Friday, February 3, 2017

Weekly Update

"Remember how far you've come, not just how far you have to go. You are not where you want to be, but neither are you where you used to be." ~ Rick Warren

^^A little vet school/riding inspiration for myself and anyone else who needs to hear that this week!

Midterm season has begun in full force... I have one today, one Monday, one Wednesday, one the week after, two the week after that, one the next week, then TWO WHOLE WEEKS off of big tests (usually not the case) and then finals. Fun, fun, fun.

Anyways, horse-y related stuff.

Hmm, belly is looking a little bit bigger to me! (possibly just fat, lol)

Starting with last Monday, I had a nice ride after basically not riding for almost 3 weeks. The weather was gorgeous and spring-y so we rode outside in the outdoor. I didn't do too much exciting, but it was nice to be out and on a horse!


SUNSHINE

Tuesday I went to a talk about orthopedic bone disease in young and growing horses. Yay more things to worry about in my baby! But very interesting to learn more about OCD, bone cysts, etc. since they are topics that we're covering in radiology right now and I can actually find and diagnose them on radiographs! (most of the time at least)

Lots of lunging


Friday I went to an absolutely awesome talk on equine cardiology at the Endurance conference. It ended up being a 4 hour talk, but it was so worth it. We had a really, really rough cardiology unit in physiology that wasn't well taught last year so it was nice to have all of that drudged up again and explained in a way that made a lot of sense. Plus I definitely remembered more than I thought I would. We got to hear different types of murmurs in horses, lots of physiologic murmurs from endurance horses (cool note - fit, hard working horses are pumping their blood very quickly and efficiently causing turbulent blood flow which can make a low grade murmur when at rest, that goes away with exercise, typically not a huge deal - crazy to think about when you always hear about murmurs always being so bad) and it was great that the vets attending had the same issues with diagnosing systolic vs. diastolic murmurs, etc. that we were having.

Cutest little mini-me. I need him.

I've been doing a lot of lunging Jetta in the vienna reins since I haven't had too much time to ride. I think it really helps keep her in shape because when I finally got to ride again on Saturday, she felt super nice, really lifting the base of her neck, reaching for contact and lifting/swinging her back. We had a short ride, but it was a really excellent one!

More lunging this week, then I rode yesterday. I didn't lunge before I rode since I lunged her the day before and she was super hyper so I'm pretty sure she got that all out of her system! She felt really good again when I got on and we had a lovely start to our ride. It kinda ended up snowballing as I started picking at her transitions and getting more bend, etc. She decided bracing was a much better technique, sigh.  Our canter-trot transition is the worst thing ever right now, but upward transitions are really doing well, shoulder-in is great, spiraling in and out on a circle at the trot is great... it's really just that downward canter-trot transition!

I'm not bad, I'm cute

I'm hoping at some point the stars will align and it'll be dry enough for a trail ride without me having too much on my plate to study for. I need to be in the forest for an hour or so on my pony, it's been too long!

Slurping up her bran mash I made for her

8 comments:

  1. I took a human medical program (for health records, I'm not an MD!) and all started to feel like I had symptoms for all the diseases we covered haha! I would go completely nuts in vet school. Sounds like a very good week :) Love your twinkly browband btw!

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    1. Definitely makes you feel like every little symptom is something catastrophic! And thanks, you should see it in person, it's blinding :)

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  2. Vet school sounds super super interesting!

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    1. It's awesome and awful at the same time! Definitely a love-hate relationship lol

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  3. Fun fact: Miles actually has a small murmur and ended up getting an echocardiogram as part of his pre-purchase. Luckily, for what I want to do, it's not a big deal at all.

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    1. Interesting! My friend's horse has a murmur that they just found, so we're hoping it's not going to be a big deal!

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  4. I like this weekly update format :) Sounds like you learned a lot of fascinating stuff this week in particular. Heart murmurs, especially in the endurance sphere, intrigue me. Ozzy had a low grade murmur when we competed. It was due to electrolyte imbalance and was easily managed, but boy did I freak out the first time I heard about it! I love Vienna reins, especially on OTTB. I'm not a gadget girl, but they're one training tool I really like! Sounds like you're reaping the benefits with Jetta :)

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    1. Glad you like it! Seems like a format I can maybe stick to for blogging :)

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