5/23

Yesterday my patient from Wednesday, the border collie, came back in.  We knocked him out and stuck an endoscope (a long, thin tube that has a camera and also a hole through which fluid or other tools can be passed) down his throat to look at his larynx and then down his windpipe and into the smaller pipes within the lung.  It's really cool watching on the screen as the scope goes through all the bronchi, it's like a bunch of tunnels with lots of forks in the road.  At the same time, it's kind of crazy to think that you are viewing way down into the dog's lung.  We also did what is called a bronchoalveolar lavage on the dog.  This is essentially when we take sterile saline and flush it through the endoscope (through the hole I mentioned earlier) and into a part of the dog's lungs.  The fluid is then sucked out.  This way, if there is any bacteria or cells that shouldn't be there, hopefully we can get some and be able to identify them.  Anyway, we didn't find much on the dog so that was kind of disappointing.

Today, I had a mixed breed dog that was very painful when we would palpate her bladder.  Turns out she has bladder stones.  She went home on a diet to try to dissolve the stones.  If that doesn't work, she will end up needing surgery to remove the stones. I actually got to perform my first cystocentesis on this dog today.  A cystocentesis is when a needle is put through the animal's body wall and directly into their bladder to collect urine.  I used an ultrasound to find the bladder and then guided the needle right into it.  It was pretty neat since it was my first time doing it.

Now, the weekend is here.  I still need to be at school at 7AM tomorrow and Sunday morning but hopefully I should have most of the day off later on.