Short post, since internet is spazzing out on us:
Horseback riding = awesome!
Shopping in town = lots of souveniers
Lunch + Dinner = awesome again
Staying up late + stupid internet = short post
sorry.
Let's see if I can't update at an airport or something.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Last Surgery Day
Today saw our final surgeries in Nicaragua - this time!
Business was a little slower than the other two days, which was great because the students got all kinds of experience and coaching they wouldn't have had if we were slammed. The slowness also gave me a chance to photograph some of our "neighbors" over the last few days:
Natalie sutures while Dr. Steele supervises.
One group of kids asked us if we could clip their dog's shaggy, matted fur. We said of course - as long as we get to spay her too! I got to do the honors (thank goodness we'd brought more than one size of blade, and an extra clipper battery!)
Business was a little slower than the other two days, which was great because the students got all kinds of experience and coaching they wouldn't have had if we were slammed. The slowness also gave me a chance to photograph some of our "neighbors" over the last few days:
The horse, along with three others, was wandering the streets, snatching snacks from yards.
The pig was kenneled (styed?) right next to where we were working.
The fowl were a ways down the street, mostly inside their own yard.
They told us this was a school for disabled children:
Lisa sutures while Dr. Winnie supervises.
Morgan sits with Randy while he wakes up:
Natalie sutures while Dr. Steele supervises.
Kristina sutures while Dr. Colleen supervises.
Dr. Karen monitors a cat recovery while Laurie preps meds.
Again, Natalie does her thing.
One group of kids asked us if we could clip their dog's shaggy, matted fur. We said of course - as long as we get to spay her too! I got to do the honors (thank goodness we'd brought more than one size of blade, and an extra clipper battery!)
Laurie and I chat with the chief of police - whose house, it turns out, we've been using as our surgery clinic! He and one of his officers brought in a working K-9 to be spayed - a mixed breed, tan dog named Blacky.
And this time... ha ha! I've got my influencing others bit down all right!
Did I mention that there are geckos running around the villa, protecting us from mosquitoes and the like?
Reasons to not check work email in Nicaragua
1) a stupid depressing email can make one not feel much like blogging.
2) see above.
I'm gonna go do something fun, and come back later.
2) see above.
I'm gonna go do something fun, and come back later.
Photos from day 2
Laurie sorting through her "stash". She monitored the intake of pretty much all the animals, who got what meds, etc. She places the most amazingly stable catheters, and is an awesome coach.
Kelly is basically our recovery queen. She spent almost all the time in our recovery room, removing catheters, placing belly bandages, and generally encouraging everyone to wake up as quickly as possible.
Here's Erin prepping for surgery. She's one of our vet students who is super motivated to get in there and operate. She's gotten into (literally) several surgeries.
Dr. Colleen gives Wolfy an exam. Colleen and Dr. Steele competed to call "dibs" on spays as they came in - nobody wanted to sit around for very long.
Expressing a bladder - when a bladder is full, surgery is a little more difficult. We emptied urine into trash bags that were hung at the end of our surgery tables.
Drs. Dave and Winnie, with vet student Natalie prep a spay. Several of our dogs bled heavily (probably due to tick-bourne erlichiosis) and required two vets to close them up quickly.
Vet student Lisa practices her suture technique, as Dr. Colleen supervises.
One of our few cat patients arrives in his homemade cat carrier:
Fabulous Lori and her daugher (& son) brought us lunch daily. It was so awesome of them! Good food, too.
Morgan places an IV catheter, while Laurie supervises.
Kelly is basically our recovery queen. She spent almost all the time in our recovery room, removing catheters, placing belly bandages, and generally encouraging everyone to wake up as quickly as possible.
Here's Erin prepping for surgery. She's one of our vet students who is super motivated to get in there and operate. She's gotten into (literally) several surgeries.
Dr. Colleen gives Wolfy an exam. Colleen and Dr. Steele competed to call "dibs" on spays as they came in - nobody wanted to sit around for very long.
Expressing a bladder - when a bladder is full, surgery is a little more difficult. We emptied urine into trash bags that were hung at the end of our surgery tables.
Drs. Dave and Winnie, with vet student Natalie prep a spay. Several of our dogs bled heavily (probably due to tick-bourne erlichiosis) and required two vets to close them up quickly.
Vet student Lisa practices her suture technique, as Dr. Colleen supervises.
One of our few cat patients arrives in his homemade cat carrier:
Fabulous Lori and her daugher (& son) brought us lunch daily. It was so awesome of them! Good food, too.
Morgan places an IV catheter, while Laurie supervises.
