Holistic Veterinary Medicine

Today was my last day at Parkside.  One of the first animals I saw today was a dog who at first didn’t appear very sick.  By turning up his lip and looking at his skin we were able see how pale he was.  The doctor said that this means the dog is anemic.  There are three reasons the dog might be anemic the first of which is severe blood loss.  This is a very noticeable condition.  The second cause of anemia might be a bone marrow disease; however this is very rare.  The third cause of anemia is a spleen problem.  Something is telling the spleen to destroy the red blood cells instead of filter the impurities from the blood.  A second spleen problem might be a tumor.  Later in the day Dr. Johnson started talking to me about genetics.  I had long believed that it was impossible to have a male calico cat, due to the unique switching between two X-chromosomes.   However, the doctor informed me that to have a male calico cat he must be XXY; therefore, he would be infertile.  Near the middle of the afternoon Dr. Johnson performed an unscheduled exploratory surgery.  The dog had eaten a piece of a Kong.  Unlike some of the other exploratory surgeries I have seen a small section of the intestine actually had to be removed.

Today I learned that the average temperature range for a dog is 100-102 degrees Fahrenheit.  A temperature of 102.5 can be considered a low grade fever, and 103 degrees is a fever.  For cats the temperature range is slightly lower.  The average temperature range for a cat is 99.5-101.5 degrees.  I also learned that Benadryl can be given to animals to treat allergies.   It is completely safe to give to your pet.  The dosage that Dr. Johnson recommended was one milligram per pound of dog.  I also got to see one of the most awesome surgeries today!  Dr. Johnson performed an enucleation, which simply means he removed the dog’s eye.  To do this the doctor first cut around the eye.  He made sure that he severed all of the eye lids.  After that was finally finished, the doctor was able to severe the optic nerve and remove the eye.  Once the doctor was done with the eye, he invited me to dissect it.  I was very excited to do that.  Cutting through for the first time was the hardest part.  When you watch the doctor’s they cut with such ease, but when I tried the first time the eye was much thicker than I thought it would be.

Today, John, one of the technicians told me about a previous case.  There was a small dog that had presented with chronic coughing.  The first suspect was collapsing trachea.  This is not uncommon in small dogs.  Collapsing trachea is where rings in an animal’s trachea weaken.  Normally the rings in an animal’s trachea are rigid holding it open.  When the rings weaken the cilia on the inside of the trachea touch causing the animal to cough.  To confirm this they took an x-ray of the dog.  On the x-ray you could see where the rings where a little closer together.   However upon further examination of the x-ray the dog’s lungs were visible.  The dog’s lungs were riddle with tumors!  This is a lesson that things are not always as they appear.

Today I saw a surgery to remove a cherry eye.  Cherry eye is a condition where the third eye lid becomes inflamed.  It appears as a pinkish ball in the corner of the dog’s eye.  This can often obstruct vision as well.  The doctor simply removed this area of inflammation and sutured the space together.  The doctor then sutured the eye shut so that it could heal.  He put about three stitches in the bottom eye lid, and they reached upwards to a plastic tube and onto the skin above the eye.  The plastic tube was placed so that there wasn’t too much tension on the eye lid.  The sutures will be removed later once the 3^rd eye lid has healed.  Later there was a cat that had an abscess on its face just above the jaw line.  The abscess turned into a gaping hole in the roof of the cat’s mouth, causing some teeth to have previously fallen out and some to be removed.  The hole was filled with a lot of gunk, for lack of a better word.  There was also a lot of hair in the abscess.    The only thing the doctor could do at the time was clean it out and treat with anti-biotics.

Today a new intern came from J. Everett Light.  She comes every day; however she only comes for three hours a day.  I found it very interesting to talk to her.  She is participating in this internship, because she wants to be veterinary technician.  Also I think having her here will help me find the courage to make the changes I need to.  I thrive off of competition, and she provides just that.  If I can look at her as a threat or a challenge, I think that I can find that courage inside of me.

