Mummies

Well it's snowing here, so I figured I would go ahead and update from my adventures yesterday. I headed out to Dr. C.'s around  8 am and we got out on the road shortly thereafter. He is always waiting for me to get there, with the truck warmed up and everything, but I am always there when he wishes me to be. He is one of the few vets I have met who is extremely timely, which I really love. We only had two calls on the schedule. The first was a herd check at a Menonite farm. The set up there was really nice. I felt a little uncomfortable at first (which was rather naive of me), since I know that women in their community normally keep their hair covered, and mine was it's usual messy self, though tamed slightly into a ponytail. But the two sons and the father were just as humorous and nice as every other farmer we have run into. We did some pregnancy and heat checks, then some podiatry work on a heifer that had an ulcer. Dr. C. had done some work on her last week, but she had actually gotten worse. He cleaned out another area of the hoof, found the beginnings of some hoof rot between her toes, and put her on a new regiment of medication to treat that. We also did some more dehorning, and some cattle vaccination. With the vaccinations that we gave, the calves also got an ear tag and a tattoo in their ear.

The next farm we headed to was for castrations. Three angus meat calves needed to be vaccinated and castrated. I've seen plenty of horse geldings, and neuters on dogs, but that was far from what happened with the calves. Instead of the sedation, clamping, tie offs and re-closure I am used to, the cattle castrations were quick and dirty. The calves were put in a head gate, and Dr. C. vaccinated them. He then pulled out a wicked-looking tool from his sanitized bucket and solution. He checked to make sure the calves had both testicles descended, and then took the tool and slit open the scrotum sac, exposing the testicles. He then reached in, broke the ligaments with his fingers, clamped on the arteries and pulled the testicles out. Literally just cut a few strands, including the vas deferens, and then sprayed liquid bandage on it and the calf was done. It took about 30 seconds to a minute for the whole procedure. Dr. C. explained to me that if the blood vessels weren't properly clamped down upon (which he did with his fingers alone), then you could cause the calf to bleed out in a matter of seconds. With all that he did, I didn't see a drop of blood come out. It was very interesting.

By this time it was around noon, and he had gotten a whole pile of phone calls while we were on the farm. We had three emergency calls. The first was for a downed beef cow. In a whole pasture of cows, this lone girl was down in the mud, steaming and shaking. She was able to get up a few steps, but then laid right back down, clearly weak. After looking her over, Dr. C. determined that she most likely had toxic ingestion. He gave her a bottle of some sort of calcium fluid IV in the neck to help balance her out, as well as some banamine and another IM injection which I can't remember the name of (oops). The cow was also pregnant, so he had to be careful what he gave her so that she didn't abort. He left the farmer with instructions to get her up and isolated via hip slings or tractor bucket so that she could have time to rest and regain her strength without the other cows bothering her.

The second emergency call was for three sick cows. All were heifers, and all had different uterus problems. One had chunks left over in her uterus from her most recent calf, one was slightly pussy (indicating infection), and one had a mild case of mastitis on top of having a infection in her uterus. All had been off their feed and down in milk production, the usual indicators of disease for farmers.

The third emergency call was much more bizarre. A pregnant heifer had gone down in the field about a month before, and the farmers thought she must have had or aborted a calf, but couldn't find it. The cow appeared healthy and had no problems, so they continued to milk her without an issue. About two days ago, she had been losing "cleanings" from her vagina, which the farmers had been pulling out. Today, however, they found a tail sticking out, and called Dr. C. He was a little puzzled by the whole thing, but as soon as he examined the cow, what had happened became evident. When the cow had gone down a month ago, she had halfway aborted her backwards calf. It had left the uterus, passed the cervix, and stopped in the vagina. It was still able to survive however, since the placenta was still attached and functioning, and it did. It continued to grow, though much stunted by space. It had recently died, a day or two ago, which is when the cow had started to pass bits of her placenta, and was trying to push the calf out. The calf in the meantime, began to mummify slightly. So Dr. C. pulled out a partly mummified, backwards, very small calf. The cow, I swear, let out a sigh of relief when it came out. She was slightly damaged and stretched out from the odd calf placement, but would probably be able to be bred again in a month or so. Dr. C. said that was the first time he had ever seen this happen, and remarked on how bizarre it was!

