fool me once, shame on you

fool me twice - and i am never going back to the lost savant. it's cursed with bad karma. i didn't see it the first time, but there's no denying it now. it's a coffee shop - very cool place with excellent hand-pulled turkey and great big sloppy salads. the first time i went was the night crosby drowned. the 2nd time was tonight, to study for endocrine. and rhi called me, sobbing uncontrollably - to tell me that milton and piggy had disappeared from the backyard. they have been missing since 3 pm this afternoon. i am - by the way - by NO MEANS equating the loss of crosby with the loss of 2 pets. they're not even in the same ballpark - and i don't want that to be what people assume when they read this. i'm just pointing out that both times i've been to that coffee shop, i've received phone calls from people crying so hysterically that i couldn't make out what they were saying. i've gotten maybe 3 phone calls like that in my entire life. not counting the 2 that happened at the lost savant. so, i'll have to do without hand-pulled turkey. i'm being halfway serious here.

at any rate, we had opthal lab today - learning to do a basic eye exam. it was a bit frustrating, since our first dog acted like a nutcase, our 2nd dog hated to be restrained, and it took about an hour and a half to finally find a dog we could work on. everyone else, of course, had behaved dogs. but i got to do nasolacrimal cannulation and see the retina via indirect visualization, so it was pretty cool. i was thoroughly cranky by the time i left, though. i came home, cleaned bird cages, fed bird beaks, then turned around and went to the coffee shop to meet j and s to study. i wound up only being there about an hour and a half (long enough to eat dinner and go through about 1/8th of the notes) - when rhi called. we drove over (jim had come for a change of studying environ) - and helped look for about an hour. to no avail. we're hoping someone picked the dogs up to take to the pound. they haven't been hit by a car, because we've been down every single road within 10 miles of the house. so....once done with that, i came home and preceded to study for about the last 4 hours. we have an endocrine lab and quiz tomorrow.

and here i am. i have nothing else interesting to relate.

the picture above shows the hypothalamic/pituitary axis - the hypothalamus (in the brain) secretes a tropin called CRH (corticotropin releasing hormone) - it's carried by the portal system to the pituitary, which then releases ACTH (adrencorticotropin hormone). this goes to the blood all the way to the adrenal glands (near the kidneys) and causes the release of cortisol. cortisol is a GREAT steroid that helps you get up in the morning and exist! without it, you get Addison's disease. with too much, you get Cushing's disease. cortisol is also called a stress hormone - in that it increases during times of stress!