Don's Year in Grenada Blog

3/5/06 Start of a new week

2006-03-05T22:32:00.000-04:00

This past week got back to normal, sort of, once the Puppy Angels took off. I was more involved with the groups of students coming to the GSPCA, was back to seeing clients and performing just a few spays and neuters for the week. But this week also brought in several animals that had been hit by cars. These cases are particularly hard for me because I can’t do any orthopedics at the clinic so many of these cases have to be referred to the University. Much of the time the owner cannot afford treatment at the University so some of these animals get euthanized depending on the specific problems. One non-orthopedic case was a cat with a ruptured urinary bladder, left inguinal hernia, and a right side body wall hernia with several loops of intestine exposed; I’ll save you the gory photos. We took that cat into surgery and spent a while trying to repair the damage. As I was finishing up, unfortunately the cat’s heart stopped which we couldn’t get started again.

So to start the new week, I went with some friends to Mt. Carmel water falls just south of Grenville early this morning. These are the best waterfalls that I’ve been to yet on Grenada. Since it was so early in the day, we were the only people around for at least an hour and then some local kids showed up. Under the big falls was a nice pool where we relaxed for a while and enjoyed the sun. Then we hiked down to the lower falls. On the way home we stopped at Grand Etang Lake for a small picnic.

This would have been a really great day except for a phone call that I received from a student earlier in the trip. Apparently, that morning some students found that one of the dogs that hung around the beach at Grand Anse campus had been hit by a car. So once we reached home I got to go over to the dorm and see this dog. Well as it appeared, the dog had not been hit by a car but had been mauled by another dog (or three). Poor guy was in bad shape so the students elected to put him down. Again, I’ll save you the gory photos.

So with this dog, this new week did not have a very auspicious beginning.

2/27/06 Bye-bye Puppy Angels

2006-02-27T15:10:00.000-04:00

I took the group to the airport this morning to send them back to snowy New Hampshire. From the left are Sherry, Linda, Dean (the veterinarian), Kim, and myself. They worked incredibly hard during the four days in the clinic and then got too much sun on their two down days but I think that they had a good time in Grenada.

They also took two hitchhikers back with them. Smiley has a fractured acetabulum which has already started to heal incorrectly so he will require a femoral head and neck ostectomy (removal of the head of the femur) in order to be comfortable for the rest of his life. Asha is pretty healthy but her mange seems to be coming back and will require more treatment. These two dogs, as well as many others from Antigua, will be treated at Dean’s veterinary hospital and then go on to the good life in a loving home in New Hampshire!

2/25/06 The Last Day of Puppy Angels

2006-02-25T22:31:00.000-04:00

Look at that board! That is a list of all the animals that were sterilized today; 36 animals spayed or neutered today for a grand total of 124 in just 4 days! That was a gigantic effort and, thanks to the well oiled machine of Puppy Angels, it was a monumental success. Every single animal that walked in walked out to their appreciative owners. Educating the people on this island about how to take good care of their animals is a slow process (like a glacier at times) but the fact that so many animals were brought into this clinic is a testament that some people are getting the message. By sterilizing so many animals this week, we have helped to alleviate the suffering of not only these animals but also many unwanted litters of puppies and kittens in the future.

And if that wasn’t enough to make me feel good, look who came back! He doesn’t have his eyelid sutured shut as I had predicted back on 9 December but the eye is still in the socket.

To refresh your memory see the photo to your left. This pompek was attacked but his larger house mate causing his left eye to pop out of the orbit (proptosis). I placed the globe back into the orbit and sutured the lids together. He came in for a one week recheck but never came back the following week to have the sutures removed but I presume that the owner did that himself. There is a large area of pigment and scarring on the center of the cornea so I’m not sure how visual he is out the eye but it still moves in synch with the right eye. Best of all though, he is comfortable and cosmetically he is still a good looking dog!

2/23/06 Puppy Angels

2006-02-23T15:55:00.000-04:00

Well, they’re slowly killing me. The Puppy Angels group is great and they are working incredibly hard but it has been a ton of work. In two days we have spayed and neutered almost 50 dogs (a few cats were mixed in there too)! Today is a down day for the team but someone still has to mind the store so here I am.

This group was started several years ago by Sherry (the woman in the first photo) when she took a trip to island of Antigua to visit her in-laws. The group started by bringing a couple of dogs a month from the Antigua to New Hampshire where they worked to get the dogs healthy and then adopted. This has gone on for several years and has now gotten to the point where they adopt a couple hundred dogs from Antigua every year. Last year was the first time that they took a team to the island to perform a spay/neuter clinic which was hugely successful. This year they decided to come to Grenada and as you may have gleaned from reading this blog, the animals of Grenada are in need of a large amount of help!

2/20/06 Another Trip Home

2006-02-20T20:14:00.000-04:00

When the Pegasus Foundation bought my original plane ticket to Grenada, the latest date for which we could buy a return ticket was in February. That turned out to be perfect because one of my best friends from vet school, Jen, had set a date for her wedding in early February.

Jen and Paul, another vet school classmate, got hitched on 11 February 2006 at the Hotel DuPont in Wilmington Delaware. It was a great ceremony, I gave a reading during the ceremony (but that’s not all that made it great), and it was so much fun to get together with so many classmates.

Additionally, I was lucky to get about 2 feet of snowfall to enjoy while I was in Baltimore. You know, it just gets so boring here in Grenada when it is sunny and hot all the time and you have to go to the beach for a swim in the beautiful, clear, turquoise water to cool off!!

I arrived back in Grenada earlier today but I’ll be heading back to the airport tonight to pick up a group called Puppy Angels. This is a group of one vet and several vet nurses from New Hampshire who will be here this week to spay and neuter as many dogs as humanly possible! I only hope that I can survive the week.

1/29/06 My Red Cap

2006-01-29T19:57:00.000-04:00

This weekend I participated in the La Source Grenada Sailing Festival. Peter asked me to be a crew member on his boat Gans again (I guess this means I didn’t royally screw up during the last regatta). We had several races on Friday, Saturday, and today. There is more racing tomorrow but even though I am volunteering, I still feel that I can’t take off too much time from the GSPCA so I will be working (damn work ethic) :-(

We did as well as could be expected with Gans; we finished low on the list most of the time but we did take a third place in one race. Most importantly, however, I was given a coveted Mount Gay Rum Red Cap!! Unless you are part of or around a sailing community you have no idea what these red caps mean. One can only get a cap if you were a crew member during a Mount Gay Rum Racing Series and they only give out a few per boat. I have heard of heated arguments, fights, divorces, and loss of teeth and limbs due to the possession (or lack thereof) of these hats! Well, perhaps I exaggerate a bit but I have been looking forward to getting a red cap all the same.

In addition to the cruising and racer regatta there is the Grenada Workboat Regatta. This was similar to the one that I attended in Carriacou last July. Everyone seems to put so much work into these wooden boats and the entire crowd went crazy when each race came close to the finish. This was a really awesome part of Grenada to see!

1/25/06 Billfish Tournament

2006-01-25T21:39:00.000-04:00

This week the 37th Annual Spice Island Billfish Tournament got underway. There wasn't too much luck until today. Word spread quickly up the hill to the GSPCA that there was a record setting Marlin coming in to the Grenada Yacht Club so we took a quick fieldtrip! It took the guy over an hour to reel the fish in and it was so big that they had to tie it to the boat to tow it into the harbor. Here is a photo of this Billfish Tournament record setting 669 lb. Marlin.

1/21/06 Time to Relax

2006-01-21T22:39:00.000-04:00

I was invited to take a Saturday off to go for a little cruise. Geoff met this guy, Arthur, who owns a couple of boats that he is fixing up to sell over at the Prickley Bay Marina. Arthur is currently broke so he was looking to make a bit of money and we were looking to have some fun. We took off around 9 am with such a good wind that we only put up the jib and had a comfortable sail around Point Saline to Flamingo Bay.

Several of us brought our fishing rods so Geoff and I trolled some lines behind the boat. We parked the boat in Flamingo Bay for about 6 hours, lounge around, went swimming, and drank several Caribs.

During that time I finally caught my first fish worth anything; a small jack! On the way back while trolling I also caught a small Barracuda that I sent back. We finally returned to the marina at about 9:30pm. We all had a great time and you just couldn’t beat the price!

1/15/06 The Professor

2006-01-15T19:29:00.000-04:00

All of my visitors have left me and now I have been presented with a whole new challenge at the GSPCA. Since I arrived, I have been fortunate to have several students come over and volunteer once or twice a week, which has been a tremendous help to me. But towards the end of last year, the University approached the GSPCA and me about having students come over to our clinic on an official basis.

When the University started the vet school back in 1999 they approached the GSPCA to join in a partnership. The GSPCA was the only clinic on the island at the time and the Veterinary Teaching Hospital (VTH) came in to renovate the building where they remained until Hurricane Ivan seriously damaged the building in September 2004. The VTH took that opportunity to leave the GSPCA which is located in St. George’s and move to True Blue which is right next to the University campus.

