Clinics, Day - Ridiculously Busy

Three tiny "bittens" with girl names showed up. We neutered all three boys and told their owners they had three hombres. They woke up together in a suitcase (some of the pet carriers were very creative). Their paper collars are practically bigger than they are!

 I kept looking for one patient in the "lobby" and just couldn't find her. Turns out her owner had left her tied to a tree, and she had the most amazing camouflage...

 There were so many big dogs that a lot of the pre-meds happened in the empty lot next to our clinic. I had to carry an armful of muzzles and a bag of medical supplies from truck to truck to inject all the dogs:

 Some patients just came in for a "Consulta" or exam. Most of them just needed parasite control or vaccines, but there were a few sick pets we were able to help.

 Several of the big dogs were either fat, or had infected "privates", making surgery more difficult for the dog and surgeon both. At this clinic, we had many older dogs too. We figured the owners had all the puppies they wanted, and decided to stop breeding the dogs so they could retire. Thank goodness. This poor girl had had several litters, was fat, AND had an infected uterus (called pyometra). Pyometra can be deadly if not treated, and usually requires a spay to make it go away. This dog might not have lived much longer if we hadn't been there. Hooray for World Vets!

 Our new friend Wilson surprised us by showing up on the last day and just cleaning and sterilizing surgery instruments all day. He was great! We didn't have a sterilizing machine, and had to use a series of cold water washes with different chemicals in them to make sure everything was perfectly clean for surgery:

 Each surgeon was in charge of getting a new tray of instruments, or "surgery pack" when they needed them. Two of our doctors had brought their own packs from home to use at the clinic, so they would make sure they had all the right tools. During surgeries, Sandy monitored anesthesia, checked vitals, and just helped out wherever was needed. Surgical assistants are very important, and much appreciated!

 I wish we had a better picture of this dog. She has the most amazing blue eyes, but she was very aggressive and kept trying to attack people before we could get her in to surgery. I have no idea how anyone got her on her chain to begin with. We had to use a catch pole to hold her, and a special anesthetic that can be injected into the muscle very quickly. Even then, there were several people with heavy gloves on hand to make sure Suzanne was safe as she gave the injection.

 Every day, we had a great lunch. Our friend Noel ate with us. He worked with us too, all three days. He is an English tutor on the island, so his English is much more clear than the native Creole most locals speak. A lot of people who have emigrated to the island from Colombia speak Spanish, but Creole is the original language of the natives.

Among the many big dogs of the day, we had one tiny chihuahua. Most of the volunteers were nervous because it kept snapping at all of us, and was too small for any of our muzzles. 

 Lesley is some sort of land-shark whisperer, and was able to calm the little girl down, even give her kisses after surgery. Wow!

 Towards the end of the day, we got in a litter of puppies to be "fixed". The boys woke up very quickly after surgery, and several people got puppy photo ops - Stacy:

 Dee (or "Coco Loco"):

 Collette got to do the last spay of the campaign, starting just as most of the other surgeons were finishing up their final surgeries. We used the water bottles to help stabilize animals on the surgery table. Although Collette is a very quick surgeon, she still finished quite a bit after everyone else, so we had most of the other surgery areas cleaned up already.

She did, however, still have time for a puppy photo op:

 I, on the other hand, was collecting all our leashes, so this is the cuteness that I got to "snuggle":

 And then I got sort of startled from behind:

 After we were done cleaning up, we piled into our van for the last time - our driver had brought his daughter to see the group of vets, and she rode with us back to our hotel:

And then the clinics were over. We ate, we crashed, and then this morning we went into town to shop. I finally found some Colombian coffee to bring home, and now it's siesta - for about 5 minutes. Then it's off for a boat ride around the island!

Last Day of Clinics

Considering that we all worked for more than 12 hours, with an average lunch break of about 7 and a half minutes, and that we ran short on drinking water today... you'd think we'd all be in way worse moods than we are. We're basically all just super exhausted and need to sleep. I'll post a nice long story full of pictures tomorrow, after i can brain again.

As I was Blogging...

This guy showed up. Nicole told us earlier about these beetles. She had met one on a previous trip to the Caribbean, and it bit her quite nastily on a, well, a girly part of the anatomy. So we decided to take a picture to show how big, but how not-scary he was since we were super brave, and he was just a beetle. One of the hotel workers brought us a broom to pick him up with:

While we were getting ready that photo, he flapped his wings, and Dee and I both screamed, and she took a picture of the floor instead:

 Then we got the first picture taken, and suddenly he leaped off the broom, buzzed threateningly, zoomed over and thumped a landing on my same girly part of anatomy. After a flailing beetle dance, during which I very nearly lost my shirt, and got hit in the chest a couple of times with a broom, he was finally gone, and I turned around in time to see a camera not-quite-flash:

Then the nice hotel worker brought me a glass of water, and she told me the beetle's name is Cucaron. Little bastard.

