Reflection

This final semester I spent four hours on Fridays at Tassajara Vet with my mentor Dr. Dowd.

I would typically come in to see a surgery or dental work or wait around for Dr. Dowd to get off of break before going into individual appointments. In the individual appointments I learned many different ailments that happen to dogs and cats. I witnessed euthanasia of pets and a feral cat and helped hold animals upside down while an ultrasound took place. Dr. Dowd allowed me to look at skin scrapings and earwax and pustules under an immersion microscope. She told me about the normal problems that occur with certain breeds and the negatives of breeding. When I wasn't with Dr. Dowd I was working with the awesome vet techs holding animals for blood tests and listening to abnormal heartbeats. Twice, a cat came in for a good grooming and I got to brush out the mats out of fur. Other times I would chill out with the sick animals and pet them while I waited for an appointment to come in.

The greatest thing about the internship was being around the animals, for sure there was always something I could pet and look at. I liked the whole "behind the scenes" feel. I know Dr. Dowd cares for her patients and doesn't hurry or try to milk money out of her customer's pockets. All the vet techs were nice and helped me learn as much as I could and I was able to see the surgery my own cat went through and was told everything I needed to know about any possible relapse in her condition.

Don't get me wrong, I love animals. I am an animal lover to the max. I just couldn't see myself working all my days here. There weren't too many frustrations, but the ones that I had really took over my mind. Because I was under 18 when I shadowed Dr. Dowd, I was unable to do almost all procedures including animals because of liability. I could not hold a mask onto a sedated cat or retrieve medicine or give shots of vaccine or saline. I messed up bringing in a dog once and was never fully trusted to help bring an animal to the back again. One thing that really made me sad was coming in after a good 2-3 months and having three of the prime vet techs not know my name.

I learned about my patience threshold. I can stand for 4 hours just observing without racking my brains out. 

From this iQuest subject I learned that most dogs and cats are overweight in a vet's perspective and that when you cut into animal flesh it doesn't bleed as much as one would expect. 

I expect my learning curve to either jump or sink this next semester. Now that I'm in Environmental Resource Management with an emphasis on storm water and construction, I have a whole new subject to learn. From my APES class I knew a little about the subject but this job delves deeper and incorporates all the concepts into one. My tasks these past two weeks have been recreating documents and I've been told the importance of the documents, but it's so much to sink in at once. My mentor has not yet unleashed her full knowledge upon me, and to be honest, I'm glad. The amount I've tried to soak in the past 6 hours of interning time has been a lot. 

Mrs. Sekera, I would like to warn you that I may seem frustrated and overwhelmed in the upcoming weeks, but I'm trying my best to put the pieces together. I hope it all makes sense soon, but I'm proud to say my excel AND word skills at making worksheets are now up to par. 

I would like to say as an after thought that I believe I've done so much this past year. I learned how to hoop and knit and I've saved up enough money to go to a festival in Southern California. I know I dreaded Fridays but I think I walked away with more knowledge than I really know.

Misdiagnosis

Welcome to December. There are many reasons why I type today. I have homework stacking up, American Horror Story to watch, and I have to eat. BUT there's the catch. If there's one thing that I love to do- it's eating. As the Oliver Twist movie laments "FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD". That's the huge issue. I cannot eat food. My stomach ache will take it up and destroy my stomach. I've been to the doctor twice in the past ~2.5 months and have yet to go in to get a ultrasound on the darned thing. Doesn't matter what I eat... raspberries, rice, cheese, crackers, bread, potatoes... I can assure everyone around me that a stomach ache will take place within 15 minutes. 

I still love food though, I'll just whine like a puppy after eating cause it hurts. Yesterday was my all time low. I may be going to a crazy amount of concerts but I cannot dance off yesterdays binge. I won't go into the gory details of my prey but I still felt full (+ stomach ache) in the morning. 

