by call2arms » May 7th, 2009, 12:33 pm
Yesterday was my day in the oncology dept. for my externship.
It was sad and happy at the same time... All those animals with cancer, there was this one cat wirh mouth carcinomas, his face was completely deformed, but he was so nice and patient to receive his injections... There was a 16 year old daschund who bit me when we gave him his oral treatment, alive and kicking, for sure!
And then a new client. An 18 pound, 8 month old ''boxer X' (totally a pit bull - red/fawn and white, little folded floppy ears, not a boxer face at all)... She was so tiny, looked like a 4 month old puppy. She had been given to her owners by some trash in the reserve, telling her she was 4 months old. They had her for the last 4 months, and 2 weeks ago she seemed sloppy, no energy, not gaining weight. So they brought her to the vet, they dewormed her, and the next week she was still no doing better. They drew blood, no white blood cells... Straight to onco.
She has leukemia. The poor thing is probably actually over 1 year old - she had all her adult teeth and lots of tartar on them, some are broken, too. She's just so small (literally looks like she's from a starvation case) that the owners just had no idea, and being so small whoever sold her made her pass as a puppy. She's never had a heat, and is just so weak and small... We did a bone marrow sampling on her, and there were NO cells that are normal bone marrow ''parent'' cells in there, just some small, abnormal lymphocytes... The slides were sent in Indiana, to be analyzed too. Her prognostic is very, very grim, but she has great owners who are just going ahead with chemo, and giving it their all. She is lucky in her bad luck, I guess. She is sooo sweet, too, it's just sad. She will be coming back on Monday for a second chemo treatment.
This ward is so full of hope, and so heartbreaking at the same time. Especially that lots of times, people who have animals with a good prognostic often aren't willing to treat, and those with animals that have a grim one invest all...
Then when I got home, I noticed Jessie has a small lump on her belly. It's probably just a lipoma. But still, we're getting it aspirated next week.
“Your birth is a mistake you'll spend your whole life trying to correct.” Chuck Palahniuk
I love pus but I hate people.
I can say words like undifferentiated gonads now!