Day Two

I just can't leave out the clever wine bottle wind chimes that surround our hotel! This morning, we started with breakfast at the ridiculously early hour of 7-ish am (about 4am at home). The hotel ladies are very accomodating, especially after we told them that, in America, coffee comes in VERY large cups, not the tiny adorable cups they were giving us. Now we have bigger cups. This hotel is lovely!

 When we got to the clinic, this little guy was waiting for us, as were a few other dogs and cats.

This lady brought in her mama dog and puppy. She thought the puppy was too young to neuter, but we got to spay his mom and remove a mass from her thigh.  

 Several animals were brought in by kids. The kids acted much more interested in what we were doing than most of the adults. They asked questions and watched through windows.

 Dee made good with the toys again today: this time she gave away a jump rope, and showed the kids how to use it!

 Contrary to popular belief, Stacy does take breaks once in a while... just kidding - she's monitoring a patient. That tinfoil-looking package is a dog wrapped in a space blanket for warmth. She got too cold during surgery, and needed to be out under the sun to warm up. See the thermometer?

 Suzanne took a few turns in recovery, spelling off our Josefina, so she could pick up more patients from around town. Patients in recovery got injections of pain meds and antibiotics, a rabies vaccine, and medication for flea and tick control.

As each pet was given their treatments, we marked off all those things on the pet's travel sheet. As each pet checked out of the clinic, the health department workers collected their sheets, to keep a record of what had been done.

 Here, some kids help keep an eye on recovery patients through a convenient window:

  One of our patients had a very serious condition: she was pregnant and had lost some of the puppies. Her whole uterus was infected, and she still had puppies inside her. Surgeon Stacy to the rescue! Several of our local helpers had never seen a surgery like this one before, so the surgery room was pretty crowded with helpers and watchers. No pressure! It was too late to save any puppies, but the mama dog came through surgery very well, and went home with antibiotics and lots of pain medicine. She seems like she'll be ok.

 Something else that we had to set up at the clinic was our "tick station" made out of a paper cup with rubbing alcohol in it, and a pair of hemostats (very fancy tweezers). Alcohol kills ticks, and tweezers make it much easier to pull them off dogs to put them in the alcohol. This is a blurry photo, but all those ticks were from just one dog! After that, I was suddenly very itchy! There are a few very serious tick-borne diseases in San Andres, which is why we treated all of our patients with a tick preventive before they left the clinic.

Even more of our volunteers learned new skills today - we doubled the number of people who can place IV catheters! One of our helpers usually works with children, and new how to put IVs in people, but had to learn a few new tricks to do it for a dog. Dogs' skin is WAY tougher than ours, and people don't usually have to be muzzled beforehand! Even more volunteers learned how to hold a dog for someone else to work with, or how to clip and clean for surgeries.

 I didn't even have to touch this cat: Dee and Isamar took care of surgery prep all by themselves!

 These kids brought three dogs and two cats to the clinic today. This dog was very scared, and cried until the boy helped coax her in to the clinic. He was great at holding them for their injections!

Can't believe I forgot...

I did a house call yesterday! Noel and I (along with a couple of helpers) rode in the back of a pickup truck to a house where a man has 16 dogs. We brought the pre-anesthesia sedatives with us, so that we could sedate the dogs before putting them in the truck to take back to the clinic. Even though they were his dogs, the man could only catch 13 of them for us. After 5 of the dogs were ready, our helpers took them back in the truck, while Noel and I stayed behind to pre-med the rest of the 13. Then we loaded them all up and headed back to the clinic for surgeries. I'll write a post about today's clinic after I upload photos from everyone's cameras.

Buenos dias!

Hola!  Woofie here.  Yesterday morning Mom and I strolled down the dirt road from the hotel towards the ocean.  It is probably only a ten minute walk, through the "jungle" to watch the sunrise.  It was very pretty, between little rain squalls, but we decided not to go all the way to the beach on our own.  Maybe we can get someone on the team to walk with us one morning...

So the sunrises don't have the colors we see at home, but the glowing clouds are quite beautiful.

 

The grounds around the hotel are magnificent.  I believe there is a full time master gardener that keeps it all so gorgeous.

Ummm, Mom, these are really beautiful flowers...

...but where are more pictures of ME!!

OH!  There I am!  Hanging in the Hammock outside our room  as the sun rises.  Ahhhh, life on the island.  Some things are tough, but some little Woofie has to do it!

Here I am with my new BBF: Farnsworth!  He lives with Sandy and is very much out of his element.  He has never traveled internationally before, so I am making it much easier for him!

Yesterday Linda blogged about (and posted funny pictures of) her experience with the "fake persimmon" lulu  fruit.  Here is ME enjoying the green juice it makes!

 

And here is Linda thoroughly enjoying the juice also! 

Farnsworth decided to join me In The Hammock.  He may start enjoying international travel after all!!

