ladysprite (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ladysprite) wrote2004-01-08 08:43 am
ladysprite) wrote2004-01-08 08:43 am
Wacky Adventures Revisited
It was pointed out to me last night, once again, that there are people reading this journal who haven't been exposed to all of my Wacky Adventures In Veterinary Medicine. This, in turn, reminded me that way back at one point I had decided to rescue my more interesting tales from the newsgroup where they were posted, but never quite got around to finishing this task. So, in the interests of keeping these stories safe for posterity, I have rescued another one...
In vet school, we're all required to learn all sorts of medicine, no matter
what we're planning on practicing. I guess it's so that if someone's poor
pet cow in the middle of Boston happens to get hit by a car, I could help
it, or some other equally rational reason.
Anyway, this resulted in me having to go through Food Animal Medicine
techniques during my junior year, to help me prepare for clinics. I had
never been particularly close to a cow before in my life, with the
exception of bottle-feeding a calf at my uncle's farm when I was about 5
years old. I had no idea of how to work with one, handle one, approach one
or do any of the other various and sundry unsavory things we had to learn.
I discovered fairly quickly that if 1000 pounds of cow does not want to
do something, 110 pounds of small girl is not likely to change it's
mind. I also learned that the way to make a cow come with you does not apparently involve clapping your hands and saying 'Here, cow!'
One of the things we needed to learn was how to pass a tube into their
stomach. You see, cows won't eat a pill if you hide it in a bit of cheese,
apparently. I was fairly comfortable with this concept - we have to pass stomach
tubes in small animals, too. It's a nice, easy, straightforward procedure.
A technician holds the dog or cat quite still, and opens their mouth. You
place some sort of ring in their mouth to hold it open and keep them from
biting the tube, and the veterinarian stands in the front in a gleaming
white lab coat with an aura of power and doctorliness, and slides the
tube quickly and easily down the throat and into the stomach. It can't
be all that different in cows, right?
So we're all partnered into teams of two. But it's apparently a one-
person job in cows, and the other person's role is to pass you stuff and
laugh at the colors you turn. Okay. I did my best to follow instructions.
I got the cow restrained in the head gates without a problem. There, she
couldn't back up or walk away. A good start.
The next step, apparently, is to brace your back against the headgate so
you're facing the same direction as the cow, and wrap one arm around the
cow's neck so you're holding her head still. I did this. I then picked
myself up from the floor where the cow had casually tossed me, pushed my
hair out of my face, and, trying to stay calm, explained to the cow quite
civilly that that was not her job. My partner laughed. I tried again, this
time wedging my feet into the bars of the gate. I didn't get flung across
the room again, which I viewed as a step in the right direction.
The next step is apparently to shove your fist - the one on the end of the
arm that's around the cow's neck and restraining her head - into the cow's
mouth. This struck me as an extremely stupid thing to do, but the
instructor was quite happy to explain that, as long as you managed to get
your fist into the one spot that doesn't have any teeth, you should be safe,
and that the only real way to open the cow's mouth enough to pass the tube
was to wedge it from inside. I refrained from contemplating aloud why the
gods would design such a ludicrous creature, and tried not to think about
what my hand was marinating in. I was rewarded by being flung across the
room again, this time covered to my elbow in partially digested grass and
cow spit.
I brushed my hair out of my face again, with my *other* hand, and in an
attempt to remain ladylike, made up several words which were socially
acceptable but still felt good when muttered through clenched teeth, and
started again. My partner leaned against the opposite wall, laughing like
a hyena.
I got her head restrained. I shoved my fist in her mouth. The next step
is to pass a Frick tube, so named because you need to ram the fricking
thing down their throat. I swear, honest and for true, that's really what
it's called. It's a big metal cylinder that you pass the stomach tube
through.
This sounds like the easy part. However, one of your arms is out of
commision, and the cow is a moving target, and it's kind of distracting
to have your hand being gummed to a pulp by a supposed herbivore. And if
that's not enough, cow tongues are shaped with a big, useless bump at the
base, which I believe was placed there for the sole purpose of making it
nearly impossible to pass a Frick tube. So, I put the tube in the cow's
mouth. She decided she was tired of playing, and lifted her head enough to
pull my feet out of the gate and slam me onto my backside.
I stood up again. I took a deep breath. Then I cursed a very creative
blue streak that would have impressed Dennis Leary. My partner stopped
laughing. Sheer force of frustration granted me the extra body mass I
needed to get her head held, and my fist in her mouth, and the damn
Frick tube over her mutant tongue, and the stupid stomach tube through
the Frick tube, down her esophagus, and into her rumen, which effort was
rewarded by the beautiful aroma of half-rotten fermented hay and a
halfhearted shrug from the supervising clinician.
