the DVM life - Doctor of Veterinary Medicine

As you can guess, we had a splenectomy today. I had no idea a spleen was quite that large. It was the size of perhaps 3/4 of a football. Then again, there was an attached mass and the spleen was enlarged due to use of narcotics. But it was interesting none the less.

Interesting thing: this particular animal is sick (cancer I believe?) and only had a few more weeks to live. Because of this surgery, it now has around 6 months to live. I wondered, if I were the owner, if I would have given the ok for the procedure. It cost approx $1,600 - in return for approx 6 more months with your animal. I wonder how many other people would have done the same.

During surgery I got to help setup suction and other misc stuff. I was pleased that I knew how to set up suction.

Also had a sad shape doxie come in - end stage lung problems. Poor thing was just skin and bones, horribly low temperature. We couldn't do anything for it except try to make it comfortable.

On the happy side, I met a really nice client. Cool lady, cancer survivor, makes awesome sculptures, got a real sweet dog from the pound. Those types of people make me happy. She just was happy to be there, happy to have a dog, and appreciated .. well .. life in general.

Now I'm off to make some cheesecake!