Missyscove's New Blog

[missyscove]

I was back in town just for the weekend because I had an interview at a nearby vet school.
Here's Timmy.

 

[ZRabbits]

missyscove wrote:

I was back in town just for the weekend because I had an interview at a nearby vet school.
Here's Timmy.

Timmy is sweet. Good luck with the interview. Wishing you the best.

K

 

[missyscove]

I know it's been ages since I updated my blog, but I promise I'm still alive!

I'm in my fifth week of vet school at Western University of Health Sciences. It's probably the hardest thing I've ever done, but I'm loving it every step of the way. Western is a fairly unique vet school in that our curriculum is almost entirely PBL, problem based learning. That means we don't really have lectures like you would at a typical vet school. Instead, we're given disclosures about a specific case and we list the facts and problems relating to the patient, our ideas, and our plans for addressing it. Then we list learning issues which is basically any and everything we don't know. We divide them up among our group members to research and then we report back two days later.

We also get a lot of hands on experience early on. I've already had my first patient at one of our wellness clinics (a faculty member does the physical exam and talks us through it and then we get to put our hands on the pet as well.)

So far we've had dog, horse and sheep cases and a horse handling lab.

One of the great things about being a vet student is the company swag (see my Hills backpack and Banfield water bottle, for example) as well as the discount pet food. Turns out we get roughly a 50% discount on Oxbow which means lucky Timmy is being spoiled rotten. Our first order just came in and he has new treats, papaya tabs, grass mats, 4 kinds of grass hay, and critical care.
During my first week, Timmy went through a really rough bout of stasis. I treated him with aspirin, simethicone, critical care, tummy rubs and a warm rice sock, but he basically went down hill. His abdomen started to feel really hard so I thought maybe it was bloat and so about 36 hours after he'd last eaten on his own I called around to vet clinics in the area. 3 clinics, including the on-campus clinic, told me their rabbit vet wasn't in today but I managed to get a 4:00 appointment at one. When I went to class that morning, Timmy was resting his chin on his water dish and I honestly thought I would find him dead when I came home. I felt like a bad mom and a terrible vet student. I couldn't concentrate at all in class and bolted home at 3. When I got home he was in the same place but his abdomen was squishy once again. I really liked the vet I saw and she agreed that I had done all the right things. He got sub q fluids, and sub q reglan and metacam. We got sent home with trimeth-sulfa just to cover all the bases, metoclopramide and metacam. I really liked the vet and ended up recommending her to several of my classmates with rabbits. Although I had no complaints about the price, she chose to waive my exam fee so I went home for a little over $100. Within about a week Timmy made a full recovery.

Here's a shot of Timmy relaxing in my room where he gets to roam whenever I'm home.

And here's a picture of me after my white coat ceremony.

 

[SOOOSKA]

Christina, I can't believe you are in Vet School already. Gosh where has the time gone? It seems like you just went away for your Pre Med not that long ago.

How many years is Vet school? Where do you want to set up a practice once you finish?

Glad to hear Timmy is feeling better.

Susan

 

[missyscove]

Vet school is 4 years long (assuming I don't decide to follow it up with a residency). Right now I'm leaning towards staying in southern California, but I can't really say for sure where I'll end up. I'm also leaning towards small animal or exotics and also think being a zoo vet would be awesome, but, again, it's not entirely up to me.

 

[missyscove]

Timmy having some out-of-cage fun in my room

[flash=425,344]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LvZwCbs0Qg[/flash]

 

[missyscove]

It's Timmy's birthday! 6 years ago today we adopted him from LA Animal Services.

Timmy and his friend, Squirrely Bob

Timmy and his birthday present

Timmy singing "Happy Birthday"

 

[SOOOSKA]

[align=center]HOPPY BIRTHDAY TIMMY.[/align]
[align=center]:trio:bunny18:happybunny:arty::airborne::bestwishes::birthday[/align]
Great pictures. Love the one of you singing.

