25 things - Relationship Edition

This is from Facebook. It was also posted on Beckie's blog and I thought I would share it here:

This is kind of like the 25 things - except there are pre-decided questions and it's about you and your spouse, not just you. Wanna play? Just copy this post into your own notes & change the answers!

♥ What are your middle names?
Mine is Christine
Sven is Cory

♥ How long have you been together?
7 years in July

♥ How long did you know each other before you started dating?
we emailed back and forth for a few weeks before we met and had our first date

♥ Who asked who out?
Jason asked me

♥ How old are each of you?
I'm 27 and Jason is 33

♥ Whose siblings do/ did you see the most?
Jason's. His brother used to live with us and he now lives with their mother. My brother is pretty much always busy.

♥ Do you have any children together?
Not now. Not ever.

♥ What about pets?
Three dogs

♥ Did you go to the same school?
Nope

♥ Are you from the same home town?
Not exactly. He's from NoCo, I'm from St. Peters

♥ Who is the smartest?
I think we're pretty even. We just have different areas of expertise.

♥ Who is the most sensitive?
Definitely me.

♥ Where do you eat out most as a couple?
Flat Branch, El Maguey

♥ Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple?
New Orleans

♥ Who has the worst temper?
Him

♥ Who does the cooking?
Me, pretty much all the time

♥ Who is more social
Him

♥Who is the neat freak?
Him

♥ Who is the more stubborn?
Also him.

♥ Who wakes up earlier?
Weekdays, me. Weekends (when I don't have to work), him.

♥ Where was your first date?
Wiliker's in St. Charles

♥ Who has the bigger family?
Him by a long shot

♥ Do you get flowers often?
Occasionally. Usually as a surprise.

♥ How do you spend the holidays?
We spend a lot of time with his family. My family is tiny and we don't really do big holiday get-togethers.

♥ Who is more jealous?
Me

♥ Who sleeps more?
Me, if given the choice. I require a lot more than he does. Although I rarely get it.

♥ Who eats more?
Eh, it's pretty even.

♥ Who does/ did the laundry?
We share in the laundry, but he ends up doing it more often because he has fewer clothes.

♥ Who’s better with the computer?
He's the applications developer.

Opinions

"But I do concede that everyone can have their own opinion(even if I think you're are wrong)."

I was just browsing through some of the comments on a recent Something Old, Something New blog post and found this odd.

If opinion is defined as "A subjective thought that a person has formed about a topic or issue." How can it ever be wrong? Sure, you can disagree or have a different opinion, but it can't be wrong. Only facts and theories can be wrong.

But maybe that's just my opinion. ;)

Pet toxins alert!

Wow, seriously? It's been over a month? Obviously, surgery rotation sucked my life away.

Now I'm on Emergency and Critical Care and it has come to my attention that there are several big-bad toxicities that owners are not aware of. In my opinion, I don't think anyone should feed anything to their pets without checking to make sure it isn't toxic first (even if we eat it, that doesn't mean they can), but I realize that not many people think to do that.

1) Grapes and raisins. Bad stuff, people. Even in very small quantities. "But, I give my dog a couple grapes all the time and have never had a problem. She's safe, right?" Wrong. Apparently it's not all grapes or all raisins. Unfortunately, we don't know what the exact toxic chemical it is in grapes/raisins and so we don't know which kinds have the toxin. Best to just stay away from now on. What can happen? Acute renal failure. Think kind of like anti-freeze toxicity only without an antidote. I've got a patient right now with this that's having to receive dialysis every hour because he ate a ton of raisins. Not good. I'm really pulling for him though!

2) Ibuprofen (Advil). Also best to stay away from Aleve or Tylenol or any other over-the-counter pain reliever. Sure, aspirin in small amounts can be ok, but what if your pet has to go in for surgery? Or gets hit by a car? Aspirin inhibits clotting. Best to stay away unless directed otherwise by your veterinarian. If your pet is in pain, suck it up and see the vet for something made for animals. The other meds can cause a myriad of other disorders including gastrointestinal ulceration and kidney damage.