Surgeries - Day One

Thanks, as usual, to the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for helping fund our clinic! Our leader Suzanne and local volunteer Isadora stood in front of the sign for a thank you plug photo:

 Welcome to our clinic "lobby". For this trip, several organizations, including the local Health Department helped set things up for us. I don't know who donated the use of the canopies, but our outdoor lobby kept pets and owners in the shade while they waited, which was really nice!

  Most dogs came in on leashes, except for the street dogs that were brought in by volunteers. Those came in crates, and some of them really did not like being confined. Most of the cats came in cardboard boxes, except for a pair that were brought in a grocery bag.

Each owner brought their pet(s) to a check-in desk:

 Where local volunteers helped fill out paperwork:

 And gave each dog a collar with the dog's name. After "Street Dog #3, volunteers started naming the street dogs too, so they wouldn't be left out without a name.

 After everyone was labeled, the dogs were given "pre-med" - a sedative before trying to make them hold still for IV catheter placement. We had "cheat sheets" to help us calculate medication doses according to the animals' weights. We had to guess the weights, because there were no scales at the clinic, but we got pretty close. With that in mind, we had to pay very close attention to the critters under anesthesia, since we might have to give them more medication if they started to twitch. Dee got pretty good at drawing up medications, besides making sure all our instruments were clean and sanitized, and playing gopher for all the vets!

 After pre-med, and waiting about ten minutes for the medicine to kick in, each dog was brought into the induction area for surgery prep. Everyone got to wear a muzzle, or "party hat", to make sure we were all safe. A good thing too, because one of the dogs kept trying to jump at people to bite them. Thank goodness we had a catch pole available too! During surgery prep, each dog got an IV catheter for giving anesthetic. Noel, a local volunteer, has helped at World Vets clinics before, and already knew how to place an IV catheter. He put in the very first one, and surgeries were ready to start!

IV catheters are hard to place! At least one person has to hold the dog still (more if the dog is wiggly). Someone else has to shave the dog's leg, scrub it, clean with alcohol, and get the catheter and several pieces of tape ready. The catheter is a really thin flexible sheath, that comes with a needle inside it. We have to get the whole thing placed right into the dog's vein, then pull out the needle, without pulling out the catheter itself. Once the needle is out, we can tell the catheter is in the right place because a drop of blood comes rushing towards us. Then it's a race to get the catheter capped off before any blood spills out (even if it did, it would just be a drop or two - nothing to worry about, but it's a fun challenge!). Then the catheter is taped carefully into place, and voila - ready for anesthetic!

Once the dog has anesthesia medication, they fall asleep in less than a minute. That's when we shave and clean the surgery area. On this trip, we didn't have very many support staff, so the surgeons had to do some of their own prep work. They were sure good sports about it! Sometimes, especially if a dog was extra grumpy, we kiss their little noses once their asleep (at least Nicole does. I'm more likely to rub my face in their tummy).

Finally, the dogs are taken to surgery land, and the surgeons get to take a turn. They wear headlamps to make sure they can see exactly what they're doing. Since the surgeons are "gloved up", they can't touch anything that isn't sterile, so there were several of us, including local volunteers, on hand to get more medications, open packages of suture, and monitor vitals during surgery.

After surgery, everyone went to a recovery room, where they got antibiotics, pain medication, and a Rabies vaccine. A local vet named Josefina helped run our dog recovery room, and made sure everyone woke up safely. The recovery room got very hot and stuffy, but that was a good thing. Anesthesia lowers a dog's body temperature, and since we didn't have any towels or blankets to cover the patients while they were waking up, the heat helped them to stay stable and safe.

Some of the dogs woke up more quickly than others, and we had to give them their medications on surgery tables. One of our last patients of the day woke up very fast, and we had to muzzle her and hold her very carefully so that she could get all the medicine she needed before going home. Anesthesia can be very scary for animals, and sometimes they try to bite just because they're scared. Muzzles protect everyone, and give the dogs something else to think about besides just being scared ("hey, why is there something on my face?"). This dog, Estrella (which means Star) I think is a very nice dog, but even she snapped at us at the start. A few days from now, she'll feel much better about the whole thing, and I promised her she would never have to have puppies again. Her owner says she's been a very good mama, but she deserves to retire!

About halfway through the day, a nice couple brought us all lunch - a variety of meats and vegetable dishes. Our friend Hurricane sat with us and asked very politely for some of our lunch. I offered to let him lick my plate, but he smelled the vegetables without meat and didn't want any. I guess he gets enough to eat! Collette shared a little bit of her meat with him, and he sure liked that!

Hurricane wasn't the only one Collette shared snacks with - she also brought suckers for the local kids! Dee brought stickers and small toys to share too. Some of the kids even got to watch part of the surgeries (through a window). 

So, one day down and two to go! Who are we? We're World Vets: Team San Andres!

And this is why we do what we do: 

 And then Sandy caught us blogging about it: