The Last Month

Well it's now been over a month since I last blogged, the main reasons why being revision, exams and lack of internet access over the christmas period.
So firstly I managed to revise the vast majority of my notes for the exam and all seemed to go well in my opinion, although I'm still waiting for the official verdict! I'm pretty confident that I passed the MCQ section and one of the essays, but what concerns me is the second essay. It was extremely rushed and I ran out of time. It's quite annoying when that happens because I did actually know the material and given sufficient time I know that I could have written a good answer. I just hope that I did well enough in the other sections to compensate.
After the exam I went and gave blood for the first time and I must say that I felt extremely good about myself afterwards (and I now won't have to feel guilty about accepting blood if I need it!). It's amazing to think that after doing something so simple that you could actually save someone's life. If you are thinking of giving blood I strongly urge you to do so!!!
I then went home for one week and spent a lot of time just lazing around (but I think I deserved it) and I really don't know when I'm next going to have a break. We had Christmas dinner early as I wasn't going to be at home on the 25th. Most of my gifts this year were money as that is what I'm currently most in need of! Six years at university definitely leaves you a little strapped for cash! The only unfortunate thing about being at home for such a short period is that I didn't get to see my friends nearly as much as I would have liked
I headed back to Edinburgh on the 23rd and arrived at my flat to find some very exciting post. I had confirmation from Cornell University that I had been accepted into the externship programme for the large animal orthopaedic surgery rotation. The next letter I opened was even more fantastic. It was from the BEVA Trust saying that my application for a travel award had been discussed (even though I sent it in 3 weeks late!) and that they were prepared to give me £1000 (the maximum amount) towards my travel costs to Cornell . It appears that the only thing I have to do now is pass my exams as if I have to resit the dates would clash and I wouldn't be able to go.
I spent one night in the flat and then started my small animal ICU (intensive care) week the next morning. I had to live with 3 other people in a flat in the small animal hospital for one week over christmas and was effectively on call 24 hours a day! Not the most ideal way to spend christmas. However it wasn't all bad, we were extremely lucky that we only had one ICU case over the week and although we did have periods of constant monitoring we fared much better than the group before us in that we didn't have any over night and we had no night time call outs. The latest we finished was 2am and the earliest we had to get up was 6.30am. Unfortunately our ICU case died on boxing day morning, which was extremely disappointing after all the work we had put into him. I guess, sadly that's just the way things go in this business. Other than tending to cases in ICU we also had to do TPRs and routine medications of the in patients in the dog and cat wards as well as dealing with a giant pouched rat and a swan! I quite enjoyed the week and all the vets and nurses were really nice to us (mainly because they felt sorry for us being stuck there at christmas) and they were very happy to teach us and help us out. I also would like to think that I found myself some new friends in the people in my group which made it all worthwhile.
I finished yesterday morning and went back to the flat. I did have the intentions of going out last night since it was Hogmany but my tiredness finally got the better of me and I had the beginnings of a chesty cough, also the rain didn't look too appealing! I did stay up till the countdown which I could hear in my flat from the 100,000 people at the party on Princes Street! I got an exceptional view of the fireworks from my kitchen window and I didn't even need to get wet! HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!
I've got a lot of paperwork I have to sort out this week before uni starts again on monday. The next update will most likely be when I eventually find out my exam results