Home

Well, I came home after a year of adventure. I am also sorry to say I came home with thin blood and absolutely no tolerance for the cold anymore. I'm such a wimp. I am ashamed.

My cat was extremely glad to see me, and I suppose my parents were too! However, I cried most of the way home. I made life-friends in Texas and it was sad to leave them. I kept telling myself I'll be back in March for Leslie's wedding, but it won't be soon enough. If only I could transplant all the people and the sanctuary in the middle of nowhere, MN it'd be perfect. I learned so much from everyone there, and I wish them well.

I'm currently enjoying (somewhat frustratingly) the peace and quiet. I went from such a hectic life to the holidays that it's been quite a shock. I've taken up running again because I am guaranteed not to pass out due to heat exhaustion here. The wind may burn my lungs but I'm ok with that. There's little snow here to my dismay but hopefully that will pick up soon. And for all of you that complain about snow... just move somewhere that doesn't have it! Let those of us who love and cherish snow live here and NOT have other people ruining it for us.

I'm looking for jobs as well as waiting to hear from vet school. I should know if I get an interview sometime this month so most of my plans are on pause until then. I'll seriously start searching come January. If I don't get in, I hear there might be a job for me lined up back in Texas... I'll keep you posted! For now, I will continue the blog, but can't guarantee anything exciting as darting a mountain lion will happen again, but you never know. Hope you are all doing well and miss you all bunches. If you're near the Twin Cities, we should get together!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

I fed a turkey on turkey day. It was was pretty much the epitome of irony. Classic. We actually got the turkey who was rescued on Thanksgiving day from slaughter. This turkey was so overfed that he can't hold his wings tucked to his body like normal. His fat pads are in the way. If he had been slaughtered, he would have been about a 30 lb. (12kg) turkey. Oh the people who went hungry. :)

Well, other than that, my Thanksgiving was pretty quiet and fun. A bunch of us who were stuck on property for the holiday had a potluck dinner. Tons of really good food and good company. I then had to rush over to Dee's house because I was house-sitting while she was off camping on the coast. I then proceeded to snuggle up to her bull mastiff, german shepherd, and rottweiler and watch a marathon of Friends Thanksgiving episodes. It was awesome.

The past few days have been pretty neat animal-wise. I was in charge of the vet clinic on Thursday afternoon, Friday, and Saturday since the veterinarian and vet tech had the days off. I got to see all the patients myself and I didn't feel overwhelmed. I actually felt like the beginnings of a veterinarian myself! On my day off yesterday I spent the day at Kendall County Equine clinic. We had a very busy day artificially inseminating 14 cows, looking at a cow who got an infection after giving birth, x-raying a dog for puppies, and treating a pig with a prolapsed rectum. It was so fun to get away from the wildlife world and work on animals that don't need sedation to work on them.

I then spent last night going to the new Twilight movie. Mock me if you'd like but I go solely for the entertainment value. This one has lots of awesomely awkward moments to laugh at. I then spent the night at my friend April's place and spent the morning baking with her. I'm now at the library chilling out and soaking up the quiet. Friday should be fun because I believe the vet and vet tech have something planned for my birthday. Monday I have a huge going away party planned as well so I keep teetering between excitement at the prospect of going home and seeing my family, cats, and SNOW, and tears and depression for having to leave this amazing place. I've learned so much here and I wish I could move the entire property north to be closer to my family and get out of this horrid heat. But I have to stay positive and take the next step forward in my life.

I'm applying for vet tech jobs back home while waiting to hear from vet school. I should be notified if I get an interview at the end of December. Wish me luck! After that I'm pretty much winging it. But look where that got me before. With my record of Germany and then Texas I'll most likely end up in China next (or France to visit Jenny!). Miss you all tons and I'll get to see some of you soon!

Shadowing and Job Applications

The last few weeks have been a rollercoaster of ups and downs. Since it has calmed down enough at work where I get 2 full days off a week without being on call or having to do the produce run, I've taken to shadowing. This means I follow Dr. Nichols and his vet tech Kara on their out-calls for the Kendall County Equine Center. I've helped out with floats, lameness checks, routine vaccinations, a horse who contracted tetanus, and a colicked horse. It's been such a great experience and I feel I'm learning tons. Hopefully this week I can assist in darting a pig and trimming his hooves.

I don't know how, but we're getting the most unusual animals in the clinic. The species themselves are not unusual, only their timing. We got a hatchling nighthawk in the other night, and it's November. This should not be happening until April! We also got in 3 baby rats and several neonatal opossums. It's crazy. I'm not sure if it's the drought that's affecting the animals or maybe they know something that we can't possibly predict weather-wise. Cross your fingers for us to have rain. They've predicted storms on Monday night and we desperately need them.

Down-side, it seems every primate on property has gone crazy as well. Dee and I had 3 back to back days of primate emergencies. We had a long-tail macaque climb over his enclosure into another troop's enclosure. They proceeded to beat him up and we had to go in, dart him, and address his wounds. Easier said than done. He decided to climb the highest tree to get away from us, we finally managed to get a dart into him, and then he fell 20 feet. Thankfully he didn't break anything in the process. We sutured many layers of muscle and ligaments in his arm, and lacerations to his tail and skull. The next day we had a ruffed lemur escape his enclosure. The next day an introduction went badly and a very large pig-tail macaque ripped off the tail of a very tiny ex-pet rhesus macaque. We had to amputate a good portion and suture her back up.

Crazy! I hope you are all well and having fun with your autumns. It feels like summer in Minnesota today, 80s and breezy. Here's a few pictures for you to enjoy as well. Love and miss you all.

Pictures!

So, this blog entry is really an excuse to show off tons of pictures. Enjoy!

Denglish

Last week I got to visit a friend from Germany. He's doing an internship at Fossil Gate Farms outside of Dallas, TX. I felt that a 5 hour drive was worth it, since I'd normally have a 13 hour plane ride to endure to see him. It was a great visit! He worked on Tuesday so I went to Dallas and spent time at the Botanical Gardens. They were gorgeous and full of... not flowers. It was about 65 degrees and really windy, so most of the gardens were in autumn mode. There were pumpkins lining all the paths and there were colorful hastas galore. I've put up my favorite picture, and of course, it involves an animal! I then was really lazy and ordered pizza to my hotel room while watching a Big Bang Theory and Law and Order SVU marathon. I got to talk to my friend Allison for almost an hour which was amazing seeing as she's in China and our internet on both ends have been so spotty.

The next day, I picked up Clemens at his ranch and we went into Dallas for the day. Apparently Texas does rodeos best because the State Fair we went to was not packed, not very big, and only had the basic foods fried and they were not all on a stick. Sigh. Not the same as the Minnesota State Fair at all. Oh well. It was awesome to spend time with Clemens and speak Denglish. He tried to speak English the whole time and I tried to speak German the entire time. If we forgot a word or two, we'd switch into our home languages. It involved a lot of miming, laughing, and staring from other people.

