Finals week 2011

Where to start when you are so behind on the blog… yes folks, I’ve just been too busy to blog. Busy with being busy, and then busy with not being busy as I think that “Private Practice” may have generated one stable relationship after 2 seasons of drama and perversion, and alas last night they attempted to kill the woman off. Simply harrowing. This is the fortunate or unfortunate combination of finals week, grading until the brains begin to hemorrhage, then going home to your neighbor’s trailer instead of your own for the evening because they have food and Netflix.

The last couple of weeks have certainly been interesting and slightly drama filled, as the continuing saga of the mangled meat horse mentioned in the last blog became … well… a continuing saga. I have a smile on my face now, for sure, but some tears hit the dirt on that one as the nearly degloved muscle did not end up surviving the ordeal and the horse came back in a few days with my very first foul smelling wound infection with “dying” added to the adjectives list for that particular muscle group. I can’t go into too much detail on the personal stories associated with this case, but it was a heart wrenching case for me as the only thing I wanted to do was order that horse a new leg on ebay and send that remarkable family home with a miracle. My boss happened to be gone for a few days when the horse returned, thus there was more than one 4 AM email going out for advice from my mentors who have not only seen many awful things but have the confidence and experience to tackle them with both skill and hope.  Many thanks to my favorite mentor, who arose from his own drug-filled post-surgical stupor to tell me what I most needed to hear on that intimidating Sunday afternoon: “You can do it.” I did do it, with many, many prayers sent up to the Great Healer for that horse to turn around. The Navajo people were doing their own rituals as well, and although I don’t know them well enough to understand exactly who or what they were praying too, their heart was right. The horse stayed for a week and I discovered that even unwrappable portions of a horse forelimb can be defeated with lap sponges, pantyhose, cut-off jeans and duct tape. Handyman’s secret weapon.

*Pause* in diatribe as I exited the premises to go to the Crownpoint Elementary School Christmas program to see hundreds of little kids sing off key and off beat… super cute the entire time of course. Especially my favorite one waving around a giant poster of a partridge in a pear tree.

Okay what else was on my list of things that I consider interesting… ah yes we were in the midst of the week of scariness. Also within that week of scariness – another intense episode in my dislike of haggling about money coupled with my dislike of death. I don’t enjoy haggling about money, particularly when the haggling is with relatives of a sweet, sad Navajo grandma who doesn’t speak any English and brings in her broken dog to figure out how broken it is, then at the end of the day I have to put it to sleep. It will be a lifelong struggle, I believe, to combat this inner feeling that I shouldn’t get paid unless I fix the animal. I know, I know, logic wins and it costs money to diagnose brokenness and euthanize things, but I just feel so bad for the people. So, so bad. It seemed to be the week of death in the dog world. But alas, in the horse world, mourning turned to dancing. Or at least some nice sound walking on a forelimb with a heck of a lot less swelling and stinking. Tomorrow I will see him again, this horse who became my son.

Being a vet this particular week has been pretty awesome, given the large number of chocolates and cookies that have come walking through the door! My pancreas may be sad but my brain is happy. A little sugar boost to carry me through final exam week. It still holds that it is better to give exams than to receive, however it still quite the butt-load of work. I didn’t ever slow down from the horse saga – just took off to Albuquerque last Saturday night to hang out with my peeps, look at Christmas dinosaurs, squid and octopi, go to a seriously awesome church, and then by golly I rode just about the cutest horse I have ever ridden. Who knew I could fall so hard for a 14.2 Paso Fino? Not I. But I did. Even now I forgot about my very late in life realization/fascination that the plural of squid is squid… thinking about that adorable little feisty little horse…. *Pause.* I’m a little distracted right now. I want to write about this horse but I started wondering what a group of squid was called, googled it, discovered it was just “school,” and was so disappointed that I’m trying to think of a better word. I do believe my bestie just solved it. “Squee of squid.” Okay we can move on now.

Yikes it is 10:14 and I need some sleeps. I never slowed down because I played hard in ABQ and then came home to write and grade finals every night until tonight. I can write more about this magical Paso Fino horse next week beCAUSE I’m going to ride him again this weekend. In the snow and rain. With the sheriff’s posse. I can't believe how nice people can be sometimes... sharing their magical horses! Until then I will end this blog with a couple of bulleted reports:

• My one-eyed puppy short legs is now big enough to jump onto the couch and into the car all by himself,
•  None of my dogs mind that a mouse runs across the livingroom floor every night while I am typing up/grading exams… and there isn’t a lot I can do about it at the moment because I have NEVER been able to set a mousetrap (GUILT – that’s why I studied brains in the fruit fly lab instead of the mouse lab), and live traps are far away in Gallup,
• My dad sent me some AWESOME bright red snowpants,
• Today I received a tiny Bolivian nativity scene in the mail with… *drumroll* a LLAMA in it,
• I have a Christmas reindeer,
• I am annoyed that my new position as a working professional makes me feel obligated to wear matching socks every single day,
• Tonight’s “Private Practice” episode sent my single moral candidate into the role of psychologically messed up baby-hater. Don’t waste your time folks, stick with the muppets.

Adios