Writing Letters

Even in my short career, there have been many times people have asked me to write a letter: to describe a prepurchase exam, to describe something to a farrier, to state the condition of humane cases, etc. So when a client called our practice wanting us to write a letter, it didn't throw up any red flags. However when I arrived on the farm, it was clear to me that this was something different...

As the first order of business, the owner wanted me to palpate a mare that was VERY pregnant. They decided that she was not in fact pregnant because she "shoulda had it by now". Ok. Not the soundest logic, but whatever. I stuck my arm in about wrist deep and confirmed that she was indeed very pregnant. (The fetus was large to say the least.) What was the most striking about the mare is that she was extremely thin. (2-3/9 BCS). This is what they wanted me to write a letter about. Apparently someone had called the Humane Society about this mare due to her condition. They wanted me to write a letter stating she was healthy. I told them I'd write them a letter, but it would not say what they probably wanted it to say.

After talking with them, I found out that this mare (a small Quarter Horse type mare) was bred to a Percheron "by accident". They apparently rescued (I use this term loosely) this stallion as a weanling; it is now 7 years old. They were unaware that it was a stallion and put the mare in the same pasture with it. Apparently they thought the testicles of stallions just fell off at some point during their young life; thus, magically rendering them sterile.

So writing this all down is filling me with rage all over again. At any rate, we had a long discussion about proper feeding, how much hay is adequate, improper breeding, and the birds and the bees of the horse world. These people were just plain ignorant, and unfortunately not interested in learning anymore.

Needless to say, I didn't write any letter. It's better that way.

Old Timers

It's been over a week since I last posted. This was mostly because Blogspot wasn't cooperating with my Internet Explorer, and I was always too rush to figured out how to make it work. This morning I finally buckled down and made it work.

Last week I ran into a common frustration many of us young, whipper-snapper vets run into. The old timers. We all learn many things for those people who have been in the profession for 40, 50, even 60 years. However, sometimes the standards they set us up for just, well, suck. Last week I was having a conversation about the cost of vaccination. The client had 5 horses they wanted to vaccinate. Vaccinating a horse isn't cheap-- even our cost for vaccines has sky rocketed in the last 3-4 years. To make matters worse, these people have no business owning 5 horses. At any rate, I quoted them a price (well over $500) and they were shocked. They tried to reason with me, "But Dr. Old Timey used to let us use vaccine by weight and we split the dose of vaccine three ways for the ponies. Then in half for the horses. And he only charged $6 for each dose." *Facepalm* Obviously, if you know anything basic immunology, you can't split a full dose of vaccine 2-3 ways and expect it to be protective. Furthermore, I have no clue what he was selling these people for $6. There are no vaccines that are even close to that price, even at our cost.

To make a semi-long story short, I tried to talk to this clueless lady about some theory of immunology to explain why we couldn't do this now. (Dr. Old Timey unfortunately suffered a stroke last summer and is no longer practicing. Because of this we are picking up quite a few of his clients. So stories like this are becoming more common). Not surprisingly, the people didn't make an appointment to vaccinate their horses, even for the minimum of vaccinations.

While I respect these old timers, I think it is also important to maintain a CURRENT idea of science and medicine. That's your job. From friends and my own experiences, I've heard stories about different old timers doing things like re-sterilizing single use disposable needles and disposable surgical gloves (and treating post-surgical infections routinely); charting medical cases with a date then describing the patient's visit with a simple check mark for notes; treating a severe colic with a shot of penicillin and leaving the horse to die instead of recommending euthanasia. I'm sure all of these things are well meaning. It just makes it really hard for other vets to come in and do the right thing when the preexisting standards for care and cost were set in the 1950s and haven't changed since.