Baby season is finally starting to slow down. At one point I think I calculated we had over 200 baby raccoons and someone just told me we have 8. 8! We're not getting in any new babies, almost all our new arrivals are injured raptors coming in from their migrations. Most of my days have been spent in surgeries now. It's been pretty good practice. Well, I'm off for a fun day of shopping for Halloween! A bunch of us are going to Austin (the southern version of Madison for Halloween) and we're dressing up as Miss America contestants. We're from all over the country, and I'm going to represent as Miss Minnesota. It'll be great fun. Hope your Halloweens are going to be fun-filled! Miss and love you all.

Sara

Companion Animals and Unusual Intake

Wow, it has been a very long time since my last blog update. I'm horrible! Well, this one should be quite long, so brace yourselves.

I've officially completed my application to the University of Minnesota Veterinary Program. I don't hear back from them until December if I get an interview, but cross your fingers I do! I had 3 great references, so I should have a decent chance of making an interview. Let's hope.

A few weeks ago I had a whirlwind of a week. I worked almost 70 hours in one week, but it was super fun. We were getting ready for an open house at the sanctuary for all our members. The members could come to the center, get tours of the clinic where we rehabilitate animals, as well as tour our sanctuary where we have many unusual permanent residents such as large cats, primates, and wolves. It was a race to get everything spotless before people came, and we had no vet staff. I was alone all weekend and had to look after all the critical animals myself. Not only that, but I was in charge of the adoption table at the open house. And I got one of our dogs adopted! He's a catahoula/heeler mix and very sweet. We just neutered him 2 days ago, and he's going home this weekend! I'm so excited for him.

Not only did we run around looking like our heads were cut off, the fates decided on top of the open house we had to have a storm hit us the night before. A tree fell over onto our neighbor's llama in the night and she wasn't found until morning. For the past 3 weeks we've been manually lifting her in a sling to get circulation to her legs. We hoped every day she would finally stand on her own. She was making such good progress and trying to put weight on her legs. 2 days ago she tried a bit too hard. We now suspect she had a hairline fracture, but the extra weight at a weird angle snapped her back right leg (femur) in half. Unless her owner decides to send her to Texas A&M for surgery and 2 months of rehabilitation, she's going to have to be put down. I'm devastated and haven't had a good day since. It seems like we've had too many death days recently, and I really didn't want her to be on our list as well. She's so sweet and I've invested so much of my own time and energy into her. Whatever is decided, I hope she was happy her last few weeks with us.

On a happier note, I'm to be published in the journal of Physical Chemistry!! My research professor and advisor from UMD submitted a paper that I helped with the initial research. Along with my friend Kelsey, we are all to be co-authors of a paper on Entropy Production in Lattice Gas Networks. I'm so stoked you can google my name in a month and have my paper pop up!

I hope you are all doing well and enjoying your autumn. It's finally starting to cool down here, and by that I mean not in the 90s for the majority of our week. We still get the occasional warm day, but most of our days are quite nice in the 80s and sometimes even the low 70s! It gets in the 50s at night which is awesome for sleeping. I'm going to be such a wimp when I go home in December and it's freezing. Miss you all and as always, I love hearing what's going on in your lives.

Love always.

I'm back!

Well, I've been back in Texas for over a week now. When I did come back, I was sorely missed and it showed. I had to whip the vet room (and part of the clinic) back into shape. We're having an open house October 1st so I've been cleaning non-stop today. I have a feeling I should get used to it for a while :)

This is going to be quick so everyone knows I'm still alive. I had a wonderful time home and actually, my mom is coming to San Antonio for work soon, so I get to see her again! All of my free time is dedicated to finishing my stupid application, and I'm exhausted. We get new interns tomorrow (yay!) so hopefully I won't have to work as hard, but no new vet tech intern. Looks like I'll be alone the rest of the year. Sigh.

Here's some pics from before and during my vacation. I'd love to hear from everyone how they're doing, and I promise I'll try my hardest to write back. Love and miss you all.

Finally!

I'm sorry, yet again, for the lack of posts. I've had the most stressful and amazing 2 weeks and it's only going to get better (or worse, but hopefully better!). I'm trying to remember all that had happened. My Aunt Kristin has been reminding me constantly that I need to update my pictures, and I will! Unfortunately, the white peacock pictures that were taken after we took radiographs of him, were taken on Dee's camera and alas, I shall have to wait for her to give them to me.

I've been given a lot of responsibility lately, good that they trust me, but very draining. Because Cheryl is still recovering from her car crash, she's seeing fewer patients and trying to focus on surgeries since she's the only one legally allowed to do them. That means I've been handling a lot more the critical patients, re-evals, and upgrades. Awesome news does accompany this though. We have officially released over 60 of our baby raccoons from this baby season, with another 60 or so to follow in a few short weeks. They are some of the most time consuming, messiest, and hungriest babies we have here. We are all glad to see them go, especially those of us who have to completely gown up in booties, plastic gowns, latex gloves, and welding gloves to deal with them in the incredible heat down here. We released about half our skunks and the other half are all outdoors in daycages. I just upgraded most of our doves outside, and half our opossums are finally outside and are going to be released this week! Our clinic has gone from almost 1000 babies to roughly 300 or so. It's been so exciting to see them all leave happy and healthy.

There have been downfalls this week though. William, a cat who lived in the Nutrition Center, passed away finally, after almost 25 years of age. It was very hard on me to be there when he passed, but he was comfortable and well cared for til the end. We will all miss him. Another of our cats, Destiny, had a traumatic experience a few days ago. We have no idea what happened but she has suddenly gone downhill and was non-responsive when I left her last night at 8pm after being by her side the whole day.

I have had some awesome time off recently, and really fun nights. My friends dragged me to the river last week and we spent over 3 hours swimming in the very shallow and slow running Guadelupe River. I got a royal sunburn even after applying sunscreen twice. What should I have expected being from Minnesota and the weather being sunny and in the 100s for over 50 days straight. Charlie, the accountant here has talked to me about her horses almost every time I visit her, and spontaneously asked me to come over the ride one of her horses! She owns a gray Andalusian who hasn't been ridden in over 4 years due to some lameness issues. He is healthy now, and I get to bring him back to shape! She also owns a young, black, Fresian/Andalusian/Thoroughbred cross who is gorgeous, taller than me (shock!) and amazing. I think I have to brush up on my riding skills before I attempt to ride her though. She can be quite fiesty. I've included a pic of me on Benito, her Andalusian. It's been the best thing for my soul to be back with horses, but exhausting work since I haven't ridden in almost a year.

To top it all off, we're trimming hooves on a lot of our farm animals this week. I've chased 2 goats across a large pasture, and after trapping one and grabbing one mid run (my animal catching skills amaze me), I trimmed their hooves myself. The next day we sedated a donkey for his hoof trim, and another donkey took me for a ride when he decided he wanted to buck around me when the farrier came near. We got him trimmed but I was sore to say the least the next day.

