It's nearly 4 in the morning...again. Maybe my body has gotten into a habit of this staying up late, sleeping in late thing. That certainly can't be good for me. Tonight, though, I did have a good reason for staying up late. I was driving home from my second Roper show in exactly two weeks. Does that officially make me a "lamewad?" That's for the guys of Roper to decide...they'll have to tell me if making three-dimensional cocoa rice krispie turkeys counts toward that or not. So now, I have two little arm bands, one green and one yellow, to show for my time spent rocking with Roper (and an overwhelming majority of people under 20.)
If you haven't had a chance to see Roper play live on the "Kenya Spare a Dollar" tour, promoting "Brace Yourself for the Mediocre," now is the time to check out the tour schedule, and see them when they are in a city near you!
But, before I continue, let's back up to the afternoon that I spent at the emergency clinic. After all, while I think Roper is an awesome band, this is supposed to be focused on my clinical and soon to be again academic experiences en route to becoming a veterinarian. Of course, the staying up late last night was great. I had a chance to chat with SW from Brisbane; it had been a couple weeks since we had last talked, as he was away on business in Indonesia. Unfortunately, I couldn't sleep in this morning. I had to get up early, finish laundry, pack the stuff I needed for the rest of the day, and get ready for work, all before noon. I suppose that's the only disadvantage to having a thirty minute commute. I always have to leave about forty-five minutes early. Stupid road construction. I crawled out of bed, disturbing Elly, just before 9:30. It's not like she, as a cat, doesn't sleep nearly the whole day anyway. I wasn't going to feel guilty for kicking her off her comfy place on my back.
Skip ahead a few hours...
The emergency clinic was relatively slow today. When I came in, most ears in the clinic were fixed on a college football game. After three losses, this team needed a win, and about an hour later, they had their win, much to the pleasure of one doctor in particular. I really wasn't interested in being at work this afternoon. I wanted to be having fun. While I know it's necessary, I miss having weekends off.
We only had three hospitalized patients, or two if you consider that one was deemed too unpleasant to even open the cage door unless absolutely necessary (and with body armor if you please). When I rounded on it at 4 p.m., I just wrote "bad attitude" in the record. I didn't even actually look in on that particular cat when it growled and hissed at me. I was taking care of the diabetic cat in the cage next door, saving the satan-cat for last. After being torn up just before the last Roper concert, I intended to not be bleeding for this one.
Shortly thereafter, I worked up "Buster," a very, very energetic Weimeraner who cut his dad's fishing trip short. What didn't make much sense though is that it was POURING down rain...and this guy was fishing? Either he's really dedicated to catching some whale of a fish, or just enjoys getting wet. "Buster" got yelled at quite a few times in the exam room to sit down. When I walked out of the room, the doctors just gave me a look. I said "but the dog is really nice." The owner just wanted him to sit. As he was thrashing about and not behaving, he was working that hook into his mouth more, trying feebly to either get it out himself or swallow it. After Dr. G examined it, he brought it to the back, and we promptly sedated it. Flat out, the dog was much easier to examine, and eventually get the hook out. What surprised me was that other than a needle holder, the doctor used "real" tools. I think I saw pliers and wire cutters from the tool box sitting on the counter right before he freed the three-pronged fishing lure. Lucky dog. If that would have been swallowed, it would have been a really bad day for "Buster."
I worked up a couple other animals, but nothing that really ended up being all that exciting. It seemed that all of the patients that I saw, though, were either a) red stickered, meaning they are aggressive or b) family affairs. In one case, it was a grandmother and her two grandchildren under the age of 3, one just an infant. In another instance, it was a very old cat, with both parents, and two teenage children. The father of the bunch was quite humorous, joking about the children's love/hate relationship with the cat, and giving his daughters a hard time when they hid their eyes as I took a temperature on the skinny orange cat.
