Day 22- Hit the Ground Running

     WOW! What a day! Before we could finish our orientation and get a tour of the barn and location of supplies we got called to the reception area for a client. Our patient was three PBR bucking bulls that were in for a feet trimming! Wow that was a site to see! Three giant bulls being lifted up on hydraulic tilt tables to have their toes manicured. Before we could finish I got called up for a FFA show pig with a rectal prolapse, which basically means his rectum had came inside out and was protruding out of his anus. The surgery to fix this is to put a rubber band around it and wait for it to rot off and the unaffected rectum area will grow to the anus and create a....well......a new butt hole essentially. I got to trim the tissue that was swollen and dying, which means my first task of the morning was to cut the buthole out of a pig!
     Next we had an LDA- Left Displaced Abomasum- The abomasum is the forth compartment of a cows stomach and is considered the true stomach. It normally sits on the right side under the ribs, in the case of LDA if flips over to the left and causing lots of problems. The best part of an LDA is the diagnosis!!! How do you diagnosis this you might ask! A PING! You heard it right! A ping, I know this is an extremely refined medical word! You basically put your stethoscope on the cows side and thump her skin with your thumb and it makes a distinct ringing sound, which is built up gas in the stomach that can't be released because of the twist in the stomach! The next best part is how you fix it! You make an incision in her flank reach under her intestines and pull the abomasum back into it's position on  the right, to make it stay you tack it to the skin! To do this you pull some of the fat that is in between the intestines and suture it into the skin!!! Too cool!
     I am now headed back to the barn to give my llama her evening treatments, my llama is very sweet! Unfortunately the one across the hall is not and she spit on me! LOL