Parrot Anaesthesia

Exotics this week, and so far, so good. My case at the moment is an old parrot with breathing problems. To find out what is wrong with him we had to take some x-rays and give him a thorough check over. Unfortunately he isn't the most friendly of birds (to some people, he loves me. Or he did.)

To get a really good look we had to knock him out. There are so many bits of kit involved that at times it's hard to actually see the bird. My job was the monitor the anaesthetic during the operation.

It's very difficult to take the heart rate of a parrot - it's normally somewhere about 240 beats per minute, depending on the species. Everything went OK apart from a small panic as his heart rate decreased a bit. It was decided to give up at that point.

The verdict? Chronic air sac infection from several years ago. We now have just 3 days to fix years of problems whilst he stays in. Suboptimal. But at least he's alive!

Back to Earth

Yikes, we are back to proper work. Turns out I spent the weekend revising the wrong thing as did almost everyone else, so we failed badly at the tutorial today. I seem to be working hard for not much gain at the moment. Maybe more is required.

This afternoon was more fun. We got to see actual live animals and had 2 minutes to figure out what was wrong and then come up with a plan. History was minimal at best. It was great.

I don't feel quite as useless now, but still not great. Weird how one day can really make you doubt yourself and I hate this feeling. It'll be better tomorrow.

Holidays

The past 4 weeks have seemed like an amazing holiday compared to the previous 4. Not too much work to be doing, late starts, sometimes (like today) we don't even have to go out to Bush at all. It won't last.

Next week is the small animal practice rotation. We have to fight with dermatology, dentistry, exotics and small animal first opinion practice, although soon it will be more holidays. Christmas already? Don't really feel much further along than September.

As of tomorrow we will be about 37% through rotations. That's just terrifying.

Path

This week is pathology, and it's about as gross as you are imagining. Dead things. Lots of them. Turns out they don't really bother me though, especially after a certain point when dog is no longer a dog but a collection of separate parts.

Final year continues to try to murder us with work and things to be learning. At the moment I have a report to write, a few case reports and a presentation or two. Oh, and I'm meant to be revising state vet med for tomorrow.

In other news I've found a lovely medic who understands the species she treats are inferior in every way to the ones I work with. We spent most of last weekend together except when she had to head home and extinguish a burning sheep on the way. Oh and then everything flooded. Seemingly a weekend to stay away!