Ode to the median cubital vein

You are my favorite vein of the thoracic limb.
Do not ask why, as it as mysterious of an obsession as a dog to a flying stick. Or a thrown ball.

I must thank you, Stag, my lovely formalin perfumed dog, for showing me such a beautiful vein.

On another note. Ever wonder why dogs and cats hate getting IV catheters in their arms if you don't get them in on the first try?? Well, I suppose they don't like it even if you do get it in right away, but anyway, I've forgotten my point. Oh yes, that is right, pain. There is this ginormous nerve going through the arm called the radial nerve. It passes from inside the shoulder area to the outside of the elbow then diverges into many branches to extend a forearm, but also there are two specific branches, the medial and lateral branches of the superficial ramus of the radial nerve. These two branches border the cephalic (arm) vein just perfectly. That way, the animal will be sure to know if you stab an IV cath needle on either side of the cephalic vein. I'm sorry all you poor animals that I learned on. Good thing most of you were sedated while I attempted this brutal act of IV catheterization. I may or may not have just made that word up...

Now, please excuse my above nerdiness and enjoy the following pictures. Again, that sentence may or may not have included a made up word.

P.S. My volleyball team is named The Pudendals. Not a made up word. Dr. Moffit taught us that the pudendal arteries supply the organs of shame. That's right, we named our team after an artery supplying organs of shame. I'll let you stew on that one for a while.

Matt driving, on the left side of the road. Notice the pretty new by-pass road?? It has lines on it!!

Frigate Bay

Caribbean sea and the peninsula

Caribbean on the left, Atlantic on the right. Us in the middle.

Shipwreck Beach. Watch out, a strange creature is crawling out of the sea! Possibly named Matt...

Ahh... parasitology on a Sunday afternoon at the beach...

Matt taking it all in

View down Shipwreck Beach

Awesome sign post

Things aren't always as they seem...

Matt's dinner at Sprat Nets. Complete with eyeballs and fins.

 

PJ, new and improved with brakes that work AND.... a ginormous oil leak... ugh

 

PLUS a broken turn signal and new white stripes graciously given by some white car at school

Our kiwi bush in the backyard magically turned into a JuJu fruit bush! Just like that, MAGIC.

It's like a tiny apple/pear/thing. With a seed in the middle. 

  Pictures and story time from Matt to come soon. It will involve a solo trip into town, the farmer's market, and breadfruit. Yes, breadfruit.

PJ's glorious return

Points came and picked me up this morning to grab PJ from his place. He took me a different way than I knew of to get there. I'm really glad he did as we drove down the cutest little neighborhood I've ever seen in St. Kitts. Adorable. I'm not kidding. There were little manicured lawns, a nicely paved road (no potholes!), and even curbs! I thought we had been transplanted to suburbia... but only for a moment. Maybe I'll take a picture sometime. It really was that adorable.

And oooooh do the brakes work! Very nicely. I sort of made a fool of myself picking up the car as I stalled it when I was surprised by how well the brakes worked. Relearning to only put the lightest pressure on the brakes was fun (compared to all the brawn I could muster before).

So, PJ was back in our hands in all his glory. Until he wouldn't start. HAHAHA. Gotta love island cars. The stupid battery terminals corroded again. We bought a bottle of coke to dissolve away some of the corrosion, then called points out when we couldn't find a wrench to tighten the clamp. 2 things that we need to just keep in the car at all times now: bottle of coke and a wrench.

Dad: the corrosion is at the top of the terminal, so the little pads don't seem to help, sadly.

Oh, and the oil was pretty low so we had to go buy some oil to top it off until its next oil change. Then I spilled oil all over the engine as we didn't have a funnel and I was being impatient. Ahhh, the lovely smell of burning oil on a hot, humid, January afternoon.

Other than all of that, everything is going well. Matt got his visa application all set and ready to go. I'm starting to like my classes a bit more, which is quite a relief actually. It is really hard to gather up any motivation to study for classes that do not interest me one bit... but once I find something that intrigues me, that makes me think a little bit, that's when the studying comes more naturally to me. I don't know how else I'd get through 3 more years of vet school if I wasn't interested in the information. Whew, good thing I DO like veterinary medicine!

I'll work on some pictures over the weekend. Matt is going to the farmer's market tomorrow morning with the Caribbean Cooks lady (from the cooking class I took last semester). We'll see if he has any good stories to tell... maybe I will have a guest writer on my blog!

Bon week-end! (Yes, that is french for good weekend!)

Wednesday

Pros:
- We now have hot water

Con:
- I may have giardia

Happy Wednesday

Matt's lovely rendition of a world map on my shin as I was procrastinating...