Since then, the relationship with the SGU/VTH and the GSPCA has been…how can I put this delicately?…Not good! There were some issues with the method in which the VTH moved out of the building and with exactly how the insurance money was spent (one clue - not on fixing the GSPCA) among other things. But the University did originally put a large amount of money into this building so it only makes sense that the students should continue to get something out of that investment.

This semester the vet school has hired me to be a part-time instructor/clinician! The best part about this new partnership is that I will now be getting part-time pay…err…I mean…that we will now have first and second term veterinary students come over several times a week. I’ve found that I’ve enjoyed teaching the volunteer vet students (calculating drug doses, giving vaccines, etc.) so this will give me an even better opportunity to teach at least some basics.

I think that this new relationship is going to work out only for the best for everyone involved. Even though I’m now getting paid by the University I’m still over at the GSPCA full-time, the students get to see another clinic/shelter in operation, and the vet school will start a new shelter medicine course. This also means that once I leave in July, the GSPCA will not have to rely solely on volunteer vets coming for a week or so at a time. I’d like to think that this means that all my work trying to get this place reorganized and turned back into a fully operational clinic will continue indefinitely!

I will now require everyone to address me as “Professor”!

1/5/06 A 3 Hour Tour

2006-01-05T22:08:00.000-04:00

Melanie decided that she needed to hit the beach today to work on her tan to make everyone back home jealous. Doug, Carrie, and I, however, decided to rent a truck and check out a bit of the island (I didn’t really trust the Mecca-mobile to get us back). We drove up over the Grand Etang Road to head up the east coast to our first stop, The Grenada Chocolate Factory. We got a more extensive explanation of the whole chocolate making process than when I visited with my parents and then bought a ton of chocolate bars. Gene, the lady whose apartment I’m renting, also owns a shop in town and told me to let Edmund know she was out. As it turns out the delivery guy is off the island for a few weeks and because delivering chocolate is so very complicated, none was being delivered during this period. Even though Edmund didn’t know me from Adam, he sent me along with a couple dozen bars for Gene. Thank God they didn’t melt or I would have bought one huge amount of Grenadian Dark Chocolate!

On the road we stopped by a guy selling fresh coconuts for directions and a refreshing drink.

The next stop was the Rivers Rum Distillery. Too bad that most of the working had stopped for the holidays but we did see them bottling the 83% rum; “Slightly Overproof Rum” is on the label. I’m surprised that the stuff doesn’t eat right through the bottle!

We started back over the Grand Etang and made one more stop at the Seven Sister’s Waterfall. I had been wanting go to these falls for a while and really enjoyed the hike. Of course you can’t go anywhere around here without being hit up for some kind of donation to support the cause, whatever it may be. On the way in it was to help support the guys who lived up at the entrance to the trail and down at the falls it was to support the Grenadian Divers’ Association; just a group of guys who would jump off the falls and then try to sell you some touristy crap! Despite that, hiking through the forest was beautiful and the falls and surrounding pools were refreshing.

We finished the day with dinner back at Gene’s house. We had Doug and Melanie, Louw and Marta, and Gene with her dog Freckles over. We (and when I say “we” I mostly mean Carrie) made blackened Scarlett Snapper with some local vegetables which we all enjoyed tremendously.

After dinner we loaded up in the Mecca-mobile for the short trip back to the hotel. As I went to start the car, the clutch went right down to the floor as the clutch cable snapped. Good thing we didn’t take her out for the tour!!

1/3/06 Doug and Melanie’s visit

2006-01-03T21:44:00.000-04:00

Douglas and Melanie arrived on New Year’s Eve with plenty of time to go out and celebrate. They got checked into the Grand Beach hotel and we then went out for some “street meat” around the corner. It’s not as bad as it may sound, just a group of folks that put up some grills next to the Sugar Mill Roundabout and cook chicken and sell beer. Actually it tastes quite good, especially late at night after a few drinks!

I’ve shown everyone around the clinic and taken them to the school where I take the euthanized dogs to get necropsied. Doug and Mel were particularly taken by the brains and other tissue preserved in jars of formalin at the Pathology Department.

We stopped out on Quarantine Point for a beautiful sunset one evening!

12/31/05 Carrie’s here for Christmas

2005-12-31T16:01:00.000-04:00

Carrie arrived last week on the 23rd from Baltimore for a 2 week visit. As it turns out, I don’t have to subject her to the conditions of living at the GSPCA; which really isn’t all that bad with the worst thing being the lack of hot water. Instead, a woman named Gene who lives up the hill in Springs has asked me to look after her place over the holiday. And since the house has several apartments she has allowed me to rent a place during Carrie’s visit. We certainly have a better view of the lagoon and the Carnage than at the GSPCA.

We were hoping to be able to go to the beach for Christmas more for bragging purposes than anything else but it rained on and off all day long! For dinner we went over to some friends’ house, Louw and Marta, along with some of their friends.

On one of the hashes that I went on back in August I was told that there was a nice beach halfway through the hike. Carrie and I took Boxing Day to hike to this remote beach to enjoy the day and didn't even get lost. It proved to be a ripe hunting ground for conch shells and fun place to fly my kite.

Doug and Melanie are set to arrive from NYC this evening.

12/21/05 Follow-up

2005-12-21T13:08:00.000-04:00

This is a little guy that I saw back in October with a bad infection with Scabies mange which he shared with his owner. The owner followed through by returning for ivermectin injections every other week and now this puppy has a beautiful coat. Just take a look at the pathetic “before” photo. This time the dog was back for his final vaccines.

By the way, no follow-up visit yet for the dog in the last blog entry with the proptosed eye.

12/9/05 Ouch!

2005-12-09T18:55:00.000-04:00

Fortunately things have slowed down a bit for me. In fact, work at the clinic has become a bit boring since Mike’s visit. But that is fine with me because when things are exciting I end up seeing monkeys, diaphragmatic hernias, and the like. Sometimes it is nice to just see vaccines, spays/neuters, and mange. But there is always something interesting to deal with.

This photo is a bit graphic but is a perfect example of a BD/LD case (BigDog/LittleDog). This pompek lives with several larger dogs, one of whom attacked him. Actually, he was quite lucky to only have a proptosed eye; I’ve seen patients in much worse shape after a BD/LD attack back home in Baltimore. The chances of him seeing out of this eye again are not very good but maybe we can save the eye because the owner brought him in fairly quickly (about 10 hours) after the attack occurred. I was able to replace the globe into the orbit and secure it in place. I’ll leave the sutures in for a few weeks and maybe all the stretched tissues will come back into place. Unfortunately I forgot to take an after picture. I'd say that I'll take a follow-up photo in a week or two but the chances are there will be a little pompek running around Grenada with his eyelid sutured shut next year.

The ridiculous thing is that this same owner had another little pompek that the same larger dog attacked and killed last year. Maybe it’s time to consider NOT keeping small dogs in the same house as this other large dog. Just a suggestion!

11/27/05 The Tour

2005-11-27T22:25:00.000-04:00

So while the family is here we had to do the obligatory “Around the Island” tour. We went with a guide named Carl who was extremely personable and knowledgeable. Our first stop was Annondale Falls on the west coast. Personally, I enjoy water falls and “buena vistas” that require some work, i.e. hiking, to get to enjoy. These falls, while very pretty, were not much of a challenge to reach. We parked at the top, paid our 5 bucks to use the stairs, and got our photo ops.

Next stop was a Nutmeg Station in Guayave. I was surprised to learn that Grenada, “The Spice Isle,” was given its name in part because it produced 1/3 of the world’s supply of nutmeg. I was even more stunned to learn that the world supply of nutmeg was more than a handful of nuts. I thought that every kitchen had about three nutmegs that just sat in the cupboard only to be used once a year on top of eggnog! Grenada’s nutmeg farmers are still recovering from Hurricane Ivan which destroyed a large number of nutmeg trees but I was still impressed with the numbers of nuts at this station. Those racks are full of hundreds of pounds of drying, whole nutmegs.

We had lunch at the north end of the island in Sauters. What a view of the islands between Grenada and Carriacou!

After lunch, we needed a stiff drink so we went to the oldest operational rum distillery in the Caribbean. River’s Rum is an interesting place because they still make rum without the use of modern equipment. They use an original water wheel that was built in the 1800’s to crush local oganically grown sugar cane to produce a juice. This juice is boiled down and then allowed to sit open to the environment to ferment. The fermented wort is then distilled to a MINIMUM of 75% alcohol but usually upwards of 83%. This stuff is so flammable that they won’t even allow it on an aircraft. At the end of the tour we each got a sample. I think that some of the rum hit my tongue, but all of it evaporated in my mouth before it was able to reach my stomach. But I do know that some vapor went down my throat because I could feel the burn! Smooth indeed!!

Last stop, to cleanse the palate, we hit the Grenada Chocolate Factory. They use locally grown organic cocoa to make their organic dark chocolate. They make it in 60% and 71% cocoa bars of which I prefer the latter. You can see the roaster in the left of the photo.

On the way back to Grand Beach we passed through the old Pearls Airport on the east coast were we found out that my parents’ flight was going to be slightly delayed. Actually these planes were sitting on the runway when the American’s invaded in the early 1980’s and these planes were shot so they couldn’t take off. And there they stayed!

