Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Things that make you go ahhhhhhh......

"All right, you ready?"

"Yeah," my technician answers. She takes an unfolded towel and holds it up between her and the incision area.

I take my scalpel and poise it over the turgid skin. With one bold slice, I poke through the skin and slice downward. Blood gushes out and runs all over the surface, pouring down into the towel we had pre-positioned. I squeeze all the blood out, swab out the interior with a gauze sponge, and start to suture. I had a large, silly smile on my face.

This morning I did a surgery I love to do- I fixed an aural hematoma. When dogs get ear infections (due to lots of causes, more on that in the future) they shake their head. With me so far? When they shake their head really hard, sometimes the blood vessels between the layers of the ear break, causing the ear to swell up like a balloon. This condition is pretty painful, and usually requires surgical correction. There are about twelve billion ways to surgically fix this, and most of them work as well as the other. I just like doing the surgery.

Reason being, I love to pop pimples, pick scabs, and otherwise pop gooey things. Like abscesses. Aural hematomas are just fun. Messy, yes. Almost instantly satisfying, sometimes with impressive gushes of blood or sprays across the room. And something that is one of those surgeries that just makes your morning. Dr. May B. Insane may raz on me later for this- she's at a specialty hospital and so doesn't get to do these fun neat things at all right now. Maybe soon, my friend. Until then, I get them all!!!! Nah nah nah ne boo boo.

4 comments:

randompawses said...

ROTFL I can completely understand! My vet gets this look of satisfaction when she cuts into a "pillow ear". I probably get it too when I open and drain an abscess on one of my furry friends. Maybe it's not from being "sick" or "twisted" or "warped" (although I have been accused - LOL) as much as it is from knowing you're bringing relief to the animal?

Evil Transport Lady said...

I can agree with you! I'd probably like doing that too!

Anonymous said...

Couldn't an aural hematoma be cured with leeches?

Can'tSpell, DVM said...

Yeah they probably could help, but they are expensive and require special handling. Not only that, we wouldn't use them often enough to keep them alive. The surgery is very quick and easy to do. The trick with the surgery and all other ways to fix this is to treat the underlying problem, which is the ear infection.