Rez in the rearview mirror

Well here I am, at the Flagstaff library, with my only major discomfort being that I have this computer for 95 minutes and I failed to use the restroom prior to sitting down. TMI? My blog. Ha. Discomfort increased by the fact that I just came from drinking a ginNORMous coffee. I really need a nap, but when I close my eyes I think about patients. There have been about a ton and half since I arrived here, and I love them enough to worry over them on my days off. I have always know that my heart is tied to dogs and cats - I have a host of names and faces in my head right now that I cuddled and cried over all of my years growing up - now my skills are growing in the realm of several diseases and ailments that I did not get a chance to see on the Rez, as well as in the realm of learning how to move fast in one heck of a fast-paced clinic! Urgent care is a diet and exercise plan unmatched in effectiveness, I think. I'm back on days for a bit at the moment, and have just enjoyed a day in the midst of monsoon season here in Flag. Imagine that! Rain! Like! This library has a fairly large Navajo population as I look around me, so it feels kind of like home of last year with the exception of it being a library. Thoreau could use a nice library with wireless and lots of books/DVDs. I returned here to lurk in hopes that the annoying individual holding All Creatures Great and Small season 2 hostage might come through the door so I can drop and tackle her and get it from her dirty little hands. Small crush on James Herriot.

Well I'm off. There are 8 million stories and I might have to start a catchy new blog since I'm not really on the Rez anymore. Definitely enriched by the experience, and I think about them all often. The great news is that their new vet is fantastic. I met her when I returned to close some loose ends last month. Now that I'm back on days I will head back there for a visit soon, and collect my llamers! Missin' the llamers! Her wild boyfriend must also be tamed, and together we will explore the San Francisco peaks. Two llamas, two dogs, a llama pack with a tent... dream to come true soon, just you wait.

Once upon a Spring Day...

Pepperoni and I are getting some nice chill time here, hanging out at the clinic and staring off into the eastern sky of the Rez. It's pretty gorgeous out, and it's honestly the first time I've sat and thought about... whatever I want... for about 3 weeks. It's nice!

Some changes are on the horizen and I'm looking ahead with mostly eagerness at this point. I turned in my official resignation letter today, with a statement that if a part time position out here became available I would strongly consider taking it. Yes indeed, I decided it was time to go at the end of my contract period, end of this month. Or at least half-go. I'm off to Flagstaff, AZ, there the surroundings will be more homey, friends who seem like family are there, and a pretty kick ass small animal hospital has decided to give the Funk a go on urgent care shifts. Given that today's 6-day old very facially messed up suspect snake bite pup MADE MY DAY (and will likely be just fine if we get through 8-week-pup surgery on Monday), I'm pretty excited to all get out at the things I will see, learn and do there. A pretty cool Godsend job may have just shown up to occupy my non-urgent care time as well, so the future looks pretty interesting.

I was feeling rather morose these last couple of weeks as I gave my unofficial notice a while back and seemed to not even ripple the boats around here, but things aren't always as they seem. The students and my precious staff and boss surprised me Wednesday morning with a totally decked out clinic, food, a banner, and a whole mess of NTC faculty, etc appearing to send me off with some of the kindest words in the history of kind words. The people I have come to love will miss me, after all, and it makes me smile and tear up. Or tear overflow, as defined most of Wednesday. I'm entertained and sad that the night before HAPPENED to be a night where I decided to work at the clinic until around 10 PM on paperwork, and Sharie was circling the premises with decorating materials wondering when the heck Dr. Funk was going to leave, lol. Bless her heart, she's as fabulous as they come and I'm going to take her with me. Kidnapped in my car. Royce too. How can I be a vet without Royce?

I'd say all sorts of things have happened since the last blog, because it's like that out here, but I'll start with today and see how far I get. Oh... already mentioned snake-bite pup. Maybe snake bite. Sweetest owner in the world, but chose an incredibly bad dogsitter. This apparently happened last Saturday. Holy cow? I know. But also this week I euthanized one of my long term patients because he was left with someone who let him hop around with a broken femur for 3 weeks. Surgery wasn't an option for the sad family. Almost all circumstances out here are out of the ordinary and I sometimes get mad, often get sad, and just focus on helping the animal when it finally gets to me.

Along that out of the ordinary note, I failed to mention that my chill time is due to having locked myself out of the clinic without my phone or keys. Yay Janel. So with only a laptop and wireless near the door, I found my sister's sister-in-law online and she called the Crownpoint PD, who eventually picked up and sent someone to NTC to ask them to unlock the front gate so I can at least drive out. Many, many minutes elapsed, and nothing happened, so now another call was made. After a couple tries, someone picked up, and it turns out that NTC was apparently notified, however the Secretary of Education is visiting at the moment and noone can come down and unlock the gate. A connection I never though I would have with the Secretary of Education. He has made my butt hurt. Butt not designed for hourly sit session up against the clinic front door.

Ooh I hear my phone! My dear friend Jessica has texted me. She has a special text tone.

So tomorrow is the Crownpoint graduation, and I will decorate two students. One was mine, one finished up most of her classes before I got here. The rest of my students will graduate next year after completing some more of their other class requirements. I will miss each one of them so much. Eight made it through the first semester weed-out, and they are all very unique, fabulous people who have learned so much and have such bright futures. This summer some of them will be exploring Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa on USDA internships. I think they're gonna rock them.

Well I think Joy should be coming along soon here to give me a ride to main campus and look for people with keys. That's good because I'm SO HUNGRY. I'm about to start on these weeds out front and I don't really know based on my extensive retention of toxicology whether or not "Into the Wild: Reservation Starvation" would be the follow up of that adventure.

Mostly about Max

Goodness. All sorts of things have happened since I last blogged. I cannot capture them all. I can capture some of them, however, since I am on hold with … I don’t even know where I’ve been transferred to now. Apple I think. I’d like the new little ThinkPad laptop to connect to the internet at home, through my phone, and that’s just way harder to do than it sounds. People get a little nicer when I tell them that no, I can’t go download this thing or that thing. This is my only source of internet. Forever. I live on a reservation and the wire things that Qwest would need have been cut and no one will fix it. Please help me make the phone talk to the computer.  I have no clue why the magic isn’t working. I tried giving it penicillin and it didn’t work.

I’m currently in the process of burning through another apple man. Been on the phone 50 minutes now. He’s very nice.

So… I see I was sick last time I blogged. Well I got better, then I got sick again, and now I am healthy and just tired. Tired in general and tired specifically of all of the starvation and ATTITUDE out here. The numbness toward starving animals. The insensitivity concerning an animal that you hit in the road. The endless arguments about cost of care, necessity of booster vaccines, differences between vet clinics and animal shelters… GRAH. It’s not everyone, but some weeks it just seems like it. On the other hand you have the adorable sisters who returned their new sewing machine to pay for treating their parvo puppy. Thinking of them makes me tear up and thank God so much that their pup made it through. It’s national parvo week out here and that would be the other reason I am tired. I don’t sleep well when animals are in the hospital. I keep waking up wondering if I should drive in and check on them, and when I do sleep I have weird dreams. Like last night. I dreamed I had a baby and named it Hosanna, and it had a mohawk. 