Since things were slow, I decided to chill out in the treatment area with a magazine. There's one tech who always brings in girly magazines for entertainment. That plan worked for a while. Then Dr. G nailed me with a question about anemias. Actually, Dr. S asked first, and then Dr. G decided I needed something better to do. In looking at the diagnostics from the referring hospital for the nice diabetic cat, she questioned me about the low MCHC and the high MCV. What was this combination characteristic of? Oh well heck! I had to put aside what I was reading about celebrity looks for fall (I really don't know what I was reading at the moment) and think. I delayed too long in my answer, and Dr. G said something to the effect of that's what we're paying you for, to "know" not "think."
Within a few minutes, I had a book shoved in front of me open to the chapter on anemias. I was told to "read up" and write up a short presentation on it to give to the two doctors that afternoon. Did I go back to school, and no one told me? Clinical pathology is my "thing." I didn't really need to "read up" on anemias. I only paused because I wanted to think for a few seconds about my answer before saying whatever was on my mind and finding out that I was wrong. I think he just didn't want me to read girly magazines. So, I obliged, leafed through a few pages, and scribbled down a few notes on regenerative and nonregenerative anemias. So just before I left, I blah, blah, blah'd the doctors about what I knew on anemias, surely increasing their knowledge a hundred fold. And if I really believed that, well, I would be living in a fantasy world. What I said that afternoon didn't add a bit to their own knowledge. These are practicing doctors, who deal with this every day...and anemia is a very basic condition.
With that finished, I headed toward Westerville for the concert. In the pouring rain, it was difficult to drive. I hate the spray that inevitably comes from semis on the interstate. I definitely made better time on the way home when the roads were wet, but the rain had stopped. I stopped at a gas station to change from scrubs and sweatshirt to jeans, a burgundy tank top, a white button down, and comfy sandals. I made it to the church for the last two songs of the opening band. Luckily, I hadn't missed Roper's opening song!
I'd been talking to Jonathan Byrnside, kindly known as just "Byrnside" or "Sideburns," or whatever else Reese thinks up for him, online for a week or so. It was going to be cool to see who I'd been talking to in the past week. Before the show, I spied him standing at the side of the stage while one of the opening bands "House of Heroes" was finishing up. I looked for the tell-tale tattoo on his left arm. In the dim light, it was hard to see for sure, but when he moved to the other side of the stage, and was setting up, I could confirm that it was Byrnside. I walked toward the stage to say "hi." I didn't expect to talk to him much before the show. He knew who I was, which was cool.
He didn't jump into the crowd this time. The last time I was at a Roper concert, he did, but I didn't see it. I wasn't two feet from the stage that time either, though. This time, I stood close enough to the front that I could take some pictures. The set was great, or so I thought. I don't believe he thought that it had been as good as the performances that they had had recently. At one point, Byrnside ripped the "inner ear" thingy out of his ear. Opps. Even with the ear thingy incident, I thought the show went really well for them. At the end, instead of an encore, Reese came back out onto the stage and prayed with the audience.
After the show, I waited patiently to talk to him. There were so many of the younger set there, and I'm sure they all totally look up to him and his band mates. Seeing how he interacted with them was great...he was just a normal guy who some of them thought was the best guitar player alive. To have positive Christian influences in their lives is an awesome thing! Eventually, I had the chance to talk to him. While he was packing his named guitars up, I hopped up on stage and talked to him some more. Just random stuff. I was internally debating whether to stay or go that night. I know enough people in the area that I could have just stuck around and left in the morning. Eventually, I decided it was time to go. Byrnside walked to the side door with me, and hugged me good-bye. I told him I'd come to another show as soon as I could. Unfortunately, they'll be done with this tour before I have some time off.
I left the church, and tried to simply reverse my directions. Somehow, I ended up back on E. College Ave., the same street that the church was on. Ugh...that was frustrating. I looked stupid. I went back to the church to see if there were any locals around who could get me back to the interstate. I walked back in the same side door, and kind of shrugged at Byrnside. I quickly found someone who was from the area, and he gave me much easier directions to the interstate. And then I just kind of hung around, trying to help them when I could, and chatting with the band members. It was a great end to an awesome evening! Of course, I think that officially made me a "lamewad," but oh well. At least I wasn't trying to steal Roper's lyrics.
Check out pictures from the show on the right-hand side of the page!
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