Work Experience

Before I go to Lucy and Martha's joint party tomorrow, I want to tell you about my work experience. I went to the vets near Bradfield - Tutts Clump. I was very lucky to get a placement there. Naturally I was very excited about my week, if a little nervous.

However, after the first day, I was seriously questioning my career path. My reason: I almost fainted, first thing in the morning. 'If I'm going to be a vet, I can't go fainting during operations, can I now?' I got seriously disheartened. Despite the fact that after I'd had a drink, I got right back up and walked straight in to watch the rest of the bitch spay. Spays are the worst kind of operation for fainting.

For those of you who don't know what it's like to faint, I'll explain. You feel very, very hot, as if the room's got really warm. But you don't notice for a while because it's quite gradual. You just take off your jumper in the middle of a freezing cold room, thinking it's just heated up for some reason. Then you become very aware of your other senses; mostly you're aware of the smell of the room and the sounds, you're not worried about what you're seeing yet. Then, just as the vet's nurse rushes you out of the room to sit you down, your vision starts to black out. You don't even realise you're fainting until this happens.

Anyway, after the first day I got on really well. I was surprised that they didn't always care much about what the patients were called. There was "pancreatic dog" and "the cat castrate" and "bitch spay" and "mammary lump". Pancreatic dog was called Henry, he had pancreatitis and absolutely stank. He was also very old, and a bit grumpy, but I guess anyone would be after four days in the kennels - obviously he was walked while he was there, but that was it.

Most of the week I sat in on ops. There were so many castrations that I couldn't believe it. There also seemed to be quite a few x rays. You have to hide while they take those. Today was probably the most interesting. We had a dog in who had a problem with his leg - wouldn't use it at all. Anyway, we x rayed him, and his kneecap had slipped round, so every time he took a step it would dislocate, which I imagine to be quite painful. Watching them fix him was pretty cool. They opened up his leg (oh by the way, when teachers say your blood will spurt out if you hit an artery (vein?) it's so true! they hit one of his, was too cool) and had a look at the bone. The vet, Stephen, showed me where all the cartilage had been ground away by the constant dislocating. The way they fixed it was awesome. To cut out the gory bits as much as possible, they used a bit of wire to pull the bone back around and tie it in place, and stitched his leg right back up.

"Mammary lump" (Tilly) was in today too. Very cool. It's essentially a dog version of cancer. In this case breast cancer. Sometimes I look at something and think, "Can't he just cut it out? It would be so much easier if that was possible." In this case, he could just cut it out. Literally. He cut round the lump, pulled it off, and loosened some skin around it so he could easily stitch it back up. So cool.

Also quite cool was "pyo dog" (pyo is short for something or other) who had to have her uterus removed because it was full of pus. The thing with it though, was that the uterus was so full it was absolutely huge. Also, because dogs have litters, not single puppies, they have a uterus that goes round in a 'U' shape to both sides. It's quite interesting. I suggest finding a picture.



While I'm blogging, completely off topic, I want to share this link, because I think it's pretty cool. A combination of science and art to give a message about the environment.
http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/09/22/blood-powered-lamp-makes-you-bleed-for-your-light/

Anyway, that's all for tonight.
Bye xx