Wednesday, May 08, 2002 :::
 
May 8th

For ones we were on time at the clinic today. We were there even early if my memory is good. When we got there Lori asked us to wait a little bit because everyone comes to work after 8:30, so we sat down for a while. I took that time to remind Lori that today was my last day at the U of I.
When it was 8:30 Lori took me and Toya to AIC. Because there was nothing going on in the ICU department, Lori left me with the Dermatology people.
Nothing was going in the Dermatology today either. They had three appointments from which 2 were one canceled and the other no show. The one that was there was a check up so nothing much was going on with that. I fallowed Joel to that appointment. We did the history of the dog and checked the skin problems that he used to have. Everything was fine so the dog was sent home.
At that time nothing was going on, so I talked to the new vet students. It was interesting meeting them and seeing their views of this profession. At 11:30 we went to the anesthesiology recovery department to remove masses from a dog with a laser. That was pretty interesting. Burned flesh isn’t the best thing at that time of the day, but the way the treatment went was very fascinating.
Then we went back to the department and we spend the rest of the day talking. At the very and, the last few minutes I they were having a case viewing, where they have a case and have to decide what’s wrong with it and how to treat it. It was very interesting and it got me to be late to take my bus. I said bye to the students and headed out.


::: posted by Una at 8:09 PM

 
May 1st

Today I was in the Radiology part of U of I. Rich Keen was my contact, so right after I got there he was paged and he came shortly after words. First thing that I was asked by Rich was if I was 19, when I answered that I was, he was very happy.
So we went to his department and right after I got there they were getting ready to go pick up four animals, 3 dogs and one cat for their treatment. I helped them bring the animals down.
First dog had a tumor on his lips, it was benign but they still used radiation to get rid of it. It was the last day of treatment for this dog so everyone was very happy.
Second dog had a tumor on his thyroid gland. Dogs can’t be tattooed like humans are, their skin moves around, and the place that you might have tattooed may not be at that exact location the next day. So the lady showed me that you find the axial vertebrate on the dog, you can palpate that, and then a little bit lower then the axial is, the thyroid gland is located. They showed me how they position the animal according to the location of the tumor, with lasers they mark the place to be radiated and then we leave the room while the treatment is being done. After the time is up, they have to go in and turn the animal around and treat him on the other side as well.
Third dog had a tumor in his head, a little bit higher then his ears. So they put him on the table and radiated him.
The cat had a tumor on his anus. So they marked that with the lasers and begun the treatment.
Then for the next 4h we were just sitting around and talking waiting for the next patients which were rabbits. 12 experimental rabbits were coming for their treatments. I got to help with that.
Then after the rabbits were gone we were sitting around and at that point Lauren joined me, they showed us around the radiology. Then we met the guy that work on the MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging). He asked us if we wanted to go with him and see how that work. Lauren and I decided to fallow him. He took us to his office and showed us the machine. He took images of a dog that had some kind of problem, they thought it was a brain lesion but they were not sure so they wanted to do the MRI to find out. The image can be taken from any angle, and they even put a contrast into the animals head to see the places that were dark on the screen before. They didn’t find anything in the brain, but they found lesion like things on the spinal chord so they decided to look at that more carefully. At that time it was time for me and Lauren to go so we said good buy to him and headed to our bus.



