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Holy Crap on a Ritz Cracker 8/7/2005

By hollywood | Posted in • News

Wow. I’ve had a rollercoaster ride for the last few months. I really truly am trying to get back into things here but life has gotten in the way. Let’s see…

Started a new job
Started school
Got in a car accident
Finished school for summer
Hathyr gets a car from her Mom
Her Mom gets sick
Find out that some friends of mine now have a kid together
Kid has some sort of disorder that can be treated
Find out that another friend of mine has Marfan’s syndrome and her kid probably has it too
Went to Mexico for a family reunion/Grandad’s 75th birthday
Hathyr immediately leaves to Boston for a week
I have Jury duty and end up getting picked and even worse it is a long case and I’m in for the duration (2-3 weeks!)

The new job is good. I aced both of my classes in school. The car accident sucked ass as there was $3000 worth of damage. The body work has been done but there are still problems, like the powerstearing no longer works so it drives like a truck. So I still have to get that taken care of. I also had to pay a $500 deductable which I may take the kid that caused the accident to court to get that back as I wasn’t at fault. Want to know the stupid thing about insurance? You are better off getting hit by a driver with no insurance than one with lousy insurance. It is CA state law that your insurance has to pay in full, no deductable, for accidents caused by noninsured drivers.

Hathyr goes home to pick up the car from her Mom and then it turns out her mom has something weird going on with her blood and she gets admitted to the hospital. We still aren’t sure what is going on but she appears to be doing okay. Meanwhile Hathyr visits the old vet clinic she and I worked at and find most of the old crew still there. Two of them now have a kid together (which is funny because she didn’t seem like the idea of having kids). Their kid has some sort of condition which fortunately is treatable. Another person who works there recently found out she has Marfan’s syndrome, which can be fatal, and had to undergo openheart surgery. Her baby, now a few years old, appears to be okay but it is a genetic problem and her kid could still have it. It has run in her family and never went diagnosed.

The day that Hathyr returned I left for Mexico. Coincidentally this was also the same day as my final for my class, which was only a few hours earlier in the evening. Our pets are so confused. I drove down to meet one of my Uncle’s in San Jose (2 hour drive from Sacramento). We then drove to San Diego to meet up with my Mom and my other Uncle and his two kids (my youngest cousins) and then took rental cars across the border. You have to be careful to make sure to get all the proper paperwork done for driving into Mexico with a rental as they are stolen often.

Mexico is pretty much what I expected it to be, at least what parts of it I saw, which was Baja. An incredibly poor wasteland. Think of what they show you on TV of the gaza strip, for example. It has that built up but never finished and then torn down but never quite torn down look. Not quite post-apocolyptic but pretty damn close. Anyway, he lives in a very well-to-do area in a gated community. I almost felt embarrassed to be there as the difference between poverty and wealth is startling. I always had the feeling like I was in Cuba before the revolution and everyone around was going to rise up and try to take some of what they didn’t have.

Anyway, my Grandfather’s home is nice enough to forget where you are and it has a nice view of the ocean. He hadn’t changed much, he was just older, which I think we would have been happily surprised if he had changed and say, mellowed with age but alas that is not the case. However nice it was I was happy to return back to the old US of A. For all the bullshit politics we have here, at least you know there is bullshit politics protecting you. All I could imagine was something like drug sniffing dogs finding that the previous person to rent our car had packed cocaine or something in there and I’d end up spending the next 10 years in a Mexican prison. By the way, I have no plans of ever going back. No, it wasn’t an aweful experience it was just something I have no desire to return to.

So after 13 hours of driving (from Sacramento to just a bit south of Ensenada, MX) two days of no sleep, a big birthday party and then some relaxing, all of which is a big haze as I can’t remember what happened what day due to lack of sleep, we drove home (13 hours back). I also found out that my youngest Uncle’s best friend died sort of tragically which saddened me as I liked him a lot and remember him fondly from when I was a kid. I couldn’t believe it but about 8 miles from my house I really started to lose it as I was almost falling asleep on the road. You might ask why I didn’t fly, and that is a good question. I hate flying and will only do it when I absolutely have to. Funnily enough, I probably have more miles in flying than most people. I also find it strange that while I hate flying, I love airplanes. Weird.

So I finally get back and go to bed for a few hours (got home at 1a) and the next morning Hathyr leaves for Boston. I go to work the next day and get what I can get done in a very sleepy haze. The next day I show up for Jury duty and get picked. Now I’m serving for the next few weeks. Grrr… It is however interesting when it isn’t boring as hell. Nothing like you see on TV. The worst part though is that I don’t know if my job will pay me while I’m serving. $15/day + mileage doesn’t pay the bills.

Later this evening Hathyr gets home. I might be going out to the CA Extreme show with a friend in San Jose, but the later it gets the less likely that is going to happen. The fun doesn’t yet end as I still have to get my car finally fixed, Hathyr’s car seems to be having brake issues.

Anyway, it has been interesting but exhausting. Hopefully things will return to some sanity soon. However, fall classes are starting in a few weeks and I have to find a way to manage my time around them. I guess that is what it comes down to and that is my biggest problem. I’m lousy at it.

So, yes, I will hopefully return to writing articles, making some adjustments to articles that folks have asked for, updating pmachine to expressionengine and updating the layout of the site and generally be more responsive to email… I think I need an assistant. Seems easier than figuring out that time management thing. I wish!

Oh, quicky reviews, mostly late:
Movies/TV:
Star Wars III: Sucks donkey balls!
Kung Fu Hustle: WOW!
Battlestar Galactica S2: Neato!

