One of Dr. Frank and Susan's dogs, Safi, had been feeling poorly, and an online veterinary consult suggested she might have throat worms. This is a potentially life-threatening condition since they can migrate to the heart and cause cardiac failure. The nearest vet is in Arusha, and charges an arm and a leg, so Dr. Frank got his longest laparoscope and went to take a look himself.
I happened to wander by at the right time, and got a chance to help out by holding the dog in place and switching the scope on and off to keep it from overheating.
Here's the patient before the procedure.
Our nurse had no problem finding a vein on her, and she was very calm when they put the IV in.
She did get very confused though, when her hind legs stopped working.
We used a big vacuum splint to hold the anesthetized dog upside down during the procedure.
It was interesting to watch Dr. Frank intubate the dog. I had done intubation on dummies because, contrary to all good sense, it used to be part of the Ohio EMT-Basic scope of practice. I had never had the chance to actually visualize the glottic opening on a living, breathing creature before, and Dr. Frank let me take a look with the laryngoscope. It turns out that big dogs are easy to tube because they have great big vocal chords, and they don't have the 90 degree bend between mouth and trachea.
The problem was that big dogs also make a lot of slobber, and they had to suction out about a liter of spit before Dr. Frank could see anything in the esophagus.
Our nurses are used to Dr. Frank's devotion to his dogs, but we got some funny looks from everyone else. There are lots of dogs around Karatu, but they have a very different relationship with people here than in the US. They aren't pets so much as part of the scenery, like litter. Some people keep them in their compounds, but they typically lock them up in little boxes during the day, and nobody pets a dog. I suppose it's a reasonable attitude to have where there are so many stray dogs, and none of them have rabies vaccinations.
In other news, we are starting into the long rains. Our big, 5000 liter tank was almost full yesterday, and this morning the iron stand it sits on collapsed. The tank fell on its side, demolishing a section of the security wall behind it. I took a closer look at the welds on the broken stand, and none of them were worth a nickel. It was a good thing nobody was standing next to tank this morning.
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