Sinking heart, apple man is through with me. He reminds me of when I have no clue what is wrong with an confusing case, throw out some possibilities, send it home on some supportive meds, then run to my office and read like a mad woman. Last time I tried to hook this thing up an AT&T man spent over an hour troubleshooting, didn’t seem to have the right manual for my phone, then finally figured out all the right buttons to push to make it work. Apple men are weaker. They say it is probably a computer problem and email you articles. Ah well, I will take it to tech support at NTC and give them the sad eyes. They already know that they may have to come all the way out to the hospital to plug something in because I confuse myself with 6 remotes to projectors and giant computers and may fail to see that something is just not plugged into the wall.

Well I was trying to figure out what to write about and I got too tired thinking about all the weird, semi-interesting things that have gone on out here and I’m going to just go to bed. I really, really still miss my dog Max. That’s one of the biggest things that happened that knocked me pretty flat for a while. He was my best boy of all time, and while visiting my llama a couple of weeks ago he took off from his usual obsession with the sheep and got hit in the road. The vehicle didn’t even slow down or stop, and I found him when he didn’t come when I called. We were only at the farm for 10 minutes, but that’s how fast it can happen. He was gone already when I got there, and based on his injuries I think he died immediately, which is the only good thing that I can pull out of what happened. Well that, and that he did not have to die slowly of cancer or organ failure. He was 12 or 13 years old though and we should have had more time together, and I miss him so, so much. Pepperoni misses him too! She still isn’t eating normally. There are some things about the people here that are just wrong, cultural norms or no cultural norms. It’s wrong to hit a dog and not stop. It’s wrong to drive past a woman kneeling and crying in the road with her dog and not stop. It’s just wrong and I give those handful of people no excuses. The good people are here though. The people who heard from Dr. Daye what happened and came back to work to help me get some shovels, the people who cried with me and hugged me, the people who gave me a little section of land to bury him in, the people who helped me dig a hole in the dark and tell me stories about the local Big Foot while we were digging… I love them all dearly. Every student and every staff member at this hospital has my heart and loyalty forever.

Well now that I’m dripping tears and snots everywhere I believe I will turn in. There hasn’t been a night yet where I don’t look at his empty chair and think about him running around in heaven waiting for me. Here’s an odd thing: the Sunday before this happened I was in Flagstaff, and I still can’t remember the context, but the FlagNaz pastor said that all dogs go to heaven and backed it up with a few scriptures and some refreshing boldness about a belief I have always had. Of course all dogs go to heaven. Why would God make such wonderful, perfect companions for us on this earth and then take them away? One last good thing about what happened… my desire to see heaven one day is no longer an academic, apprehensive, inevitable type thing. Intellectually of course I’d like to meet Jesus and see what this much under-described, perfect forever-home is like… but now that I know Max is there I’m so excited to get up there and see his happy face and tail-wagging self come flying out the gates to meet me! I didn’t realize it before, but home has always been where Max is. I’ve been such a nomad, packing up and leaving Michigan with only what would fit in my car, then heading to the middle of this high desert to live in a trailerpark where I have often felt like the only white person in the universe… but every day for the last 11 years I have come home to that faithful friend. Boyfriends have come and gone, friends have moved away or I have left them, happy times and sad times, that dog has been the most unconditionally loving companion and friend a girl could ever ask for. I miss you Mr. Smurf, Mr. Boogie Woogie, Mr. Maxwell Jonathan Brown, Mr. Snuffles, Mr. Snoopy-doo, Mr. Fluffy-butt... all of the weird things I called you and you just put up with it, lol. What a good dog.

I will try to be a little more upbeat next time and talk about the holy terror I adopted last week. Rez pups are always more than willing to help heal some sadness in your life, or at least distract you from it as you spend each evening pointing out all of the things that we DON’T chew and attempt to barter for your belongings with rawhide chews and stuffed toys.

Rez-world update from the sickie

It is winter. This is as far as I can get in starting my blog off with a quote from the Red Green show. I have recently arisen from a 14 hour sleep fest, as New Mexico has opted to make me feel more welcome here by giving me yet another disease. The mundane 3-day weekend has thus far been interrupted with brief periods of awakeness wherein I take care of dogs and sort through reality and dream world. No, there really isn’t a polish chicken hanging from my ceiling fan. I don’t even have a ceiling fan. There is also not an impending visit from Jessica and Peter, wherein I have been cleaning the spare room and screaming at the discovery of 3 giant leopard geckos under a table. This also would not happen, as that sort of discovery would be awesome and not scream-worthy. Max has not become incontinent and peed all over the house, and I have not been trying to drive backwards down the freeway in a snowstorm. Those are the positives. The negatives of being awake are the pounding headaches, clogged sinuses, and desire to be sleeping. At this precise moment, I am in a lull of symptoms and enjoying it. I strongly desire to leave this trailer and have an adventure! Unfortunately, I attempted to do that yesterday in pursuit of my lost wallet (found at work, in the pocket of the designated cow coat), went to the grand town of Gallup, and despite a very large coffee and desire to explore, I could hardly keep my eyes open long enough to visit Radioshack and go home.

It is my 7-month birthday of being in New Mexico and living in a trailer on the Rez. Radioshack is in the Rio West mall in Gallup, and I wandered through it with only a mellow realization that I was one of two white people there. It really is a foreign country, their country, but it doesn’t feel like it as much as Japan did. I think because I can read the signs here J. I can also overhear everyone shopping and they primarily speak English. I would not have to whip out a dictionary to ask someone which kind of rice to buy, and then freak them out because I don’t own a rice cooker. Driving through Gallup, it was nice to see the number of successful businesses in Gallup that are allowing some people to earn a decent living and be able to take their kids down to the mall for fun on the kiddy rides on a Saturday afternoon. They’ll be okay – I think enough people live partially on/off the Rez now that they can see the value of education and good choices. In time I believe they will figure out how to level up their country to be a more prosperous land and still retain their unique cultural aspects. I don’t know how to make that happen other than drop in my two cents of providing education for them, and being one example of someone in a career they love, worked hard for, and can take with them anywhere they choose. Change comes from within. The Navajo know best how to help the Navajo.

I am pausing to realize how awesome it is to breathe through ones nose. Maybe I can have an adventure after all. The adventure should start with washing dishes. I spent last evening collapsed on the couch with my Kleenex box, distracting my inability to sleep with a string of old, chauvinistic musicals. Annie Get Your Gun, Showboat, Kiss Me Kate, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers… they are so exceedingly entertaining and wrong on so many levels. If I were one of those women I would most likely be Annie Oakley. A man never trifles with gals who carry rifles? Lol. I don’t carry rifles, but I will pull an upsidedown legs-back calf out and laugh when she showers me in foul smelling uterine fluid. Hopefully one day someone will find that charming. If not, their loss. I do scrub up nicely.

