ER vet

Apologies for being a bit out of the loop lately. What with traveling and working at an emergency centre doing night-work it's been pretty flat out. Emergency work is both exciting and terrifying. Exciting because I might finally have the toys I need to actually treat some emergency cases, terrifying because I probably won't know how to use them! 

As if in response to my future as an ER vet, the past couple of weeks have kept me busy with common emergencies, almost as if to prepare me for my new job. I've had a C-section, dogfight stitch-up, poisoning, GDV (twisted stomach in a large dog) and removal of a splenic tumour the size of a rock-melon from the abdomen of an Alsation. Phew!

GDV's are particularly nasty and I always warn owners that it's a 50:50 chance as you never know how much damage has already been done. What added to the pressure this time was that it was one of our nurses' dogs, and my favorite dog of the bunch! Luckily she got the dog to us at the first sign of trouble and I am convinced that the timing of presentation is the most critical factor in the survival of these cases. That, and having three vets and two nurses involved in the operation!

Look into my eyes!

The best thing about this job is that just when you've had enough at the end of a long day, someone comes along and makes you laugh. My favorite consult of the day - the woman who insisted on staring into her rabbits eyes for a full minute before putting it on the table in order to 'calm him down'. Which was when my nurse walked in and stood there wondering what the hell we were doing standing silently staring at a rabbit cradled in its owner's arms.

I've heard of chickens being hypnotised but this was the first time I'd seen it tried on a rabbit!

(Oh, and it lasted all of ten seconds until the vaccination needle hit the skin.)

VET not snake-catcher!

So I had someone call me after 8pm on the emergency line last night about an adder that was caught up in some packing tape and they were worried that it might be dehydrated. Now I will see someone's pet snake IF I HAVE TO and only if they can guarantee that the snake is not poisonous. Unravelling a wild poisonous adder from packing tape however is NOT part of my job description. 

I asked the client if he as able to catch it safely. 

"Well, we have caught it," he replied. "It's in the packing tape."

"And you can't safely release it?" I asked.

"No, that's why I'm calling the vet. It's only a small one!"

So if it's so small and safe then why don't you do it!? I wanted to ask. Instead I replied that I was did not have the gear to deal with snakes safely and nicely suggested that he look in the yellow pages to call a qualified snake catcher. And yes, you probably will have to pay for their services!

Ticked off

There are many things I miss about Australia but the one thing I certainly don't miss is tick paralysis. The Australian Paralysis Tick causes progressive ascending paralysis that starts with weakness in the back end leading to a wobbly gait which progresses to paralysis that can eventually involve the respiratory system, resulting in death due to asphyxiation (not a nice way to go). We also found that smaller dogs would more often present with a history of coughing and 'vomiting', often before any signs of leg weakness. This is actually regurgitation caused by paralysis of the muscles responsible for swallowing and can often result in pneumonia even once the initial toxicity is treated. In the US, removing the tick will often prevent further toxin release and the animal should recover. Unfortunately in Australia an anti-toxin is required to mop up any toxin in the system before it binds to receptors and causes further damage, resulting in further deterioration despite having removed the tick, which is why it is so important to administer it as early as possible.

Now it was easy enough to know what to do if the owner was aware of the high risk area in which we lived or brought the tick in to be identified, but often we would have visitors from other states who had no idea about the prevalence of tick paralysis on the east coast. Although it is relatively safe to give the anti-toxin to an animal who is not suffering tick paralysis, it is also pretty expensive and one has to think twice before giving it to a large dog. So I had to become pretty adept at spotting the difference between a 'lame' animal and one that was in the early stages of paralysis. Luckily these ticks like to hang around in specific spots on the animal, and with a bit of practice one can become pretty quick at finding the little suckers.

So when an old lab who already suffered from arthritis came in with the complaint that he had 'hurt his leg' and couldn't stand up my alarm bells started ringing. As luck would have it I found a tick while playing with his ears as I was talking to the owner, which gave me an immediate diagnosis. He was duly admitted for treatment and kept overnight for monitoring (as there was always a chance of deterioration in the 12 hours following treatment). The following morning he still was unable to rise, despite being bright and alert and gobbling down his breakfast without any trouble swallowing.

I have seen cases where the muscle weakness caused by the tick paralysis exacerbates underlying arthritis, and so gave him a shot of pain relief. My boss then carried him over to the tick bath (to ensure there were no remaining nasties) and then carted him back to his cage. Where he promptly jumped off his bed and waddled over to his food bowl. Whether it was the pain relief or the fact that a potentially full food bowl was on the other side of the cage, he'd made a spectacular recovery and I was stoked. My boss however, was not impressed that he's had to carry a 40kg lab back and forth! Cheeky bugger.

9 to 5 job - what's that?

