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November 07, 2005
Surgeries on the Picnic Table
After Tita's second litter of puppies, it was definitely time to get her fixed. Since she has never left the farm since she was 6 weeks old and has never had a collar on her, I didn't think it would be a good idea to try to put her into a taxi and take her to Changuinola. The better choice seemed to be to bring a vet out to the farm, particularly since two more female dogs belonging to neighbors were in need of the same operation, and I wanted to get Tasso fixed as well.So today, it actually happened. (Previous attempts to bring a vet out here had failed, but that's another story) I picked up Dr. Miguel Quintero in Almirante, and on the way back to the farm we picked up Sushi and her daughter Stella, who both were to be sterilized as well. Sushi's owner had kindly volunteered her as the guinea pig; which was really sweet and not as cruel as it sounds. Sushi is by far the oldest, and ended up being adopted out of necessaity on her part rather then by choice of her owner. Besides, she has a huge goiter that makes everyone doubt she will live much longer.
First
order of business was to find a way to weigh the patients to be able to
calculate the correct drug dosages. The only scale on the farm is about
100 years old, rusty, but still works; an antique piece I bought from
the Price family. An airline blanket served as a makeshift dog hammock.
Very cute.
Miguel
preferred to work on the picnic table outside rather than in the
kitchen as we had planned. So we lined to picnic table with plastic
courtesy of Continental airlines, Sushi was sedated, cut open, and the
fun began. Miguel stuck his hand into her and pulled out one of her
organs. Nope, that wasn't it. Back in it goes, and eventually Miguel
found what he was looking for. Some clamping, stitching, cutting, and
plenty of spurting of blood later, we are all done, and back into her
blue kennel she goes. One down, 2 to go. Her daughter turned out to be a lot less bloody, and after that it was time for lunch.
As it turns out, Miguel studied in Brazil, and is a really interesting and nice guy. He was recently fired from his 22 year lasting job with the ministerio de desarollo agropecuario because he did not support the winning party in the elections last year.
Tita
was next. As expected, it was not easy to sedate her... she resisted
for a long time, managed to run away and fell in the water, where Robyn
fortunately grabbed her right away. She was in no shape to swim...
Eventually Miguel decided to anesthesize her completely.The surgery went smoothly, and this time I was able to stop Miguel from throwing the ovaries and uterus into the normal trash (along with used needles, yuck...), and asked him to throw it in the ocean instead. The red snappers who live under the house really appreciated this delicacy. Maybe it is to them what really fresh sashimi is to us...
All
female patients needed to get a little ring around their neck to keep
them from biting their stitches off... In Panama, such devices are
fabricated from plastic bowls, in this case courtesy of El Maximo in
Almirante.
Next
was Tasso. I apologize for the extremely graphic pictures of him
getting his balls cut off. Robyn took them. Women seem to have an
obsession with the details of castrations. His balls (the white thing
floating in the middle in the picture) also made good fish food.While we were at it, we also pulled out half a dozen petrified parasitic works out of Tasso's back... He had accumulated them while I was gone. Yum.
Overall, it was quite an interesting day. And I made it through it without fainting or puking. I am so proud.
Posted by rick at November 7, 2005 08:42 AM