My head has ceased to pound as well, I believe I will explore my new books. This weekend on the Rez will be divided into “About a Boy” units of time: Wash dishes – 1 unit. Read Watership Down or Sacred Cows – 3 units. Watch a couple of surgery videos and generate a go-to chart for how I want to treat various creatures in various predicaments with fluids– 2 units. Make a portobello mushroom burger and peanutbutter cookies – 2 units. Watch an online service from Mars Hill or Timberline or FlagNaz – 1 unit. Check facebook and see what the healthy people are up to – 1 unit. Sleep – remaining units.

Cases this past week were so-so. I did all I could for a 1-day suspect Parvo pup, and she seems to be doing fine. I worked 3 hours straight keeping a 2-day old hypothermic dyspneic pup alive, and emerged at the end of their financial abilities with a live pup to have them say, "It looks the same way it did when we brought it in," then angrily leave without caring much for my suggestions on how to keep it alive. Another person brought in a cute but wormy little pup owned by a family member to start off puppy shots and deworming, and the owner called later to yell about how she didn't actually want it dewormed, and how was she supposed to know if it had worms because she was not a white person who has time to sit around all day and watch puppies shit. I have no idea how she found out my big secret about what I do all day.

Now that I've had a good laugh I shall start on my units. I just used 2 writing this blog.

February already

It is Tuesday, I have a fur pile on my couch, and I could blog. Today was a fairly bloggable day on the Rez, starting with this rather fascinating dream wherein…*pause* *censor the queasy* *consider yourself warned* *but you’re missing out if you don’t keep reading*… wherein one of my fat rolls contained a palpable transverse large colon and I felt the need to operate. Phase into the next segment of this ultra-weird dream, and I was at some sort of CVF meeting and behold I had a 3 inch segment of large colon coming out of each side of my belly, and it wasn’t gross, it just contained undigested hay. However, I touched it and it started retracting and AHHH I started freaking out because I didn’t want that crap floating around in my abdomen, and I went on the hunt for Andy Musick, one of the old CVF student presidents at CSU, because I was hoping he would give me some lidocaine to stop the retraction. I don’t even know if that would work. I also started planning my own intestinal anastomosis, with some debating in my head about whether I should do it myself, have the CVF group do it, or maybe have a professional do it if insurance would cover it.

 

 

Okay I don’t know why I found that so fascinating and I’m going to stop writing about that dream because I’m confused about the rest of it.

 

 

But that was before I got out of bed, way tired because my new habit is to wake up at 4 AM and think it’s time to get up. But get up I did, with the exciting knowledge that yesterday a man said he was going to bring a cow in today who had a dead calf hanging out her back end. Yes folks, it happens out here. And I believe that calf was first observed last Saturday. Out here, the fields are expansive, the cows are wild, and the fences aren’t often in the best repair. Maybe it took that long to round her up. But anyway, she was coming, and I was going to help her. The magical combination of tired, excited brain on coffee sparked a wonderful realization that my missing coveralls were in the broken suitcase in the storage room, and I loaded them up with all my calving books and took off as usual in the morning with my carload of pups. Rolled in just before 8AM and the dog spay and cat neuter were arriving, no cow yet, and ran to the back to check on her royal cat fatness who is looking WAY better today (YAY!) and then started helping the students with drug calculations and meeting the animal owners who were incredibly cute and worried about their cat neuteree. THEN the cow rolled in, and indeed there was a calf coming out, all sad and swollen-headed, no legs out. We got her in the chute and I started my investigating, hearing Dr. Callan’s voice calling for lots and lots of lube, can’t get enough lube… and it seemed pretty darn tight in there but I was able to get a chain around one foot. I had to break at that point and zip in for the spaying and neutering, but got that done and then returned to project cow. I thought I might be in for a fetotomy and reintroduced myself to the fetotome first, odd contraption that it is, but with the power of lube and getting the calf at least part way back in, one foot and then the other came forward, and I realized somewhere mid foot number one that Dr. Mortimer was truly the bomb. I think I almost died on that calving rotation, but he somehow instilled within me the knowledge that all calves can come out, somehow, and I can get them out. He was just incredibly matter-of-fact about things, mellow, and just seriously one of my favorite teachers ever. But anyway, we lubed the dickens out of her, and after about 30 minutes those front feet were out and with some rotating we got the rest out and left the uterus in, which is a good thing. The one thing I sort of forgot about is that what comes in must always come out, and in taking my feel for any possible calf number two, a WHOLE fire hose full of lube/uterine fluid came out in a couple of fast, drenching showers. Since my last blogging, I have learned to keep my mouth shut, so that wasn’t an issue, but I realized that Morty forgot to tell us one thing that would have been awesome to know: always take an extra bra and socks to work. Lesson learned. Lesson passed on to all readers. I didn’t really mind the shower; I was so glad that calf was out. I’ve also been given a strange blessing by God wherein I don’t think these things are gross. A couple of students disappeared for a little while and came back indicating that they had to leave or vomit, and Royce informed me that the fluid smelled pretty bad, but I thought it was seriously impressive how much fluid can be IN a cow’s uterus. Dude.

 

Anyway, the cow fared pretty well, as did her uterus and other parts that had to do some stretching for a while. She seemed relieved as well. She did have to go back to a big field, unfortunately, but I put in some strong requests for extra hay and daily check-ups. I like that cow. I’m sad for her too. When you think you had a bad weekend, think of Mrs. Cow.

 

 

So that was the morning, and the afternoon was also pretty interesting with several appointments and one baby Chihuahua emergency that ended sad. I did everything I know in the books for that kid, and he couldn’t bounce back. First hypoglycemia/seizures case, and the differentials are all not great for that and the possible fixes here didn’t fix him. He has lots of good company in doggie heaven.

 

Tonight I’m back in my trailer hanging with pooches. I was all jazzed up for tonight because I passed Navajo Trinity Church on the way to work and a big green sign said “MOVIE TONIGHT!!! COURAGEOUS! 7PM!!” It was still there on the way home too. So I got home with 5 minutes to feed dogs, scarf food, put socks on and head back, but alas the sign was gone and the gates were all locked. Boo.

 

That’s okay, I felt the urge to blog. It was an interesting day. It has been an interesting week, and the classwork is making piles again. The students all need review questions and next week there are 3 exams to write. It is better to give than to receive exams. Still. So I will get to work. A final word… I really like Flagstaff. I was there all last weekend with my AWESOME friends, met a classmate who is also awesome, and that town just suits me. It reminds me of my Fort. I also love goat cheese.