I ended up getting home around 4:30 and immediately jumped in the shower (I can't tell you how hard it is to get the smell of calf dehorning out of your hair and skin). Jared and I headed out to dinner and a movie, which was really fun since we hadn't been out on a date in months.

I am heading out with Doc (the equine vet) on Monday, am riding along with Dr. C. on Wednesday and Friday,  and am going in to the small animal hospital on Thursday. So it should be a busy week!

~Melissa

It's Liquid! It's Pus! No it's... Inky Black Fluid?

First of all, I hope everyone's holidays went wonderfully, whatever they were and whomever they were held with. Mine involved a great deal of driving around, and included some interesting highlights, which I will refrain from truly extrapolating on. I had some very generous and wonderful family members (and not yet family members), who gave me some awesome presents this year. I got gift cards to TSC (chicken food), Rue 21 (my favorite store which I haven't shopped in in months due to lack of excess money), Sheetz (gas!!), Kennies Market for groceries and Outback Steakhouse so Jer and I can go out. I also got some beautiful and much needed sweaters, a pair of gorgeous cowboy boots, and two books by my favorite author (Iris Johansen). I was blown away by the amazing generosity of my family this year, as well as of Jared's family. All the things I got were very appreciated and more than I have ever received on a holiday.

The favorite gifts that I gave were two tiles I painted for my mom.

Her cat, Oreo

Her horse, Blossom

We also got snow on Christmas Eve (which I can tell you was a pain to drive home through). It was very pretty and all, but I really am not the biggest fan of snow. Remi
(or Rem-Dog as we have taken to calling her) absolutely LOVES snow more than anything else. If you can imagine a lab's normal enthusiasm and multiply it by about 3, you would have it right.  She belly-slides across the snow, burrows in and on it and under it, and would do it for hours and hours. That in itself is enough to almost make me like snow :)

Yesterday I  had a terrible migraine and my stomach was acting up. So I ended up calling Dr. C. and not going in to shadow. About an hour after I called him the snow and sleet started, and I was very glad that I had stayed home. I'm a bad driver at the best of times, and in snow I basically become a death trap. So I stayed home and played on the XBox that Jared got me for X-mas (breaking our pact of no gifts! > ( ), and let him take care of me. I've never had my own game system before (discounting the hand-me-down PS1), so it is pretty fun to be able to do what I want on it.

And that brings me to today (which I know you really want to hear about after the title of my post!). I shadowed at the small animal hospital starting at nine. I saw a spay and a neuter, and the usual vaccines for cats and dogs, skin allergies to fleas, cats with bad teeth, cats with dandruff and hair loss, etc. Under close supervision of a vet and a tech, they even let me intubate a dog today. I also met my first of three different purebreeds... a borzoi, a wolfhound and an elkhound. The most interesting case to tell about was an 18 year old cat that came in, looking absolutely beautiful in coat, color, teeth, what-have-you. It hadn't seen a vet since it had been neutered at a year old. I would never have guessed this cat's age.... it looked like a 6 year old! Anyway, they had brought it in for a strange lump on it's side which had marginally increased in size over the last few months. It looked like a strange nipple on his right side, with a sac behind it. We took the cat in the back to have a look at it, and Dr. H. poked a needle in to check the fluid color (clear is good, pus and blood is bad), and out squirts (literally), this black, thick, fluid. It resembled liquid charcoal. It didn't smell, and once she poked it it all wanted to come out, and you could hardly find the cyst when it was empty. It was rather bizarre. We made slides of it (just out of curiosity sake), and couldn't identify anything much in it besides what looked like fat cells. So it will probably stay on the side of the cat and continue to make it's strange product!

I left the hospital around 4 and headed out to get horse, chicken and cat food from various stores. Now I'm all stocked up for a bit, and when the predicted storms hits this weekend, I won't have to worry about feeding all my menagerie!

I'm headed out with Dr. C. tomorrow, so check back to hear about my day with dairy.

Thanks for reading!