::: posted by Una at 7:43 PM

 
April 24th

This week was one of the most interesting ones. Jennifer and I were the only ones going to the clinicals, because we are the two seniors of the Veterinary Medicine group. We got there late though because Jennifer was late to our place of meeting in front of the High School. She was delayed. It didn’t take Lori a very long time to call our contact and to send us to the rotations where we were suppose to be.
My department was Equine Medicine and Surgery. And the Veterinary Technician that I was fallowing was suppose to be Tracy Bailey, but she wasn’t in today so I was with Nathalie.
I was explained that 9 o’clock in the EMS was always slow, because all the Dr.’s have meetings so Nathalie send me to check out a group of ambulatory people that were doing an ultrasound on a mare. I watched that for a while, it was getting kind of old because that was the only thing going on in the Ambulatory where I was the week before. When they were done I went back to EMS, at that point the Dr’s were still in that meeting so Nathalie asked me if I wanted to see a ferrer at work. That sounded very interesting to me so we went to find him. When we found the ferrer, before I could go with him a professor was getting ready to demonstrate how to handle a horse.
This was an interesting thing to watch. This professor was explaining to us that whenever we approached a horse we were suppose to present ourselves to the animal by coming to his side and petting his neck. He told us not to touch the animals nose or front until you presented yourself. He showed us how to equip the animal and told us to always balance the horses legs before you can do anything to the animal and expect him to stay put while working on him. He also said not to expect a horse to stay in place for a very long time, because they are not use to that, in particularly if there are people around them poking them and doing various things to them. He also told us that the horses liked to be petted like dogs and cats, and that they didn’t like the tapping which people usually do to the horse as sign of affection. He talked us about his experience, and when he was done, I went back to the EMS and fallowed the vet techs. while they were doing a physical on a horse that just got in. The animal had problems with they knees, and they were trying to figure out what was going on.
Then when the Dr. came in to check on the horse, the vet techs were send to wash and do a physical on an other horse and I went with them to help them. I held the horse because we were told that we were not suppose to attach him to anything so to make things easier for the techs. I held him while they were washing him. We groomed the horse and then took him for a walk around the large animal clinic. He is suppose to go around 3 times a day to get his exercise. The story of this horse that we were taking care of was that the owners found the animals too smart for them, because he was capable of opening the doors of the stable himself, and closing them behind him so that the owners would think that he was still in there. He was also capable of turning on and off the lights and was very good at leaving the stable and escaping. So the original owners couldn’t stand it anymore and donated it do the vet clinic. When we were done with him we took him back to his cage.
As we were walking back to find Michelle, we came across a lady whose horse was suppose to be euthenised in the next couple min. She told us that she wanted the heart and the head cut off, and then she was going to cremate them and burry them with her mother, and the place where she was going to be buried herself. She also told us that she was going to ride that horse ones she gets to heaven and that the rest of us will walk and that she’ll make fun of us.
When the EMS called the necropsy department to see if that can be done today, they were told that If they wanted it done they needed to do it themselves. So Michelle took me and an other vet. Student to necropsy department to get it done. We equipped ourselves with plastic protections and got to work. I helped the student cut through the thoracic cage, and helped her crack the ribs and the heart out. I held the heart while she was cutting the vena cava which of course she did at the end because of the amount of blood that got out of it when she got that done. I also helped Michelle cut the throat of this animal, and pulled the head away from the body while she was cutting the spine. This was a very disturbing process for me because 10 min before that I was petting that horse and the next min I was helping cut his head off. That idea kind of got into me.
This was the last thing that I did, because it was 2:30 and I had to head out and take the bus back to the school.


::: posted by Una at 7:22 PM

 
April 17th

Fifth day of clinicals. We arrived to the University of Illinois at 8:30 am. We checked in with Lori like we do it all the time and waited for our contacts to come and pick us up. Toya and I were in the same department. Production Medicine/Theriogenology. (Ambulatory). Connie took us on her way to Food and Animal Surgery to where we were supposed to be. Our contact David Roth wasn’t there yet so we just sat around and waited. They had things happening but most of the groups have already left to their cite. At about 9:15-9:30 our contact came from his Dr. Appointment and took us to the equine farm where they were palpating mares. He told us that it was better for us if we saw something going on and not to be sitting around waiting for something to happen.
As we got there Dr. Lock took us with him and explained us what exactly they were doing. So the procedure of palpating is that they stick their hand in the mares anus and go down the rectum palpating the virgina and the ovaries. They are checking if the mares are ovulating, that will tell the vet if there are ready to be artificially inseminated. While they were doing that an other group was going to collect sperm from a stallion.
To do that they first clean the horses penis and they bring the mare in the room to tease him. She is kept on the side, while the veterinarian directs the stallion toward the dummy. As the horse jumps on top of the dummy they bring in the artificial virgina and direct the penis inside of it. First time they’ve done it, it wasn’t a success, so they had to redo it. The second time they got enough sperm so they let the stallion go and took the mare back out.
They brought the sperm inside the lab room, where they check under the microscope the life rate of the sperm and if it is a good rate they dilute it with a liquid so that they can inseminate as many mares as they can. They let me and Toya check the sperm under the microscope out. It was pretty interesting to see something alive on microscope, because we are use to watching cells and other dead things, and never actual live tissue.
An other Dr. was sowing the virgina of a mare up, because it’s anus isn’t far out like it is suppose to be so that when the animal poops or urinates it does it on it’s virgina and it puts bacteria in it and it can get it infected. So they cut into the virgina and then sow some of the opening up so that won’t happen. When the mare is having a baby, they have to take those stitches out.
Then they started artificially inseminating the mares. They do this the same way that they palpate them, except that they use a syringe and put a straw like tube on top of, direct it into the anus of the animal and to the ovaries. Then they squeeze the syringe and inject the sperm into the anima. At the end they squeeze air in so that no sperm will stay in the tube.
After they were done inseminating they cleaned everything up and we went back to the clinic. We took a lunch brake. They were suppose to have lambs with broken legs next but that was postponed till after the time that Toya and I leave. So when the lunch brake was over we just sat around and read magazines till it was time to go. At 2:30 we left to take the bus.




