Becky's Blog: May 2005

The stats thing is still not solved. I booked a flight to DC for June 21 and will fly back on July 5. It was $333 and Dr. C said he would reimburse me. I may need to stay at a hotel on some days so that will cost extra money.

I am on soft tissue surgery rotation now for 3 weeks. The case I signed up for - a spay- was a no-show today so now I am case-less until I sign up for another one on Thursday. Tues and Thurs are receiving days and M, W, and F are surgery days. I will just have to watch other surgeries tomorrow. That is okay I guess because there is a PDA (patent ductus arteriosis) (heart stuff) surgery tomorrow that I would like to watch.

Go Nina!!! You will be great at this!

I had my own Cardiology case today but unfortunately it turned out not to be a true cardio problem. Signalment = 9 year-old female spayed Great Dane. Presenting complaint = exercise intolerance and weight loss. The referring DVM sent some radiographs with the clients and thought she saw a mass on the heart and also thought the heart looked big. Also some bloodwork done by her showed elevated liver enzymes and decreased BUN. So, looking at the rads I didn't see any abnormalities on the heart but noted some nodules in the lungs and there also appeared to be some superimposed on the heart. We did an echo (cardiac ultrasound) and didn't see any abnormalities other than some aortic and pulmonic insuffiency which were probably degenerative changes common in old great danes - but not a problem at this point. We repeated the rads and saw multiple nodules in both lungs that were consistent with metastatic neoplasia (cancer that had spread). She was such a sweet dog and it really sucked having to tell the owners what we found. Fortunately we had warned them of this when they dropped her off in the morning so they had a couple hours to ponder the idea. One of the clients was obviously in the denial stage of grief because she kept asking Dr. X to prove to her that what she saw on the rads were actually metastatic nodules. She kept wanting to know how many doctors looked at the rads and how Dr. X could know what they are.

Dr. X is a radiology resident who is on a 2 wk cardio rotation right now, but didn't tell the owners that. She dealt with it very well, and told them that at least 5 doctors had looked at the rads and they all concurred. We told her not to worry that they thought she was inept, and that they probably just thought she was too pretty to be a doctor!

Anyway they elected to take the dog home and let her live until quality of life declines. Since whatever cancer it was had already spread to the lungs not much could have been done anyway.

Pet Health tomorrow from 8 - 11am which should be all vaccines and annual exams, then I am emergency backup from 3pm Saturday - 8am Sunday.

Last week I was on Pet Health. It is very busy over there although most of the time is spent waiting for a doctor to sign for things and to complete the exam. I had 2 or 3 cases a day over there. My first case on Monday the 9th was a middle-aged female spayed dsh cat who presented for alopecia on the caudal ventral abdomen and ventral thighs. The owner also thought she saw discharge coming from an old surgery site. The cat had an anal sac resection (removal) last year around this time. I had to pick off some old dingleberries before I took the cats temp so that made her a little touchy about her butt being messed with. Needless to say, I could not see any drainage from where the surgery site would have been! I went and got the doc to look at it and long-story-short is that the woman was looking at the cats vulva and thinking that it was the old surgery site and that it had not ever healed and remained open. So, next time I don't see what the client is reporting I am going to specifically ask them what they are seeing and for them to point it out! Basically, "This is her vulva; it is what she urinates out of." The alopecia was probably psychogenic because the client had a new baby in the house but we gave a trial rx of benedryl to rule out allergies. At least I knew that the alopecia and "unhealed incision" were not at all related when I examined her! That is a step in the right direction anyway.

This week I am on cardio and it is pretty slow. At pet health I was running around and busy all day so I am not used to sitting much anymore. Tomorrow I get to see a balloon valvuloplasty done on a dog with pulmonic stenosis! Then probably another slow day there. I was done at 3:30 today! Next week is Pet Health again.

Now I shall officially bitch. I emailed my stats prof about the problems I am having programming sas and he still has not responded. I don't know what to do! I am officially worried and now I want to cry. All of the homeworks are due this week! Not a problem if the flippin program would work for me. I think if he doesn't respond tomorrow I will call Distance Ed and complain on Wed. After all, if I don't get this done it will revert to an F.

Lets see... Forgot to ask basic questions in my first patient exam today. Not surprising because I figured I would leave out some really basic stuff.

Now I need to finish up a paper I am writing for Chenoweth.

I haven't slept in 2 days but I am finally done with the dreaded stats exams. Only I would try to complete an entire online/video class in two days. I still have the homeworks to do. I can't get my programming right for the proc glm statement and it keeps spitting error messages at me!!! I could use some help if anyone has time or knowledge to share. The 3 assignments are due next week.

I got my whit coat. I looked as big as a tank in all the pix of me though. I seriously need to lose some weight. I refuse to post any pix of me. I will update other things when I am not so tired.