Catching Up

It has been a crazy transition from leaving AQUAVET to coming home and starting my next rotation, anesthesia. My last week of AQUAVET was mainly marine mammals! It was super interesting and fun to learn about them since I have been primarily studying fish the last two years. Here is the class photo that we took with our marine mammal instructors with the cetacean skeleton in the background.

After a couple days of marine mammal lectures we got in our vans and cars and headed to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute to do necropsies on seals and dolphins that had been stranded in Cape Cod. Our job was to do a full necropsy and present the findings to class. We had our awesome pathologists helping us. My case was a young seal that had been entangled in fishing line that had cut almost completely through its neck. It was very sad. It was a good case to have to really show how we need to start finding alternative ways to help fishermen do there job but also protect the wildlife that they interact with. It was an incredible experience to be able to learn from these animals. I was very thankful that I couldn't smell though. My classmates said it was very smelly. After our necropsies, we all got cleaned up and settled in for an afternoon of marine mammal stranding and conservation lectures. It was amazing to meet our lectures who I have been citing their papers for various projects in college. The rest of the afternoon we got a tour of the WHOI research animal facilities! We got to meet so many amazing little critters!

A lighthouse that we passed on the way to WHOI

What we saw underneath the dock!! So many cool inverts!

After our tour it was time for dinner!! But first we had to get our class picture.

Me with the Rachel Carson statue. She was, dare I say, the most influential female toxicologist. She led the charge on getting rid of DDT in the USA and saving many species from extinction. 

We walked down the street to a restaurant right on the water. This is what I had for dinner.

And no dinner is complete without have lobster ice cream afterwards.Yes, you read that correctly lobster ice cream. It tastes like butter pecan, but instead of the crunchy pecans you have lobster bits. It sounds terrible but it was really good!

The last two days of AQUAVET were all pet fish medicine. We learned about the common diseases you will see in pet fish and koi. On the last day, we got to do a fish surgery!!!

Performing a gonadectomy on an anesthetized fish patient

itty bitty gonads

Best fish surgery group ever! Thanks. Dr. Sanders!

After 4 whole weeks together, we had our final dinner together. We went to downtown Bristol for some local lobster and clams. It was a bitter sweet night filled with lots of laughs and goodbyes. It was one heck of a dinner.

The next morning Lindsey and I were up at 4:15 getting our things loaded in the car and we were off to the airport. I was so tired and still battling my cold, but we got there and I was off on a jet plane again headed home.

I flew right over Roger Williams. Pretty sure all the other AQUAVET students were still sleeping.

It was sad to be leaving the ocean, but I was excited to see my friends and family at home. My parents picked me up from the airport and made me lunch. It was great to be home to see them and of course the kitties!

Sweetie missed me!

I picked up Drew on the way back to Madison. Shelby, my roommate, had planned a little get together to welcome me home and to see everyone before she left for a month for her externship. She made and awesome dinner, and I got to catch up with Emil, Ashley and her before I crashed in bed. I was exhausted. I was also really nervous because my next rotation was anesthesia. I got to sleep in Sunday morning! Most of Sunday Drew and I cleaned the apartment and I unpacked. We went over to Tara's to watch Chernobyl with my classmate and then I came back a studied before bed.

My first week of anesthesia has been very stressful, but I have been learning a lot. Drew has stayed with me in Madison and been cleaning my apartment and cooking for me! It has been awesome to come home to dinner and not have to worry about cleaning. I have been able to just focus on being prepared for rounds and getting as much sleep as I can especially since I have so many on call shifts. This weekend has been filled with catching up on emails, doing some more cleaning, and spending some time with my friends that I haven't seen for a month. Tonight is another Chernobyl night and studying!