sad stuff

after passing boards there were many people I wanted to tell, or so I thought...I was so excited, but I called to tell Mark, then my mom, then I realized other then Heather and Christina, not many people would know what it meant to pass boards. I told Christina at dinner, and got a call from Heather that night in response to my blog, and the initial excitement is over now, but I hate to admit it...I keep thinking, several times a day, "I want to call my dad and tell him I passed my boards." and then I get this sick sinking feeling knowing I can't. Sorry that sounds so depressing, but I have been thinking about it too much.

Other then that, things are great. I am not dealing with my weekends off great, I need to stay busy so bad. I read two novels already this week, and am officially addicted to the Twilight vampire series now. I hate this free time, and not being able to run for 3-4 hours a day due to my knee injury makes it even more difficult. Instead I go to the gym for an hour and a half and feel much less satisfied.

Well, off to laser tag with the vet school girls tonight, YAY!

I PASSED BOARDS!!!

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Knowing I will be a DVM in May is one of the best gifts ever.

winter blues, busy weeks

Despite the fact that my clinical rotations are very lax now, normally monday to friday, with generally 8-5 days, I have been super sad and stressed. I am blaming it on the weather. I think we are having our 6th big storm of the winter today...it sucks, the snow just keeps piling up!

Well, I have to comment, Ryan has been trying to clean more, and he now vacuums the rug one-two times a week. But more and more I think I do NOT want dogs of my own...maybe, it's just, how likes to come home to their work all day? I will see dogs and cats all day, and then to have a dog of your own in your face when you arrive at home is like a continuation of work. I guess it could work if I have a very calm and well behaved pooch, maybe a greyhound, or a bassett hound. I do plan on adopting more rats once I move, I love rats and they make phenomenal pets.

Last night was our first wine tasting night. We had a pleasant surprise...Amy, Mark, Ryan, Christina, Mark and I all made it. I made vegan lasagna and asparagus rolls and pound cake, Ryan bought cheese, crackers and vegan chocolate. We had 4 bottles of wine between all of us. It was very relaxing and stress free.

Tomorrow is trivia night in Allston with Mark and Christina. This weekend I am sure there will be superbowl parties. Then next Thursday is trivia night again, but this time for Pete's birthday. Next weekend is the infamous vet prom, for which Mark and I got a room. Then the weekend after is Valentine's Day, also about the time of Mark and my anniversary. I can't write what I got in case Mark reads this, but I did get two tickets to a special event on Friday the 13th for our anniversary and Valentine's Day. Yay!

dogs

I am starting to think I might actually want my own kids before my own dogs. Wow. Who would of ever though that from me. But living with two big dogs has re-exposed me to the hassles and responsibilities of having them. At least once a week they do something I find annoying, like get in to the trash or chew up something they shouldn't or track mud throughout the house. And it doesn't help that their owner (my roommate) doesn't clean after them much, and openly admits he hates cleaning and won't do it most of the time. The dogs are good dogs, but I do think they are a little neglected. And after spending my long ass day around animals, I hate coming home to be greeted by two poor lonely dogs sniffing and following me everywhere. I think I almost burst a blood vessel today when I got home and someone left the bathroom door open (Not me, Ryan warned me when we moved in the dogs will go in to the trash if the door is left open so I never leave it open, yet once a week they get in there when he leaves it open). This time they had dragged ALL of the trash contents out in to the hall, AND Ryan's friend who is staying at our place for the next four days, well she moved herself in to the bathroom, and the dogs destroyed half of her make up, which amounted to about 15-20 pieces of blush or cover-up or mascara or lip balm etc. Of course, Ryan and said girl were MIA. Not what I like to come home to at 9pm after being at work for 14 hours.

HOUSE

Speaking of House, I normally watch one episode every other day, Ryan always hears me and comes to join me since he hates to actually work and would love an excuse to procrastinate, and then Ryan always wants to watch multiple episodes once he watches one....but I am so tired and need to get up so early I call it quits by 10pm most nights despite his protesting and begging I watch more. Well, last night I was watching the season finale to season 4, which was two episodes in a row. I could only watch one episode, and Ryan wanted to watch both, I just asked him not to tell me what happened. He still had to leave me a note in front of my door at 1am that "It was all it could of been, answered all your questions, you will love the episode. : )" Ok, thanks, but I can watch it on my own and decide then.

