used VW, and went for a test drive with Andrew. And I decided to go for it! I am picking it up on Saturday!

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My little 2006 VW Polo, which I have decided to name 'Marco' (Get it? Marco? Polo? Hehehe)

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Tomorrow is my theory test, which I am completely prepared for. I read all the books I needed to read, did all the practice tests (and passed all, I might add), and I am raring to go! :)

Anyway, that's it for now. I will update you with more news if anything exciting happens!

** Update: I passed my theory test! (of course!).. Practical test is on the 5th of March.. so soon! **

Half-ish way through!

Hello everyone!

It's been awhile, I know. Life has taken off, and I'm once again busy as a bee with studying and all. So here's the updates since last time I wrote!

Exams: STILL haven't gotten the results back for any of the exams, which I'm disappointed at, but not horribly surprised. I have a feeling I'll be back in August for Clinical Foundations, but honestly I'll be somewhat happy if that's the case, because that's something I really feel like it would be incredibly useful to be forced to study it again this summer since it's all incredibly useful stuff. We'll see I guess!

Christmas: Christmas was fairly low-key, aside from the awful journey, which included a delayed flight, a missed flight, a night in London, three attempts at standby flights, and delayed luggage, before finally making it home. On Christmas eve we went to mass and then Anna Marie's house for dinner. It was very good, and nice to get to know her a bit more. Christmas day my dad and I went to visit my Nana to exchange gifts and say hello, and then went to my cousins house for the traditional Christmas meal. I also got to see my Kaity Lynne and her family. I've known them since 2nd grade, so it was really great to see them! And I FINALLY got a picture of her and I together! :)

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Me and my Nana!

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The very lovely dinner setup at my Aunt Jane's and Uncle Jimmy's

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My Kaity Lynne and my dad! Would you believe this is the FIRST picture I have of both Kaitlin and me?!

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I got to see my Pookie!

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I was only home for a week, which seemed a bit too short, especially with the delay in getting home, but I definitely enjoyed being home. I got back to Edinburgh in time for New Years with Andrew, which was really fun. We had a party at his place, and lots of his friends came over, and I got to see the traditional celebration of a New Year, with the proper singing of Auld Lang Syne!

The weekend before classes started up again, I went on a skiing trip up in the Cairngorm Mountains with Andrew and his friends Heather, Boney, Matt and Shugy. The record snowfall this year meant that we had absolutely perfect skiing conditions! I really love all of Andrew's friends, and it was a fun weekend!

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Boney and Andrew enjoying coffee and toast in the sitting room of our chalet.

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We got stuck in a queue for the mountain road while they cleared the snow off it. At least it was gorgeous!

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Our first view of the mountain!

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Andrew and I, ready to hit the slopes!

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View from the top of the mountain, at Scotland's highest restaurant.

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Most of the group - Heather, Matt, Me and Andrew!

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Loch Morlich, which is below the Cairngorms

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Standing on the frozen loch! (just on the edge, don't worry!)

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We found some ducks and fed them the rest of the bread we had.

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Matt trained them to jump up for bread and Andrew got creative with the camera!

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The skiing was quite different than skiing I've done on the east coast of the states, because there are hardly any trees, and there was quite a lot more powder than I'm used to. The second day was more windy, so it was a tad icier, which for whatever reason I'm more comfortable skiing on. Either way, it was gorgeous out, and I really enjoyed skiing and hanging out with everyone. There's something great about waking up the next morning being sore from a full day of skiing!

The weekend after classes started, we took a trip to London, to see Wicked! as a birthday present from my dad! Seeing it with the British cast was interesting, because while it was more or less the same show, the accents were so different! The singing was amazing though, and it was just as good as the US show!

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Trafalgar Square!

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Andrew and I in front of Buckinham Palace!

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Buckingham Palace at night!

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Getting excited to see Wicked!

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St. Paul's Cathedral from the Millenium Bridge

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Enjoying a bus tour!

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The Tower Bridge from our boat tour

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Sadly the London Eye was closed while we were there, but it was still cool to look at!

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Big Ben, the London eye, and part of the Abbey!

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In London we obviously didn't get to see everything, since we only had a weekend, but we got to see a lot! We stayed with Andrew's friend from uni, Sarah and her boyfriend Jon, both of whom were so nice and really helped us out by allowing us to stay. So aside from the pictures above, we went into the National Gallery, and saw lots of famous paintings by Monet, Renois, Degas, Seurat, and Van Gogh. It was cool to see the famous paintings in person! We also saw Shakespeare's Globe Theatre from the outside. We toured the Tower of London and saw the Crown Jewels within (sooo gorgeous and elaborate!). We saw the Covent Garden Market, took a bus tour and a river tour of the Thames.

Anyway, so then this past Friday night was our 'Halfway Dinner', which isn't really half-way through vet school for us, but it is for the 5 year students. Anyway, we all went to the dinner and had a lovely meal. The theme was 'A Night at the Oscars,' so some people were dressed as movie stars, and the rest were in evening wear. Dinner was followed by some fun awards, such as 'Most likely to be sued,' 'Most likely to be chased off a farm by an irate farmer,' 'Most like to come back in 10 years to sleaze on freshers' and things like that. Fortunately I wasn't nominated for anything, haha!

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I went as Marilyn Monroe with my kilted man! :)

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The two Marilyn Monroes

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Party people!

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Andrew and me

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I tried to play the part!

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Anyhoo, classes have been really interesting so far. A lot of it seems fairly straightforward, and we're actually learning to diagnose things and treat them, which is cool. So far we've done the GI tract and orthopedics. Next up is dentistry and opthamology!

Anyway, I've got a full day of class tomorrow, so away I go for some studying before bed!