The Other Side

I was recently on the other side of the exam table and I cannot say that I enjoyed it. I had gone home to do a seminar and visit with my mother, Heather Logan. I hadn't been home to visit in about five years so I was pretty excited. My husband, Troy, went on a photography trip with a friend of his to Trinidad. I had one of my girls staying at the house to take care of the dogs. I really didn't expect to have any problems.

I did get concerned when the housesitter texted me to say that Jazzy wasn't eating well. Normally, Jazzy eats with the enthusiasm of a Lab. As she still had a good attitude and was drinking, I advised her to keep a close eye on her. Well, by Sunday morning she still hadn't eaten so I told her to take Jazzy into the Fish Creek Pet Hospital.

It turns out that Jazzy was much sicker than she looked. The bloodwork showed that her kidney enzymes were elevated so she was put on IV fluids immediately. The radiographs did not show any areas of concern. As the day progressed, she was not improving. The next morning an ultrasound was performed and the kidneys were normal. At the end of the procedure, she had bloody jellylike feces. Not a good thing! I gave permission for the specialist, Dr. Clarkson, to go forward with endoscopy. Since she was stable and well hydrated it would still be safe for her to go under general anesthesia. Her esophagus and stomach appeared normal. Apparently, the large colon was a bit interesting. The analytical side of me enjoys interesting cases; however, I don't like being the owner of one!!! The lining of the colon looked a bit angry and she oozed blood more than normal from the biopsy sites.

The phone call to tell me that she was going to need at least two plasma transfusions did not give me the warm fuzzies. The plasma would provide her with the factors of the blood that would allow her to clot better. Three different antibiotics were also started. By the time I got home three days later, she was ready to come home. I got off the plane and the first stop was the hospital to get her.

Not going to lie, I could barely see her through the tears as they brought her up front. She crawled into my arms and I didn't let her go until I got home.
This is one of my favorite baby pictures.

We are still waiting for the biopsy results but it is looking as though she had an overgrowth of bacteria (most likely a nasty type of E.coli) and became toxic from it entering the blood stream. I really appreciate all the staff at the Fish Creek Pet Hospital for saving my baby girl's life!

Giggling while using the gigli wire

After we closed on Saturday, I was sitting at my desk going through my stack of files. One of my clients called to say that his dog had got the bone she was chewing stuck in her mouth. I told him to come right over. I was picturing that the bone was caught in the hard palate. I hadn't pictured this. There was no way that the bone was coming off while she was awake.

So, under a general anesthetic she went. This way, I was able to use my gigli wire to get it off. The gigli wire is a surgical wire used to cut through bone smoothly. I was able to slide it through and start sawing. Her Dad, provided counter balance. It only took 10 seconds to saw through. I popped it off and woke her up. Another successful day at the office!

Years of Searching

Today was the day I found my paper!

COX, M.G., ANDERSON, D.M. and RYON, J. 1997. Comparative digestibility by wolves (Canis Iupus) and Coyotes (Canis Iatrans) fed feedstuffs of animal origin. Can. J. Anim. Sci. 77:560.

Doesn't it look official?!!? My first(long story) maiden name was Cox and I was thrilled when I got to work with the wolves and coyotes at the Canadian Wolf Research Centre in 1996-1997. This was during my final year at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College (now known as the Dalhousie Agricultural Campus) and everyone in their last year had to do a research project. I was told later that the project I worked on could have qualified for a Masters program!!! What I also didn't know was that this project was going to take me out of class so much. When my professors wanted to let me know that I needed to study for a test, they would come find me in the lab where I basically lived for about 4 months.

Over the years I have looked for this paper as I have many fond memories of working with the animals. It was bitterly cold that winter and yet I had fun getting to know the animals. This is also the only time in my life that I was actually interested in picking up the scat (poop). Mom always had to nag me to clean up after the dogs and my mutterings about how I felt about it were not exactly positive!

Here is one of my test subjects. He looked forward to me coming with the food everyday. One day, he actually nipped at my butt to get me to move faster towards the area where I would place his food. I don't think he got the reaction he was looking for cause I started laughing so hard. Here I was, alone in the 1 acre pen with a wolf trying to herd me.

If you are bored, go to this link and find page 20. There you will find the abstract. Woohoooooo!!! I am published.

Panda hugs

Another item on the bucket list checked off! I got to go to China. We had been told by our fantastic travel agents, Dave and Arlene, of Pace Setter Travel, that we would be able to see the Pandas. I never dreamed that I would ever get to hold a Panda. Absolutely thrilling to put it mildly.

