Last night I also went into the ER for the first time in well over a month. I really enjoyed being back there. Even though I can't touch animals, the techs and doctors still teach me a lot of things and let me help with things that need to be done. Last night there were some interesting cases: an older dog with kidney failure, partial paralysis (probably due to a blood clot thrown from his kidneys), poor blood pressure and a heart murmur. He got progressively better as the day went on, and by the time I got there he was able to stand a bit, and had lost his head tilt. He was still having some neurological problems, but was doing much better. There was another dog that had eaten rat poison and no one had caught it until he started to bleed profusely out of his gums. It was very bizarre to see, and no one was quite sure what to do with him. Since he was having a blood clotting issue, they didn't feel comfortable lifting him up for x-rays for fear of causing more bleeding and bruising. They administered a lot of Vitamin K, which I think was supposed to balance things out in some way.
Another dog came in that had microphthalmic disease (not sure if I spelled that right), and after a variety of stains and tests, his eye pressure revealed glaucoma. Microphthalmic is linked to coat color; if you breed two blue merle Aussies together you get the disease, and any really "double dapple" coat color on a dog (also seen in Dachshunds) can produce this.
By far the most unusual and sad case of the night was a dog with pericardial effusion.This is apparently a rather rare thing to happen. The pericardial sac (surrounding the heart) becomes filled with fluid, putting pressure on the heart and causing it to have problems beating. The heart appears globoid on x-ray, and ultrasound allows views of the fluid. There is a 50% chance that it is cancer, and a 50% chance that it is idiopathic. The treatment is pericardiocentesis, where fluid is drawn off by catheter. The procedure is fairly expensive, and the dog that came in was older, so the owners made the very difficult decision to put him to sleep.
I tried to find some good radiographs on google to show you what it looked like, but was unsuccessful!
~Melissa
Monday, May 13, 2013
Sunday, May 12, 2013
A Flock of Ewe's Eating Sounds Like Rain on a Tin Roof.
Yes, they do, bizarrely. It is very peaceful.
Yesterday I worked at the farm, my usual Sunday routine. I feed the ram (Black Knight), who is good friends with me, then head down to feed the piglets and the swine. They have 6 piglets and 5 pigs. I head to the chicken houses and feed the layers, the pullets (broilers to be), and the new flock of layers which are still very young. Finally I head to the large barn and feed the 30 or so sheep and lambs, as well as the two sheep dogs, and the barn cats. Then I go to the other farm down the road and feed more sheep and lambs. Next week I will start feeding the cattle- they are changing the management plan to try to tame the cows a little bit more, making it easier to deal with them for routine health maintenance as well as when the time comes for them to go to slaughter. They have a mixed breed herd, with only about 15 head.
The rest of my day is filled with general farm labor; yesterday I moved feed and hay around, cleaned out all of the nest boxes, and shoveled out the "Super Coop" chicken barn. They keep the barns very clean, and the chicken houses get cleaned about once a week, while the other pens get poop picked out twice daily. As far as farms go, this is about as clean as you can get!
This week, my first out of school(!), I am starting to work 3 days a week there. This should definitely help me pay off my vet bill for my horse in a reasonable amount of time! I also will be doing some garden work for Doc to work it off, continuing to clean houses and picking up some more yard work and such. Hopefully sometime soon I will have paid it off and will be able to put some of the money I'm earning into my checking account!
Tomorrow I will be learning how to shave the Great Pyrenese farm dog, and starting to paint the mile of white board fence surrounding the farm. They are trying to keep me with the animals as much as possible, which is awesome.
Here are some cute pictures from the farm:
Yesterday I worked at the farm, my usual Sunday routine. I feed the ram (Black Knight), who is good friends with me, then head down to feed the piglets and the swine. They have 6 piglets and 5 pigs. I head to the chicken houses and feed the layers, the pullets (broilers to be), and the new flock of layers which are still very young. Finally I head to the large barn and feed the 30 or so sheep and lambs, as well as the two sheep dogs, and the barn cats. Then I go to the other farm down the road and feed more sheep and lambs. Next week I will start feeding the cattle- they are changing the management plan to try to tame the cows a little bit more, making it easier to deal with them for routine health maintenance as well as when the time comes for them to go to slaughter. They have a mixed breed herd, with only about 15 head.
The rest of my day is filled with general farm labor; yesterday I moved feed and hay around, cleaned out all of the nest boxes, and shoveled out the "Super Coop" chicken barn. They keep the barns very clean, and the chicken houses get cleaned about once a week, while the other pens get poop picked out twice daily. As far as farms go, this is about as clean as you can get!
