Basket Case

Do you have the time
To listen to me whine
About nothing and everything
All at once
I am one of those
Melodramatic fools
Neurotic to the bone
No doubt about it

Sometimes I give myself the creeps
Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me
It all keeps adding up
I think I'm cracking up
Am I just paranoid?
Or I'm just stoned?

-Green day, "Basket Case"

Board exams have come upon us and my entire class is twitchy beyond twitchiness. Only about 3-4 people can write the exam each day between now and December 8th and it's a single 6 hour exam with 360 questions. You get breaks in between but still. Even if I had the knowledge (which I don't) I'm not sure I have the stamina.

Everyone's had at least one breakdown (with a majority of them occurring at school while on an ICU case with the new emergency critical care/ICU vet . . . coincidence?) and our significant others are all looking forward to the end of our exam as much we are.

Poor Gabe is suffering with me as he's received many a random phone call at night with me bawling going, "And and I'm going FAIL! THERE'S JUST TOO MUCH TO KNOW! I'm STUPID!!! I'm not smart like I used to be! MY BRAIN'S FULL AND IT'S GOING TO MUSH!"

Fortunately, I have him trained well and he lied to me and told me I was frickin brilliant and asked if anything else was wrong in my life.
"AND *sniffle* I'M FAT AND MY SKIN HAS GONE TO HELL AND I LOST ONE OF MY FAVORITE RED MITTENS AND *sob* THE CAT ATE MY RICE CRACKERS!"
*proceeds to go into hysterics*

How he manages to listen to me without bursting out laughing, I'll never know.

Anyhow, I write on November 22nd which is exactly 10 days from today.

So far, my curse of having the memory of a goldfish is NOT HELPING. I read one hting and learn it well for a day and then promptly forget it as my brain gets filled with something else. It's a bit ridiculous though as I'm expected to know EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING.

It's not even that there's different stuff for different species to know. It's that even within the species, there's tons of difference as in, "Which of the following 5 random dog breeds is not known to develop pulmonary stenosis?"

And then the next question could be totally on a different species like "A frog comes in with a history of lethargy and innappetance. You do a physical exam and notice it has red legs. What is your diagnosis and treatment?"

Or, my favorite, "A cow presents with a history of decreased milk production and decreased feed intake. It has pain around the xiphoid area and grunts when pressure is applied between the withers . . ."
And I'm sitting there going, "OOHH! That's reticulopericarditis! I KNOW THE ANSWER! YES! FINALLY!" But then the question continues, " . . . You diagnose the cow with reticulopericarditis. Which of the following is the NOT a treatment option?"

"Oh sh*t. I don't know."

And so on and so forth. It's been a humbling experience. I guess it's taught me that there's a lot I know but there's still a ton I have yet to learn. Random stuff about snakes with neurologic signs and "which species of bacteria causes the most pathology is fish around the world?" and stuff like that. I'm not sure I'll ever learn it all.

Meanwhile, stupid stuff like renewing my passport, parking passes, class funds, groceries, rent and food and what not have dwindled my bank account to a pitiful state. Not like I had any money left after Palau anyways and everything I got from student loans was put directly to the university to pay my tuition.

I'm in desperate need of a new winter jacket as mine has holes in the pockets and the inner lining is completely shredded to bits. I get pitiful stares whenever I take it off and reveal the inner lining or when I try to pull my keys out of my pocket and it gets caught in the holes and ends up dragging my whole pocket lining out. I guess I've had the same one for about 5 years now. This will be its 5th, if not 6th, winter with me.

I also consider myself in dire need of a new ipod. My little mini ipod has finally died a sweet death on me and works only when it wants to and even then, some of the buttons don't always work and the battery lasts 5 minutes and then dies. How am I supposed to walk to school or study without my music?!

I've been tossing the idea around for a while and theoretically, I can't afford either one right now, but if I were to get one, the ipod is winning out over the new winter coat.
Priorities, priorities.

The deans are having a meeting with us on Wednesday to discuss what they are going to do with us as the strike is still raging on and apparently (I overheard the profs talking but who knows if this is true or not), our medical oxygen tanks are running low at school so we don't know how much longer we can hold out.

I have a horse I need to anesthetize tomorrow so that should make things interesting as they need 10ml of oxygen/kg/minute and this horse is 445kg. That's 4.4 L/minute for two, maybe three hours. Fun times.

In the meantime, I am off to cram as much parasitology into my brain and as many arrowroot cookies into my mouth as possible before 3:30pm as I'm on ICU/anesthesia call till 11pm after that. I volunteered myself cus I'm a masochist and no one else would do it cus today's a long weekend monday and theoretically, none of us should have been on call.


And so I bid you all good day.
And quick! What are five causes of polyuria/polydipsia in a dog?

No worries. I don't know either.