Then tonight I got home and decided to watch it at dinner. Ryan's friend from Cali arrived earlier today, she is staying here until Sunday, so the house is even more crowded the normal (and I have been warned that I should stay with Mark this weekend if I don't want to hear things sounding like a porn coming form my roommate's bedroom, nice). Ryan still made it out to watch the second half of the last episode while I watched even though he saw it last night, and couldn't help himself, everytime someone made a different diagnosis suggestion for Amber, or asked a question, he had to answer yes or no before they did on the show, and he had to dance to music, and ask me in the middle of a good scene "aren't they great actors? This is such a tear jerker" so that I missed half of the scene. He even came out and started shouting differential diagnoses at one point and asked me medical advice while I was watching as they started a different treatment for Amber. Nice...again, I hate to be a bitch, but I think I might have to ban Ryan from my dvds until I watch them on my own. He can watch them after me, since I don't need simultaneous commentary and I like to watch things on my own in peace and quiet. Damn, I am such a bitch.

roommates

I keep trying to figure out why living with Ryan irks me so much, and I think I finally hit the nail on the head. Ryan is an awesome, supportive friend. He is an amazing person and is super fun. However, he is a bit dirty, actually, his dogs are, and I am OCD and have a hard time dealing with dog hair, and being a guy Ryan never cleans. But still, I don't mind cleaning, so I don't think that is the problem. I have always had roommates since undergrad, and never before have I dreaded coming home so much sometimes.

I think I figured it out this week. Living with Ryan is like living in a mini-frat house. It's always slightly dirty. I am the one who remembers to do the chores 80% of the time. And I work all day long, but yet Ryan's schedule is so flexible, he is ALWAYS home. I think he is not fully stimulated by his job, so when I come home he spends ALL his time in the common areas of the house, and kind of follows me around analyzing everything I do. I had Monday off this past weekend, and I realized this when he too did not work on Monday, and followed me around a bunch asking "what you cooking?"..."What you doing?", etc. etc. Never leaving me alone. He is such a happy guy, he loves to sing out loud about what he is doing. I am glad he is happy, but am not getting peace that way. When I shut my door to my room to read or be ALONE he knocks and asks "what is wrong and why is the door shut and is everything ok and why am I anti-social?" I like to watch House on dvd on my own, but he must join me when I do and analyze it and make commentary and laugh so loud at points I can't hear the TV. So Ryan and I are both social people, but I think Ryan takes it to a new level because unlike me he is not overwhelmed by work all day. I come home and need some down time, alone time, ME time. I want to watch my TV on dvd alone, uninterrupted, without other's comments. I want to go to bed early since I get up at 5am without hearing someone singing in the other room. I want to make dinner without someone coming in and asking if they can try a piece or analyzing what type of fake gross food that is, gross, you will eat that?!

So yeah, I love Ryan to death as a friend. He is an amazing person. And I am so glad I am living closer to Boston and have a healthy life outside of work/school. But for roommates, we are a little incompatible. I think he would be great living with someone more his speed. Again, I feel like I am living in a sort of frat house with no relaxing alone time. I will survive, but I feel like such a bitch always asking Ryan to change something since I can't handle the over stimulation from him, and yet Mark and most of my friends think of me as one of the happiest people they know. Hopefully if Mark and I end up living together next year we will be a little more compatible, but since I love to cook and Mark hates too, and we both like to keep things clean, I think it will be fine....if I get lucky enough to live with him.

good luck Patches

They talk about those cases that stick with you for many reasons, but ones that meant so much to you that for the rest of your life when you see a patient with that name you will think of that special case. I had one of those this week. Patches.
Patches came to the ER with an ATE, or arterial thromboembolism.

Let me give you all some medical background first:
cats get this type of heart disease where their heart's walls get thick and blood flow becomes more stagnant, creating a perfect environment to form big clots in the heart chambers...with bad luck and progression of the disease these clots can break off, fly through the blood stream, and lodge at a distant site, stopping blood flow to that site with a huge blood clot. Most of the time these cats seem fine to owners, they have no idea they have heart disease, until they throw the clot. Most of the time the clot is thrown to the legs, often back legs. The cat's blood supply to his or her legs is cut off. You can imagine, this makes it so the legs are non-functional, and as the cells die from loss of blood supply it is excruciatingly painful. Commonly the cat develops congestive heart failure within 12-24 hours of throwing the clot. If the cat survives the episode with extensive critical care in the hospital (which they will have statistically a 50% chance of doing) they then have 40-60% chance that they will have another similar or worse episode in the next 9-12 months. Naturally, you can imagine, most owners when told this on presentation to the ER decide to euthanize their cats. Additionally, most vets tell owners to euthanize upon arrival cause they know the prognosis is poor. But still, if owners have the money and the vet is not pushing to euthanize a painful cat, the cat could survive and do well, its just that the odds are against him.