So far the comment of the week came from a pug breeder who had taken 4 hours to decide to finally allow us to take her whelping bitch to surgery. By this time it was 7pm (we closed at 6:30pm) and she asked if she could wait in the waiting room as "it will only take about half an hour won't it?"

Well, yes, the surgery itself will take about 30-45 minutes, but if you would like us to anaesthetise her first before slicing her open, clip and sterilise the site, and allow her enough time to regain consciousness, then you're looking at a minimum of 2 hours. All of this I said in my head of course, while my actual reply consisted of, "No, it will take a bit longer than that. She should be ready to go home by about 9pm."

"Oh," the unperturbed breeder replies, "well I guess I'll go home and have dinner. I suppose we've ruined your night though!" she laughs good-naturedly.

Had to grit my teeth in a grimace of a smile to avoid saying, "Well, yes, actually you have and I might have been able to have dinner tonight as well if you had just brought her in at 5pm like I advised in the first place!"

And that is what emergency after-hours surgical fees are for...now if only that money actually made its way into my pocket!

Slippery customers

I recently had my first UK snake bite victim brought in - a big boofhead of a golden retriever who had stuck his nose in the wrong place. He came bouncing in happy as larry, the only evidence of his tangle with the angry adder: a swollen nose. His owner insisted that he had done it on purpose, as he was due to be castrated the following day and now the surgery was to be put off for a couple of weeks to be on the safe side.
"Bloody men will do anything eh!"
Well, I'm sure that most guys out there would agree.
So he was sent home with anti-inflammatories & anti-histamines and a disgruntled owner.

He had the last laugh in the end. On the morning of the dreaded surgery his owner rang up.
"We're going to be a little late. My husband took him for a walk and he managed to find a bitch on heat and is currently tied!" (The dog that is, not the husband...this is not that kind of blog!)

Well, I guess you can't blame the poor guy for having one last desperate attempt to hang on to his manhood!

Traffic Jam

I was told that the English saw standing in a queue as a hobby, but didn't realise how true that was until I made the mistake of visiting a safari park on a sunny bank holiday. We knew it would be busy and made sure to put on our 'patient faces' while sitting in line in the car and slowly moving through the park. We finally cracked though, when we accidentally turned into the deer feeding paddock. Having both worked as vets in New Zealand where we routinely handled deer, we weren't really interested in seeing the deer, but didn't realise that we could skip the section until we saw the guy behind us drive straight on as we made the grave error of turning into the deer paddock. Where we proceeded to sit in a 2 lane TRAFFIC JAM for OVER AN HOUR. Bear in mind it would take about 5 minutes to drive through the paddock if there were no traffic. And we didn't even have any snacks.


The only thing that kept us sane was watching the poor family stuck in the car behind us as the father grumbled at his wife, and laughing at another father holding his little daughter up for a wee as the interminable wait had become too much for her poor little bladder to bear. I was jealous as my poor little bladder was also struggling by that time.

So the moral of the story? Never drive into an area where there are animals prancing up to the side of cars looking cute and begging for food unless you are prepared to be there for a while...or enjoy standing in line like a true Brit.

Friday night consults

Note to all animal owners out there - if you really want to get to the bottom of your animal's skin or ear condition that's been going on for the past four years - do NOT book a 10 minute consult on a Friday night at 6:45pm before the bank holiday weekend. After 20 morning consults, 4 surgeries, 2 dentals, countless phone calls & referrals, 30 minutes on the phone fighting with the red tape that is banking bureaucracy and 10 evening consults...this is NOT the time to try to address your animal's chronic poorly managed skin condition.

In an ideal world several skin scrapings and hair pluckings would be taken, along with extensive history including all food eaten in the past 6 months, and a thorough physical exam possibly including blood tests. In the real world on a Friday night you will get steroids, a medicated shampoo and a flea treatment and told to come back in a week. NEXT!!!

VAVs

My sympathy goes out to all the VAVs (Victim's of Volcanic Ash) who are trying to get home, and even more so to all the poor people working at the airport and copping all the flack from angry passengers.

On the other hand, having just booked a flight to Newcastle for the bank holiday and another to Egypt for the near future, all I can say is...THEY BETTER NOT BUMP ME NOW!

It's not the size that counts

I had a "giant" of a dog brought in for his first puppy vaccination today. After seeing the name "Zeus" on the clipboard, I was naturally expecting a Great Dane, Mastiff or similar sized pup. Instead, I was greeted by a ball of energy in the form of a Mini-Foxy. Should've seen it coming really.

The owner pointed out a spot on its back that was shaped like a duck and I exclaimed without thinking (one of my poorer habits), "Oh, why didn't you call him Ducky?" (which I thought was more appropriate).
"Well," she replied, "I wanted to, but my grandson decided he needed a STRONG name."

Since most foxies seem to think they are just big dogs trapped in a small dog's body (the classic dog version of "small man's syndrome") I suppose it was appropriate after all!