I took great comfort and delight in putting on my leather jacket to go
home that night. And in making hamburgers for dinner.....
In vet school, we're all required to learn all sorts of medicine, no matter
what we're planning on practicing. I guess it's so that if someone's poor
pet cow in the middle of Boston happens to get hit by a car, I could help
it, or some other equally rational reason.
Anyway, this resulted in me having to go through Food Animal Medicine
techniques during my junior year, to help me prepare for clinics. I had
never been particularly close to a cow before in my life, with the
exception of bottle-feeding a calf at my uncle's farm when I was about 5
years old. I had no idea of how to work with one, handle one, approach one
or do any of the other various and sundry unsavory things we had to learn.
I discovered fairly quickly that if 1000 pounds of cow does not want to
do something, 110 pounds of small girl is not likely to change it's
mind. I also learned that the way to make a cow come with you does not apparently involve clapping your hands and saying 'Here, cow!'
One of the things we needed to learn was how to pass a tube into their
stomach. You see, cows won't eat a pill if you hide it in a bit of cheese,
apparently. I was fairly comfortable with this concept - we have to pass stomach
tubes in small animals, too. It's a nice, easy, straightforward procedure.
A technician holds the dog or cat quite still, and opens their mouth. You
place some sort of ring in their mouth to hold it open and keep them from
biting the tube, and the veterinarian stands in the front in a gleaming
white lab coat with an aura of power and doctorliness, and slides the
tube quickly and easily down the throat and into the stomach. It can't
be all that different in cows, right?
So we're all partnered into teams of two. But it's apparently a one-
person job in cows, and the other person's role is to pass you stuff and
laugh at the colors you turn. Okay. I did my best to follow instructions.
I got the cow restrained in the head gates without a problem. There, she
couldn't back up or walk away. A good start.
The next step, apparently, is to brace your back against the headgate so
you're facing the same direction as the cow, and wrap one arm around the
cow's neck so you're holding her head still. I did this. I then picked
myself up from the floor where the cow had casually tossed me, pushed my
hair out of my face, and, trying to stay calm, explained to the cow quite
civilly that that was not her job. My partner laughed. I tried again, this
time wedging my feet into the bars of the gate. I didn't get flung across
the room again, which I viewed as a step in the right direction.
The next step is apparently to shove your fist - the one on the end of the
arm that's around the cow's neck and restraining her head - into the cow's
mouth. This struck me as an extremely stupid thing to do, but the
instructor was quite happy to explain that, as long as you managed to get
your fist into the one spot that doesn't have any teeth, you should be safe,
and that the only real way to open the cow's mouth enough to pass the tube
was to wedge it from inside. I refrained from contemplating aloud why the
gods would design such a ludicrous creature, and tried not to think about
what my hand was marinating in. I was rewarded by being flung across the
room again, this time covered to my elbow in partially digested grass and
cow spit.
I brushed my hair out of my face again, with my *other* hand, and in an
attempt to remain ladylike, made up several words which were socially
acceptable but still felt good when muttered through clenched teeth, and
started again. My partner leaned against the opposite wall, laughing like
a hyena.
I got her head restrained. I shoved my fist in her mouth. The next step
is to pass a Frick tube, so named because you need to ram the fricking
thing down their throat. I swear, honest and for true, that's really what
it's called. It's a big metal cylinder that you pass the stomach tube
through.
This sounds like the easy part. However, one of your arms is out of
commision, and the cow is a moving target, and it's kind of distracting
to have your hand being gummed to a pulp by a supposed herbivore. And if
that's not enough, cow tongues are shaped with a big, useless bump at the
base, which I believe was placed there for the sole purpose of making it
nearly impossible to pass a Frick tube. So, I put the tube in the cow's
mouth. She decided she was tired of playing, and lifted her head enough to
pull my feet out of the gate and slam me onto my backside.
I stood up again. I took a deep breath. Then I cursed a very creative
blue streak that would have impressed Dennis Leary. My partner stopped
laughing. Sheer force of frustration granted me the extra body mass I
needed to get her head held, and my fist in her mouth, and the damn
Frick tube over her mutant tongue, and the stupid stomach tube through
the Frick tube, down her esophagus, and into her rumen, which effort was
rewarded by the beautiful aroma of half-rotten fermented hay and a
halfhearted shrug from the supervising clinician.
I took great comfort and delight in putting on my leather jacket to go
home that night. And in making hamburgers for dinner.....
no subject
This is why we never take PETA too seriously where I come from...
Tom