Friday, December 26

Today was extremely enjoyable. While the clinic was relatively slow (the day after Christmas in a Vet clinic can often be that way), I got a bit more hands on and was able to interact with the customers more. It started with a very ticked off kitty who needed blood drawn. Once that life threatening task was over, I shadowed Dr. S in a room with a less-ticked-off (but still not happy) kitty who is suspected to have suffered a stroke. What was interesting is that we had two cases of cardiomyopathy occur today and I've been trying to pull together research on that very disease in order to post my sidenote information about it (one suspected and the other was confirmed as the cause of death). Dr. J performed an autopsy on the second cat and after looking at the heart was fairly certain that he was suffering from heart failure. While sad, it was incredibly interesting to see his heart. The left ventricle was ten times the thickness of the right ventricle! Granted, the left ventricle is supposed to be slightly thicker than the right ventricle but certainly not ten times as thick. Something odd she also noted was that his heart was smaller than it should have been. I'm not completely sure what caused that, but I will hopefully have more information when I go back on Monday. Once she was finished with her autopsy, she allowed me to suture the cat back up before he was cremated. I learned how to do running sutures as well as how to tie knots when you've finished suturing. That was the highlight of my day and also my week! I've now got plans to practice on stuffed animals so that I can prepare for my Veterinary days. I also got to practice drawing blood from the cephalic veins (the vein that runs through the front legs) on about three dogs. I was only able to accurately hit the vein on a larger dog. With time and practice, I'll be able to get the veins on smaller dogs and those wiggly-veined Dachshunds!

Edit: I forgot to mention the other pretty neat thing I saw at the Vet today. Dr. S has a cat that was given to her by some former clients. You see, the cat was an at-risk patient and ended up dying under anesthesia. However, Dr. S was able to bring her back. She did suffer some brain damage and in the beginning, she was blind so the owners didn't want her back. She's no longer blind (Well not totally...she doesn't see very clearly. She can see shadows and general places of where things are, though) but does have some evidence of brain trauma. She swats at things that aren't necessarily there (either that or her depth perception is off) and she gets very, very stressed (very, very ANGRY) and it takes her a couple of days to calm down after she's had to travel. (i.e. to and from the actual vet office.) Well I just thought I would add that because that was an interesting part of my day which built on my experience.