Patches was one of those cats. The ER vet who admitted him at 11pm on Tuesday urged the owners to euthanize, but they wanted to try and hold out for their sweet boy. He was transferred to me on cardiology on Wednesday morning.

He was on tons of pain meds when I first met him, so naturally he was happy. Our cardiac evaluation including a PE and echocardiogram did reveal the usual underlying severe heart disease. Despite our discussing the poor chances and the likelihood that Patches would develop congestive (and possibly fatal) heart failure in the near future, the owner loved him and wanted to give him another day. Patches was a brave boy, and I began to believe that while he had lost the function of both hind legs, his caring owner would help him become one of those few survivors with lots of TLC and intensive home care.

The next morning I came in to find Patches' cage empty. At first I thought "Hmm, he must of been doing well, so they moved him from ICU to the general ward." but after seraching there I got more nervous...I found him, in the oxygen cage hooked up to EKG monitors, IV fluids, and other monitors in ICU. Not good.

Patches had reperfusion injury. Sometimes when cats get through the clot part, their body can develop collateral vessels to their legs, and even regain some function (though minimal). The sad part is that when the vessels reach the dead legs all the breakdown products from the dead muscles circulates the entire body, causing all sorts of changes to the bloodwork, severely slow and abnormal heart rates, and multi-organ damage or failure. Despite this horrible turn for the worse, Patches owner was excited that he might be regaining some function to his legs, she wanted us to keep trying. We put Patches on SO many drugs to manage all the horrible things happening to his body, and through all this he continued to love my affection and visits to his cage.

I was sad, and was told yet again that my patient would probably die overnight, but I arrived the next morning and found that he was starting to improve. It seemed the worst of his reperfusion had ended. His right leg still didn't work, but it looked like some of his left and at least two toes on his left leg were functioning. However, his kidney values had slowly been rising ever since he had first come to the hospital, and that morning was the first morning that had reached dangerously high levels. After all this, Patches was in renal failure. Of course, with aggressive IV fluids we might be able to reverse it, or at least slow it so he could live comfortably at home for quite some time. But, when a cat has heart disease and you give him too much fluids you can easily push them in to heart failure. And we had Patches on a very high rate of IV fluids this whole time since we had been watching his kidney values slowly rise.

And for the first time since I had known him, Patches was acting depressed. Instead of his usual exuberant greeting when I came to check up on him, he only had the energy to open one eye and acknowledge my presence. If I was kind enough to place my hand near him, he would gently use his paw to pull my hand closer so that he could rest his head on my hand. After all this, we discussed Patches bad state with his owner again. Amazingly, he had survived the worst of his heart disease, but now his kidneys were failing. His owner then revealed that she did not want Patches to die in the hospital, nor to be euthanized. Instead, she wanted a "natural death" for her cat. She decided it was time for him to come home. I would of been fine to have his owner take him home for a day or two to spend his last hours with his family. But instead she was taking him home to slowly starve to death and have his kidneys give out on him over the next two weeks, or if his heart disease flared up, he will drown in the fluid in his own lungs. I have never been so sad. Euthanizing great pets is hard, having patients you care about die in the hospital despite your care sucks. But to make it this far, to pour all our work in to saving this cat against the odds, and for him to pull through and do it too, only to have him taken away to suffer and wither away, was heart wrenching for me. I cried so much last night for him. I hope that maybe he will continue to defy the odds, and while the chances of him surviving to be a semi normal cat (without back legs working of course) are about 1 out of 200, he might be the one.

Good luck Patches, you have definitely left an impression on me, my heart is with you, and whenever I meet a cat named Patches I will think of you.

ER 3pm to 2am

I spent this past week on ER from the 3pm to 2am shift, which is my favorite, Typically the ER is busiest from 5-10, so you see the most, and then things usually slow down so you can finish your paperwork and leave by 2am....not so this week. I had a great time and did really well, but I am exhausted. Thank goodness it was only a 4 day week. Several of my classmates were on their core rotation at the same time, and they all pissed me off since most of them avoided taking cases and left them for me since all of their shifts ended earlier then mine. And to top it off the clinicians loved working with me so they kept signing me up for their cases while I still had other cases going on, so it was a little overwhelming but flattering. The earliest I got out was 3am. So Monday I was there until 3:45am, Tuesday until 3am, Wednesday until 3am, and yesterday, Thursday, until 3:30am. For some reason every night was slow until 10pm, and then every owner brought in their emergencies between 10-1am. ughh..