And finally, as my title denotes, I get to go home!! I have a week of vacation that I'm using on Saturday and I will be going to, yes, somewhere NORTH! I'm going back to Minnesota and convinced my parents if they wanted to take me camping on my vacation, it was going to be, oh yes, NORTH! We're going to be just north of Duluth, but it's going to be heaven on earth to me. I've already looked up the weather and they're predicting sunny and 75 degrees. Fahrenheit! It's going to be cool, even cold at night, and I'm so excited I'm going to burst! I love my job, but the weather is so wearing on me, my vacation is going to do me a world of good. So, if you don't hear from me in a while, well too bad! I'm going to be enjoying every single second I can get to be outside in weather that I'm not going to sweat, burn, and become parched in less than 5 minutes. I hope you are all having a lovely rest of your summer, because I'm going to go start mine! Miss you all, and I can't wait to see some of you Saturday!! Love always!!

Good Day

I have been a slacker when it comes to new blog posts. I apologize. However, I know have good news. Cheryl is finally home! She came back Thursday and it was amazing to see her up and about. She gets tired pretty easily, but she's pretty steady on her feet. She was supposed to come to work today to show her parents around, but never made it in. I'm expecting it will take her longer to recover than she thinks.

Dee and I have had some pretty tough days. On Tuesday we had a major death day. Not only did we end up euthanizing a bunch of animals, a lot of them were animals we had been treating for months. We had to finally admit they were never going to fully recover. It was pretty hard.

However, yesterday I had an awesome day with Kaitlin. After doing a major bone pin surgery on the coyote (where I had to do more traction, woot) we hung out doing a puzzle, eating homemade pizza a cookies, and watching Gilmore Girls. Today, I had an awesome day with Dee. I ended up upgrading over 25 doves, and releasing another 16. It was amazing. And now that room is only half-full. By tomorrow I'm sure it will be overflowing again :) We then did another surgery and amputated the leg off a juvi porcupine. It was sad that she had to lose her leg, but ultimately a very successful surgery. We had lunch at the Kendalia General Store and looked at all the rest of the patients. We got to wing wrap a white peacock (yes! completely white, I will post pics as soon as I have some) and a hawk I saw come in when Dee was off, has improved so much he's being upgraded outside. All because of my treatment!

So, super excited and the only downer is the weather. It's hot enough to use my seat buckle as a branding iron. I have the burn marks to prove it. We have restrictions on when and how long we can be outside. It's going to be over 110 degrees outside. With the heat index it's supposed to feel over 120. Sigh. Can't wait for my vacation. Miss you all lots. Love always.

Bad news, worse news...

I'm very sorry for the lack of posts. I've had a pretty hard couple of weeks. A bit more on my plate than usual. Two weeks ago my vet, Cheryl, was rear-ended on the highway by a man going almost 100mph. She was airlifted to the nearest hospital and checked out a couple of days later with stitches and staples to her head. She headed to North Carolina to visit her family because she had been planning it for months. I'm not sure if she tried to do too much too fast, or if the same thing would have happened anyway. However, she was taken to the ICU a few days ago. They predict she might have to stay there for up to a month longer.

Today she had a better day. Her sodium levels are rising and she was able to keep some food down today. I hope she gets better soon. Send her all your thoughts and prayers.

Back at work, it's even more stressful than usual. We have Genevieve back to help once a week, but we have many more animals than we have time to do surgeries one day a week. When it's Dee's days off, I work alone checking criticals. I've suddenly had to step up and become adept at wing wraps and leg splints. It's been awesome that they trust me enough for this responsibility, but it wears on you. When Dee came back today, we had over 100 patients to see. Somehow, we saw them all in one day. Unbelievable.

Tomorrow is my first real day off in about 10 days. Every evening I've had to drive 20 miles to Cheryl's house to house sit for her dog, 3 cats, bird, and turtle. It's nice to have cable, but I'd trade that in a heartbeat to sleep in my own bed again.

I'm missing you all a ton right now. I could really use some good news from others. And if you could send some cold, wet weather my way, you'd really make my day. Love always.

Dog Sitting

So, I'm becoming a regular dog sitter. Profitable and relaxing! When the dogs aren't being ridiculous of course. Starting Friday, I watched Dee's dogs while she and her husband went camping. I got to watch some pretty awesome guilty pleasure TV shows (Hoarders, Say Yes to the Dress, Law and Order SVU, Will and Grace, Frasier, and Millionaire Matchmakers) over the long weekend. It really made me miss Gwen, my old roommate. Pretty sure the Say Yes to the Dress marathon did that. Oh, and I learned Project Runway starts up again this month! Oh how I love girly shows.

For my days off I have spent them cooking homemade chex mix and puppy chow. I'm going out for pizza tonight with a friend, and tomorrow I'm volunteering at APA. Hopefully I won't wear myself out. Yesterday, one of our donkeys needed his second correctional hoof trimming. He's has been abused for a long time, and has been foundering on and off for over 9 years. Since he's been with us he's picked on other donkeys, and chased, bitten, and kicked at anyone who comes near. I've been working with him for over a month now. I was really nervous he was going to act up, but my work paid off! We trailered him easily and drove him to a different part of property to do the trimming so he was out of the heat for the surgery. I haltered him and stood with him while Cheryl stuck him with 2 needles and he didn't even flinch. He was out like a light for 25 minutes while we trimmed his hooves, and he popped right back up just as we were done rasping the edges. It was awesome! He really seems to like me, so hopefully soon we won't have to tranquilize him for his trimmings.

Well, I'm off to go grocery shopping. Love and miss you all.

Rough Days

Well, the past couple of days have been super busy, but not very pleasant. It started out great. I had two days off. Monday I spent lounging around for most of the day, and then I went with some friends to Dee's place for a Fourth of July party. Oh, by the way, happy belated Independence Day! For the US and Canada I might add. We had an awesome time eating barbeque, playing horseshoes, and relaxing outside. It was great.

Tuesday I went to the library really early to talk to Allison online. But I totally missed her! I hope I can talk to her soon. I miss her, and for those of you that don't know, she's currently studying in China. Makes talking together really different since she's 13 hours ahead of me. Yuck. Then I grocery shopped and hurried back to put everything away so I could go off to Austin to volunteer at Austin Pets Alive with Megan, the old vet. It was great to see her again. Jordana, the vet tech was so glad to see me and she went off to do about a million other things and I was the one who anesthetized all the puppies and kittens, and intubated them. I monitored anesthesia while catching up with Megan. It was amazing practice. I'm off again next week!

Then Wednesday happened. Sunday, one of the interns was bit by a raccoon, but couldn't tell which one bit her. The raccoon in question was in a cage of 10 raccoons. We sent one off for testing because they died naturally. Rabies testing has to be on a deceased animal because they test the central nervous system (brain matter). Well, the raccoon came back rabies positive. The intern had to be rushed to urgent care to start the post exposure shot series. She'll be fine. It was a very small wound and it's really hard to contract rabies. The part that made me sick was that we had to euthanize the other 9 raccoons because any of them could "possibly" have rabies. Apparently I was as pale as a sheet at the end of the day, and Dee took me to her friend Luther's house for enchiladas. We went for an exercise walk, and then ate. They were so good! It was nice to relax after a horrible day.

