Just spay!

Briefly: Bucharest, GIA, Almavet,FamilyVet team, 20 Feb, 39 dogs and cats fixed!

I'll be showing more!

Spayathon Sibiu 1st june

Briefly: 2 days, 4 vets, 111 animals spayed ;) less puppies on Sibiu's streets

Riki in action:



the recovery/ anesthesia "room":



one of the lucky ones:



:)

1 mai muncitoresc

...si, ca tot romanul care se respecta, hopa la mare de 1 mai, cu purcel-catel...



... in vama veche e la fel...



:) gata, s-au incarcat bateriile! La Craiova e "on call" oricand in afara programului!

Meet a Cayman patient

Meet a caymanian young sweet dog. His name is currently Travis (after being named Fire/Flash/Apollo) but anyway. He has been in the clinic for 3 weeks and is in intensive care. Well, not as much nowadays, but still taken half an hour of my daily routine. And is one of the most rewarding things I get to do (at least this week when I am in charge with the morning rounds:)
Travis has got a huge problem. He was tied to a tree next to a burning house/shed? something. He suffered severe burns and what you see in the following picture is an amazing healing process. When he came in his skin was still covering his body on the left side of his trunk, but was soon to be necrotic and harboured a large amount of pustular discharge underneath. 3 debridement surgeries later, daily change of bandage and a combination of silver sulfadiazine cream (and initially honey too but we gave that one up) he looks like this....

And this is me and on of my nurses, M., changing his bandages today..... You may wonder why I wear this street gang hood top on me (and having underneath a shirt and the official scub). Well, the answer lies in the climate wars. Basically, we (vets) have to spent a long time at the laptop writing the daily treatments, reports, etc. right underneath the heavy blowing air conditioning. (they) nurses walk up and down, take dogs in and out and are hot. We turn the AC up (or even off;), they turn it down. And so we have fun every day. Normally there are 1-2 vets in the hospital area and 5-6 nurses so vets are outnumbered. Sometimes we loose. Today I had to give up and put the hood on;)))

Us, posing with the pacient...

Finally, getting to work, starting up my bandage. Luckily, he is a very good and sweet dog and sits very patiently for that.

And the finished product. Tomorrow we begin again! An E collar was about to complete the picture. I will try to post some more pics as the weeks roll on;)

From a different age, from a different country

Even for a non gourmand vet like myself, travelling for a few years along different countries has brought a culinary imprint.Namely, stuff that I ate and I liked,but then once I left that specific country or corner of the world, these were also left behind.
Well, nowadays I am starting to change that, as my culinary bible has entered my life, teaching me how to do for instance that delicious middle eastern salad called Tabouleh, or soon to try my hand out with a home made salsa recipe.
Anyway, there was something that I ate quite a lot of while I was a resident of Cyprus. These guys make also a delicious white goat cheese, called Halloumi, a cheese that is so special in many ways, but it can actually be grilled; top a few grilled brown now slices with some fresh lemon juice, capers and some toast or better yet pitta and I have my very own mediterranean dinner.
And, to my magnificent surprise, faithfull reader, wondering thru the aisles of a big supermarket from Cayman, here it was in front of my eyes, a nice big chunk of Halloumi, that came all the way from Nicosia via California, costing ten times more then in situ, but nevertheless, with such travelling, one can only expect. Nedless to say, I have since aquired many of those and trying to convert as many as I can;)


PS Here is the proof, in form of photographical evidence!

Latest from around here

In an attempt to bring some of my old life over here, I had the empty boring walls covered with various random pictures. These ones are in my room:)

Yes, ladies and gentleman, this is the3rd successful recipe from the book "Cooking basics from dummies", and it turned out definitely yummy and will feed us for days. Seafood linguini !! Hurray to cooking!

And last but not least, the mighty map hanging above my bed. It's a Grand Cayman diving sites map, and the pins represent dives already done (in white 2008, in red 2009). It's not 100% accurate as some places overlap but it comes to serve a point. Most dives are in the most popular places over here, namely the North side and the West side, but currently I am focusing on the wild East End that has a lot of potential (and a lot of rocky waves, reason for which is not very popular). Unfortunately, the South side is still very much virgin, due to very strong currents and the lack of dive operators over there. Hoping to add more red to the map till the end of the year:)

One night

...one plain night, or what the on call does to a human being....

I have sustained many times that being on call should be banned by law if possible, but that is just my personal opinion.

Anyway, read this...one fine night, 4.30 am, the phone rings. Vet asleep, in deep slumber. Barely conscious, reaching the phone "Hhhello, this is the emergency line, how may i help you" with a voice coming from the caves. Prr-tszt-ksick-prr comes from the other end. I try again.. "this is the emergency line"... nothing. Some distant voices far. Finally I realise it's a misguided call and I put the phone down. Then in the darkness of the room and as my neurons come back from zzz dreams, i start to worry, as i wonder if it's really an emergency, if they will call again, etc. etc.

Luckily by now more neurons awake and I realise.... I am NOT on call, the other phone is not around and that was my private phone that went off. Pffffiuuu.....
then I shut down the offending sole phone present and try to make it for another 3 hours of sleep.