Saturday, June 9, 2012

Day 13: Lump Removal, Small Procedures, Grooming Cut, Dog Attack, and Severe Constipation


                Today there weren’t really any actual surgeries besides a spay on a stray rat terrier, and Coffee (the lab mix from day 8) had the growth removed from her front right leg.  As I had said, the lump was harmless (solely made up of fibrous skin tissue), but it was becoming an annoyance to Coffee so her owners were having it removed for her comfort. 
The lump on Coffee's front right leg, right below the elbow.

Dr. Roberta removing the lump.

All sutured up after the procedure. 

Dr. Roberta cut open the lump and showed me how it was solely filled with the fibrus skin tissue.

                We had quite a few smaller procedures and smaller surgeries today, however.   For smaller procedures, we attended to Maggie (a Cocker Spaniel), Oliver (a Poodle), Boo (a Pomeranian), Bella (the pug-beagle mix from day 2 who had her tail smashed in a door), and Fergus (a soft-coated Wheaton Terrier).  Maggie, Oliver, and Boo all received dentals, and then housed in the dog ward for the day until their owners could pick them up after work.  Bella was able to get her stitches out today.  After Jen took Bella’s stitches out, she sprayed Granulex V (an aerosol spray) onto the tip of Bella’s tail, which would help the tissue finish healing.  Fergus had an ear infection, and he was also due for his vaccines.  Fergus was the first dog that I got out of the runs by myself, and I was a little worried because most of the dogs kept in the runs are bigger dogs, and most of them are hyper.  Also, if the dogs get startled in any way, they sometimes try to attack either the person handling them or a dog in another cage.  Any sort of attack has only happened a couple of times in the past, and most of them caused no harm or damage because the dog was just startled and lunged, but the handler was able to avoid it and get them in their cage before anything bad or harmful happened.  However, one time one of the girls was harshly attacked and bitten in the stomach and several times on her arms.  So naturally, since attacks can and have happened, and since I was not only by myself, but also leashing and handling a dog that I was told was unpredictable, I was nervous; but even so, I was pleased that they felt I was ready enough to go into the runs and get such a dog by myself.  Anyway, everything went perfectly fine, I was able to leash him and bring him out so Dr. Todd could medicate his ears and give him his vaccines.  I was also able to unleash him and place him back in his run without any problems.
Maggie., the Cocker Spaniel.

Oliver, the Poodle.

Boo, the Pomeranian.

Bella's nearly-healed tail.

Fergus, the Soft-Coated Wheaton Terrier.

As for the smaller surgical procedures today, we had Penelope, a long haired domestic cat who needed sutures (stitches) in her stomach, Jack, a boxer who had gotten into a fight with another dog, and Faith, a constipated short-haired domestic cat.  Kelly, Penelope’s owner and a receptionist at the vet hospital, had been trying to cut the mats (tangled clumps of hair) off of Penelope’s tummy area.  She cut too close to the skin, and actually ended up giving Penelope a small, clean-cut gash on her stomach.  Dr. Roberta gave Penelope some anesthesia, and then she stitched Penelope up; no longer than a ten minute procedure, and Catherine finished shaving her and gave her a ‘lion cut’ after that.  Jack came in bleeding at the end of the day, and he actually came in from the dog daycare that was underneath the hospital; one of the dogs staying there was being picked up for the day by his owner, and whenever someone comes into the daycare all the dogs rush over by where that person is.  When that happened, Jack and another dog collided and the dog tore open the top of Jack’s ear and left bite marks in his neck.  After calling Jack’s owners and getting permission to give him an anesthetic, Dr. Roberta worked on getting the bleeding to stop, then gave him a small dose of an anesthetic (just enough to have him unconscious for about 15 minutes) so she could stitch up his wounds.  After Jack was stitched up and bandaged, we woke him up and placed him in recovery while he waited for his owner to pick him up.
Kelly's cat, Penelope.

The gash on Penelope's stomach; Dr. Roberta is holding the mat (still attached to the skin) that Kelly was trying to cut off.

The gash without the mat.

All sutured up.

Catherine giving the finalized touches on the lion cut.

Jack's tears and scratches on his ear; the tip of his ear was also torn open, and was bleeding ferociously since the vein runs down to the tip of the ear.

A small tooth mark on his neck.

Another tooth mark on his neck.

Dr. Roberta flushing the scratches and tears to get rid of the blood and clean the wounds.

Suturing Jack's wounds.

Poor Faith, however, wasn’t so lucky to have as simple of a procedure as Penelope or Jack; Faith was extremely constipated and in a lot of pain when she came in, and she of course hadn’t eaten for a few days because of that (she dropped from 15 pounds to 9 pounds in these few days).  She has what is called ‘mega colon’; basically, her colon doesn’t contract the way it should in order to push fecal matter out, so it essentially became a pouch/bag that just holds the stool.  In order to fix this, the doctor will try to try to get the stool out by pushing/massaging the colon through the skin while at the same time, using the other hand to try and pull the stool out of the colon and anus.  If this doesn’t work, surgery will have to be performed.  However, doctors try to avoid surgery if they can, because it can be a messy and complicated surgery.  Dr. Todd put Faith under anesthesia, put on a couple layers of latex gloves, and went to work trying to get the stool out of her.  He was working on getting it out for a good half-hour at least; he was breaking the stool up into smaller pieces with his finger, but the things that were causing him problems was that besides there being so much, the stool had become so hard that it was extremely difficult for him to break the stool up, henceforth rendering it extremely difficult to get the stool out.  By the amount he did get out, though, he estimated that he had been able to get about half of the stool amount out.  He stopped once it got to a point that he really couldn’t get any more out, so he placed a rubber tube through the anus and into the colon, and injected saline solution into the colon to try to soften up the stool a bit.  Pat and I helped clean her up, and we then placed her in a cage in the cat ward to stay overnight so she could rest and give the saline solution some time to work.  She was also being given Lactulose, which is a synthetic, non-digestible sugar that helps with chronic constipation by having the metabolites of Lactulose draw water into the bowel.  The stool soaks up the water, and it in turn then becomes easier to pass. Tomorrow, Dr. Todd will try to get the rest of the stool out.
Faith, the poor constipated cat.

Dr. Todd trying to get the stool out.

An X-ray of Faith.  The part circled in red is all backed-up fecal matter.  As it can be seen, it's quite a lot.  Faith was in a lot of pain because of this when she arrived at the hospital.

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