Heart murmurs and exploratory surgery

Wow! After many weeks that were busy but uneventful interesting-story-wise, there's finally some stories all at once.

Heart Murmurs: We had many fluffy toy dogs today. But, that is beside the point. Another thing beside the point is that my scrub top was very very furry. I think to get all the fur off I'd have to use about 3 layers of lint roller stickies.... haha, that is okay. Part of the fun! Anyways, back to the point. Two of the fluffy dogs today had a grade 5 heart murmur! It is very bad. Heart murmurs are when the vales of the heart don't work properly so that some of the blood from each pump that is supposed to go OUT of the heart goes *whoosh* back into the heart. In a way-earlier post, I described (according to Dr. A.) the scale of heart murmurs. Grade 5 is where you can feel it. On one of the dogs, even before I knew it was a grade 5 murder I felt it. I was carrying the little wiggly pomeranian so I had my hand right over his chest, and his heart was pounding so hard I thought it'd burst through. I felt the *lub dub, whoosh, lub dub, whoosh* noise of it. It was pretty sad. But the good news, the dog needed a dental sugery to clean her awfully-dirty and old teeth, and he survived! Heart murmer pets cannot have too much stress or they can die. We were super happy that he did well, and now his teeth are clean. Yay! The other dog needed a dental also, but since we were short on doctors today (they were all at a big veterinary conference, except for about 3), they chose to put it off for another day because of the risk and lack of help. This second dog's heart murmur was different, though. When I felt it (and when it appeared on the ECG that they did for one of the tests), it went *lub..... lub-lub-lub... lub.... lub-lub-lub....* The waves on the monitor of the ECG were uneven, which was a bad sign. That doggy is old, but he was cute. When he was sitting in the cage when we put him back, he immediately spun around in circles several times, wagged his tail, and yapped a couple of times. It was fun to watch! He has a lot of energy for an old man.

Exploring the Abdomen: Another dog, Chiquito, was a naughty little dog. He kept yipping and nipping. However, it was too bad for him, since he had a staple and something like a wire in his belly. He was old, too, and the owners brought him in with some digestive issues, and when we did a blood test, the doctors found high calcium. They said that it could be cancer or a foreign body, so they took x-rays. The wire and staple showed up on the picture, so it was a big surgery scheduled for today. Dr. G. was a bit worried since she wasn't sure if she'd be able to do it okay, since it's such a difficult and unknown surgery. Also, we were short on doctors. So, she invited her friend, Dr. T. It was good. At about 2 o'clock-ish, they began working on Chiquito, and several unknown things were found. He had lots of fluid floating around in his abdomen, which wasn't supposed to be there. He had at least one mass inside. The staple was clear on the x-ray, but when I left I didn't see if they found it or no. I will ask someone later and update here later, if I remember. It was a big deal, so all day everyone was preparing for it, arranging the supplies and organizing the schedule and so forth. Fascinating.... I got to have a list of random surgery stuff needed, and it was like a fun scavenger hunt to find it all. Poor Chiquito.... I think he will be okay, though. I left when he was in the capable doctors' hands, and they were laughing and joking again, so the tense mood seemed to have lifted. That means it was going well, so I was quite happy.