Colton's Math Scrabble

Colton went with me to the calf call. he likes to go along and help out. Kaci and McKay would really love to go too, they beg me everytime I leave. They say they will help with the baby calves and are sad when they don't get to go. It's hard for them to understand why Colton gets to go and they have to stay home. Anyways, on the way home Colton said he thought of a new game at school today.

I asked him what the game was and he said it is like scrabble, but with "math facts" instead of words. You can use numbers like 1+1=2 and then add onto one of those numbers with a +, -, or x. Kari, Colton, and I played one game and it is pretty cool that he thought it up. I don't know if it will ever hit the shelves of Wal Mart though.

Too late

The call for tonight was at around 6pm. I got called to look at a calf that was born yesterday. It was doing good this morning then at 5 it wouldn't get up and was bloated. They brought it in to the barn and called to see if I could come see what may be wrong with it. I got there and went to the barn and found the calf had already died. They joked around saying I needed to drive faster next time. It must have gotten stepped on or something. It's tough to lose the calves especially when they do good for a day or two. They are worth so much to the ranchers, not only for the money, but they really will do all they can for the calves.

Off to state

Kari, Colton and I drove to Echo, OR to watch the North Powder boys basketball team in their 1st state game. They won by 18 points. It was good to see them play, they are doing really well. Kari's nephew plays on the team as well as a few kids from our ward. Today at work it was busy but kind of boring. Mostly sick dogs. I like it when I get to go out on calls, even in the cold. Should be breeding alot of horses in the next couple of months.

There is still snow on the ground and it freezes pretty hard at night. I'm not sure how excited I should be about going to Klondike this weekend and sleeping in the snow. I better get going, it's getting late. I go to the saleyard in La Grande tomorrow.

Extra passenger

I was called out pretty early this morning to look at a yearling filly that had slipped on the ice overnight sometime. I saw that it had a broken leg and after taking xrays we put her down. There are a lot of options anymore for broken legs on horses. It used to be that every horse with a broken leg was put down. Today there are many more options including casts, bone plating, bone screws, wire, etc. Its amazing what can be done.

After that, I had a calving call and drove to Medical Springs. It is a really pretty drive with a great view of the Eagle Cap mountain range. The drive home has a great view of the Blue mountains. I got to the ranch and found out the cow maybe started calving last night. The owner tried pulling the calf and couldn't and called for a c-section. After getting my hands dirty and assessing the situation, I knew that the calf was alive and in normal position for delivery. I was hooking on the ob chains and noticed that the right foot/leg was broken, completely from the ob chains. We pulled by hand and got the calf out in about 10 minutes. It was good to see because the cow and calf were alive. As for the broken leg, it needed immobilized, and a cast should work good. I don't carry casting supplies and we decided we should bring her into the clinic where we had all of the cast supplies.

We threw the calf in the front seat of my truck, which was not that easy. The tech with me had to ride home with a wet, bloody calf which kept sneezing on her. We got it back and put a nice cast on the leg. Hope it does well.

The rest of the day was a small animal day-ears, skin, spays, neuters, etc. We did get another calving call. This time the cow came to us. It was a downer cow who was pregnant. She had not dialated enough for a normal delivery so we did a c section. It was another fun one. We got 2 live births from the whole operation. Well have to see how the cow does. She should do good.

It will be a long time.

About 1 month ago, a client presented me with a scenario that for one thing, I couldn't hardly believe it, and second I was sure I would not see something like it again for a long time. But I was wrong. Last month a lady brought in her dog and asked me to remove a tick which was attached to the dogs belly. She had tried all the tricks she knew and the tick was not budging. She was getting worried because it was starting to "fill up" and get bigger. She tried soaking it with mineral oil, burning it out, squeezing it with tweezers and pulling hard, etc. and the darn tick was not coming out. It was time for professional assistance?

After examining the dog and looking at the "tick" I told her I must take it to the back to get better lighting. Really, I needed to go somewhere before I started laughing at what had been done. The tick turned out to be the dogs nipple, which of course now was red, swollen and sore to the point it was almost bleeding. I was sure I wouldn't see something like that for a long long time...until today.

An older gentleman brought his dog in today for an emergency examination, more professional assistance. He had found that his dog had somehow jammed a piece of metal into its leg. He did all he could to pull it out at home. He decided he needed assistance after the dog got angry and tried to bite him. The dog did fine until the man tried to pull the piece of metal out with his pliers, then the biting started.

He showed me on the dog where the piece was and I was having a difficult time finding it. The dog did have a shaggy coat, but I kept looking. He showed me a few more times then finally led my hand to the metal, which I was having a difficult time finding. Finally, I figured out what he was talking about. It wasn't metal at all, it was just the dogs dewclaw. I took the dog back and trimmed its nails and thought, It will probably be a long time before I see something like this again.

Busy day

Today started pretty early for us all. We had ward conference at 9 and I had early meetings as well as meetings after church. I got called to check a calf at 9am, then went back to church. After church and meetings the calls started rolling in. Kari was with me and we didn't get to go home until 9 pm. We fixed up a down cow with grass tetany, looked at a Jack Russel that got cut up in a dog fight, fixed a prolapsed steer, worked on a sick cat (sick for 3 days), oiled a colicy horse, and medicated a sick dog. Quite an afternoon. I'm glad we share call here as I am only on call one weekend a month.

Calving call

I am on call this weekend and I had an interesting call tonight. A rancher called and said he needed help getting a calf out. The cow must have aborted and the calf was 2 weeks early and he didn't think it was still alive. I drove out through the really thick fog (visibility 10 yards) and he had the cow caught up in the barn. I put on my boots and coveralls and took a feel. I was a bit confused at what I felt inside. I spent some time getting oriented and the rancher was waiting for me to tell him what was wrong and what to do next.

I told him it feels like the cow is going to give birth to a basketball, thats just how it felt. This calf had a head as big as a basketball and a very wide and incomplete skull filled with fluid. I put ob chains on the front legs which were very short, small and stumpy. I drained a lot of fluid out of the head and we yanked it right out. It was a deformed fetus, really an interesting case. I cut open where all the fluid was in the skull and found there was no brain or spinal cord material, none at all, just an open empty skull.

I was explaining to the owners how it might have happened and things were pretty serious when I told them there are really only 2 causes of this. One was from a plant toxicity and the other was the HC syndrome. They were wondering what the HC syndrome was and I said, well, the only other demonstrated case of something born with no brain was named the HC syndrome, or the Hilary Clinton syndrome. I was hoping the 3 of them weren't HC supporters & democrats, and they for sure weren't and we all got a good laugh out of it. Life is fun.