Christmas Break is Halfway Over!

Hello everyone! Sorry for the hiatus from the blog, but Gabriel and I have been busy visiting family, being visited by family, and [I've been] working at the hospital. But, here's an update with some good pics to go along with it.

We had a wonderful time with, first, visiting my parents in Rock Hill, and, then, Gabriel's family coming to visit and, finally, my family coming to visit. Since I signed up to work over the X-mas and New Year's holidays at the teaching hospital, both of our families graciously agreed to travel to Athens to spend some quality holiday time with us, making both of us much happier than if we had missed the holidays with our families because of my work.
While it did cause me to see less of my family than I would've liked, my job at the vet school hospital has been really cool. My 7 years of working in a regular vet's office has actually prepared me very little for a "real" vet hospital, which is full of the newest technologies and the most complex procedures around the veterinary world. Over the last week, I've gotten to see ultrasounds of a liver and echocardiograms of a heart, take radiographs of a dog with lymphoma, help take a bone marrow sample from a dog with no platelets, witness a corrective surgery of head wounds on a dog with a total ear canal ablation, and help some of the most accomplished specialists UGA has with their various cases. It kind of sucks to be starting all the way at the bottom of the vet totem pole again, since I've actually been working with vets for years and thought I knew something (and now I know I really don't), but it's exciting to be involved in this kind of medicine and know that one day I will be a vet myself! My last day in the hospital is Jan 2, when I will get 6 more days of freedom before starting my second semester in vet school.
Happy Holidays, everyone!


-Shirin


In Rock Hill:

Gabriel and his favorite kitty

Snuggling with Mr. Frosty Paws

Some of the many bushes we planted for my dad.

What a good son-in-law! Hard at work trimming hundreds of my dad's bushes.

Family friends from Rock Hill (Shahram with his wife and daughter).

More family friends (Mehrdad and his daughter Lua); we were watching Thomas the Tank

The Master Chef, hard at work for all his guests.

Upholding our family tradition: making my Austrian grandma's butter cookies and decorating them with lots of sprinkles.

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In Athens:

Our Charlie Brown Christmas tree (we got it from the woods)

Brendan, Gene, & Rita (Gabriel's family, minus his older brother)

Gene teaching Gabriel how to iron his shirt properly (for an interview)

Gabriel and his mom chatting in the kitchen.

Our first Christmas as the Modaresi-Beal family.

My nephew Cha Cha enjoying his new bone from Grandma (my mom)

My dad's x-mas presents from my mom...

Then Tita and I got ours...

Then, my mom and Gabriel got theirs!

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In the hospital:

The ICU where some of my patients are.

My patient, Madi, who had the total ear canal ablation. She's doing great!

One of the resident ferret blood donors. I love those guys!

Finals Are Almost Over!

Hi everyone! Today is a great day, b/c I just finished the last of my big finals (Neuroanatomy). It was pretty hard, but I think I did OK on it and the most important thing is that...I'M DONE! I just have a quiz on Wednesday morning and then Gabriel and I are headed north to stay with my parents for a week. My main goals of the visit are to help my dad in the yard (with planting lots of trees), play games with whomever will play with me, cook yummy meals, and catch up on sleep. I've been quite sleep deprived over the last 2 weeks, so the thought of waking up every morning without an alarm clock is heavenly (see tired-Shirin-picture below).

I suppose the only downer is that I just got an e-mail about my classes for next semester and this is what it said:

Your revised class schedule as of 12/11/2006 is:

Term: Spring 2007Course Call # Hrs Grd Time Days Bldg Room Ses

LAMS5150 20-084 01.30 AR VR 1070-VR T MULTIPLE

IDIS5140 08-443 02.20 AR VR 1070-0363 T TOMPKINS

IDIS5140L 28-444 AR VR 1070-VR T TOMPKINS

IDIS5150 88-447 02.50 AR VR 1070-0363 T MULTIPLE

IDIS5150L 08-460 AR VR 1070-VR T MOORE

VARB5120 18-841 04.60 AR VR 1066-VR T MULTIPLE

VETM5100 81-823 00.60 AR VR 1070-VR T REEVES

VETM5110 31-826 01.00 AR VR 1070-VR T BROWN

VPHY5130 71-103 00.60 AR VR 1070-0363 T ROBERTSON

VPHY5150 01-595 02.30 AR VR 1070-0363 T HOENIG

VPHY5160 11-601 01.30 AR VR 1070-0363 T BROWN

VPHY5170 41-608 01.60 AR VR 1070-AR T SANDERSON

LAMS5160 90-129 01.50 AR VR 1070-VR T MULTIPLE

SAMS5100 71-392 01.10 AR VR 1070-VR T MULTIPLE

SAMS5110 01-394 00.50 AR VR 1070-VR T KOENIG

SAMS5117 21-395 00.50 AR VR 1070-VR T HERNANDEZ-DI

SAMS5217 41-396 01.00 AR VR 1070-VR T HERNANDEZ-DI

SAMS5120 61-397 01.00 AR VR 1070-VR T CORNELL

SAMS5120L 81-398 00.50 AR VR 1070-VR T CORNELL

VETM5201 71-828 01.00 AR VR 1070-VR T MULTIPLE

So, the bad news is: if you counted them, you know it's 20 classes that I'm signed up for next semester. Crazy, huh? I thought I was busy this semester, but I'm pretty sure we had fewer than 20 classes. The good news is that many of the classes next semester are shorter, elective courses that I'm really looking forward to. Also, my new stethoscope just arrived (for my diagnostics class in the spring), so I'm really excited about that. Watch out! I'm going to be practicing on all of your pets! (My teacher said I need to listen to a few hundred heartbeats before I really can tell what's 'normal'). Glad I'm getting started now!

