Stress, stuff that makes it better, and my crazy life continued...

This blog has been quiet, because I have been "laser focused" (ha, ha, that's a gem from my old days in the corporate world) on school. When I'm not at school, I'm either going there or coming back from there, or sitting in my apartment making flashcards and memorizing something super nerdy and science-y. Like how long it takes for Propofol to kick in, and how it's administered, and whether or not you can top it off. (30-60 seconds, IV via catheter, and yes.. yes you can.) Or how you can tell the difference between a reactive lymphocyte and a prorubricyte, should you be looking through a microscope at a blood smear which includes both. Or what antibiotics are unsuitable to give to rabbits. And other fun stuff.

So, basically, my program has stolen my life, and I've become a total recluse. Two weeks ago, I was out the door at 6 am to be at school bright and early to do exams on all of our group animals and report the results to the vets in rounds. The weekend after that, I was at school for twelve hours each day in the kennels and in the barns, taking care of all our school animals. Last week, I was out the door at 5 am to be at school to supervise the first year students as they did their kennel and barn duties. And, in between, I was studying and reviewing while drinking umpteen cups of coffee and trying to get my anxiety in check, because last week I also sat four practical evaluations.

Random stuff that I had to do that will determine my promotability in the program:

• Put together an anesthetic circuit based on a random scenario given to me, and answer a ton of questions about drugs, duration of action, planes of anesthesia, safety, and patient monitoring in a nerve-racking 15 minute oral exam.
• Pull a team and a scenario out of a hat and work together to on a particular radiograph, position the patient correctly, manually develop correctly, and answer a series of questions about small animal x-ray studies and anatomy.
• Read a bunch of urine and blood slides within a certain margin of accuracy and a certain timeframe, identifying a bunch of hard to identify cells for our intimidating as hell Clinical Pathology professor who doesn't tell you if you got them right or not, and mostly just says "Hmmmm. ok..." and scribbles stuff down in her notes, rattling your confidence further.
• Do a subcutaneous injection on a guinea pig, give an oral dose to a hamster, and hold a rat in the iron grip medical restraint for an intra-peritoneal injection. These were all randomly pulled out of a hat too. I could have picked a mouse or a rabbit, and various other weird lab animal science skills.

I was mostly too exhausted to be as nervous and anxiety-ridden as I usually would have in these scenarios. And most went well, except for the blood and urine slide reading, which I strongly suspect I fucked up, and will be spending some extra time with the teacher on over the holidays. Which, hopefully they let me. I've been kicking ass in the theory portion of her class and usually do well when I'm not panicking in a timed laboratory examination, so here's hoping that counts for special consideration.

And, I am really proud of myself, no matter what the results. Because I am doing it. I am getting it done. I am working hard, and I am out of my comfort zone, and I am four months away from finishing. And it's probably the toughest thing I've ever done in my life, trying to juggle school, and studying, and two jobs, and my own pets, and pretty much doing everything independently since I live alone and don't have much help.

I changed my Facebook status during this week to indicate something about me trying to get through my week of practical evaluation hell, and got a lovely email as a result from Michael, who is one of the boys at the street kids orphanage in Kampala where I volunteered last year, asking me how my practicals were going and sending me the best. Which, honestly, made my day. My month, really. And more important made me step outside my little drama and think about how big the world is, but also how small, and how we are all connected. Facebook is good for that, I guess. Anyway, it made me stress a lot less.

The practicals are done, there's no changing the results, so next is focusing on written exams, which I think I can nail...and looking forward to almost three whole weeks off where I can reconnect with myself, my own pets, my friends, my family, and my old life.

In other news:

• My parents bought a new house and are moving December 15th. They've lived at their current house since I was seven years old and have talked about moving for the past twenty years. They found their dream home about a month ago, pulled the trigger and are now in panic mode as they have to pack up and unpack in record time. Christmas will be at the new house this year. Crazy.
• The Toronto Humane Society finally got busted. Tim Trow, the crazy president, and some senior management, including the head vet are charged with animal cruelty. The OSPCA is investigating. The media coverage has been totally sensational, and noone knows what the outcome is going to be.
• Sue, my oldest friend and the one who knows me better than almost anyone, is pregnant and expecting in June! I'm so happy for her that I actually squealed, and then almost cried when she told me. I'll be writing my RVT licensing exam and she's going to be delivering a baby boy or girl into the world - so much to look forward to in June 2010!

And I think that's all I have time to care about for the next little while... Expect some more updates now that I have some more time.

Fun times in the Vet Tech program

This week in one of my labs, one of my professors devised a game called she dubbed 'Basophil Boot Camp'. She distributed cards to the class - a blue card for "Basophil", and a red one for "Not A Basophil". And then we spent a good half an hour going through a powerpoint presentation she'd prepared - we'd all look at an image and then have five seconds to hold up a card depending on what we thought of the leukocyte on the slide. Basophil or Not A Basophil?