Chocolate Labradors

Ah Easter...the time of bunnies, Easter eggs, chocolate, and of course, chocolate poisonings in dogs...usually labradors, the food addicts of the dog world. We often get phone-calls from panicked owners about dogs having eaten one or two Easter eggs. These are usually false alarms as the eggs are mostly milk chocolate, and it takes a lot more chocolate than people realise to poison a dog.

That was, however, until a one year old Lab was brought in as he had managed to polish off an A4 sized one inch deep container FULL of chocolate (including one of those dark rabbit chocs) sometime during the night. The kids were not happy at having lost all their Easter treats and their mother was not happy at having grumpy kids and a hyperactive lab on her hands.

Now the active ingredient, theobromine, causes hyperactivity, increased heart rate, vomiting & diarrhoea, heart irregularities and seizures resulting in death. Essentially it's the equivalent of giving a kid a whole lot of sugar mixed in with caffeine and energy drinks, and then releasing it into a funpark.
So when the lab arrived bouncing off the walls, it was understandably difficult to examine. He had already vomited a couple of times, purging some of the chocolate, but now needed further treatment to ensure he wouldn't absorb any more toxin. I sedated him so that he wouldn't be ricocheting off the walls of his cage and, once he had calmed down a bit, re-examined him. Even his breath smelled of chocolate as he happily panted in my face! He was doing well so we decided to give him a small feed containing activated charcoal (just in case). Unfortunately this stimulated the gastrocolic reflex...i.e. he suddenly needed to poo. ALL OVER THE PREP ROOM FLOOR. All I can say is that I have NEVER smelt anything like it - it was like pure chocolate! We frantically scrambled to prevent him from treading in it as he spun around depositing his little chocolate surprises all over the floor, trying not to fall over laughing as we did so.

I suppose it could have been worse as he could have eaten fish or something equally horrible, but it was enough to put us off chocolate for a while. Which meant that no one was interested in the chocolates dropped off by a client that morning...well, not until the smell of chocolate had been cleared from the air...

To the pub!

After a rough week last week (and it was only four days!) a few of the girls from work & I decided to hit the local pub on Friday night. It was only a few yards away down the lane so was nice and close to home.

After nattering away over a couple of drinks telling disaster work stories & comparing crazy clients (as vets & nurses & I'm sure many other professions do), we bundled out into the dark to stagger home. As I passed a couple of guys propping up the bar I heard one of them remark, "Those are some of the girls from '_______ Vets'.

Hmmm, perhaps our local is a bit too local! In the future I guess we will have to be a bit more careful about our conversations or else find a pub a little further away. Ah small towns.

My Little Pony

During my first week on the job I had to rush out to an early morning horse colic as the on-call vet was already at another call. Upon arrival I drove past several very flash cars parked outside a mansion of a house, stables that were more impressive than most houses in NZ, and a horse truck that I would be happy to call home. The horse in question was a stunning animal with a long history of colic episodes that had been treated surgically in the past. Luckily he wasn't too bad and responded well to the pain relief medication administered.

I had an inkling that there was a bit of money involved (wonder what gave it away?), but was glad that it wasn't until I returned from the call that the vet chose to inform me of how much the horse was really worth. Let's just say it's more than I would spend on a house...or two. So much for the "country hacks and pleasure horses" I was told I'd be treating!

It's the UK baby!

I apologise for the long delay on blog updates. I have recently moved to the UK to do the mandatory "Overseas Experience" all Kiwis and Aussies need to do at least once in their lifetimes. In the past month or so I've been rushing around organising my new job, bank account, insurance against angry clients and roof over my head. Then I had to get used to all the new drug names, procedures and, worst of all, COMPUTER SYSTEMS in my new clinic. It's been three weeks and I'm finally starting to get the hang of it.

Things I've discovered during my first three weeks in the UK:
- Just because some people speak "English" doesn't mean I will necessarily understand a word they're saying.
- When two kiwi vets go out to a farm together, we WILL be compared to the cast of "Neighbours"...they are AUSTRALIAN, people!
- UK TV is as rubbish as Kiwi & Aussie - same crap reality shows, different accents
- DO NOT wear a bright red ski jacket in central London unless you want to stand out like Rudolph's nose.
- Catching the tube is a piece of piss, just make sure you know how to get through the turnstiles when you get off.
- Cops are not amused when you take photos of their machine guns because "it's like being back in Africa".
- The cost of food is inversely proportional to the number of calories in it.
- Even teeny tiny towns will have so much traffic that at 5pm you will need a traffic light just to cross the road.
- It is possible to get stuck in a four-storey shop and not be able to find the exit...like a rat in a trap...
- I miss the sun, sea and surf already BUT the pubs are AWESOME and on a cold, wet day I now understand why everyone can be found in one of these warm sanctuaries of beer and pies...