Melissa

More Cows and Family Christmas

Yesterday I headed out with the cattle vet again. We started the day with a "nursery barn"- not the official name but that's what I call it. These are farms where farmers essentially board their calves until they go into their first pregnancy and begin producing milk. This is definitely an interesting way of handling the dairy cow production system.The young cows being raised on the farm would take up space and feed that producing cows could use, and so the calf farms are really a necessity for the volume of milk that farmers need to produce to stay  afloat. Since cows normally have their first calves at about 2 years of age, the calves leave the main farm once they are off of milk, and stay at the nursery barns until they are two. Most nursery barns also work with the young cows a lot to get them friendly and used to people and equipment, so that they are ready to "do their job" once they return home.

We were doing pregnancy checks there on the older heifers, and I got to learn to herd and cut cattle to get them one by one into the run and head gate. They tend to follow the fence and have a little more prominent "shy" zones than horses, making them much easier to herd. I felt like a sheep dog in the pen, but I had a great time, even though it was very cold. The farmer who ran the barn kept making jokes to me and encouraging me on, and Dr. C. was plenty patient with me, even when I turned them the wrong way. He and I are continuing to get to know each other, and he even gave me some small things to do (even if it was just holding things and herding cows!) which not only made me feel somewhat useful, but also helped keep me warm!

We got an emergency call shortly after we left this barn and were heading to another. It was for a cow off her feed. On the way over the farm, I picked his brain about what the first things were he looked for in cattle when evaluating them for possible sickness, and common ailments. The main thing he mentioned, which it turned out to be, was a displaced abomasum (D.A.) or twisted stomach.

When we got to the farm, it was deserted. We couldn't find a single person, though we found the sick cow and looked her over. Her temperature was low at 99. Dr. C. showed me her lymph nodes and had me feel for them, and then let me listen to the "ping" that acompanies a D.A. The D.A. is caused by gas being overproduced in the stomach, either from poor nutrition, sickness or a secondary symptom of another disease. This causes the stomach to move around inside the body cavity, getting out of place. It can move either to the right or left side of where it is supposed to be. In this case, it was the left. When a stethoscope is placed on the side of the cow, and her side is flicked, rather than the dull thud you would expect, you get a "ping." It is an almost tinny noise that occurs from the gas.


The treatment for this could have been medical or surgical; the owners (once we tracked them down via phone), opted to try for the medicinal and go with surgery if needed. The cow was put on antibiotics (since her uterus also had pus in it), and would have baking soda put in her feed for the next couple of days, as well as calcium and some banamine being given in vein. Why baking soda? Well, calves have a special pipe that transports milk directly from their mouth to the abomasum, the main compartment of the stomach. This allows it to bypass the other compartments (the rumen, reticulum and omasum) and go straight to where it will do the most good. This tube is essentially unused once the calf is weaned, but it still exists. The pH of baking soda, being similar to milk, causes the flap covering the hole to open up, and the baking soda, a bicarbonate, acts to reduce acidity and gas in the abomasum. If it doesn't after a few days, then surgery (necessitating the stomach wall being sewed to the body wall to keep it in place) becomes necessary. Really interesting to learn about.

Our last farm call was to a small dairy farm (about 40 milkers). The facilities there were really nice, though the farm was small, and you could tell that the farmer really took care of these cows. They all had fresh straw and clean bedding, with the poop being removed very quickly after it occurred. The cows were quite friendly as well, and very clean (for cows!). It almost looked as if he brushed some of them! We just did some more pregnancy and heat checks on these cows. Dr. C. explained to me what he felt for upon palpation and the main signs of pregnancy and heat in the uterine structures. He also gave me a comparative anatomy lesson between horses and cows reproductive systems, which is summarized in the diagrams below. Cows truly have uterine "horns"- they even curl under! The development of placenta is also a lot different in both species.

Horse

Enough about cows though. Today was the family X-mas party. We held it at my house this year, which was quite fun! Remi got to wear her jingle bell collar all day, and we lit a fire in the upstairs fireplace. Many of my cousins and relatives who I don't often get to see were able to make it up, which was great. We ate off of paper dishes so that there wasn't much to clean up, and my grandmother stuck around and gave me a hand afterwards, since Jared had to go to work. Made for a nice and easy day! I have so many leftovers in my fridge :)

Melissa

Dairying It Up

Today was a day for the exploration of new things. I learned so much today that I'm going to be hard-pressed to tell it all to you! I went out to meet Dr. C. at 8:30 am at his house/office. I had only spoken to him over the phone, so this was our first time meeting one another. I knocked on the door and out comes this late 60's/early 70's balding old man, lithe and spry and beaming at me over his half-moon glasses, dressed in coveralls with a collared shirt peeking from underneath it. He looked to me like a figure straight out of a James Herriot novel.