Cell identification - exciting stuff. When most of the class got the answer right, our professor would break out into a huge grin and say "Yaaaaaaaaaay! That's right! That IS a basophil!" and we thought she might explode with happiness. She loves her cells, all right. Her level of enthusiasm...? A little over the top, perhaps since we are talking about white blood cells here, but good for her for making it fun.

Anyway, this is an example of how I spend my days at school, and what I'm learning.

In the last week in addition to surviving 'Basophil Bootcamp' I also:

• Gave an IM and a subcutaneous injection to a Beagle cadaver.
• Manually and automatically processed an x-ray
• Correctly identified round worm eggs in a fecal float

Cooooool.

Social Dynamics

In the Veterinary Technician Program Class of 2010 at Seneca there are 97 students. 94 of them are women, ages ranging from eighteen to probably about forty, with the majority being in the eighteen to twenty three group. From the third day, I began to realize what a problem this could be. Because girls, together, can be mean. Remember high school? Yeah. So this is kinda similar.

Most of these girls are from small town Ontario - Kitchener, Cambridge, Aurora. These are the horse/large animal people, usually. Live on a farm, work at local stables, have been riding since childhood. Other girls are from GTA suburbs like Mississauga, Newmarket, Vaughan, Richmond Hill, & Markham. Lots of them work in clinics already and cop a bit of a "I know everything there is to know about working in a vet clinic" attitude. Some have exotic/pocket pets at home like ferrets, snakes, rats and talk about them constantly. A few people came into this program with a few friends, but most people - me included - entered it not knowing anyone. And, similar to high school, girls seem to make friends with other girls by deciding who they don't like and banding together against that person. Bonding over how annoying they are, which includes everything from how they speak, what they say, how they dress, how they walk & who they hang out with. If you join in the bashing, you've made a friend. It's pretty ruthless.

And this is not to say that there aren't some truly annoying people in the program. Absolutely there are. But so what? That's life. You won't like everyone you meet. Must every second be about talking about how much we don't like them? I have managed to make a few friends of the non-bitchy variety. I'm not really there to make friends, although in college one needs to have a few friends handy, since nearly everything is about "group work".

Two of my friends are immigrants to Canada and at the older end of the age range spectrum. Patricia is from Brazil. Most of her family still lives there. She lives in Etobicoke with her husband and her jack russell terrier. She works part time at a Dollarama, for $8.75 an hour. She takes public transit two and half hours one way to get to school...and I thought my commute was bad. Everyone in her Kennel Duty group thinks she is stupid and can't speak English and therefore, they hate her. Patricia is probably smarter than they are, and although she speaks with an accent, her English is just fine. She's the nicest lady, ever, and the fact that she's being bullied by rich early twenty-something students whose mommies and daddies are paying for their schooling, transportation, and living expenses makes me crazy. When Patricia and I bonded over the social weirdness that is our program this year, on a long bus ride home, I thought she was going to cry because she was so grateful that someone else understood and shared her feelings.

Derrix is from China, where he was a full blown veterinarian. Which is quite different in China, in that they work mostly with production animals like swine and cattle. Veterinary clinics, as we know them here, are pretty much non-existant. Derrix has been in Canada for only 2 years - he's got a wife, and a daughter, and they live in the Victoria Park and Finch area. Derrix's English is pretty abysmal - he translates everything into Mandarin in order to understand. He misses test dates, and other important announcements, because they're said too fast for him to translate and write down. He relies heavily on other students to help fill him in, and explain assignments, terms and concepts. When he speaks, you have to ask him to repeat himself several times - simply because the pronunciation is off and his accent is so thick. But he's out there, and he's trying. I can only imagine how difficult it is for him. He handles the animals somewhat roughly, because that's what he's used to in China. He has no pets of his own - his family simply can't afford them. He barely understands the concept of animals as companions: once, while we were together in the school's computer lab and I showed him some photos I had online of Siris, he remarked that I must "have a deep feeling" for my dog, which I thought was really cute. What an adjustment for him, culturally. Many of my classmates are impatient with Derrix, because it takes him so long to understand what's being asked, and he needs so much help, and admittedly, it can be taxing. Sometimes I get the feeling I'm going to school for the both of us, he can be so high maintenance. But I admire what he's doing, and hey, the man needs help, and it's not like it's that hard to offer it. Sometimes I don't know what's wrong with people.

To be honest, I'm not sure if either Derrix or Patricia will survive the two years. Derrix, from an academic perspective - he's not doing too well on assignments and tests because of the language barrier and he may not pass the required courses to advance in the program. Which sucks, because concept-wise, the guy knows his shit. He just doesn't know it in English. Patricia, from an emotional standpoint, may end up dropping out, if she continues to be bullied and targetted by mean girls. Her confidence is low, and I hope she'll have the strength to continue and rise above the immaturity that runs so rampant when 94 young women are thrown into close quarters.

Survival of the fittest. High school redux. Me, I'm concentrating on the learning, and on being a decent human being. Doing well academically, staying out of the drama and amassing good karma along the way are my goals for the next couple of years, and I'm gonna try to stay focused.