Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Galatians 6:2

So! I finally started a new job at the NC State vet hospital, just in time for me to turn 26 and become ineligible to be covered as a dependent on my mom’s health insurance. It’s been a wild ride getting here, but I can see how God’s hand has been in this whole thing this whole time. The job is a perfect fit for my needs in a workplace, and my skills and experience seem to be a perfect fit for their needs. The benefits are really great and everyone at the vet school is really wonderful and nice. The timing couldn’t have been any more perfect, and I’m learning so much with this dive into veterinary medicine. I’m already a month and a half into the job(!!) and I am finally feeling like I’m getting the hang of things and settling into the groove. Also, the number of CAT ENCOUNTERS IN MY LIFE HAS SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASED!!!!

It’s a vet hospital.
Like for animals, not military vets.

People who aren’t familiar with NCSU (looking at you, non-US ship friends) got a bit confused when I said “vet hospital” because they were thinking veteran hospital. To clarify for you friends, the United States has a hospital system for veterans, but that’s known as the VA (Veteran Affairs, after the federal department that oversees it). So whenever someone says they work “at the VA” (pronounced: VEE-ayy) then it’s usually a VA hospital which serves military/retired military and I think their families? (Don’t confuse this with the state abbreviation for Virginia, which is also VA.)

But all this to say that NCSU’s vet hospital is for animals. NC State University has one of the best veterinary care programs and schools in the United States, and it’s really amazing to work there because you get to see so many different types of cases. They have a lot of the same services that you’d find in a specialty hospital as well: internal medicine, dermatology, cardiology, oncology, neurology, various levels of care up to ICU, surgery… as well as one of the region’s small animal emergency department. So in function, it operates similar to most human hospitals out there.

But being an animal hospital, there are a lot of key differences I’m learning to consider which has been really interesting. Firstly, many of our patients are different species, so you have to take that into account as well as their health history. You not only have to consider their condition, but also what species they are in order to treat. Certain antibiotics can only be used in certain species for certain organisms, so things can get quite complicated. They do not only basic companion animal care (dogs and cats), they also do large animal care (horses, goats, cows), small animal exotics (birds, rodents, reptiles), aquatics (fish)… you name it! In addition to the usual hospital things you find on the human side, we also have a department that specializes in animal breeding and health management related to breeding, which is called theriogenology.

Perks

Employee discount

The nice thing about working at the teaching hospital is that you’re able to bring in your own pets to be seen for a discount. The vet students here are all under the charge of an attending DVM, but it’s a really great relationship that allows them to learn general practice care as well as get some quality care for your fur babies. And then you can get to know the students and clinicians as well!

The Cat Rooms

We can file this one under “things I would have never thought about.” As any hospital that does surgeries, the vet hospital has to have a reliable source of blood for transfusion. From my understanding, cats have slightly more complex blood systems, since they naturally produce antibodies like we do so they have to be type-matched, but they also don’t have a universal donor like we do (Type O). Also when you think about it, there really isn’t a Red Cross for cats (or other animals, really). On the other hand, dogs have a universal donor, and also apparently have more forgiving immune systems and may not naturally produce antibodies, so the first one’s free? I am no animal immunohematologist but a quick Google of cat and dog transfusion medicine tells me all this.

To address this slightly more complex problem of transfusion in cats, the hospital keeps 2 rooms stocked with donor cats. One room is the explorer colony and has 12 cats, and the other room is the Harry Potter colony and it has 7. The Harry Potter colony cats are missing the jugular on one side of their neck so they can only donate from one side. Oh yeah, by the way, the cats donate from their neck. Sometimes when you visit them you can see a little shaved patch and you know which ones have donated recently and might be a bit sore there.

Yes, I did say, “when you visit” because you can visit them! They live in a fairly quiet room that overlooks a little courtyard by a hallway that connects the old hospital to the Terry Center (new hospital). You can often see them hanging out in the windows watching the world outside. They even put some bird feeders outside the window so they could have some entertainment.

It is really nice since you can go visit them, give them some company and socialization, and you get a quiet place to be calm and surrounded by very nice and calm cats.

I’m still working on learning their names. But they’re quite calm and slow moving, so you can often get some cute photos of them.

The explorer colony is named after explorers (Columbus, Ponce, Magellan), and the Harry Potter colony is named after HP characters (Dumbledore, Hermione, Snape). They’re all quite wonderful, though some are more playful than others. When the sun shone off my watch onto the wall they all immediately flocked to it like a laser pointer (a fabulous discovery).

