Back in the LBC!

Well really more HB, but in the same area! I had a pretty uneventful drive up here, though I left a bit later than I had intended since my friend and I hung out in the jacuzzi longer than we planned! When I got in I went to see my friends parents and all their dogs! My friend also has a puppy and she's super cute and we're best buds now! Then I met their new golden called Ellie and she's super sweet! And they were pet sitting ANOTHER golden for a grand total of 3! Ollie is a giant monster dog and so silly. It was great to catch up with everyone and see all the pups! Then we went to George's for dinner and it was so good! Saganaki, nuff said! Then we walked around 2nd st for a bit and headed home. The next day I had lunch with my friend and then visited work for a bit which was really fun! I knew everyone there which was great since last time I visited the people up front were all strangers and I was like ah crap! So it was great seeing everyone and the hospital. Then I headed into Hollywood to visit with my little and ended up staying over there for the night. It was great catching up with her and seeing some more of Hollywood, though I certainly do not miss all of the LA traffic!

Chill out

TThis morning we woke up super early to go to this really good breakfast place that doesn't take reservations. It was really small, but man were the portions big! We split a pancake that was bigger than my head! Needless to say we had leftovers, so afterwards we went on a search for someone to give them to, but to no avail. So we went home and pretty much just kicked it on the couch all day. It was nice and relaxing. 

Then we went to dinner and went shopping a bit and then went bar hopping with my friends friend done in the gaslamp district. It was really fun and we went to a lot of cool places!

Look what I found!

Museum hopping

Today I got up bright and early again. I watched a bit of tv while I decided what to do for the day. Then I went to a place for breakfast, but it was closed! So I walked to a bagel place and had a bagel there, quite good! Then I walked through balboa park to the area where there's a lot of museums. It was so cool! I walked practically to the zoo! If I had had time I would have totally gone to the zoo. I went into the museum of man, which was really fun. There were exhibits on rites of passage, Mayan culture, and a bunch of evolution. There was a beer exhibit, but it wasn't open yet, alas. Then I kept waking and got to the museum of natural history, where I really wanted to go. It was so fun! A bunch of animatronic dinosaurs and skulls and skeletons and a whole bunch of other stuff. Then I decide to head home for lunch and to meet up with my friend since she's working a half day. I had a crazy good sandwich from deli llama and hung at home a bit. Then I watched some tv and had a nap, which was glorious! Then my friend came home and we went to dinner across the street at a Mexican place, yum!, then came home and chilled for the rest of the night.

Wales past this this morning, only in SD

Sunny day in SD

 Today I woke up pretty early but layed in bed for a bit before finally getting up. I watched a little tv to decide what to do today and then headed out! Primarily I wanted breakfast, like a real good sit down one. My friends working today so it's just me for today, but that's fine it's fun to explore a new area! I found a place online that looked good, but when I got to the address it was nowhere to be found! So I started back the other way when I spied a 50s style diner. For sure they have breakfast! And I was right! Also it's been on diners, drive ins and dives! Breakfast was so good, and you have no idea how I've missed bottomless coffee! It's worth it just for that!

After breakfast I walked around town. It's a real cute part of SD, with a bunch of fu shops and cool stuff! I got a dress, some books from a used book shop and a shirt from buffalo exchange. It was fun waking around and exploring the area. Then I went back to the flat to drop off my bags so I didn't have to carry them around anymore. 

Afterwards I walked around the other end of the street, eventually ending up in balboa park. I found a nice sunny spot read for a while. Then I went home and watched a little tv to wait for my friend to come home. For dinner we went to this really good pizza place where

You make your own pizza. Then we went to another part of SD to meet up with her BF and do trivia! It was really fun, though we were terrible, but it was fun nonetheless. Her

BF owns te Trivia company, but he still wouldn't let us cheat! We did surprisingly well considering. All in all a fun day!

Heading down south!

I'm heading to LA for the week to visit people from school and I'm super excited! Yesterday I drove the 8.5 hour drive to San Diego, whoch didn't take as long as I thought I would, so that was nice! Though I did get stuck in the dreaded LA traffic, definitely don't miss that. I arrived in SD and snagged a parking place! Score! So the car won't be moving of I can help it! My friend and I caught up a bit, I showered since I was gross from travel, and she gave me a tour of the area. Then we went to this amazing retardant for dinner and it was so good! Amazing mac n cheese I must say, and good drinks too. Then we went to rite aid to pick up some face wash for me and headed home to chill. My friend has work in the morning so she went to bed frailty early, but I was right behind her! Long day of travel!

My last day!!

