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