(no subject)
I got out of classes at noon today, thankfully. I have a lot of housework and phone calls I want to attend to.
Last night, I noticed that Poppy (my g-pig), looked kind of funny. I reached in to pick her up and her sides were just like water balloons and hairless to boot! I KNOW she didn't look like that a few days ago, so I was amazed how fast she lost the hair. Because it is bi-lateral hair loss in front of her hips, I knew immediately that it was hormonal. So I took her to school with me this morning to have the exotics veterinarian (and 4th years) have a look at her.
While I was in class, one of the other veterinarians took an interest in her case, I guess because she so classically presented the signs of ovarian cysts/tumors in a guinea pig, and ran her off to ultrasound. She has one HUGE cyst, and at least one other smaller one. They want to spay her tomorrow. If she survives (she is an old guinea pig at the age of 6 and a half), and if the tumors are not malignant, then the spay will be curative. Of course, she's also been drinking a LOT of water, and losing weight, so there may be some adrenal gland issues or some other endocrine disorder, but maybe it's all being caused by the ovarian disease. I don't know.
I asked if I can observe the surgery, and as long as I bring scrubs, the lead vet on her case said I could be in the surgery suite. So I will miss my physiology class, and perhaps immunology, but I think it will be very interesting to see, and a good learning experience. I also want to be there if anything goes wrong, just so I will know what happened.
Since Dr. S. decided to do the ultrasound on her own (probably to show the 4th years), I am not being charged for it. Dr. A. let me take Poppy home "on hospital leave" for tonight and I will bring her back tomorrow morning.
So hopefully, things will work out. With my student discount, this is costing me somewhere in the neighborhood of $150. But I can't just let her sit there and risk having that big cyst rupture. That would be a horribly painful thing, and I can't do that to any animal.
Anyway, other than that, my day was fairly uneventful. We had a lab animal veterinarian and a shelter medicine veterinarian speak to my Clinical Correlations class today. I found out I did not fail my last anatomy quiz, as I'd feared. I didn't do well, but I did not fail. And apparently the whole class sucked, because our class President (yes, they elect class officers in veterinary school!) talked with the professor and got him to agree to some kind of curve. It truly was a KILLER quiz.
So that's the news from here. I am going to get some stuff done around here so that I can relax enough to study, then it's books for me!