Ely: "I thought you said tutored!"

Here is a look behind the scenes of a surgical visit:

Ely arrives in the morning having skipped breakfast. Robin gets his weight sets him up in a comfortable cage with an ID collar. Ely wonders what neutering is.

His check-in sheet tells us that he needs some preanesthetic blood work to make sure he can safely be sedated.

During his exam, the doctor determines that several baby teeth have not come out. After consulting Ely's mom, a plan is made to remove them under anesthesia. A medication is given to control pain and smooth out the anesthesia.

When this has taken effect and the blood work has come back normal, Ely is sedated with an injection and then put on oxygen and anesthetic gas for the procedure. Fluids and antibiotics are administerd as well. All goes well with surgery and the extractions, but an examination of Ely's ears under sedation show a large wax plug over the right ear drum. A loop is used to carefully remove it and the ear drum is healthy underneath. Our technician implants a microchip for identification and Ely goes to the recovery area. Later that day, Ely goes home with some additional pain medication for the next 48 hours.

(Even with a "routine" surgery, there are always individual considerations, and in this case the dental and ear issues were able to be addressed without a second anesthetic procedure. We love our hi-tech tools (ultrasound, anesthetic monitors, digital dental x-ray, in-house lab, etc.) but the foundation of good care will always be the physical exam! )