 

In one final note of depth that I almost forgot I was going to blog… I find myself once again wishing that I was more like my dog, Pepperoni. She is my snuggle-bear, and tonight I looked at her sleepy grateful eyes and realized that if God loves me as much as I love Pepper than I will be okay. I would like to love God as much as Pepper loves me though, happy day in and day out that He rescued me, that is all. He feeds me, He gives me a couch, He thinks I’m cute, He loves me even when I chew up Batman and Walle DVDs and shoes, He sticks me in a kennel sometimes to prevent me from destroying things, but He loves me and He will keep me forever just because I am unique and He found me and wanted to keep me. Pepperoni has such a good heart – so grateful and adorable and slowly learning to trust that food will always be there and foot wraps have to stay on even if she doesn’t like them... I’ll keep trying to be more like my dog. I’m pretty sure God does love me as much as I love her, and He can be trusted. I really don’t understand the foot wraps sometimes, but He understands that. Maybe He even thinks it’s cute when I overcome the bitter apple and rip it off.

Wisdom from a Mutt

It is Thursday. I am tired of coughing. I wander around all day seeing dogs, preparing lectures, catching up records and wondering about crazy people, then I get home at night and decide to go to sleep, and that is the magic thought that stimulates coughing so hard that I see white lights. The night slime. I think that I have been watching LOTR too much because the best comparison I can come up with for the amount of slime I have been dealing with is an orc being born.

Classes start next week. It’s a little bit thrilling to be teaching parasitology. Parasite pictures have always brightened my life.  I sent some to that fireman in cowboy boots and he stopped texting back. Go figure. Some people really just need to lighten up and appreciate parasites. Seriously folks, the NM dating scene is not good. If you don’t live here your odds of finding normal guys to date are probably pretty good because in my experiences thus far the odd ones come here.  Just so we are all clear that I am normal, I always ask before sending people pictures of parasites. So there.

What else… a urolith dog came in yesterday with some ultra-satisfying radiographic uroliths. It would have been cool to take them out myself, but having only done it on a pig and having no extra hands in surgery it is best to send it down the road this time. Feeling them and finding them was a thrill, and the client was a very fun person to deal with in a week of client madness. For the record, “your mother is a bum” is a major Navajo insult. While the insult continues to crack me up given that I’ve never heard such an insult before and it confuses me when no one here has met my mom… I do feel bad for the animal that was whisked away for home treatment when that option really was not appropriate.  There were some other odd events this week, but I think that one won the cake.

I went to another pharmacist potluck last night and met more of that community including the local optometrists and dentists. They are all such unique and interesting people. In one evening I am more amazed by life stories than I am in 2 months elsewhere. Families coming here from the Ivory Coast, holding their marriages together through war zones and immigration chaos, sticking together through entire degree programs and job situations while living in opposite ends of the United States or of the world… now that’s what I call a relationship. These folks should tour the United States telling their inspiring stories. Perhaps people would start to discern little problems from big problems and the universe would not be so saturated with kids in broken homes.  Sure, some problems are unresolvable, but others… people just need to grow up, stop being asinine, and quit running from their problems. Is your partner a priority or not? Then make each other happy. Take the Muttley pup for example. Last night, out of the blue, he brings me a partial spinal column that he found outside and lays it at my feet. An unexpected present of extreme value to him. Was I elated? Totally. Beat that big heart of a woof.

Tea time with tired Dr. Funk is now over, treasure her pearls of coughing wisdom, lol. In this blog you are just going to have to insert your own exclamation points because I am tired.

P.S. I just called my dogs in from their lunch run. I kid you not, Muttley brought me the rest of the spinal column. My heart is melted.

2012 on the roll

Tuesday has come to a working end and I have an hour to sit here before I go and explore a Young Life meeting in Crownpoint. A potential place to be useful during the week. Routine life is in swing after many holiday adventures, all of which should be blogged for posterity. Highlights should include the realization that it has just been silly of me to stay home for Christmas for the last 10 years when my sister has had four adorable children to shop for and mingle with on Christmas morning the entire time. Dude! How awesome are kids on Christmas morning! I want some! It was a lovely Florida adventure that started with a long drive with my three furry children in the back of the car on Dec. 22. We drove through the white area of the US weather map, braving snow all the way to Pueblo where a spinning SUV in front of me had me white knuckling for a while. I am a pretty good snow driver, it is all the other freaks out there who really frighten me. Slow down! Don’t stop in the middle of the freeway with your hazards on. Seriously. But we made it to CO Springs despite annoying windshield wiper fluid malfunctions, and I did soccer-mom stop number one to leave the Muttley pup with my friend Samantha for a few days. Then onward to Old Chicago’s (AWESOME) and home sweet home around 1 AM. Friday was sit around at home day/watch as many Bing Crosby Christmas movies as possible day until visiting my favorite dentist man in CO. He has my loyalty because he has not tried to kill me or judged me (openly) for acting like a 5 year old at the dentist. I have a couple of issues, this is one of them. But anyway, I left that night on the red eye for FL, and FL was just one awesome thing after another. The kids are all a foot taller, my sibs are more awesome than everyone else’s, and boogie-boarding is WA-HOO fun. And fish dip is the bomb. We shopped, we ate fish dip, I made snow pudding (a secret concoction that a holiday addiction to makes you a Funk, either by birth or adoption), I was again amazed at how dirty kid’s feet get, I tried hockey skates again, I watched War Horse, I did not really want to leave….

…but all good things come to an end, and at the end was another late night flight back, another soccer-mom trip to CO Springs for the Mutt, and a waking (too early) morning in Black Forest, CO, to gaze in awe at my wondrous mountains on the way back to the Fort Collins dentist to act like a 5 year old again and then pick up one more dog and go home. Fort Collins is always the same for me – spontaneous meet-ups with all my old buds, and deep, fantastic catch-up conversations with them that make me so happy that I have a stockpile of joy for a couple weeks back on the Rez. The great New Year’s Eve snowshoe trip 2011 was accomplished in the blowing wind and snow that separated the true Coloradoans from the false ones. It was awesome. I suppose it should be mentioned (for posterity) that at about 1 mile in with 3 miles to go I opted for long-term comfort and accomplished the great New Year’s Eve pee-in-the-woods 2011 mission. Not without trials, as the snow was incredibly deep and balance was incredibly challenging. The end result of my bare butt buried in a snowbank was exhilarating and intensely entertaining for all who heard about it. Noone saw it. Don’t judge until you try it. 

So it was an awesome trip… I didn’t have to drive back until Monday, so I was able to visit my church peeps, then more peeps all afternoon and evening. Monday I pretty much lollygagged all the way home, visiting more peeps and stopping at random lakes to ice skate.  In figure skates. Which are way cooler. One can always leap, even if they cannot land on their feet, and one can always spin, even if the price is nausea for the next 6 hours. 