Today was a lot of work with deer. It got my mind off raccoons. I also went for a run, which was so hot, even at 8pm. Oh well. It's Texas. Miss all of you. Can't wait for my week to get better. I'd love to hear from you all. Love always.

Happy early fourth of July!

I've had a whirlwind of a few days. I had to cover some non-vet tech shifts and work in the clinic feeding some of the babies. The only good thing about the day... cutest skunks ever! They love stamping at you as a warning gesture, and it is so darn cute! I then had to give a demonstration about how to properly set up a net cage. We've been having issues with birds being put in improperly fitting net cages. Some are too small for the frames and the birds keep getting loose because they don't close, and others are too loose and the birds get tangled in the folds and break wings and legs. You'd think this would be elementary, and it really is. People just don't take the time to fit them properly. We do work insanely long hours though. Case in point, I had below dishes right after my 12 hour shift. Below dishes consist of a ton of very dirty 5 gallon buckets that take about an hour to do if you book it. Yuck.

The next day I had the produce run. We drive to 5 different grocery stores that donate their old produce to us. That's how we feed almost all the animals in the clinic and who live permanently in the sanctuary. I also had to go shopping for the supplementary food for some of our birds. My truck was so full, I had to go back to Boerne for a second trip because Walmart had over 50 boxes of produce for us. Unfortunately, during this whole ordeal, I had a massive headache and very nauseated. They still made me go on a minnow run for our birds which made my work day another 14 hour day. At 7:30pm, I told my roommates I was going to lie down a bit until I felt better. I woke up at 6am the next day. Thank goodness I woke up, otherwise I would have been late to work. Today I feel a bit better, but I've put myself on the BRAT diet until my stomach feels better. Hopefully before tomorrow when I'm off to Dee's for a huge July 4th barbeque. HUGE BUMMER! No fireworks! I missed them last year because I was in Germany and now we have a burn ban over the entire state. Sad times. At least I get a day off tomorrow. Thank goodness.

Once I figure out how to put videos up, I'll post one of the cutest skunk ever! Miss you all lots, and to Dad. So jealous! Wish I was with you fishing. Can't wait for our camping trip. Love always.

Heck yes for Heartland!

For those of you who have not heard of the show (or book series) Heartland, you are missing out. Thanks to my Aunt Kristin, I have the first three seasons on loan from her. I've now taken down Dee to the darkside and she's hooked. We've been watching the first season together and are already on the second season. I spent my day off lounging around her place, knitting and watching Heartland on a ginormous screen TV (courtesy of Crispin, Dee's husband). My dad would officially be jealous.

Other news, we had a lot of patients today. I helped wrap a broken tibiotarsus on a Great Egret. She's beautiful. Oh, and on hotline, my roommate got the best phone call ever. A woman called claiming that she needed help preventing the birds from eating figs from her poisonous fig tree. When we asked her why she thinks her tree is poisonous, she said it was because all the birds are becoming beheaded and her dogs are bringing back the heads to leave them on the porch. She was adamant throughout the entire phone call that her dogs weren't responsible because dogs just can't do that. She was so worried about the fig tree. Halarious.

Well, just watching She's the Man with my roommies. Hot guy, awesome soundtrack, and so funny. Miss you all lots and would love to hear from you.

Over 1600 miles later...

After a whirlwind of driving I am finally back home. This weekend I drove up to Missouri to attend Chall's funeral. I got to visit with a part of the family I hadn't seen for 10 years, and I got to be with my Dad. It was so good to see him but even harder to leave. I will be so happy to have my well needed vacation at the end of August. I also realized I missed the smell of green. Yes, a color does have a smell and apparently all of Texas is devoid of it since it is so dry here.

It rained last week but only enough to tamper down the dust for a few days. We are still in severe drought conditions with restrictions of showers and of course my car is a dust magnet. It is now a candy-colored pink which will not be washed off until I see snow in December. It's still hot as ever here, but I realized I'm getting used to it. My Dad was saying how hot it was outside in Missouri and I commented on how nice it was. I think it was in the upper 80s. Sad that I think that seems cool.

I've finally uploaded some pictures from some surgeries we've had in the past week or so. We neutered an Axis deer. They are native to Asia and so are an invasive species here. We aren't allowed to release them off property unless we neuter all the males. We also had a barn owl come in with 2 fractured legs. They're clean fractures though, so we're hopeful he'll recover. I also put a picture of our smallest patient to date. He weighs 6 grams! Also, an animal of the weird. We've never seen a pigeon species quite like her. Hope you are all doing well and I will make sure to update more often. I've been "hinted" at that you all would like to hear more from me. I can't promise they will be long, but I'll try. Miss you all.

Finally

Apparently, (according to my mother) I have been neglecting my blog. It's been so busy here I'd have it in my mind to write a blog entry, but by the time I got home I hit my pillow and didn't wake up until the morning. But good news! No, it hasn't gotten any cooler here. The opposite. This week the highs were in the 105s and I'm betting by July it'll be consistently over 110. However, instead of working an average of 60-70 hours a week, I'm now at an easy 50! Baby season has taken a slight break. The patient list has gone from over a hundred a day, to a much more manageable 40. Knock on wood that this stays for a bit.

I do know that it won't last forever. Squirrels and opossums have two baby seasons, one in the spring and one in the fall. We just got in 11 new baby opossums today. I really hope they're an anomaly. We've finally stopped getting in raccoons, but we still get at least 2-3 fawns in a day. Again, if you see a fawn, unless you can see active bleeding don't bring them in! Mom's are wandering farther each day to find enough food for their little ones, which means a fawn can be left unattended for over 12 hours. And it's normal.

Ok, enough of my spiel. I'm doing quite well otherwise. The past few weeks I've gotten a lot more confident (and quite good) at hitting veins for blood draws and euthanasias. I've even hit kitten veins which are insanely rolly and tiny! We've gotten a new kitten in which I named Jetson, and he's a gray and white bobtail. So cute! I've also been placing a lot of wing wraps and shoes on birds with broken toes. Unfortunately these skills do not transfer to large animals, whom (who?) I want to work with. And I know I just ended that sentence with a prepositional phrase. Deal.

Also, in the past few weeks, I've officially started the process of applying to vet school. Again. This time I'm only applying to Minnesota and possibly (huge possibly here since I really want to go to MN) Calgary and Saskatchewan (sp?). They specialize in large animal food production, which is probably what I'll end up doing. And I have relatives in Canada. And it's not so BLAZING hot. My one rant about the weather.

Oh, and early happy Father's Day to all the dad's out there reading this. And shame on all the Vancouverites (Vancouverians? Vancouverers?) for your riots in hockey. Those are meant to occur in the rink, not out. Love and miss you all and I hope my next post to be uploading some pics of a deer neuter we did. Until next time!

100/102

Hello everyone!