11/20/05 My Parents’ Visit

2005-11-20T21:05:00.000-04:00

I came back from Carriacou bruised and battered. After a few days of rest my parents arrived for a vacation in sunny Grenada. Unfortunately, I’ve had to continue working at the GSPCA but afterwards I’ve hungout with them at the Grenada Grand Beach’s “Fantasy Pool.” This place is beautiful! Right on the best beach in Grenada, two incredible pools, and good food and drinks; albeit it takes a little while to get those food and drinks!

One of the nice things about working at the GSPCA is that I’ve met many interesting people some of whom live on sailboats with their dogs. One couple has a small Yorkshire Terrier that they were preparing to take back home to the United States for Christmas and Buster needed a health certificate. I was able to trade a dinner on their sailboat with my parents for that health certificate. We had a good time but even though it was an incredibly calm night, Dad started feeling a bit motion sick after dinner. I think that he could get motion sickness from just looking at a photo of a sailboat!

11/14/05 Carriacou Regatta II

2005-11-14T21:38:00.000-04:00

Last Wednesday Peggy, Mike and I went to Carriacou for a sailing regatta. Mike and I stayed at Scraper’s place. Alas, Mike did not get to enjoy being awoken by Scraper’s scraping because he had on a new pair of sandals that had straps over his ankle which prevented the scraping.

Peggy has a friend from Trinidad with a racing sailboat that needed an extra crew person so I got on a real racing boat! The boat was a bright orange/red sloop rig called Wajang which means a wild and wicked woman. You can sort of see me in the middle of all the crew. We got Mike on Gans which was the boat that I was on during the last regatta.

Both of us had a great time although I ended up a little more beat up. After the first day of sailing Mike had to head back to Grenada to catch his flight home. Too bad because he missed a great lobster grillout on the beach! He said that he had a really good time during his trip and promised that he’d come back in the spring to teach me how to catch a fish.

We had one race a day for 3 days and it was a good thing that it didn’t go any longer. The shortest race was 2.5 hours and the longest was 6 hours. The weather was mostly cooperative with good winds and only a small amount of rain. By the end of the last race all of my pointy parts were well bruised!

Saturday night was the prize giving and Wajang came in 3rd place of the racing class (out of three but who’s keeping count?). There’s Peggy and Darcy at the party. Darcy was the captain of Wajang. The crew is planning on bringing Wajang to Grenada for the regattas in January and March so hopefully I’ll get on that boat again!

11/9/05 Mike gets his wish granted again!

2005-11-09T13:53:00.000-04:00

I’ll enjoy life when it gets back to boring old stuff in the clinic.

Mike, Peggy and I are heading over to Carriacou this afternoon for another sailing regatta. Originally, we were going to head over this morning but we wanted to see how Suede would do today; she will head back home this afternoon! So Mike and I went into the clinic to check on her and then we were going to go snorkeling.

Of course someone came in to be seen but not just another mangie puppy. This guy brought in his little 4 month old female Mona monkey! These monkeys were brought to Grenada by some Spanish explorers long ago and have thrived in the forest.

The monkey had a laceration through her right cheek that the owner said was opening up further and further. He had tried to take her to the SGU Veterinary School but they told him that they weren’t allowed to work on monkeys (diseases and silly stuff like that) but that he should try the GSPCA. Now that’s funny because neither Mike nor I know anything about monkeys except that they carry some bad diseases and can be unpredictable. I told the owner that all we could do was give her some antibiotics and hope the infection would stop spreading. This guy wouldn’t take no for an answer and kept asking us to just put in some sutures (yeah, cause it’s just that easy). I eventually told him that we could try but since we'd never worked with primates before, his pet could die under anesthesia. “What do you mean die?” he asked. To try to drive this point home I replied “Dude, your monkey could die, D-E-A-D!” He decided to take the chance because God was with him.

So instead of a quick morning in the clinic we gave this monkey an injection of ketamine to sedate her. We were able to place an endotracheal tube and put her on gas anesthesia. Mike monitored anesthesia and I was able to clean up the wound and place multiple sutures. It ended up not looking too bad in the end but the skin was extremely thin so I hope that the sutures were buried enough to not be irritating. Fortunately she woke up fairly quickly and was able to go home with her relieved owner. I asked him to bring her back for a recheck in a week. Yeah, right!

11/8/05 Mike gets his wish

2005-11-08T18:51:00.000-04:00

Ever since Mike got here he kept saying that he really wanted to see an interesting case. Well, he got that interesting case and more!

Yesterday I was performing a spay on a Weimaraner and Mike was watching the anesthesia. As I opened up the abdomen, I felt small amount of air moving in and out of the incision. Normally I wouldn’t have made a big deal about this because the incision is small and if the patient is breathing deeply it can cause a little air movement through the incision. However, several weeks ago I had a very similar spay go very wrong when I felt air move across the incision. I was about half way through that spay when I noticed that the dog was moving her chest a large amount but barely moving any gas through the anesthesia bag and her tongue was turning a disturbing shade of purple. I took off my gloves and started to ventilate for her and she pinked right up. I finished the surgery as quickly as I could and immediately took an x-ray. What I saw did not make me happy. Instead of seeing air-filled lung in her chest, I saw a whole bunch of soft tissue. We got her back on the table, gave the person assisting me that day a quick lesson in ventilating for a patient, had someone else who knew how to put sterile gloves on get ready to be a human retractor, and I opened the dog back up from stem to stern (her entire abdomen was opened). It was then that I discovered an 8 cm tear in the right side of her diaphragm (the muscle that separates the abdomen from the chest and is used to breath). Her entire spleen, stomach, and part of the liver where up in the chest far away from their normal homes. I spent over an hour trying to suture the diaphragmatic hernia back together but towards the end she died on the table. The entire situation was upsetting but I had to call the owner and let her know. The owner was understandably upset but then shed some light on the situation; turns out that the dog had been hit by a car about a year ago but didn’t have any visibly broken bones so they never brought her to a clinic.

Back to the spay I was performing two days ago. I continued the surgery and related the previous story to Mike. We started to notice that again, for as hard as she seemed to be moving her chest she wasn’t moving an equal amount of air through the anesthesia bag. Based on that fact, air moving through the incision, and my recent past experience, I opened the incision further. Once I got my hand through the incision I was again not happy. This dog also had a large diaphragmatic hernia. Unbelievable!! This time, however, I had some good help. Between the two of us, Mike and I were able to get the hernia closed and complete the surgery in about 2 to 2.5 hours. Considering neither of us had successfully done this before I was happy but we where a long way from being finished. When we first took her temperature the thermometer just read “low.” After placing warm blankets on her and warming up her fluids about half an hour later the thermometer read 90 degrees Fahrenheit. That is LOW! The normal temp for a dog is somewhere between 100.5 and 102.5 so we were concerned about the current body temp. We continued the warm fluids and blankets and then we moved her outside onto the warm concrete and the setting sun. She was getting warm and started to shiver so we placed her into her cage. We were starving by this time so we went to dinner. When we got back we weren’t really sure what to expect and were elated to see Suede standing up in her cage wagging her little nub of a tail!!

Fortunately we did have some good antibiotics to give to her, Cefazolin and Amikacin (which Mike just brought down), but the only pain medication we have available is ketoprofen (which I just brought down). It would be the equivalent of me opening up your chest, messing around with your guts and lungs, and then only giving you a couple of aspirins for the pain. These Grenadian dogs continue to amaze me but I will be oh so happy when I go back to the States where I can give my patients narcotics for pain!

With the previous case that I saw, I was concerned about our normal procedure on surgery day. If we have a busy day of surgeries lined up, I don’t perform a physical exam on all the dogs. I kept beating myself up figuring that I would have found something on the exam of that dog with the diaphragmatic hernia and wouldn’t have performed the surgery. Other vets had told me that without knowing that the dog had a history of being hit by a car it wouldn’t necessarily be easy to pick up the problem on an exam. However, Mike had examined Suede the day before her spay and hadn’t found anything abnormal. That made me feel a little better about my first diaphragmatic hernia case.

I’m still concerned though…things have a way of coming around in three’s. So for as unusual as it is for someone to find a diaphragmatic hernia during a spay, I’m waiting for the third one to walk through the door! And this also reminds me that even though I spay dogs several times a week, there is no such thing as a routine surgery!!

Suede is doing well today.

11/6/05 Putting Mike to Work

2005-11-06T20:37:00.000-04:00

Mike has been down here for several days now and we’ve been having a pretty good time. In the morning/early afternoon we’ve been seeing clients and during the afternoons I’m introducing him to different spots on the island.

Between the two of us we brought down almost 70 pounds of donated and some “donated” supplies for the clinic. The "donated" supplies came from my clinic in Baltimore, where I will be returing next summer, without the explicit knowledge of my bosses! In this pile of stuff was a 500 mL bottle of Ivermectin donated by a classmate of ours from UPenn, Cate Mcmanus. Thanks Cate; mange mites of Grenada now can only whisper your name in fear!!

