Day 32: Cysts and Strange Muscular Movement

Today was another really slow day.  We had no new patients in the recovery room or dog ward, besides a Pomeranian named Cutie who was getting spayed and a Domestic Short-Haired cat named TJ who was getting a cyst removed.   TJ’s cyst was HUGE; the biggest I’ve seen to date!  Dr. Mark removed it, and before he even did the procedure he knew the cyst was perfectly harmless (a giant pus-filled cyst and nothing more) because it was very squishy, and on the skin rather than under the skin.  Therefore, he just cut the skin around the cyst to remove it, and then sewed the skin back together.  He told me I could put on gloves and open the cyst if I’d like (which I wanted to), so I did; and just as he had said, the huge bubble-cyst was filled with pus fluid and nothing more.

Cutie the Pomeranian.

The giant cyst on TJ.

Dr. Mark removing the cyst.  As it can be seen, he is solely cutting the skin and no deeper, because the cyst was on the skin rather than under the skin.

Right after I had cut the cyst open.  The liquid all around it is all pus, and that's not even half of the amount of pus that's in the cyst.

Me squeezing out more of the pus.  As I said, it's completely fluid.

                In the afternoon, Buddy (the mini-lop rabbit from day 1 that was neutered and wouldn’t eat) came in because of his front right paw; he has always one this strange thing where hops with that paw sticking out to the side (as can be seen in the pictures), and that’s how he hops around, he really doesn’t use that leg or paw.  The owner doesn’t really know why, and she brought him in today because she thought his leg condition was getting worse.  Dr. Lou and Dr. Kris looked at it and felt the leg, and Dr. Lou said she could feel that the muscles in that leg were different than the muscles in the other leg.  But, there really wasn’t anything they could do about that, but it also wasn’t anything harmless to Buddy so it didn’t really matter (that nothing could be done) anyway.

Buddy, the Mini-Lop rabbit.

Dr. Lou feeling the muscles.

This picture shows how stranglely he hops with this leg/foot; as I said, he hops with t out to the side like this.

Another view how he hops and turns with it sort of pushed back and out to the side.