kalamazoo . . . sounds like fun!

Last but definitely NOT least on the "regular" tour schedule of the 2009 HPSS (before the live surgery display in Chelsea):  The Kalamazoo County 4H Fair!

We pulled into Kalamazoo at about ten o'clock on Thursday morning and it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day for the fair.  The fair board was very excited to see us and even offered us a stray kitten upon our arrival (we sadly had to refuse).  At first it looked like we were going to set up just outside the rabbit barn . . . but then we found Dr. Rowher and he created an exceptionally great location for us right in the Circle of Life tent!  Erin even backed her truck in so that the large animal porta-vet display sat right next to the HPSS tent and the rest of the exhibit.  We really think it was our best set-up yet - I guess we saved the best for last!

As soon as Christina cracked open the Pathology bin (maybe its the smell?), a line started forming to check out the HPSS!  It took us an extra long time to set up with all of the excitement around us, but we loved your enthusiasm right from the get-go!  I think we got some of our very best questions these past few days.  Here are a few examples and the answers we came up with:

"Is a turtle shell made out of bone?"  Yes, the shell is composed of hard bony plates covered by scutes.  The scutes are made of keratin (like hair, nails, and hooves of other animals).

"Isn't there one type of cat that can't retract its claws?"  Yes, cheetahs are the only member of the cat family that have non-retractable claws.

"Why is it that dogs and cats get tapeworms after swallowing a flea?"  Flea larvae consume the eggs of tapeworms and are then infected with tapeworm larvae.  By the time the flea is an adult, the tapeworm is ready to infect a dog or cat.

"I can count eight legs on this tick (under the microscope) . . . are ticks related to spiders?"  Yes, all arachnids have eight legs.  Arachnids include spiders, scorpions, ticks, and mites (as well as many other species).

Wow you guys are smart!  Thanks for all of the great questions and for always keeping us on our toes.  It was really fun being in the Circle of Life tent because the other exhibits in the tent stimulated even further discussion and new questions for us to talk about.  I think the hottest topic at the fair must have been the debate on whether or not goats can see in color . . . sorry we couldn't help you out more with that one!

Unfortunately, we never did witness the "circle of life" in our three days at Kalamazoo.  The animals where smart and farrowed/calved/lambed in the early morning when it was coolest.  However, we did love coming in each morning to greet the newborn animals.  And no, we were not a part of the "udder chaos" when the pregnant cow broke free and bolted toward the midway on Wednesday.  We are pretty sure she was just looking for the HPSS exhibit, and wish we could have been there a day sooner!

Thank you to the fair-goers of Kalamazoo for an excellent fair, and for being brave enough to try the bovine rectal palpation demo - you ran Erin clean out of Tootsie Rolls.  It has been a great summer, and the student coordinators are really grateful that the "regular season" ended on such a good note!

Until next week in Chelsea . . . we will be practicing our suture patterns!  See you there!

part of the gang

It’s a busy week for the Healthy Pet Surgical Suite and your 2009 student coordinators!  After finishing up in Ingham late Saturday evening, we packed up the trailer and took off for the Sanilac County 4H fair on Sunday morning.  Fortunately, we left the rainy weather behind in mid-Michigan as we made our way to “the thumb”.  Unfortunately, we were met by the ferocity of the famous mid-August Michigan heatwave that never fails to bring high temperatures accompanied by even higher humidity levels!

That being said, one of our first stops was at the local supermarket where we stocked up on water and sport drinks to stay well hydrated and feeling our best for the Sanilac County fair-goers.  (With the excessive presence of liquids, this might be the very first fair where Christina avoided spending money on that oh-so-delicious fair lemonade.)

It turns out that our first day in Sanilac was also opening day for the Sanilac Country 4H Fair.  So the HPSS was there for the crowning of the Sanilac 4H Queen, the assembly of the ferriswheel, and the final warm up for the Sanilac Shining Star (similar to American Idol) contestants.  We set up next to the petting zoo, just downwind of the pigs and across from from the port-a-johns.  It was an ideal location for a couple of sweaty student coordinators and our lovely smelling pathology specimens.

However, the odors of the fair did absolutely nothing to deter you from coming to check out our exhibit!  We even caught up with a few carnival friends from earlier fairs this summer, including the pirate (who is always an excellent source of enthusiasm for the HPSS)!  Whether or not it’s a good thing (we think it is), the student coordinators are really starting to feel like a part of the carnival gang now!