Again, the best news was despite it being an elective week I was showered with compliments by the doctors. When I started the week Russell was so excited I was back on since he had so much fun working with me before. I worked with a new doctor, Kristen, whom I absolutely LOVED. She was a great teacher, every night she told me great job and thanks for your help, and last night she was so upset my week was over and she told me that "I was one of the best students she had ever worked with, that I had a very wide knowledge base, that I wrote the best discharges and transfers she had ever seen, and that she couldn't wait for me to come back to the ER for more elective in March."

The cases I saw? Let's see if I can remember them. These are the ones that stick in my head as being neat and complicated and rewarding:
1. 5 month old kitten with a pyothorax
2. 10 year old rotti with a brain tumor that came in in status epilepticus (seizing non-stop)
3. 3 month old duck that prolapsed his phallus- this was the most rewarding. No one in the ER knew anything about birds, and I ran the entire case. Russell kept joking with the other doctors how great it was working with me cause he could just sit back and let me be the doctor and I made him look good. The next morning exotics got the case, and the exotics doctor came to see me to tell me how I had done a superb job and it was one of the best transfers she had ever gotten from the ER. Russell came to find me yesterday to tell me that exotics had come to him to compliment him on a great job treating the case for the night, but he told them to find me since I was the brains behind the operation.
4. 12 year old shih tsu with a slipped disk and an anal gland abscess
5. 12 year old wheaton attacked by a coyote with about 7-8 lacerations that I got to clean and stitch up
6. 4 year old black lab in liver failure, probably from cancer
7. 8 year old cat with a perforated cornea
8. 2 rat terriers also attacked by a wild animal, one needed a laceration stitched, one with a scratch to her cornea
9. 1 year old cat squished by a bed when it broke from under its owners
10. 12 year old sheltie with an anal mass and uncontrolled heart failure
11. 4 month old boston terrier with cerebellar dysfunction, most likely from meningitis
12. 3 year old persian cat with 1 day history of vomiting
13. 5 year old poodle with 1 day history of vomiting, uriinary incontinence, and pain
14. 10 year old bichon with severe back pain and right leg pain
15. 2 month old shih tsu with an esophageal foreign body that was compressing his trachea
16. 2 year old terrier mix with bloody firm stool that was badly constipated
17. 3 year old shiba inu with ibuprofen toxicity
18. 6 year ols cat with an arterial thromboembolism at the level of the renal arteries
19. blocked cat that presented dead (CPR performed)
20. HBC boxer that had a neck and skull fracture and was bleeding out in to both her abdomen and her chest

In 4 days I think those are most of the cases I saw, not sure. Could be more I am forgetting. But not bad considering I was working with 5 other students, and on average we would see 10 cases a day during my shift only. So out of about 40 cases, I saw 20, even though there were 6 students total working. Nice and productive. Now I can catch up on sleep since driving and getting home at 4am, followed by being woken up at 8:30am by the noise from your roommate and his dogs, is not the most fun.

things I have done

Things I have done... Just copy and paste this to your blog and bold (or highlight in a different color) the ones that you HAVE done and make sure to put your score at the end.

I am obviously bored today. Stolen from Jess.

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Gone without food or water for 24 hours or longer
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Stayed up for 24 hours with NO sleep at all
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Changed a lightbulb
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Mowed the lawn
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee

58 total

New Year's Resolutions

I am never really big on making New Year's Resolutions cause I rarely stick to them completely, and I make resolutions and various goals all the time throughout the year. But here are some for me for this year:
1. Drink MUCH less diet soda and replace it by drinking MORE water.
2. Take very good care of my IT Band so that I might be able to run another marathon again later in the spring/summer.
3. Try not to take things personally so much, not everything is my fault and I can't make the world perfect for everyone.
4. Read 1-2 books a month (easily done on down time, but in clinics I have been averaging one book every month and would like to gradually increase that to two).
5. Don't waste as much money going out drinking.