Music:
Weezer’s newest: Great!
Louis XIV: Awesome!
Bright Eyes neweset: Get it!

More to come soon!!

-hollywood

Things I’ve Learned Thus Far in Vet School: Volume VI

By hathyr | Posted in • General

Well, I’m about 2 weeks into my last summer vacation EVER! That’s a very sad thought. I just finished my second year of vet school, and this past quarter was not too bad. I had enough free time to play polo every week, and even some weekends (and by the way, in the MvsR Gallery there is a section from a couple of polo tournaments. See if you can find me!). I had more than 7 days in a row that I did not have to study for exams. I got to spend my evenings watching much more TV than I have in a while. So, all-in-all, it was a pretty good quarter. I took way more classes at once than I have ever taken before; something like eleven or twelve. But some of them were ½ quarter classes, so I didn’t take more than 6 or so at a time. And I still managed a higher GPA this quarter than I have seen since the good old days at Hartwick. It’s also getting more interesting, because we are starting some medicine courses that teach how to recognize, diagnose and treat various diseases. So I learned all sorts of stuff on cardiac and respiratory systems of dogs and cats. Unfortunately, though it is incredibly interesting to me, it doesn’t translate well into sound-bite type stuff that works well in this format, so most of that stuff won’t be included here. We also had some interesting classes like Toxicology, Zoonoses and Food Safety, which produce lots of interesting factoids; I just hope to remember them.

This summer I am doing research again. It is a project that was proposed by my sister (an epidemiologist) and I had to apply for a grant and everything. It should be good, I am really interested in it, but people’s eyes tend to glaze over when I talk about it, so I’ll take the hint and not go into detail here. It probably won’t make good MVSR article material, but I will be trying to publish it in a scientific journal when it’s done.

Anyway, I’ll stop rambling now, and get on with it!

I have a confession to make. I had never read the James Herriot books until this year. So I finally started reading the series, and I discovered that the clients are all the same. The Herriot books take place in the 1930s and 1940s, and the people complain about the same thing, obsess over the same stuff, and are just as loony as they are now. It is very reassuring. I feel like maybe the world is not going crazy . . . naw, it probably is. I think someone should create a TV show all about the crazy side of vet practice, so that the general public understands exactly what we put up with, and why we are so happy when a levelheaded, rational person walks into the hospital.

I learned to intubate and anesthetize a dog this year; I placed my first endotracheal tube, and catheterized my first dog. It was cool. Next year comes spay and neuter surgeries!

I learned some interesting stuff from our Food Safety instructor. Like that he doesn’t advise washing vegetables or fruits, because it doesn’t do any good anyway. And that washing something like a raw turkey in the sink just aerosolizes the pathogens and you increase your exposure to nasty bacteria. Oh, and that mayonnaise is really so acidic that not much grows in it, even at room temperature, and that its not really the cause of all the food poisoning that people say it is. I still refrigerate my mayonnaise and wash my veggies. I guess I didn’t learn much.

I learned some interesting things in Toxicology. I always knew that Oleander leaves were toxic, but I never realized that as few as 10 leaves can knock down a cow or horse in a very short amount of time. I then discovered that there are Oleanders growing all around my apartment complex. Oh, and that one woman managed to kill multiple husbands by brewing Oleander tea, and that some frat boys ran out of wood during a BBQ and scrounged up some old leaves that they had lying around and used them for fuel. There was enough Oleander oil in the smoke produced that it soaked into the burger they were cooking and one person died. Also, Macadamia nuts appear to be slightly toxic to dogs. If they eat enough of them, it causes vomiting and some other problems, but it’s reversible. Sago Palm however, can be lethal in small doses. One or two nuts can kill a small dog. And don’t feed old dairy products with mold on them to your dog; the molds can produce tremorgens, which can produce tremors and seizure-like activity in dogs. Also, some grain molds make vomitoxin, which does exactly what it says it does.

The scariest thing that I learned from tox was that there are blue-green algae that can produce such a potent toxin that a small amount of ingested algae can kill a dog in about a half hour. So don’t let your dog go swimming in scummy, stagnant water, because there is nothing a vet can do once the dog is symptomatic. Usually they die before they manage to get to a vet. Also, if you are into herbal remedies, be very careful about any algae supplements you take. A lot of that stuff is collected from one lake in Oregon, and it is not regulated at all. You cannot tell just by looking at blue-green algae whether it is the type that produces these toxins (and there are multiple ones). You have to look at the algae microscopically and test for the specific toxins. And like I said, there is no regulation on this stuff right now, but you can bet the first people to die will bring it on.

Boxer dogs, as a breed, are prone to some of the worst diseases. Beyond the mast cell tumors and lymphoma, which they get with alarming frequency, they even have a type of heart disease named after them: Boxer cardiomyopathy. One of the symptoms is sudden death. So if you are going to get a Boxer, know which diseases the breed gets (this holds true for all purebred dogs) and make sure your breeder has screened the parents for them.

Zoonoses are a fun topic. For instance, did you know that cats get rabies more than dogs now? It’s because people are more likely to vaccinate their dogs than their cats. So vaccinate your cat for rabies, even if indoors because bats and other wild potentially rabid animals can get indoors. Just ask Hollywood, he had a (presumed) rabid possum invade his basement and knock on his kitchen door once. And plague is endemic to the Lake Tahoe region of CA and NV, and it can infect your cat (via a squirrel/chipmonk flea) and then if it becomes respiratory (pneumonic plague) it can be passed to people. In fact, you can get much scarier things from cats than you can from dogs and reptiles combined. Birds can give you a couple of scary diseases, but you usually have to be immune compromised to get them.