Nov. 28
Procedure count: 2 dog spays, 2 dog neuters, mass removal
Today was a pretty good day - was good to see everyone again - seemed most people were refreshed from their long weekend. There is a Katrina dog who is not doing well - has kennel cough and today was recumbent with a temp of 104. The dog can walk with a very stilted gait, however is neurologically intact and does not appear to have back or neck pain. We did a PE and it seemed that the dog was painful in the joints. We took blood for a CBC, Chem and tick titers. I am betting on polyarthritis secondary to some other illness, likely a rickettsial disease - Ehrlichia, Lyme, RMSF. Dog has been on tetracycline for a few days, so it will be interesting to see what happens.
I did two dog spays and two dog neuters today - surgery went well for the most part, until my afternoon neuter. The dog was about 10 years old so his testicles may as well have been welded in his scrotum for all the fibrous tissue there was attaching them there. Christine (the other doctor) had to come and help me break it down so I could ligate the testicle and remove it. There were a million fat little cutaneous bleeders too, that wouldn’t stop bleeding. A simple neuter turned bloodbath - or at least that’s how it looked! Once that was over, I turned him over to remove a big mass from his back - likely a lipoma, however people don’t want to adopt animals with lumps and bumps, so pretty much everything comes off. I made a nice big elliptical incision around the thing with about 1cm margins and off it came - oh, and it also was a bloodbath. I was starting to wonder if the dog had a coagulopathy! Anyway, I decided since he was older, that we should cut into it and at least do an impression smear to get an idea of what sort of tumor it was. As soon as I cut into it, all this nasty, cheesy material came spewing out - GROSS!!! It was so gross it gave me the willies! It was pretty much diagnostic for a sebaceous cyst. So I sutured it back together and it turned out pretty nice! Made for a really long incision tho!
Today was a pretty good day - was good to see everyone again - seemed most people were refreshed from their long weekend. There is a Katrina dog who is not doing well - has kennel cough and today was recumbent with a temp of 104. The dog can walk with a very stilted gait, however is neurologically intact and does not appear to have back or neck pain. We did a PE and it seemed that the dog was painful in the joints. We took blood for a CBC, Chem and tick titers. I am betting on polyarthritis secondary to some other illness, likely a rickettsial disease - Ehrlichia, Lyme, RMSF. Dog has been on tetracycline for a few days, so it will be interesting to see what happens.
I did two dog spays and two dog neuters today - surgery went well for the most part, until my afternoon neuter. The dog was about 10 years old so his testicles may as well have been welded in his scrotum for all the fibrous tissue there was attaching them there. Christine (the other doctor) had to come and help me break it down so I could ligate the testicle and remove it. There were a million fat little cutaneous bleeders too, that wouldn’t stop bleeding. A simple neuter turned bloodbath - or at least that’s how it looked! Once that was over, I turned him over to remove a big mass from his back - likely a lipoma, however people don’t want to adopt animals with lumps and bumps, so pretty much everything comes off. I made a nice big elliptical incision around the thing with about 1cm margins and off it came - oh, and it also was a bloodbath. I was starting to wonder if the dog had a coagulopathy! Anyway, I decided since he was older, that we should cut into it and at least do an impression smear to get an idea of what sort of tumor it was. As soon as I cut into it, all this nasty, cheesy material came spewing out - GROSS!!! It was so gross it gave me the willies! It was pretty much diagnostic for a sebaceous cyst. So I sutured it back together and it turned out pretty nice! Made for a really long incision tho!