We headed out to our first call, a small dairy with about 60 milkers. The visit began in the calf barn. They had pens for the younger ones individually, then  group pens for the older calves, separated by age. There were probably 12-15 calves in the barn. They were cute as can be and very friendly. All of them had names on their tags with everything from Fuzzy to Glacinda. Dr. C. explained to me the process by which they cycle the cows through and what they feed them, etc. Cows have their first babies around 2 years of age, and aren't fully mature until about 5.

One of the pens of calves had already been "de-horned," and the next oldest pen was ready to have it done today. Dehorning is the process by which they are well... de-horned. This is for owner, worker and other cow safety, and serves to keep the herd healthy and with few wounds. The dehorner was basically a very hot metal ring that was pressed around the base of the horn nub, cauterizing and killing the cells which signal the horn to grow. The calves were put in a head gate, and a halter was placed on them, which served to hold their head to the side so that they didn't squirm too much. They were then "de-horned." I held their heads to the side while he performed the procedure, and let me tell you, that smells awful. It was really the smell of burning flesh, and it clung to my hair and clothes for the rest of the day.

We then headed to the mature cow barn and did palpations and checks. We looked at 26 cows for pregnancy, breeding cycle stage, and various wounds. We lanced a huge abscess that pumped out (no exaggeration) at least 2 cups of pus. It was awesome. I saw some progesterone implants meant to encourage the cows to go into cycle, vaccines, etc. I really learned how much it is necessary to teach the dairy farmers rather than just vet the animals. They gave all their own vaccines, fluids and the implants, and kept their own mini-pharmacies on stock from vet prescription. They knew what to look for and how to treat it. This allows them to be cost effective. They could not pay to have the vet out to vaccinate everyone and do all of this, and still allow us to get our milk for $2/gallon.

Our next visit was to do some podiatry on limping cows. Both of them had rear hoof injuries. One was an abscess, and the other an ulcer. He hoisted the leg up via pulley to work on it. One of the cows did crack him in the knee with it's hoof while he was working on it, which had to suck. Dr. C. was absolutely hilarious and ornery and let me ask him a thousand and one questions.

Our last stop of the day was to Dr. C's son's goat dairy farm. They are one of 2 producers of goat milk in PA, and have a really neat operation. They have around 20 milking goats, and a ton of bucks and young goats. They are really just getting it off the ground, but it's a cool process. They had La Mancha goats there, along with Alpines. Have you ever seen a La Mancha? They look like this:

They have no ears. And are adorable.

Good Morning Cryptorchids

So this morning I went in to the vet hospital to fully shadow during "surgery time" for the very first time. I have been in for mostly the latter half of the day for the last semester, and this is the first chance I have had to really go in before noon. It was also a bit of a test for me since I have been doing really well and have been having absolutely no problems with fainting or dizziness lately. And suprise, surprise, I did just fine today. We started out with a cryptorchid neuter on a jack russell. A cryptorchid is where the testicles never descended. The dog was two, and luckily his testes were just on either side of his penis in the abdomen, rather than up somewhere where we would really have to dig for them. It was still messier than a normal surgery, but very mild for a cryptorchid. While doing the surgery, Dr. G regaled me with stories of the worst ones he had seen, which was very fascinating.

I then watched a long dental on a flame-point persian cat that had abscessed roots, bad teeth needing extractions and a possible squamous cell carcinoma in his mouth. They biopsied the tumor, removed the teeth and drained the abscesses, removing what roots they could. I found out that cats readily reabsorb their roots and rotted teeth, leaving behind hard masses that function as a sort of grinding plate. I also learned that if you are trying to elevate the tooth with a little tool that they use and you miss... you can poke it through the soft palate and into the brain. (No, this didn't happen, but they were explaining it to me).