::: posted by Una at 7:21 PM

 
April 10th

We left the High School for the University of Illinois a little bit late because our bus was running 5 min late. Three of us took the bus this time, while the other two had to stay in class to take a Test. When we arrived in the office Lori called our contacts right away and it didn’t take them long to pick us up because there was only three of us.
This week I was in the Ophthalmology, and my contact was Shari Poruba. There were no appointments till 8:30pm, so I just sat in her office and read some articles about Ophtho.
Then at about 9:15 the senior students started coming and with them the first clients.
The first pt. was a male Chihuahua. It had a mass on the bottom of his lip as well as on the inside of his eye. The lip mass has been removed before but it came back, so now they are starting to think that something is going on . They decided to freeze the mass on the lip as well as the one inside the eye. While they were sending this dog to the anesthesiology to be sedated, it needed a dental as well so they were going to do everything at once. I fallowed them to the dentistry department to see the mass being frozen but because the preparation of the anesthesiology people was taking a little bit longer then they thought, two other senior student asked me if I wanted to fallow them and check things out with their client.
They were taking the case of the cat which was back for a check up. They had to do the same routine this time. What they do is they put a strip in the bottom of the eye, to check how much watering does the eye produce, then they put in an other strip with a dye on the end of it. They touch on the top of the eye and then rinse it off. Then they check if there are cuts and or lesions or scars on the eye, because the dye will stay and stain them if there are any. They also check the pressure of the eye, they did that using a tomometer which is a little device with which you can touch the eye until it reads the pressure. They tolld me that this little device cost as much as 3000$, and that was why small practices don’t have them. Then to finish the exam they dilate the eye, and they do that by putting a little drop inside the eye and leave it there for five minutes. When that time is up they put an other drop and after that they have to wait for fifteen minutes. During that time we went to see the Dr. which was suppose to check on this case. When the fifteen minutes have passed the dr. come back in with the students and looked through a device that looked like huge glasses, with thick lenses, and which was connected to the TV . There he watched the blood vessels as well as the nerve that is in the eye and if it’s shaped the right way. So the prognosis for this animal was good and it was send home, because there were no problems with him.
Right after that one of the students came to pick me up and took me to an other exam room where a little puppy was at. The dog had vision problems and it wasn’t able to see things in front of him, and would bump into basically everything that was on his way. He wouldn’t be able to see the people around him or any object as well. His breeders brought him in because the people to whom they have sold the dog too discovered the problems that the animal had. The breeders decided to do everything possible to help the dog here at the university and they would pay the bill. We dilated this dog’s eyes and went to see the dr. After 15 min have gone by the dr. looked the eyes and said that there was swelling in the back of the eye and that he thinks that they can use medication to make the swelling go away and hopefully that will take the problem away as well, they couldn’t take any other decision until the swelling was gone.
The next case was right after the puppy, it was a German shepherd that was there because it had some problems. The thing was this dog wouldn’t let anyone touch him unless it’s a specific dr. So the students after the first try had to give the dog up, because it was attacking everyone around.
So we left this dog with the Dr. and went to see Abby going home. Abby was the case of the year for the U of I. She had tumors coming and going and the last one was above her eye, and when they removed it, they had to remove a lot of her skin around the eye as well. To replace that they took some skin from her jaw and put it in that place. The whole thing worked perfectly fine and she was the famous dog of the place. One of the Dr.’s was even writing a book about her. She had her stitches taken out and the whole project looked perfectly well. Abby was a happy black lab.
The last case of the day, or cases should I say, was a breeder of labs. He took his best animals in for a check up so that he can breed them. They did eye check on each of the labs and they all passes except one. They had to check him up and see if everything was ok and that the little dot that the Dr. saw in his eye was nothing in particular.
After that I sat around, helped Shari with the computer problem that she was having and talked to the Dr.’s and the senior students. I didn’t see the time pass by and I was running late to take the bus so I hurried out at 2:40.



