A Day of Rest

Bags of concrete outline the area of new cement in front of the stalls

               Today is Sunday and was not much more than a day of rest.  My colic and rectal prolapse patients were turned out to graze for several hours in the morning while I relaxed, napped, and studied a little French through my Rosetta stone Program. In the meantime, one side of the courtyard was under construction. Men broke up the old concrete by hand with chisels and hammers. Door extenders were welded to the bottom of the stall door requiring the drainage gully in front of the stalls to be widened to allow the doors to fully open. They got about half way down the row of stalls today before stopping their chiseling and laying fresh hand mixed concrete over the widened gully.  Tomorrow we will begin seeing patients in the new exam room. The old exam area and clinic will eventually be destroyed and new stalls, including an isolation ward, will be put in its place. This will be nice as the current isolation stall is a single open air paddock at the top of the courtyard. The extra stalls are also needed as we have had several stalls with two patients in them all week and this is now a regular occurrence.

The new exam area at the top of the courtyard

The Moroccan band playing at the Cafe Clock

                At 6:00 I headed out with Paris to meet his friends at the Café Clock in the medina. A traditional Moroccan band was playing; the guitar player was also in the band that played at the New Year’s Eve party last weekend. We spent most of the night on the terrace and it was nice to again have conversations, mostly small talk, in English. I learned that Paris and his mother Gigi both thought I was 22 years old, the age at which most British vets graduate from vet school. Paris was surprised to find I had been married over 3 years and was in fact 25, nearly a decade older than him.

                When Paris and I returned from the medina, I learned that my rectal prolapse case had re-prolapsed. I had removed the purse string suture just prior to departing for the Medina. She had done so well and Gigi and I had decided the suture could come out today. Perhaps we were a bit too ambitious. I sedated the mule, replaced the prolapse, locally blocked the sites where the suture had previously been, and replaced the purse string suture. I think she will do well and should still go home mid –week.

                The mare again decided to throw some problems at us. For being only a young three year old filly, she seemed too quite after recovering from her colic. Her appetite in her stall was on and off but she grazed well. I drew blood and found her PCV and TP to be a bit lower than it should be and a blood smear showed a leukopenia with predominately neutrophils. Perhaps this mare was developing a colitis. I gave her a low dose of banamine and would recheck her blood tomorrow as well as possibly ultrasound her abdomen. This case has really been an interesting case with problem after problem. I am still hopefully she will be able to return home before I leave.

                Tomorrow should be a busy day. I’m sure it will be slightly chaotic as we figure out how to make the new exam area as efficient as possible. Until then, Au Revoir!

This little donkey with an extensor process fracture is also enjoying a day of rest