Bovine intervention

I cannot resist a good title sometimes. Though it may not make a lot of sense, I think it does to me...hehe..and no, I'm not training to be a vet surgeon but I do wonder if being a vet was my true calling. Anyways, to cut a long story short, had my second anatomy lab today and dissection of bovine knee joint was on the plate!

Totally random insertion: Woke up feeling extremely happy today. Felt that I was on the track to something great. As I was taking my morning shower, I stumbled on something other than a bar of soap: a light bulb actually lit up in me. Suddenly out of nowhere, I had the notion that I was going to specialise in Reproductive, Growth and Metabolism. The papers I'm taking now enable me to either do Cardio, Repro or Neuro. And I love all these topics but repro seemed more rational what with the infertility rates these days and people wanting to pay a fortune to get pregnant. So I thought that would be a great career- researching on an easier, maybe cheaper and hassle-free way to get pregnant artificially. And perhaps open my own fertility clinic. Plus, that's where the money is. It's a common misconception when people go on about how money is not important. I think that's absolutely rubbish. If that were the case, why not donate all your money to charity and see how you'll survive? But anyway, back to the whole dodgy talk. Yes, so I was pretty proud of myself. Finally, I knew my light. I'm not saying it won't change from now until the end of this year.. but at least I have something to build my confidence on.

Okay. Back to Betsy. That was the name we gave our moo moo cow. No, actually only the right knee. And for the size of it, I would say it was a bull. It was humongous! And so heavy! I was kinda expecting the drumstick type, but then, we're talking about a cow here and NZ cows, I must say, are pretty well nourished, certainly not like the poor rib protruding lembus we have back home. And so I had to carry the tray with one hand, rather stupid actually because the knee slid to my chest and as I had my lab coat in the other hand, it stained my dress. Yuck. But never mind, nothing too gross. If you've been to the Pasar Pagi (wet market) in SS2 and stood to buy meat from the butcher, you would have inevitably got more than blood on your clothes.

To get on. There was a lot of dissection going on to remove the layers of fat to expose the ligaments that we were suppose to be studying. It was rather fun actually to cut and snip and probe with the scalpel and expose the silvery white collagen fibres. The lab was a bit confusing at times when the lecturer went on explaining about the various muscles and positions which was a whole lot of jargon and I've yet come to terms with it. And oooo, the thing I absolutely love about anatomy is learning all the fancy new names, though it is a pain to actually learn them. But it is quite cool saying gluteus maximus instead of bum or extensor digitorium longus or the anterior medial aspect of the knee instead of the middle front side of the left knee. ;)

The lab was very messy and I don't think I have the patience of a surgeon. At the end of the lab, I had animal fat all over my notes...not ALL over la, just exaggerating, badly stained gloves, two pokes by the scalpel, bovine remnants all over the tray, a broken blade, heaps of stained tissue, a dislodged patellar, enough meat to make steak pie and a vocabulary that includes cruciate, popliteus and extensor digitorium longus..a whole mouthful.. but that's the way I like it.

And I did not have steak for lunch.