- Selling the first horse I ever owned. In order to progress I needed a new ride. Poor Poncho, at least we were able to sell him to a friend.
- Saying goodbye to my first dog, Jack. He was the best dog. Ever. I have many friends who will back me up on this.
- Calculus - took it in high school and happily got to pass on it in college.
- Organic Chemistry - that class was just plain silly. I'm still trying to figure out why it was a pre-requisite for vet school.
- My exotic animal rotation in vet school. This 2 week rotation was a fabulous 8-5 shift, but it caused me the most anxiety of any rotation. I had no idea, and still have no idea, how to handle pocket pets and birds. Oddly, I'm fine with reptiles. This rotation had an emergency shift one night a week were you were on call to come in and deal with any wild life that got dropped off by the public - no intern-resident-clinician help at all. You were on your own. My emergency (which I was called in at 11 pm for), was a squirrel that had been hit by a car. The good Samaritan had dropped it off in one of those styrofoam coolers that people take to the lake. (Incidentally, our local Wal-Mart crafted an arbor out of those coolers this past spring as a decorative entrance into the sporting good section - classy!). Anyway, the squirrel apparently was pretty much super alive still when I got there because if you touched the cooler it would shake - kind of like the cat in the box on National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. It took me an hour to devise a way/work up enough courage to get it out of the box and examine it - remember, I was by myself. And terrified. I would crack the lid to the cooler and that squirrel was just going crazy. I'm pretty sure I developed an ulcer that night. Finally, I found a fish tank that was used for sedating snakes. It had a lid with an attachment on top to hook it to an anesthesia machine. I put a couple of extra lab coats on, a surgical mask, and protective eye wear, cat gloves (these resemble oven gloves but are super thick and durable for dealing with devil kitties). I got the fish tank ready, turned the cooler upside down over the fish tank, slid the lid of the cooler out, screamed, and dumped that squirrel in the fish tank. It went from going crazy in the cooler to going crazy in the fish tank. Then I screamed again while I removed the cooler out of the way and slammed the lid onto the fish tank. I turned on the the anesthestic gas and oxygen and sat in the floor while my blood pressure returned to a reasonable level. Once the squirrel was completely sedated I got him out and couldn't find a scratch on him. I put him in a small pet carrier to recover. Other than being about as happy as squirrel in a pet carrier can be, he seemed fine. The next day he went to a wild life rehab center. And I concluded that I would avoid squirrel medicine - way too stressful.
- Accepting that I was going to have a C-section. My whole labor and delivery experience was not a good one. I am eternally grateful that I delivered a healthy baby, but I still think that if they hadn't insisted on inducing me I would have been able to deliver him naturally.
- First day back at work following maternity leave. Whew! It's hard to go to work, but oh the smiles I get when I get home - priceless!
- Quitting my first job. But the best professional decision ever, it led to so many new opportunities.
But you know what's been hard this week? Trying not to eat an entire box of Girl Scout cookies in one sitting. . .
I probably shouldn't have bought 7 boxes. But hey, it's only once a year, right?
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