Commitment Phobia

I bought a bed today.

This has made me feel rather anxious.

You see, I have only once before purchased or owned a bed. When I was in college the dorm provided the bed. When I moved off-campus I did buy a used mattress (which I remember as being pretty trashy), and when I was unable to transport it to my apartment, SurrogateSyracuseParents kindly transported it for me with their van (an act of kindness that is not forgotten all these years later). Then, when I graduated college I was in a relationship and so did not need to acquire a bed. Since my divorce several years ago, I have always rented fully furnished rooms.

I like not owning furniture. I don't feel tied down. It makes moving easier. It gives me a sense of freedom.

Purchasing a bed was a major step for me in my adult life. It represents a commitment to staying in vet school, to settling into Ithaca as best I can.

I seriously considered just buying an air mattress so as to feel less weighted down. But I'd have to pay a lot of money to get a really nice air mattress if I was going to sleep on it for months and months and it would probably be the same price as a bed. So I bought a bed.

Of course, I did not buy a new bed. I went on craigslist and was able to find a practically new bed for half the price the people had bought it for. They bought a full bed and then shortly thereafter bought a headboard but the headboard was for a queen and so they decided to get a queen bed and sell the full. I'm quite pleased with my purchase. Especially since it was delivered!

I also bought an antique oak wood desk off a graduating senior. It too will be delivered, hopefully tomorrow.

In The Library

With just over a week of classes left, I'll be spending my time in the library. Above-- main study area (note all those photos of emeritus professors-- among the dozens there are only two women out of the whole bunch and the photos extend into the other room). Below is the poisonous plant corner of the library, which is a favorite place of mine to curl up and read in a comfy chair.

Horses and Elephants, Oh My!

On Monday, while we were discussing our current case, which involves a horse with a respiratory disorder, one of my classmates gave an explanation that made reference to elephants not having pleura. We were all astonished, and of course laughed too, finding it a bit of a non sequitur given that our current patient was a horse.

But it turns out, she is right. Elephants do NOT have a pleural space. The things one learns in vet school.

If you want to read more about it, here's an article titled, "Why Doesn't The Elephant Have a Pleural Space?"

Monitoring My Moods: Noticing Sunlight

Light impacts my mood greatly-- I'm almost always happier on a sunny day. Light also tells me a great deal about my mood. When I'm sad, I barely notice light. When I'm feeling better, I notice the pattern of light everywhere.
This morning I admired the rays of sunlight streaming down from the clouds (above) while driving to school and it reminded me of a beautiful photograph that my roommate took while hiking in the Adirondacks.

Then this afternoon I was struck by the interplay of shadows and tree branches on the window by the student mailboxes.
I know I'm feeling a little better than I have been just because of these two observations alone.

The Amazing Efficiency Of The Avian Respiratory System

I've been entranced by birds for my entire life. I've read tons about different aspects of bird life but never really understood the avian respiratory system until this morning when we covered it in our overview lecture of the respiratory system.

We watched a beautiful animation of bird breathing in class that I just loved but unfortunately it is password protected and so I cannot link to it:( I'll describe what it showed below, though.

In the avian respiratory system, air is moving through the lung (the arches in the middle of the diagram) in the same direction during both inspiration and expiration (airflow is unidirectional)! This means that birds have air with a high partial pressure of oxygen available to their lungs all the time. That's why birds can fly at altitudes that people cannot survive at, even at rest-- because they have a constant supply of fresh air to their lungs, unlike people whose lungs are filled with waste gases during expiration.

How exactly does this happen? On inspiration some of the inspired air moves into the caudal thoracic and abdominal air sacs while an equal portion flows into and then across the lung into the cranial air sacs. On expiration, the fresh air in the caudal thoracic and abdominal air sacs is expelled and flows into and across the lung while the used air in the intraclavicular and cranial thoracic air sacs exits the respiratory system via the trachea. (For images and description by the same professor who did the animation-- Dr. Ludders,one of the anesthesiologists at Cornell-- see chapter 8 of the 12th edition of _Duke's Physiology Of Domestic Animals_).

The View At The End Of The Street

Herd of Hereford cattle at the end of the street. Note: I knew what breed they were from memorizing all my breeds of different species in block 2.

Interesting Saturday In Radiology

I saw two really neat cases while working in radiology Saturday that tied into case presentations we've gotten in block 3. The first was a dog with NSAID toxicity-- it was getting a blood transfusion and had melena. Made sense to me. Decreased prostaglandin production as a result of inhibiting cycloxygenase enzyme 1 (cox-1)-- those prostaglandins are protective for the gut.

And then I saw a dog with an adrenal mass, likely pheochromocytoma (the other differential was a carcinoma but the dog was showing clinical signs consistent with a pheochromocytoma). What was neat is I had left ultrasound to go take some radiographs and when I came back in everyone was looking at an image on the screen of Doppler blood flow around a mass but I wasn't sure at first where the mass was. Judging from its proximity to the kidney and some other markers, I guessed and asked if it was a pheochromocytoma. I was happy to be able to figure out what I was looking at on ultrasound without anyone orienting me anatomically. And it was only the second case I'd ever seen. We had a mini-case that involved a pheochromocytoma in class recently so that made it even more neat.