This past Wednesday morning I woke up at 8:10 am, which is
unfortunate because my Anesthesia lab started at 8:00. But
let's back up a bit. To understand the circumstances that
turned a simple instance of over-sleeping into full-out, blinding
panic, you need to know two things: this past week was already
extremely stressful, and I love goats.
For second year students, this week was our first of three
rounds (better words might include storm, blitz or barrage) of
tests this semester. Now, I've been in school for a while, so
I've got the strategy down: hunkering down in the trenches, turning
from one subject to the next, taking enough breaks to stay
sane. At the beginning, it's not so bad; you feel good.
But towards the middle (for me Tuesday night) it starts to take a
turn. The second test of the week was on Wednesday in
Pathology, the study of disease and disease processes, a class that
always provides pretty difficult exams for us to throw ourselves
against. Not to mention that this test would include
reproductive, cardiovascular and kidney pathology, three of the
most complex and intricate systems of the body. So Tuesday
was a pretty long night, but in the face of a difficult test, I was
actually still looking forward to Wednesday because I would get to
play with goats.
I don't exactly know why I like goats so much. Not many
people get it, but I've been their biggest fan since I raised two
in high school for FFA. And in Anesthesia lab this week we
were going to get the chance to perform an epidural on a
goat. No, these goats were not about to give birth. An
epidural is when you inject analgesic (pain-killer) into the space
around the spinal cord to prevent feeling when performing
surgery. So not only was I going to get the chance to do a
really cool, exciting procedure, I was going to get to perform it
on my favorite animal.
To be honest, I'm not exactly sure what happened to my alarm
that morning. I know for a fact that I set it. But
that's all I've got. Did the power go out? Did I turn
it off in a session of stress-induced sleepwalking? Did
gremlins sneak into my room to sabotage me? Anyways, all that
matters is that my alarm didn't go off, and I not only woke up
late, but woke up 10 minutes after the lab had started. To
say I rushed would be an understatement. I'm not sure how I
did it, but I was in the lab ready to go at 8:25. That's
fifteen minutes in which I realized I was late, threw on a pair of
scrubs (which must have been invented for just such an emergency),
brushed my teeth (because no matter how late I am, I cannot leave
the house with my breath smelling like that), drove to the school
(which in all normal circumstances takes a minimum of 10 minutes)
and ran completely across the vet school to the basement of the
Small Animal Hospital where our lab was.
The true miracle of it all is that I hadn't even missed anything
yet. My group members hadn't even gotten the goat out
yet. And that is the story of how I almost didn't get to give
an epidural to a goat. (I should take this moment to thank
the Powers That Be that my test wasn't until 11:00 and not at
8:00. Otherwise this would have been a much less fun story to
tell….)