No, this is not my blood pressure, vision correction, or anything related to my job as a vet tech. These numbers, unfortunately, are our predicted and actual temperatures for the weather today. It is 102 F, in May. How I loathe Texas. However, I think I'm beginning to get used to it here. Yesterday I felt like I was melting and today I felt just fine. It felt like a bearable oven outside. I think it was because yesterday it was in the low 90s but grossly humid, and today was grossly hot but low humidity. I'll survive Texas weather and then never live below the Mason-Dixon line ever again. Yuck.

Yesterday I was on call and ended up working 17 hours, but today I only worked a normal shift of 12 hours. I can't wait for the new batch of interns to be trained so my hours might be a more bearable 9 or 10 hours. Oh well. I'm still having a blast watching Disney marathons with my trailermates. Toy Story 3, Up, and Emperor's New Groove all in one day. Fabulous! Hope you're all doing well, and if it's possible, please send some cooler, wetter weather our way. We desperately need rain, and NOT 100 degree weather. Til next time.

Absolving my aunt of any grief she may have bestowed upon me...

Hey everyone,

Sorry it has been so long since my last post! It's been super hectic here (when isn't it?) and I have been getting home most nights after 6pm, I make and eat dinner and am out like a light by 9pm. However, lots of fun things have been happening here.

We have a new veterinarian, Cheryl. She's great fun to work with, and the bird guru. It's awesome because we have so many birds with broken wings now. Awesome that she can fix them, not that they have them in the first place. We just released some of our birds that 3 weeks ago had exposed bones sticking out of their wings.

I now have days off with the vet tech Dee. The first day off together, we flew kites, which is SUPER fun here. It's always windy here, and she has the type of kite that does tricks. Pretty sweet. Then we made and ate enchiladas. The next day off together we went kayaking down the Guadalupe river. I will post pictures as soon as I can. I only got dumped once, and I got stuck twice. Both times I got my self out, but turned around. For some reason, I go better down rapids... backwards!! We then hung out by the river a few more hours and hiked up to a cave. We went back to her place so I could make an authentic scandinavian meal. Stroganoff and Danish kringle. Everyone loved it!

A new batch of interns arrived last week. Thank goodness! We will all be super happy once they are fully trained and we'll get more help in the clinic. One of my new trailermates, Bethany, is deaf, so I've been learning TONS of new signs. She's been teaching me and Amy (another new intern), and we can now make full sentences. Every so often we ask for new signs or learn them when we try to finger spell a new word. But I didn't realize how easy it is to pick up. It certainly is much faster learning what you need to know, rather than what a school curriculum tells you. I now know all the animals that exist here on property, medical terms, and lots of verbs and nouns. I'm super excited. Maybe by the time she leaves, I'll know enough to talk to anyone deaf!

Well, I miss you all very much. Especially Allison, since you are off to Rhode Island (?) and then China. Boo. I'm going to miss you terribly, but I'm happy for you. I miss my parents, hope Mom comes to visit again soon. But most of all (no offense to anyone) but I miss being COOL! It's so muggy all the time here, but it never rains. The temp never gets below 75 at night, and its in the 90s all the time during the day now. And it's only May. Gross. Aunt Kristin, I miss you as well, but appreciate all the Heartland you've been sending me! I got the third season and will watch it soon, hopefully. I'm only a few episodes in, even though I've had it a while. Let me know what's going on in your lives! Until next time.

Evil Aunt Witholding Season 3 of the BEST TV SHOW EVER!!

So, I'm officially and utterly hooked. The odd title refers to Heartland, a TV show my Aunt Kristin and I have been watching together long-distance. She had kindly been sending me the seasons, but is taking her sweet time with this one. Just kidding Kristin! And by the way, the title is just for you! Anyway, it's an awesome TV show about horses (of course!) and amazing Canadians, even though it is based off an American book series. It's been awesome to watch the show, not only cause it's amazing, but because I'm having fun bonding with my Aunt long-distance.

Today was a good day. I officially became a senior intern, and had a dinner in my (and my group's) celebration. We had awesome food (vegetarian like all our functions here) and played an UNO tournament. But the best part of today was that I got to work with an almost-horse! Freddy, one of our donkeys needed is hooves correctional trimmed, and I got to be handler since I have the most horse experience here. He was in a lot of pain, so he wasn't very cooperative, but I love him just the same. When I don't work with horses every day, a naughty donkey still brings a smile to my day :)

I'm off to bed early tonight to make sure I get some sleep before they transfer PM phones at 11pm. I don't want a repeat of last week. Thanks to all of you that emailed me the past couple of days! I miss you all and would love to hear from all of you.

Wonderful last days with friends

Well, my best friend here just left for home. I dropped her and another friend of mine off at the Gavelston Port, about 5 hours away. They both were so unhappy here and I'm glad they could go home. Nicole is off to Spain and Nicola is off to Britain, on a cruise! Weird enough, it was the cheapest way for them to get home. I spent yesterday driving them to Gavelston and we stayed at a hotel, ordered in fabulous pizza (Dominoes is really stepping up their game) and watched Matilda. This morning we had coffee by the coast and went wading through the ocean water. There are so many water birds there it's insane! It was so hot and muggy there, and I came back to Kendalia to an awesome surprise of 57 degree weather, sunny, and windy. I'm typing this outside trying to soak in the cold and keep it with me always. Or at least until December when I go back home.

The past week has really sucked. I did have a great time going to see an IMAX movie about rehabilitating orphaned elephants and orangutans. Now I really want to play soccer with elephants (an awesome enrichment game if I do say so). Otherwise, work has been hard, long, and stressful. Apparently it's only going to get worse. Because so many interns have decided to leave before fulfilling their commitment, everyone is having to work a lot harder, and I even been put on clinic shifts, feeding and cleaning the animals. I'm glad to help out but I will be even happier to be done with it. I came here for the veterinary experience I don't want that to suffer. The worst was when I had PM phones. We have a 24 hour hotline and one intern per night is assigned to take any calls throughout the night. Instead of waking up for an occasional call, I had over 14 in one night, spaced out quite nicely to ensure just as I was falling back asleep I would be woken up again for someone calling about a bird or raccoon. I'm glad I could help the animals, but I'm sure I didn't get more than 2 hours of sleep that night. I'm playing catch up as it is.

Well, sorry for my not so happy rant. I did take a nice walk below gate with Nicole before she left, so I will be sure to update soon with some pictures of the animals. Miss you all very much, especially Minnesota. My body is just waiting for the day I can be back home in the north again.

Lots of Stuff

Hey everyone! I know, shocker with another blog entry so soon after the last one. Well, I just had an awesome day. It was crazy hectic in the clinic. We had over 30 animals come in through intake last night which meant we had a ton of patients to see in the morning. I x-rayed a bazillion animals. Well, not really. Instead of the usual 1-3 animals, I radiographed about 12. I ran a bunch of chemistry on blood samples, and assisted in an eye enucleation surgery. Basically, a duck had an eye that was popped out, and we removed it. The super cool part of the surgery was that I helped intubate a duck (super hard!!) and then got to use an esophogeal stethoscope to monitor my patient. It is a normal stethoscope, but instead of the round amplifier at the end, it is attached to a tube that is put down the patients esophogus. That way you can hear the heart beat through the trachea. It allows me to get a better heart beat without having to disrupt the vet by moving my hand underneath the sterile surgery drape. It was so cool! The duck is fine, by the way.