::: posted by Una at 6:31 PM

 
April 3rd

We got to the U of I today and Lori right away called our contacts. Mine today was Kim Kensell. My rotation was Emergency Room or (AIC). There was nothing to do when I got there so I just sat around with the senior students and talked to them. They were giving me advices of how to act and be when I start vet school, they told me to weight before I get my books, and told me which books were good and which they loved, and told me as well about those that I won’t ever use again if I by them.
Then at about 10 o clock the Dr. came in and they started talking about procedures done when a dog comes to the ER. He asked questions, and the procedures that he told us about were very similar to the ones done to the humans. Then when this rotation was over, a senior student showed me CPR on animals, chest compressions and such, they were joking and saying that that’s what I’ll be doing when all the cases of the day come in at ones.
First case was an old golden retriever that had lost weight. That was the main concern of the owner. The dog was very energetic, it was hard to believe that he was old. As they were doing physical exam, they found masses on some parts of this dogs anatomy. He had little bumps on his legs and back, some were new and some old. Bumps are normal for older dogs, they are usually fat underneath the skin. But at this point the Dr. wanted to check that it was in fact fat and not some kind of tumor so they decided to keep the dog in the clinic so that they can do all kinds of tests on him to see what in fact was wrong with him.
Second case was a dog that they were going to do a chest tap. Chest tap is when they get the fluid build up in the thoracic cage out with a syringe. When they found the place where the fluid was at, and started extracting it, they find out that the fluid which is normally light if not very clear, was very dark blood looking in this dog. They decided to take him to the radiology to take a radiograph of his thoracic cavity to see what exactly is going on in there. As I walked to the radiology with the senior student, she was telling me that when the veterinarian of this dog was getting the fluid out, the fluid was much clearer then it was when they were doing it. So they were worried of what was going on exactly in that dog’s chest. When we arrived to the radiology we equipped our selves with an apron and gloves and I helped the senior hold the dog in place while the radiograph was taken. The dog was very sick so we really didn’t have anything to do, he was letting us do whatever we wanted because he was feeling so bad. When we were done and the radiograph was brought to the front, they discovered a big tumor in this dogs chest. The tumor was just about of the size of the dogs heart. It was a very bad prognosis and the senior told me that she didn’t believe that this dog was going to live very long. The next step was going back to the ER and talking to the owner about the condition in which dog was in. The owners were really upset. We left the Dr. and the client talk and I fallowed an other student that had a chowchow that was paralyzed from the back legs down. He wasn’t quiet paralyzed but he couldn’t use them either. His nerves were working when the senior student pinched them, but the dog couldn’t stand up. We were told that he was an outside dog and that they found him one day just sitting like that outside and crying. He wasn’t able to do anything else, he was dragging his behind with his front legs.
When we got the Dr. to come in and she did all the same examinations, they decided that there were two options. One was that the dogs disk was ruptured and that it was causing that paralysis, the only problem with this was that this condition was very painful and that the dog wouldn’t be moving around like this one was doing. This dog didn’t look in pain at all so the Dr. decided that she didn’t believe that that was the case but that they were going to check it anyways. The second one was that this dog gets a nervous problem that this type of dog gets all the time, no one knows why does it exactly occur but it occurs and the only way to treat it is to put the dog in a cage and leave it in for several weeks. The Dr. decided to do some more tests before she can decide what exactly to do and she told the owners that she was going to call them and talk to them about the whole thing.
We went back to the ER room just in time for me to help the owners of the little tumor dog check out. I carried the dog out while they were writing the check to the front desk. When they left it was time for me to leave as well so I went to the ER room and said bye to Kim and hurried back to the bus because I was running late.