So just in case animals weren't scared enough of the clinic, we found this on the door recently:

And to top it all off, we discovered this when we got back from a weekend away:


I guess geckos are not as quick as they think...

Doctor Death

The other morning I had to rush out to pick up a dog that had collapsed and whose owners were unable to bring it to the clinic as they didn't own a car. When I arrived, expecting to see a dog flat on the floor, I was greeted by the most overweight 2 year old Staffie-cross that I had ever seen. It waddled up to me, tail wagging and gasping for breath (not unusual for obese dogs). The owners were now rethinking their decision to have him taken to the clinic.
"Oh, he seems fine now!"
I had a quick look at the dog's gums, which were WHITE.
"Um, no, I think I'd better get him to the clinic. There is something wrong here."
That was when they mentioned that he had been off his food for the past THREE WEEKS - and for this dog to be off his food there must have been something SERIOUSLY wrong. The owner had been forcing food down his throat for the past three days as he had gone completely anorexic - never a good sign. They then also mentioned that "oh, and he's been having intermittent seizures since he's been a pup" but they'd never had it looked into. Great.

So I hefted (and I mean HEFTED) the dog into the boot of my car and drive the five minute trip back to the clinic. I ran into the clinic to get a nurse to give me a hand bringing the dog in as there was no way I would be able to lift it out of my car again, but it was already too late. The poor bugger had died on the way to the clinic and it was too late to try CPR or adrenalin or any of those last ditch attempts at clawing an animal back from the edge of life. It was only then that I realised that these were the clients whose bird had died during a nail clip (Oct 2009 - Ornithophobia).

And to them I will now forever be known as "Doctor Death."

Not such a sweetie

We had a cute little baby possum brought in today. Well, it was cute, until you tried to touch it, when it hissed like a rattlesnake and attempted to savage anything that came near it. I quickly pronounced it "fine" and the wildlife carers were called. I asked the woman who brought it in where she'd found it.
"Attached to the cat's neck," she replied, "by it's teeth!"
That poor cat must have go the fright of its nine lives when this seemingly innocuous "mouse" turned into a tiny toothed terror! I had to laugh.

For the birds

You may have noticed in past posts a reference to my slight aversion to birds and may be wondering where it all started. Or not, but I am going to tell you anyway.

It all began at the tender age of six, when I was in some sort of zoo or park (the mind dims with old age) and was mugged by a goose which bit my finger and stole my toy block (ah the days before gameboy or PSP or whatever they are now).

I tried to get over it by owning a budgie, but in hindsight probably should have splurged the $10 at the pet store buying a tame one instead of catching one from the roof of the neighbour's house. She turned out to be the most vicious, psychotic bird I've met and would hang upside down from her perch screeching like a banshee. That and the fact that she regularly drew blood from any unwary fingers coming too close to her cage as well as living for what felt like forever (6 years is a long time to have a devil-bird in your room watching you sleep through the cracks in the sheet over the cage and making ominous low chirping noises) convinced me that she was half budgie-half vampire.

Then I arrived at University to discover that there were swans living around the pond outside the vet block and, at certain times of the year when the males were, lets call it "frisky", we would have have to run the gauntlet to get to and from class. This consisted of waiting until a small group of people had arrived at one end of the bridge and then making a dash for the other side with a hissing, flapping black male swan flying out from nowhere to challenge the unwanted intruders. It was not long until he was "relocated". I never did check if the on-campus students were served "chicken" for dinner that week.

But my tale cannot end without mentioning why I am especially nervous around chickens, apart from their beady little eyes and ominous "quaaarrrrkkk..." emerging from the bushes as you walk obliviously past their jealously guarded nests, before your ankles are attacked by a furiously windmilling ball of feathers, beak and clawed feet. No, this tale begins at an ex-boyfriend's place where his parents owned bantam chickens. One of the chickens had a habit of jumping on the windowsill and tapping on the window demanding to be fed. Now, I've never been a fan of being at the beck and call of any animal, let alone an animal that might well be my dinner one day, and it was even worse when she trained her little male chicken to do exactly the same thing. He was even tamer than his mother, to the point where he would to sit on my boyfriend's mother's shoulder. She would then bring the bird into the house and plop him on my shoulder like a parrot, where he would sit staring at me with his sharp little beak inches away from my unprotected eyeball.
"Haha, very cute," I would say, whilst shooting meaningful glances in the direction of my boyfriend that said, "Get this bloody bird off my shoulder before I lose an eye!"
One day I was sitting on the deck and our fluffy half-grown little friend jumped onto a small table next to me. I looked at it warily as it eyed my shoulder.
"Careful!" smiled my boyfriend from the steps, "He'll try to jump on your shoulder!"
"What?" I said, taking my eyes of the bantam chick for ONE SECOND. With a feral squawk that shot terror into my heart it FLEW at my head and landed with one foot in my hair and one clawed foot firmly embedded in my shoulder.
"Get it off, get it OFF!" I screeched, grabbing the madly flapping bird and throwing it to the ground, where it shook the dust out of its feathers and glowered at me with its beady little eyes while my loving partner rolled around on the ground laughing his arse off.
"Oh shut up and chase him away before he tries it again," I said grumpily as the cheeky beggar started hopping up the stairs towards me (they must be like cats, the less you want them around the more attention they seek).
He grabbed a coal scuttle and tried to shoo it away but, instead of running off like a NORMAL chicken, it ATTACKED THE COAL SCUTTLE. My brave boyfriend actually backed away from it for a few steps until he heard me laughing at him running away from a chicken (what does that make him then?) and gave it a small whack with the scuttle, whereby it finally realised that he was actually bigger and stronger than it and took off with a angry squawk.

