Here we go again...

Yay, more stress!  So...the economy still sucks...we know that.  The fun part is that with the way things are going, I can't really afford to stay at my current job.  But it's damn expensive to move, not to mention the whole finding another job, which is easier said than done at this point in time.  Right now, my student loans are in forbearance...yay me.  So, I'm good until next February.  But what happens then?  If the economy doesn't perk up, I have to try for another forbearance and hope the feds approve it.  

Then, there is the thought of trying to find another job, something I really really don't want to do.  I'm happy where I am, aside from the reduced pay.  I don't want to have to learn a new clinic and get to know new co-workers and meet new clients.  

And the housing...as of a couple days ago, the people who own my house at the moment are trying to sell it and wanted us to be out by the end of June.  Two freaking months...ugh.  Which was throwing a real monkey wrench in the idea of finding a new job, since my contract goes through July...assuming I would be moving to some other state with a new job, that means I would have to try to find some place here to stay for a few weeks since I would have to be out of the house.  Then, we hear yesterday that they have an investor interested in buying the house who would actually like to keep the current renters in the houses so they don't have to find new ones.  Well great, except I was still planning on trying to find a new house to rent anyway...something closer to work and a little cheaper... *sigh* 

Before the idea of looking for a new job ever came up, the plan was to continue our lease here for a couple months (we had a month to month option with the current owners after the original 1 year lease was up) while looking for some place closer to work, then move in the Fall.  Now, with new owners, I don't imagine we'll get that option, so if we stay, we'll have to sign a year lease.  And if we move, we'll probably have to sign a year lease.  So then, I'm definitely stuck in the job that isn't paying enough at the moment since I can't afford two leases/rents.  Huh..what now?

If I resign my contract, which unless a job falls from the sky, that looks like it's happening, I don't know if they are going to want me to sign for a lower hours per week deal (right now they are technically in breach of contract since it says full time is 40-42 hours and I'm working 30-32 hours), so they might fix that on the new one.  And I want a clause that says I can break contract and quit with a 30 day written notice because if the economy doesn't pick up, I'm still going to be looking for a new job...which still messes with the housing idea too!  Because we'll probably be stuck in a 1 year lease no matter what we do.  My mom is going to talk to the new owners and see if she can negotiate a similar clause...30 day written notice to break lease. 

So...my options are looking something like:

a) Resign contract at work, stay in current house with new owners and 1 year lease and hope to God the economy improves...

b) Find a new job and have to rent a room from someone for a month in July to finish my contract at work...

c) Resign contract with easy out clause, still look for another job, and stay in current house with an easy out clause for if I get another job (looking like the best and most likely option at the moment)

d) Resign contract, move into a cheaper/closer house, look for a new job, and hope I can break lease...and have to move twice in less than a year...

e) Quit life and join the circus.

So yeah.  Oh, and in more work-related news, we have had a kinda crappy, kinda messed up, kinda weird couple of days at work.  Weird illnesses, cats that should be put to sleep and the owners aren't ready/don't care/don't get it, crazy owners, crazy cats, too many major crises happening to co-workers...meh.  I'm not going to get into all of that right now...I've done enough griping as is for now.  Anyway...I promise the next time I get a happy something from work, I'll update about it!!  :)  Enough rambling for now...

Another Day in the Life...

And here I am...with 3 days off.  Yay!  Work has been...challenging lately.  Yeah, we've had the physical exam and vaccine appointments...and the kitten with upper respiratory disease appointments...and the old cat dying of kidney failure appointments...but we've also been seeing a lot of weird random cases.  Or hard to treat cases.  

I had one the other day that scared the crap out of me...7-weeks pregnant (almost full-term) barn cat came in for being attacked by a dog.  Only wound (amazingly) was a hole in the skin of her belly near her back legs.  But it was infected and big and needed to be cleaned up, have dead tissue cut away, and stitched shut before she had kittens.  And we can't use...pretty much anything in our clinic...to anesthetize a pregnant cat safely.  So we had to weigh options and just go with it and fix her as fast as humanly possible.  Which I did.  And I had no way of knowing if I had just killed the kittens to save the mom or if they would live.  And then we get a call the next day that she's gone into labor.  Oh yay.  But somehow she pulled through, and so did most of the kittens.  She had 7 total - 5 are still alive, 1 was stillborn, 1 died a day later.  Minor miracle in Washington folks!  

Then, I have a weird vomiting cat who has weird blood work changes that I have absolutely no explanation for.  And the owner has no money to persue.  The cat could have parasites, allergies, inflammatory bowel disease, cancer, who knows?  So...we tried some Pepcid (yep, same stuff you and I take for heartburn...works nice in cats too) and apparentely I worked wonders with Pepcid.  Because the cat hasn't vomited in 3 days, and it's been vomiting 3-4 times a day for the past few months!  I still have no frickin' clue what's going on, but at least the cat is feeling better.  So we'll see what happens...*sigh*

And of course on top of the weird cases at work, there is the stress from the economy...especially since contract renewal time is rolling around...no indication that I might lose my job, but the thought keeps floating around the back of my mind.  I guess we'll see what happens in the next month or so...

