Week 6 of 13

This week was probably the busiest of the semester. Granted, I did make is busier for myself, and I got a little ill towards the end, but I really enjoyed it. 

This was my timetable for this week, it's defintely the busiest week I've had so far!

Monday was the classic all-online day. We had our first credit test of the semester, in Internal Diseases of Small Animals. This test was foccused on just dermatology, and was online so it wasn't too awful. Several of the questions were similar to past paper questions, which is always a bonus. Monday was also a half-day because they were electing a new Rector of the University. I think our exotics teacher missed the email, because we had that lecture anyway, but only about 10 people showed up!

I already wrote about my Tuesday of this week in this blog post - so much happened, it would have made my weekly update gigantic!

On Wednesday, I had my final Epizootology field trip. This time we went to the sheep farm to test for mastitis in goats. It was absolute chaos - all the sheep and goats were in the same barn, and we had to run around to catch them! When we did manage to wrangle one, we had to palpate the mammary gland, take a sample of milk if she was producing, then dip the teats into iodine, mark her with a spray can, and finally take blood. There were only 19 goats, and about 30 of us split up into groups of 5. My group was very efficient - we had two people who worked a lot with sheep and were very good at grabbing them. The absolute highlight of this trip was the two calico kittens at the farm, They were so sweet and affectionate, and we did ask if one of us could take them home as it's getting quite cold and they looked sick. Unfortunately the farmer said no. Can only hope that they have a warm place to sleep, and hopefully get some treatment soon. 

My friend and I holding the kittens

When we got back from the trip, I had a bit of a break, so I sat upstairs in the Pharmacy building, doing some anki's and just relaxing for a bit, before diseases of exotics. This was really interesting, as we were talking about where to take blood samples from in birds. About halfway through the lesson though I had to step out because I felt like I was about to faint! I think it was a combo of being too warm and too tired. Tuesday really was a mammoth day, and it took a lot out of me. I went home and immediately got into bed to sleep for an hour or so, then I made a huge bowl of food and a cup of tea. 

I still didn't feel great on Thursday, so instead of going to my planned trip to the slaughterhouse, I emailed the teacher, and he said it was OK for me to go with a different group next week. Later in the day we got an email from the teacher of Food Hygiene that we were going to go on an excursion to the meat processing plant on Thursday (3rd) at 0700, so I will be spending at least 4 hours around carcasses next week, but it has to be done. At least I will be well rested. I went back to bed for the rest of the morning, then dragged myself to uni for the mastectomy. I did feel better by this point, but not 100%. I wrote more about the surgery in this post here.

Friday was a Rector's day - instead of getting a planned week off like other universities, we can band together as a student body and request days off. The national holiday of All Saint's Day is on November 1st, which falls on a Tuesday this year, so we requested Friday the 28th and Monday the 31st as Rector's days, so we had a 5 day weekend! Except not really for the people doing the Clinic of Ruminants (me) because we had to be there at 0900 every morning anyway. At least I get a proper lie-in on Monday and Tuesday. And Wednesday because classes don't start until 1225!

Anyway, on Friday, Nicole and I went in early to watch a planned castrate of a 6 month old rabbit. I wish I'd taken a photo of him, because he was the cutest rabbit I've ever seen in my life. That went very smoothly, although again I wish there was more monitoring equipment. One of my good friends is a vet nurse with a certificate in Anaesthesia, and it's always been something that I'm interested in. If there's an opportunity to monitor an anaesthesia, I will go for it. I think I'm good at staying calm if things start to go south too, which helps. Last thing you want is for someone to be panicking if the animal starts to wake up.

 

Rob came to visit this weekend, which was really lovely. On Friday, we did nothing except order some food and watch telly. It was really nice to have some proper down time. On Saturday, while I was with the goat, he went off on a run - the route he did is a hike that people normally spend the day doing. In the afternoon, we went out to a cafe where I did some studying. After a few hours, we went in search of food and I bought Rob his first Trdelník. Then we met some friends for some food at an Italian restaurant. We came home for a bit and watched a really interesting documentary about donkeys that was presented by one of Rob's old school friends! In the evening we went out again to carve some pumpkins and watch a film with the same friends as earlier.

Our pumpkins! Can you guess which one I did?

On Sunday, I spent the whole morning in the ruminants clinic, then in the afternoon Rob and I went out to buy me a dehumidifier. I don't even want to say how much it cost, but I'm hoping it keeps some resale value when I leave Slovakia. Already it's made my room a much nicer place to be in, and has the added benefit of heating up the room. Now it won't take days for my laundry to dry!