Then, after work, we had an Avon party. One of the supervisors here is a rep for them, and it was super fun eating good food and getting facials and makeovers done. Everyone looks so different from our work attire. I've put a picture of myself and Stacey, my trailer-mate. We both got hog-tied into getting makeovers. They are well done I think. One last thing. Mom and Dad, I do realize your birthdays are coming up soon. And your anniversary, and Mothers Day. I will call you, but your presents WILL be late. I'm so sorry! However, they are amazing presents and totally worth the delay. Miss you both lots and hope your days are awesome! Love to everyone else as well!

Austin Pets Alive

I think I might be crazy. I just spent one of my days off working. But it was so fun! I went to visit our old veterinarian Megan at her new job at Austin Pets Alive. APA is a no kill shelter and they take any animal, no matter what, and find them good homes. I helped with 9 spays, 3 neuters, and an emergency c-section. It was so awesome. They did prepping and monitoring a bit differently and it was really cool to see. I got a ton of practice doing IV injections which are super hard to do on tiny puppies! Next time I hope to practice putting in IV catheters. It was great visiting Megan and catching up with her. She's going on vacation this weekend so I'm going to pet-sit her 4 dogs and 3 cats. All think they are lap animals. Can't wait to cuddle with them all! Miss and love you all, let me know how your lives are going.

Interesting Surgeries, Horrible Infections, and Grandparents Visit

Sorry for the long awaited update! I realized after several people have contacted me about my blog status. So, here's what has been happening for the past few weeks.

I had a really awesome surgery that I got to assist on. Since it's spring, a ton of our permanent resident animals are coming in with injuries due to mating season. A female mountain lion got a huge chunk of her tail bitten off and we sedated her to stitch up the wound. The procedure was done in the lockout by the enclosure, and after sitting in the sun for 3 hours during the surgery, I had my first sunburn of the season!

Then a huge infection ran through our squirrels in the clinic. 7 of 9 baby squirrels dropped dead within 48 hours of each other. After necropsing some of them and culturing their organs, we discovered from the help of a nearby lab that the squirrels all had pseudomonas. It's a bacteria that resides in the environment, and just takes advantage of immune-suppressed animals. Our squirrels are now our of quarantine and have just moved outside! Thankfully the infection didn't spread to any of our other animals in the clinic.

Then, my grandparents came to visit. It was really nice to see them and we had a fun time. We checked out the Boerne Art Fair, got my Dad's birthday present, toured my facility, and went on a boat tour of the riverwalk. It was a great time and I'm so glad they came!

Not much else is happening. Cayden is doing so well and Romo is just the same. Let me know how your lives are doing! Until next time.

Mom's visit #2

My mom visited for the second time this past weekend. It was awesome having her here, and I already miss her! We had fun going to the Botanical Gardens in San Antonio where I got to see greenery and flowers for the first time since getting down here in a very arid part of Texas. After that, on a whim we stopped by the North Star Mall where there was a dog fashion show going on! They had a runway and everything. I believe all the dogs dressed up were up for adoption, so it was an awesome cause. We then had a small dinner at a local diner and went over to the Macaroni grill for dessert. We had a fiasco when, all suited up to take a dip in the jacuzzi, we find out it's ice cold (being outdoors) and not working. The hotel had a membership with the local Lifetime Fitness and we drove over in just our suits to use their hot tubs, which were fabulous with waterfalls set up to get your upper back and neck. Totally just what I needed after standing over a surgery table all day.

Next day we drove up to the sanctuary and Mom got to feed a baby fawn! They almost doubled in size since the last time she's visited. We saw some more babies in the clinic, and then had fun with the cats outside. We just built a new topped-over cat enclosure for our friendly cats that we're hoping to get adopted. We then went to Boerne, the nearest town with a large grocery store. We ate lunch at the local cafe and headed up to look at some hotels my grandparents might stay in when they come to visit. After that, the fiascos started. We got to San Antonio to check Mom into her new hotel she was staying at for a training conference.  They didn't have her or any of her coworkers listed, and we had to wait for over an hour to get it fixed with her boss and the hotel manager. By that time, we didn't have time to go to the movie we had planned on seeing, so we went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner (really appetizers and cheesecake!) and then watched Dancing with the Stars before I had to go back to work.

Work has been awesome. We've had some pretty whirlwind surgery days with a cryptorchid neuter, a guinea pig who needed a drain put in, two bone pin removals (one from a muscovy duck, the other from a macaque), and a huge release. Biggest new news for me though, is that I am now the primary caretaker of yet another animal, this time a cat! Her name is Cayden and she needs socialization. I just got moved to the single room so she was put with me. She's a beautiful tortie, and has decided to come out of her shell to me. She waits by the door for me to come home, and sleeps with me at night. I think she was so scared of humans because the other cats would beat up on her if she got any attention. Now that she's a single cat she's doing really well. I've posted lots of pictures and I hope everyone is doing really well. Please let me know of anything exciting happening your way! Love and miss you all lots.

Animal Cruelty

Another death day is finally over. I got into work this morning and as I was giving medications, 3 of my patients had passed in the night. Over the next eight hours, 4 animals had to be euthanized and another 4 were found dead. The worst, by far, was an opossum we got in a couple of weeks ago. She had come in with babies in her pouch the size of jelly beans. She was really lethargic and pale, and generally very weak. We gave her supportive care and when we re-evaluated her today, she had pretty stiff limbs. We thought we might have missed a broken pelvis so I took an x-ray while Dee took a phone call. I didn't find any broken bones. Instead what I found were 19 lead bullets in her body, 4 of which were in her face. These bullets must have been in her for months if not longer. She was in the last stages of lead poisoning, and we had to humanely euthanize her and her babies. It was a crappy end to a crappy day. I hope tomorrow goes better. Miss you all lots and hope that you never have to see an animal shot 19 times.

Sheep Shearing 101

So, if anyone wants to know how to sheep shear, let me know. I just spent the past weekend helping shear 55+ sheep in just about 3 days. I even helped out for 8 hours on my day off. It was insane. First, we had to gather all the sheep that are scattered around our property the week before shearing. Then, we had to force them into chutes to get them into small paddocks where it was easy to corner them. Once we had them cornered, we'd haul one out by grabbing their wool and either a horn (if they had one) or a leg. We then dragged them over to the tarp we were shearing on, and flipped them onto their side. We first sheared the neck and side, flipped them onto their back for the stomach, making sure if they were a boy to cut carefully :) Then onto the next side, gave them a shot of tetanus toxoid and let them free into the paddock again.

