This story was originally published on my vet school blog, “Wet Cleanup on Aisle 5.”
The display on my friend’s laptop was behaving erratically last week, and, after trying every tweak and trick I have up my sleeve, I decided there was nothing for it but a new motherboard.
In one of my former career incarnations, I was a computer geek for the National Park Service. I enjoy fixing computers, I think because it’s like solving a puzzle. From what I’ve seen at the vet hospital, the process one uses to diagnose a sick dog isn’t all that different from the process one uses to diagnose a sick computer: evaluate the symptoms, determine the likely suspects, and rule out each of these systematically until you figure out what’s wrong. I’m definitely looking forward to that aspect of veterinary medicine.
One thing I’ve been fearing, however, is surgery. I’ve watched several surgeries and find it fascinating, but I also find it frightening to think I could open up a living creature and muck about in its insides.
I was musing over this while replacing the motherboard in the laptop. The process involved removing and replacing 40-odd screws and 5 or 6 wires, soldering a battery onto the new motherboard, and remembering where all the pieces went. Every model of laptop is completely different, too, so it’s not as though I could draw on my previous laptop deconstructions to help me out with this one.
When finished, I held my breath and pushed the power button. Success! The thing worked perfectly, and I only had a few screws left over. 🙂
But, I concluded, a laptop has WAY more parts than a dog. Maybe surgery won’t be so bad after all.