Mike saw a dog that had been treated by me previously for Scabies and as you can see the skin has cleared up tremendously (her before picture is in a previous blog entry on August 17). This time, however, she was brought in for decreased appetite, lethargy, and shaking for the last few days. A standard follow-up question was asked: what are you feeding her? To which the standard reply: rice and meat with some milk. Oh, and by the way Doc, she is nursing a litter of puppies back home. Without the benefit of any bloodwork, Mike’s differential of hypocalcemia seemed quite plausible. While nursing, the mother’s body mobilizes calcium stored in her body for milk production and unless she is on a quality diet, her body’s calcium reserves can become easily depleted. Of course, we have no calcium gluconate here at the GSPCA but fortunately had two liters of Lactated Ringer’s solution which has some calcium in it. We placed an IV catheter and got the fluids started and offered her some dog food which she ate quite greedily. She ate, rested, and nursed throughout the night at the clinic and went home the next day. Will we ever see the puppies for their dewormings and vaccines? My inner cynic says: are you kidding me?!?

We also saw a cat with corneal opacities that neither of us had seen before. These are called Florida spots or Caribbean keratopathy. Nobody is sure what causes these spots in cats but they don’t seem to be painful and are usually non-progressive so benign neglect is the preferred approach. Now THAT is a treatment that I can do!

When we finally made it out of the clinic (it is all to easy to fall into the trap of “Well, they’re already here so why don’t you just see one more patient?) one of our stops was at Flamingo Bay for some snorkeling.

We’ve also gone fishing in a couple of different places. We tried to go to the other side of the island in L’anse aux Epines near Peggy’s house. That proved to be a difficult place to fish as we almost got washed away by the strong wind and huge waves! After our self-preservation kicked in, we headed to the safety of the University Club’s dock where I caught a fish to rival Mike’s red snapper. Man, I’m the worst fisherman on Grenada!!

The next day we went back to Quarantine Point where we didn’t have any luck but just enjoyed the location and the sunset!

11/3/05 Mike's here too

2005-11-03T07:50:00.000-04:00

A good friend of mine from veterinary school, Mike Cohen, came down for a visit from Philadelphia. Unfortunately, he only was able to experience one third of the 8 hour layover that I was able to enjoy in Puerto Rico on my way back. Hopefully we'll be able to get some good work done for some of the animals of Grenada and have some fun too!

As I've been reporting here in the blog, I've been fishing several times a week. My luck has been not been what I would classify as good; I'd be much more skinny if I relied on my fishing skillz to pay the bills. But Mike is on this island for less than 24 hours when he catches a good size red snapper!!

His line was wrapped all around mine and as I was untangling the mess I kept feeling tugs on Mike's line from the fish end. He didn't believe me until he started reeling in the fish. Call it beginner's or dumb luck (I'm leaning towards dumb) but it was a good tasting fish!

11/2/05 I'm Back

2005-11-02T21:05:00.000-04:00

I’m back in Grenada! I had a great trip visiting Carrie in Baltimore and taking a weekend trip to NYC to visit my brother Doug, sister-in-law Melanie, and my parents.

The flight back was uneventful but I had a short layover in Puerto Rico; only 8 hours! To make some use out of the extra time, I took a cab to Old San Juan and visited Castillo de San Cristobal. This fort was constructed in the 17th century by the Spanish to protect the city from enemy invasion. These are some of the views from around the fort and me standing in one of the sentry boxes. These boxes were constructed jutting out from the wall to give a great view of everything surrounding the area, even directly below!

Like I said, we took a trip to NYC one weekend. We enjoyed a pumpkin carving session (I love Halloween) and some good food. Take a look at those huge steaks on the grill!

We got the steaks and the wine at two different stores within two blocks of my brother’s apartment in Manhattan. Immediately as we walked in the grocery, I was struck with how beautifully and varied the produce department was stocked. Just a little different than going to the store in Grenada where you’re never sure what produce, if any, is available. A few weeks ago I bought almost 10 pounds of all green tomatoes just because I hadn’t seen a tomato, red or green, in 2 months! Back in the US it is absolutely amazing how easy it is to find and buy almost anything, from food and produce to a flashlight. Here in Grenada you’re lucky to find one of a product you want where when you go to a store in the US not only do they have a flashlight but there are 15 different kinds to choose from!

We all got up early, very early on Monday morning to check out the Fulton Fish Market. This market has been in the same location for over 170 years at the South Street Seaport in Lower Manhattan but is soon moving to the Bronx. You know, trying to catch one of those pieces of true americana before it’s gone. Fish wholesalers set up here almost every morning trying to unload everything including lobsters, squid, snapper, monk fish, and tuna for sushi. Yumm!

This visit made me realize how happy I am to be able to enjoy living for a year in Grenada but also how much I’m looking forward to moving back home to the States!

10/18/05 Going home!

2005-10-18T14:36:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow I'm flying back to Baltimore for a 2 week visit! I'm psyched to see Carrie who has been working extremely hard lately and to visit my brother, sister-in-law, and parents in New York City. But before I left I wanted to post a few pics that just haven't made it to the blog yet.

I posted a picture of a litter of kittens that we had in the shelter earlier so here is one of a pack of puppies.

Remember I said that many of the patients I see have skin diseases, mostly mange? Well, even well cared for and loved animals can get scabies. In fact this puppy gave his owner an itchy present that she could have done without! He'll get totally better after a few injections of ivermectin.

These little house geckos are all around. People say that they are good to have around because they eat the bugs, but this guy looks like he'd be filled up by just one mosquito!

And I FINALLY caught a fish that was bigger than bait! Unforunately, the guys who fish at Quarantine Point told me that Porcupine Puffer fish are too hard to clean and eat. So I snapped a photo and sent him back home!

10/9/05 Paws in the Park

2005-10-09T19:54:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was World Animal Day. Did everybody send their favorite vet a card?!? As part of the celebration the GSPCA organized Paws in the Park, a rally in Camerhogne Park on the beach.

The goal of the rally was to put a petition together to get the government to start enforcing some of the animal laws that are already on the books. Just within the last few weeks I’ve seen several cases of dogs with cutlass injuries and poisonings resulting in the maiming and deaths of these dogs. In fact, just this past week a full color photo was published on the front page of a popular Grenadian newspaper of a dog whose head had been cut in half with a cutlass. Another major problem is people allowing their dogs to roam free, especially at night. A different newspaper had photos of several sheep that had been torn limb from limb by a pack of dogs that are known locally to be a big problem. There are currently laws to protect against abusing animals and also “dangerous dog” laws but there is no enforcement. Peggy, the president of the GSPCA, has been working with both the police and government officials including a minister on these issues. To say that she has become frustrated and fed-up would be a considerable understatement. So we organized a rally.

The event was launched with the singing of the Grenada National Anthem by a group of students who volunteer at the shelter.

We had several contests including biggest (a Great Dane) and smallest dog (a local Pompek). Pedigree dog food was a huge sponsor and gave away a large amount of food to the contests’ win, place, and show dogs.

An obstacle course for the dogs (some of the kids tried the course too). Peggy’s spoiled little Monica can’t even sit on command so I don’t know where Peggy got the idea that she would jump over a stick when there wasn’t a bowl of food on the other side!

There was also a Blessing of the Animals.

Behind the crowd you can see our mobile surgery van that is slowly becoming operational. The van should get an entire blog entry unto itself! The short story is: damaged in Ivan September 2004, spent one year parked at a garage down the street while they “worked” on it, returned in September 2005 as “repaired” and repainted, rear doors stuck so badly I had to crawl in the side window to open the doors from the inside, rear window fell on my head TWICE as I try to close the sticking doors, discovered diesel leaking from tank when driven, taken back to garage to get “repaired” in October 2005. With all the quotes in that last sentence, I’ll be lucky to use the van at all while I’m in Grenada.

Anyway, Paws in the Park was a successful event. Everyone had fun, many people signed the petition, and lots of dogs went home with food that was better than the usual chicken and rice!

By the way, it was HOT!!

9/26/05 Yet Another Hash

2005-09-26T20:49:00.000-04:00

The hash this weekend was on a small river just a little north of St. George's. As usual the hash was in an extremely picturesque area but this time I took the shorter, easier route; I was feeling a little tired this weekend from NOT catching any fish over the previous week.

The first part took us out on a point to a nice black sand beach. We then turned inland where we hiked along the river.

An old mill, even beyond use by Grenadian standards so you know its bad!!

The last part of the hash took us along the main road where we came on these carvings in the stone. There was also a plaque close by, that was dedicated to a group of people who died in a bus/minivan accident several years ago. The story goes that a bus, full of passengers, was passing along the road when a boulder fell down the side of the mountain. The boulder is said to have been exactly the size of the bus and landed perfectly to crush every inch of the vehicle. Unfortunately, there were no survivors. Now understanding how absolutely crazy fast these bus drivers drive makes the story absolutely tragic; a split second faster and it would have been a different story.

9/19/05 Look Out Fish of Grenada!

