Exhausted!

Not exactly what I had planned for my last few weeks of summer vacation but over the past weekend I believe I had the flu with a 4-day headache (on-and-off migraine level pain) and it caused me to miss two days of work one of those being Saturday, February 1st 2014! Exactly ONE YEAR IN AUSTRALIA!!! I unfortunatly celebrated it EXACTLY as how I did when I arrived. Sick and Sleeping! :( Then I suffered through an 8 hour shift on sunday and started my practical week of observation  at WAVES - Western Australia Veterinary Emergency and Specialty and it started in surgery. It was an easy day starting with a plate removal from a year old knee surgery. The vet and the nurses had already xrayed a more aggressive dog before I arrived at 830am. After the plate removal we did an ultrasound of a dog with an abcess in or near his parotid salivary gland with the help of the radiologist vet specialist. We then took a spinal case into CT, back to xray, spinal tap with contrast, more xrays, more contrast and another CT. At this point one of the surgery nurses got a text message alert to evacuate her neighborhood because of an intense bush fire! Then one of the other nurses went to check the mailbox and could see all the smoke behind our clinic and showed me the photo! So I ran to check my phone where I found messages from Brian about black ash coming down on our property! AND to top it off for the past two days before the fire our bore water pump somewhere in the wiring is causing the power trip and then no irrigation sprinklers! So not only was there a fire DIRECTLY east of our property and the wind was blowing PERFECTLY west at us, but our sprinklers aren't working so we couldn't prep the property! As soon as I got the message I just rushed out of my prac and came home. Had to contact the agisters to make sure we could get floats for the horses organise property for them to be taken too! If floats could not be organised all you can do is spray paint your number on the side of the horse and leave the gates open for them to run free away from the fire. After HOURS, 200 volunteer firefighters and a dozen water bombing helicopters and planes, the fire was said to be contained but not under control by the time the sun went down, but there was hotspots around the area for a full week after the fire.

ONE OF THE EMBERS THAT FELL! SUPER BURNT!! SCARY!!

Because of all the smoke inhalation and stress at the property I didn't go into prac on tuesday, but continued the rest of my week. Wednesday was surgery again. That day I got to see a TPLO surgery. It is putting in the exact same type of plate that we removed on another dog.
"TPLO is the abbreviation for tibial plateau levelling osteotomy. This a surgical procedure used to treat cranial (or anterior) cruciate ligament rupture in the knee joints of dogs. It involves changing the angle of the top of the shin bone (the tibial plateau) by cutting the bone, rotating it, and stabilising it in a new position with a plate and screws." 
http://www.willows.uk.net/en-GB/specialist-services/pet-health-information/orthopaedics/tplo-surgery

We also re-ultrasounded the dog with all the facial swelling to see if there was a grass seed stuck in the parotid salivary gland. We did not detect one, but after starting him on antibiotics monday the fluid in the gland was no long pus-filled like it was on monday and it just had clear fluid but the size of the gland had also shrunken. It was a very odd case in deed. I did not go into any of the surgeon's consults and was allowed to leave a bit early on wednesday due to not much going on. Even with a short day, I still love surgery. I do not like standing for minimum 10 hour days but I do love the surgery. One day when I am all grown up and a vet surgery will be even more fun when you have a great staff of nurses to help clean up and keep everything sterile… slowly working my way up.. ..only 4 more years of laundry duty :) OH, and one of the surgery nurses offered to give me a reference in the future if by the time I reach 4th/5th year and I am still interested in surgery she will send my name over to a SUPER surgeon over in Sydney who she said is just phenomenal. He does hip replacements like 3 times a week and a bunch of crazy things. She said he doesn't normally take students but he will if she asks him because she worked directly under him for about 4-5years! :) I love making new friends!

Thursday - Radiology Day. This day was also surprisingly quiet for the radiology department. I showed up at 8am only to learn that the Vet didn't come in till 9am because of dropping her daughter off at school. So that was a very slow start to my morning. But then I got to see 3 ultrasounds in a row and I am not AS scared as I was of imaging, but she said there is no way to learn it expect following doing what she did which was a 5 year radiology residency! How nuts! She is from South Africa and she was really really really nice and I got along with her very well. And we ended the day with a CT scan that showed a mineralised disc extremely well! CT scans fascinate me! The only thing missing at WAVES is an MRI and maybe one day we will have one! :) AND I got to go into a consult with her and it was very straightforward and the owner handled the amount of bad news we had to give her extremely well.

Friday - Medicine/Emergency Day. I was supposed to be following one of the Medicine Vet's but when I got there at 8am she told me that they didn't have anything until 10am and so I got to follow around emergency, but they were pretty quiet also. I helped restrain a few animals, watched an ultrasound, rolled a vein for a catheter. and then we got a case for polyarthropathy - very painful joints. This dog was extremely sore in his carpi, tarsi, stifles and elbows. Thankfully hips and shoulders, neck and spine were all alright. We took him into ultrasound to see how the organs were looking to rule out lymphoma as the cause. We took a fine needle aspirate of the liver because it appeared whiter than it should be, as well as taking aspirates from the lymph nodes which were enlarged and from three of the joints and sent it off to VetPath (a lab). Then before that case was over emergency got a transferred case from another vet clinic for a Newfoundland  with bloat or possible GDV - Gastric dilatation volvulus. Pretty much  a really bad scenario. The dog was in a complete state of shock and we had to rush him into surgery to untwist his stomach and depending on how long its been flipped parts of the GI tract can start to die off and you would have to resect those sections at that point. I got to help a lot with the pre-surgical medications administering them through the bung in his IV catheter and then I got to scrub up and watch the surgery! IT WAS PHENOMENAL!! The surgeon was just pulling out all the intestines to inspect for any necrosis and then stitched the stomach the abdominal wall to prevent it ever flipping again and then we stitched him back up! and then I got go to home. IT was an amazing ending to a surprisingly slow week at the Emergency and Specialty Centre!  Sadly the poor puppy passed away during my actual work shift on saturday do to liver failure and other organ failure. He was in such a bad state of shock by the time he got to us that there was only so much we could do. :( it was really sad! He was so young and such a good looking Newfie! I love that breed!!

Like I said I worked saturday for 8 hours and it was an amazing shift. I don't know if it was because it was my last shift before vacation or what, but everything went so smooth and it went time just flew by! I was outta there before I knew it. And now I am just trying to finalise everything so I can get OUTTA perth and head down to "off-the-grid" land down south!!! SOOOOOO EXCITED!!!!!! My first real adult vacation for two weeks! And I really really need it!

After the fire on monday we got the electricians finally out to the property on Wednesday and they said they couldn't pinpoint if it was the starter or the submerged bore punp and they would have to call their boss. Their boss didn't get back to us until Friday saying that it was best if we got reticulation (irrigation) specialists out. We tried getting ahold of people on saturday and no luck and nothing is open on sundays so don't even try. and we have been up since 7am today trying to get someone out here! We finally got another retic electrician out and he has been here since 10am and it is now 2pm! We think we have found the problem and the thankfully the bore pump itself looks fine. Hopefully a couple of new wiring that were buried with the tank is all that needs to be changed and we can be on our way down south! Been cleaning and packing and trying to get so much done before we leave! Never had so much property to look after before and its very stressful!! But I wouldn't change a thing about where we are living! :) I hope that is all the updates - I will now go on a two week hiatus and try to regain some of my mental strength and start year two of vet school all bright eyed and bushy-tailed!