yesterday was plain ok... today was long
yesterday: started out with anesthetizing female sea otter and taking it up to the hospital. it has a mass on its right abdomen of over 2 years duration. though a sterile cellulitis, but it has increased in size after being static for some time. we took some rads and started surgery after about 1hr into anesthesia. none of her pelt was shaven as they require it for thermoregulation and it is so dense that shaving it well is very difficult. the hair was separated along the anticipated incision line after cleaning and applying sterile betadine ointment. she seemed to be doing ok when her co2 climbed up fast and she required 100% assisted ventilation. we were in the midst of removing the mass, about half way through separating it from surrounding tissue, when the anesthetist told us to stop what we were doing. epi, atropine, thoracic compressions. oh, that's not good. he said 'close her now, i turned off the iso' needless to say, under the potential inspiration of very painful and damaging otter bites, she was closed and in a crate in less than 5 minutes. she survived!
mass to be removed next week wed and i will be called in to perform that surgery (cautious yay!)
today: started out with andrea the 14.5 year old amur leopard who has been intermittently inappetent and lethargic for the last 2 weeks. she had been anesthetized two weeks ago when signs were initially evident and PE, rads and abdominal us showed nothing significant. on abdominal palpation today, i identified a cranial abdominal mass and on ultrasound identified severe splenomegaly. splenic echogenicity was normal in contrast to hepatic echogenicity. kidneys looked ok and previous labs had shown no abnormality in renal function. she is intact and not on any contraception. endometrial hyperplasia was identified in the right uterine horn with large ovarian cysts bilaterally (r>>l) large cats have been found to suffer ovarian adenocarcinomas and this is certainly a possibility. si looked ok. large cats are less inclined towards lymphoma (though alimentary is the most common) than domestic cats. there was also some peritoneal effusion that was tapped and found to be a blood tinged serosanguinous fluid. fip has not previously been a problem in the large cats at the zoo and the fluid was not really consistent with fip. a splenic needle biopsy was also submitted along with us-guided cystocentesis.
the colobus monkey in quarantine was again anesthetize for second tb test, suture removal (transplant removal site) and echocardiogram. doppler wasn't available on machine in house. valves and ventricular thickness appeared normal but without the ability to assess flow conclusions other than "no mass, probably no endocarditis" can't be made. recovered well from anesthesia. it was a lot of fun to play around with the us machine on the heart.
straw colored fruit bat with the wing lesion continued to have worsening head (dependent) edema despite IO and IV hetastarch, whole blood transfusion and various methods of trying to prevent protein loss through the seaping wing wound. this included a flap surgery to cover the defect after it was debulked. very frustating case. caught 3 healthy bats from the exhibit to get plasma from for transfusion. the lesion bat was anesthetized first to get blood for minor cross match and the thumb of the involved wing was found to be necrotic. these animals do very poorly without function of the thumb for climbing in their environment and he was euthanized.
necropsy on lorikeet with lesions consistent with proventricular nemotodiasis (proventricular wall thickening, melena, gelatinous mucus, emaciation) found dead with no history of illness. no spirurid oval found on fecal float of proventricular, ventricular and si contents. this the day after my presentation on the same dz. funky.
this was my last day at the zoo. very gratifying. dr. l remarked what a spectacular, excellent job i had done and then sang the reasons i should go for an internship on the ride home from a tasty salmon dinner. so confused about what to do with my career. i want my life to be more important than this one facet which is, needless to say, very interesting and rewarding. it could take over all my time and energy if i'm not careful about it.
tired now. next 6 days: study for boards and take them next fri. california dec 13-20. family junk dec 20-26. costa rica dec 26-feb 6. then back in indiana. i can't believe i won't see alu for over 2 months :(((((
mass to be removed next week wed and i will be called in to perform that surgery (cautious yay!)
today: started out with andrea the 14.5 year old amur leopard who has been intermittently inappetent and lethargic for the last 2 weeks. she had been anesthetized two weeks ago when signs were initially evident and PE, rads and abdominal us showed nothing significant. on abdominal palpation today, i identified a cranial abdominal mass and on ultrasound identified severe splenomegaly. splenic echogenicity was normal in contrast to hepatic echogenicity. kidneys looked ok and previous labs had shown no abnormality in renal function. she is intact and not on any contraception. endometrial hyperplasia was identified in the right uterine horn with large ovarian cysts bilaterally (r>>l) large cats have been found to suffer ovarian adenocarcinomas and this is certainly a possibility. si looked ok. large cats are less inclined towards lymphoma (though alimentary is the most common) than domestic cats. there was also some peritoneal effusion that was tapped and found to be a blood tinged serosanguinous fluid. fip has not previously been a problem in the large cats at the zoo and the fluid was not really consistent with fip. a splenic needle biopsy was also submitted along with us-guided cystocentesis.
the colobus monkey in quarantine was again anesthetize for second tb test, suture removal (transplant removal site) and echocardiogram. doppler wasn't available on machine in house. valves and ventricular thickness appeared normal but without the ability to assess flow conclusions other than "no mass, probably no endocarditis" can't be made. recovered well from anesthesia. it was a lot of fun to play around with the us machine on the heart.
straw colored fruit bat with the wing lesion continued to have worsening head (dependent) edema despite IO and IV hetastarch, whole blood transfusion and various methods of trying to prevent protein loss through the seaping wing wound. this included a flap surgery to cover the defect after it was debulked. very frustating case. caught 3 healthy bats from the exhibit to get plasma from for transfusion. the lesion bat was anesthetized first to get blood for minor cross match and the thumb of the involved wing was found to be necrotic. these animals do very poorly without function of the thumb for climbing in their environment and he was euthanized.
necropsy on lorikeet with lesions consistent with proventricular nemotodiasis (proventricular wall thickening, melena, gelatinous mucus, emaciation) found dead with no history of illness. no spirurid oval found on fecal float of proventricular, ventricular and si contents. this the day after my presentation on the same dz. funky.
this was my last day at the zoo. very gratifying. dr. l remarked what a spectacular, excellent job i had done and then sang the reasons i should go for an internship on the ride home from a tasty salmon dinner. so confused about what to do with my career. i want my life to be more important than this one facet which is, needless to say, very interesting and rewarding. it could take over all my time and energy if i'm not careful about it.
tired now. next 6 days: study for boards and take them next fri. california dec 13-20. family junk dec 20-26. costa rica dec 26-feb 6. then back in indiana. i can't believe i won't see alu for over 2 months :(((((