2005-09-19T21:15:00.000-04:00

Do you remember that cutlass that I used to clear the roof in the last post? Well, anybody that does any sort of yard work has one and for many people the cutlass is the primary tool they use as a means of income. This creates a situation in which almost every household on this island has at least one huge, heavy, sharp knife! And as you might be able to imagine, every so often these are not always used solely for the intended purpose. Well, last Friday I examined a poor dog that saw the business end of a very finely honed cutlass. That is NOT the dog’s tongue hanging out of its mouth. That is the most forward part of her mandible with bone and several teeth hanging down. Two days prior to coming in, the owner had let her loose for several hours at night and she came back as pictured. We put her under general anesthesia, got everything cleaned up, and reassessed the situation. Fortunately, she had a 1.5 cm pedicle of skin and underlying soft tissue that was intact on the caudal portion of the flap. As I cleaned up the edges of the wound they started to bleed very well meaning that the skin of the entire flap had not been deprived of blood and was thus still living tissue. I then proceeded to remove her lower left canine tooth, all of the lower incisors, and the bone that was still attached to the skin flap. Removing a healthy canine tooth is no easy feat as they are like icebergs; all you see is the top ¼ of the tooth with the root firmly planted in the mandible below the gum line. Her canine had been partially sheared off (I told you these things are heavy and sharp) so part of the job was already done but it still wasn’t fun. I was able to get most of the tissue to sutured together fairly well with a ton of very small sub Q and skin sutures. Her modeling career is finished but Rodger (her owner) was extremely pleased with the results since I had prepared him for the worst when he brought her. We kept her over the weekend and she was eating hard food the next day! These pothounds are TOUGH!!

Last Sunday I was wandering around and went to Quarantine Point to explore the rocky coastline. As I was sitting admiring the sea a few fishermen came down. I watched them catch bait and use the live bait to catch a red snapper. So during the week I borrowed a rod from Alex and went to town to purchase some hooks and a bait line. On Friday I headed back to Quarantine Point to catch some dinner! Take a look at these jacks that I caught!!

Just kidding, that’s the bait. All I caught was three of these jacks but I guess you have to start somewhere.

9/15/05 Now We're Official (Again)

2005-09-15T18:49:00.000-04:00

I have been a delinquent blogger lately. I’ve been keeping busy seeing patients at the GSPCA, performing surgeries, and playing Ultimate Frisbee at SGU with some students. I’ll give a quick recap of the past couple of weeks.

At the end of August my friend Brooke and I were able to get out and explore different parts of the island. One day we went up the coast in search of Dragon Bay which I was told had some good snorkeling. We didn’t find that bay but instead went a little too far north into Flamingo Bay which was still a nice bay and I think has some good snorkeling potential. This was her first time snorkeling so I showed her what to do and then I started out into the bay. I wasn’t out there for long when I realized that there was a rather large layer of floating things in the water as I got further from shore. It wasn’t until I got a few sharp stings on my shoulder and arm that I realized that I was swimming through a patch of jelly fish! But the ones I saw looked like comb jellies which don’t sting so I don’t know what was going on. I tried to swim around the edge of the jelly fish by going close to shore but every time I went a little further out I got a little sting so I took that as a sign and gave up for the day.

The next day we borrowed some kayaks from the University Club (where some of the SGU visiting professors stay) and paddled around Prickly Bay. Fortunately there were no jelly fish here.

On another day we went up into the “rainforest” to see Grand Etang Lake and Annondale Falls. Unfortunately, I was extremely disappointed to see that much of the rainforest was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan last year. I have been told by several people that it actually could get quite cold and dark up in the forest pre-Ivan. Hopefully in the coming years the forest will be able to make a comeback. We also saw one of a large group of monkeys that live up on the mountain. Apparently some of the original Spanish explorers brought over a few monkeys and they have managed to do well in Grenada.

Ever since I arrived at the GSPCA I’ve looked out my bedroom window to see the jungle growing over the retaining wall and climbing on to the roof. The vines had been growing up the wires to the upper roof and started to choke some of the air-conditioning units. So on a slow day at the clinic I sharpened up a cutlass and jumped up onto the roof. It’s a good thing that nobody was within 20 feet because who knows where this huge sharp knife could have flown! But I managed to clear an unbelievable amount of brush off the roof and keep all my appendages intact!

It turns out that I was merely keeping all of my fingers intact to give one of my patients the next week his choice of fingers to chew on. I haven’t been bitten in the 3 years since graduation and I often wondered what I would say and do when that day came. Would I scream like a little girl? Run around the room? Well, it turns out that when this little 8 pound pompek started to eat my right thumb I yelled (not screamed), started shaking my hand subsequently pulling him all around the table before he let go, ran my hand under some cold water, apologized to the owner for yelling obscenities to which she replied “I probably would have said more,” put a rubber glove to keep all the blood in, and finished the exam and vaccines (after placing a muzzle on this lovely dog). Upon closer inspection, I had a nice 1.5 cm laceration just next to my right thumb nail and some scrapes on my thumb closer to my hand. Fortunately, I was able to keep it clean and it did not become infected.

The next day we fielded a call from a woman who said her dog had been harpooned in his right hind leg. She was from a fishing village so that comment wasn’t too outrageous. Once the dog finally made it to the clinic and was sedated and cleaned up, I noticed a few other puncture wounds. Oddly enough (yeah, right) these punctures were in just the right configuration to be from another dog’s canine teeth. So I later tried to explain to the lady that he probably wasn’t harpooned but was bit in the rear end as he was fleeing from a fight with another dog. The resulting abscess had probably just broken through the skin when she finally noticed the problem. Despite my best efforts, she remained convinced that he had been harpooned. Why does every dog owner believe that somebody else did something to their dog? They always think that somebody poisoned, stabbed, or hit their dog. For as large as the hole was in this dog’s leg, I was able to get most of the wound closed, place a drain, and start him on antibiotics. He also continued to walk on the leg and didn’t miss any meals while he was in the hospital! I have some more graphic close-up shots of the crater in this guy's leg but I know that I have a mixed audience (mostly non-vets reading this) and I don't want to gross out too many people!

And finally, Jorge continues to be a man of many talents; anesthetist, handyman, sign maker. Today he delivered a sign to the GSPCA that he made from discarded mahogony boards. Since Hurricane Ivan last September the GSPCA has been unmarked. So we are now officially official again!

8/22/05 An Interesting Day

2005-08-22T23:21:00.000-04:00

Well, today was an interesting day for sure. It started off great (foreshadowing). The 3 Parvo puppies that I had in the hospital were all doing considerably better, eating a little chicken and rice (prepared by Master Chef Don), drinking, with no vomiting. During the morning, I saw a few clients and amputated a cat's infected, necrotic tail. Ron, the kennel attendant, was monitoring the cat's heart and respiratory rate.

The parvo puppies were all picked up by 1 pm by their respective owners so I was looking forward to a diarrhea free week!

Cathy, a volunteer who used to live on the island but moved last year, was visiting for a week. During the previous week, she had gone out into the community and found a family who loved their dogs but couldn't afford to get them sterilized. The dogs just kept having litters (surprise) and the owners couldn't handle any more dogs. Peggy and Cathy were going to get the dogs in the afternoon and convinced me that I didn't really want to go to the beach but would rather go collect the dogs with them.

So we got there and Peggy parked her car in a spot across the road from the house where the targeted dogs lived. The lady of this house said she could park in this spot but her husband was coming back in a while. Of course Peggy said she would move the car when the man arrived. We then started the long process of locating the owner's of all the dogs and puppies. During this time, the husband arrived and just parked several inches behind Peggy's truck effectively removing any hope of escape. I approached the guy and asked if we could get our car out of his spot. He then started yelling and ranting about it was "too late!" He then proceeded to go down the street to the rum shop. Apparently he needed a stiff drink to shake off the hard work of being a dick! I followed behind him for a bit asking him to move the car and asking why he was being so mean. I actually asked this guy why he was being "mean" because I didn't want to elevate the situation. Blah, blah, the wife tries calling the rum shop to get him back, blah, blah, we say we're going to have to get the police, he says he used to be the police, great! So Cathy and I drive in my car to get the police. As I'm coming back, I park down the street but as I'm parking I rub my left side passenger door against a bus (which are just red minivans). F***! I've never been in an accident and my timing for my first accident couldn't be better! By this time everyone who lives in a 10 mile radius is out in their yards watching the entire situation up the street so half of them saw me hit the bus. They start yelling for the bus driver to come out of the rum shop where the dick up the street had taken refuge earlier. Fortunately, this guy was cool and joked with me that he was going to make me work in his garden for 6 months to pay off the damage. But there was really no damage so that was the end of that situation. Cathy and I walk up the street to where the police were negtotiating with the crazy guy to move his vehicle. I had my camera and was thinking about taking some pictures of this asinine situation but my better judgment ruled against that idea!

Eventually, the guy finally moved his car and we were gone. I then went to the store to replenish our supply of paper towels and bleach (to kill parvovirus) that I had used over the last one and a half weeks. As I was driving down the road with the supplies, I hit a big pothole. Pothole dodging is something of a national sport around here as some of the main roads are in terrible disrepair. Unfortunately, I lost this time and hit the middle of the hole. I then started to look around wondering where this huge, loud truck was coming from. Turns out, it was me!! Part of the piping of the exhaust system had broken as I hit the pothole. The roar of the engine combined with the terrible usual squeaking of the brakes instantly turned the Mecca-mobile (Muslim by Nature - see my first post) into a Ghetto-mobile!

