Exams and Cats

The AMK went.  I'm not sure if I can say any more than that, just that I have done it.  The results are out next week, so I shall have to wait and see until then.  This was the first time we sat it on paper and not on a computer, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.  On the computer the questions come up in blocks of 25 and once you complete a block you cannot return to it.  It's difficult to think of timings so I had a tendency to be very cautious.  On paper you have three hours to look through all the questions as many times as you like, so you can convince yourself you know more than you actually do.  Because of this I answered a lot more than I normally do, so I think it's either gone really well and it was a good paper, or it's gone really badly.  I'm tying myself in knots, I don't like it.

Yesterday I sat me first clinical competencies of the year in intramuscular injections and musculoskeletal exams.  I had spent the last month practising for the IM injections every Friday for an hour, so I was pretty confident.  It threw me a little because the vignette wasn't the one I was expecting, but I muddled through and did pretty well. I got all high excellents and one satisfactory because I didn't wash my hands after I gave the injection.  I was just too pleased to be finished without stabbing myself and that I remembered all the bits and did it in the time limit.  Hopefully that will come out as an excellent.  The MSK also went well.  She picked me up for not looking behind the patient to see how high up they could get their hands, but I didn't do that because it wasn't on their demonstration video so I didn't know I had to.  I got all low excellents for that, with high excellents for communication skills and introduction.  I'm not sure what else I could have improved upon. That one will probably moderate out as a satisfactory.

Another big thing that happened to me in my break between writing was that my cat died.  We'd had Amber since she was 8 weeks old and she died at the age of 13 at 7.45am on 1st October.  Her liver had started to kick out all the stored fat into the blood stream for some reason, making her blood really thick.  She was so poorly in the end we rushed her to the emergency vets who tried but couldn't save her.  She was the best, funniest, cleverest, stupidest, fluffiest, warmest, most loving cat in the world, with the biggest personality.  Whenever I was upset or ill she'd come and find me.  She wasn't terribly good at being a cat - couldn't really jump that well and was never very good at catching things but she knew how to play each member of the family to get exactly what she wanted.  Whether that was being carried to her food because she didn't want to walk, being taken and let out the front door because she didn't want to go out the back, sitting on what ever you were working on because you weren't paying attention to her, getting hugs and tickles when ever she wanted, or sitting on you because you were wearing something soft that she thought must be for her.  She was more than our cat, she was my sister and she is sorely missed.

 Our family was devastated getting that call from the vet.  We cried for weeks.  Without her the house just seemed so empty.  This weekend we went to the cat shelter and we got a new cat.  Nothing will ever replace Amber, but we've had cats in our house for as long as I can remember.  I was practically raised by them.  There's pictures of one of them, Shilling, sitting on my moses basket watching me sleep.  Apparently, if I woke up she would walk back and forth down the basket to rock it and send me back to sleep.  She didn't know what I was, but she knew I was to be cherished and protected.

Freya is our new cat and she is 2.  She is currently under the sofa.  She is very happy, not scared, will have tickles and food and wash and lick you and fall asleep flopped on your hand.  She just won't come out from under the sofa.  Except at night time, when she comes out and goes nuts.  Once she's sure everyone has gone to sleep she has quite a night of playing.  The first night the tail came off her catnip mouse.  The second night the mouse was annihilated into fluff and bits of fabric and scattered around the room.  The third night a ball of wool was unravelled and re-wrapped around every chair and table leg in the the room.  So, every day I go over, clean up whatever she's done and spend the next three hours lying down beside the sofa with my arm jammed in up to the shoulder tickling the cat to try and get her comfortable enough to come out.  She came from a multi-cat household with very little human interaction.  She's just finding out that ear tickles and tummy tickles are the best thing in the world.  If she would just come out from under the sofa....