Things I Love About London

1. The accents
2. The public transportation
3. The fast food...sure they have all the fast food chains of america, but if you go to any store or sandwich shop, they have individually wrapped lunches for about $3-4 each, and vegan options. So tasty
4. Pubs and cider...the cider is so much better where it is brewed, and the veggie burgers at pubs are made with beans and chickpeas, tasting more like yummy falafel then processed vegetable protein
5. high speed trains, traveling at over 180mph, scarey when you stand near the tracks, but quite efficient and able to get you to the next country in a couple hours.
6. The people...so much more friendly then Americans
7. Museums are free, that's right, any art, science, or other museum owned by the government is free to the public. Way to promote culture and intelligence!!!
8. British novels...I always pick up a book in a book store when stopping over near London, and some of the best ones I have read were by british authors from there..for example: 1. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver, 2. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon, and I am currently reading Missing by Susan Lewis which I bought in London the other day and love it.

London itinerary

London was a great trip. The only down side was that Mark and I realized we can survive travelling together, but we are not the most compatible when it comes to traveling styles. As you can imagine I am GO GO GO and see as much as I can in one day until I am physically exhausted. Mark on the other hand tires more quickly and once tired wants to nap. But other then that, things worked out.

We arrived on Sunday, and sadly it had been a red eye and Mark did not sleep at all. I had taken dramamine and slept about 6 hours. We checked in to our hotel at 11am and after breakfast Mark needed a LONG nap (aka 7 hours). We did get up at 8pm and went to dinner finally, which was good.

Monday was our first busy day:
We did a 3 hour walking tour and saw the tower of london, the thames, the millenium bridge, the tate modern, england's bank, knights templar, st. paul's cathedral, monument, and more. At the end we had lunch in the Tate Modern and did a 1 hour tour of the museum for me. We got back to the hotel at 5pm and Mark was exhausted and needed a nap. Sadly, his nap lasted until 1am, and my attempts to wake him for dinner were unsuccessful since he is quite grouchy when tired and sleeping. I was grumbling too when at 4am he tried to wake me up.

Tuesday was more sight seeing: First we walked 1/2 a mile from our hotel to Hyde Park. We wandered the park, so Prince Albert's Memorial, and the Kensington Palace where Princess Diana used to live. We did Parliament, westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, the Horse Guards, and the National Gallery, which I LOVED but was even overwhelming for me. There were over 60 rooms of incredible paintings. We did about half in an hour and Mark had to call it quits. Back to the hotel again at 5pm, and what was supposed to be a 2 hour nap for Mark once again turned in to a night's sleep, and grumpy Lindsey was woken up at 5am even though she had gone out for dinner on her own and gone to bed at 10pm.

Wednesday was New Year's Eve. For Mark we started the day trying to find the London Stock Exchange. It has been closed to the public for the last 5 years, but Mark still wanted to locate it. Sadly after 2 hours of searching we gave up. Then we went to the Imperial War Museum for Mark, another boring thing for me, but it is only fair since art museums are boring for him. Sadly for me, we spent 3 hours there...their holocaust exhibit was brilliant, but I would of been done in the museum by 1 hour on my own. unch was at a tasty pub, and we went to the aquarium after for me, but sadly it was 17 pounds (about $25) each, and half the exhibits were closed for renovations, so we scrapped that idea. Mark then had the first successful ONLY 3 hour nap since being New Year's eve I demanded we go out. We went to Soho, not knowing it was the gay district, but Mark found a great restaurant for dinner, and I was not vegan for one night and had a delicious piece of chocolate cake with him for dessert. We walked to Trafalgar Square, which was INSANELY busy, and rang in the new year with the Londoners. Over 200,000 people came along the Thames and the Square to see the fireworks. It was great. And the crowds were insane, but the police had it under control.

Thursday we went out of the city to Windsor Palace since a lot of London things were closed. It was a nice morning trip. Then Mark found a casino near our hotel and went to play poker for the afternoon. He won 90 pounds (almost $150), so we went out for a nice dinner as a treat after.

Friday was our last day. We toyed with the idea of going to Paris via the Chunnel, but after going to buy tickets at the eurostar we found out it was too pricey on the weekends. We shopped for some stuff, and then went home. My watch broke, so while Mark was lazy back at the hotel I went shopping for a new one, and went to try to buy tickets to see the musical Wicked that night, but sadly the night of tickets were again too pricey. So we had some dinner and called it a night. We did have to get up at 4am the next morning for our flight, but even though a lazy day was good, I do wish we had seen more on Friday. I guess my go go go personality can't deal with laziness much.