Once again, we really liked the way fair-goers learned from us and then came back and taught friends – you were excellent teachers!  It was really great to learn with you and hear your stories as well.  We especially noticed an interest in the anesthesia machine, and thought it was very cool and very impressive when you asked such insightful questions.  Thanks to Sanilac for another memorable fair, and good luck to the girl’s softball team (we hear you made it to the World Series!) – the HPSS is behind you all the way!

bring 'em to ingham

The HPSS played the 2009 home opener this past Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in Mason at the Ingham County Fair - and there's certainly no place like home! Once again, we talked to a record number of people! In fact, on Thursday we talked to over eight hundred of you!

It was great to see a few familiar faces and a lot of Spartans in the crowd, and just as in Ionia, we got a lot of help from local veterinarians. Dr. Meining came out on Friday and she was excellent! She brought a bunch of great radiographs and went through them with some very smart fair-goers. There are certainly a lot of future radiologists in the Ingham County area!

On Saturday, Dr. Rode came out to check out the HPSS 2009 and I think its safe to say that she was quit impressed! Of course, Dr. Rode jumped right in with the student coordinators (and was awesome highlighting some of the very cool aspects of veterinary medicine) and led some of you through the pyometra spay surgical video.

Midway through a couple of delicious elephant ears on Saturday . . . the Ingham County fair director came by with some exciting news: The lieutenant governor of Michigan wanted to come by and check out the Healthy Pet Surgical Suite (how cool!). The student coordinators plus Dr. Rode made short work of the elephant ears, brushed off any remaining cinnamon sugar, straightened up the demos, properly folded down their lab coat collars, and put on their very best welcoming smile for the lieutenant governor himself! He did come by as promised, and he wasn't disappointed (not that we were worried). He even stuck around to get his picture with us!

Now Saturday morning was actually a VERY rainy morning, but we are starting to think that a little bit of rain must just get Erin's creative juices flowing. She came up with an awesome bovine rectal palpation demonstration that actually allows fair-goers to don the full-arm-glove and reach into the rectum of a Holstein cow (made out of posterboard of course)! The best part is . . . she included a delicious tootsie-roll-like surprise inside! What a sweet idea, and a great way to teach you more about large animal veterinary medicine.

Well we are off to Sanilac today (in about five minutes actually)! We will continue to keep you posted and keep you excited about veterinary medicine and the many adventures of the 2009 HPSS!

world's largest

Stop #4: The Ionia Free Fair - The World's Largest Free Fair (although parking will run you six bucks). Boy did this fair live up to its reputation too! For starters, we were located right next to the elephants (yes, real elephants - the world's largest land mammal!). These elephants might also have been the world's cleanest, as they were bathed via power-washer every morning just as the coordinators set up the HPSS tent and prepared the specimens for display!

The student coordinators were, admittedly, a bit nervous before the Free Fair. We weren't sure how we were going to handle a fair of such magnitude. However, local veterinarians from the Ionia area turned out for the fair and offered a helping hand to the HPSS - and they were great! Dr. Darcy Sobel arrived just as the extreme heat and humidity was starting to get to Ryan and Christina on Tuesday afternoon (a day on which no amount of lemonade could keep you cool). Dr. Sobel rejuvenated our enthusiasm and she even brought her own collection of specimens! The arrival of new radiographs, the world's largest (sensing a theme here?) bladder stone, tiny kitten embryos, and the ever-famous eyeball provided Ryan and Christina with shiny new items to share with the Ionia fair-goers!

Then on Wednesday, Dr. Jane Kapalczynski came by for the afternoon. Dr. K spent most of the afternoon taking fair-goers into the surgical suite to go through the surgical process with them - something they definitely enjoyed and the coordinators appreciated her doing! On Wednesday evening, Dr. Sobel returned to once again lend her expertise to the HPSS. So needless to say, the student coordinators had plenty of help! Why were we so worried?

With our extra real-vet helpers, we were able to talk to record numbers of you on Tuesday. The fair just grew more and more crowded as the night went on. We took advantage of the booming night life and showed off our radiograph view-boxes! Something about those bright lights really gathers attention.

On Wednesday and Thursday we had to deal with rain drops. We tried to keep our microscopes dry and held an umbrella over them as if they were our little children. A few times we actually moved the table inside the tent to keep everything else dry. Erin simply slid everything into the drawers of the bowie-unit - very handy. The drizzle let up though, and the crowds certainly didn't so we kept at it! The rain didn't damper the mood, and once again we heard from you, "This is the best thing I've seen at the fair" ! Although our favorite quote had to be, "I think I'm going to be sick . . . and I thought the rides were bad . . ."!