Dr. Steele does her thing: SPAY!
Dr. Winnie with two of our local volunteers who helped translate.
Group shot - winding down at the end of the day.
We saw monkeys on the way back to the villa:
As I said, I wasn't the only one in the pool with my clothes on yesterday!
And, this morning, we had a visitor:
Group shot - winding down at the end of the day.
We saw monkeys on the way back to the villa:
As I said, I wasn't the only one in the pool with my clothes on yesterday!
And, this morning, we had a visitor:
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
The other post neglected to mention a few things, so here's an update:
We were challenged by the WorldVets team in Honduras to beat their score for surgeries. We said "bring it on!" and other such nonsense. In reality, they're in a much more established location, and I believe they've got one more vet than we do (?). We are, however, confident that we'll at least tie their percentage of surgeries performed for the number of (healthy-enough) animals presented. Today was a little slower than yesterday. Less animals showed up, less local volunteers showed up, but it gave us some great practice/training opportunities. Our four vet students are getting hands-on (even hands-in) surgery experience, our vet tech is coaching those IV catheter placements like crazy (3 people trained so far), and our assistants are just rocking at their posts too. Not to mention the 5 veterinarians who are just amazing! We've got an awesome team here, and I'll be sad to let 'em all go their separate ways in a few days. Thank goodness for Facebook!
Since embarrassing photos will circulate (I'm sure) I should mention that I had horrible allergies during most of the clinic today. I had hoped that I'd be fine since yesterday was no problem, but ah well. Tomorrow shall be the day of generic Zyrtec.
In honor of St. Pat's (and because I was out of other clean socks) I elected to sport some green & white toe socks, which ought to be featured in a photo later...
And our trapped cat turned out to be a female, but we transferred her to a cage to wait until a surgery table is available tomorrow. Then we set the trap again and caught her brother or son or something. Fingers crossed we get another one caught tonight!
We were challenged by the WorldVets team in Honduras to beat their score for surgeries. We said "bring it on!" and other such nonsense. In reality, they're in a much more established location, and I believe they've got one more vet than we do (?). We are, however, confident that we'll at least tie their percentage of surgeries performed for the number of (healthy-enough) animals presented. Today was a little slower than yesterday. Less animals showed up, less local volunteers showed up, but it gave us some great practice/training opportunities. Our four vet students are getting hands-on (even hands-in) surgery experience, our vet tech is coaching those IV catheter placements like crazy (3 people trained so far), and our assistants are just rocking at their posts too. Not to mention the 5 veterinarians who are just amazing! We've got an awesome team here, and I'll be sad to let 'em all go their separate ways in a few days. Thank goodness for Facebook!
Since embarrassing photos will circulate (I'm sure) I should mention that I had horrible allergies during most of the clinic today. I had hoped that I'd be fine since yesterday was no problem, but ah well. Tomorrow shall be the day of generic Zyrtec.
In honor of St. Pat's (and because I was out of other clean socks) I elected to sport some green & white toe socks, which ought to be featured in a photo later...
And our trapped cat turned out to be a female, but we transferred her to a cage to wait until a surgery table is available tomorrow. Then we set the trap again and caught her brother or son or something. Fingers crossed we get another one caught tonight!
Surgery - Day Two!
Today was dog spay day. Lots more surgeries, lots more care, and once again the tired, hot, sweaty, grimy people considered jumping in the pool with their clothes on. This time I corrupted a few more people, and at least 4 of us got in the pool fully clothed. Word on the street is that we've just caught one of the villa's resident kitties in our live trap. Hooray!
In other news, we were told that our power and water will both be non-existent tomorrow, so we filled up every container we could find at the clinic before we left, and as soon as people got out of the pool here we started showering. I was second in line for my shower, and just as soon as I had rinsed off the chlorine, the nice shower stream turned into a tiny trickle for a few seconds, then disappeared. I don't know how long the power will last. Adventures, adventures!
In other news, we were told that our power and water will both be non-existent tomorrow, so we filled up every container we could find at the clinic before we left, and as soon as people got out of the pool here we started showering. I was second in line for my shower, and just as soon as I had rinsed off the chlorine, the nice shower stream turned into a tiny trickle for a few seconds, then disappeared. I don't know how long the power will last. Adventures, adventures!
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Surgeries - Day One
This morning, we went to our "clinic", a mostly empty building that was not being used for anything else this week. Since our day was scheduled to begin at 8am, we started out with an early breakfast and van ride.
