MySpace-Janurary 20, 2010-Swine-Sational!

So Friday, I went to the MU Swine farm with my food animal group. (Well, Julie, Megan and I; Lorie was taking a SR day.) Like most swine farms, for biosecurity reasons, this was a shower-in, shower-out facility. They don’t want to risk you bringing something to the pigs (arthrozoonosis, I think) or risk you taking something from the pigs out. (NOT SWINE FLU THOUGH! Pigs don’t have that!)
Anyway, the night before in the truck, we were talking about it because this farm requires you to wear all of their clothes…I mean ALL of their clothes right down to the undies. Dr.Cowart, who had a very fast introduction to the craziness of our group, very tactful told us that there were items that we could place in the underwear if it creeped us out to wear someone else’s stuff. We were all like ‘DUH! Why didn’t we think of that!’
So once at the swine farm, we took turns getting undressed in the small locker room, hoping in the shower and emerging in an equally small locker room on the other side. As if this wasn’t odd enough, it only got weirder. Well, weird in a good way. This entire time mind you, we are laughing and giggling like the school girls we are.
As I emerged last from the shower, I put on some ragged underwear and attempted to put on a sports bra. Unfortunately, half way through, I got tangled and had to be untangled by Megan. I declared that this was the reason that I never exercised (because I can’t get into a sports bra!). Then like my friends before me, I donned gray socks, a navy t-shirt and some unusually small size large light blue coveralls. We all matched. We all did not wear any pants. We were sans pants, which might be my new favorite phrase. We all emerged from the locker room without checking the coveralls for holes.
For a while, we danced around in our socks watching and embryo transfer surgery in a gilt and being lectured by Dr.Murphy, who by my calculations is approximately, older than dirt. But very entertaining! Then we put on someone else’s rubber boots and made our way to the barns where we were to catch and draw blood from pigs. The issue being however that 1) pigs don’t particularly like being caught since it is by their noses after all and 2) unlike a cow or horse, pigs don’t have a jugular groove in which a garden hose sized vein says ‘here I am! Stick a needle in me!’ To catch pigs, you have to use a snare and place it in its mouth over the nose and behind the canine teeth. Then you tighten it, listen to the pig scream (they are drama queens!) and back the pig into the corner. I wasn’t very good at this but had improved greatly as we neared the end. At this point, I also thought that wouldn’t it be clever if you dipped the wire part of the snare into something that tasted good so the pigs enjoyed having it in their mouths? Maybe something like oil, honey or maple syrup. I don’t know. I’m just thinking out loud here (and did so at the pig farm too).
Drawing blood involves squatting down next to the pig that is screaming in your ear, feeling for the top of the sternum, calculating some distance away from this and sticking a needle randomly into the neck. At some point, you will hit some vessel and blood will come out. If you’re lucky. Also if you’re lucky the third person has been doing a good job helping to keep the pig  in the corner and keeping away curious other pigs from licking, biting and otherwise eating you. We all eventually got very good at judging distance from the top of the sternum and depth of the needle to get blood.
We drew blood from pigs in two different barns before going to the farrowing house and seeing some piglets. They were pretty stinking cute and we got to hold them.
In between barns though, it was quite clear to me that I had suffered a wardrobe malfunction. The sports bra had sought revenge on me and my bad mouthing ways. Instead of providing support and lift as it should (though in actuality never did, instead residing just below my nipples), it had crept its way up and was now serving to cut off the circulation to my arms. After some through the clothes manipulation and dancing around, I placed it back into a reasonably correct and somewhat supportive position.
Now as we returned to the main building, it was time to ‘shower out’. We all looked a little worse for wear, now having various amounts of pig and feed dust clinging in our once wet hair-mine was never brushed, simply thrown up into a rat’s nest of a pony tail.
I went second instead of last this time and apparently, in the middle of taking off my shirt, Julie proclaimed that she could see my boob. Now that I remember this, I’m laughing rather hard because this was yet again, a function of dysfunction. I do remember proclaiming that this was how it was most of our time at the farm with my sports bra covering things other than what it was charged with. After showering and returning to my own underwear and clothing, we stomped back into the non-piggy world. We had become an efficient well oiled pig bleeding machine. And now a very clean one. I proclaimed that I needed to go to the bathroom, to which I was greeted by the question of why hadn’t I gone before we left. Well, it was because I thought it would be rude to drop trow to use the toilet in the middle of the room in front of everyone. Unlike Julie, who by going last, was able to enjoy some privacy using the toilet. Dr. Cowart inquired about the dire need for this, I said I would be fine and back to school we went. All of us now a little closer; Dr. Cowart I am sure, a little closer than he would prefer.

