During vet school, everyone discovers that there are certain things that they should have available in order to make it through the day. An extra pen, notepad, chapstick, your glasses for the 20+ hour days when your contacts have begun to feel like sandpaper. In large animal land you also realize that things like sunscreen and bandaids should be in your bag.
Once you are out in your own truck, you realize bandaids are not that important, after all you have access supplies for your patients and what's good enough for them should be good enough for you. But there are some things that you will definitely want to have that you don't think about until you don't have them.
1. Fingernail clippers. There will be lots of days when you get home that you will be too tired to do anything. Even trim your fingernails. The day after those days, you are pretty much guaranteed a colic, a dystocia, and/or mud wrestling pigs. All things where fingernails are contraindicated.
2. A spoon. There will be a day where absolutely nothing is going right. Appointments/emergencies start an hour or more earlier than you expected. The schedule will change your direction so many times that your GPS system will give you an error message basically telling you to go screw yourself. And on one of those days, you will have diligently taken food with you, maybe some yogurt for breakfast or a salad for lunch...something sustain you. But you forgot the utensil. On that day, your on-the-go meal will mock you until you want to cry. Keep a spoon in the truck.
3. A roll of quarters. Thing of it as your emergency money and keep it in your glove box. Why coins? Well, paper money gets lost in the paper shuffle And trust me, with the amount of paperwork that we have to process daily to keep the government, your clients, and your employer happy, you will lose a $10 bill. And every value meal at every fast food joint in America costs less than $10. Don't be caught at the drive-through window with no cash and your debit card still in the back pocket of your jeans from the day before.
4. Extra clothes. I'm talking more than the basic extra coveralls and/or scrub tops, those are a given and you already learned that in vet school. No, I'm telling you that you need at least 1 full change of clothes - from the skin out. Probably not such a big deal for the dudes but trust me ladies, there are few feelings in this world worse than spending the day wearing bra soaked with another creature's body fluid(s).
5. Extra sunglasses. Become a devotee of the cheapo sunglasses sale rack. The ones that cost $5 or less. Animals break them and trucks eat them (that's my only explanation for about half of the losses).
These are just the ones that work for me. How about you? What are some of your "make through the day" must-haves? The more unusual the better!
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