Medicine: A Sampler Platter of Patients

Patient 1: Vomiting dog.

Me: Does she have access to anything, something she might have gotten into?
Owner: We have fruit trees, but we thought we picked up all the plums. And we're renovating the fence, but we keep the dogs away from it.
Me: What about rubbish?
Owner: Just what drunk people throw over the fence. That's why we're renovating it.

Patient 2: Old dog in for a "health check."
Presenting problems:
- Going blind
- Sore "stomach" but actually sore around her entire hind end
- Drinking more lately
- Pants all the time
- Tires quickly after walks
- Limps on front leg
- There's a skin lump, but the owner can't find it again

Add onto this the fact that I pretty much couldn't examine her because she started getting mouthy as soon as I touched anywhere near her back end. Or anywhere, really. In fact, I started to wonder if it was more behavioural than pain.

Also the owner mentioned that her husband didn't want to take the dog to the vet after the motorbike accident, because "he's just bruised."

Because of cataracts and possible polydypsia (drinking too much), it became my job to follow owner + dog around outside with a soup ladle to try and catch a urine sample. Everyone was quite pleased to find that she is not, in fact, diabetic.

Not My Patient: Dog with bloodshot eyes.
On the schedule, a new appointment popped up with the note "bloodshot eyes after staying in the kennel."

"Bloodshot eyes?"

"Maybe it's just conjunctivitis, and they saw the reddened membranes and are just calling it bloodshot eyes."

Nope. The sclera (white part) was actually blood-red.

Top differentials:

1. Trauma - No signs of trauma. No history of trauma. Perfectly happy puppy.
2. Distemper - You may go your entire career without seeing this disease, depending on where you work. Comes with fever, snotty nose, eye discharge, etc - i.e., not perfectly happy puppy.
3. Rat bait poisoning - Tends to cause bleeding on the mucous membranes as well as other signs. Literally the only sign in this dog was the red eyes.

Though it was a long shot, they took blood to test for clotting times to see if it might be rat bait, and sent the dog home on some treatment. Results came back today: negative. Pretty sure the people on that case are still mystified. Their best guess right now is that he stuck his head through the bars at the kennel, got it stuck, and it's from the pressure when he was trying to yank his head back.

PS: These are just from today.