::: posted by Una at 6:03 PM

 
March 27

Third Day of Clinicals was on Wednesday March 27. It was an interesting and eventful day. As we arrived to the Small Animal Clinic of the University of Illinois, we told our driver to come back by 2:30pm to pick us up. We went up stairs so that Lori the secretary in the main office can call our contacts for the day. Kristie Stasi was my contact person, and we were heading off to Small Animal Medicine (general).
For the first two hours we weren’t’ doing anything because there was nothing going on and my contact had something to do so she took me to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) where I stayed till about 9:15am. There they showed me around a little, one lady told me to read charts before she starts going on morning rounds for the animals that were there. After she was done she went around and told me a little bit about each animal and what kind of fluids and machines they were hooked up to. She also showed me a dog that had a brain tumor that had been removed, but when they have send the dog home he started having seizures so the owner brought the dog back. They realized that there were pockets of air in the brain left after the surgery so they went back in to remove those. After the surgery the dog was having seizures all the time, so they had to help him out by changing his body position every hour. At this point it was 9:15 and Kristie came to get me to take me to the rounds.
As the rounds started one of the student had a case that was suppose to be going under a nuclear injection type of testing at 10 so I didn’t stay in the rounds very long. What they did to that dog was injecting a nuclear liquid inside of his column and tracing on the screen where did the liquid go. The normal thing to happen is that the liquid goes to every organ in the body and shows the flow of blood. This dog had a shunt, which is his blood goes straight to the heart and no blood goes to the liver. Because the blood then is not detoxified it slowly kills the animal. Shunts are a birth defects and usually can be find when the dog is a puppy and repaired, but this dog was 3years old and for him they were not sure what they can do. We brought this dog back to his cage and at that point we met with a girl that was going to Ultrasound to see how everything is going with her cases dogs stomach. The dog had symmetrical masses formed on his front and back legs, his ears and underneath the eyes. They were not sure what those masses were so they were checking on ultra sound if any of the organs looked abnormal. They decided that everything look ok in the ultrasound.
At this point it was about 12. We went back to the conference room and talked about what each of the senior student was going to do later, the jobs that they got and the side of country where they are going to live. Tracy came then and asked me if I wanted to see a bronchioscopy to which of course I said yes and fallowed her to the room. There on the table was a 12 year old dog. He had problems breathing so they went in to see what was going on. As they were putting the little camera down this tiny dogs trachea, we could see the walls of bronchi crashing every time the dogs took a breath and that was a bad sign. The dr. told me that there wasn’t much that they can do for this dog. He was too old for surgery and they really couldn’t repair much. They decided to give him medication which will relax the animal a little and that always helps. Because the dogs body temperature was going down, they hurried to take him off of everything and put him in ICU in on of the oxygen cages, where the dog is getting only purified oxygen to help him recuperate from the bronchioscopy.
In the last 30min that I had left at the U of I, I fallowed Brad to his appointment. He had a Hound that apparently had a long history of problems, and this time was back for a liver problem that he seemed to be having. Brad wasn’t very comfortable with carrying a conversation with the client and the lady was very interested about the program that my school was having and the way that I can come to the U of I and do my shadowing every Wednesday so I chatted with her while Brad was examining the dog. The dog looked normal except the little mass that was formed on his ear and the fact that he was loosing weight for a period of time. When we were going to see the Dr. responsible for this case, Brad told me that he thinks that there is a possible liver infection going on, but that he wanted to check with the Dr. on that one. At that point it was 2:30 and time for me to leave. This day was very interesting, full of surprises and knowledge that I hope to keep and carry throughout the vet school.



::: posted by Una at 5:34 PM

Wednesday, March 20, 2002 :::
 