So, it seems that while many birds seem to have a tendency to freak out and die when I handle them; the remainder seem to have one purpose in life, and that is to freak ME out. I rest my case.

Paranoid rantings

Last weekend I went for a walk along the "Tanglewood Track" in Noosa National Park. My parents were worried about me wandering around the park on my own as a woman had been raped in the past in a remote area of the park. Now this didn't deter me since if I didn't go to places just because they "might" have rapists lurking around every corner, I would be stuck in my room watching reruns of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and drinking rum and coke.

So I went for the walk during a busy time of day on a popular track, constantly aware of the ever-present danger of potential rapists hiding behind every rock and tree. I scoped out escape routes and made sure I had enough energy in reserve to knee someone in the groin and run away (which is about the extent of my self-defense knowledge). All completely unnecessary as the only guy I saw that looked like a potential rapist turned out to have a baby strapped to his back and his partner lagging behind. That's the last time I listen to my mum's paranoid rantings.

Who needs a degree?

Now I've heard it all.

A woman rang up today to ask for some advice. She had "diagnosed" a heart "arrhythmia" in her dog (the nurse forgot to ask if she had a stethoscope or had just pressed her ear against the poor animals chest) and had been treating it with her father's medication (goodness knows what he now had to use). But wait, there's more. Now the dog was bleeding from its nose and she wanted to know if it was related to the medication!

As you have probably figured out by the fact that she had self-diagnosed and self-treated the dog, she was NOT a client of ours and was probably a few sandwiches short of a picnic. As she was using a human drug that we had never heard of before, we told her that she would need to ring the pharmacist who had prescribed the medication and ask them. The receptionist also suggested she try Googling the drug (which is what I do all the time). "Oh no!" she replied, "the Internet is full of rubbish!" She then proceeded to lecture the poor receptionist on a book called "MIMS" which is a drug book used by medical personnel and which I have sitting on my bookshelf. The receptionist refrained from asking her where she had got her medical degree (this is why I don't deal with the "difficult" clients) and said, "That's nice, we suggest you call the pharmacist or bring the dog in for us to check out." Now I could do a bit of research and find out but to be honest I had a busy morning clinic full of people who had bothered to take the time to bring their animals to the vet and I really did not have time to waste on someone who thought they knew best.

The receptionist later came in to tell me that the woman was on the phone again, having ascertained from the pharmacist that the drug in question would indeed have an anti-coagulant effect (i.e. it can cause BLEEDING!!) BUT, and here's the kicker, she thought that the dog may also have an "aneurysm" in its nose. By now I realised that we were dealing with a level 5 crazy person and told the nurse that unless we EXAMINED the dog, there was nothing we could do and I was not prepared to give advice over the phone because if anything else went wrong it would be my arse on the line. She came back to tell me that the woman did not want to bring the dog in, she just wanted to know what she could do at home. Surprise, surprise.
Apparently the chemist had told her to "hold the dog's nose shut."
Oh for the love of all that is small and furry! How long are you planning on sitting around blocking the poor animals nose shut? Not to mention the fact that the blood can just go down the OTHER WAY into the throat and you're not actually dealing with the fact that there is something potentially serious going on to cause the bleeding!

The nurse had already advised the woman that this was not going to deal with the underling problem (which was HER, I commented), but she still refused to bring the dog in to see us. I thought that was the end of it when the nurse said that before she could hang up the woman just had one more question and I was going to love it.
"Sooo, should I skip her dose tonight then?"

I....GIVE...UP!!!

Geophagy

As vets we are exposed to all sorts of bugs, germs and parasites, some of which can cause serious disease (such as Leptospirosis causing liver or kidney failure, Rabies, or nasty bacterial infections from bite wounds). There has been increasing paranoia about working with horses in Queensland due to the resurgence of cases of Hendra virus, which I have luckily managed to avoid by referring any dodgy sounding cases to the "equine specialist" down the road (hey, he wanted to specialise in horses!).