3) Garlic and onions. Ok, so this one isn't necessarily drastically bad, but it does damage the red blood cells. Not a great thing. Best to just stay away.

4) Anti-freeze. Most people know about this one but it bears repeating. Anti-freeze that contains ethylene glycol will fry the kidneys. There are a couple of different treatments that block the breakdown of ethylene glycol into the toxic metabolites, but they have to be administered very soon after ingestion.

5) Chocolate. Another one most people already know about. Baking chocolate is the worst and white chocolate has hardly any of the toxic principle in it (but still best to keep it away from your pets). Again, if you know your pet just ate it within the past couple hours, get thee to thy vet immediately (or at least call for advisement). Other foods that cause similar signs to chocolate: coffee and anything else with caffeine.

6) Rodenticides. It makes me nervous to even have this stuff in the house. Supposedly it tastes quite good to our pets and it's horrible for them. The effects of most rodenticides out on the market won't be seen for a few days post-ingestion, but it's important to start treatment immediately. The products cause clotting disorders which will, in turn, cause hemorrhage into any part of the body (skin, abdomen, chest, brain, etc). Another big bad.

7) Avocados. Any part of them is toxic. No guac for the doggies.

8) Macademia nuts. These babies are tasty but can cause tremors, depression, and hyperthermia in our pets.

7) Xylitol. This is a fairly recent one. Xylitol, for those who don't know, is a sugar substitute found in many baked goods and sugar-free gum. Even a small amount can cause your pet to become dramatically hypoglycemic (low blood sugar). It also causes liver damage. The problem is that animals' bodies see xylitol as sugar and release a ton of insulin. The insulin then causes the "real" blood sugar to drop. Don't feed your pets anything that's artificially sweetened. My parents have a dog who LOVES gum, he only gets the kind with sugar in it. We figure he doesn't chew it anyway so cavities are not a concern. ;)

8) Some over the counter flea/tick meds. I don't have a list of which ones handy, but I know that several have been found to be extremely toxic. Same goes for flea collars, not just the topical spot on stuff. Extremely important: never put something labelled for dogs onto a cat. Cats have a unique sensitivity to permethrins that dogs are ok with. Honestly? Most of it is ineffective anyway so you're wasting your money. My suggestion: skip it altogether and get something from the vet. Money well spent.


For a more complete (and searchable!) toxin list visit: http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/poison-control/

There's also a phone number on that site so you can call if you're ever worried about something (although they charge you for the call). Most vets will have a book of toxins that they can look up most things that you'd be concerned about, too.


Another important thing to know about toxins: it's not always the best idea to make your pet vomit even if they just ate something toxic five minutes ago. Sure, it's still in the stomach, but some things that are toxic going down are just as toxic coming back up. This is true of most household chemicals, for one. Also, if your pet vomits, they have a risk of aspirating (inhaling the vomit into their lungs) which will cause a whole new slew of issues. Best leave the vomit-inducing to the professionals unless otherwise directed.

If it's a topical toxin causing a skin reaction, Dawn soap works wonders, usually. Great thing to have on hand just in case. And saline solution (the kind for contacts) can be used to rinse eyes. Again, best to wait for advisement from a veterinarian prior to starting these treatments but if you have them on hand at home, it can help your pet get relief sooner as well as possibly decrease the damage.

Happy New Year!

For all those who are getting to celebrate New Years, have fun!

Me? I'm on-call tonight until 8am tomorrow. Blech. But it has been giving me time to get some stuff done.

With the coming of the new year, I'm getting more and more freaked out about the whole finding a job situation. I would love more than anything to work at the clinic I just finished my preceptorship at, but I don't know if they're able to hire me so I'm stuck looking for other options.

I have no idea how to go about finding a job. Positions in this line of work aren't regularly advertised, most openings are discovered through word of mouth or randomly asking. Which, honestly, sucks. I would much rather be able to see who is willing to hire, do a little research, check out the clinic, and THEN decide if I want to apply. I would hate to call around asking or send out a ton of resumes and get calls back from clinics that I wouldn't be comfortable working at. I realize that's part of being a big kid and the whole job search thing, I just don't like it.