Thank you Ionia for another excellent fair! We hope we lived up to the greatness that is the Free Fair, as we aspire to be the World's Greatest Healthy Pet Surgical Suite!

how many stomachs does a cow have?

The Eaton County Fair - our biggest production thus far! Each of our (Ryan, Christina, and Erin) clickers passed the big 400 mark (we pulled out the camera for the magic moment), only to pass over 500 people before we were packed up on day one!

Between the thunderous roars of the tractor pull and the grinding of the woodcarver's chainsaw, we kept up with a very steady crowd of fair-goers. Everyone had a story to tell (you all had such great things to say about your vets!) and a lot of interest in the veterinary profession. More than any other fair, we found ourselves hitting the books to reference some of your very intriguing questions and comments!

Of course we had our own little disasters here and there, but that's what keeps it interesting right? We arrived on Thursday about an hour ahead of schedule, and it turned out to be a good thing because we found ourselves table-less! After Christina tried unsuccessfully to borrow a table from the hot dog stand, Bingo tent, and firefighter pavilion . . . Ryan made a quick trip to Walmart to pick up a table for the HPSS to call its own.

Then on Friday, just about everything that could break, did break. Our famous equine mandible with the abscessed tooth was clearly split in two when we pulled it from its box on Friday morning. The now unbalanced bone was stabilized by a jar of roundworms (Parascaris) for the remainder of the day (since our display simply wouldn't be the same without it). Then, since things always seem to "happen in threes", the light bulb on our microscope finally died and our cat skeleton lost a limb. Fortunately, friends of Christina (Linda and Amy) came by with crazy glue and our specimens looked good as new. And not to worry Ionia fair-goers - we have a replacement bulb for the microscope as well!


On Friday we dealt with our first rainy afternoon, but it certainly didn't damper the mood at all. Erin decided to fill the large animal plasma bags with Verners for effect, and she provided a good laugh for Ryan and Christina as she struggled to syringe the very fizzy and bubbly solution. After giving it her all though, the bags were filled and looking very much like plasma bags (although still with a few bubbles). Meanwhile, Ryan fell in love with the baby donkey in the petting barn next door. Her sweet little eyes really were pretty irresistible.

And through it all, the fair-goers of Eaton were great! When parents asked, "Are you ready to go?", we loved hearing you yell back "No way!". Then you showed your parents and friends everything you had learned, and they didn't want to leave either. One of you even exclaimed, "Well I guess I learned something during the summer, and it was cool!". The question on the sign that read "How many stomachs does a cow have?" was an especially big hit, and Erin was overloaded with interest in the rumen, reticulum, abomasum, and omasum!

The Eaton County Fair came to a close amid our spectacular radiograph lightshow (an excellent send off in our opinion). Many thanks to Eaton for making it another great one. See you at the Ionia Free Fair tomorrow morning!

almost famous

Well we could not wait to roll into the Montcalm County 4H Fair in Greenville because we had a shiny new exhibit to set up and show off. Our large animal veterinarian bowie-unit came complete with another great and knowledgeable veterinary student coordinator - Erin! Erin had spent the better part of June power-washing, painting, and stocking the bowie-unit so that she could better display a very vital part of veterinary medicine - large animal medicine! And boy did the fair-goers of Greenville eat it up. You guys kept us all busy with your interest and enthusiasm, particularly in your 4H animals.


In Greenville, we especially liked the way some of you spent awhile with us learning about anything and everything veterinary, and then you came back again later to teach your friends and family! You helped us save our voices, and did a great job teaching! I think there might be a few budding science teachers and professors scattered in with all of the future veterinarians we got to know so well.


Now the fair-goers of Greenville will have to forgive Christina, because she left her digital camera in East Lansing, and therefore the student coordinators were stuck with a disposable camera as they tried to capture the fair atmosphere via photographs. Fortunately, you were all good-looking enough that the pictures still turned out fairly well despite the poor quality!

On Wednesday, the coordinators all set personal records as we clicked our clickers counting the number of people we talked to. We each talked to over 350 of you! Wednesday was "Kids Day" and even though we were not one of the required stations to stop at on route to a new bicycle helmet, you all made sure you checked us out anyway! We were excited to hear that many of you thought we were the best thing at "Kid's Day", and even more excited to hear you tell everyone what learned from us on your way out of barn!

Last (but certainly not least!), the HPSS took another small step in the direction of international stardom. The Daily News featured a story on the exhibit and it appeared on the FRONT PAGE of the Tuesday newspaper (not that we were surprised though, right?)!