I often joke that I should de-worm myself more often, but "my tapeworm keeps me skinny". Apparently it can also keep me healthy according to articles I have been reading on the "hygiene hypothesis".

In medicine, the hygiene hypothesis states that a lack of early childhood exposure to infectious agents, symbiotic microorganisms (e.g., gut flora or probiotics), and parasites increases susceptibility to allergic diseases by modulating immune system development. Scientists speculate that young children's habit of putting everything in their mouths (and I mean EVERYTHING, kids are gross) helps to stimulate their immune system, and thereby reduce the development of auto-immune disorders. Essentially what this means is that in a sterile environment where anti-bacterial soaps kill EVERYTHING, the immune system gets bored and decides to defend the body against itself...sometimes the immune system can be pretty dumb.

They've found that people in undeveloped countries where parasitism is more common, have fewer auto-immune disorders such as asthma and gut problems. Sure, they have all sorts of other issues related to parasites, but that's just because they aren't using the RIGHT ones. Helminthic therapy is the treatment of autoimmune diseases and immune disorders by means of deliberate infestation with a helminth (worm) or with the ova (egg) of a helminth. Helminthic therapy is currently being studied as a promising treatment for several (non-viral) autoimmune diseases including Crohn's disease, multiple sclerosis, asthma, and ulcerative colitis. Autoimmune liver disease has also been demonstrated to be modulated by active helminth infections.

Which is all pretty interesting really. I found a photo the other day which explains why I never had any problems with immune-mediated diseases.


As you can see, my mum was way ahead of the times. Thanks mum.

Off-road...literally

I recently completed a 4WD course and it got me thinking about all the times I could have used a 4WD on my first job, where I was expected to drive some pretty dodgy roads in a 2WD truck (especially in winter in New Zealand when everything is covered in mud).

Like the time my colleague and I had to pull over to allow a truck to pass on a narrow farm road and, despite the fact that I specifically kept two wheels on the road, managed to get stuck. Luckily I wasn't on my own and my colleague had enough muscles to get us back on track. Though she wasn't too happy about getting covered in mud as the wheels sought traction in the wet ground.

Or the time I was directed into a sheep yard which was only covered in about 2 inches of mud, but felt the wheels start to spin and had to do a very rapid turn and fishtail straight back out again before getting stuck, scattering mud-spattered sheep and shepherds as I went.

The icing on the cake however, was when I was directed down the wrong road in the middle of nowhere only to find it ending in a deep mud pit. Unable to turn around, I had to reverse carefully back down the road. On one side was a steep embankment (more of a cliff-face) and on the other, an equally steep, muddy slope dropping about 2-3 storeys into a yard, also filled with mud. As I reversed, my mantra was, "Don't hit the edge, don't hit the edge!" As though this was more a prophecy rather than warning, I felt my rear tyre slip ever so slightly downwards.
"Oh crap!" I yelled and slammed the gears into first in a desperate attempt to halt the slow downward slide. But it was too late, the truck was sliding on the slick clay and all I could do was clutch the steering wheel helplessly and hope like hell it wasn't going to roll. Actually, I even recall thinking, "Hmmm, always wondered what it would be like to roll a truck!"

I had plenty of time to contemplate my impending doom as it all seemed to be happening in slow motion. Though, I must say, as my life didn't flash before my eyes, I assumed it wasn't yet "the end of the road" for me. The truck slid gracefully SIDEWAYS down the slope and came to a stop with the cab at a 45degree angle in the muddy yard. I opened the door and fell out into the knee-high mud and, if there hadn't been an old fulla watching the whole scenario from where he was working on his tractor, would have fallen to my knees and kissed the muddy ground. As it was, I tried to act cool (not that I wanted him to think I did this sort of thing regularly!) and nonchalantly called out to him,
"Yeah, thought I might take the shortcut back. Any chance of a tow?"
"I can't believe you didn't roll mate," he said as we hooked the truck to the tractor. "You got bloody close!"
I looked back up the slope and realised just how close I had come, not to death, but to the far more mortifying situation of having to explain to my boss why the truck was upside down in a mud pit in the middle of nowhere.
"Oh well," I joked, "when you live on the edge sometimes you get a bit too close!"

We managed to pull the truck out in one piece and I thanked my lucky stars that the old guy had been there. Though, to be fair, he was the one that sent me down that bloody road in the first place! Okay, so now he thought I was the worst driver in the world (believe it or not, I'm actually NOT that bad) and would have a great time regaling the story to all his mates in the pub, PLUS I wasn't exactly anonymous with our clinic's name plastered all over my bright red truck BUT at least I was able to drive home, wash the truck down, and have a few day's grace to break the story to my co-workers before the grapevine did!

Never make a bet with a vet

When I was still a student I want out on a farm call with a recently qualified friend of mine. We were to check a cow that had been steadily deteriorating since she had calved a few weeks previously. The farmer was convinced that she was anaemic from an "internal bleed" after calving.

