Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Alaska

At about 4:22pm on Monday (Yep, about, but not quite 4:22) I walked out and saw a cow moose taking a shower in our sprinklers in the front of our building.  Even Alaskans were taking pictures.  I knew people saw them in town crossing the road and such, but this was the closest I had been to one and I had yet to see one in town.  So much for enforcing public indecency - sure a moose can do it, but if I want to go out and shower in a sprinkler I'll get turned in to the authorities.  What kind of world do we live in now?!  As you can see the moose wasn't even threatened by these "tiny" cars driving by.  She was probably enjoying watching them... as they slam into signs, poles and each other, as the lady in the 3rd photo could have easily done.

It was a pretty neat experience and I guess the moose had been there quite a bit all day, but it was new to me at 4:22 because I woke up at about 3:36 yesterday afternoon.  I'm adapting better to the time now, but it's just the crazy hours I've been working lately that really mess with me.  A three hour time difference is nothing, but when you work a 4pm-12 shift one night and a 12-8am shift the next, you get kinda confused which day your on.  I've had to check the date more in the past week than ever before.

While I was working on my shift last night I had to organize a bunch of past x-ray films.  Mainly just putting the new ones in their place in alphabetical order, but like I said I ended up organizing a bunch of past ones.  All I'm going to say is who ever thought of the saying "I before E except after C" was wrong.  They forgot to also add "and in the alphabet". Goodness, gracious people!  "I" isn't even close to the letter "E". Oh well, I'm done with that, but I thought it was funny.  Hope your day goes great and feel free to comment below.

Well I spent the majority of my evening at the nearby coffee shop surfin the web, sipping coffee and yackin away on the phone and stayed an hour past close. Oops! But I came back to the clinic to a pleasent surprise. One of the Techs grilled fresh ocean-caught halibut and salmon on the grill outside the clinic and served it up with spices and lemons and all sorts of goodies! YUM! I thought about taking a picture of my plate half-way through eating it (the fish not the plate, c'mon!) and then got distracted by the fish..

...and kept eating again. So I have no photo to offer you, but it was just the most delicious meal I have had up here yet!

To all of you that say "I hate fish", you are lying to yourself and everyone else. No one could hate this. Even people that aren't in their right mind couldn't hate fresh, ocean-caught, Alaskan halibut and salmon!  Until you have eaten every kind of fresh fish from every coast in the world, don't tell me you hate fish. :D

Now that we have that out of the way... here is something else that's fishy, but it's not edible. It's my schedule for the next two weeks. Yeah that adds up to approximately 90 hours of work. 90 hours! Phew, I guess if you can do that much for free you know you'll like it for a job. And I've got a whole month and a half left of that, but I enjoy it.

I have found that I love helping animals. I don't think I'll work in a clinic setting the rest of my life, but I have this yearning deep down inside to help whenever I see an animal that is hurt.  It's a neat, but sad feeling too because it's so hard to understand what they're going through. At nine o'clock this morning, a dog came in that was hit by a car and he looked pretty bad.  After taking X-Rays we found that what had looked like a broken forearm, was merely just a dislocated humerus. Thankfully, one of the Vets was able to quickly pop it back in place and we reinforced it with a cast to keep it from slipping back out so that it could heal.  His tail was also badly injured.  The skin was split open and ligaments were visable.  We shaved the hair around it and wrapped it in gauze.  It will most likely need to be rechecked after the swelling has gone down.  We were unable to suture it closed, due to the swelling and lack of skin available.  But, all that aside, he was a super lucky dog - no breaks or ruptured organs. The only other things he suffered from were some minor cuts and scrapes and a few broken/chipped teeth! Not bad for getting nailed by a car. Luckily for us he was also easy to work with, unfortunately his owner wasn't so much.

Well thats all the excitement for today! Thanks for reading and I hope your weekend finishes off wonderfully!

A couple girls from the Alaska Wildlife Conservation just brought in a
fox that was having some ingestion problems. "Foxie" was handraised
and is super tame. They said you could never handle and wild adult one
like this, but because he had been influenced by humans his entire
life he was much more friendly. Of course you can never trust any
animal, especially one from the wild, but he was "just the most
adorable thing" as some of the girls said. Unfortunately, he was gone
before they could get his number. Maybe I should dress up like a "cute
little fox".