I also got to make up and stain slides all on my own today for cytologies, and look over them before the vet techs did and have them double-check my potential findings. I went into a couple of client rooms and saw some skin allergies, some vaccines and some sick kittens, and then headed home for the farrier visit around 1. I stopped at Doc's house (my equine vet) since his truck was in the driveway and visited with him and Ms. S (his vet tech), for a good while. I gave them a hand putting together the X-mas cards for the clients. It was great to visit with them and Doc promised to put me on emergency call for the rest of break. He lives just a few houses down from me, so it is very easy for him to pick me up on the way out without wasting any time. I very much miss equine vet med.

Speaking of large animals, tomorrow I am going out with a dairy vet for a "trial shadow." We are going to see if we like each other and then decide how often I might want to ride along, and what days. I'm super excited to get some cattle experience, especially on the dairy and herd management sides. He was recommended to me by 3 different vets, so I'm taking that as a sign that he knows his stuff! He seemed very enthusiastic about my coming by (though he was under the impression I would find it "boring"- yeah right!), which is always a good sign. I'll let you know how it goes!

Also, I got all my grades in and I will come out with a 4.0 this semester! I pulled an A- in Physics and an A+ in ES, so they balance each other out. This is only my second 4.0 semester since coming to G-burg, so it is definitely awesome. It seems like the more stress I am under, the better I do! Hopefully next semester will go as well!

~Melissa

Weekenders

One of my closest friends, Jenn, came back from Australia last week, as I previously mentioned. Friday she came up to college and then came home with me on Saturday and is staying through this (Sunday) evening before heading back home to VA. It has been wonderful to see her, and on my first full day off from school, I was more than happy to spend it on a couch, catching her up on "Once Upon a Time" the TV Show and reminiscing about the olden days and hearing about her experiences in Australia. I very much missed her and am glad to have her back, but I am also glad that she left- not only did she grow as an individual, but in her absence I was able to nurture deeper friendships with those around me, such as with Gael, a fellow possible pre-vetter and someone that makes me feel incredibly honored to be her friend due to her kindness, intelligence and humor. Gael, Jenn and I began to really get close last Spring, and I could not have been happier to be a part of such a good friendship. Having had Jenn for a full year without knowing Gael (Gael transferred in as a sophomore), it was nice to have a semester with just Gael as well, to get to know her on a deeper and more personal level, and to really develop a friendship that I hope will last much farther than college. And truly it was wonderful to have all three of us re-united on Friday night. It made my physics final seem a small thing in comparison! This coming semester promises much in the way of interesting and entertaining things with all of us back together. Gael and Jenn are also living together next semester, with a two other good friends, Amanda and Juana. Hannah, who had lived in the apartment this fall, is going to Germany for the Spring semester, so her and Jenn merely switched.

Anyway, I did go ahead and shadow yesterday morning from 8-12:30pm. There were quite a few fascinating cases. One of the most bizarre was a husky that was trying to fully chew his foot off. You could see bone and tendons where he had been chewing. He was non-weight bearing lame and was actually dragging his foot on the ground, contributing to the infection and damage it had sustained. He had a mass up at his armpit, and the vet's best guess for what was going on was that the mass had compromised his main nerve in the leg, causing it to either be tingly or not to have feeling at all. Since it felt funny, the dog was trying to make it stop... by chewing at it. Dr.R. pinched his toes in that foot and he had no response at all, which is definitely a clear indicator that something is going on. Since it was the relief vet on staff, she wanted them to come back in on Monday and see Dr. J., but we cleaned and wet bandaged the wound. The only thing that would really solve it would be amputation of the leg, because even if the wound healed up, the nerve damage was too severe. The people who brought him in were very much back-woods country folk, and I am sure that they could not afford too much in the way of vet bills. I'm curious as to what will end up happening with the husky... it was an ugly wound, and the poor boy was clearly suffering.