I’m back to work, with 2 visits from my little miracle horse under my belt, a couple of sad Rez cases that more money could have saved, and the awesome cases that have taught me new levels of rubbery cat skin and unanticipated levels of Chihuahua appreciation. At 8 hours old, I do not fear them. In fact, the 8 week old that came it today also wanted to come home in my pocket. No more dogs for Janel, however, as I believe the Muttley pup may be here to stay. He’s just…too… mine. 

The first week back had me eating too many cheese puffs at my desk, missing CO and longing for adventure, so last weekend I zipped off to Santa Fe to explore. NEWS FLASH: I could TOTALLY live there. I thought I had to go all the way to Flagstaff to visit my mountains, but alas they are also in Santa Fe, and I love them.  I had a whirlwind tour from a nice Firefighter in cowboy boots (yeah! A Firefighter in cowboy boots. How cool is that?) and I do believe that the Santa Fe area will make my top 3 list for where I would love to live when I grow up. On Sunday I went back to Mars Hill church with my awesome ABQ friends and then spent the afternoon with my true ABQ love interest – the nutty Paso Fino. I think he has 8 legs. He bounces all over the place, and running flat out for a quarter mile just makes him nuttier :). LOVE.

Okay that has us basically caught up to today. Miracle horse came back today for a wound debridement and sheath cleaning, and my unfortunate Tuesday lesson was to keep one’s mouth closed when vigorously cleaning a very dirty sheath. I’m not sure why people think that is ABSURDLY gross, as many things are gross yet tolerable and interesting in veterinary medicine, and today’s adventure PROBABLY won’t result in an attack of crypto.

I’m off to Young Life, to see what happens there. BTW, last night I dreamed I was an outlaw trying to accomplish Christmas shopping for my family. I bought my dad two goldfish and was carrying them around in a bowl, and one of them died and its eyes fell out. I then sloshed the bowl and accidentally swallowed an eyeball. This has pretty incredible implications. I may have in fact time-travelled and with a little bit of wisdom I could have kept my mouth shut today and not swallowed smegma of horse. The other possibility is that my google-discovery last week that anchovies are FISH with EYES that people put on pizza may just have finally made it out of the horror zone of my brain into the subconscious dream zone.

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

Max claims foul

Hello again from the trailer on the Rez, wherein one collie-mix woof is not only dealing with a stitched up nose and a tingley paw that needs to be licked, but his horrible mom has placed him in the CONE OF SHAME and life is just, well, horrible. I have been out of the blogging mood lately, not sure why. It's been remarkably busy during the week and the last weekend I faced was Thanksgiving and I tore on up to CO to float about my Fort. MY FORT! No historical pains shall steal it from me. It was a fun Thanksgiving with friends, bathroom stitching of a Max nose that collided with a horse foot, a not-so-awesome encounter with some heart pains, and a rescue from sadness by the muppets. MUAH to Kermit the Frog. Saturday was full of fun times with fantabulous friends, and Sunday landed me in Albuquerque around 8 PM to meet some interesting folks at Barnes & Noble again followed by speedy travel to the nearest Albertsons to buy some H2O2 and make Pepperoni puke up the 4 giant frosted cinnamon rolls she dug up and wolfed while I was in the bookstore. Monday had me back at work in spades with several dogs and cats, one dog with a hip lux, and then the horse with a left forelimb injury that seriously took the cake for mangled meat. An hour of clip and clean followed by almost 3 hours of stitching with the last hour done by the light of the owner's truck headlights. It was FREEEEZING when the sun went down and I took two breaks to run inside and whimper while my hands thawed, lol. But dudes, I LOVED IT!!!! Stitching up a horse leg in the cold by truck headlights... dream number XXX come true. There was a lot of tension, he kind of degloved his extensor muscles down to just above the knee, but spared bone and joints and could still walk, so we shall see! Nice people, they truly deserve some miracles.

Tomorrow is pharmacology student presentation day... I'm pretty excited to see what they have come up with. Each student will present a drug from a different category we have studied, and the media team is going to come down and tape them! I have very little doubt that they will do really well. Little things are still annoying here and there with calculations, record-keeping, details... but overall the 2nd year students make me proud with all the things they are able to do independantly now.

Anyhoo, I suppose I'll call it good. The pup just peed in the house again. My little twit.

Everyone wears Nikes

It is late, but I have a few minutes while my dog comes to her own decision that “Pepperoni, come!” is a reason to come towards me instead of run to her friend’s house. I’m just back from an interesting afternoon in Albuquerque. I visited the infamous Sagebrush church, hung out with a few great people, and landed at Barnes & Noble for a while where I huddled up to read, “Oogy: The Dog Only a Family Could Love.” I’m not over my pitbull patient yet. But that’s another story. Instead I was handed “Navajos Wear Nikes”and couldn’t put it down. I only got to page 32, but I suspect the author is headed for a turn-around where growing up as a white boy on the Rez transformed his views into a realization that people are people everywhere and this culture isn’t that different from our own, at its core. I thought about it on the way home, and I think that I’ve been bouncing around that conclusion myself. I meet people who think it’s so interesting that I’m down here and I should write a book or something; however, on a day-to-day basis I forget that I’m on the Rez sometimes. After working here Monday through Friday I feel culture shock going to Albuquerque. I swear I start thinking I’m Navajo. It really doesn’t make any difference to me who is bringing their animal through that door. Reading through that book… there were stories of kids beating each other up on the playground, bully kids picking on the different kids, homeless animals in pathetic states, racism, abuse in families… what’s so different here than in Detroit, MI? Every culture has their pride, their issues, their wacky sense of priorities… 100 miles from abject poverty “my people” are ground breaking an 11 million dollar church building. So people want to drive fancy trucks and live in trailers, so what? (Pause as pup is now obsessed with fetch…) What else do I have to say about this. I’m feeling decidedly unprofound right now. Anyway, I don’t feel the need to write books. I feel like they’ve all been written. I’d rather just be nice, do my job, and see if some of these ideas that we are so vastly different could be knocked down in the minds of some of the people I happen to interact with. We are just people. We love dogs. The good people get mad when boxes of puppies get left on the side of the road. Politicians often parasitize their people when they are supposed to be serving them. Teenagers need to learn to do their homework. Some do well at developing their God-given talents, and some waste their potential being selfish and/or stupid. (Okay, when is this pup going to quit peeing in my house? Seriously.) As a whole it would be nice if we all would just stop classifying people based on the ones we’ve met or what we’ve heard. For instance, I am a Christian. That does not mean that I’m an asshole, I hate homosexuals, I go to church because I have a guilt complex, I love everything Republicans do, I think I’m better than you, I don’t know and don’t care about any other belief system, and I reject science. It basically means I think Jesus walked around on this earth a couple thousand years ago and told the truth, and now I’m pretty sure I have a mentoring type friendship/relationship with an alleged dead person. Making Him not dead. Wow that sounds weird. It’s not too big of a stretch for me though, honestly. Life and death are over my head. When I watch the light go out of a dog’s eyes I already know nothing. A Superpower making planets hang in place and then sneaking Himself into a world He created and gave away seems pretty plausible. He had some pretty awesome Superpowers while he was here. Those folks got to see stuff and believe, I have to read about it most of the time, *BUMMER*, but that’s life. I think if my community college English teacher read this blog she would cry. There is no main point.

