im really happy after these two classes this semester in my confidence in the microscope department. i found it pretty fascinating when something shows up under the scope, especially if it was unexpected. like the lungworm i found wednesday from fecal float of a jersey milk cow. it was alive and squirming around! it was neat to see, and good practice in identifying the correct species from my notes. i also found a crazy looking mite from a hedgehog fecal, that i used my textbook to identify. this is why i liked the parasite course, but i have no idea what i am going to do on the exam without my notes. wayyyy too much info. i really wished the parasite course would have just focused on clinical issues, it is information overload to read about small, large, and wildlife. not to mention the last set of notes regarding treatments; i couldnt even see straight after reading all those medical ingredients. and a 50% gradient to the final exam? wow, i really feel like i am in trouble on the parasite course.

as for the microbio course, i really appreciated the layout of the notes and assignments this semester. it really helped me stay on track having an assingment every week, and helped to reinforce the lessons. i found the assignments in microbio class to be a better review than the quizzes in the parasite class. this course was very very well organized. it was fun to see the growth on the BAPs because i have never done anything like that before. it was also great doing the assignments and viewing first had what our notes were talking about when i came to micro and macro details. it was challenging doing both of these classes lab assignments because our clinic is so small we send everything out for analysis, so i havent had any experience doing any of these diagnostics myself. also, because there is no tech on staff, there is no one to really conference with about things, or saving anything of interest for me to look at. i found that really hard this semester. i appreciate that for the final we will have the aid of our flowcharts available. i find this to be very reasonable that it is not expected that we memorize this.

after this semester i am feeling like i would like to explore more into what larger clinics are doing with lab diagnostics and if the techs are spending a lot of their time gram staining and preparing slides, ect. i hope to be in a larger clinic after my program so i can really utilize these skills, because we are learning so much, i want to be able to use it all!!

more microscopin'

yahoo i was so excited when i successfully viewed both of my gram stains from my BAP growth on oil immersion!! it was realllllly cool to see. it was especially interesting looking at the different orientation and sizes between the two different bateria. now im working on the sleuthing end of things to try and I.D. what exactly i was looking at.... :)

also, i was happy to see that my one slide was ok after leaving it overnight before i had a chance to view it. i had time to stain one of my slides but no time yesterday to view it, so i ended up leaving it at room temp until this afternoon, when my other BAP was ready so i could make my second slide. i was worried that i might lose something, but it turned out to be just fine.

anyone know how long could i save a fixed and stained slide at room temp? better refridgerated?

i had a nice moment with a client on friday that i wanted to share

the mom, son, and daughter were bringing in their 11 yr old yellow lab who they suspected of having a stroke. when they arrived i went out to the car to help them carry him in as he could not walk. the daughter and i were about the same age, and we hoisted that big fella in from the parking lot and in the back door to the exam room by ourselves. i commented on her being pretty strong (i like to think i am too! haha) and she replied that they were "farm kids" and so she was used to it. once we had the lab on the exam table, it was obvious that he was in rough shape. his extremities were cold and he had laboured breathing, but you know labs, he was still smiling and wagging his tail. <3 the clients did not wish to do any testing or try any treatments, they were set on having him put to sleep right then. again, the farm lifestyle. the mother and son were both pretty upset and did not want to stay during the euth, so they left to take care of the bill and wait outside. the daughter said she wanted to stay and asked if she could help me with anything during the euth. i thought it was interesting that she asked that, nobody ever has asked me that. and i replied that all she had to to was talk to her dog and give him comfort. while the DVM was prepping, the two of us were left in the exam room, and she told me that she works in a health care home for seniors. she said that she saw the lab's laboured breathing and felt his cold paws, and that it was just the same symptoms she saw in some of her patients, and that she wished that she could help them out of their suffering. that is why she wanted to be with the dog while we put his suffering to rest. she was telling me this with a very cool manner, no emotion, very factual. it made me realize that she must see as much, of not more, death than we do in our positions, and that she must need to keep her emotional side in check. i let her know that i understood what is was like to feel like you must keep your emotions controlled during work, and that it was fine to feel that way now, but that she must also remember that this was her pet. she can be as strong and mature about this situation as she could right now, and she may not feel like crying or being upset at this momement, but i asked if she would be able to maybe have a good cry about him later that night. she smiled at me and totally knew what i ment, and said that she most definatly would. she agreed with me and said she knew that its not healthy to always bottle up emotions, especially with her line of work and not to mention their farming lifestyle!

he went to sleep very peacefully, and then we wrapped him up in his blanket. i left her alone with a box of kleenex and told her she could stay as long as she needed, and that she could leave out the back door when she was done. about 5 mins later, she came out and i was working in the back room. she had a few sniffles i could tell. :) but she had pulled herself together enough to professionally ask if i needed help carrying him off of the table. (the family had decided to live him with us for cremation.) i just said "you dont have have to worry about that, we will take good care of him" and she smiled and left.

