"Into the Wild" and Mississippi Mermaid": What's the Common Denominator?

Last night a bunch of my friends and I ventured to Cornell Cinema to watch Sean Penn's directorial effort, "Into the Wild". What a great film. Acting, cinematography, pacing...couple of minor things I didn't like, but they were minor. (Talk to me once you've watched it). It's based on the real life story of a college grad who leaves his dysfunctional family to venture to Alaska...alone. Incredible story, and really brave on this guy's part if you think about it. Cornell Cinema is a great, old school theatre with $4 tickets! Although most films playing there have usually just been released to video, it's a nice place to go to watch movies. Plus they sometimes have filmmakers present the film before it starts. Then I finally watched the french film "Mississippi Mermaid", which I also enjoyed, and was recommended to me by Stephen. It's the movie that "Original Sin" was based on. So if you watch both "Into the Wild" and "Mississippi Mermaid", maybe you'll be able to say what the common "denominator" is in both movies...and it's not a big theme or anything, just a common occurence. Well, it's been rediculously cold up here. Tomorrow we're doing a housecall for behavior: an aggressive cat. So let's hope that's edu-macational.

Why You Should Vaccinate and Not Do That Other Thing....Just Kidding.

Today on behavior we spoke with a woman who wanted to get hints on how to get her cat with cerebellar hypoplasia to use the litter box. So we gave her some suggestions, hopefully they'll work. But why did I call today's blog "Why You Should Vaccinate"? Because cerebellar hypoplasia, or the severe underdevelopment of the cerebellum is caused by Feline Panleukopenia virus, a parvovirus. Cats can get it from contact with bodily fluids from infected cats, or in-utero. If infected in-utero, the kittens that actually survive lack normal cerebellar function and end up looking like this. So who cares about the cerebellum? Well, it's the part of the brain that allows us to coordinate motion. So without it you can move, but motions can be incredibly jerky and uncoordinated especially when you're initiating the motion. So affected cats can make great pets, they can just look a little "special" and they need people who are patient and attentive (but shouldn't all pet owners be?). But to avoid all this, we should all be vaccinating our pets for certain diseases. Speaking of brains, did you know that birds lack sulci or gyri (those "folds" and "grooves" most brains normally have?)on their cerebrums? Ya, don't ask why that person isn't wearing gloves.

My Sunday Emergency Shift: Vertigo, but Not the Movie...

I just got home from one of my two mandatory emergency shifts. Today I had a really cute 14 week-old German Shepherd who came to the hospital because he was unbalanced while walking, he had an ear droop, and he had a head tilt. Long story short, it turned out that he either had central (in the brain) vestibular disease or peripheral (in the ear) vestibular disease. Either can cause dizziness and cause you to feel like the room is spinning. The poor puppy couldn't walk straight and he had vomited this morning. Anyway, yesterday Stacy and I talked wedding planning talk (for her wedding) over lunch yesterday after we hit the gym. The cool thing is that she's having her wedding in Cozumel, so when we take our SCUBA diving trip we can meet with her wedding planner and the whole deal. After lunch Marcus came back and we went out to eat at an Irish restaurant. Last night we watched "The Longest Yard", a football movie with Adam Sandler in it. It was actually entertaining! I usually shy away from football movies because to this day I don't understand football. It's a little amazing to think that an American can get away with not understanding that sport, but I did!

Veterinary Behaviorists: Psychiatry for Animals

I'm currently on the Behavior service. Although they mostly see cases of dog aggression, there are also cases involving inappropriate elimination in cats, and some feather picking birds. Unfortunately I've felt like I lacked adequate training in animal behavior, yet veterinarians are always asked to give advice to their clients regarding their pets' behavior! So I thought it was a great reason to take this rotation. Did you know that there are two FDA approved drugs to treat certain veterinary behavioral issues? One is called Reconcile (fluoxetine), a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, and the other is Clomicalm (clomipramine), a tricyclic antidepressant. Well, I went to the gym tonight and got some work done, which is great. It's almost the weekend, and if all goes well, I might check out this new Viennese cafe in Ithaca. Stacy and I officially booked our trip to Cozumel! We were very excited. Now I just have to get through the next couple of months...

Mission Biscuit: A No Go

We got back from the gym this morning and I was so excited to try out the recipe for the homemade biscuits and baked eggs. The baked eggs were great...they had spinach, creme, and onions in them, but the biscuits...they didn't rise, they didn't brown...I don't know what happened. So I threw those out, then resorted to Bisquick for biscuits, because we needed them on the side. I love Bisquick, but their biscuits don't cut it. I need to figure out what's happening with that. Next project is the chocolate cake. From reading the recipe, it sounds like it should be fine (I'm much more familiar with baking cakes, cookies, and all that). I just caught up with Koh, a really close friend of mine from way-back-when. I hadn't spoken to him in forever, so I decided to call him since I was not sure about the status of his e-mail usage. Then I watched that indie flick "L.I.E.". Good, but what a downer!

Friday...The Day of Reckoning

Phew! I finished radiology. It was another slow day. But again, I got (extraneous) stuff done. I found a few dive shops in Cozumel that we may use when we go diving. I really wish I had time to dive regularly. Not only do I want more experience, but I would like to have enough diving under my belt to train to use Nitrox and even these new re breathing systems that "clean", reuse, and add more oxygen to the oxygen you breath out of your regulator. The benefits are that it's less wasteful and the bubbles don't scare away the fish. But there are drawbacks, too. Anyway, I really want to do a night dive. I haven't done that before. SCUBA diving is SO much fun, and if you're like me and like to obsess, it's a great way to channel your focus onto monitoring equipment and even your breathing and how it affects your buoyancy (By the way in re breathing systems you can't change your buoyancy the way you can with the traditional non re breathing ones)! Same thing with skydiving and focusing. Well, I guess I'm going to practice some surgical suture patterns, then potentially watch a movie. P.S., for anyone that loves the water, I highly recommend getting certified in SCUBA diving! Oh and P.S.S.: we took a radiograph of a fish today! Nothing is off limits at Cornell! Oh, and finally, the photo for today is from my trip to Roma, back when I was at NYU. I visited a distant relative who worked at a convent associated with the Vaticano. The nuns were so friendly! I was actually looking of a photo of me SCUBA diving, but I couldn't find one, so I instead stumbled upon this one, and thought it would be equally amusing.

Spacing Out...Into Nothingness...

Today was the longest day in radiology! There were NO cases...so we sat around literally doing nothing. My rotation mates and I tried to be pro-active by reviewing some cases together, but after that (which took an hour max)...there was NOTHING! They should have sent us home! Seriously, at one point we were all sitting around in our rounds room spacing out, checking out Netflix, cracking jokes, being bored, and scheming on to hint to the radiologists that we're ready to go home! I mean, damn---the resident even forgot to round with us, and we even paged her! Well at least I got other stuff done. I did study some radiology, but then I researched my presentation, potential accommodations for an externship I plan to do in Michigan, and obsessively checked email throughout the day. Anyway, I watched this french (yes, another french one) film called "Murmur of the Heart". Somewhat disturbing account of a teenage boy reaching maturity. I just finalized my rankings for the internship programs I applied to...and once you do that, you can't change them! So I held my breath as a clicked on the "submit" key, but it's good it's over with. They're due tomorrow. The rest, I guess, is out of my hands. My agenda tomorrow (while in radiology): Finalize my trip to Cozumel, Mexico so Stacy and I can book the trip when she's back from Hawaii.