A New Beginning

The internship came to an end this past Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. I can't believe the 3 months are over! It went by so fast, but I am definately glad that it's over. The days were long even though it went by fast as a whole. I learned a lot as an intern, but I still have more to learn. Most of you have heard that I was lucky enough to be hired on at the clinic. I am so releived to know that I have a job after the internship! No job hunting, at least not yet. I'm not sure how long I'll be down here at the clinic, but it will be for at least the next year. I plan to get as much experience as I can, and the clinic that I'm at is just the place. Not only do they see just about any species out there, they also have high tech equipement: all bloodwork machines, UA machine, digital radiography, chemotherapy, dentistry, laser surgery, and cremation services. Digital dental radiography is also in process. At least once a month, a speaker comes in to give a seminar which counts for continued education credits. Plus, the staff is friendly and likes to have fun while remaining professional. So sure, I didn't plan on ending up in a clinic after graduation. However, if I could be working in a clinic, it would be this one. The only thing I'm missing is rehabilitation, but I only have to drive about 20 minutes for that one. We'll see if I can find time to add a 4th job to my work schedule...

Another Week is Over

At least as an intern it is. I still have to work at Kohls tomorrow and then my usual weekend hours at the clinic. It wasn't a too exciting week. I was scheduled to be up front at the desk Monday and Tuesday, so those days were spent checking clients in and out and spending time on the phone. We are still cleaning out files so there were lots of phone calls reminding people of overdue vaccines. It wasn't very exciting. Wednesday was just as fun. The whole morning was supposed to be spent in exploratory surgery, but instead I was helping with an appointment and ended up in the lab. It was kinda sad, but at the same time not so bad cuz I still got in a lot of practice with urine. That afternoon I was up front again, so it was more phone calls. Today was a normal day of appointments, so not much excitement again haha As you can see, it was a pretty boring week. As is the life of an intern. Although, I only have a week and a half left of interning!!! It's crazy to think that my 12 weeks are almost up.

Lyme Sulfur Dips

Today was the slowest day of my entire internship. I had 2 appointments all day with my assigned doctor, and it was a 10 hour day! My morning started with cleaning. I was lucky enough to scrub down all 6 lab rooms; including, the counters, cubbards, walls, tables, and benchs. I also had to wipe down the canisters, computers, and ledges. It was pretty darn exciting. Half-way through my cleaning spree, I was interrupted to help with some kitty lyme dips. I've never done a lyme dip before, so I was all for helping with a new experience. Little did I know this experience would make me smell the rest of the day, and then some. Lyme sulfer smells horrible! I'm sure most of you know what sulfer smells like, so imagine that about 100 times stronger. The smell is horrifically breath-taking, as in it literally takes your breath away, suffocating you. It was bad. Anyways, we had to do it to 2 cats. It was hard enough keeping one cat in the bathtub, let alone having to do it a second time. All of us got some lyme dip on us, so of course we would smell bad too. I came home and showered; I scrubbed the crap out of my arm. And I still smell bad. Hopefully some perfume with drown out the smell when I go to work tomorrow at Kohls. Something tells me that they won't be quite as understanding.

On another note, the rest of the day wasn't very exciting. I finished cleaning out the rest of the lab rooms by the time my first appointment arrived. After they were all checked-out, I took over the lab duties. I ran some bloodwork, heartworm tests, and fecals. It wasn't too slow in the lab, so I was glad when they sent the lab tech home for the day. After she left is when the stuff started piling in. Then I finished the day going through paper files. As you can tell, it was pretty exciting, hense the sarcasm. There's bound to be one or two of them throughout the internship though. It was nice to have a slow day, even though it wasn't very exciting.

Kitty Dentals

Yesterday started a new month at the clinic, so I have been assigned to help out a new doctor/tech team. Sadly, I won't get to see all the crazy surgeries or exotic animals near as much this month, but it will still be great experience working with the youngest doctor at the clinic. She went to school with my sister, so I knew her before starting my internship. Anyways, her surgery day is monday. Yesterday we didn't have any surgeries set up, but there were 2 dentals scheduled. Since I'm in my 3rd and last month of interning, I was able to do both the dentals. At least half of each. The tech did one side of the mouth to show me how they do them at the clinic, and I did the other side of the mouth. I admit, I was a little slow, but it was the first time I've done dentals at the clinic. Yea I did them at school, but that was with different equipment and a different procedure. At school, I probed to check pocket depth in the gums, explored teeth pockets, scaled the crowns to remove tarter, and polished the crowns. At the clinic, you start scaling right away. Then you polish the teeth and probe the pockets. The explorer is only used if absolutely necessary. None the less, I was able to perform the dentals, and they went well. Luckily, the teeth weren't very bad, so no xrays or extractions were necessary. They were both routine dentals.

Today wasn't near as exciting. I was scheduled to be up front today since the doctor I'm with had the day off. It was pretty slow since only one doctor was taking appointments before 1pm. The other doctor on today was in surgery til then. Luckily, I had lots of projects to work on during the slow stretch. I made free treat bags of t/d for dogs and cats at first. Then I was lucky enough to organize the city license certificates to mail out to the government center. I also go to work on frontline coupons for those that bought 6 applications to get one free. Towards the end of the night I wrote up new client cards to mail out to our newest clients welcoming them to the clinic family. It was a pretty exciting day as you can tell. I'm down to 3 weeks left of the internship!

Busy, Busy, Busy

I feel so bad about not writing for the past 2 weeks, but it has so crazy! Some of you may have heard that I wasn't so nice regarding my graduation present to myself. I decided to give myself an upper respiratory viral infection cuz I just love myself that much. Anyways, I was sick for a week and a half. It wasn't fun. I'm still waiting for the tickle to go away for good. Aside form being sick, nothing too exciting happened until Halloween this past Friday. I was lucky enough to have the day off, so I ran some errands and took the dogs to the pet stores in town for some free doggie treats. That night I stayed in to hand out candy. However, we got a whole 5 trick-or-treaters. The first one "kidnapped" my mom to go to a haunted graveyard near by. The remaining 4 were all the same family, my little cousins. The rest of the night I played Scooby-doo clue and watched scary movies. It was laid back, but still a good Halloween.

Last night was when the real excitement happened. A family friend has an annual Halloween party the weekend of Halloween. This year's theme was Las Vegas, or as it said on their sign "Lost Vegas." My parents and I went as Blue Man Group and it was awesome! We had some of the best costumes there with our pure blue face, hands, and hair. At the party, there was a roulette wheel and a black jack table. All guests were given $200 to gamble at the party. Towards the end of the night I decided to hit up roulette. I bought in at $100 and cashed in with $18000. Now is only it was real money! I was pretty proud of myself though, cuz I never spent the other $100. I came home with a lot more money, even if it was paper :P Depending on how many chips we had determined how many raffle tickets we got. I got 9 raffle tickets for the drawing, and I won! For once, I was acutally lucky! My prize was a scarecrow head thats all fiberoptic. It was pretty cool, and its fallish so he can stay up past this weekend.

It was a great weekend, ending with daylight savings time. Since we didn't get home til 1am, it was a good thing we gained an extra hour of sleep last night. Time for yet another week of intering to start tomorrow. Only 3 1/2 weeks left of interning! And I guess til Thanksgiving too. Better get the holiday shopping started.