Back to Work

It was a good weekend. I was not on call and in the next state over showing my own horse. I very rarely get to escape from it all, so it was VERY NICE to do something for me, to not evaluate any other horses, and do something I love. (I keep it a close secret that I'm a horse vet at these shows so I don't get tricked into working on my 'vacation'!) I have a Reining horse who is my pride and joy. I saved up all the money I could to buy her and she is just everything I expected and more.

This is only my second show season showing in the NRHA (National Reining Horse Association) so I'm still not that great at it. Luckily, my horse is really good at it, and often does the right thing even though I consistently tell her to do the wrong thing. She is saintly most of the time! I am learning and she is patient.

This weekend was exciting because we did well enough to win our first NRHA check! Woohoo! The run where we won a check wasn't very good. Lucky for us, everyone else in the class did poorly too--and we just did a little less worse than the rest.

It's always so hard to go back to work after weekends like this that make me forget about real life. First step is to call back all those people who called my cell phone and left non-emergency messages over the weekend. I'm happy to help, but some people just abuse the service of free advice. I'm thinking I'm going to change my cell phone number to a 1-900 number so that they have to input a credit card number before they talk to me and then I charge by the minute. :) I think it would be a great idea!

Out Of Steam

Utterly exhausted today..and still have one more day to go. Oye...

At least things are starting to gear up!

Horrible, no good, very bad day

Are some people innately evil? I'm beginning to think so. Today started at 1am with one of those innately evil people; a client of mine whose husband went a little bonkers. She was scared he was going to harm her and her animals. She called me to try to find a place for the critters.

At 1am this obviously disturbed me. The scenario played out and ended in jailtime. My phone stopped ringing at 330 am and began again at 7am with the aftermath. Obviously I'm not getting the whole story (nor do I really want to). I just want the animals I've come to know and love to be safe. The whole day I've been on edge dealing with this. I guess this is one of the "perks" to practicing in a small town. Not only are you the veterinarian, the person who people rely on for animal health knowledge, but you become friends and part of their support system.

The whole situation is just incredibly sad and messed up. People can be so evil to eachother and to their animals. The whole day has been so  heavy...

Taking the Leap

Ok. So I think I'm going to make the first big equipment purchase-- a digital radiography system. This is a leap, but I think it will pay off. Like a farrier once told me, "If you can't invest in yourself, why would anyone else invest in you?"

So true! Here goes nothing :)

The horrible, emergency ear twitch

I recently received a phone call at around 7:30pm on an evening when I was not on call. These phone calls annoy me because I'm only not on call about 25% of all hours in the year. So the last thing I want to do when I'm off is answer the phone for veterinary related questions. However many people feel comfortable calling my personal cell phone for ALL their minute, emergency, and appointment making phone calls. I'm not sure how this happened, and I'm not sure how to change it. At any rate, the poor lady was exasperated.

Ms. Worried: Hi Dr. VetChick, uhh something really bad happened, and I just wanted to call to see what I should do.
Me: Ok, what's going on?
Ms. Worried: Well, my daughter was riding her horse at a canter and then all the sudden he started shaking his head and pinned his right ear FLAT TO HIS HEAD. We looked at there isn't a tick in his ear.
<pause>
Me: Uhh, ok. How long did this continue?
Ms. Worried: Only a few seconds.
Me: Well, I guess I would start looking for pieces of the bridle that may have shifted and caused him discomfort during the ride. Then I would try to re-create the behavior by palpating his head to see where the origin of the discomfort is.
Ms. Worried: Ok we will do that. Thank you! <Hangs up abruptly>

In retrospect, maybe I should have tried to tell her that this wasn't an emergency nor anything to be so anxiety-ridden about. I never heard anything back, so I guess they figured it out. (And I have no clue why she told me there were no ticks in the horses ears. It's not exactly tick season here. Weird.) It's funny what people think is pertinent to tell you.  I once had a lady tell me she knew her horse wasn't colicing because it passed nice, relaxed farts. You know, not those mean, nervous farts.

It was hard to be mad at that interruption of my time. It was kind of funny...