Upon physical examination there were no clinical signs of anaemia, although the cow was pretty weak and depressed. A rectal examination revealed adhesions within the abdomen, and that along with the high temperature and her general demeanour, suggested peritonitis (an internal infection) rather than anaemia. We gave her antibiotics and anti-inflammatories but warned the farmer that the cow was pretty sick and most likely on her way out. We requested to come out and perform an autopsy "when" she died. He agreed and ended up calling us that very afternoon.

When we arrived he said to us, "Yeah, didn't think she'd make it. That internal bleeding always gets them in the end."
"Ummm, nooo," my friend said, " I'm pretty sure it's peritonitis."
"Nah," he insisted, "It's a bleed. I've had a cow die from it before."
"Oh," I said, now thinking that maybe he knew something we didn't, after all I was a student and my friend a new graduate so maybe he did have some secret farmer knowledge, "Did you autopsy her?"
"Nah."
"So how did you know it was an internal bleed then?"
He leaned back and fixed me with a knowledgeable smile, "Twenty years of experience!"
Riiiight. By now my mate was grinning.
"You care to make a bet on that?" She was pretty confident in her diagnosis.
"What did you have in mind?"
"Um, bottle of rum?" (And she's not even an Aussie!)
"Alright then!"
So, with bated breath, we sliced open the poor old cow and found...sheets of fibrin absolutely covering all the abdominal organs and originating from what looked like an old hardware disease site (where a piece of wire penetrates the rumen and results in an infection that is often walled off). Classic signs of, that's right say it with me, PERITONITIS. The uterus was in perfect condition and there was no evidence of any "bleeds".
Doctor Farmer was by now looking very subdued while my friend was not too professional to do a little gloating.
"Learn something every day eh?"
"Hmmmm."

We didn't actually expect him to come through with the spoils but the following week a bottle of rum was left anonymously at the reception desk with my friend's name on it. Who needs flowers when you have rum!

Who wants to be a mother?

So I've just found out that three more of my friends are pregnant. There must be something in the water and, with my impending travels, I am glad I'm not drinking it!

That said, we've had to babysit a couple of puppies recently and I've decided they are just like babies. Cute when they are asleep. Lucky not to be suffering "shaken baby syndrome" when they are awake...and howling or barking ALL THE TIME. Like another vet colleague in the UK, I too had to spend an afternoon with one of these darlings on my lap just to get some peace and quiet. You can only sedate them so much...




Though I used to say "all babies are cute" until I saw this little darling with a face that only a mother could love...

Brain drain

I'm starting to organise my notes/textbooks/downloaded articles in preparation for the big migration to the UK where I will soon be spending a couple of years terrifying (I mean treating) all manner of weird and wonderful creatures (like rabbits and guinea pigs and...shudder...birds) and I've come to a conclusion. I am useless at keeping up with further study.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for continuing education, and would love to be more educated...if only I had more time. During the day I will often do quick searches on current cases and find many very interesting articles, but don't have time to really take them in (just tell me where the "treatment" section is!) and so I download them in the hope that "one day" I will read them properly. I must confess that after a long day at work, the last thing I feel like doing when I get home is read medical journals or study textbooks. A big glass of red wine or cold beer is always a more attractive option. And so, I'm left with a computer full of downloaded articles that I'm sure are extremely useful, and an ever-increasing guilt that I am not expanding my knowledge. In fact, I'm pretty sure I am losing knowledge from Uni at a steady rate of mental atrophy.

But, as I sip my wine after a hard evening of surfing, I can be safe in the knowledge that it is all in my computer...just in case...

Flying solo

I was doing a bitch spey the other day when it got me thinking about the first time I attempted to do a bitch spey solo. The key word in that last sentence was "attempted".

It didn't start out well. I have a theory that you can always tell which way surgery is going to go based on how the prep & anaesthesia is going - aggressive dog, difficult to anaesthetise, lost surgical kits = never a good sign (yes, I also avoid black cats and walking under ladders). This surgery began with the complication of the senior surgeon being held up in a meeting just as the dog was being anaesthetised. We assumed she would be out by the time the dog was prepped but no such luck, she was still stuck discussing ways we could establish "gold standard" practice in the clinic (i.e. using the highest standards of treatment). When the nurse went in to inform the vet that the patient was ready, she was told to "keep it under" until the vet was ready...not exactly gold standard practice. She stormed into the surgery with the bang of the door and said to me (as I cowered out of her path), "Come on, you're doing the surgery!" Um, okay, totally unprepared but in I go, sink or swim.