We also did an eye stain on an older dog (something that I had seen done many times in horses), to check for a scratch on the cornea, or infection in the eye. The dog was an older lab who had cataracts in both his eyes, diabetes, and the one eye had recently sunken into his head and turned very red, most likely due to pain from the infection/scratch that we did end up seeing on the eye. We also did an intra-cardiac euthanasia on a small, 16 year old mini poodle mix who was covered in his own filth and screaming, with explosive diarrhea everywhere. His owners had popped him into an itty bitty cat carrier, and so he didn't even have space to move, or to get away from the diarrhea that kept spurting out of him. It was very sad. We cleaned him up after sedation (and of course the carrier), and then euthanized him in a little more dignified of a state. He was so old that Dr. R. couldn't hit a vein in his leg, and so had to go for a direct injection into the heart.

In other news, yesterday I found something on Taz's chest that doesn't belong there. I don't know if it is scar tissue, a tumor, an abscess or what. It doesn't feel like liquid. I'm going to try to get him in at the hospital I shadow at (where I'm not a patient yet, but want to be) and have them look at him. Unfortunately, since I am a broke college student, I don't know what to do if it is bad news. I know from working there that the test itself to see what a mass is (cell-wise) is $150 alone. I guess we will see what they say. 

~Melissa

I got an A...

in Orgo! Super exciting :) With a 94% on the final, I am quite pleased. Now if I can only conquer physics with a similar prowess, I will be quite happy.

Speaking of physics, I went in to get my lab notebook today and was talking to my lab professor about how worried I was about the exam. She was in the middle of grading exams, and I had only bothered her to see if she could unlock the lab for me to get my notebook... She ended up putting her exams to the side, pulling out a dry erase marker and white board, and going over concepts that were confusing me. I didn't even ask her (I could see she was busy), and kept offering to leave, but she was insistent on helping me.  This is a professor I have only seen once every other week for lab, and she doesn't even teach a section of my class (she teaches calc-based), but she really truly cared about my comfort with the material and wanted to help me to succeed. This is why I love Gettysburg.

~Melissa

Cats on a Couch

I have no real updates. All I have been doing is sitting around and studying for physics. Oh how I hate that class. I also have been debating over which labs and lectures I want to attend for APVMA Symposium this year, and having everyone else in my group submit theirs to me (since I have to register everyone... compliments of living 20 minutes from the school and being able to get the credit card).  Besides that, I have truly been a bum. Eating junk food like it's my business.

BUT I do have cute photos for you...

This is Taz and Simian. They obviously could not lay anywhere else on my giant couch except on the itty bitty bit of folded up blanket. :)

And, for all you horse lovers, this is a great shot I just took of my mom's horse, Blossom.

Hope everyone else's finals/classes/lives are going well! Is anyone reading this planning on going to Symposium?

~Melissa

The Exam

I feel like I rocked my 22-page orgo exam last night. I finished it in 2-hours flat and was the first of 77 done. The rest of my group of 5 girls finished an hour- 2 hours after I did, which is kinda scary...

Chesapeake Bay Ecology is tomorrow.

Very excitingly, my good friend Jenn is flying home from her semester abroad in Australia as I type this. I am very much hoping to see her in the next couple of days!

~Melissa

Chicken Problems

Oh the things that would only happen to me...

Since I would be around pretty much all day on Thursday, I let the chickens out to free roam the property. I have to be home to do this, as the neighbor's dog will take full advantage of my absence to eat them if I am not careful. So I let them out and they had a grand ole time chasing each other around, digging in the flowerbeds and the mulch, scratching and dusting themselves. I went out around 4:30 to get them in before it got dark, called to my chickens and they came running. Tossed some bread into the coop and easy as pie, I closed the gate. And then I counted. There were 7 chickens in the coop. We have 9. Oh. Shit.

I looked in all the window wells, under the porch, in the trees, and found no chickens. I then grabbed a flashlight and really thoroughly checked everywhere they could hide... nothing. So I looked for feathers, fearing the worst. And again, came up with nothing. Not a sign of my two missing hens.