It went quite smoothly for a while. We had two sheep we were a bit concerned about. The first sheep had a snapped horn and growing inside the hollow opening were maggots. It was disgusting! After cleaning them out, we moved onto a girl who had an udder mastitis, basically a very swollen and infected udder. After milking her, we shot her full of antibiotics and sent her on her merry way. It was a fun time had by most, except for the sheep. I think they were pretty freaked out at the time, but now they are loving the life without their wool when it's around 85 degrees here.

I just learned my Grandma and Grandpa Noreen are coming to visit me in April! I'm so excited and I'm hoping all the wildflowers will be out by then. Mom's coming back to San Antonio for another work conference so I'll get to see her for a short time at the end of the month. Other than that, work's been great, but I'm feeling really down right now. Two of my roommates are leaving, their internship is up and today is their last day :( I'm really going to miss them. I also have either severe allergies to something down here or the most massive cold. I've been downing tea and zinc lozenges all day, and I'm going to bed as soon as I get off work. Love and miss you all.

Sara

P.S. New pictures are up!

Visit From Mom!

My mom came to visit me this weekend! She came in Sunday at noon. We spent the day seeing the Alamo (which is SO tiny compared to my previous assumption) and walking along the Riverwalk. It was amazing and fun, except for the sole fact that it was 93 degrees outside! We got so warm we stopped at an Italian restaurant for dinner. It was really rich. Then we went to Walmart to get some snacks for us to eat while we watched the Oscars! The dresses were fabulous and we had fun guessing who was going to win the award. I think Toy Story 3 is amazing (which won best Animated Motion Picture) and Inception is fabulous! It won a bunch of special effect awards. One of the best movies I've seen in a while. Dad, you must see it!

I stayed overnight at her hotel where we kept the air conditioning on all night and it was amazing! In the morning we looked at campgrounds for my grandparents to stay at when they come down to visit. We found you an amazing one on the river in Blanco G&G! We ate lunch at Sunset, a small bar and grill in Blanco, and then went to my place to give Mom a tour. She got to see some mountain lions, monkeys, lemurs, an axis deer that followed us around everywhere, baby squirrels, baby opossums, baby fawns, a baby goat, and cats of course! It was great to show her around and she ooohed and aaaahed over all the little ones.

We then went back to San Antonio and went to Barnes and Noble and then a cute little Italian restaurant next door. Yes, Italian again, but I'm so sick of Mexican down here. Then I spent the night with her watching Fashion Police where they tore apart all of the Oscar dresses. It was amazing. Now I'm super tired because I had to drive home late and get up early for work. But it was totally worth it. I can't wait for my mom to visit me next month, even though it's killing me she's still down here but has to work. Miss you already Mom! I miss everyone else as well and hope you're all doing well. E-mail me about your lives.

Damaged

Hey everyone! I've had a pretty exciting past few days. However, I have not survived completely unscathed. Last Thursday, Megan's personal dog Risa began limping all of the sudden. Distraught, Megan rushed her to a specialist and I had to perform blood work on her in half the normal amount of time. Boots, a cat here with FIV, also started to crash. He is severely anemic and getting a ton of meds now, but he's stable. Dash, the baby goat we have also was running a temperature and bleating pitifully all day. I ran the blood work and gave the goat milk of magnesia and forced him to walk around all day to help his digestion. It worked! He's now doing really well. I also became the new primary caretaker of Romo, our trailer dog.

Saturday was intense with a muscovy duck coming in with a broken humerus (part of the wing). She had the most adorable duckling with her, which we placed in the incubator to wait while his mom had surgery. Megan placed a bone pin in her wing! She recovered well and taking fine care of her little one. We also sedated a macaque to x-ray him to see if his bone pin (placed in December) is ready to take out. It's not, unfortunately, and so he'll have the pin in for another 1-3 months. Then we did a routine rabbit spay that ended up being anything but routine. Her uterus was filled with masses and we also removed a mass on her leg. We have no idea how extensive her cancer is. I hope she lives in comfort the last days of her life.

Today and tomorrow are my days off. Tomorrow I'm headed to the San Antonio Rodeo for the barrel racing competition. Heck yes!! I hope you are all doing well and e-mail me on updates of your lives. Love and miss you all lots.

Porcupine Attack

It's been a crazy few days. On Thursday night / Friday morning it SNOWED!!!! Here, in TEXAS!!!! I was so excited, I woke up at 3am to go frolic in the falling snow. Just before work at 8am I made a snow angel and a snow man that was about 3 inches high. It was the smallest dusting I've ever seen, but it was real snow! However, because it is Texas, I believe I'm the only one who was stoked about this event. Everyone had a snow day which meant ALL of the stores were closed, and the roads were barricaded. Aren't Texans funny?

Anyway, because of the snow, we were the only place with a veterinarian that day. One of our neighbors came in and his dog had been missing for 2 weeks. His face was covered in porcupine quills! Megan suspects he had those quills in for at least a week. It took us 4 hours to remove over 200 quills and recover him from surgery. Pictures are up! Sorry it's such a short post. Miss and love everyone lots. E-mail me with updates on your lives!

Babies!

Well, baby season is just around the corner! Yesterday I filled in for my friend Sundhya for her evening clinic shift. I hadn't worked a clinic shift in a few weeks, and I didn't realize how many babies we now have! It has been a very mild winter here, and many of the species are having babies early. On my shift last night we took in three squirrels that were all under 20 grams. They are smaller than the size of my thumb! Look for pictures below. We also received a goat that was born around noon of the same day. Half a day old and he came to us because he couldn't stand. I've bonded with him and gotten him to feed pretty well from a bottle now. He stood for over five minutes for me today! I'm hoping we keep him up to date with physical therapy to speed his recovery. His name is Dash (we can name the domestic animals here) and I really hope he pulls through.

Hope everyone is doing well. This post is short because I really just wanted to update pictures. Love and miss you all.

Elk Rescue!

I feel like Superwoman! This past Saturday I helped with the best rescue ever. And for those of you who are wondering what elk are doing in Texas, that was my first thought too. Elk are not native here, we assume they escaped from a nearby game ranch. Anyway, this elk desperately need our help.

After traveling almost 2 hours to get to him, we found the elk lying down next to a cabin on a sizable property. The owner of the property said he was limping pretty badly so we lined up to tranquilize him. As soon as we walked close to him, he got up and started running on hooves that were over a foot long! They had curled and were so long they were digging back into his legs. We lost track of him for a while, but I thought I heard him calling though the brush. We found him and I started tracking him for the next 15 minutes until we got to the top of the man's property where it was an open field. Just as Megan, the veterinarian got up to the field, he decided to try and jump the 4 foot fence that surrounded the property. His hooves caught on the mesh fence and he went down. Three of his legs and one of his antlers were caught. The dart bounced off his tough hide so I sprinted down to the truck and drove it back up with all of our med supplies. Megan gave the drugs to the elk through the fence and we waited for the elk to fall asleep.

