Clinics are still awesome.

My mid-rotation evaluation on Friday was all good things. They didn't even give me anything I needed to work on, just basically said I was doing great and that they loved my enthusiasm.

Today I started the ambulatory half of my RAHM rotation. It was a pretty slow day, with only two appointments. One of which was a pig euthanasia with captive bolt. That was upsetting to watch. Clinically, I know the pig isn't aware of what's going on after it's been bolted. But all the blood and bone/brain tissue, and watching it seize violently, it's not fun. I was a little shaken up for awhile afterward. Luckily my next appointment was a bunch of mares with foals, and I got to pet adorable, sweet babies with their velvety noses to cheer me up.

Clinics are just awesome. After two and a half years of intense study, I was beginning to flag and burn out. My energy and passion were just sapped out of me. Clinics has rejuvenated my enthusiasm and love of medicine. I'm excited about what I do again.

One small aside to the happy post, I had to take Cas into the ER small animal clinic at school today. He had gone 48 hours without eating and threw up several times. He was getting lethargic and sleeping constantly, so this morning I dropped him off in ER with permission to spend up to $200 on diagnostics before checking with me to order any further tests. They called me about an hour later with blood work and radiograph results that everything was normal except for some mild dehydration. They started him on metaclopramide (an anti-emetic and GI motility enhancer) and gave him some subcutaneous fluids. He threw up twice more, even with the metaclopramide on board, and still wouldn't eat. Then when I showed up at 4:30 to pick him up, he immediately went to his food bowl and started chowing down. He kept that down and ate again about 30 minutes ago and got his second dose of metaclopramide. So far, that's staying down, too. So it seems like he just had a really bad case of indigestion and got into a self-reinforcing loop of nausea, not eating, acid in the stomach making him more nauseated so he didn't eat, and it kept going on like that. Hopefully we broke the cycle and now he'll be fine.