My saving grace for the day was that Cathy was staying at the University Club. This place is well known locally for having excellent food. However, I was equally looking forward to commandeering Cathy's bathroom for the hot shower! I'm not sure if I've mentioned in the previous posts but there is no hot water in my apartment. So this shower was absolutely sublime! Can you call a hot shower sublime? Well, I just did!

8/21/05 My Second Hash

2005-08-21T14:35:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, my second hash occurred on the other side of the island in Munich (yes, Munich) near Grenville, near where I saw the last day of Carnival. As before, there were many buena vistas to be taken in and many steep hills to be traversed. However, the students at St. George University are back and hashes are very popular with the student body so it made the hash considerably more crowded. That combined with the fact that the terrain was much more wild and steep than the first hash made this hash more difficult. In fact, this time the trail had to be bushwacked by the leader through the jungle and at times went up some incredibly steep inclines!

As I said in another post, there are cows and goats all over the place, even all the way up here. Fortunately she was nice and didn't skewer anyone for invading her trail! On the right you can see some of the crowd heading up the trail but you can't see much of a trail but then again, neither could I.

Here you can see some of the paper that the hash hare (the person who makes the trail) uses to mark the trail. It's too bad that I'm not better with local fauna.

Just screwing around on the trail. Now how the hell this car ever got here I haven't got a clue. A couple of caption choices include: "Damn it Jim, I'm a doctor not a miracle worker!" or "Well, maybe another quart of oil?" or "A serious case for Turtle Wax!"

It's laundry day in Munich!

And finally, initiating the hash virgins afterwards.

8/19/05 Cats!

2005-08-19T21:10:00.000-04:00

Like any good shelter, we are constantly being bombarded with unwanted litters of dogs and kittens! I was just trying to get some photos of our most recent group of kittens but when I got the photos on the computer I noticed that one of the cats was completely uninterested in the big alien with the flashing thing. Check out the series of photos below!

If you missed it check out the guy on the bottom left!

8/17/05 Parvo, Parvo, Everywhere Parvo!

2005-08-17T20:35:00.000-04:00

I now have three Parvo cases in the hospital! That wouldn't be too bad back home but on the weekends and at night, it's just me cleaning up everyone so I hate Parvo! The first little girl was brought in last Thursday, her brother was brought in on Saturday, and the third was brought in on Monday. On the right is a photo of the female but trust me, they all look the same. The owner of third puppy said that his dog is not related to the other two but come on! The owner of the first two Rotties said that another two puppies in the litter also have parvo! Now as I mentioned in a previous post, there is a good vaccine to prevent parvo but there is one caveat; it must be properly handled! The vaccine is a modified live vaccine and must be refrigerated or else the vaccine becomes useless. All three of these puppies had been given one or two shots by the same local "vet" several weeks prior to becoming sick. I say "vet" because they are not veterinarians but basically vet techs who are not very well informed. So because these vaccines got warm somewhere along the line I spent my weekend in Parvoland; happy, happy, joy, joy! But they all seem to be doing well.

Here is another case that I saw about 2 weeks ago. The owners wanted to put this dog to sleep because she kept itching and they "loved" her too much to see her suffer anymore. I've heard this excuse many times back in Baltimore too. So I was able to convince them to let me do a skin scrape and, surprise, surprise, I found Scabies (mange). So after just one injection with ivermectin (we don't have any amitraz) they reported much improvement in her coat, decreased itching and so they came back for a second injection. Believe it or not, the picture above is an improvement!! Hopefully I'll get another photo of more improvement.

The next two cases unfortunately didn't survive but I'm going to put them up here just to show some of the things I've seen and done. The first was a red-earred slider which a young man brought in last week with a history of not eating for 3 weeks and extending his head out and gasping for air. So armed with my extensive knowledge of turtle medicine, I threw my hands up in the air and said "Let's take a radiograph!" This is what we found on the right. Many of you might notice several opacities along the caudal midline that seem to be plugging up the plumbing! So I got online and searched VIN (the Veterinary Information Network) and decided on a course of action. We started by tubing him daily with 50:50 saline and Lactated Ringer's Solution to keep him hydrated, metoclopramide liquid to hopefully get the intestines to move the stones through and warm water baths. The risk was that the metoclopramide would cause the intestinal musculature to grind on the stones and perforate causing an infection in the coelomic cavity. The other option was surgery but that was not an option if I was going to be the surgeon! After several days I switched to injectable metoclopramide because of some more research on VIN but he died last Tuesday. I kept him on ice in my freezer next to my ice cream so the owner could bury him at home.

On Monday this guy had someone drop this puppy off at the clinic because he couldn't arrange transportation himself. So this little girl is dropped off in a towel inside a plastic shopping bag. I got her out on the table and she could barely move, her gums were dry and white as a sheet of paper, extremely thin, and maggots crawling around on her belly. I couldn't get a catheter in her front leg and I was afraid she was going to just die right on the spot so I put a regular catheter into her jugular. We then went into the kennel, got one of the bigger dogs and drew 30 mL of blood out of Bear into a heparinized syringe before he moved and wouldn't let me take any more. I then went directly to the puppy and injected the blood into her catheter over a few minutes. Directly after I finished giving her the transfusion she got up, walked around her cage, and then pooped! The pic on the right is after we cleaned up the poop. It was pretty amazing to see her perk up so quickly and her gums get pink. I dewormed her, kept her on IV fluids, and syringe fed her for a couple of days but unfortunately it wasn't enough. A quick note, back home I probably would not have taken blood from one dog and injected it directly into another. We would have had to cross-match and get the blood through a blood-bank but you can do one transfusion in a dog without crossmatching. If that transfusion was performed with the wrong bloodtype, then the reciever's body will create antibodies to that bloodtype. The next time that the wrong bloodtype is used in that same dog, it will have an anaphylaxtic (severe allergic) reaction. I was almost positive that this puppy had not had a prior blood transfusion!

Tuesday is now my "official" surgery day so in between cleaning up parvo diarrhea and vomit I tried to squeeze in a few spays and neuters. We try to schedule as many spays and neuters as we can get into the clinic. This is one of the females that Peggy was able to get in for the day. The other photo is of me hard at work with Jorge and another volunteer. You may have noticed the lack of a mask or cap. Yeah, I noticed that too but I just count myself lucky that they have sterile gloves!

During lunch we had to sterilize a few packs for the afternoon's surgeries. The GSPCA is blessed to have not one, but two autoclaves. Unfortunately, they are two gigantic pieces of shit! One is the most complicated piece of Italian machinery with the possible exception of a Ferrari, whose motherboard sparks and burns when turned on so we don't turn it on anymore. The other autoclave has a tendency to burn everything. There is an engineering technician from the hospital who we have convinced to help us fix one and after he came to fix the second autoclave, it burned right through a pack so that when I took it out all the instruments fell on the floor, which is not so sterile. So we're ordering a few parts for it which should be here by next year.

In the meantime, below is our new autoclave. It gets to 250 F which should sterilize a pack in 3o minutes but I cook packs for 45 minutes to be safe. Geeze, I'm a little sketched out by this!

8/10/05 Carnival (Long) Weekend

2005-08-10T19:57:00.000-04:00

This weekend Carnival started. Carnival has its roots in pre-Lenten celebrations; a celebration before the abstinence and fasting that many Christians celebrate. However, like many celebrations of historical significance, this too has become an excuse for a major party. Carnival is a national holiday and the partying started in the middle of last week and slowly built up over the weekend. Everything shut down on Monday and Tuesday and I've been told that on Wednesday everyone will show up to work in body, but certainly not in spirit!

Like I said, originally this was a pre-Lenten celebration and I've heard two explanations as to why Grenada celebrates Carnival in August. The first is that there are other islands in the Caribbean that have absolutely HUGE Carnival celebrations (e.g. Trinidad) and the smaller islands just cannot compete. So instead of trying to draw people away from one Carnival to another, they have just staggered the celebrations on different islands. The second theory, which is certainly more intriguing, is that when the Cubans were starting to have some influence in Grenada in the early 1980's, the Communists wanted to try to get away from major religious celebrations. Apparently, according to this theory, the Communists were up for some major partying so they just moved the dates of Carnival to August; maybe those Commies weren't so bad after all!

The official celebration started on Friday night with the beginning of the Soca Monarch Competition. My apartment is situated up on a hill overlooking the stadium where this competition was taking place so I was able to enjoy the music and fireworks from the comfort of my own porch. While I was enjoying my Carib I saw a dog running up the driveway and through the gardens faster than a speeding bullet. I guess he didn't enjoy the fireworks as much as everyone else. Several days later a man came up to the clinic asking if anybody had found his dog who had run away during the fireworks. I used this opportunity to remind him why a collar and a leash are a good idea.

There was plenty of celebrating going on Saturday night but I was too tired from the Hash so I played an old fuddy-duddy and went to sleep to the thumping of the music. It turned out that I needed all the rest I could get for Sunday night and Monday morning's partying. During the day on Sunday I got to enjoy the "Parade of the Bands" again from my porch. Now as I mentioned before, this celebration had been gearing up all week long. Everybody had been practicing for the Parade of the Bands. The basic idea is that a large group of people, wearing similar clothing, waving pompoms or something around their head, follow a rather large truck overflowing with speakers (take a look at the photo on the right) with another large truck bringing up the rear serving lots of alcoholic beverages. Now people, you must understand that it takes a lot of practice in order to be able to follow this truck in the precise chaotic manner that is required. By the way, the music coming from these speakers is so loud that people across the Atlantic in western Africa can dance to it!