Clinic days this week… really good cases. I fell in love with a big, ugly, super-adorable pitbull with some serious anemia issues that I couldn’t fix in time to save him. His weak little tail-wag stole my heart and I cried my eyes out on the way home after euthanizing him. All dogs go to heaven, especially pitbulls. I went to Gallup for a drink with some friends and saw several cultures represented in the drunks at Applebee’s, had my own drink with my fav nachos with spinach-artichoke dip, and came home again. You can occasionally have some very interesting conversations with the drinkers at the bar. Everyone has their reasons for being there, and it’s often rewarding to ferret them out. It was too loud for much chat last night though.

Well my dogs have all crashed and it’s time to crash. I sure love my little car. We have many awesome adventures together J

Home, home on the Rez

I am home and I am awake to tell about it. The trip to CO was simply fantastic. I was too happy to sleep most of the time, hence after my arrival home on Sunday night I made it through each work day to come home and fall asleep at 7:30 PM like an old person. Yikes. It was sooooo fun though. Let's see... arrival at Paul and Julie's around 10 PM Thursday night for a tour of their house, arrival HOME at about midnight for about three hours of freezing on an air mattress (not realizing the large black box next to my head was a space heater... duh...), then up early to visit my dentist and the pup's opthomologist, lunch with the fly PhD boss, then games with Samantha in the afternoon and the pleasant discovery that my tire changing equipment was in the back of my car the entire time. Caramel appletinis with Laurie, lots of coffee afterwards with Laurie and Sarah (two appletinis = too much for Janel to drive... lesson learned, lol), and then another night of being too happy to sleep as well as encumbered with some old thought circles of mine concerning how scientists are often sadly, sadly trapped in a pressured lifestyle of massive data production, guilt-filled weekends, and scary perfectionism. Some seem to handle that lifestyle well. I think I may be the type who needed to escape from it, as I find myself wanting to rescue people from it when they don't really want to be rescued. Where am I going with this blog? Hmm. Trying to recapture a glorious weekend when I'm 3 days out and thinking about dogs with diaphragmatic hernias. I'm going to persevere. So Saturday morning was the joyful morning of reuniting with my horse, my Annette, and my Leah, and we got just enough break from the wind to wander through the snake-less fields and rediscover the hobbit hide-out, the culvert from which creatures from the underworld emerge, and go far enough away to bring worried mules to the fenceline. It was awesome. My 31 year old T-bred mare is going strong, and despite her ribs showing she has a girth size that makes me smile and look forward to another summer with her. Equine senior is working its magic! I think I was actually starving for conversation with Annette. Two hours flew by. How awesome is it that God still teaches us better ways to pray, better ways to maneuver in relationships, better ways to raise teenagers... your entire life! You never actually get done learning. I suppose that could be discouraging as well... but in talking to Annette it was intensely ENcouraging. Somehow her stories fuel my own faith challenges, even though they are so different at the individual story level. The awesomeness of conversation with awesome friends. Love it. The end of Saturday involved me practicing my soccer-mom skills picking up one dog here and dropping off another there (a potential pup adoption and a playmate for Pepperoni), more games with Paul, Julie and chicken USDA boss, and then taking my massively sleep deprived self home to play poker with my family, Paul, Julie and Sarah. I'm pretty terrible at poker. Yep. The next morning I had pancakes with the purple PhD boss, left the dogs there, and went to my beautiful church for a taste of home preaching and a whole bunch of awesome people. Miss them all so much! But had to leave them all afterwards for the long journey home, with a stop in Albuquerque to finish writing an anesthesiology exam before my brains completely died. It was a nice stop in ABQ actually -- met some really nice peeps at Barnes & Noble and nothing was stolen.


Ok so that was the sum of it all. Something at least slightly more descriptive than WOOOOT that was SOOOOOO FUUUUN!!! But I'm back. Pandora entertained me with "Finally Home" as I was leaving my home address in CO, "Here Am I, Send Me" as I turned onto the highway, and "Ghetto Superstar" as I left my trailer for work Monday morning. Monday was quite a while ago and I don't really remember what happened. I think I neutered something. Oh yes... a pug. And took out his four deciduous canine teeth. That was pretty interesting as they didn't really want to come out. Good times. "Wiggle wiggle." I heard Dr. Bar-Am's voice the entire time. The afternoon was full of appointments, then of course I went home and collapsed. Tuesday was much the same. Equine float, neuter, appointments, catch up mounds of paperwork, collapse. Today I'm back to normal. It's 8:00 PM and I'm still fairly wide awake. There was a really interesting case today -- tachypneic dog, HBC yesterday. She had few other external signs of distress/injury. Radiographs showed mild pneumothorax, lack of diaphragm border and a lot of soft tissue opacity in the left lung field. I suspected a hernia but couldn't be sure, and my boss was more sure of the hernia with just a bit of hesitation so that we offered a Barium series but explained that she should be referred for surgery either way. We ended up putting her down, and she surely did have a hernia. Many things in the left thoracic cavity that didn't belong. It was a heartbreaker. It isn't my usual MO bring my own dog out to a sad owner to try and cheer him, but I did this time. So sad. Please pray for a sad man on the Rez tonight.

Pepperoni is over playing at her friend's house and I should probably go get her. And my nose is cold. And I need to get a lecture finished up for tomorrow. I was really proud of my students today while I was grading their exams. Some of them really excelled on the short answer questions, make my heart shine. One even offered some extra info about poison dart frogs and how their poison level varies with habitat and diet. This was followed by a fantastic picture of a turtle screaming at a syringe of ivermectin! I laughed so hard I cried. There are days when teaching is very rewarding :)

End of long day

Just finished writing the pharmacology exam for tomorrow. I don't know what happened to my brain last night but I worked on the anesthesiology exam instead of this one. Anesthesiology isn't until next Monday. I get confused sometimes. We just covered NSAIDS in both classes, which I planned that way so that they could study for both classes at the same time for these exams, but I get confused about which class is which. So it is finished, and my thumbnail is gone. I seriously have no idea that I'm doing that when I'm focused.