[EDIT-Originally published to Blogger on January 19, 2011.]

MySpace-1/10/10-And Then My Cow Died

So last week, I was very busy.

Monday, rather late in the afternoon, as they always seem to do, a cow came in. I took the case because after a PE, it looked like it was an LDA and needed to go to surgery. So we did the surgery and it went rather well. However, as the week wore on, the cow seemed to go down hill and no matter what we did, she still continued to circle the drain. Then sometime Friday night, she was found dead in her stall.

So here are the issues.
Friday, the clinician got all excited and decided that she was going to save this cow's life. At this point, the resident and I were ready to euthanize her. But here's the deal, all week long this cow was doing crappy and granted we couldn't get ahold of the owners and the owners had sat on this cow who obviously had been sick for a while, we didn't do anything. I didn't get to present the cow in rounds because every day rounds were a cluster fuck. It was frustrating that no one would listen to me about the cow and then no decisions would be made...until it was too late.
Of course, there was the fact that anytime we did anything (or at least most of the time) my blockmates did nothing to help me with her. In fact, on Wednesday, the clinician had made the statement early in the morning that she would like to get us out of there early because of the impending snow. Eventually, we decided to do somethings with the cow and I was the only one who wnet to the back. The clinician remarked that if the other students weren't going to help me then they could sit in the rounds room. I inquired about the Foremost cows that had come for a lab and the other students had to TPR them.
Martha told me that she had heard some of the residents and clinicians talking about what a good student I was taking on all of these cases. So that's cool.
But it got so frustrating with no one else wanting to help me.
(edited from the orginal posting)

[EDIT-Originally published to Blogger on January 11, 2011.]

A Gross Tale/New Year's-Myspace January 3, 2010

First-Bovine Club is having a meeting, which I signed up to attend. They are going to have something about the Summer Dairy Institute. Wouldn't you think that you would want someone that attended to speak about it, esp. since I offered? Hmmm...Well, I'm attending because they are having chicken rather than gross Bandana's.

So New Year's. Joe and I sat around and did nothing. We ate some dip. Had some steaks and potatoes. Had some fantastic popcorn from the Whirly Pop. We watched a movie. We kissed at midnight without all of the fanfare that should accompany it. One day, I hope to have a New Year's like a 20 something should. One day, I hope to dress slightly slutty and go out. I hope to get wasted and have random pictures of myself taken wearing plastic top hats and blowing horns. I hope to dance and sing and hope to make out with Joe (or whoever) very publicly. Oh, to dream the impossible (unlikely) dream! Sigh.

So a gross story. A couple of weeks ago, I noticed a lump in my left ear. It was right at the beginning of the ear canal and was fairly soft. Eventually, it would get bigger and started to hurt. From what I could feel, because given its location I couldn't see it, it was very swollen and tight and pretty much expanded across the ear canal. I had Joe try to poke it with a needle but nothing came out. I rigged up a second mirror which allowed me to look at my own ear. This lump was gross. It was a boil or giant zit or something. I tried to pack it with a warm washclothe but that was hard given the location. I tried to poke it myself with a pin, but it was difficult. I managed to do it and the next morning had the smallest amount of dried serum in my ear. You know, that grainy yellow stuff that comes from wounds when its not blood and its not pus. My ear still hurt.
Then one day, I was walking down the stairs, I was carrying a spoon and doing little else. I slipped on the edge of one of the stairs and fell down several stairs. I pulled my arm as I tried to grab the handrail. I hurt my toes and my butt. Eventually, there was linear bruise across one side of my butt. But after I got up and downstairs and stopped crying (Okay, I only sort of cried.), I touched my still sore ear. And pulled away a fingertip covered in pus. So of course, I did it again and still pulled away another fingertip of pus. At this point, I retreated upstairs and using Q-tips, cleaned my ear the best I could pushing the giant lump. But for the most part, it was done and empty. Eventually, the swelling would go down and I would be left with a scabby place that I can't see in my ear. So the solution to a giant gross lump in your ear? Fall down the stairs.

[EDIT-Originally published to Blogger on January 3, 2011.]