So the punchline of this post would have to be my desire to start working out. I told myself that I would walk the dog once a day but failed to walk the dog on the very first day I issued the order. That order was given yesterday but the cold state of the outside is really discouraging. How's my hooping you may ask? I'm at a depressing state. It could be Seasonal Affective Disorder or it could just be me being sad about being the only one in the hobby. I look up and admire these amazing hoopers but when I try to recreate, I fail hard. Frustration is a sword to my pursuits. I won't give it up though, no worries there. 

I found a website that will help me. I haven't read all of it yet (I have far more to read in my homework) but in this post I will assure myself that I will read it by this weekend. HOW TO EAT HEALTHY. Along with this healthy eating, I might as well put in a small effort of exercise. I'll set a goal of 5 minutes a day directed specifically for it. Since 5 is so small, hopefully I will feel very happy when I end up exercising 10 minutes a day! 

The last Post Script per say, is my DVC final! Finally I will truly have the real iQuest feel. Today was the official last day of class and my final is on Monday! After Monday, what am I going to do on my Wednesdays and Mondays? I guess I'll see. Maybe I'll implement a new change of lifestyle.

Toodaloo! 

Jane Goodall

I decided to do my research on Jane Goodall. iQuest requires me to research about someone in respect to the field I'm currently in. Jane Goodall has worked with monkeys/chimps for a long time, trying to learn more about them and save them from human destruction. I wasn't entirely thrilled, but last night I did a little extra research to pump me up for today's seminar and learned that Jane is also an Environmentalist and (I'm pretty sure) a Humanitarian!

Before my friend recommended Goodall, all I knew was that she worked with monkeys or chimps. I'm not a huge fan of monkeys but this environmentalist/humanitarian stuff really catches my eye. I really want to learn about her journey to become who she is today. Right now she looks like Gandhi to me- she believed in something and promoted it to the max extent. She gives no crap about what others think of her and easily brushed off a comic that mocked her that was distributed to a mass of people. I'll be looking forward to seeing how she dealt with her failures and how she impacted people all over.

Lacking Enthusiasm?

There has been very little to say lately. My internship frustrates me. I went on Friday and it took me a few minutes to realize... my mentor was missing! Quel domage! I didn't know what to do so I asked the vet techs and I ended up shadowing the doctor covering for my mentor. I introduced myself and what not but I don't think he's had a person shadow him before because he went on into appointments without telling me! I spend a lot of my time watching vet techs in between appointments so Dr. Dowd usually comes around to warn me when her next appointment arrives. AHHHHH. I didn't want to barge into an appointment! I had 20 minute intervals where I wasn't learning anything. There wasn't anything to do. On the upside however, there's a kitten up for adoption that's SUPER nice. Her name's Anna she's maybe 3 months old and cuddles like no other. 

Hoop wise- also disappointing. I did indeed get a polypro hoop off of hoop mamas about one or two weeks ago. I'm not very sure. It's been very hard to transition from a clunky hoop to a feather light super small one. I can't do half the tricks I used to and now my old hoop is practically useless to me, it's way to heavy to go back to. The thing that's bugging me is that I can't dance for my life. I'm proud of what I can do, but I cannot incorporate everything into a smooth looking dance. 

Also, I've been feeling disconnected. There's nothing to do, then there's a lot that I haven't done that I need to get back onto. I think I'm using this blog as a decoy, I want to stay on the internet and do nothing. I need a personal motivator or a life changing event for insight into what I need to do next. 

Instead of leaving this post so dreadful, I think I'll make a few goals for myself.
1. Finish the last college application

2. Enjoy company

October Goals

So... At the beginning of October all of us 'questers' set five goals that had to do with our internship.

1. Learn how to express the anal glands on a dog
ACCOMPLISHED. Indeed, my very own dog needed her glands expressed so my mother brought her. Kathy drew me a picture of a simple dog's butt anatomy and gave me lube and gloves. She put her finger into my dogs butt and told me to feel where her thumb was. I felt a bunch of tension and she told me to stick my finger in and do what she did. I did, but I couldn't seem to actually squeeze the crap out. I let her do the work and nasty stuff came out. She told me that my dog's left gland didn't seem to express when she was going to the potty and that her right gland was fine so if I needed to, I just needed to empty the left. I'm sure I'll try eventually, but the stench was terrible!