After he went down, we went to work on his hooves. The tools we had brought with didn't come close to making a dent on his hooves, and some of the hooves had to be sawed down with a hack saw. Thankfully the neighbors stopped to help us out. Ryan, the other vet tech intern monitored the elk's vitals and tried to keep him cool while drawing up all of the meds like anti-inflammatory and antibiotic meds. I helped saw 2 of his hooves off and stabilize his legs while others worked on the sawing. We then scrubbed his wounds, pumped him full of meds, and then realized if he woke up there, he might try to jump the fence yet again. We decided the best place for him to wake up was down by the cabin near sources of water, away from the fences and roads.

Lifting an elk is MUCH harder than it sounds. We had 5 of us trying to lift a bull elk who probably weighed 700-800 lbs (over 350 kgs). It was nuts. We couldn't get him in the back of the pickup at first, but then I went with the property owner to get boards from his fence to use as a ramp. Even pulling and pushing him into the truck was a feat but we finally did it! Unloading him was a since, Megan reversed the tranquilizing drugs, and the elk woke up! According to the property owner, he's doing well and is walking on his own again!

Check out the amazing pictures Ryan took. We kept some of his hooves for souvenirs. Miss and love you all lots!

Radiographs and Intubation

Well, I am officially a full-time vet tech intern! My first official day was yesterday, and I love working with vet staff all day. Plus I get 2 more hours of sleep in the morning :)

I'm posting my very first radiograph and intubation that I performed on a raccoon. Radiograph is just the technical term for x-ray. The raccoon I x-rayed has a fractured jaw right along the midline on her lower jaw. Megan sutured her back up so her jaw is more stable. She's super feisty and I hope she makes it to release. I've posted the radiograph picture, and a close up to show the intubation. Intubation is when you place a tube into the animal's trachea that is hooked up to our oxygen and iso gases. This helps keep the patient asleep during long procedures. The tricky part is finding a tube that is large enough to fill the entire trachea so air doesn't leak in, but small enough it doesn't rupture the trachea. Then you have to have the correct placement so that the gases are able to get to both halves of the lung. I did it on my first try!

Also, Newbies arrived yesterday. I'm no longer a Newbie! We had one new girl from Ohio move in to our trailer. Kristen moved out and Corrina moved in to her room. Which means, I am no longer sleeping on the top bunk! No longer crouching to go to bed, no longer having only a foot of space between me and the ceiling. I am on the bottom bunk, right next to a window. I'm super excited. Well, until my next post, love and miss you all!

Dealing with Death

So, I haven't posted for a little while because I haven't really felt up for it. I've had to deal with quite a few hard deaths around here. I'm normally pretty ok with finding animals dead in the morning. It's hard, but somewhat expected when the animal is known to be critical. However, the other day I went in to help with a surgery on a wolf. She was one of our permanent residents and had severe ear infections. She was to be put under anesthesia and spayed while she was under. She took over 3 hours to tranquilize and become stable under anesthesia which is not normal. Just as we were sewing her up, she stopped breathing. I took over breathing for her with the gas machine, but minutes later her heartbeat plummeted. We did CPR on her for 25 minutes before we finally let her go. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to deal with. She was beautiful and I'll remember her always. That same day, raccoons we have raised since they didn't even have their eyes open, dropped dead of the Parvo virus. No warning. They were bright and perky at their feeding. An hour later they were gone. Another pigeon died on the table today, and a night hawk that we have been feeding in the hopes her wing would get strong enough to fly had to be put down.

But for every life we lose, we help others. We took in a great horned owl today that had barbed wire through his wing. He is gorgeous and I hope to get pictures of him soon.

On a completely different note, I have received a request to talk more about my roommates and trailer life. I live in a double-wide trailer that is several decades old. While it is old, it serves its purpose and I'm not complaining in the slightest. I get to cook my own food and sleep in a bed. Better than a tent in the middle of nowhere. I have 5 other roommates. Two are from Washington state, one is from Colorado, one is from Arkansas, and one is from Philadelphia. I get along with all of them pretty well. I also live with two animals. Romo is the trailer dog and is a geriatric (meaning very old) and needs a lot of attention. He's pretty mellow. My roommate just adopted one of the cats from here, and her name is Cairo. She is tiny, black, and full of mischief. I love her to pieces and will be sad the day she leaves here.

I hope you are all doing well. Love and miss you lots. Please email or comment or let me know how you're doing. Especially if you have questions about my life here!

New pictures are up!

Release

Hey! Two blogs in two days. Not bad.

Last night I went out with Ryan, Julia, Lilly, and Dan for Ryan's 23rd birthday. We went to Chili's and had an awesome time. By the way, they have bottomless chips and salsa... Amazing!

I really just wanted to update everyone on my exciting day. It shouldn't have been so exciting, since today I was Prep C. This means I was sent to do projects (aka cleaning) all day. I started out ok, raking leaves with the help of several vultures who thought it was a game to land on my rake in the process of raking. Maybe they like rides? Then I got to use a power washer to spray down a mat. It was a huge mat, and power washing is so fun! Then I filed paperwork into a computer database while playing with week old puppies. They haven't even opened their eyes yet!

The best part of the day came later though. I got to go with my roommate Brandi to release 11 opossums, and one skunk. It was so awesome watching them cautiously crawl out of their crates into the world. I feel like a parent sending my kids off to college or something. I've been taking care of them for 2 weeks, and in that time they've doubled in size. I'll post pictures as soon as I get them from Brandi. Miss and love you all!

Happy New Year!

Well, my New Year has started out with a bang. About 10 of my co-workers went out to the Kendalia Dance Hall for New Year's Eve. It had barbecue, dancing, drinks, and as much country music as one can stand in a night. I learned to Two-Step and Line Dance, and was pulled out on the dance floor multiple times during the night. It as a blast and an awesome way to bring in the new year.

New Year's Day I was assigned a clinic shift that involved helping vet staff for most of the day. It was awesome and I felt like I was back in lab after a few months off! While me and Ryan switched on and off helping to monitor a cat that had been de-gloved (attacked by a dog so severely her skin was torn away exposing her organs) and running blood work and fecal samples. The cat is currently doing ok. She has a high fever but can still purr and eat. I had to sub cue fluids into her (inject the fluids just under her skin by her scruff) this morning. I'm getting better at identifying parasite eggs in fecal samples as well after examining at least 12 slides that day.

Today I had my first "real" clinic shift. We have been in charge of taking care of the sick animals in the clinic for a while now, but it's been pretty easy with 6 new people plus supervisors working at the same time instead of the 3 that are normally on at once. Today was more normal and I was the only intern on clinic duty with 2 staff members to help and supervise. I was kept busy all day taking care of 4 raccoons, 6 pigeons (3 of which needed to be tube fed), 3 squirrels with one needing to be bottle-fed, 4 turtles/tortoises, 12 opossums, 2 guinea hens, a rooster, a duck, and 2 blue jays. I think.

My duck was upgraded to an outdoor enclosure and a crazy buck in it that tried to gore me several times. He's getting super aggressive. My 12 opossums are set to be released in a few days, and a pigeon is going to be moved outside to test for flight capabilities. A good day! Check out my one new photo (more to come soon) of me and one of my baby raccoons I've been taking care of. Hope you're all doing well and love and miss you all!