April Entry in Ponderings of the Universe

Eek! I’m doing a terrible job of writing more than once a month this year thus far.

A lot has happened this month but I feel like I’m drawing a blank on some of it....

Let’s see…it was Aaron’s birthday on the 6th, which was nice. We went to the Guillermo Del Toro exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and it was phenomenal! Would definitely recommend checking it out if it heads anywhere near any of you :)

I had a case that was a dog that was hit by a car. I definitely panicked, but had good support from my coworkers. Diagnosed a really bad fracture that my boss repaired. Failed to diagnose another fracture that was less bad that was caught on a follow-up appointment by one of my coworkers. I got nothing but support from my fellow doctors despite feeling like the biggest dumdum in the world. They were all super understanding and told me stories of when similar things happened to them. I have yet to be yelled at by anyone for something I’ve done wrong at work. They’re all very supportive and help me learn from my mistakes instead of making me feel worse than I already do. I really do feel quite lucky to have such a positive work environment and to genuinely like all of the people I work with.

I have gotten some really good feedback from new clients recently. I’ve had some people bring their pets in that haven’t been to my clinic before for varying reasons and had several tell me that I’m their new vet now, that they felt that they were in better hands than with their previous vet from another clinic, that I’ve been able to explain xyz to them in a way that finally makes sense to them, that they were impressed by how well we all worked as a team, etc. Feedback like that feels amazing. It feels especially good because I’m a pretty awkward human being and often worry that my social anxiety gets in the way of me trying to communicate well with clients. All the talking definitely exhausts me but at least I feel like I am generally doing well on that front.

I did an in-home euthanasia on Alex and Rachael’s (Aaron’s brother and sister-in-law) cat, Gabbi. I was ridiculously nervous about it. All euthanasias make me nervous because I want everyone’s last moments with their pet to go as smoothly as possible but this was a bit more nerve-wracking because it’s family and I didn’t have my technical staff with me as back up. It went remarkably well, though. I sedated her first because she didn’t like to be touched by people that weren’t Alex and Rachael. That made her very sleepy and peaceful, plus had the added benefit of not flattening her veins. I was able to hit the vein I wanted, inject the euthanasia solution, and she went very peacefully.

And the biggest news of all from this month, on Wednesday, Aaron got a letter updating him on his status of his grad school application. It contained a link for him to click. Said link brought him to a website with a video, where the first words were “I want to be the first to congratulate you on your admission…” What?! We were anticipating that he would have to interview first to get in. At least that’s what the admissions website said. Several months ago, he met with the person in charge of the area he’s interested in. It was a 20 minute appointment but they ended up talking for like an hour and half. My suspicion is that he impressed her so much that the meeting counted as his interview and she told the admissions people to let him in when they received his application :P

I’m so excited and proud of him. He’s one of the most intelligent, capable, considered people I’ve ever met and I know he will do fantastically and continue to impress everyone he encounters :)