Today not much went on surgery wise.  There was one dental, one neuter, one growth removal, and one ear hematoma.  All of these surgeries are one that I have seen before.  However the first ear hematoma that I saw was in Dr. Fleck’s office at the beginning of the year.  It was interesting to compare the two surgeries.  The first difference I noticed was that the first one was much larger than the one I saw today.  I also noticed that both doctors chose to do the surgery in a treatment area, because they both viewed it as a minor surgery.  In the first ear hematoma surgery I watched Dr. Fleck used buttons to secured the flaps of the ear to allow it to drain.  Dr. Havens however simply sutured the pieces down rather than using buttons as a barrier like Dr. Fleck did.  This afternoon, I assisted one of the technicians in restraining a cat so that they could draw a small amount of blood.  This cat was diabetic, so we drew its blood in order to check its glucose levels.   The glucometer they used to check glucose levels in animals works exactly the same way a human one does.  A diabetic animal is brought in to do a blood glucose curve in order to asses where their insulin level should be.  For a blood glucose curve the animal is kept all day and its glucose levels are check about every four hours.  This needs to be done every couple of months.

Today was one of the busiest days I have been a part of here at Parkside Animal Hospital.  When I arrived that morning, there was a dog there that was very sick.  About ten minutes after I got there the dog began to crash.  John, one of the technicians pulled it up onto the table and began chest compressions.  Another one of the technicians inserted a trach tube to hopefully allow the dog to breath.  Soon blood started coming out of the trach tube and the dog’s nose.  Considering the condition it had been in all night and what was occurring at that moment, the decision to euthanize the dog was made.   Everything happened so fast, and I was stunned.  I didn’t know what to do or how to react, and in this situation I felt completely useless.  I wish that there was something I could have done to help.  Also today there was an exploratory surgery.  Unlike the first exploratory I saw, this dog’s intestines were a pinkish color and didn’t appear to be irritated.  However, on x-rays taken you could see that there was something blocking the intestines.  The doctor made about four incisions and was able to remove our different tampons.  The dog had eaten the tampons which then absorbed the intestinal juices and expanded, blocking the intestines.  The string of one went all the way into the stomach.  To remove it the doctor actually had cut the stomach open.  It took the doctor a long time to find the string, as it was a small section.

Today my midterm evaluation was returned to me, and it was not good.  Julia, the practice manager, was unhappy with my performance.  She found that I did not have enough initiative.  She told me that she could see that I was an intelligent person, but I was not letting that shine through.  I was not asking enough questions, because I felt like a pest.  Also I didn’t want to bother or upset the technicians.  However, Julia told me that if they didn’t have time to answer my questions they would tell me, and she also told me that I shouldn’t be concerned with whether or not they like me as a person.  I am not there to make friends.  I am a there to learn.  While I know and understand all of this, it is hard for me to step out of my comfort zone.  I am used to being shut down or hurt any time I do.  That has fostered my fear of doing things I am not comfortable doing.   I need to make a change and it is not going to be easy, but I have to anyways.  I know this, and I also that I have the ability to make a change and be more assertive.  The problem is that I don’t know how to break down that invisible wall that I hit each and every single time.

Today an owner brought in her dog, because he was having what she called a “heatstroke.”  On a day where it was about seventy degrees outside she took her dog out to the park.  After about ten minutes of exercise her dog collapsed.  She carried her dog home, and thinking that this was heat related she put him in their children’s small pool.  This remedy the problem; however after it occurred again months late she decided to ask the doctor about it.  Dr. Johnson believed that their dog had a condition where its balance of potassium and calcium was off.  When the dog was running very hard in such a short period of time it caused the dog to have higher potassium levels, causing the collapse.  The pool had nothing to do with the dog’s recovery.  It recovered simply due to time for the potassium level to come down and restore a balance.  Dr. Johnson said that there is no medication that he could give to fix this problem.  The only solution is to simply have the dog a take breaks from playing.

Today was also a slow day; however there was one very interesting dental.  This dog had severe tartar buildup.  It was astonishing the buildup was so bad that some teeth were rotting.  Not only were the teeth rotting, but the tartar was the only thing holding those teeth in.  When the tartar was scraped away the rotting teeth literally fell out of the dog’s mouth.  One of the canine teeth was chipped enough that it needed to be removed.  The canine is particularly hard to remove, because it has three roots.  To remove it the tooth has to be cut in, so that it can come out in multiple pieces.