Friday 4/19/2013:
Paraphimosis. Intact male Jack Russel
-swelling reduced with powdered sugar and lube, then dextrose, mannitol,
powdered sugar and lube. After the swelling went down some an eye hook
was inserted between the prepuce and penis and used in a shoehorn
fashion to get the penis in.
Maggoty Cancer Lump. 13yo? female
Chow mix named Heidi -Was bit a week prior, owner brought her in due to
his son's complaint that the dog smelled bad. Right side had ~8in
circle of matted hair in the area of the bite. After shaving it a large
lump was seen with two punctures on it. Shaving dislodged a large scab
over one of the punctures which seeped tiny maggots. We squeezed the
maggots out and flushed the wound. The dog went home on antibiotics and
returned 2 days later for a recheck. No more maggots seen although the
doctors are worried about the wounds' ability to heal on the lump. The
lump was about 6cm in width and had some dark, necrotic looking skin on
it. It had previously been aspirated as a sebaceous cyst, but a more
current aspirate revealed only bloody serous fluid. The owner does not
want the lump removed due to the dogs' age.
Saturday 4/20/2013:
A
stability check was called on a dog bleeding from his eyes and mouth.
We brought him back and it was true. He also had pinpoint petechiea on
his mucous membranes (including his prepuce) and larger bruising on his
lower abdomen. He was hyperemic as well. We got some blood and I made a
smear to do a platelet count and got an optimistic 30,000 (it should be
above 200,000). We transferred him to emergency (it was likely he'd
need a blood transfusion) and their tests showed 12,000 platelets.
Sunday 4/21/2013:
We
ran bloodwork on a previous hit by car cat (Joe Taylor) due for surgery
the next day and found him to be extremely anemic (PCV of 12%). I took
a blood smear and saw no signs of regeneration. Blood was sent to the
lab and they confirmed no signs of regeneration. Surgery was cancelled
and the cause of the anemia is being looked into.
Monday 4/22/2013:
A
3 year old pitbull came in on Sunday and was diagnosed with an open
pyometra. Surgery was scheduled for today and had just completed as I
started my shift. At her first TPR George found her mucous membranes to
be nearly white and called the doctor. We put her on oxygen and
checked her vitals including BP, but everything was WNL. We bolused
LRS, gave 40cc's of Hetastarch, and then switched her fluids to 0.9%
saline when her electrolytes were found to be off. After an hour or two
she was more pink and more responsive and vocal, so she was put back in
her cage and bupernorphine was given for pain management. An hour or
two later, during a TPR her abdomen looked distended and the doctor was
called for again. Another PCV was run and was 4% lower than the first
one post surgery. Oxygen was started again, vitals still looked good,
and she did pink up again although she remained lethargic. She ended up
being transferred to emergency because we had no one on site to look
after her overnight.
Wednesday 4/24/2013:
Otostrongylus
season is upon the Marine Mammal Center. For the past couple weeks I've
noticed animals bleeding from their injection sites long after the
injections were given -a sign of the coagulopathy that signals the end
stages of otostrongylus infection in elephant seal pups. "Oto" is a
parasite of harbor seals that sometimes infects elephant seals. A
successful parasite does not kill it's host, but oto often kills our
ellies. There's no way to tell the statistics since there is no way to
definitively diagnose oto except at necropsy where masses of worms are
found in the pulmonary artery and clots are seen throughout the body
systems. Today we had two critical oto suspect cases -an ellie named
Brizo and another named Dance A Lot. Both were jaundice and lethargic
in the morning, but in the afternoon Dance A Lot was scooped out of the
pool nearly unresponsive. The vets gave fluids, dextrose (he had mildly
low glucose levels), steroids, and antibiotics. A few hours later he
was in the same situation. We ultrasounded him and found fluid in the
chest which when tapped, was confirmed to be nearly straight blood which
did not coagulate. DIC was the likely diagnosis and the animal was
euthanized. Euthanasia is often seen by people outside the veterinary
field to be an incredibly sad thing, but in cases like these where an
animal is really suffering and the diagnosis is almost certain death it
just feels like the right thing to do. I hope Dances A Lot is dancing
over the rainbow bridge as we speak -see you on the other side, buddy!
Friday 4/27/13:
A
2 year old neutered male Yorkie came in as a stability check, the
owners said they took his diaper off this afternoon and saw blood coming
from his anus. We brought him back and found that serosanguineous
fluid was dripping from his penis and there was a large (3-4 inch) area
of swelling that felt a lot like a hernia just caudal to his prepuce.
His vitals were all okay, but we called a doctor in to check the lump.
They feared he had herniated his bladder and recommended that the owners
bring him directly to an emergency clinic due to the fact that our
ultrasound machine is broken and our surgeon was gone for the day.
