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