I've learned some new language after visiting a farm last Wednesday! ;) For Imaging, we went to a local Horse Farm to take x-rays! It was very exciting and scary because I've interacted with horses before, but only when I was very young and the horses were super well trained.
The farm was absolutely beautiful and the horses were very gentle. Interestingly enough, our x-ray machine was acting up, and we didn't take a single x-ray.
Below is a picture basically explaining how we take x-rays "in the field." We have one person operating the portable x-ray machine, one person holding a cassette that contains the x-ray film behind the part being radiographed (here is the fetlock joint), and one person distracting the horse at the head. We even get to wear the ridiculous looking lead gear featured! Amazing what you can find on Google Images! :P
When we did ours, we hold the cassette using what's called a tomahawk. Basically a long pole that holds the cassette so we don't have to be that close to the primary x-ray beam.
Parasitology
Today in Parasitology, we got to exam the dogs for external parasites (mites, lice, fleas, etc.) We also got to administer a pill and Frontline (a topical that repels and kills Ticks, Fleas, etc). It went smoothly!
Applying Frontline
I did two hours worth of inventory today, and still haven't finished! There is a lot to go through, and it is kind of fun to see all sorts of tools, products, and medications that I have sometimes only talked about but never seen, and other things that I haven't learned about yet, but know that I will!
Hematology
Tonight, I got checked off on drawing blood from a dog's lateral saphenous vein. I got blood as soon as I poked the needle in!! It was exciting! We also practiced our next technique - a jugular vein blood draw. It took me a bit, but I got blood, and even drew up enough for half of the class to run tests on!
Jugular Blood Draw
We also ran some tests on the blood that we've been learning, and I perfected a few things that I have been struggling with! I did a somewhat difficult blood test by hand and my results correlated with the results from the automated machine! It was super exciting to see that I had done it right!!
I will write again later this week or next. Have a great week all!
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