Sometimes it's easier to just let them do what they want

Midterms have more or less consumed my life right now, so forgive me dear readers, if I'm a bit quiet. We wrote Diagnostic Imaging last week, Public Health this week, Virology and Bacteriology next week and Diagnostic Imaging and Systemic Pathology the week after that. October basically just sucks.

There's still bright spots though. Fridays are pretty relaxed for us right now. It starts with Diagnostic Imaging lab. We tried to radiograph a classmate's dog today. I was supposed to be holding her back legs so we could do a right lateral thoracic view. I make no bones about the fact that I'm, er, petite as my mother likes to say. "Good things come in small packages!" she used to tell me. For the most part, this isn't an issue except in trying to find extra small gloves and extra small coveralls. Every now and then though... I have tiny little hands with short little fingers to begin with, so getting my hands around legs for restraint is already a challenge. Then with the lead gloves on (which aren't so much gloves as oven mitt shaped) and a dog who'd already laid there for one round of radiographs... Yeah, the rads didn't actually get done. It wasn't just me losing grip though, the other guy was having a rough time too, and the dog just wasn't having any of it.

Then we have Systemic Pathology and Virology, then lunch. No biggie, though Virology is often right up there with watching paint dry. ("Go blue! Go! Dry! Dry like you mean it!" - Decline of Video Gaming)

After lunch, we have Clinical Orientation II. Playing with animals, yay! Today it was birds. Tiny birds. Tiny not-well-handled-before birds from a pet store. Budgies to be specific, and juvenile at that! Never one to back down from a challenge though, I dove in and grabbed a bird. First thing you need to know about not-well-handled-before budgies: They bite. A lot. They have very movable heads that they can get into all sorts of bizarre positions and if anything comes even vaguely within striking distance, they will bite it. It doesn't really hurt though. You're definitely aware they're biting you, don't get me wrong. But it doesn't hurt enough to cause any sort of screaming or blood loss. I think in the span of a 5 minute or so exam, I must have been bitten a good 23 times. If you can deal with the pain, it's actually a reasonably good distraction method. At one point I had to switch him from one hand to the other to check his wings. He happily clamped down on my finger, but hey, it was keeping him calm so he didn't fly off! And now I can add "budgie" to the long list of animals that have made me a chew toy.