Today I castrated a red angus bull calf. He was pretty cute, about 350 lbs. I felt so bad for him. I just use locals, and I use them liberally so he doesn't feel a heck of a lot after the inital poking, but then every time I go to the front of the chute to help adjust something or grab something, he just LOOKS at me with those innocent accusatory eyes. I don't know if I'm going to be able to sleep. After that was my first Great Pyranese spay surgery and I learned all sorts of things about big dogs and their big vessels. One of the uterine vessels ripped after I had sutured everything, so I pulled out all the stops and had the dog catheterized and on fluids while I sought and found my stump to ligate it some more. Then the broad ligaments kept seeping and I was so nervous about all of the ligatures at that point that I extended the incision both ways to hunt down all of the stumps again and had my boss step in to make sure things were chill in there before closing her up. She has some serious skillzzzzz in finding the right pedicle stump. But alas it was just the broad ligament seeping and we ligated it and the dog is doing fine. I know, I know, everybody deals with this all the TIME and it's no big deal, but I'm still a bit high strung... starting to relax (just ask my old pig lab partner how far I had to come from). I love these dogs, it freaks me out sometimes that I have so much power over them. There was some great Great Pyranese hugging going on in the back at the end of the day. And some grooming. They're soooo FLUFFY and CUTE (muppet voice).


Wow I just love Pandora. Whiskey Lullabye followed by Ice Ice Baby. Keeps things interesting.


I'm going to CO tomorrow! I havn't packed a thing and I believe I'm just going to take some dirty laundry back with me and borrow a machine. Lol. Some kids never grow up. I'm hoping I can take some more pups there with me. I got the last of the 6 box puppies adopted out today, however I came home and visited my neighbor since my nutjob pitt-mix dog jumped on her puppy this morning and I wanted to check on him... and she has 3 eight-week-old pups she needs to get rid of. So ya'll, 3 more pups. Cute as buttons, they look exactly like the box puppies, just more white markings.

Icecapades

Today I got a glimpse of what it will be like to drive through the Rez in the winter. Sheer ice. The first incline 7 miles or so towards Crownpoint was littered with cars off the road, just over the incline was upsidedown pickup #1, and the second incline had us all parked on the road for an hour behind upsidedown pickup #2. After the first hour on the road the snowplow went by, and according to NM native reports that was not normal. We don't get snowplows very often. But alas I made it to work after about two hours with only 1 dog accident in the back seat, checked on my frosted llama on the way there, and as usual I got to Crownpoint to find something totally different: dry roads and sunny skies. My little trip through the canyons to get there will be the challenge this winter. And avoiding all the nuts who don't know how to drive in snow.


I had a kitty cat spay today and not a whole lot else. Thankfully. The mound on my desk is terrifying and I have two exams coming up. I found out we have this Friday off and I'm going to go back to CO for a couple of days. You can't see it but I have a seriously big smile on my face! :D Missin' my peeps. And my horsie. I'll take my three goon dogs and hopefully squeeze my current Navajo pup foster project into an ophtho appointment at CSU. This is the pup I saw left by the road after a car pulled out in front of me, from right where the pup was, early in the morning on my way to work last month. Instantaneous transformation of Janel the bleary-eyed non-morning person to red-eye fry the guy mode. I snatched up the pup and sped up and passed a few cars to get behind the dude, then I flashed my lights at him and tailed him all the way to Crownpoint. He pulled into a bus parking lot and I whipped around and flapped my arms at him to roll down his window. STERN (but not yelling) mad Janel voice, "Did you abandon THIS PUPPY by the side of the road???!!!" *Cold stare*... and surprising recognition that the driver was someone who works at NTC. "No! I have no idea where that puppy came from." I explained what I saw, and they insisted they didn't know whose pup it was. He had picked up a hitchhiker and the pup was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I guess. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and took him some cookies later. The pup probably got dumped because of his bad eye. Noone has claimed him yet. SO! Adopt a Navajo dog. And donate a snowplow.

Puppy Monday

I loooooove puppies. What wouldn't I do for a puppy. You all-equine vets are MISSING OUT!!! Look at these little twits! I had barely finished teaching anesthesiology (students presented cases the last hour, impressed me!) and a couple of guys came in having literallly watched a &*@(%Y@ (insert bad word(s) of your choice) dump these pups on the side of the road. He got a plate number as well and I will do what I can with it. But anyway, I couldn't send them to a crowded shelter and the pup rescue in ABQ would have charged him about $110 to take them, so I figured I would keep them for a few days, spread the word, and then take them to ABQ myself this weekend if they couldn't all get adopted out. They are just too little and too innocent to not get good homes. They are cuddly little ragdoll pups that lay on their backs in your hands and occasionally grunt. They melt me to pieces. So far three are adopted out. Three more to go! Come on folks!


Other news... it's Monday again and I remember why I'm here. I wonder if there is some sort of seasonal affective disorder that goes weekly/weekend rather than seasonal. If so, I think I have it. I do love puppies. Today I also discovered that old yellow labs that are 7/9 BCS may have an interesting little skin roll along the trachea that looks kind of like a jugular but isn't. No blood in it. Anatomy Janel, anatomy. The afternoon was loaded with vaccine appointments and puppy adoptions, and a nice snowstorm. It's a little bizarre here in the canyons. There are 3 climates going to and from work. Snowstorm - clear skies - snowstorm or the other way around. I got back home and it was nice and clear. I was locked out of my house again, but not being sick, sleep-deprived and 11 PM returning from Flagstaff, I didn't mind driving over to the maintenance guy's house and telling him he needed to come over and break in my back door again. The post-Flagstaff lock-out is another story. 10 PM already I need to hit some hay. Need to run around and visit my llama in the AM and then pick up pups from foster homes. My friend Jess and I have mentally started the "Nab-a-Nav-a-WOOF" foundation. What say you?

Sunday eve on the Rez

At this point of the weekend things feel more normal. I just finished lecture preparation for tomorrow – analgesia and canine/feline anesthesia – and sitting here on my couch with Pandora on, occasional phonecalls to/from the fam, and Pepperoni hiccoughing next to me (no joke, I tried to capture it on video and she stopped). I could be anywhere doing this stuff and I’m pretty content. This morning was less awesome, as I woke up at 5:30 AM to the pleasant discovery that my waterlines were frozen. This makes the toilet do a sad half-flush, FYI. My brain started revolving around some of those nagging irritations of Rez life and there is no going back to sleep. Why don’t all the rich politicians in the world come down here and live in these trailers for a while? Would that possibly get some heads working on problem solving in this area instead of maintenance of a broken system? Why aren’t all these kids reading and writing? Why are there so many brand new expensive trucks on the road when everyone lives in pretty dumpy trailers? Why do the cities look like crap built around casinos? Could someone just start posing these questions and coming up with some plans to turn things around? It’s almost enough motivation for me to drop what I’m doing and become a politician. Heck I bet I’ll end up being one of some sort. You can’t come down here and see all this, start to care, then not find your way to the top and try and do SOMETHING.

The rest of today was not super interesting. I went back to the church in Gallup and enjoyed their company. My friend had a meeting afterwards and I explored the Gallup mall. Behold, a light in Gallup. It was clean, organized, and otherwise a tiny oasis from the rest of Gallup. My watch died last week and I picked up an awesome cheap replacement from Big Lots. I noticed on the way home that it was cheap because it was a leftover Halloween special with skulls and crossbones on it. Sweet. That will go over well. Maybe I can color it out with a sharpie.

