The View From the MountainTop

     Have you ever been to the top of a mountain?  Like a real mountain?  A big mountain?  A few years ago, my cousins (John and Hannah) and I decided to summit Mt. Shasta.  John had done it before, and Hannah and I both were game after hearing his stories about it.  I didn't do anything specific to get ready.  I always run and I hike pretty regularly in my own hills.  So I figured I was pretty good to go. 
     I think it was when I was being fitted for crampons that I first realized this hiking experience would be just a little bit different than others.  Then they started explaining how I should use my ice pic to "self arrest," should I happen to start tumbling down the frozen mountainside.  Excuse me?  Self arrest?  

     
     Onward we went making our first stop at Horse Camp.  We slept well, ate decently and woke up bright and early to conquer the mountain.  We wound our way up and up and towards early afternoon found ourselves weaving along the tree line.  What a feeling.  Leaving, quite literally life, in the form of vegetation at least, behind and entering a rocky and icy world.  
     I learned very soon that I do not possess a knack for walking in slippery snow.  Therefore, as a companion on such trips I am extremely entertaining.  Whether you are in front of or behind me, you have the joyous experience of hearing first, "whuup!" followed closely by the gentle thud of my body hitting snow and the cacophony of whatever pots and pans might be dangling from my pack. 
     We made it to the second camping spot but decided to move forward and establish a "high camp" in the snow several hundred feet further up the mountain.  We hammered our tent into place and went to bed amid the thunderous gusts of wind that repeatedly beat the sides of our dwelling.  I turned to John and asked, "We're safe here right?  I mean its not like we could get blown down the mountainside?"  "Oh yah, we're totally safe," came the reply.  I instantly knew he wasn't sure at all.  Later he told me so.

High Camp

     
     At 4 in the morning we woke up, forced some oatmeal down, affixed our headlamps, and crampons clamped on and ice pics firmly in hand, out we went.  My favorite memory of that day took place in those first early hours before the sun came up.  As you looked out over the steep terrain you could see small pricks of light.  Other climbers sprinkling the mountainside.  It was such a comforting feeling.  As we neared the summit at 11 in the morning I found myself suddenly jogging the last few hundred feet.  I was so excited to be so close that I couldn't wait anymore. 

At the Summit!

     
     Another day I'll tell you about the fun of glacading back down the mountain, but the point of this story is that there is nothing like reaching the mountain top and from the moment you begin descending, you begin forgetting what it means to be up there and what it took to get you there.
     Friday I performed total intravenous anesthesia on a patient while my friend and colleague Nicole castrated the horse.  Sure, there were about a billion people watching us to make sure we didn't screw it up, but there we were.  Is that a mountain top?   I think so.  I walked down the hallway and watched as a half dozen of my classmates monitored horses, castrated, pulled wolf teeth and assisted and I was so filled with joy and pride I nearly busted.  These people have been climbing for a long time.  They have made their high camps and weathered the buffeting gusts of wind and now here they are, on the summit.  And I'm up there with them.