So, life is much better now that I have time to pause and take a breath, but I have to go b/c I told Gabriel that he could plan our night and now I have to go play a computer game with him. Oh well, better than studying Neuro!
-Shirin

Wildlife Treatment Crew

Hi everyone. Sorry for my lack of contribution lately, but I am in finals week and have been swamped with anatomy and cell biology and neuroanatomy studies. But, I'm only 5 days away from x-mas break and I can't wait.
Despite my hectic schedule, the highlight of my last 2 weeks has been my volunteering for the Wildlife Treatment Crew. The crew involves two students volunteering to care for the injured wildlife that people from the community bring in. Since doctors and techs are generally too busy to take care of animals without clients, we students volunteer with the goal of saving a few lives and getting cool experiences with exotic/wild animals we'd never get to treat otherwise. (The doctors and techs help us a lot when they can).
My years of vet experience are all centered around cats and dogs, but during the last 2 weeks, I have treated a baby mouse, a sick bird, neurologically damaged squirrels, a bird with a broken wing, a pigeon with nerve damage to her wing, and an anemic red tailed hawk to whom we gave a blood transfusion. It's been a great learning experience. The sad fact about wildlife, though, is that most of them don't survive, despite our efforts. In the last 2 weeks I think we've either euthanized or lost about half of our patients. It sucks, but it's definitely part of the job.
On the brighter side, we have been able to save some and also been able to see other cool things going on in the exotics wing (no pun intended) while we're down there. For example, there are some ferrets and a bunny that live down there as blood donors and some pet bearded-dragons that we're responsible for feeding everyday. Also, people bring in their pet snakes, geckos, love birds, etc, for treatment and yesterday the staff was doing experimental shell biopsies on 34 sea turtles!
So, while my life sucks right now b/c of all the studying, I'm really enjoying my few hours a day in the exotics wing, medicating birds and feeding mice. Maybe I can be a zoo vet one day!
-Shirin

PS See lots of cool pics below.

Our two lady bearded dragons (sitting on top of each other for some reason)

A cedar waxwing with a ruptured air sac (he died later, but he's a really beautiful bird)

Feeding him apples in his cage.

My favorite little pigeon with her wing bandaged. She's going to a rehabber soon.

Giving her some love.

The resident bunny blood donor

One of our squirrels after euthanasia...sorry, folks, but it isn't always a pretty or fun job.

Another bird...he survived and went to a rehabber

Getting a physical exam from my supervisor.

The anemic red-tailed hawk (getting sedated for exam)

Checking his mouth for injuries.

Our hawk getting a blood transfusion (we took blood from the other hawk that was about to be euthanized).

Beth practicing a procedure on the hawk we euthanized.

Remix

Hello all, I just finished editing a remix of Brendan's matches with music and stuff. This is the first video I've edited in a long time. Although I used to be proficient at this sort of thing, it took me nearly half a day to finish this, and that's with loads of help from Shirin. We think it's pretty good so please enjoy. Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjpsLeseXCk



-Gabriel

Brendan wins 1st place

Brendan (my brother) entered the Georgia NAGA (North American Grappling Association) tournament yesterday and earned himself 1st place in the 170 - 179 weight class & advanced skill level division. NAGA matches are a cross between wrestling and jiu-jitsu. He had two strong opponents and he tapped them both out. Unfortunately many people in these kinds of tournaments do what is known as "sandbagging" or "dirty-belting" both of which describe a person who enters himself into an inappropriate skill level division (like if someone who has trained for 10 years enters into the intermediate division). This wasn't a problem for Brendan in terms of feeling cheated since he entered the highest skill division, but it was disappointing that only two other people in his weight class entered the tournament while the intermediate division had 16+ competitors. The one good thing about it is he was assured good matches since only people who are very skilled and very confident end up entering into the advanced division.

For placing in 1st Brendan received a large samurai sword that he is no doubt using to bring evil-doers to justice at this very moment. I've uploaded Brendan's two matches onto youtube and put the links below. I've got a special third video on the way. Stay tuned.

Click on the link below for match #1. (Bren is in the blue shorts)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozfBM74XovQ

Here is the link for match #2 (Again, blue shorts)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtwohI_KmdY

-Gabriel

Christmas DVDs

Shirin and I will likely be getting many people DVDs for Christmas. Please post a list of DVDs or DVD sets that you'd like so we can get started.

-Gabriel

Here are a bunch more pics from our Thanksgiving. I haven't bothered to label them. The entire set of the pictures we took is available on snapfish.com. I sent an email link to everyone. If you have photos, put them up on snapfish so we can see them too.

-Gabriel