It's time for an update!

Warning: Looong blog post. Long!

I wasn't going to update my blog until I could do it with pretty pictures. I see my friend's and family member's blogs and they're so pretty. Whether it's babies, camping or projects, I love looking at all of the new, nice pictures every day. Then there's mine. Wah-waaah. Lola and I are still wearing snow suits above and it's 75 degrees outside. LOL! Ahhh...whatever! It's time for an update even if I don't have a lot of pictures or a new background!

A lot has happened since I last threw a post up on here. I had a week off of school during which time...*drum roll*...I bought a new truck! WOOHOO! I finally bit the bullet and got a new vehicle. I seriously have been talking about it for years! My dad helped me find a great deal on a 2003 Ford F150. It has four doors, four-wheel drive, and even better...it's not red! I love it so! It rides great and it's comfortable and...it's a truck! YES! :}

I also started school again. I'm actually in my third week already. I am taking Advanced Clinical Skills and Advanced Animal Disease and Hematology this quarter. So...advanced pee and blood. LOL! Good times, huh? I honestly love the classes...again. And yes, I know I always say that! The equine instructor is teaching my Clinical Skills class so obviously that rocks. He always throws in little nuggets of information about equine no matter what we're studying. Like last week when we went to the shelter and learned how to place urine catheters, he taught me how to produce and clean up a sterile environment when I'm doing farm calls with horses. My other class is being taught by one of the attending doctors at the school. I’ve never had a class with her, but I can already tell she's pretty hardcore and we're going to learn a TON in that class!

Speaking of my equine teacher, he hooked me up with a volunteer position. I'm currently on the wait list for the main equine hospital here in Utah, but I want time and experience in the meantime for my resume, so he helped me out. I started working last Saturday at a facility that takes in and rehabilitates abused and neglected horses. The owner of the facility was pretty excited about my horse experience, so in trade for groundwork with the horses and stall cleaning, I get to help out with any medical stuff that comes up. I will DEFINITELY get some pictures posted soon on that. The facility is really nice and the horses (of course) are beautiful!

That pretty much brings me up to last night. Last night was awesome. We had a sick dog come into the school that needed serious treatment and attention. The attending doctor asked my teacher if she could borrow one of us, and another girl and I raised our hands at the same time. Once again, we rock-paper-scissor-ed it and I won! HAHA! I don't know where I’ve gotten my mad game skills all of a sudden! Anyways, the dog had a super high temperature of 105.5, was coughing up mucous & blood, and was incredibly dehydrated. The doctor had me place an IV catheter which was insanely hard and nerve-wracking since the dog's blood pressure had bottomed out and had flat veins. I hit it on my second try and then started giving him various meds and administering fluids, though. The doctor had to finish rounding on the other animals, so she left me with the dog to bring his temperature down, monitor fluids, continue meds and essentially keep him alive! When I write it, it sounds easy, but I honestly was a wreck! We usually get healthy dogs from the shelter, so this was one of the first times I've done real medicine where it definitely mattered if I messed up. Everything went well, though. I was with the dog until about 12 AM this morning. When I left, he was up and moving around, wagging his tail, his temp. had come down to 103.1, and he even went outside and pottied! I never thought I'd be outside in the middle of the night, cheering for an animal that made a poop! LOL! But...I gotta say...I loved every second of it.

Lola is doing well. I don't know if people want to hear about Lola, but I don't care. She's my buddy. Every night when I get home, she'll wake up to greet me, then I usually sit down to check the mail or something. During that time, she will usually run off find a toy to bring to me. Well, the other day she came running in with...a hanger. A plastic hanger. LOL! It's her new favorite toy. Sometimes if there isn't one lying around, I'll hear her whimpering from my closet where she's sitting and staring at all of the glorious hangers that are too high for her to reach. Oh man. She is so crazy, but I love that about her. She is a constant source of entertainment!

So that is our life right now. On top of work, school and volunteering, I've been participating in local vaccination clinics on the weekends lately. They're pretty fun. It's definitely a different experience to work with animals AND their owners! What else? Oh! My favorite (and yours?!), Miranda Lambert, won a bunch of awards on Sunday night at the ACM's. Yeah...she's rad. :) I'm also doing a 5K in a couple weeks for the Susan B. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. If you want to sponsor me, you should - it's for a good cause - boobs! WOO! THANK YOU to everyone that's already donated. A little or a lot, you ROCK!

I've got my birthday coming up next week. The Dirty Thirty, as everyone keeps putting it. Apparently I'm supposed to do something big. Because I'll be thirty. Ummm... Right now a trip to Subway for a ham sandwich followed by a night at home sounds pretty good! We shall see.... :}

Love yaaaa'll! xoxoxAC