I walked around St. George for a little while but had missed most of the day's celebration by the time I got down there so I, of course, had a Carib and wandered around. I then stayed up all night reading Angels and Demons by Dan Brown (fun book) and went back out at 2:30 am for "J'ouvert." I'm not really sure what the purpose of this is supposed to be but I can tell you what was going on. Unfortunately, I did not take my camera because it was raining intermittently. When I got down to the main drag, there were more people lined up behind the same trucks with the huge speakers. However, this time they were all painted up. People had painted their entire bodies with yellow, green, white, and blue paint and I was told the color was supposed to correspond to where the person was from on the island. Then there were the crazy people who rub their entire bodies with Vasoline and then douse themselves with what looks and stinks like burnt motor oil and kerosene (I later found out that that is exactly what they were putting on their bodies). These guys were called "jab-jab" which I think is something akin to the boogyman. It's a story used to scare children into behaving; "You'd better sit down or jab-jab gonna git you!" But basically everybody jumps around rubbing paint all over everybody else and drinking until the late morning.

Next was Monday Night Mas where, you guessed it, people dress in similar clothing, wave some lighted instrument around their heads, follow the loud trucks and drink. This evening I made it up into the judges booth so I was able to take some good photos and some video (if I figure out how to get video up on the web I'll let you know where to look).

Tuesday was the final day of Carnival, thank God! Not that I didn't enjoy the time off and the parties but I don't really enjoy huge masses of sweaty, drunk people. Today Ron, the guy who cleans the kennels and takes care of the dogs at the GSPCA, took me to Grenville on the other side of the island to see their Parade of Bands Last Lap. There was little different from the previous nights. Everyone was dressed in costumes, waving things around, following the same loud-ass trucks, but it did involve less drinking.

There were also many more children involved in this parade. See the big speakers on the right. Very large, extremely loud!

Then there are these other guys called "Shortknees" (because of the short pants they wear and the anklets made of bells) and when people see them coming, the crowds part like they're throwing anthrax around. In fact, they run around the parade and crowd throwing baby powder all over everyone.

So that was Carnival. I'm probably not the best person to give an accurate account of the entire event because of the aforementioned aversion to large, drunk crowds but there were still some good times!

8/7/05 Hash House Harriers

2005-08-06T19:45:00.000-04:00

Today after work I went on a hash. The Hash House Harriers are an international organization with a chapter in Grenada. Basically a hash is an organized run (but most people hike the trail) around a different part of the island every other Saturday. Someone who is familiar with the area goes out on a trail and puts down small blobs of paper on the side of the trail. When they get to a spot where there are multiple trail choices they make a circle of paper. You then have to go down each trail until you either find a dead end marked by an "X" or you find the trail that continues. There is some special vocabulary that you yell as you're on the trail; on-on, are you, and checking.

I figured this would be a great way to get to know the island. This hash was on a point on the southeast side of the island about 25 minutes from the clinic. There were not many homes in this area but there was a new road so I imagine that the new homes will be coming soon. The first section of the hike followed a road directly up the side of a steep hill. What the hell is with these Grenadians building a road directly up a hill. Haven't they ever heard of switchbacks? Despite the beginning hills around different points of the hike there were some great views.

Some people brought their dogs who had a great time.

Like I said there were some incredible views around the trail. The photo below right is of Calivigny Island which is apparently privately owned by some zillionaire. I'm not too sure of the details but apparently he has a heliport, a mansion, and a small hotel for his company's employees. Also if you go down a trail to the left there is a very secluded beach with some great snorkling. Definitely a place warrants a return someday for further exploration!

I was actually quite surprised to come upon this bunch of cacti but they were all around the area. And then we came up to a clearing where there were a bunch of cows grazing the pasture.

There are cows and goats all over the place. People will tie them or most of the time just let them loose in an area and come pick them up sometime in the next day or week or three. People used to tie them to bushes around the golf course a while back. Alex, Peggy's husband, plays golf once a week and hit a goat in the side several years ago. Then the golf course put up a pen, rounded up the animals and placed them in "jail" until the owner came to pay a fine. The ones that were never claimed were roasted and served as mutton with a side of fries at the clubhouse. Okay, I made up the last part but it makes for a better story.

That's me with Hog Isand in the background.

So the Hash Harriers describe themselves as "drinkers with a running problem." At the end they have cold beers waiting and have the initiation of the virgins. For all the hash first-timers, they get certificates stating the date they lost their hash virginity and then they get initiated. This was just us all lined up, running towards the "Grand Inquisitor" and getting drenched with beer. What a waste of perfectly good Carib, but it's all in good fun.

This is the group with whom I went. Louw (South Africa), Jewel (Grenada), Marta (Spain), Brooke (Alabama), and Jen (?) all from St. George University. I'm looking forward to the next hash in two weeks.

8/3/05 Carriacou Regatta

2005-08-03T21:40:00.000-04:00

Make sure to check out my Yahoo Photo Album when you're done reading as there are too many pics to put up in this entry!

On Saturday after work we headed to Carriacou for the 40th Annual Workboat Regatta (watch out, there is some loud audio on this site). We ended up taking a 30 minute flight to Grenada's sister island. The plane was a small, or more accurately a cramped, 10 seat (including pilot) dual prop plane. It looked tried and trusted and was so old that it quite possibly could have flown the route without the pilot. Once we were in the air we had a cool view of the island and part of the rainforest before plunging into the clouds which are constantly hanging around the mountain.

We stayed at a place called "Scrapers" (owned by who else but Scraper!) which was a very small collection of very small cottages. But you know what they say, "Location, location, location!" We were staying right on the water of Tyrell Bay in southwest Carriacou. This is the point when I found out that instead of saying east or west to describe a side of the island, the yachties (owners of yachts) will say windward or leeward in reference to the tradewinds. The tradewinds hit the windward, Atlantic, or east side of the island and the opposite side is the leeward, Caribbean Sea, or west side of the island. And just to let you know, these yachties are not a bunch of snobby jerks like Judge Smails, although I'm sure that those types are around. But these folks are all down here either living the simple life on their boats or working on other people's boats. They all seem quite happy to be here and to share some of the experience!

Anyway, we got there in time to watch several Laser sailboats racing into the sunset. Seems like an extremely cliche photo but this is my blog so deal!

We then headed out to dinner which involved the best pizza place in the entire Caribbean run by authentic Italianos!

I was very much looking forward to getting to sleep in a little for the first time since I arrived in Grenada but instead I had to find out why they called the owner of this fine establishment "Scraper." It turns out that when the man walks he, and for that matter his whole family, cannot pick up their feet more than the several millimeters required to clear the ground to move the foot forward. The result is a constant scraping of their flip-flops on the cement, directly outside the window next to my head. I'm not really sure if this is where he got the name but I like it so that's the story!

It was cloudy and rainy for most of Sunday so we lounged, discussed plans for the year, and did the only reasonable thing possible, went for some beer. Later, we took a bus into Hillsborough, the capital of Carriacou, to watch some of the race. The Workboat Regatta is the biggest event on Carriacou for the whole year. Unfortunately, we were too late for the "Miss Wet T-shirt Contest" and the "Greasy Pole Competition" but we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless. Carriacou has a heritage of Irish and Scottish ancestry inspired wooden boat building. These boats used to be used as fishing boats but are now generally used for racing and fun.

Since it was cloudy and rainy, I'm posting some photos that were taken last year.

And then there are the motor boats. These seem to be the equivalent of a teenager in the the US with a Camaro or T-Bird. There's usually several teenage kids in the boat, drinking, and doing the stupid shit that we all use to do and some of us still do (well except for me) !

We had a beer, wandered around a little, and then had a rum and coke. It was around this time that I decided that nobody should consider spending any substantial time in Grenada if they have any remote tendencies towards alcoholism. It's all around, all the time, and so many people are drinking that it is all too easy to join in. Eerily similar to Colgate!

The Yacht Regatta occurred on Monday morning. Peggy and I were able to get on one of her friend's boats; a little 25' sloop named Gans. The boat pictured here is not Gans but a sloop called Saga owned by another of Peggy's friends, Tim. I'm not quite sure how to accurately describe Tim except to say he is British. This man is quite a character; he lives on his boat, sails in any regatta he can get to within a reasonable period of time, when he is not sailing he is drinking and I have yet to see a glass of water in this man's hand. So anyway that is his boat Saga.

We took off from Tyrell Bay at 7 am and got to Hillsborough for the 9 am starting horn. The course went from Hillsborough, around several marks in that bay, out around The Sisters (pic on the right), around a mark in Tyrell bay, back to Hillsborough, around The Sisters and then finished in Tyrell Bay. I really can't remember how long it took to finish but I do know that we finished in last place. This was to be expected since we were by far the smallest boat in our class but this fact doesn't make it hurt any less!

To the left is a ketch from the cruising class of yachts that passed us.

