Days 16-17~ 3 Counties Equine Emergency Hospital

The past two days have been a roller coaster. They were spent working at the 3 Counties Equine Emergency Hospital and I saw A TON of awesome stuff! On Wednesday, I saw/helped out with:

• Artificial Insemination of a mare
• A Lameness exam (trotted Murphy the gelding up and down, lunged him, then ultrasounded his tendons)
• Lunged Rocky then sedated him to pass a gastro-intestinal scope up his nose down to his stomach in which we saw no gastric ulcers
• Saw another Navicular Bursa Injection in the right fore leg, to radiographs, rechecked him for lameness, took more radiographs of both navicular bones
• and Checked TPR's (temperature, pulse, respiration) on a foal!
• I did a lot of restraining horses today!

After I returned to Hartpury, I ate supper, then skyped with Mom, Dad, and Grant for an hour until I recovered from a bout of homesickness. I am getting nervous about taking a trip to London all by myself, we shall see.
Then today, I had a much better, even more exciting day! I woke up early and watched Kyle Bushre's Sunday sermon on Hell which was very good! Then I met my driver who was to take me to 3 Counties and he let me stop at the local post office to mail a package to Rachel, my friend in the U.S. When I got to 3 Counties, I immediately set to work scrubbing buckets and sweeping floors to stay busy. Then I watched my third Navicular Bursa Injection, took more radiographs, observed a Hock Arthroscopy surgery (a bone chip was removed from the hock) - this was my first intensive, knock-the-horse-out surgery and it was awesome! It took about 1.5 hours and they did it all by making two tiny incisions, inserting a camera, and removing the bone chip by watching it on the tv! This will make the recovery for the horse much easier - especially since the hock is a very mobile joint. Still, the horse will need to be box-rested for 6-8 weeks then put out to a small pasture for another 6-8 weeks before it can go back into work. After the surgery, I watched a plasma extraction. Here, they drew 55 mL of blood from the horse's neck, extracted all the plasma, then reinserted the plasma in the horse's leg where it was needed to heal an injury! How cool is that?! I also observed a lameness examination, and a stem cell injection. Stem cell research is horizon of veterinary medicine and they are predicting great things! Since stem cells come from bone marrow, they are cells that can be manipulated to develop into any type of cell needed such as muscle tissue, bone tissue, tendon tissue, etc. This particular horse has a tendon injury, so by using stem cells taken from the hip bone, then were reimplanted into the leg tendon to fill a whole and will now become tendon tissue! COOL!!! Then, I helped with a fetlock block and watched the nurse pack and wrap the hoof to protect it for two weeks since it's shoes were taken off. Lastly, and most exciting, about an hour before it was time for me to go home, and colic surgery (intestinal displacement) came in. This is the epitome and the thing I desired most to see during my internship over here!!! I called my driver and told him not to pick me up because I wanted to watch this surgery that takes anywhere from 2-6 hours. I helped prep and knock-down/anesthetize the horse, then we dollyed it into the surgery room and onto the table. The surgery lasted about 3 hours. It was long and tedious, but well worth the wait. After digging through the entire gut of the horse, the vet found the dead portion of bowel and cut out about one foot of the horse's large intestine. Then he sewed the colon back together, restuffed and sutured the horse back together, and we took the horse into recovery. It was great! I saw the entire gut of the horse including the GIANT cecum which was filled with gas and needed to be expelled (very smelly). This horse entered the clinic with a very small percent of mortality and is now leaving with a much larger chance at life. What gratification this can bring! Still, surgery on a horse's digestive system is very tricky and hopefully he responds well and recovers successfully. I didn't say a word during the entire procedure in fear that I would break the doctor's concentration. Afterwards he told me he didn't even know I was American because I didn't say a peep! As soon as I open my mouth over here everyone knows I'm American, but I think they like me, so it's all good :)
Then, I was thinking that I would have to pay 20-30 pounds to take a taxi back to school when I found out that one of the guys who works at the hospital lives right beside Hartpury and he gave me a lift at 8:00 PM after the surgery had ended! That was a God-send. Today was a great day, much better then yesterday. I am very tired and will sleep well tonight! I'm sorry there are no pictures, I have refrained from looking like a tourist because of confidentiality reasons. Thanks for reading!!! I'll stay in touch!
P.S. All your comments and emails have been so encouraging and greatly appreciated. As I told my mom the other day, this has been the hardest most stretching experience of my life but I don't regret doing it. I am very proud of myself for stepping out of my comfort zone and doing something different. I could not do this without your support! 25 days left!!!