i usually wouldnt have gotten that involved in disscussing the grief with a client normally, but it just seemed like something between us clicked enough for it to be a natural conversation. i sure found it comforting to talk with someone my own age about those feelings, and i found it interesting that we felt the same way in dealing with both our different species of patients! none of my friends work in the health field, so i dont really get to talk about that kind of "work stuff" with people my own age. i think that having a place like this blog to write it down is also a good substitute for getting those feelings out. (and that's just what the above post is for :) )

mastering the scope

yesterday i spent my lunch break gram staining my direct smears and i was nervous that it would be wasted when i couldnt figure out my oil immersion technique and become discouraged again. :( i really made sure i was getting a good idea of what i was viewing first on 40X power, then i moved up to 100X. i figured out that my problem was i was moving too fast through my fine adjustments. i watched much more carefully and moved my fine adjustment much slower. i found that i could click past the image so fast that if i wasnt watching closely it would vanish! really crazy. i also adjusted the lamp and moved the lens closer to the slide and that opened up much more light. when i had the clear image under the oil immersion field, i also found i adjusted the iris so it was a bit closed and that helped the contrast more. yahoo! :D I spent and hour and a half looking at two slides... haha... owch my eyes! but it was really interesting for sure. i didnt get a patient with wound or an abcess yesterday or today which was REALLY strange (we were super slow for appointments this week) so i wasnt able to make a smear of a wound. i want to make that slide and see all the assortment of goodies in that image! ;)

always remember claws = caution!

i dropped my guard today when my neighbour brought her cat in for her yearly booster. she was acting very friendly with me and i was petting her during the exam and i didnt pick up on any bad vibes or warning signs from her. partly because of that, and partly because i was chatting with my neighbour, i wasn't paying as close enough attention to how i controlled the cat as i picked her up off the table to weigh her. i picked her up like i would casually pick up at pet at home, not how i would normally pick up a patient at the office. normally i would have picked her up slowly, keeping her head away from my body and controlling her front legs. instead, i picked her up with her head facing my chest and without holding her front paws at all! maybe she doesnt like getting picked up in general, or maybe she wasn't feeling comforable about having a weigh-in today (shes 15 lbs... ;), but anyway... owch, big mistake!! she swung her front paws at my chest and i reacted fast enough that she couldnt latch onto my chest/neck but she did claw me right on the ear! it bled like crazy and i'm typing this now while wearing a bandaid wrapped around my upper lobe. :(

the lesson of the day today was treat EVERY patient with caution. they could appear nice and friendly, and you may even know them outside of work, but when we are working with a patient in the clinic, they are going to be on the defensive. it really could have been a lot worse, she could have scratched my face or latched onto my chest. we have to be on top of the situation and practice safe handling skills to avoid injury to ourselves, or to other handlers. if there is anything worse than accidentally allowing a patient to hurt you, it is accidentally allowing a patient to hurt a co-worker. (ex-losing control of a cat during a blood draw and allowing her to strike the person drawing the blood. ughh what a terrible feeling!!) i can think of a quite a few situations where team work was essential to controlling a patient and keeping both of us and the animal from injury!

last week when we were doing the assignment about microorganisms and the disinfectants used in our clinic i was happy that i was able to change some cleaning policies for the clinic. we typically use a product called ascend diluted with water for our table cleaner and peroxiguard for our floor cleaner. i was looking close at the dilution amounts and specifics, i realized that we could actually use peroxiguard for both our floor AND table cleaners. not only would it be more economical and convenient to use only one product, but the peroxiguard actually has a much superior disinfecting ability! the ascend has a surface contact time of a minium of 10 minutes to disinfect whereas the peroxiguard has a 5 minute contact time. The ascend doesnt specify what the contact time is for sanitizing, but the peroxiguard is only 30 second contact time for sanitizing! it makes so much more sense to use the peroxiguard on the table tops especially the exam room table.

incubator

found a perfect glass serving dish for my incubator! set it up today with the heating pad and got my thermometer at a steady 35*. im going to practice streaking the BAP with my sterile loop tomorrow to get the feel for it. thursday ill start growing my colonies at lunch so by lunch break on friday they will be complete. ill also be able to check on them saturday before we go home for the day to see if there was any change after another 24 hrs.

we dont do any of this stuff in-clinic, and i never did any of it in school, so it is a little intimidating!!

also- charging up my video camera in preparation for my on screen debut for semsester 3! ;)

back to school :)

i drove to work today and saw all the kids walking to school once again... i actually used to like the first day of school... all the brand new clothes and supplies and seeing all your friends. :)

it was also the first day back in our program today! august was great, but i must confess i am a little bit excited to start studying again! ill have to remind myself of that fact come midterms :P i'm starting things off slow today, just trying to organize and orient myself with our two new classes. i am glad that both course focus on lab procedures for this semester... that may help with the overall absorption of the material. i found the lab procedures 1 course notes to be very confusing since the notes do not have separate chapters for each week or page numbers. i had to organize them by reading through everything and labeling them with dividers. lab procedures 3 course notes however are really helpfully organized!!

at work today:

1) prepped a fecal float in saf jar for the lab. this cat was pos for giardia last summer, and we suspect the same results again. while i was doing that, i was thinking that pretty soon i will know how the lab completes all of these types of tests!! :) and i will be able to do them myself i guess?!

2) rechecked the kitten that we adopted out last week!! she is doing extremely well and her new family is in love! she was found in a ditch 2 weeks ago by a client who works road construction. she had a concussion and a gash along her forehead, but no other injuries. we healed her up and she was doing so well that we adopted her out only a week later. :)