Our flights on the way back were ok, NYC is always a pain in the ass and the people were so rude. Mark commented taht coming back to the USA was like returning to a third world country. We both loved London so much more. Mark's mom picked us up. Mark's dad had been up all afternoon making vegan chili for us on our return. I joked with Mark that his mom always spoils us, but that I was shocked his dad even spent all day cooking just for me. Mark laughed and said "Well, my parents like everyone, but they especially like you and probably want me to marry you and have lots of babies since you are so successful, smart and pretty, so they are always going out of their way to try to keep you around." How flattering. Now, I want to know, where shall we go together next? ; )

Traveling Mayhem

The London trip went well, but before I tell the details, I should tell you of the F*u# ups I caused. I got cheap deals, 6 nights hotel and round trip tickets to London for $950 each. Well, we flew to JFK and found my first mistake...we had to take ground transportation from Laguardia to JFK since we actually flew in to LaGuardia, which was a hassle and $13 extra bucks each. But we made it in time and the flight to London was a long but easy red-eye.

Once in London we got to our hotel, and more fine print I had missed was brought to my attention: our hotel location was amazing near the heart of London with a HUGE subway stop right around the corner, but being a European hotel it was small, and little did I know we were supposed to share bathrooms with other rooms....4 rooms (up to 8 people) to bathroom. I felt horrible. Mark was upset too, but said it would be fine as long as our room was a decent size.

Of course, we go up to the room, and it is TINY! I am a little used to that since I have stayed in European hotels before, but the ned was barely full size, and there was hardly enough room for our stuff. I felt miserable at this point and went downstairs to protest since Mark's feet hung off the bed and we would need to snuggle all night to fit in bed together/ Luckily, the hotel guy seemed to like me, and when he said "It's London honey, and that is a normal double sized room for two people, but I will give you the option of choosing one other different room: try room 9". We went together and room nine had two beds at opposite sides of the room, two tiny twins, but the difference: a shower. Still no toilet, but our own shower, so we took it in a heartbeat. The hotel guy laughed and said "You just got a free upgrade honey, I am sure you will love the shower." And we did. We were able to push the beds together at night since there was no way we could sleep in the same bed being that they were about the size for a 12 year old, but it worked out, and having our own shower was key. Sharing a toilet (there were three in the hotel, for about 12 rooms) worked out fine. There were only minimal traveling mishaps from then on, but now I should tell you about the trip...

Xmas 2008

Xmas was quiet and quick this year. I was on vacation for it. On the 22 and 23 I drove to NJ and Connecticut to interview at Oradell Animal Hospital and Darien for their internships. I absolutely loved both places. I also interviewed at Angell, and continued to NOT be impressed. I am definitely switching my ranking, but after discussing it with Mark. I know he will understand, but I know he will be disappointed that I don't want Angell as #1 anymore (or even in the top 3). I still have one more interview, a phone one with the virginia wildlife center on Tuesday.

Xmas Eve I spent with Ryan here at home. I made dinner, we talked and relaxed. Xmas day I left for Albany. Sadly my grandma had the flu so we did not celebrate at her house as usual. We had dinner at my mom's house with the usual crew: mom, tory, me, karen, patrick, evan, carlin and Fern. Our black cat Salem had to be center of attention for most of the night.

Dec. 26 I went to Brugger's for Breakfast to see Heather and Denis. We were going to meet from 9-10:30, but Heather called the night before to bump it up to 8am since I had to leave at 10:30. I was telling Mark, and he was like "Wow, you needed more time then that to catch up?" I laughed since we were actually there until 10:45 and Heather reminded me I needed to get on the road, and I could of easily stayed another couple hours with the two of them. I need to start looking at dates later this spring when I can visit Montreal. Mark is always laughing at me cause not a week goes by without me commenting that I miss Heather. Luckily I have her blog to keep me entertained while she lives so far away.

I drove home after that and Mark and I finished packing. Dec. 27 we got ready and drove both of our cars to Mark's parents' house at 11:30am. We were leaving our cars there in the event that there was a storm while we were away since we both live in the city and didn't want to deal with parking emergencies. Mark's mom wanted to make us brunch before we left. I was surprised when Mark was shocked to see she made a HUGE meal, but by now I am used to her going ALL OUT for meals, especially for the two of us. I had tofu scramble with spinach and mushrooms, a crumpet, mango fruit salad, OJ, and home made vegan granola, and a small piece of raspberry vegan pie. Mark and the others had the same as well as a huge omlette.

So we were well fed and fattened up for out 12 hours of flights to London...so, check out the next blog!