2. Learn the differences of a cat and dog exam
ACCOMPLISHED. I've been to a few cat exams and a lot of dog exams. They don't stick out as much to me as the problem situations, but I'm almost 90% sure there is no difference. Heart rate, stomach palpitations, teeth check, range of motion, eyes, ears, temperature.  I think my next big goal would be to remember the bpm difference between dogs and cats. I think dog's can range from 90-140 but I'll need to double check.

3. Figure out how to learn more about this field outside of the internship
FORGOTTEN. I totally forgot about this. I go into my internship and focus on that and when I leave I'm exhausted. I just absorb everything that happens and I tell it to a whole bunch of people and sleep it off. I will most definitely continue to work on this mainly because I'm going to UC Davis this weekend and my friend will be able to show me the facilities they have and talk to people who are in the field.

4. Talk to Dr. Codner to see if I can look at skin diseases under the 'scope
ACCOMPLISHED. I didn't need to ask Dr. Codner because Dr. Dowd showed me some cool stuff. I saw eggs of a worm that a dog pooped out and I looked at a malignant tumor sample. The eggs with worms looked like hard boiled eggs and the malignant tumor looked like a whole bunch of scrunched together circles.

5. Learn all the Friday vet tech names
ACCOMPLISHED. The ones who are very open to me: Receptionist- Tammy. Vet techs- Kristin, Stacy, and Kathy. I know one other girl but for some reason her name is slipping my mind. It will come back to me!

Mid October Update

So yesterday was about a month into my internship. Mrs. Sekera asked me how I was doing and made me realize that HEY I wasn't doing much. I was simply shadowing my mentor for 4 hours, nothing else.

I think my mentor must be some other-worldly creature though. Yesterday I learned lots. I walked in on Cathy (head vet tech) teaching Jennifer (college vet tech earning hours to graduate) how to get the bpm off a dog. I also learned the differences between sub Q and IM (inter muscular), and learned that almost nothing is ever injected into the vein. Even the shots we get at the doctors are inter muscular. The vet techs showed me how to identify the bladder on the ultrasound and they explained how a male dog's doggy parts worked.

Dr. Dowd let me go off and HELP for the first time. It's almost as if she knew about my conversation. Instead of her running out to ask for help, she let me run out and ask. It's not a lot but it made me feel so much more helpful. Another reason why I think Dr. Dowd is a miracle worker is the fact that I asked her how to help me with my chickens bald spot. My chicken has had a bald spot on her butt for a good 6 months. I'd been treating her with blu kote for two months but the feathers didn't start growing in until a few days after I asked her. It could be a coincidence, but.... I'd like to think otherwise. I'm so happy my chicken's growing back her feathers.

Update on hooping? I've also learned a lot. I went to decompression SF last week and made small arm hoops that are practically child arm hoops. They're made of poly-pro material and feel so nice when I'm just hooping on my hands. The smallest body hoop I've made now feels like lead. I'm dying to get a body poly pro hoop. I haven't put the lead hoop to waste though, I've learned how to do rising suns, some cross vertical arm trick, double hand isolations, reverse and regular escalators, and I'm practicing on my left shoulder hooping and vertical cat eyes. I'm just counting the days to Christmas!

Song of the last two weeks: Dreams

Ethics

Out of the six pillars of important characteristics, fairness is my number one. Fairness is described as playing by the rules, taking turns and sharing, being open minded and listening, and not blaming others.  Although all six are important, treating all people fairly is the foundation of a good relationship. Relationships help open up all the doors to our future.

If we were biased and dove into any budding relationship with that attitude, we would not have an accurate idea of who the person was. In respect to my internship, I go into every appointment with no judgment to the case. If a situation looks bad, the owner will prove to me through his/her explanations that it was or wasn't their fault. I should keep an open and positive mind towards everyone I meet.

If fairness did not exist, we would all be self-absorbed nit-wits. We would wage wars and solving problems would not be easy. Fairness is compromise and without compromise we wouldn’t be able to get the things we needed.