After finishing up back in Tyrell Bay the marina that sponsored the regatta had a chicken BBQ for all the participants. And of course they had cold Carib waiting. To the right is a pic of Tyrell Bay at dusk.

The next morning I was able to get onto Gans for the trip back to Grenada. We left at about 6:30 am after a hearty sailor's breakfast of a Coke and a salami sandwich with mayo! Once we got out of the wind shadow of the island we had a steady wind off the port of about 12 knots, with some chop and seas of about 4 to 5 feet. The pic on the left below is Carriacou behind us with the Sisters on the left of the photo. On the right is a faint rainbow falling on the north end of Grenada.

The next photos were taken about 5 hours later of a small island as we were rounding the southern tip of Grenada and coming into The Yacht Club in St. George.

Now, some of you might ask, "Don, why not take some photos of the island in those intervening hours?" And I would say to you, "Well now, that's a good question." You see during that undocumented portion of the trip I was battling a slightly more than minor amount of motion sickness and trying like hell to keep that salami sandwich with mayo and Coke down. It is a battle that I am sorry to report that I lost...twice. Although I must say that I didn't get any on the boat and I felt much better afterwards. When I arrived back at my apartment that evening I promptly threw away the remaining salami.

7/29/05 They put me to work?!?

2005-07-29T20:12:00.000-04:00

Well I guess they had to do it. I started seeing clients this week. Currently we are working full time out of the clinic as the mobile surgery van is STILL being repaired from damage done in hurricane Ivan. It is a very nice building but sorely lacking in items regularly found at every clinic back home. Things like 3mL syringes, diagnostic tests, most medications, and a floor scale for dogs to walk on. I only mention the floor scale because that means I have to lift every single dog onto a regular home scale and subtract my weight. No big deal for the average 30 lb. Pothound (I'l tell you about them later) but I've already had to deal with what I hope are the biggest friggin' dogs on the island: several 60 lb. Pitbulls (they're here too), a 70 lb. Rotti and a 125 lb. pregnant Rotti (she is why they invented the walk on floor scale).

I was told that once word was out that the GSPCA had a vet then the people would come in droves and they did! Mostly I saw dogs for vaccines and mange, both Sarcoptic and Demodex.

Mange seems to be a common theme with these guys and I'm sure that I'll go through Ivermectin like water! This is what one of Peggy's dogs looked like when she arrived at the GSPCA with a terrible case of mange. She now has a nice thick coat and is a cool dog!!

Parvo is also a major problem. For the non-vets reading this, Parvo is what one would call a BAD disease. The virus attacks the rapidly dividing cells of the intestines causing severe vomiting and bloody diarrhea (this has a somewhat unique smell and it is not at all like roses). These animals will almost invariably die due to dehydration and sepsis if they are not kept on IV fluids and antibiotics for several days while the body learns to fight the viral infection. And the worst part about all this is that there is a very reliable and cheap vaccine for this disease. We had two Parvo dogs on IV fluids during the week and causing quite the mess in their cages. Let us just say that I am very tired of cleaning up awful smelling puppies and trying to keep their IVs patent. I'll spare you the details about these two except to say that both were very happy to go home!!

So your average dog that is over 10 lbs. down here is what they call a Pothound. A few examples:

They're mostly very sweet natured dogs, very skinny, and running around all over this island! The reason that they're called Pothounds is due to what they were generally given to eat. People used to, and still do, eat rice and beans as a main staple of their diet. They would make a big pot of rice and beans to eat during the week and whatever was stuck to the bottom of the pot was fed to the dogs. Any dog that is less than 10 lbs. is called a Pompec. Why the hell they're called that I have yet to figure out!

Besides the Parvo puppies, there were some other memorable patients this week. One morning this week I wake up to find a box of mangy puppies at the front door. Lovely, just what I always wanted!

Well, they for sure were cute despite being loaded head-to-toe with mange. We bathed, dewormed, fed, and started treating the mange. Unfortunately, despite syringe feeding, subcutaneous fluids with a little dextrose, and our best efforts only the largest puppy survived. He is the second one in the above series of photos but he seems to be thriving!

Another sad case was a sweet but severely neglected Pitbull. The story goes that this guy's neighbor was just ignoring his dogs. This guy finally convinced his neighbor to let him bring the dog to see us. Unfortunately you can see the results of the neglect below.

We placed her on IV fluids with a little dextrose and she ate a small amount of turkey. A little while later the turkey was back on the floor and she refused to eat anymore. We could not run any bloodwork but I'm sure that we can all agree that it wouldn't have looked too good. The next two days on IV fluids she continued to get weaker and vomit so the good guy who brought her in decided that it was time to let her have some peace.

It certainly was not an easy week on multiple levels. With all the work to do and a limited amount of help I can see where it would be easy to get burned out quickly. Uh-oh, I told them I would stay a whole year?!? Idiot! And my lips hurt real bad! Apologies to all who have not seen Napolean Dynamite. Well, we'll have to figure this out.

This weekend I'll recharge. Tomorrow Peggy and I are heading up to one of Grenada's sister islands, Carriacou for the 40th annual Carriacou Workboat Regatta.

7/25/05 My first weekend

2005-07-25T18:48:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend I took the car out and started to explore the area (AWAY from the town this time). I discovered that there are exactly zero street signs on Grenada but fortunately there aren't too many good quality roads, so I figure if I stay on paved road I should find my way back...eventually. That, and the fact that Grenada is a relatively small island.

There is a really great beach called Grand Anse within a 5 minute drive which seems very popular even with the locals. The water is clear blue and WARM!

It was a little cloudy on Saturday but you get the idea of what is around. This is the view from Quarantine Point, the site of a former Leper colony (hope they picked up the place).

It rained, and HARD, most of the day on Sunday so Peggy took me around for drive to the other side of the island. We had beers at hotel in a nature preserve called La Sargesse. This is a place that I will definitely have to visit when the sun is shining.

7/22/05 My Arrival in Grenada!

2005-07-22T20:54:00.000-04:00

As many of you know, at the beginning of the year I made the decision to take a year away from practice in the US to volunteer abroad. Through a friend of a friend of a friend my search led me to the Grenada Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (GSPCA). They have a website that is somewhat outdated but still has some good stuff on it: http://grenadaspca.org. I also want to bring your attention to another website for a group called the Pegasus Foundation who paid for my flight to Grenada: http://www.pegasusfoundation.org.

Thanks for checking out my blog. I thought this would be a good way to let everyone know how things were going for me and also get some of my pics on the web. I am also placing pics in some albums at this address: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/donschrank/my_photos.

I arrived on Grenada on July 19 after what I found out was the usual 2 hour delay in Puerto Rico. That is one of the first things that you come to realize when you come here. Things work on a completely different schedule than what we are used to in the United States. Peggy Cattan, the president of the Grenada SPCA, picked me up at the airport and on the way to her house we did have to stop at a bar to celebrate the beginning of this experience.

After a good night's sleep I decided see what I had gotten myself into for the next year, so I went for a swim! As I was walking on the dock I got my first glimpse of the local wildlife. To the left is a photo, a bit distorted looking from above the water, of a spotted cow fish. You can see one of his spines and his tail in the bottom of the photo.

This is the view from the end of Peggy's dock.

A view of St. George's University on the other side of the bay.

The view of Peggy's house from the end of the dock and the view from her living room. The bars are down to protect all those who sought refuge from flying projectiles from the last hurricane, Emily.

Peggy then took me into town for some lunch. The port is quite picturesque and the water is a stunning clear blue. In fact just looking over the breakwall I could see different sorts of tangs, butterfly fish, and several others darting around. For lunch I enjoyed a Roti, a common, simple meal. A roti is usually fish or chicken mixed with potatoes some veggies and lots of curry wrapped up in something like a tortilla. They're pretty good and very filling for cheap! But NOTHING beats a Bui "egg an' chee" at UPenn.

After lunch we went for a short tour of the city which consisted of going through an extremely narrow tunnel and then going up the even more narrow main street which goes directly up a hill at an angle of approximately 89 degrees. I believe that I said something to the effect of "I'd rather be dead (or be sitting in the Puerto Rico Airport for another 6 hours) than have to drive through this part of town!" Let us skip ahead several hours after I'd been left at my new home with my own automobile, a little 4 cylinder standard transmission Nissan with the steering wheel on the wrong side. I decided this would be the perfect time to get acquainted with my new surroundings. Well you may have guessed, but after a series of wrong turns I find myself on the middle of this f***ing hill, sweating bullets (no AC), and trying not to bounce anyone off the front of the car which is no small task because everyone prefers to walk in the street. The story has a somewhat anticlimactic ending as I made it back safely without injury to the public but a good workout for the old adrenal glands! I'll have to walk back there one day and take a photo.

So after the tour we went to the clinic. There is a large apartment above the clinic where I will be staying and have the use of the aforementioned vehicle. Love the window tinting and the rosary, gotta cover all you bases!

The view from the porch at the back of the apartment.

I put my stuff away, made a sandwich, then went for a completely ill-conceived drive. When I made it back to the safety of the apartment I thanked God that I made it to Grenada safely and didn't die on the streets of St. George's on my first day. Then I cracked open a cold one!