July 13, 2010

Spent the first night in the new apartment last night. Well, that isn’t completely true, I spent about a half an hour the night before sleeping in the bed before I had to come in to the hospital to assist with a colic surgery. From 11pm to 11:30 I slept before I met Dr Dornkamp at the hospital where we stayed till about 7:15 in the morning. I went up stairs for about 30 minutes to sleep before the appointments came in for the day at 8am. The surgery ended up being 3 medium sized stones, 2 flat ones like hockey pucks in the large colon and one round one like a baseball in the small colon. We had to open 2 spots of the colon to get them all out. The horse recovered well and is doing well so far. I went out on 2 emergencies after hours with Dr Dornkamp (Jim). The first was a choke in a 20 year old horse that we passed a tube on and shot water at until it passed through to the stomach. When this happens it looks very dramatic because you are pumping water in to the plug of feed and a lot of water and green goo in coming right back out the nose and mouth. It looks like you are going to fill the lungs with nasty ingesta but the important thing to do is to sedate them pretty heavily so that their heads are down low to the ground so gravity will take all of the over flow out of the nose and mouth. It only took a couple pumps and this one cleared without any real problems but he got a bit of a bloody nose from the tube. The other call was a mini horse who’s stifle was locking in place. It was down on the south side of town and it was neat to drive down I-15 along the giant casinos. I never go down there especially at night and it’s kinda breath taking the marvel that has been built up by humans. The lights and spectacular buildings I could stare at for hours. It reminds me of Sao Paulo and the crazy commotion that you could always just sit back and gaze at and be entertained for hours. The mini horse indeed had a patella that would lock upward due to patellar ligaments that are too lax. The best thing to do is to exercise them and strengthen those quadriceps and tighten those muscles. Other wise you could go in there and split that medial ligament to get it to scar down and shorten or if it is severe enough you can even cut that ligament completely. Cutting it has been shown to predispose the patella to fracture so you only do it as a last resort.

July 7 2010

It was an interesting day. I met Jerry Lewis's wife today at a big horse barn in one of the only irrigated areas in Las Vegas. The whole area didn’t have the feel of Las Vegas to it and I figured out that is because the heat is not coming off the ground like it does every where else. The sun is probably not any stronger but the heat given off by the ground just really cooks you. It was a different world all together because the horse we looked at just was shipped in from Germany and costed $750.000 dollars. It is a lot like desperate house wives Las Vegas. The only males were the mexican grooms and me. I don’t know how much I would be comfortable working there because I don’t know anything about that type of horse or style of riding. We bred a few mares today with frozen semen that went well. A couple days ago a kid left a note on my car that he would like to buy it. I didn’t think much about it other than I began to worry if he was going to steal it. I called him the other day just to see what he would pay and then he came and drove it. He texted me that he has cash to buy it now and I asked him what he thinks its worth. He said that he honestly thinks it is worth about $1000 bucks so I told him if he had the cash come and get it tomorrow. So we will see if that goes down but it would be good because the room I want to rent is going to cost me about $1100 to move in because he wants the first months rent and last months rent for deposit. I like it when things sort themselves out like that. I guess the Lord knew exactly what I needed and it makes me think that I should rent the room. The guy is 30 years old and is a captain in the Airforce. He flies the predator drones and teaches others how to fly them here at Nellis air base. It should be interesting. Went of a colic emergency tonight and it didn’t look good for the poor old guy. It was a 28 year old grey arabian who was quite painful. He had 2 prior surgeries for colic many years ago. There is only so much you can do for them but you like to give them a chance even if they are in pain. This one didn’t look good though.

July 1, 2010

It was only around 95* today...at 8:30 AM. I bet it reached 108* or so at peak afternoon. It felt hotter than that standing out in the sun squeezing a liter of fluids in to a neurologic mustang stallion. The poor horse was not very tame in the first place and he had no idea where he was placing his feet. He looked some what like you would see with a West Nile Virus infection though you would think it difficult for a mosquito to survive out here in the desert. Apparently they do because they had to confirmed cases last year. It is a good thing the horses back home have been vaccinated. This horse had been down most of the day struggling to stand. It was interesting to see his frustration at his in ability to do the simplest things like get up or down or even move away from us like he would have liked to do it was clear when you looked in his eye. He still had the desire to be in control but his brain would not make his legs do what he wanted. He would grind his teeth in frustration and bite at whatever was near him like buckets, fences, even your boots if you were near enough. It wasn’t in a mean manner it was more because he was really irritated and just mad that he wasn’t himself.
I decided the old Honda needed a muffler if I was going to keep it. This morning the receptionist told me I left my lights on. I went out and the tail lights were on but not because I had left the head lights on. It was more like the car thought that it needed to have its brake lights on. I pulled the fuse so that the battery wouldn’t die. At lunch I looked into it and found the switch on the pedal had a plastic piece that had crumbled and fallen to pieces on the floor mat. I tried to find the part at autozone but they had no idea where I could get such a part. It was cleat that I was going to need to McGuyver a solution. I placed a penny on the brake arm secured with ducktape and it seemed to do just the trick. No doubt the extreme heat played a part in the crumbling plastic because I bet it reaches 150* in that poor car during the day.

June 29, 2010

Man has it been hot! The thermometer in the pickup truck says 110*F! I went up the canyon yesterday to see a horse that was down and when the temp dropped to 90*F it felt cool like I may need to jacket. Today I was able to run a nasogastric tube in a horse with colic due to a gut full of sand. It is a really big problem here as well as enteroliths that form due to the sand out here. I also performed a peroneal/tibial nerve block on a horse that is really lame in the hind limb. Other than that it hasn’t been too exciting. I have been doing the 1AM treatments on the poor rope horse that fell out of a horse trailer. Tomorrow, Dr Garth called and told me if we have time we will do some joint blocks so I need to study up the land marks and techniques. He has also asked me to breed a mare with frozen semen for him this weekend if she needs it. I will need to scan her a bunch to track her cycle progress. I actually haven’t done a lot of that though I have seen it done a lot. Dr Kevin also needs me to track his mares this week/weekend because he has had them on Regumate and is wanting to breed them which I potentially may need to do as well.

June 27, 2010 Las Vegas NV

I arrived in town tonight and will be staying in the apartment in the clinic till I find a place of my own. The drive was easy and the little honda had no problems. The land scape between here and home has a few really beautiful areas from I-15 but for the most part I was thinking you could cover it all up with big solar panels and it would improve the scenery. You could also harvest enough energy to power the entire globe with the strength of the sun down here. I arrived in the valley while the sun was still shining but I remember what it is like riding in at night and seeing the horizon to the west light up like the sunrise from the city lights. It is almost another wonder of the world how much this city can illuminate the sky with neon lights.

I thought it would be good over the next year to keep daily records or even take a daily picture that captures what ever interesting things might be going on. Especially since I have no idea exactly where I will be and what I will be doing on a daily basis.

• A sorrel quarter horse is in the hospital that fell out of a new horse trailer on the highway at 75 miles an hour on the way to the little britches finals. Apparently it was a brand new trailer and the doors were faulty somehow. This kneed are skinned down to the joint and this withers are horrible gouged. He is able to stand and seems of pretty good attitude attitude tonight.