This week, my first out of school(!), I am starting to work 3 days a week there. This should definitely help me pay off my vet bill for my horse in a reasonable amount of time! I also will be doing some garden work for Doc to work it off, continuing to clean houses and picking up some more yard work and such. Hopefully sometime soon I will have paid it off and will be able to put some of the money I'm earning into my checking account!
Tomorrow I will be learning how to shave the Great Pyrenese farm dog, and starting to paint the mile of white board fence surrounding the farm. They are trying to keep me with the animals as much as possible, which is awesome.
Here are some cute pictures from the farm:
 |
| The small brown coop |
 |
| Piglets! |
The Babies!
 |
| We ended up having one more born last night, giving us three blondes and three black-topped-yellow-bottomed |
 |
| Yes, it's alive, just resting after breaking out! |
Thursday, May 9, 2013
The Waiting Game
Sorry for my silence lately. This semester has been a very tough one for me, and I am in the midst of finals week. Coming up to it were the usual piles of papers, last minute quizzes and homework that professors tend to shove in, as well as reviews and study sessions. I am 3/4 of the way done, having taken my poetry exam on Sunday, physics on Monday and cell biology on Tuesday. Tomorrow evening is organic chemistry. I have felt surprisingly good about most of my finals- yes, there were one or two questions on each that tripped me up, but overall I actually felt very confident and prepared about them. I am hoping organic will be the same (it is one of the easiest classes for me), but I am having a hard time studying for it.
Last Wednesday my goslings hatched, and yesterday and today my chicks have been hatching. Currently I have two chicks out and three breaking out, with two eggs showing no signs of occupancy. I did "candle" them and it looks like one of the eggs' membrane is drawing backwards as if the chick has died. The other one looks normal and was put in the incubator a day later than the others, so it is very possible that it will just be late.
I will post plenty of pictures once I get a chance this weekend.
I did just find out that I got an A+ in my poetry class as my final grade. With 100% on the midterm and A's on all of my papers and journals, it was something I was hoping for but not completely expecting! That will definitely help balance out my GPA with the relatively lower grades that I am expecting in physics and cell biology. If only my English classes counted towards my science GPA for vet school! I am keeping my fingers crosses that I pull out of cell biology with above a C. I have never even received anything less than a B+ in college, but I will actually cry with joy if I get a B- in cell. Even a C+ I would take. Anything above a B- is essentially unattainable for me, even if I got 100% on the final (which didn't happen). This, I suppose, it what someone once referred to as my "welcome to the real world."
I will know in less than a week. Professors are supposed to have their grades up by Monday I believe.
I hope I haven't lost any readers due to my silence (though I'm not actually sure that more than two people read this), and I promise that this Summer, filled with animal-related work on a farm and my usual shadowing, will be a much more exciting blog! Oh, and I'm applying to vet school this Summer. That might be interesting to everyone too! I would be happy to answer any questions about the process if any pre-vet students read the blog.
~Melissa
Last Wednesday my goslings hatched, and yesterday and today my chicks have been hatching. Currently I have two chicks out and three breaking out, with two eggs showing no signs of occupancy. I did "candle" them and it looks like one of the eggs' membrane is drawing backwards as if the chick has died. The other one looks normal and was put in the incubator a day later than the others, so it is very possible that it will just be late.
I will post plenty of pictures once I get a chance this weekend.
I did just find out that I got an A+ in my poetry class as my final grade. With 100% on the midterm and A's on all of my papers and journals, it was something I was hoping for but not completely expecting! That will definitely help balance out my GPA with the relatively lower grades that I am expecting in physics and cell biology. If only my English classes counted towards my science GPA for vet school! I am keeping my fingers crosses that I pull out of cell biology with above a C. I have never even received anything less than a B+ in college, but I will actually cry with joy if I get a B- in cell. Even a C+ I would take. Anything above a B- is essentially unattainable for me, even if I got 100% on the final (which didn't happen). This, I suppose, it what someone once referred to as my "welcome to the real world."
I will know in less than a week. Professors are supposed to have their grades up by Monday I believe.
I hope I haven't lost any readers due to my silence (though I'm not actually sure that more than two people read this), and I promise that this Summer, filled with animal-related work on a farm and my usual shadowing, will be a much more exciting blog! Oh, and I'm applying to vet school this Summer. That might be interesting to everyone too! I would be happy to answer any questions about the process if any pre-vet students read the blog.
~Melissa
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