A crow, an opossum and our first baby of the year!

Today was the first day in several months that I actually felt adequately busy. Don't get me wrong--I have a lot to do even when it's cold out and we're only admitting a few animals a day. I have ~50 in patients, some with more complicated diseases; research papers to write; continuing education lectures for our volunteers and rehabilitators to put together; we're in the midst of writing and installing a completely new computer system, so working out those bugs takes time; writing intern/extern manuals for the students that come with us during the busy season, etc etc etc.

But today--just felt different.

I started off the day by doing surgery on a crow. This crow had been shot (with a BB gun--ugh!); one pellet broken his wing, which was wrapped up and healing nicely. The other pellet was lodged in his leg. We see this very, very often--animals with various projectiles lodged in them. Usually, the don't do any harm so we leave them in (b/c surgery is invasive and risky--not worth it if the pellet can stay in without harming the animal). The pellet in the crows leg wasn't bothering him on admit--he was using the leg normally, there was no swelling around the pellet, etc.

However, 11 days after he was admitted, the area around the pellet became very swollen, he became lame on that leg, and couldn't fully extend the joint near the pellet.

SO here is an example of one of the few times I remove pellets. Good thing I did too-the pellet was lodged INSIDE a tendon sheath--it would have only continued to cause harm. I'm hoping this guy doesn't have any arthritis or other chronic problems--only time will tell. Here is his xray.

I think rechecked ALL of my inpatients, including this tiny ornate tree lizard that came in a few days ago.

he hitched a ride in a backpack with some people who were vacationing in Arizona. Silly lizard. We're trying to find him a ride home as soon as possible! He looks tired and dehydrated in this picture b/c he's used to 90deg weather, and what did we have today? a blizzard! hahaha

Then I amputated the tip of a opossum tail. Virginia Opossums live everywhere in the midwest, but they are originally from the South--so they aren't really evolved for this cold weather. While most do ok, usually the ones we get in have frostbitten tail tips and/or ears. The ears will heal on their own, but often the tail tips need to be amputated. That opossum did great during surgery and is on the road to recovery!

The blizzard today is kind of funny as normally we have admitted several baby animals by this time of the year--this year, however, it's March 23 and we haven't admitted one yet--this hasn't happened in the last 8 years!

But them--right before I was about to leave for the day--we got our first baby animal of the season in---A RED FOX KIT!!!! soooo cute!!! He's pretty out of it--and has a respiratory infection--might have other underlying diseases (there's a reason mom abandoned him...) but we'll see how he does. What a great day:)

unknown...

It's still slow, but that's ok--babies will be here in a few weeks!

Just wanted to post quickly. Often (well, most of the time) we don't know exactly why some animals are sick. To find out the exact reason an animal is sick (ie the exact bacterium, or virus or parasite or what exactly is going on inside) often requires expensive testing (cultures, virus isolation, cat scans, MRIs, etc) that we simply can't afford as a non profit. And honestly, if we did have a little extra money, we would probably put it into the care of the animals we're currently treating--as often finding out the exact cause won't change treatment. For instance, we have a squirrel with an abscess (a large infection under the skin causing a pocket of pus). We know it's a bacterial infection, we're just not sure which type of bacteria. So we pick a broad spectrum antibiotic and most of the time it heals. Is it ideal? no. Would we rather know the exact bacterium we're dealing with so we can start the animal on the exact antibiotic that will treat that exact infection from the start? yes. But is it worth the money to culture the hundreds-thousands of infections we see every year, when only a handful don't respond to the first drug we try?

It's a question we ask yourselves everyday and we have to pick the answer that is both good for the center and good for the animal.

So here we have a turkey who first presented knuckling over on one foot. The next day she couldn't stand at all (see pic) and had lost all feeling her legs. Ascending paralysis isn't very common in wildlife, but most of the differentials bear a poor prognosis. Would I like to be able to do a CT scan or MRI to look for spinal trauma? Would I like to do bloodwork and ultrasounds? I would love to do all those tests to try and find out what exactly is wrong with this bird. Unfortunately, even if we could afford them, we might be left without an answer, and her prognosis would likely be the same--grave.

Below is an opossum in treatment right now. He came in for emaciation (way too skinny!) he's gaining weight well but now one of his eyes looks cloudy. I'm treating him for several types of eye disease. Ideally, he would go see an ophthamologist--but again--expensive--so we're treating for the treatable (mainly infection) and we'll see how he does!

Now this doesn't mean we don't ever to advanced testing on our animals. When it's especially indicated (an infection that's not responding to broad spectrum antibiotics), when it effects humans (ie we send in bats that have bitten people so the bats can be tested for rabies), when it threatens the animal's life AND it's an endangered species or there is a good chance what it has could be easily treated--in these and many other situations, we do send out for advanced testing. But just like you weigh the costs vs benefits when you bring your pet to the vet, we have to do that, too. Just several thousand times each year:)

;(

I euthanized Molly on wednesday. She was slowly getting worse, despite aggressive treatment. None of her tests made sense--we still don't know what was wrong with her. I consulted and worked with over half a dozen different veterinarians--it wasn't enough:(

Rest in peace, Molly ;(

Molly is sick:(

My cat Molly is very sick. She has hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease) which takes a long time to recover from. She *might* have some underlying disease (like cancer) but we can't find it with non-invasive tests. If she has cancer, I'm only going to do palliative treatment (not invasive surgery or chemo or radiation) so we're doing the palliative treatment (steroids) and treating the fatty liver--hoping she'll feel better soon. It's frustrating, but I need to at least give her a chance (b/c she may not have cancer at all!!) So we'll see *sigh*


Molly is sick and I have 3 part time jobs (in addition to my wildlife job) so I've been incredibly busy. Those are my excuses for not posting lately. sorry:(

In brighter news, scientists are trying to understand why naked mole rats don't get cancer. I learned a lot about these creatures by reading this article--very interesting! here is the article

I promise to try and post some cases later this week or next week.