Nonetheless, I've been finishing up my resume and working on making postcards to send out with it so I can mass send them out in hopes of finding an interesting clinic that's looking to hire. I've found a couple online that seem like good options just based on their websites. It's nice to have a little something to go by, at least.

So.... if anyone knows of a clinic that is hiring or if you go to a super fabulous clinic (preferably within 30 miles of St. Charles, MO) please pass along the name. I have 3 weeks off at the end of February/early March so I could do visits and interviews then, which is why I'm trying to get on this now.

And, simply because I hate posting without a picture:

Hindsight

It's so easy for us to pass judgment on the decisions that people make, especially when we see the result of said decision. But sometimes, I think we need to take a moment, step back, put yourself in their shoes. It's easy to say "that was a BAD choice" when we see the disastrous results or if we have another perspective with more information. Not fair.

I'll admit. I'm guilty of this. It took me quite awhile to see things from the other person's perspective.

I have a client at the hospital who came in for an extremely invasive surgery on an extremely geriatric cat. The end result being that the cat left the hospital looking worse than it came in. Sure, it will likely come back around with some physical rehab but 4 weeks of recovering is a lot when you're that freaking old. Everyone, including myself, were talking about why on earth someone would do that surgery in a cat that old. What a selfish choice that man made. But then I stopped to think about it and that judgment is very unfair.

He took a gamble. He knew it was a gamble. He also was told that if he didn't do the surgery, the cat would likely die within a couple weeks. With the surgery, the cat had a chance of several months. He loves that cat with all his heart and so that was a gamble he was willing to take. Also, I have a feeling, he may not have fully understood the options. Thirdly, no one could have predicted the outcome. This particular surgery could have caused any number of "side effects" from no change to coma. Again, this was the gamble he took to try to give his friend the best shot possible. And, of course, now he is second guessing his decision and feels guilty about it.

Would I have done it? No. But that's easy for me to say since I spent a week caring for the after-effects from this cat.

It's been awhile...

I'm a horrible blogger, apparently. I can't believe it's been over a month since I've written anything! Ack!!!

In that time, I finished up my preceptorship and have come back to school. I'm on my surgery rotation now and I started off with neurology. Next Wednesday I switch to soft tissue surgery and I'm actually off for Christmas this year. Yippee!!!

First night that I came home to Columbia, I had to try on my wedding dress again. It's a sickness, I know. But, at least this time I remembered to take pictures! See? Even girls without traditional wedding dresses are obsessed with their dress. It's just so pretty and it's killing me that I have to wait to wear it out.

So without further adieu, the dress! (ignore the messy hair and lack of makeup, but check out the fabulous matching shoes!)






Needs some alterations: take in at the waist and pull up the straps. But I love it. Oh, that I could just wear it around the house everyday without fear of dog hair or muddy paws.

Next post: my Christmas plans/decor

Voting day

Today is Tuesday, November 4th and for those of you who have managed to escape the millions of other reminders, it's election day.

Now there are millions of people who are urging you to vote and reminding you of how important it is but I want to add a little tidbit to that. Don't just vote blindly. Please, research the candidates individually and make your vote an educated vote. Blindly voting for parties or because of some other random characteristic or just based on an ad you heard on the radio is just as bad as not voting. I truly believe that if you don't know what you're voting for, you're actually doing more harm than if you were to not vote at all.

Unfortunately, I feel like this is the way a lot of Americans vote. They divide themselves into Democrat or Republican and then vote a straight ticket. Not good, folks. We need to keep the politicians in check because obviously no one else is going to do it. Look at voting records and see if they gel with what the candidates say they believe in. Read about what the individual candidates are standing for even if all you have time to do is go by their websites and peruse. It doesn't take long, I promise.

Please, don't just vote. Vote educated.




Oh and how lucky am I that I don't have to wait in those lines today?? Thank goodness for absentee ballots! Now I just have to hope the USPS doesn't let me down.