OHE from within

I got to watch a spay! Up close, finally. It was fascinating! It's a very sterile operation (of course, since it's inside the abdominal cavity), so I never thought I'd be allowed to go in. This was at a night when nothing much was happening other than a couple of surgeries, so Dr. M. graciously allowed me in, and was explaining things to me. I was so happy and excited!

OHE=Ovariohysterectomy I came in after the beginning was done (this was on a young, healthy labrador, so it went off smoothly and beautifully). So, the uterus was being extracted, and it looked very clean. I stood holding the mask over my mouth so I wouldn't breathe germs into the opening, and was watching intently. The uterus was smaller, and had two "horns" rather than a pear-shaped thingy like people have. The doctor was explaining to me how you had to be sure and clamp the artery tightly, to ensure that there wouldn't be unintended blood loss. She then sutured up the artery before actually cutting the uterus off. The ovaries held the eggs, and were attached to each horn of the uterus, and those were removed as well. They were just little lumpy-looking things attached to a string-looking thing which was attached to the uterus. Cool! Dr. M. told me that they remove as much uterus as they possibly can, up to the cervix, so that the dog can't later get endometriosis (which is not good). It was cool!

Anesthesia for me... This was a sad case. We had, on the very busiest day ever, a dying cat who had come in for euthanasia and was literally dying on the table. It was so sad, so after the owners said goodbye, the doctor had to put a face mask with the anesthesia gas over the cat's head and turn it on full-blast. The poor kitty definitely didn't have useable veins to place a catheter, so it wasn't possible that way. The cat had to be euthanised directly, so they had to make him sleep with the sevoflo. I was assigned to hold the mask in place and hold the towel tightly around the opening so that the gas wouldn't leak out. When I started smelling it, I got kind of nervous... it would be bad if I keeled over in the middle of work. They told me if I got dizzy to call them to take my place, though, so it was okay. I lasted, and the cat was relieved of his misery. It was a sad case, though.