Days 28-29 ~ 3 Counties Equine Hospital

The past two days I have spent helping out at 3 Counties. I've been doing lots of jobs such as grooming, keeping the yard clean, the store room stocked, grazing horses, and helping to restrain for injection and radiographs. We had several exciting things come in such as a horse that was badly colicing, but due to the severity of his colic and his age (19) the owner opted to humanely euthanize him. We also had an interesting case in named Randy. He was a very cute gypsy vanor horse who had inflammation of the bowel and pitting edema. I helped to hold him, while they took several scans and biopsys to figure out what was causing the inflammation. I was also able to practice leg and tail bandages yesterday. Then today, I watched several lameness exams (helping to develop my eye) and I got to be the handler to walk and trot the horses up to trot-ups for the Dr. to observe. I watched several tendon scans and helped out with many radiographs! I also saw a terrible jaw laceration that came in this morning. The horse had decided to try for the greener grass on the other side of the fence and caught herself on the gate bolt. The laceration was so deep I could fit my thumb through it! After taking xrays to make sure there was no bone damage, they sutured up the whole and inserted a drain to drain out the huge hematoma that had formed.
I found out about the horse that I had helped out with the colic surgery last week. He unfortunately had coliced again over the weekend and did not make it. In this aspect, Veterinary work as any field of medicine can be really tough.
I got to skype with Brad and my parents a bit last night and have a relaxing evening reading. Tonight I plan on getting some laundry done, hanging out with friends and hopefully finishing my book! Only 13 days left! I am excited to get through this week because I have a lot of events occurring such as going to the fair on Friday and then leaving for London for the weekend! Unfortunately, my ticket request for the War Horse show did not go through because the show is sold out for the next 4 weeks!!! Incredible, but disappointing. Maybe it will come to New York some time and I can catch it? Oh well, we'll still have a good time :)
I'm also excited to return home to the hot weather and all the exciting things that are going on! I enjoy travelling, but 1) not for longer periods then 1-2 weeks and 2) I prefer to travel with friends/family. Those are some lessons I've learned. But I'm still really proud of myself for coming over here and trying it out all by myself. I definitely don't regret the trip, but I'm glad to be going home. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers! Stay tuned~