Aaaanyways, my hours lately have been super messed up. Yesterday I
slept until 4pm and today I slept until 2:30pm only to have to go to
work at four! But it's all good. I was hoping to get out and get some
fresh air for a bit, but I wasn't able to. I might go out riding
around after I get off at Midnight. Well I gotta get back to work, but
enjoy the pics!

Last Thursday I was invited out by some of the local kids up here to
go out to a lake and go airboating and four wheeling. There were
quite a few that showed up and we road till about 12:30AM. It was
such an eventful night and I saw my first moose in the wild.

We did everything from skimming through the water in the Ross's airboat to
spinning cookies with four wheelers and trucks to jumping dirtbikes
over berms. Water separated the different areas of land, so the only
way to get to the other side was to tear through the water with your
truck or ATV! Note to self: don't hit water at full throttle, it
never ends good.

The awesome thing about Alaska is you have so much more light to do stuff during Summer, but the best thing is that the people always make the most of it!  I still find it hard to believe that I am up here especially when I see the scenery - it's breathtaking.

I met a bunch of kids Thursday night and plan on hanging out with them
more in the near future. People are so nice up here. They're willing
to help you out with anything and are so care free.  And as you can see the night really did end with a "Splash of Fun" ...for some of us anyways. :P

Well, that's all for today! More stories and pictures to come for sure!

P.S. I have updated some of the other pages so feel free to check those out and remember to subscribe too! Just click "Subscribe to this posterous" or "Subscribe via RSS" underneath the section labeled "Get Updates" on the right side. Also, both last night and the night before I worked at the clinic 4 PM to Midnight; both nights had their exciting moments, but I'll save that
for another time!

The first full day I was here on Wednesday, I went out venturing for a
coffee shop to get some Wi-Fi. Since I didn't have Internet access at
the clinic yet I wasn't able to Google for it on my laptop, but I
didn't let that stop me. I texted 466453 (Google) free of charge and got the nearest coffee shops to me.

One was only .1 miles away! I rode and rode and rode my bike until I
came the conclusion that I must have gone the wrong way or somethin...
I turned around and realized I rode right past it. There I saw
it; sitting there in a vacant parking lot. I thought to myself "What
a disgrace, this is no place for a coffee shop." But in all honesty
Google, that is not a "Coffee Shop", that's a Coffee SHACK.

I have now found a place called Kaladi Brothers that is not too far if
you take the back roads. I'm learning my way around Anchorage...
slowly, but surely! There has also been lots of excitement in the
clinic. Check back for more on My Alaskan Experience!

Sponsered by: The Moose

 

::UPDATE::

I just want to apologize for my kindergarten spelling. It was brought to my attention that I "road and road and road my bike".  Sigh. When really I did not construct ANY roads with my bike, but I simply "RODE" my bike. Sorry for those spelling errors. Thankfully, we have Moms to look after us even when we're in college. :P

Last night (or this morning) I worked an eight hour shift from midnight to eight this morning.  Last night was pretty uneventful; we watched over two small Chihuahuas.  One was just a small little puppy "fell" 3 stories and landed on it's head.  I put fell into quotations because when the neighbors tried to get a hold of the owner she was too drunk to wake up.  She was unable to pay for the $600 treatment, apparently she'd rather throw her money at alcohol, than help her pets.  One of the vet techs in the office adopted her and is paying the bill.  She was doing great last night compared to how she was on Wednesday.

The other was a 12 year old who somehow swallowed a wire of some sort.  He was first taken to a regular vet clinic and they performed surgery and after the second surgery they found the wire.  He, however, worsened and was brought here for more extensive monitoring and treatment.  Unfortunately, it was a sad night for him and the owner as he didn't make it.  Around 7 he started going through convulsive shaking, similar to that of a stroke.  We saw he was slowly dieing and the owner made the decision to euthanize him.  It's sad, but it's part of being at a 24/7 emergency clinic.

On a happier note I have really been enjoying my time in Alaska.  I have been taking many pictures and will be posting them on a consistent basis so stay tuned and have a great evening.

My trip to Alaska began with a 7 hour plane ride, which isn't bad
considering it's Alaska. Most of the trip there wasn't much to see or
look at and I entertained myself with conversations with those around
me. Unfortuantely I was unable to sleep on the plane, which I was
really trying to because I knew I had an 8 hour shift of work in front
of me starting at midnight. All-in-all my first day in Alaska went
amazing as you can see with these pictures!