Today was my last day equine EMS, and all of my summer EMS! Crazy to think that I'm done for the summer and school is just around the corner. It was a fairly busy day. First we scanned the mare from yesterday to see if she had ovulated. Nothing happened, so they're going to keep scanning her to make sure they don't miss it. Then a horse came in that had fractured its jaw, so we took a bunch of radiographs. It turns out its pretty hard to get a good radiograph of a horses jaw, so we all had a good laugh trying to rotate the machine, the horse, the cassette, and at one point the vet held the cassette between the machine and the horse, so we all laughed about that. It turned out to have a slight fracture, but didn't need setting. Then we scoped a horse that had suspected narcolepsy. It was a pretty weird case, but the horse falls a couple of times and looks like it was loosing weight, so we scoped down into its stomach right done to its pylorus! But barely, since this horse was huge and the scope wasn't quite long enough. But it was really cool to see the inside of the stomach in situ and the different tissue. There were no ulcers, so they can rule that out. Then they took a belly tap to check if there is anything unusual in the abdominal fluid. It was kind of a weird case since the vet was just told to do these procedures and was a little confused and to what and why. It would be interesting to see the ultimate diagnosis, but i won't be there. Then we re-examined the lameness case from yesterday. He was much lamer than after we blocked him, and then we blocked his fetlock joint and he improved, though was still lame. So they're going to treat his joint, and give him medication for arthritis to see if it helps him. Then j sort of waited around for a bit and went out on a call to see another lame horse. He had a wonky leg, but the vet seemed to think he was doing better. Then I got dropped at the train station and now am heading back for the last time! At least for a while, then packing tomorrow and heading back to sunny CA Sun! Can't wait!

Cinderella horse

Today was yet another busy day. First thing when I get there we medicated a lane pony from yesterday so he could go home today. Then we waited around for a little bit because there was a mare that needed to be scanned so she could eventually get AI. They are keeping her for the weekend, jabbing her tonight to have her ovulate sun for insemination. Then we saw another lameness case. This was the first case I've seen that's been really obviously lame, a 5-6/10, so it was helpful to see a horse that was so clearly lame. We did the full work up for him, nothing too exciting there. Then a horse came in that had had a swollen leg and when we removed the bandage and pushed on the wound a bunch of pus came out, which I was really excited for since I haven't really seen anything gross and dischargey since I've been there, so that was exciting. We did an ultrasound and took some radiographs to see if there was a foreign body in the leg, since that was what most likely had caused the lesion in the first place. We didn't see anything, but the bone looked a bit affected by the swelling, so the horse was put on some stronger antibiotics. The next case was a racehorse that was doing ok in training, but then when you worked her hard she would plateau and white discharge would come out of her nose. So we did an endoscopy, and it was so cool. Not only did I see the epiglottis and vocal folds, but we actually went past them into the trachea and to the start of the lungs! There was some white mucous that we could see, and I also saw up into the nasal conchae, also cool. The vet said he thought that the horse had allergies so he put him on prednazone. The only thing that the owner needs to be careful of is that pred is detectable in racing tests, so the horse needs to stop it 2-3 days prior to the race to be clean. It's interesting that you still need to keep withdrawal periods in mind with horses, just for different reasons. In cows and sheep it's because they're going into the food chain, while with horses it's so they can race clean. Then a horse came in with a bunch of sarcoids to be frozen off. That was really cool to see. They had a little canister thing with a big cotton bud looking thing on the end and you pumped the liquid nitrogen through the cotton bud and froze off these sarcoids. This was apparently the 3rd round of this treatment, I'm not sure how many times it needs doing, but I imagine you do it until they go away. Then the ferrier came and put a heartbar shoe on the horse that had the quitter removed so the hoof would be supported during the healing process. Also I leaned that the hoof doesn't close up, the laminae will heal like a skin wound and then the hoof just grows out. Which totally makes sense, I just never really put that together. Tomorrow is my last day, so hopefully ill get to see something extra cool!

Busy busy

Today was another full speed day. Before I even had a chance to be bored in the morning I was grabbed by one of the vets to come out on a call, which I was excited about because its nice to leave the hospital for a bit and get out! It turns out that I wasn't really needed, but it was a nice change of pace. First we saw a foot abscess and rebandaged it. Then we went to do a suture removal on a yearling, nothing particularly exciting. Though yesterday there was a shooting at a livery yard that we see, and the vet I was with today was there Friday. So it's all anyone was talking about. And the fact that it was a shooting was crazy because guns are so hard to get here. So that was weird. Then we went back to the hospital and saw a bunch of lameness cases for the rest of the day. Really more of the same, though one is going to get a bone scan, though I won't be here to see it, alas.  Also I forgot to say yesterday that I got to be in the knock out box! It went surprisingly smoothly and the horse went down very well.