Thank you to all of our friends in Greenville for making our experience a memorable one! Tomorrow we steer toward the Eaton County Fair for our third stop on the HPSS 2009 summer adventure!

a sweet debut

I can't believe how fast those three days in Croswell flew by! I guess time flies when you are having fun, right? And that's exactly what we did at the HPSS's first fair of the summer - had a blast!

We pulled into Croswell, MI on Thursday July 9th and we were greeted by the Pioneer Sugar factory - How sweet is that? The towering "Pioneer" letters atop the factory looked out over the railroad tracks and fields upon fields of what Ryan and Christina had to assume were sugar beets. It was really quite fitting that we were pioneering the 2009 HPSS in Pioneer Town!

We quickly set up our tent upon arriving at the beautiful Croswell Fairgrounds, and we were really pleased with our location because we were right next to the dunk tank. Throughout our time at the fair, the dunk tank provided great entertainment, a cool splash every now and then, and worked as a great draw to fair-goers. Warning to future dunk-tank volunteers of Croswell: The girl's softball team can throw a very accurate hard ball!

There sure are a lot of future veterinarians in Croswell, and most of you already have a lot of great farm experience and are so knowledgable (we were really impressed)! You also have a great sense of humor. Some of our favorite quotes from Croswell include:

"That (the horse cyclops) looks like my uncle."

"The toy dinosaur inside the dog on that x-ray is definitely a Stegasaurus. I can tell, definitely."

"Wow, if he (my son) becomes a veterinarian then I will be the happiest mom in the world."

"I want to be a veterinarian when I grow up, and I am making a scrapbook page about this exhibit."

"This is, by far, the best thing at the fair!"

"It's really great to learn about this stuff, because people get so removed from their food source."

"The next time I show my chickens, I am going to tell the judge that chickens have nucleated red blood cells! That'll really blow him away!"

Our second day in Croswell was definitely the busiest. We talked to almost 250 of you! We had a feeling things were actually going a little TOO well . . . but the strong Croswell crosswinds of Lake Huron took care of that early Saturday morning. Our faithful tent simply could not handle the ferocity of the winds, and we found it in quite a mess and certainly not standing on Saturday.

Fortunately, Ryan and Christina are great repair people and had it standing again in no time (with the help of blue duct tape and a couple of zip ties). The fix probably isn't permanent but it made it through the rest of the very windy day . . . something our banners and very attractive signs (See a flea at 10 times normal size! Check out the horse cyclops! Heartworms! Count the puppies on a pregnant dog's x-ray!) couldn't manage to accomplish no matter how much we supported them.

All in all though, the debut of the HPSS 2009 in sugar town was certainly a sweet one! We hope to see a lot of you again at the Sanilac 4H Fair! Impress those judges with everything you learned about your animals!

Now it's time to get back on the road and ready for the Montcalm County Fair in Greenville! See you there tomorrow morning!

pack it up, pack it in!

Wow, we are getting so close and so excited/nervous now that we can't even sleep - feels like the first day of school! We only have a few last loose ends to tie up before we hit the road on Thursday and make our big debut in Croswell, MI!

Just before the 4th we got a couple of new microscopes that work GREAT! Dr. Stickle picked us up in her fun new car and together we traveled over to Fee Hall to see what we could find. You will certainly be in for a treat when you gaze into the eyepieces of these fabulous pieces of equipment! The fleas seem to come to life (careful)!

Dr. Stickle and Christina picking out the two best microscopes in Fee Hall

Your HPSS student coordinators finally made it over to the MVMA office today and cleared out the basement! After we got everything we needed together, we realized how much we had and we decided to go back and get the trailer! It turns out Ryan is an EXCELLENT trailer driver, and he even backed it into his garage! The only problem is that neither Ryan or Christina has mastered the very important skill of packing the trailer yet . . . and we had a few things topple over on our way back from the MVMA office today. No worries though, our goal tomorrow is to find a perfect packing method before we leave for the long drive on Thursday! We might even pack the fragile objects with some of everyone's favorite packing material - bubblewrap!

Take 1: The packing disaster (stay tuned for a picture of our second attempt).

We've got another long day ahead of us tomorrow, but we know we will be ready by Thursday. We CAN'T WAIT to hit the road and come meet all of you. We especially can't wait to show off all of these amazing veterinary tools and models we've been collecting over the past couple months. See you all on Thursday July 9th at the Croswell Fair!