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Monday, June 9, 2014

Done with RAHMs

Finished with my farm animal rotation today.  Went in a little after 6 and left about 845am.  My alpaca is doing well and was supposed to go home this afternoon.  Now, it is time to catch up on all the things that have been neglected in the past week and a half of my rotation.  3 1/2 days until I leave for Africa!

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Sunday Morning

This morning (Sunday 6/8) instead of sitting at church like I normally would be I am sitting at school.  I am once again spending most of my day here at school.  This hasn't felt like a weekend at all since most of it has been spent at school!  I am on walk-by's until 1pm which means that every hour I go to all the patients and see how they are doing and give them any medications or small procedures they may need.  I can leave at 1pm but then have to be back at 5pm for my afternoon treatments of my alpacas.  I am also scheduled for 12AM-7AM tomorrow morning. I am really hoping that things will stay quiet like they are so maybe I won't have to be here that shift, we shall see.

Last night, after my 5pm treatments were done, Calvin, Bethany, Piper, and Oscar came to the vet school.  I showed them around and then they came to my new house to check it out and have ice cream.  Piper had a toy stethoscope with her so we had our picture taken together:

Saturday, June 7, 2014

What a Week!

Well, my hopes of not getting called in Monday night were not met. 
Monday:
830PM: finally get everything in order for my llama and head home
11PM: get a phone call that there is a goat on the way in and they would call me when the goat was 1/2 hour away
1115PM: go to bed to try to get a little sleep
1230AM: phone call telling me goat is almost here so I need to head in
1245AM-230AM: help with goat that was having trouble giving birth, got four male goats out of her, all living
315AM: finally get back to bed
430AM: alarm goes off so I could get to school to do the morning treatments on my baby llama

So, after 2 hours and 15 minutes sleep, I headed into school around 540AM and was there until 7PM Tuesday night.  It was a long day but I was busy again on Tuesday with my baby llama so that helped keep me going.  Unfortunately, on Tuesday I had to have the llama on oxygen most of the day as she had been open mouth breathing.  The doctor called the owner to tell him that the llama was not doing well however he said he wanted to wait another night and see how she was in the morning.  Overnight Tuesday night the llama started doing better, she was nursing and her blood sugar was stable.  However, when the owner arrived Tuesday morning he decided, due to financial concerns, that he wanted to euthanize.  So, I got to euthanize my first patient.  The doctor and I were kind of bummed because she had finally took a turn for the better but that is the life of a veterinarian so you just keep chugging along!

Yesterday I had a large bull come in for a hoof trim.  He had two abscesses on his feet so the procedure became quite bloody but we got him on his way after awhile. 

Today I had an alpaca and her baby transferred to me.  The mom presented last night as she was not hanging out with the other alpacas, was lethargic, and not eating well.  We believe that she has parasites that are causing her to have diarrhea and feel crappy so we are treating her for that.  The baby is just here for the ride but I do have to bottle feed the baby as the mom isn't producing a ton of milk.

Also today I had a holstein cow come in that was lame on its left hind leg.  There was a large swelling over its left hip.  It had been aggressively ridden by other cows, enough that it caused it to fall down.  On rectal examination, a large, hard mass was felt to the left of the rectum. Upon further examination and making the cow move, it was determined that the mass was actually the head of the femur that had been dislocated from its socket.  Due to the lesion being a few days old, there was nothing we could do for it and thus had to euthanize it. 

Tonight I am on ICU duty from 12AM-7AM.  Then, I have to stay to work up my alpacas and give any medications they may need and bottle feed the baby.  Good thing I got a full hour and 15 minutes of sleep before coming in! 

One more story.  Tonight, a cow came in a little while before I came in for surgery of a fractured leg. She had slipped on the concrete at the farm and the owner described the sound of her leg breaking as sounding like a gunshot. On examination and radiographs, it was very apparent that the cow had completely shattered here tibia (shin bone in humans).  There was nothing that could be done for her either so she was also euthanized.

I am off tomorrow but have ICU duty Sunday from 7AM-1PM and again Monday morning from 12AM-7AM.  Then I'm off for the week and head to Africa on Friday!

Monday, June 2, 2014

Llamas

Today was my first day on in-house for my farm animal rotation.  I ended up taking over the case of a 3 1/2 day old baby llama which has not been doing real well.  It is having a hard time regulating its blood sugar so we have been checking its blood sugar hourly and switching its fluids to try to get it regulated.  I spent almost my whole day working with the it as it is quite labor-intensive when they are that young and doing that poorly.  I didn't leave school until 830pm tonight and am on call all night and then will be back at school around 6am tomorrow morning.  I'm really hoping I don't get called in! 

Sunday, June 1, 2014

Weekend

Well, Friday night was busy as I covered my classmates ICU shift.  The baby llama and alpaca took up most of my time between feeding, checking the llama's blood glucose, checking respiration rates, etc.  I got home between 1230AM and 1AM. 

Saturday morning I ended up on the phone with Tyrel, one of the other guys who will be living in the house that I'm moving into.  He asked if I would be able to move that day (Saturday) instead of a week from tomorrow.  So, I was quite busy yesterday as I rushed around to get things packed up and ready to move and then got most of my stuff moved.  Now that it's done I'm glad it's over, but yesterday was pretty hectic!   I really like my new place, it's got a pretty decent-sized back yard that is totally fenced in.  In fact, one of my friends came over last night to check it out and brought her two dogs with her so they could run around in yard.  However, the surrounding neighborhood is slightly sketchy.  Last night when my friend and I were sitting outside, there was plenty of rap playing for our listening pleasure. 

Today I was in Fairbury for my friend Reid's wedding.  It was a real nice time, and there were a ton of people who I knew there so was able to catch up with a few of them.

This week I am on in-house RAHMs.  The cases who are in the hospital right now will be assigned to us tomorrow.