I’m bored by my own blog right now.

Momma said there'd be days like this...

Saturdays on the Rez are still a challenge. I slow down, sleep in a little...then I want to go visit my peeps. MY peeps. The ones I keep leaving to go on these crazy journeys. I stayed in most of the day and watched the Breeder's Cup races online. Even pixelated they are the most majestic creatures God invented. My old buddy Shackleford would have won if that one horse hadn't beat him. Big red handsome guy he is. So after the classic I had to escape and go on some adventure, and one thing I hadn't tried yet is going to Grants. I thought Grants had a Chili's or an Applebee's or something where I could go sit amongst some humans at the bar and potentially engage in light conversation. Nope. I stopped at a Mexican restaurant that I'd never heard of, and it was tasty, but more of a glorified Burger King. A little Navajo lady stopped by my table and sold me a Navajo necklace. Slowly collecting Christmas gifts. Food was good, but that feeling crept up again of being alone in a foreign country, and although I was slightly cheered/entertained by the sign on the way out that invited me to shoot turkeys on Nov. 19th to win a fat yearling lamb, I returned to exploring the streets of Grants for some sort of adventurous place to visit. As a rule, I don't stop in bars that only have two trucks in front, and the one hotel that looked fairly large had no restaurant in it. So there we have it folks, I made it to 7:40 PM on a Saturday before tear spillage, a new record, but tear spillage came anyway. This isn't usually the best time to visit Walmart, but I needed dogfood. The nice thing about Walmart is that is also contains life-saving items such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, so I am now back home again with an old friend of sorts. Miss you Tina, Tracy and Melissa! We should be watching this together. A half-pittbull and a half-collie are fairly good company as well. They don't say much but they luuuuuuv meeeee ;). Tomorrow I will go back to the church in Gallup that seemed fairly nice and normal, despite being in Gallup. Snow today, and lots of wind. Winter is coming to NM.

Kinaalda in Ganado

Okay...that was a blast, AND it was totally interesting. I ran through the mountainous sage-y desert, intermittently yelling, following the girl of honor along with her relatives, and I thought to myself... never saw myself doing this. Hmm! This is interesting. 

Grind the corn

 Suture the corn husks

 Make lots of cake batter

 Pour batter into corn husk lined fire pit

 Cover cake batter with more corn husks

 Cover cake with wet grocery bags, dirt, and FIRE

 Bake cake all night

I totally sutured most of those corn husks together. I've got hand it to these women. Running and yelling twice a day on no sleep, no sugar, no salt... not how I handle that time of the month. I'm really impressed. That's actually the first family meal I've been to in quite some time, although I did not recognize the part of the sheep that I ate. Luckily I've been trained in octopus.

So I'm home, it's Friday, I'm missing the all night singing session. I would like to hear the horse song. Today at the clinic was pretty solid. Solid bull. We have the chutes up and running and 5 were run through for Trich testing. I spent the majority of the morning with 5 horses, but visited a monster bull just long enough to palpate him and determine that he and the other bulls need to find some other entertainment in their spare time. The things you learn about animals. I'm always super impressed with their muscles. I'm used to cows, and these guys were like "GRRRRR" (flexing muscles).

Oh yeah, I tripped and fell on the way back on the run. She can't trip, but I guess I can. I need to get in better shape, that was rough. Also, peeling potatoes with chatty Navajo kids = WIN.

Thoughts prior to Kinaalda

It is the first blog and I am a bit behind. But blogging should happen when you finish vet school and move to a Navajo reservation for your first job. Who does that? Well the reasons I am here are long and complicated. But here I am. In my trailer are two Navajo dogs and one non-Navajo dog. The little Navajo dog just pooped on the floor and the lingering aroma is fantastic. He's a little squirt and his cuteness saves him. Every time. Today at work I taught GI pharmacology, without my powerpoint as it mysteriously disappeared into space somewhere between the computer and the flash drive last night. But I'm a big fan of the dry erase board and the students didn't visibly judge me for flipping through the book to my chosen teaching sections and drawing things like intestines on the board. Intestines I can do. After that...hmm. Thursdays are sometimes a light day as there are no clinic students all day. I had the pleasure of expressing a cranky pug's anal glands. I enjoyed it as I can't smell so well this week. I'm actually surprised the poop smell is making it through my semi-clogged nasal passages. Not so clogged as I would be were I a 13 year old girl running to the east before dawn with wet hair containing corn chunks, however. But we can talk more about that tomorrow. There was also a euthanasia that broke me down a bit. Two obviously good souls were parted until we all meet our dogs again in heaven (pause as puppy has just emerged from the bathroom unrolling a toiletpaper roll... aww bless his heart he dropped it right over his pee spot. You know, he may just be that smart...)...and I was sad. The rest of the day was all on the computer or grading. A potential emergency did not show due to cost. That happens quite a bit down here. Tomorrow my favorite horse will be back, and a few bulls will be in for Trich testing. Then I'm taking the afternoon off to visit a Kinaalda ceremony with one of students. It took the entire week to build my resolve, now transitioning to excitement, to go to this. Honestly these last few weekends have been rough on my lonely soul and I have fled to far off towns to enjoy good company of more familiar faces. In fact I need to plan a flee place for this weekend as well. I don't usually make it far beyond 3 PM on a Saturday before the tear spillage drives me away from my trailer. It's been a rough 6 weeks. Longer than that, actually. But leaving the trailer always turns into something interesting. Xtreme llama parasailing or Flagstaff or both have been my getaways. I'm usually just too tired to go back to CO. I want to go so badly though. Soon.

 

 

I realize the blogs creates some questions. But it's my blog and I know what I'm talking about. What else today... free lunch as the culinary school is testing their talents. That was nice. I successfully taught almost all of my students not to give ivermectin to collies or turtles. This is good as I gave myself a minor heart attack last week when preparing the antiparasitics lectures. My non-Navajo dog is half-collie and if he had contracted mange I wonder if I would have had the sense to not give him Ivomec. Hmm. Not the first time I've slapped myself in the last week.

 

 

So tomorrow I will probably write about the Kinaalda. As crazy as it is, I'm curious if some early shaping in a positive way could come of it. For instance, when I am exhausted, sick, sleep-deprived, have 12 major things to do before I can sleep, and am operating under complex of stupidity and inadequacy, I remember that I survived the calving rotation at CSU under similar circumstances in the freezing cold on the back of a horse for 10 hours, and when I got off I cleaned the cow barn. Yeah, that's right. Don't mess with me.

 

 

Well I'm going to mess around elsewhere online for a bit. Last item of interest: the stories from my student concerning Kinaalda meshed with my enchiladas to create a dream of Navajo people wrapping live horses in cellophane to suffocate them and eat them. They then buried dead people in my suitcase. Navajo people don't do these things, however my brain is one of my ultimate sources of entertainment as is telling other people my dreams. Enjoy!