Listening to lungs = awesome

90 Degree Learning Curve

     There is no doubt that vet school pushes us to our limits.  It pushes us beyond our physiological needs for sleep and food.  It propels our minds at such a rapid pace, there are times when it feels, quite literally, like our brains will explode.  We reach new emotional heights as we realize the triumph of completing our first surgery and new depths as we go through the frustration and devastation of losing a patient we have fought to save.
     But none of these stresses, not exams or surgeries or working in the hospital, could ever exact the kinds of pressures that we (the students) put upon ourselves.  If you want to meet a person who is driven and will stop short of nothing but excellence, walk into a vet school.  The hallways are swarming with them.
     It is this pressure that makes vet students and I think veterinarians some of the greatest people in the world.  We strive for perfection and we are steadfast.  We will get up in the middle of the night, drive to your farm, save your animal and then get up first thing in the morning and put in a full day of work.  We will sit up all night with your dog so that you can sleep in the peaceful knowledge that your friend is being cared for.  We are awesome.
     Like most things though, there is a negative side.  I have never seen anyone as hard on themselves as my vet student friends.  Who am I kidding? . . . . I'm the poster child.  I had a lab a few days ago and it was an equine lab.  Anytime the subject is equine, my self-criticism turns up about 100 notches.  This is what I'm supposed to be good at!  This is my thing.  Why do I think that means I don't still have to learn?  As if I should just know it.  Well I struggled with a few differentials for a condition I was discussing one-on-one with my instructor.  The result?  I was in a funk for about 2 days.  2 DAYS!! 
     Today we had surgery and a classmate of mine didn't think they did very well.  In fact I think they said they "completely botched it," or something to that effect.  Now, I'm not a surgeon . . . yet, but I know from what I saw that it was a decent castration.  Was it the best castration I've ever seen?  No.  Should it have been?  NO!  It was their first castration!  Good lord, where did the learning curve go?  Apparently its the wall in front of us and we just have to climb straight up it.  But I can't criticize this person, I see myself too clearly in them.   I love that my classmate wants to be THAT excellent, but can we survive if we keep putting this much pressure on ourselves?  I don't know.
     I think that eventually we will either learn how to take the "ego blow" of L-E-A-R-N-I-N-G or we will be unhappy people constantly criticizing ourselves, until we wonder why we even bother doing this.

Learning how to float teeth at the GEVA Wetlab

      

The Mountains

     Today, I just want to be in my mountains.  What mountains are mine you ask?  Its a section of the Rockies that spans from South-Western Montana down into the North-Western most corner of Wyoming.  It includes the Tetons.  Probably the prettiest range in the world.  Other people might argue this point, but this is not their blog and so respectfully, their opinion doesn't matter.
     I cannot pinpoint why this group of mountains is so important to me.  It may be all the summers I spent there with my family.  Maybe it represents, peace and joy and safety.  Maybe that's why it feels like home.  I also cannot isolate what it is exactly today that makes me wish I was there.  I would gladly go there most any day, but today, there is an ache inside me for them. 
     I'm blue.  There's no dancing around it.  The clove cigar butt is still sitting out on the table in the garden to prove it.  Although I expect that at any moment it might get blown away by the wind. Its been a beautiful day and I've spent most of it working on essays in my pajamas.  
     This has been a strange quarter in school.  It is the first quarter since I can remember that I've had some room to breath.  Yah, room.  I think its very considerate of God to hold off on certain "projects" until we aren't completely overwhelmed by life.  Don't you?  Unfortunately I find myself not completely overwhelmed by life and suddenly, He is bringing stuff up.  I find myself driving along and all He has to say is one word and I'm in a puddle by the gas peddle.  The nice thing about His projects is that they always have a purpose and that purpose is always good.  The bad thing about His projects is that He starts them when you FINALLY HAD BREATHING ROOM!
     Sometimes He uses people and circumstances to bring things up. . . . For example, bumping into an old friend when you're out to grab some Burgers and Brew with your dad.  Old friend.  A dear old friend that I will admit used to hold my heart in the palm of his hand.  Then to your combined shock, joy and anguish, he shows you pictures of his two, eleven week old beautiful twins.  One boy and one girl.  Isn't that perfect?  Is it true that after you've been stabbed in the stomach you will die more quickly if you pull the blade out?  
     I will be a doctor in a year (approximately) following my graduation from a world-renowned veterinary program, I'm an artist, I'm an athlete, I've got a pretty good voice, I'm relatively smart and I'm not unattractive and I feel like the biggest waste of space that ever took up residence on this blue planet.   What is this loneliness?  Why do babies make it worse?  I don't know.  But today, the medicine for all this feels like my mountains and today they feel very far away.

My favorite view, right before we turn off for the Moose ponds

View of the Tetons driving down from Yellowstone

Sssiiiiiigggggghhhhhhhh