Susan & the Gang

 

[missyscove]

Timmy seems to sense when I'm most stressed and uses those times to stop eating. We have midterms Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Monday. That means I've been studying all weekend. My brother is in town so last night he and my mom and grandma drove out to have dinner with me and then stopped by the house and saw Timmy. While my mom was holding him she made a comment about how after her last visit he ended up with GI stasis and how he better not do that again.

Well last night he only ate about 1/2 of his veggies. This morning he wouldn't eat his breakfast. I was meeting a groupmate in the anatomy lab at 9 but I dosed him with simethicone and metacam at 7:30 then simethicone and critical care at 8:30. I gave him tummy massages and encouraged him to run around a bit. Then I left a note in the kitchen for my roommates and asked them to check in on him while I was gone. He was still bright, alert and responsive when I left but I asked them to call or text me if he looked worse.

The big plus about living with other vet students is the updates I got over the next several hours. Detailed descriptions of his stools and updates on how much of his lettuce leaf he'd eaten. When I got home around 1:30 I gave him another dose of simethicone and let him out to run around again, but he'd eaten his romaine. Then I picked him some parsley and oregano from my pots in the yard which he also ate.

As of now he's only eaten a few pellets and hasn't had any hay but he will eat his greens. I gave him more simethicone and critical care which should hold him over until the morning when I'll give him another dose of metacam if he's still not eating his pellets.

 

[agnesthelion]

Hi Christina, I enjoyed reading your blog and how fantastic you are in vet school!! Great pic of you in the white coat I've always heard vet school is extremely hard because you have to learn so many different animals....do find that is the case?
Timmy is a doll. Loved seeing his pics. The one further back of him on his leash yawning cracked me up!
I hate GI stasis. every time I read a story on here about it I hate it more. I hope Timmy makes a full recovery like last time. Keep usmupdated!

 

[missyscove]

Hi Lisa,
He was excited for breakfast this morning and I woke up to the sounds of him eating some hay so he seems to have shown much improvement.

The range of species is just one reason vet school is hard. We're basically learning what the med students are, only we have to apply that to a range of species. For this first block we covered dogs, horses, cattle and sheep. Cats might show up on the test too even though we didn't specifically cover them.

 

[missyscove]

I picked Timmy up a little cat bed at Target the other day. As soon as I gave it to him, he peed in it. I was about to do laundry anyway so I washed it and gave it back. He's only pooped in it since.

It's really hard to study when there's something that cute so close by.

 

[missyscove]

I had every intention of updating this blog this weekend with exciting news about the clicker I had invested in and how well clicker training was progressing with Timmy.

Instead, I have to share that Timmy passed away in my arms very early this morning. I had become so close to him in these last few months after sharing my bedroom with him and I am absolutely devastated that I lost him so suddenly.

I posted a Rainbow Bridge thread for him here:
http://rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=76491&forum_id=27

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Christina, I'm so sad you lost dear Timmy. How old was he when he died? I see his 6th birthday party was earlier this year but how old was he when you got him? The picture of him in his bed is so cute! How are you enjoying your new babies?

 

[missyscove]

We don't know how old he was when we got him. We presume he was at least a year old but he had come into the shelter as a stray so there's not really any good way to age once they're fully grown.

Sherlock and Watson also came in as strays and are also estimated to be about a year old. They're settling in nicely. They love running through their tunnels and sitting on the ledges in their cage. They're still getting used to the idea of eating Oxbow Timothy pellets instead of the alfalfa pellets they were on so we don't really have anything I can use as a treat for them yet but they do come up to me on occasion to see what I'm up to when I sit on the floor with them. They were very curious last night when I gave their cage and litter boxes a good sweeping out (I waited until I was pretty sure they knew where the litterboxes were before I went about cleaning them. )

 

[agnesthelion]

Glad to hear Sherlock and Watson are settling in! They are adorable buns

 

[Blue eyes]

Oh, somehow I just now saw that you got 2 new bunnies. Yay!

Being a Sherlock Holmes fan myself, I love their names :big wink:!