I went back out to where the chicken coop was, and, realizing how close to the woodpile it was, wondered if perhaps a hen had been messing around near it and some wood had fallen off and trapped it (I have pretty awful wood-stacking skills). So I start pulling up the tarp and looking under the logs. I walk around to the other side, and there, low and behold is a fuzzy, red, rhode-island hen's butt sticking out of the wood pile. She wasn't stuck. In fact, it appeared as if she had been digging for bugs, stuck her head under the black tarp, thought that night had fallen, and decided to take a nap then and there. She was happily snoozing until I grabbed her and tossed her back in the chicken coop. My estimation of chicken intelligence level decreased quite greatly in that moment

Well I'm still a chicken down and dark is falling fast. The chicken coop is right next to my shed, and some wildlife had dug under the shed this Summer to whelp their young, so there were some significant gaps on the backside. Before I even laid down on my side and shined my flashlight in, I knew what I would see. Sure enough, I could see a black creature that looked very much like a chicken in the light of my dim flashlight. I went to the other side of the shed and dug out the hole on that side, giving the chicken a forward escape route. I then went inside to grab some bread bait and, lo and behold, there was a chicken standing outside of my coop squawking to be let in. No digging necessary. Just to be sure, I recounted my chickens. And came up with 8.

So I look back under the shed, and sure enough, there is still a creature under it. I bang my boots on the side, trying to scare it out, hollering and calling for it. I peek back under the shed, lying amidst the dirt, wood debris and ashes, and what do I see in a much better view now that it had moved away from the noisy wall, but a rabbit, scared to high heaven at all the noise I was making and very unhappy about it's choice of a resting spot.

Well, I recounted again. I had 9 chickens.

I suppose this is why I'm not a math major.

Hit By Cars, Goats and Squirrels

My day started off with finding a drowned squirrel in my water tub. This was a new one for me. How a squirrel got in my water tub in the first place, and how it drowned in two inches of water makes no sense to me. My best guess is that it somehow got electrocuted by the nearby powerlines and fell in. I was already running late, and I then had to scrub out the water tub and give them enough water for the day. I got to school right as the bell tower rang 10 o'clock. Somehow the forces were with me and I avoided seeing any police officers on my way... I definitely pushed it. I had a presentation that was worth 20% of my grade, so I wanted to make sure it was decent and I was there to give it!

I got a whole bunch of progress reports and such back in the last couple of days. I calculated it out and to get an A- in physics I have to get about a 73, to get an A and 84 on the final. So that is not too bad at all. In orgo I have similar numbers, though I believe it may be an 84 to get an A-. They curve introductory physics here, which is very strange to me. It is the only class I have ever seen at G-burg that does that. I still have no idea what I have in my English class (though I should have a better idea on Thursday when I am getting all of my papers and work back from the entire semester). ES I am pretty much guaranteed an A. So it looks like I might have my first shot at an all-A semester (I'm being hopeful about English) since last fall, which would be awesome! My gpa would really love that.

Today I went in and shadowed for 7.5 hours, and had a really good time, as usual. I saw a ton of really interesting things today, from hygromas (cysts on the ends of the elbows) to mass cell tumors, to two hit by cars, to dog toe splints and rabbit urethra issues. And the goat again.
 It was really fascinating and I love how comfortable all the docs and techs are getting with me. They have started to accept me almost as one of their own, and I love being utilized and being taught. I now get to hold and walk animals, restrain, help with the initial exams (temps, weights, etc.), trim toenails on cats and dogs, clean kennels, check out incisions and post ops, help scrub things, assist in some small ways with minor surgeries, see all the x-rays, etc. The doctors have even started saving x-rays from earlier in the day to show to me if they think it is interesting. I have been there long enough to have seen many of the clients more than once and to have them recognize and interact with me, and I really love that as well. Since Dr. G. also has an equine practice, he loves to tell me about his equine cases, since he knows I have experience with that and am really interested in it.

Anyway, the highlight from the day was definitely the two hit by cars. The cases were bizarre and came in within  5 minutes of each other. Both were new clients. The one was a English chocolate lab who had been being humped by his brother in the driveway, and the daughter had been backing up and he couldn't get out of the way quick enough due to the... humpage. The other was a small schnauzer mix that was in heat and being chased by a chocolate lab and ran under the tires. Both were hit by their owners... and both were run over in the abdomen. And both did not break a single thing. They had bruising and road burn, and neither of their bladders showed up on x-ray (which could possibly mean they had burst, or that they were just empty), and both of them walked out the door for further monitoring by the family.

