Bellisimo

Life List For Women Who Want To Embrace Life

Day 41 - 49:
This week in the bellisimo Costa Rica, we worked with the Costa Rican dog rescue, walking and bathing dogs.  I purchased a t-shirt to support the organization as well.  We later traveled to La Fortuna to one of my favorite locations with a phenomenal view.  I have been working with an amazingly talented equine vet doing lameness exams, doing ultrasounds and radiographs, cleaning wounds, and following up on old leg fractures and laminitis. We also got to do a little horseback riding luckily not in the rain.

Next stop is to Quepos where we will get to assist at the Kids Saving The Rainforest wildlife center and hopefully work up some fascinating cases of various species.

Colic

She Died Peacefully At Home

There was a spay day at animal control on Sunday that I was able to help with right before getting called in for a foal with chronic diarrhea.  This week I had a colic patient who underwent surgery on emergency and got transferred to me the next day.  She was suppose to go home since she was doing so well, but then started to shows signs of colic again. Our service saw a tooth root abscess surgery, ruptured tendon,  another arthroscope, and lots of colic. I was on call again on Wednesday and again got called in for a horse with colic with unfortunately ended up bring euthanized.

For those not as familiar with horses: The true term "colic" refers to generalized abdominal pain.  There is a variety of signs and causes of colic and finding out the cause is of course where the vet comes in.  There are several diagnostics including checking vitals, gut sounds, rectal palpation, nasogastric tube, abdominocentesis, radiographs, and ultrasound.  A nasogastric tube is a tube that is placed up the nose, down the esophagus, and into the stomach in order to relieve fluid or gas buildup as well as used to administer fluids and mineral oil. The treatment includes anaglesics (pain meds), fluids, laxatives, and sometimes surgery. Prevention comes from feeding a well rounded diet.

I've thoroughly enjoyed working with these powerful yet sensitive creatures.  I received several compliments from the intern, resident, and clinician that I worked with and I was even asked to think about working in equine medicine.  Hmm, this just makes my decision of what to do after school that much more difficult.

I will be traveling again this weekend for my next rotation and externship! Start spreading the news. Any guesses where to this time?

Equine Surgery Rotation

Back in LA and first stop was food of course!  One less food item (Muffaletta) off part of my 30 before 30 list!

For the next two weeks, I will be on my equine surgery rotation which means powerful, expensive creatures and 12 hour days. While on this rotation, we saw a mare with a laceration, a mare with a neck abscess (my patient) with a foal who had surgery for a patent urachus, chronic lameness which was very difficult to diagnosis what was causing the lameness, nasal discharge which turned out to be a tooth root abscess, which we removed, and a bilateral carpal arthroscopy (my patient).  The chronic lameness horse was the most frustrating because none of the diagnostic joint and nerve blocks that we performed seemed to help show us where the lameness was coming from.  The horse will have to have further diagnostic testing.

(I do actually do the second to last picture and lucky not the last yet)

Love this! It's so true! : The Husbandry And Feeding Of Veterinarians For New Owners