Technical difficulties

Today was another busy day. It started off slow enough but then we started and never stopped! First I helped one of the vets flush out the horses head that had the sinus infection. She's looking a lot better, and we put in this crazy play dough plug thing into where her tooth was removed. So that was pretty cool. Then I helped hold for the wee pony who had choke so they could endoscope her oesophagus to see of the the obstruction had passed. Fortunately it had! But the tissue looks pretty angry all around where it was, but it was really cool to see the inside of the oesophagus! They really are into the

Gadgets with equine medicine. I felt really bad for the wee pony since she had such small sinuses she had a crazy nose bleed and was looking absolutely miserable. Also to test that you are in the stomach you suck in the tube and if there's negative pressure then you aren't in the trachea, but when the vet sucked in the tube all this nasty fluid came up into her mouth! It was pretty gross smelling, I can only imagine what it tasted like! Then we had another lameness assessment, shocking! It was hindlimb lame, and quite a large horse so the lameness was really obvious, which was helpful since hindlimb lameness is a lot harder to spot, at least for me. So we blocked the stifle and it then became a little right hind lame, so clearly there was some sort of problem. We radiographed the joint, and it showed evidence of arthritis. Then we did an ultrasound, and all the structures of the joint were intact, there was just a haematoma that had formed as a result of the stifle block, so instead of injecting into the joint today we are going to wait and do it tomorrow. Then we had a mate come in with her foal to have AI done. After we scanned her we found that she had already ovulated and had a CH, so hopefully it wasn't too late, and after we called the owner, decided to go ahead and inseminate her anyway. So hopefully she gets pregnant. Then we had a stifle arthroscopy, so that was really cool. And I got to scrub in! So now I know how to do closed gloving! After I scrubbed in we went in and explored the stifle joint. It was really interesting to see all te structures in there, but there were some problems with the camera and we ended up needing to plug in the old spare camera so the image wasn't the best. It turned out that the horse had OCD, really bad arthritis, and a torn meniscus, so

A pretty poor prognosis in terms of working again. Also I was kind of

Bummed that last night there was an emergency colic surgery and I missed it, though the thought of doing surgery at 3 am is a bit daunting. Still it would have been good to see an actual crazy colic, oh well! Then the last appointment was a horse that had had a really bad foot abscess, but was starting to clear up a bit. I got to see the series of radiographs that they had taken, so that was really interesting. It's been cool being at the hospital all day, but I miss going out on calls, so hopefully we have stuff like that to do tomorrow!

A bit of normality

Today was another busy day, I didn't leave the hospital until 6, and ye we only saw 3 cases! It's crazy when each case takes you 2-3 hours, but it makes the day go quickly so that's nice. They were all lameness assessments. The first was a horse that had mild lameness in all of its feet, but was exacerbated when the owners took off his hind shoes. There was evidence of white line disease, which is also a problem, but the biggest problem is the lack of shoes. When we knocked out the front feet the rear ones became much worse, so tomorrow morning the ferrier is coming to do an emergency shoeing so hopefully that helps. He also may have some sub-clinical laminitis, so they're going to take faster blood tomorrow to test for cushings and equine metabolic disease, which is like type 2 diabetes. The next horse that came in had had a 4/10 lameness when it was checked by another vet and then sent here. After running the gambit of lameness tests there was no obvious lameness in any feet. It's always confusing when that happened because I can't tell if I'm

Just not seeing a mild lameness or if in fact the horse is not lame. So we did an ultrasound, which was cool since I actually knew all of the structures that we saw! So that was reassuring. There were no obvious problems with the tendons. The vet thought maybe there was a problem with the superficial digital flexor tendon, because there was mild swelling but it could have been from the bandages that the owners were putting on the horse. The ultrasound showed us no obvious problems, but if there is some oedema the pressure of the U/S scanner will compress it so you don't always see it. We took some radiographs just to cover all the bases since it seems that this horse wasn't lame after all. And no diagnosis is almost more concerning that an actual one! The horse had some small bone scars but they were one both sides so they didn't seem to be relevant. All in all there was nothing wrong that we could find, so we sent the horse home and told them to just monitor it to make sure it didn't go lame again! Though I was kind of bummed that I didn't get to see anything cool, it is nice to get a patient that's normal since you can run into the problem of only ever having seen things that are wrong you don't get to see what things should look like! The next case was another lameness case. We didn't do the whole battery of lameness tests and just dove into doing and ultrasound. There turned out to be a calcification along the tendon sheath that cast a pretty big shadow over the tendons and as a result of this calcification the deep digital flexor tendon had torn, which is bad news because its pretty much the most important tendon in the horse. So he's going to need lots of rest, and will most likely have to retire, though he's 20 so not terribly surprising in a horse of that age. After that I helped clean the exam room and then an 'emergency' came in that one of the vets had been seeing all day that had choke, an oesophageal impaction. So we have her some drugs and IV fluids. You basically wait for it to clear on its own, she was hacking some stuff up so hopefully in the morning shell be clear. She also kindly used my shirt and trousers as a tissue and wiped her bloody nose all over me. So much for today being a clean day!

