Summing up end of week 3, begin week 4!!

So, I've been told that I got slack on my blog towards the end of the week so here's a quick run down on the fun stuff that happened Thursday and Friday.
On Thursday, we had a visit from the kids down at the Raptor Rescue. They brought in a Barred Owl and a Red Tailed Hawk, both of which had injuries to one of their wings. The birds were brought in for a test called an electromyograph (EMG) which test the electrical activity of skeletal (voluntary) muscles. The bird is anesthetized (nap time!) and small needles are inserted in to the affected muscles. The needles are connected to a monitor that displays the electrical activity of the muscles where the needles are placed.  A normal skeletal muscle should not emit any electrical activity when it's not being voluntarily constricted. If there is electrical activity in a relaxed muscle it can be a sign of neuropathy (disease associated with the nerves/nervous system) and can happen when nerve fibers begin to reinnervate a damaged muscle fiber. Both birds had significant abnormal electrical activity in the muscles of their damaged wings and some muscle atrophy could be felt on both of them as well. We are hoping that they will improve with more rest and restriction on their activity.
On Friday, an upper GI endoscopy (little camera inserted through the mouth to explore the goodies that lie within!)  was performed on a patient that had undergone neurosurgery earlier in the week.  She had vomited up blood and pieces of mucosal tissue from her GI tract (either esophagus or stomach). There was inflammation and some sloughing of tissue in many areas of the esophagus and stomach and biopsies were taken (biting off little chunks of tissue for further examination).
We then observed a necropsy on a dog that had come in to us for severe ataxia and also seizures I believe, the second day that she was in ICU she also began having corneal edema in her right eye. On MRI they found some areas in the cerebellum and in the frontal/parietal regions of her brain that were abnormal. She was an older dog and euthanasia was probably the best option. The necropsy was a little rough to watch after working with the dog and loving on her the day before. They had to remove her head in order to dissect and get samples of her brain tissue, that was the hardest part to see. Otherwise, the dissection of the tissues and organs itself was interesting. Oddly enough, there was nothing to be seen in the brain tissue as far as gross evidence of what was seen on MRI. The doctor doing the necropsy said that it may show up once the tissue is fixed.


This week is Orthopedics/Neuro week. 
Ortho had a little 4 month old puppy come in with a broken femur. The x-ray that had been done at the referring veterinarian showed that the femur was completely broken into two pieces. We did more x-rays and will most likely do surgery later this week to repair the fracture. The puppy was ridiculously adorable by the way.
I also rocked the socks off of a jugular blood draw and IV catheter placement on a neuro dog. Practice, practice, practice!


Ok hopefully this satisfies everyone's blog withdrawal (Dad!), I will try to be better in the future.