Sometimes I go into the cat rooms on my breaks or when work is slow to just have a change in scenery, which I already get plenty more of compared to my last job. The work volume is a lot more manageable and you can take breaks when you need to and go walk around inside and outside the hospital to get some movement in instead of being restricted to one chair all day. I’ve started playing more Pokémon GO and getting steps in and hatching a ton of eggs that way too.

Sometimes I visit the cat room and then this happens and I can’t leave.

Good benefits

As a state employee you get some really good benefits. Like the retirement is really good! And my healthcare plan is even better but less than half I was paying before. Amaaaaazing.

Wow, writing that whole part about getting excited over good job benefits just made me feel really old…

Job happenings

Danger!

So the nice thing about working in an animal healthcare setting is that you don’t have to worry so much about the blood borne pathogens that you would in human healthcare, like HIV and Hepatitis.

The downside is that a lot of select agents have animal reservoirs and so we’re at a much higher risk of encountering them compared to in human healthcare where it’s fairly rare. We’ve already had a few run-ins.

Loss

I went outside to take a walk on my break. It’s sunny out, a little too humid for my tastes but I walk anyway, playing Pokémon GO on my phone and swiping all the stops along the front of the hospital. A little strange to think there are so many animals here, and I’m walking around catching Pokémon.

Behind me, an older lady walks to her car. She’s by herself, and sniffling a lot. I turn around to look and see that she’s crying. She’s holding an empty leash. I can only imagine what that means.

I ask if she’s okay, and without really waiting for her answer I ask if she wants a hug. She nods, and I hold her. She sobs a bit. She hugs tightly and as she starts to let go she hugs a little tighter. She repeatedly says thank you. Thank you so much. For all you do to help the little ones here. I don’t respond, I just keep hugging her. I start tearing up, too.

Eventually she lets go. I hold put my hands on her shoulder and give her a look to communicate that I share her sorrow. I’ve lost all ability to speak. I wish I could say something, anything. Offer her something more. But instead I watch her get into her car, and I turn and continue walking.

Training

Last week we had a super slow week (we only had like five samples come in each day), and so the whole lab decided to get some CE training done. Like, sooOoooOOo much training. We might have gotten a bit competitive about getting the most certificates printed out.

Before you say anything though, we got completely murdered by workload the following week (when I was reading the bench T__T;;)

Animal parasitology

We do a fair amount of parasitology for animals too, which has been fun (except smelling it part). We do fecal sedimentation, fecal floats, fecal McMasters (which uses a special slide to quantifies parasite load), and a fecal Baermann (which looks for larvae).

The idea behind McMasters is basically the same as a sedimentation or float in set up, but it uses a special slide with a grid and a specific amount of sample to quantify parasite load.

The Baermann is less exciting. You have to put a layer of feces on a gauze and then put it in a conical where the bottom of the specimen is just touching the surface of warm water. Then larvae that are present will eventually migrate and fall into the water. Then you pour the nice, warm poop water into a petri dish and look at it uncovered under the stereoscope. Nothing like smelling hot poop water for several minutes while you scan a whole dish for larvae. :T

New friend

I made a new friend at work, her name is Karishma and is literally the only other person my age in the entire lab system so far as I know.

SHE EATS RAW BROCCOLI FOR LUNCH. She just cut up a whole floret of broccoli and put it in a bowl and then grabbed a fork and ate it raw without anything on top of it. What.

In other news

I chopped off all my hair

It’s been two years since I last donated my hair! And my hair had been getting so heavy and so stuffy in the summertime that I figured now was a better time than ever to get it all chopped off. The usual lady who cuts my hair moved back to Taiwan so it took me some time to finally feel like my long hair was a nuisance enough to take the initiative to find a salon to cut and style it. I just decided after work to just walk into a salon I found on Yelp and have it all chopped off. It was a surprise to my coworkers as much as my impulse was to me.

Now that I think about it, it’s still in its envelope on the counter… I should send it off.

People getting married

We had two weddings in August! One for Jessica, and one for Irene, both really wonderful sisters in Christ. It was quite a wild ride, with lots going on. I got super exhausted by the end of it, but it was really fun to celebrate our sisters getting hitched! And some really good quality time before a lot of friends moved away. :(

Well this post took me forever to write. I’m sure there’s a lot I didn’t really get around to talking about, and now I have a weekend retreat to talk about! But until then,

—Jasmin