You can imagine the surprise when the Panda was brought in. I had been under the impression that we would be holding a baby. The baby basically dwarfed me.

I was exposed to the most extraordinary example of positive reinforecment while I was there. Panda bears are not the friendliest animals on earth. However, the way they are handled at this facility, they are completely comfortable with humans. Who wouldn't be when you have the association of sitting on an excited person's lap while eating your favorite bamboo shoots, honey and apples?

Not more anal glands!

Anyone who thinks that being a veterinarian is a glamorous, fun job where you get to play with puppies and kittens all day is delusional! Fun, yes but after your first run in with an anal gland, no glamor! I seem to be having a run of patients needing help regarding their anal glands. With this in mind, I took a picture of one of my most recent sacculectomy cases to show off.

Let's go back to basics. Anal glands are the scent secreting glands located just inside the internal and external sphincter muscles of the rectum. There is one on either side of the anus between 3-4 o'clock and 8-9 o'clock. Normally, when the dog (or cat) defecates, the anal glands are self expressed. Problems occur for a number of reasons. Some of these include when the material becomes too thick to easily be expressed, the ducts leading from the glands to the anus become blocked, the area becomes inflammed leading to blockage of the ducts, the glands become infected or rupture of the gland. The list goes on.

When deciding to go forward with surgery, you have to weigh the pros and cons seriously. Pros: no more smelly glands that can become infected or ruptured (takes 7 - 9 weeks to heal and are much more likely to rupture again). Cons: fecal incontinence, infection, inflammation, dehiscence of the incisions. This is not a surgery to be taken lightly.

So when we have a case where we need to remove them, I want to avoid a particular complication at all costs. Fecal incontinence is no fun. The dog is just walking along, feces falls out and s/he has no idea it happened. I have only had one case where it occured and it resolved in two weeks.

One of my tools is coloured wax. Who knew that Crayola crayons would have so many uses! It can be a bloody surgery and having a contrasting colour really helps. During the surgery prep I infuse both the glands with the colored wax. This allows me to make my incision just that much further away from the anus; thereby decreasing the chance I will tick the nerves to the sphincters off.

Back to the picture. I made an incision over the gland so you could see how thick it was from the chronic infections. At the bottom of the picture you can see the duct. Since I didn't place a ruler by the gland, it is difficult to have perspective on the actual size. Small, but large enough to be a pain in the......well, you get the idea!

Dental surprise!

One of my patients, Tazo, was having a hard time chewing her food so she was brought in for an exam. Her 108 (really big upper molar had some gum recession and purulent (abcess material) along the gum line. We scheduled her for surgery.

Well, today was the day. We took a radiograph to see what was going on with the bone around the tooth and to see if there were any tooth root abcesses. I was not expecting to see this picture. The entire back root was gone, as was the bone from infection. It also usually takes anywhere from 20-40 minutes to remove this tooth but it only took half the time. The biggest problem was getting enough gum tissue to cover the sockets once I got all the "debris" out of them.

Here is the after picture with the area sutured close. No more wiggly, painful tooth! Plus, her breath doesn't clear a room out now.

I saw red!

This week, we got a call that an emergency was coming in and they were just a few minutes out. Dog versus horse. That is about as heart warming as reading a Dean Koontz book.

In came Soda with blood coming from the right nostril and the right eye trying to leave its socket. The picture kind of tells the story for me.

Everything was bloody. The anterior chamber (area of eye in front of pupil was full of blood, the sclera (white of the eye) was bulging and the entire eye was being pushed out by the hematoma that was likely bleeding behind the eye itself. The swollen eyelids were basically holding the eye in place.

I was so proud of my staff. We got things happening pretty quickly. Stephanie drove to Troy's clinic to get non-absorbable suture (I only had absorbable), Kelly, PJ, Claire and Caitie got her pre-meded and under a general anesthetic while Jac and Belle rearranged my schedule so we could do the procedure.

The procedure is pretty neat when you don't think about what would happen if you accidently poked the eye with the needle............You basically use the eyelids as the bandage. The eyes stay lubricated and by suturing the eyelids closed, it stops the bleeding. To make sure the eyelids don't rip (well, if you don't like gross stuff, you should have stopped reading sooner!) I used small pieces of IV tubing as anchors. We will remove the sutures in 2 weeks and see what is happening. There is a chance she may be blind in that eye but as long as she is comfortable, that is the most important thing!