 I really enjoy the emergency stuff for some reason, and I definitely want to make sure I call in to the emergency hospital I had got permission to volunteer at and do that over break. I wish I had more time to shadow all the places I want to shadow! Sometimes I wish I had realized that I wanted to be a vet (seriously) before my freshman year of college.

~Melissa

Forgot to Mention...

Last night I ate squirrel! Jared decided it was time to try it, so he shot one, butchered it and brought it home. We then boiled it and fried it. Would you believe, it tasted just like chicken (if not better!).

Shadowing!

I really need to come up with some better titles.

Yesterday I was going to shadow, but a high schooler was in, so I instead headed up to the SPCA for a couple of hours to play with cats and dogs. In the evening we went to "my" hospital for the doctors to give the pre-vet club a tour and talk to them a little bit about the vet profession. Between the two of them they have done small animal, cattle, horse, exotics and research, so they are just really awesome people to talk to. I really hope the club enjoyed it- we got seven people out, so that was a good number at least.

Today I went in at 8 am and am glad I did! It was certainly a very busy day and I'm very happy I was around to give a hand. The very first appointment was a beagle for vaccines and a nail trim, and he was quite possibly the worst dog I have ever seen in terms of acting up. You would have thought we were cutting off his entire toes, not just trimming him. We got one foot finished and a snagged, bloody  nail (that did, I'm sure, actually hurt), before it was just no longer worth it. We returned the dog to the woman with a suggestion that she work with him on it.

That started the bad nails for the day... we had a chihuahua with a wrenched toe and toenail that couldn't come off because it wasn't loose enough, but was causing a heck of a lot of pain; a big bug-eyed pit whose owner wanted the nails "show-short" and kept sending the techs to take off more, regardless of whether or not they bled; and, strangely, a cat with ingrown toenails. The cat never shed it's nails, clawed on anything or chewed them off, and they continued to grow around and into it's paws. It wasn't too badly infected, but I'm sure that poor cat was hurting. The worst part was that she was so good for us to clip her nails... it literally would only take the woman bringing her in once every two months and getting them clipped to have this never be a problem.

We also did three euthanasias today, quite sadly. One of them was a six week old kitten that these people had brought in from the barn or somewhere outdoors. It had been at the hospital but was doing horribly due to whatever had happened to it- I'm not sure if it had gotten hit by a car or was just deathly anemic due to the fleas. It's breathing was erratic and it's eyes were goopy, it's gums a stark white. I held it for awhile while they talked to the owners, and I am sure it was a relief for that poor baby to go to heaven.

The second euthanasia was a older golden retriever who had a humongous tumor that extended all the way from her vulva down about halfway through her abdomen. It had grown quickly, and was a very hard, almost bone-like mass, that yesterday had begun seeping huge amounts of blood and puss out the dog's vulva. She was happy and  bright, but had stopped eating and drinking and was very much fighting with the cancer (or so I assume it was). There was nothing that could have been done with that extensive of a mass however, and so she as well was sent to doggy heaven.

The third one was much scarier. The dog came in and was shaking, had a low temp and had had bloody diarrhea for a day. We took him to the back and he vomited up yellow fluid, and then about a minute later squirted about half a gallon of blood out of his back end. The most solid thing in it was blood clots. They did a CBC on him, and his white blood cell count was astronomically low. Amongst all the other symptoms, it was a no-brainer that he had parvo. The official test came back positive. Amazingly, this was the second dog in two days that had come in with parvo, both from different rescues, and both which had to have come in to the rescue with the disease. So sad that such a bad disease, which can be stopped with only two fairly inexpensive vaccines given as a puppy, can be so prevalent...We then had to bleach down the entire hospital to make sure there was no contamination. As soon as I got home, I stripped and washed all my clothes and shoes with extremely hot water.

And then of course once I got home the dog peed on the carpet (not like I hadn't cleaned up enough bodily fluids today), the sink was leaking, the dishes had piled up, the carpet was covered in hair (the Rem-monster is shedding), and I still have an essay to finish writing before Monday. Oh yeah, and a lab report, and a quiz and starting to study for finals. And to think just two days ago I was thinking about how badly I need a job... I forgot about the fact that I have no time! I guess it's just one of those days where everything piles up on you.

Hope your weekend is going better than mine!

~Melissa