We lost no time setting up our 4 surgery tables, using bricks underneath to raise/level them.
and began checking in patients as soon as they started showing up. Most of the girl dogs were named either Princessa or Lazy (pronounced "Lassie"). There were several Bobbies and Robbies among the male dogs, and a few Diegos. This photo shows me checking in one Diego, to the backdrop of our "lobby" and several other patients/owners.
Since we had 5 vets available, 4 performed surgeries, while the fifth saw appointments. Many of the locals refused to spay/neuter (especially neuter) their pets, but wanted parasite control or other care. We blame the macho machismo culture for the lack of neutering. Most of our patients were dogs, but (crazy cat lady alert!) I got to handle all 4 cats we "fixed" today - including our smallest patient, a 1.3# kitten spay!
In addition to spays and neuters, we also did an ear hematoma repair surgery (way to go Dr. Steele!). The ear had filled with blood and fluid and was very uncomfortable for the poor dog. Dr. Steele drained it out and sewed it back together all in the right order. Our other non-sterilization surgery was an eye removal. A poor poochie had injured itself and the eye was infected. Li'l guy's going to be fine now though, just with a constant wink.
Speaking of sterilization, our surgical instruments had to be chemically sterilized, as we did not have an autoclave (or modified pressure cooker) to steam them. Each "pack" was scrubbed out, and then bathed in fun chemicals, before being handed to another surgeon. Cute baskets, huh?
After surgery, the animals were brought to the Recovery area, where a few hardcore volunteers sweltered it out in a muggy, dark room, with very little foot space, monitoring the patients, counting out meds, documenting additional medical issues, etc. I was surprised at how calm this area was, especially since the dogs often clambered over each other in a drug-induced stupor.
As the dogs and cats came to, they were brought out to the light of day, where most of their families had waited for them in our "lobby" of folding chairs out in the yard. Owners got their pet back, care instructions, any needed medications, and in several cases, brand new collars and leashes, as we'd had some donated and didn't like to see the critters walk out on a rusty chain.
Word on the street is that we did 41 surgeries and saw 18 appointments today! We met some great people too - including one owner who did our grocery shopping for us, since we couldn't leave the clinic before the Mercado would be closed. She got us some great vegetables, which we brought back to the villa for dinner. While that was getting prepared, and since everyone was hot, sweaty, dirty, and covered in grime, and other people got to the showers before I did, well...
We lost no time setting up our 4 surgery tables, using bricks underneath to raise/level them.
and began checking in patients as soon as they started showing up. Most of the girl dogs were named either Princessa or Lazy (pronounced "Lassie"). There were several Bobbies and Robbies among the male dogs, and a few Diegos. This photo shows me checking in one Diego, to the backdrop of our "lobby" and several other patients/owners.
Since we had 5 vets available, 4 performed surgeries, while the fifth saw appointments. Many of the locals refused to spay/neuter (especially neuter) their pets, but wanted parasite control or other care. We blame the macho machismo culture for the lack of neutering. Most of our patients were dogs, but (crazy cat lady alert!) I got to handle all 4 cats we "fixed" today - including our smallest patient, a 1.3# kitten spay!
In addition to spays and neuters, we also did an ear hematoma repair surgery (way to go Dr. Steele!). The ear had filled with blood and fluid and was very uncomfortable for the poor dog. Dr. Steele drained it out and sewed it back together all in the right order. Our other non-sterilization surgery was an eye removal. A poor poochie had injured itself and the eye was infected. Li'l guy's going to be fine now though, just with a constant wink.
Speaking of sterilization, our surgical instruments had to be chemically sterilized, as we did not have an autoclave (or modified pressure cooker) to steam them. Each "pack" was scrubbed out, and then bathed in fun chemicals, before being handed to another surgeon. Cute baskets, huh?
After surgery, the animals were brought to the Recovery area, where a few hardcore volunteers sweltered it out in a muggy, dark room, with very little foot space, monitoring the patients, counting out meds, documenting additional medical issues, etc. I was surprised at how calm this area was, especially since the dogs often clambered over each other in a drug-induced stupor.
As the dogs and cats came to, they were brought out to the light of day, where most of their families had waited for them in our "lobby" of folding chairs out in the yard. Owners got their pet back, care instructions, any needed medications, and in several cases, brand new collars and leashes, as we'd had some donated and didn't like to see the critters walk out on a rusty chain.
Word on the street is that we did 41 surgeries and saw 18 appointments today! We met some great people too - including one owner who did our grocery shopping for us, since we couldn't leave the clinic before the Mercado would be closed. She got us some great vegetables, which we brought back to the villa for dinner. While that was getting prepared, and since everyone was hot, sweaty, dirty, and covered in grime, and other people got to the showers before I did, well...
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