The first week of October is here, and the sun is setting earlier each day, as it has since sometime in the summer, sometime after the "longest day of the year." By the time I left the hospital this evening, Izzy walking at my side, it was 6 p.m. I had planned all day on taking her to the park north of the city to walk, as we did several days last week. Per usual, when we got home, she scarfed down her dinner, and within thirty minutes, we were back in the Jeep and on our way. She has gotten quite good at knowing how to walk alongside me on her Gentle Leader and accepting her seat belt harness too.
We had only been walking for about a minute when from behind me, I heard two people talking, and I heard the word "absorption" said in a familiar voice. Coming up quickly beside Izzy and I were two rollerbladers that I instantly recognized. Two classmates recognized me, and spun to a stop on their blades. Apparently they were studying for the board exam, while rollerblading, around the lake. That's what I call a judicious use of time. I could probably walk with Izzy and study, but for now, until she's a bit bigger, I keep a pretty close eye on her and our walking it very interactive and full of praise.
With the board window opening now just six weeks away, one of my classmates has an even better reason to study while blading. She signed up to take the exam on the first day it will be offered. And at the rate that time seems to be passing, I'm sure that it will be here all too fast. The major development over the weekend with the board exam was a confirmation. And it was the first of a couple different confirmations that I've had recently.
Throughout the spring and summer, I received fliers and mail of all sorts from companies who wanted to consolidate my massive school debt. At the peak of mailings before the interest rates went up, I was receiving something at least once a day, if not more. After the rates spiked in July, though, it's decreased to just one or two pieces of mail a week. In any case, either I didn't notice it, or my brain subconsciously looked right over the bright orange folded piece of paper in my mailbox, thinking that it was another loan consolidation scheme. It was not until Saturday when I was diligently sifting through the mail that I realized that the return address on said orange piece of mail was the "NBVME" - the National Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners.
I knew without opening it what it was, though. It was a scheduling permit. Once you sign up and pay to take the exam, it takes a couple months before you get a scheduling permit, allowing you to actually choose a day within the testing window that you can take the exam. And so, without further ado, I logged on to the website as quickly as possible, and chose the last date available for the test site. December 8, 2005. With a few clicks, my test date was confirmed, and I tried to focus on thinking about happy things, instead of the fact that I'm 9 weeks away, and not quite sure that I'll have enough time to prepare the way I want to, or the way I intended to, when first I formulated a study plan over the summer.
Another confirmation happened with my patient today. I began a new rotation today, moving from community practice to the first of two internal medicine rotations. I signed up this morning for a case that was diagnosed by the referring vet as a possible portosystemic shunt. When I was in CA, I saw a case like this with a miniature schnauzer. At that time, I knew the basics of the case, but now, this time around, I'm expected to know the basics and the more specifics, especially what the clinical pathology means (not just that "the liver enzymes are elevated" but WHY are the liver enzymes elevated) and why we do the things we do. I ordered a particular "value menu" of diagnostic tests, and sure enough, all of the results pointed right at portosystemic shunt. Just after lunch, I found my patient in ultrasound, all barely more than 3 pounds of him. That view into her abdomen, a mixture of moving grays, blacks, and whites, proved what we suspected. Indeed, there was a shunt, diverting the blood from the intestines away from the filter of the liver. It's a problem that eventually we will likely surgically correct. But tonight, the patient is on his way back home - home being several hours from here - and we can rest easy, mostly, with a confirmed diagnosis.
Before I admitted my first patient this morning, I received an email that confirmed that my resume and references had been received by the practice in PA that I'm interested in right now. I spent the weekend, or some of it, pouring over the formatting changes that I had made to my resume. I shortened a line here and there, and condensed certain aspects, trying to get it down to two pages. In the end, it is a full two pages, with little room to make any changes. By sending them my resume and references, that's one more step on the way to making a decision...for them....and for me. And when THAT is confirmed, I think I'll be just elated.
With all the confirmations that I've experienced lately, it seems like I'm just sailing. I certainly can't complain about how things are working out for me right now. Keep the confirmations (the positive ones anyway) coming my way!
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