Startling Realization...

I was thinking about it the other day, and I realized that I only have 4 exams left in my Veterinary Education. FOUR!! Holy crap!!!

I started Equine today, which hasn't been too bad, besides the fact that I know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about horses! But we have 2 exams on this block, and then I go to small animal surgery next where we have no exams. Then I have one REALLY BIG exam (national boards) which I will take sometime in early December, and state boards sometime in the spring. Then I'm done!

I didn't think I'd ever get to this point, but it's almost here!! 97 days and counting!

Other exciting news....My friend AJ (the pregnant one in the post below) had her baby today!! It's A GIRL!! Her name is Piper, and I'm not sure yet how much she weighed. But I'm so excited to see her! I'm stuck working Equine ICU tonight from 5pm-12:30am but I will definitely try to go see her tomorrow. Yay! =)

Ron on TV! (sorta..)

Last weekend Ron got a call from the CNBC TV show "On The Money" saying that they wanted to air a question he had submitted via email about our finances (ie- my student loan burden), and whether or not we should take on a mortgage. They called yesterday afternoon to record it, and it aired last night! I had no idea that it was a National TV show, I thought it was something local. We were at dinner last night, and a friend of mine called me and said "Did you know that Ron is on CNBC right now??".

He claims he didn't know when it would be airing...but I think that's just his modesty coming through! =)

Not to spoil it, but good news...they said we should go ahead with buying a house! Yay! We're planning to start looking in December, and will hopefully be in the house by May (when our lease is up).

Here's a link to the show: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=829736131
(and just FYI...since they pretty much put it all out there for the wide world, just wanted to let you know that the salary they label is our "estimated take home" after I get a job...not Ron's salary now! I wish!!).

Weekend in KC

I took advantage of the fact that all the Therio clinicians were going to a conference Wed-Fri of this week, and I took a Senior Day on Friday. With permission, we are allowed to take 5 "senior days" on clinics, where we are dismissed from clinics (usually it has to be a good reason, ie- national board exam, interviews, conference, etc). I told them I was going to shadow at a dentistry clinic in KC for the day. So I left for KC on Thursday evening and spent Friday morning at the Kansas City Companion Animal Dentistry Center. It was neat to see their practice and I saw some neat things while I was there.

That afternoon I went to see my friend Kim's baby, McKenna. She was born 2 weeks ago, and is an absolute doll!! I wanted to take her home with me, but Kim frowned upon that! =)

Here's a picture of us!

The next day we met up with Nichole and Scott in the Kansas City River Market for some coffee and then we walked around a bit. Here's a few pictures from that...

These pups were playing in the park for a while, and then the guy just plopped them into the basket and wheeled them away, they were adorable!

Scott & Nichole at the Coffee shop.



Ron and I at the Coffee Shop

We walked around a bit after that, down to the river and a got a couple of neat shots of the scenery there.

On Sunday evening Ron and I attended the memorial for our friend's Tim and Rachael's (Tim was the officiant that married us) baby Aurora. They unfortunatly lost little Aurora full term. It was very devastating news for all of us, and we continue to pray for them and their family.

Ouch!!

So I started the last leg of this block (it's a 6 week block, 2 weeks on Oncology, 2 on Ophthalmology, and 2 on Theriogenology). On Therio we do a lot of large animal reproduction stuff, and some small animal. Today we were sexing cow fetuses using an ultrasound probe in the rectum (yes, I went shoulder-deep in about 15 cows today, yay fun!). Well we were about 1/3 of the way done and there was a particularly feisty cow that didn't want to go into the chute. Our clinician was screaming for us to shut the gate, and I did it, but as I flung the latch, it pinched the thumb part of my palm REALLY BAD. I screamed and said a few chosen cursory words, but then I just wrapped it up with some paper towels and threw a glove over it. When we finished all the palpating (about 3 hours later), I finally took it off and my palm BLEW UP, it was so gross! (and not to mention incredibly painful!). So I decided to go to the doctor. He put a steristrip on it, and wrapped it up. He also gave me some good pain meds, which I plan to take in a few minutes and head to bed...

Here's a picture of the damage for your enjoyment!

Boring

I haven't updated in a while simply because it's been kinda boring around here!

The last couple of weeks I've been able to spend time in KC for the weekend since the current rotation I'm on isn't very demanding (but don't worry...I won't have a life starting September 1st!).

My good friend Lisa (Bell...now Burger), and her husband Scott, and their two adorable puppies Charlie & Wrigley came through KC on their way to Arizona a few weeks ago. It was great to see them, even if it was only for a night! The puppies got along well with Ryno (Sam stayed with Grandma & Grandpa Nelson), and I took pictures, but somehow they vanished from my memory card.

Not sure what happened there, but I do have one picture of Ryno after they left... poor guy was exhausted!

Ron and I went to the Royals-White Sox game last weekend and sat in the "All You Can Eat" Seats. I had gotten the tickets for him for our anniversary. The tickets include all you can eat drinks (non-alcoholic), hot dogs, popcorn, nachos, and peanuts. We definitely took advantage of all of that and were STUFFED by the 7th inning. Somehow the Royals managed to pull out a win, although they tried really hard to lose in the 8th inning.

Here we are at the game:

The seats were shaded, which was nice because I think it was about a million degrees out that day! So at least we were out of the direct sunlight.

I also got a few shots of Ken Griffey Jr...too bad he didn't do the Sox any good!! He picked the wrong Chicago team to be on this year, Go CUBBIES!!

I also helped throw a baby shower for my friend AJ. She's due in September and is still in school with me (what a trooper!!) She was in there with the rest of us wrangling cows on our food animal rotation with that big ol' belly!

The momma-to-be:

Isn't the cake adorable?!?!?

Here's a better picture of it:

All in all it was a great shower, and a fun weekend.

Right now I'm currently finishing the Opthalmology portion of the rotation I'm on, and then I go on to Theriogenology next week. (That's reproduction....how fun it will be to play with semen and artificial insemination!).

At the end of this month I start Equine, and then Surgery, both of which are EXTREMELY busy and I will likely not have any time to even go to KC for a weekend. But then I'm done...I just keep telling myself "4 more months...4 more months..."

Love you all, hope all is going well!