Here we go again, for the new adventures. Second day of Clinicals. The most exciting day of my life.
We started off by being very early at the Small Animal Clinic. It’s Spring Brake, so the bus driver was able to pick us up on time. We actually had a very nice driver. He told us that he respected our decision to become veterinarians and that he has the greatest amount of respect toward that profession. I am very happy to hear that, because I know that not a lot of people do so. It’s a shame, because just like doctors, police men, firefighters, or any other kind of profession that saves lives, veterinarians do so all the time.
We got into the Small Animal Building at about 8:30am. My contact person this time was Connie Arnold, a technician of the Food Animal Medicine and Surgery Department. That is where I went today. Connie came to pick me up and we headed down to the Department. As we were walking through the numerous hallways, she explained to me what was going on there that day. When we got there, Connie gave me a tour of the Department, presented me the little calf with a broken leg, as well as to the cow that was suppose to have surgery of her stomach that day. She also showed me two beautiful Lamas. She introduced me to the students that were doing the cases in the clinic that day and left me with them for the rotations.
Rotations consisted of each student talking about their cases. Explaining what was the case about as well as telling what kind of treatment was done to the particular animal. There were four students working four cases.
We started by talking about the little calf. It was about 2 months old and had a broken leg. They had to put a cast up to the fracture line, and the rest was immobilized with an instrument that went around his thy and underneath his inner leg. Because the student that had put the cast on the animal, made it too tight, the leg was hurt, and they’ll have to take the cast off so that they can repair it.
Then the conversation went toward a cow that had her stomach on the wrong side. Usually a cow will have a stomach on the right side; this one had it on the left. So the cow was going to be prepared for surgery and undergo it at about 1 o’clock.
The next case was of the cow that had twins. One of the twins was turned upside down and the owner wanted to make sure that it didn’t hurt the cow. It is very bad when a dairy cow has twins because it can rupture the insides of it and kill it.
The third case was of the cow that had pneumonia. One of the ways that you can see that the cow has pneumonia is the way they carry themselves. They will tilt their head very high and try to be as near water as they possibly can, if they are inside of the building and if the building has an air conditioning they’ll try to stick their heads up to it. They gave her all kinds of medications for that. Penicillin was one of them, as well as antibiotics to help it kill of the bacteria.
The last case was the most interesting; it had to do with the Lamas. They had an affection of their back teeth which was causing them to have an access of saliva. It was a bacterial infection so they were also given antibiotics.
When they finished talking about the cases, we left to check up on them. First thing I fallowed the student that was on the case of the two Lamas. While they were checking up on them I got to hold the Lama that wasn’t as bad as the other one. It was a great experience because I have never been this close to a Lama. I’ve seen them in a Zoo more then ones but never got a chance to approach them this close, never got a chance to touch them, much less to inspect them with the vet. It was so exciting. As they were finishing with Lamas we passed on to the little calf. I got to distract it while the student was checking up on him. It was so cute because the baby wouldn’t stop licking me :).
Then Connie came to pick me up so that I can go see the surgery of the cow. They washed the cow’s stomach off with disinfectant. It was then transported, or I better say pushed to the surgery room. There I watched the anesthesiology student give it 4 shots into the nerves of the skin, because the skin is the only place where the cow actually feels the pain, the rest she has senses but not the pain ones.
I went to get dressed and the surgery started. They started cutting layers and layers of skin first and then muscles. When they got through so that the cow had a hole in her stomach region, you could hear gas getting out. Before they started the actual surgery, each student got to put their hand inside the cow and feel the organs. They even got the small intestines and large intestines out for me to see. It was neat to see the size of those, next to the one of our little cat that we are doing in anatomy. When they finished that inspection they started the real surgery.They found the sack where the rest of the gas was, and they pumped it out. They attached the wall of the stomach to the skin so that it doesn’t move back again to the wrong side. They sow everything back together and transported the caw back to her stable. She felt great right after she got off from the cart, and I was informed that she can start eating right away just as if nothing had happened.
By then it was time to go, but before I did so Connie took me to see the horses :), as well as the cow with the window on her abdomen. It was really neat to see. From then she showed me the way back to the office and she went back to the surgery, and I to grab my coat. This day will always stay in my memory as the best day ever. I don’t think that I will get to be this close to Lamas ever again… It’s going to stick with me for years to come. One thing, after the surgery, I find out that I will never be able to eat again. If when I start Vet school I start loosing weight very fast, that will be because of what I said above :). I can’t wait next Wednesday, hopefully it will be as much fun as today..



::: posted by Una at 3:12 PM

Friday, March 15, 2002 :::
 
First day of Clinicals. Best day of my life. We got into the Small Animal Clinic of the University of Illinois at about 8:30am. We found our way to the main office where we got our schedule for the next 12 weeks. One of the secretaries showed me the way to the anesthesiology, where my first clinicals were going to be. There my contact who was Lucy Remillard, showed me around a little, and explaining to me the plans of the day. At about 10:00am things started happening. The case that I was fallowing was of a 7 year old cat, Molly. She had a tumor on her lip and was going in for a surgery. They were going to cut the tumor out and then saw the lips together, so that now Molly’s nose is a little bit to the side. While they were doing the surgery Jodi, the student that I was with, was showing me how to work the machines which were checking the vital signs of the cat. Molly had a little problem breathing, her breaths were to fast and not deep enough, but that wasn’t a big problem. Jodi would give her a breath every ones in a while just to make sure that all of the gas build up in her blood will be washed away. This surgery lasted for about 4h. When all of that was done, we came back to the anesthesiology room where I joined my Lucy again. At that point there were preparations for an other cat, which was suppose to get neutered, declawed, and the infection that had a build up of liquid in his ear removed. I met a lot of interesting students, that explained to me all kinds of surgeries that there are as well as everything that I need to know when I start college. I really loved this day. I knew that i loved this profession but now, today in particularly i can't wait to start, i can't wait to be a vet…I can’t wait till next Wednesday.

::: posted by Una at 7:24 PM