Oh, and my car went retarded the other day and one of the little indicator lights came on.  Turns out the thermostat was going ka-put, so they had to replace that.  Only $400... -.-  And my mom's van had an indicator light come on too!  I mean honestly?  Can we not get a break somewhere along the line?  If I believed in the big man upstairs, I would say that I pissed someone up there off royally...  My mom's turned out to be her catalytic converter trying to die, so we are having to replace that to the tune of ~$350.  Oh, and did I mention my realtor might be trying to sell the house I'm renting out from under me?  Ugh...

But in some good news, the weather is getting nicer again, so maybe I can start checking out some stuff in the area...maybe.  My mom is trying to get me to join some sort of...something...locally, like a hiking club or whatever, to try to meet people...think she is almost as tired of me being single as I am.  Unfortunately, my work schedule doesn't mesh well with something that is a regular weekly/monthly/whatever sort of meeting, as I am never working the same days every week.  Maybe I'll just take the ballroom dancing lessons I wanted to take.  

Anyway, in spite of all my griping, life is going OK.  I'm OK, Mom's OK, cats are good.  Hopefully things stay at least "OK".  :)

Dr. Death, Typhoid Mary, and all the aching muscles...

It's been a long couple of days...I'm exhausted already and I work 7 out of the next 8 days...going to be a long week!

So, I've totally been feeling like Dr. Death lately...put two cats to sleep yesterday afternoon and had the "quality of life" discussion with another 2 clients (one cat with suspected FIP - feline infectious peritonitis - bad viral infection that hits eyes, brain, pretty much any system in the body; and one who is in kidney failure, has heart disease, and has had 'fainting spells' lately whenever the owner tries to force feed the cat - he's also not eating on his own...).  Had quality of life discussion with another owner today - another bad kidney failure, heart disease, probably cancer in there somewhere cat.  And damned if the two cats I have put to sleep in the past couple days weren't young cats (one was 7, one was 4)...those are the worst.  And the FIP cat is only 2 years old.  *sigh*

On top of all the death and destruction I seem to be spewing lately, I'm hoping I don't get sick again...one of my bosses is playing Typhoid Mary at the moment...poor woman is sick as a dog, but the other two vets in the practice are on vacation for the next couple days, so it's just me and her...I've already done my illness this year!  Please, let this one pass me by!

Oh, and all my muscles from my waist up hurt...that's what I get for going to the gym yesterday morning and pushing so hard when I haven't been in about 3 weeks, if not 4.  But, I weighed in at 169 pounds...down 15 from when I moved to Washington!  Only 34 more to my goal!  Weird to think I'm almost a third of the way there...although I'm sure the next 2/3s will be harder than the first 1/3 was...

Well, enough whining and lamenting...time for bed!

What else could go wrong...

It's been a day so far.  Good things:  I got my lazy butt to the gym this morning and had a good workout.  I also managed to eat pretty healthy today, minus the one glass of soda I had.  Go me.  At least the bad things for the day are just online, lol.  

Short explanation: in Final Fantasy XI (FFXI), you have groups, kinda like clubs or organizations, called Linkshells.  Most linkshells have events doing what is called end-game, or basically the big bad monsters that take more than a few people to kill and take a lot of organization.  Well, we had one such event tonight and everything went wrong.  People didn't do what they were supposed to, people died, it wasn't pretty.  So that got cut short.  Boo -.-;  Then, my friends wanted to get some experience points afterwards (those help you level up in the game - you get them by killing monsters), and we all got eaten by monsters on the way to our camp.  All in all a bad night online.  But it could be worse!  At least it's just a game :)

Back to work tomorrow...I love my job, I really really do, but I'm not looking forward to the next couple weeks...I only have 2.5 days off in the next 14 days.  At least one of those days is just going into the clinic twice to check on the cats there, but it still kills the day.  There isn't much useful to do in the 5-6 hours between the two visits...plus, I live 30 minutes from the clinic, so there's an extra 2 hours for just the driving, plus the gas...ugh.  Oh well...

In the beginning...

So, this is about my 3rd or 4th attempt at a blog...I'm hoping to keep this one updated as opposed to forgetting it exists.  So, a brief introduction...I'm a relatively new veterinarian...I graduated in May 2008.  I work at a feline-only clinic, so I get to play with cats all day.  In my free time, I like to read, play video games, play with my own cats, and be all crafty-like.  Most of my reading is fantasy or science fiction, although I do plenty of reading for work as well.  Likewise, most of the video games I play are fantasy...my main obsession there is Final Fantasy XI, which is a MMORPG...or basically an online game.  Craft-wise, I used to make a lot of dreamcatchers and jewelry, and I'm hoping to get back into this now that I'm out of school and have some semblence of free time on my hands.  Maybe actually try to sell something online if I can find people who like what I make.  Other hobbies include watching movies, listening to music, scuba diving, following college football, and sleeping (it's an art ;) ).  

So there you have it...me in a nutshell.  Hopefully, there will be more posts to follow this one up in the near future...until then, good luck and godspeed.