I opened her up to find a massively enlarged spleen blocking my path. This is common in some animals under barbiturate anaesthesia, but certainly doesn't make things any easier for a new vet. All I could think was, "Don't hit the spleen, don't hit the spleen!" I slowly edged my spey hook past the spleen (as it's name suggests, it is a small hook used to pull the uterus closer to the incision) and, as I very carefully retracted it, the spleen sprang into action and IMPALED itself on the hook kamakazi-style. Arg!! Now, the spleen is essentially just a bag of blood, so when a hole is punched into it by a metal object, it tends to react by bleeding...copiously...and when further holes are made in an attempt to close the first hole it just bleeds MORE (no I did not even attempt to stitch it). I stuck a swab onto the hole and, to my credit, calmly called for the nurse.
"Um, I seem to have impaled the spleen."
"What?"
"The spleen," I pointed with my eyes as both hands were involved in blood stoppage, "it has a hole where a hole shouldn't be. Help?"
So then she had to interrupt the meeting a second time to tell the senior vet that she was needed in surgery as the new grad had impaled the spleen and the dog was bleeding.

And I still hadn't found the uterus...

Post-script: We stuck some clotting gel to the spleen and the dog was fine...minus her uterus.

Snake snacks

Snake with possum in belly
(Image courtesy of Simon Grainger)

So it's been a bit of a snake-week. First my mum rings me up to tell me the dog just wandered obliviously past a 2m long python while my parents were screaming at her to RUN AWAY, then I actually have to hang up from that conversation to take a call from the owners of an 8 week old kitten whom they have just pulled from the jaws of death (another python). Other than being in shock (to which I replied, "Well, if something just tried to eat me I'd be in shock too!), the kitten was okay, and they brought her into the clinic the following morning to have a wound on her leg checked. After the call I rang my mum back and we wondered how anyone could let their little kitten outside at night in Australia and NOT have something try to eat it.

Turns out the cat wasn't outside, the snake was inside...under the dining room table...hoping that no-one would notice it trying to make a meal out of their pride and joy. The owner said she had never even touched a snake before and they were all panicking so she just "did what they do on TV" and grabbed it by the neck behind the head, twisting it as far as she could until it let go of the kitten's paw, while her husband uncoiled its body from the rest of the cat, which takes more than a little strength as those buggers are STRONG. They are now getting a builder in to completely snake-proof the house. I would hope so - imagine if one of those found you while you were sleeping! Small vets could disappear without a trace...

And this isn't the only case we've had. A few weeks ago another client brought their 9 week old fluffy puppy in to be checked out after he had pulled it out of a python's grip. To be fair on the snake's part, it DID look a little like a rabbit. Apparently he had to hit the snake with a boogie board to make it let go of the pup. I know it's a horrible situation but I can't help chuckling every time I picture the guy whacking a snake with a boogie board. The pup was fine but no doubt traumatised for life and I don't see it ever learning to fetch sticks.

I was also told about a guy who had five chickens in a pen and a python managed to get through the wire. When he went to check on the chickens the following morning the only sign of life in the pen was one snake too fat to fit back through the wire due to five chicken-sized lumps in its belly.

So the moral of the story is to keep an eye on any pets that are small and fluffy and look like tasty snake-treats, or otherwise just have a python as a pet and hope no bigger snake comes along looking for dinner.

New year, new dramas

So it's been a while. I managed not to overeat (much) nor oversleep (much) but was in for a rude awakening when I arrived back at work. The boss was away for 2 weeks and I was "in charge". Now I was prepared for this. What I was not prepared for was the manic week that would ensue, with every man and his dog (literally) wandering in for the post-New Year rush. I managed to fill two afternoons bringing puppies into the world - after 6 months here they were the first two caesarians that we had and of course waited until 3pm in the afternoon when there were only 2 people in the clinic! The surgeries went well, recovery for one of the dogs however, was a little dodgy.

I had just placed her in one of the upper cages (about 1m off the floor) when the drip line caught and I turned away FOR ONE SECOND to pull it loose. In that second the dog managed to ROLL out the cage and landed on the floor with an audible THUMP! I think it was her head hitting the ground. Fortunately she was still very groggy and is not a particularly intelligent dog anyway so I don't think this had any effect. Unfortunately we had a couple of clients in the kennels picking up their dog. Why do things like this always happen at the most inappropriate times? I grabbed at the dog with an audible expletive, and the woman remarked, "Wow, she just rolled straight out there!"
"Yep, she'll be fine though, she's still sedated," I replied, hoping that they didn't think that this sort of thing happened all the time. Now, I occasionally accidentally knock the odd head on the cage door as I pull dogs (or cats) out of their cage, and have been known to bump a head or two when carrying animals through doorways...but this was the first time an animal had actually DROPPED two feet to the ground. Oops. Luckily the owner, who was sitting out front, was none the wiser. Though the nurse did ask me what the big bang she heard from the front desk was!

For anyone concerned, no dogs were harmed in the making of this blog. She was fine and had 4 beautiful fat puppies...and a bit of a headache.