No Quitter!

Today was really cool since I got to see hoof surgery! we dug into the side of the hoof the remove a quitter, only it wasn't a real quitter (though i'm still not 100% on what it is exactly, but this wasn't one) and once we got into the hoof laminae there was a keratoma, so we dug that out. then the vet drilled into the side of the hoof and braced it with wires that he threaded through and tied together in the middle. it was really interesting to see hoof surgery, for some reason it just seems crazy to me to open it up and that it will heal. I know its like ripping off a toe nail, it does grow back and its weird but possible, but still mind boggling. anyway after that i got grabbed to go on a call for a weird lameness test. basically this horse after being ridden from a walk would sort of extend his feet out back like he was taking a pee. i ran him up and down a bit for the vet to look at, then he got his tack on and the owner rode him a bit. we were worried when we got there since he wasn't doing it lately, and this has been an ongoing problem so if it wasn't presenting then there's not much we can do about it. but he started doing it pretty consistently, it was a really weird thing that was happening. so we did a nerve block on his hock joint, which was cool because i've only seen a forelimb nerveblock and not one in the joint. after the block we rode him again and still the same thing happened, so its reall perplexing as to whats going on. the vet was going to block a bit further up the leg but she decided to not make him totally hate us and do the block in a few weeks time. then we quickly stopped at a yard to take a blood sample and weigh a few pony's and a donkey, and i got to take the blood sample! so now i've taken blood on everyone! the pony has cushings so they're monitoring it to see how he's coming along. after that we did a quick dental, but nothing really needed to be done, though it was nice to have a feel of what 'normal' looks and feels like, so that was helpful.

A lame day!

This morning I hitched a ride with a Glasgow student who was also seeing practice, and we got to sit in on a presentation by one of the vets on extradurals (epidurals are for humans and laymans) so that was interesting! Then one of the vets caught me in the hall and said that she had a present for me in the fridge. Well I knew it could only be 1 thing. Poop! I got to do a faecal egg count, and now I know how to do it! Very exciting. Also it solved a mystery as to why these 2 horses were wasting away, so that's good! Then we saw a 3 year old filly who was bucking and rearing and not riding well, so she came in for a lameness test. We trotted her around and the vet suspected that she had kissing spine because she was bilaterally lame and had fairly severe back pain in her lumbar spine. But it still could have been other things, so we took some radiographs, which was so much easier at the hospital than it was in Spain with the portable unit! It turns out that the horse did have kissing spine, in a number of places, so it didn't look too good. They wanted to do something that wasn't expensive, so we did an intramuscular injection of steroids to help with the inflammation along the spine. Basically a glorified IM injection, but still cool. Also I got to do an IV injection! So tick that off my list! While we were doing this a horse that had surgery yesterday started having diarrhoea, which panicked one of the vets here since there is a horse in isolation that has salmonella, so they were afraid that it my have spread. Upon further investigation it seems more like some fort of impaction, and faecal matter is just bypassing it and getting runny. But it's still relatively isolated from the rest for now and being monitored. Then a horse

Came in that's going to have surgery tomorrow. It has a quitter, or not a true quitter but something like it. I'm not entirely sure what that is, but it's in the hoof and some kind of infection that needs to be scooped out, so hopefully ill see that tomorrow! Then another lameness case came in. I should mention that while I'm seeing these lameness cases another vet is also seeing lameness cases, there was a lot today. This horse presented with a mild head nod and left forelimb lameness, but like a 1 out of 8, so barely noticeable. We trotted him on hard ground, and did the lunge line on hard and soft ground. Then did a digital nerve block, and lunged him again. He had long toes and low heels so it was most likely some sort of foot problem, probably with the way his foot was loaded. So we took a bunch of radiographs. I got to process them! Which was fun, and there's a wee widow where they pass me the cassettes, so I got to see how they position the limb and also the radiograph once it was done. They determined that there was problem with the navicular bone, most likely because of the long toes and low heels, so they did an injection of depo into the coffin joint, and because the coffin joint communicates with the navicular bursa it will go in there and help with the inflammation. And hopefully that with corrective shoes will help stop the lameness before it becomes a real problem.