Last Day of Clinics

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Last day of clinics.  I slept like a log last night (or this am… did not get to bed until 1am!).  Warm all night without air conditioning.  The street the hotel is on is near a main road along the Danube River.  Nice view, but a busy road, lots of music from the local restaurants, pretty noisy.  But when we open the hotel room door and window, we get a nice breeze.

Dr Jamee with one of her surgical patients and the happy family.

Anyway, off to our last day of clinics.  My first case:  an older dog that needed to be spayed and have a leg amputated.  She was hit by a car a while back, the front paw was badly injured, and she has been using this mangled foot since, making it raw and necrotic with severe muscle atrophy of the leg muscles.  She is an older dog, has a bad eye and personality plus with a severe underbite.  The owner loves her and wants her happy and comfortable.  So if she did well during the spay, I would remove her leg.  

Dr Stacy performing leg amputation.

She actually had a respiratory arrest during the spay, but it was resolved quickly, went ahead with the amputation and she did very well.  I learned about some really good pain management during this case.  We cannot get many drugs into the country for good analgesia, but there are some very safe and effective forms of pain control available and we used them on this dog.  She stayed very quiet and comfortable after surgery.  She will stay with the rescue group for about two weeks, until she is healed, then will return to her family.  It was nice that she did so well and will now live a much more comfortable life.

Post op leg amputation.

Snuggled under blanket and receiving a drip of pain medications.

Later I did a very large male dog neuter, then the last surgery of the day was a 90 pound German Shepherd  spay.  The other surgeons let me do that one.  LOL!  Went well and we were done for this campaign!  We did a total of almost 160 animals that will live longer and healthier lives.  

Martina, one of the German volunteers.

Several local veterinarians spent time observing during the 3 days.  There was such a language barrier, and we were so busy, that we were not able to take the time to actually train them to do surgery.  They do not have any surgery experience and not a lot of anatomy knowledge, so it would be a very time consuming process.  Karen is going to send them some videos from World Vets for them to watch and study and hope to return in the future to help train them.  It is the local veterinarians that can help continue to get the street animal populations under control.  Periodic visits from World Vet teams cannot do it alone.  So it is important to get the local vets on board.

Dr Sue from Colorado.

Dr Jamee.  She lives and practices in Hawaii!

But the rescue group, Sava’s Safe Haven, is a god send for the street dogs and cats.  Check out their website:  http://www.savasafehaven.com/  This rescue organization is the dream of a small family here and they are doing an incredible job in helping street dogs get into a safe haven, then getting many of them adopted into loving and caring homes.  These dogs and cats are safe, well fed, played with, socialized and well loved.  Most of them are so friendly and outgoing!  Many are still shy, but improving daily.  Most (all?) are adopted out of Romania.  Very few people here adopt from shelters.  There are rescue groups in other countries that help to get dogs out of Romania and into homes in other countries.  Two German ladies helped all week and they are fantastic!  

A few dogs may be going home with members of this team…

Ginny cleaning and packing up surgical instruments.

Today many pet owners brought nice thank you gifts to our group.  One of the visiting local veterinarians brought a HUGE basket full of fresh produce from her garden and homemade wine from her own home grown grapes!   We got pastries, candies, drinks and roses!  It was like a big party!  So many of the people were so appreciative of the care given to their pets.  It was really nice.

Fresh produce and homemade wine from one of the local veterinarians.

Fresh produce, sweet treats and nice cups and bowls from thankful pet owners!

people were so appreciative of the care given to their pets.  It was really nice.

Gosh, we all come together as strangers, then work hard together for 3 days and it is time to part, but now we are friends.  It would be nice to come back in the future just to help at Sava’s Safe Haven!

After getting the clinic area all packed up and cleaned up and sending the last patients home, we headed back to the hotel.  Everybody got cleaned up and most of us went out for a nice dinner and visit.

Tomorrow we are going on a river cruise on the Danube!

Gosh, thought I would get to bed early tonight… but already after midnight!  Time to finish this blog and get to bed!

Until later!!

Fresh produce from a local lady's garden!