Saved By The Mouse

I've been falling asleep in class lately. A lot. For the first time in my academic career. It's like the dam has broken.

This morning I drifted in and out of epidemiology and was barely paying attention in my bacteriology lecture. The professor was talking about some disease where pustules formed and then popped when two of my classmates in the corner interrupted her mid-sentence with their shrieking. At first I, and the rest of the class, assumed they were horrified by the image of the pustules popping. But this must be like the 50th disease we've learned about with vesicular lesions that rupture. When they could regain their speech, they said, breathlessly, "MOUSE!" We all looked. There was a little grey mouse with giant black eyes scurrying back under the podium. Our professor was terribly embarrassed-- we are in the midst of our AVMA re-accreditation process. With as much dignity as she could muster she sputtered, "Well, it IS that time of year."

The class turned into a circus, with the mouse periodically racing out from under the podium, across the floor, into someone's backpack, then back to the safety of the podium, all the while with our professor chasing it with an empty coffee can and three or four students scrambling on the floor while it madly deftly darted between them all.

Eventually one of my classmates caught it barehanded and banished it from the building. We joked we would time how long it took the mouse to re-enter the classroom but we didn't see it again.

Thank goodness for the mouse, at least I was awake for the rest of the lecture.

It's late. I spent the evening studying bacteria. I remember one of my vet tech professors saying that large animal disease have the coolest names. So very true. I can now tell you the etiological agent of African Heartwater disease is Ehrlichia ruminatum. I won't go into Blackwater and Black Leg. Can you imagine telling someone, "I'm sorry m'am, but I believe your dog has Black Leg!"

I've accumulated even more esoteric trivia useful only for cocktail parties than in previous classes. (Did I mention how hyenas give birth through their clitorises-- remind me if not to do so-- that was 3b). For example, anthrax (Bacillus anthracis) used to be seen mainly in people who worked with sheep-- it was called wool-sorter's disease. Nowdays it is seen most commonly in drumming circles. Yes, imported African drums are sometimes made with hides carrying anthrax spores (no, the tanning process does not kill the spores) which are then dislodged and aerosolized by drumming. So think twice before you get a drum from Africa. Of course, I have one hanging in my room as I write (courtesy of my landlady). Don't worry, I've been careful not to move it in the slightest! :)