Week 2 - turning 25, eyeballs, lions and rhinos!

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So...after a brilliant first week, and with a lovely bunch of students from New Zealand and the States who seem to be very keen to absorb as many of my ramblings as possible, week 2 was even more exciting than the first! Feeling really quite settled into my new lifestyle and finding it crazy that a couple of weeks ago i was treating people's pet cats, and now I'm treating lions!

Monday I turned 25, and what a birthday to remember. We drove to a farm to dock and castrate some lambs, and I taught the students how to replace a vaginal prolapse in a ewe. Our main aim of today was to enucleate a cows eye that had been damaged some time ago and was now popping out of its head. Something we would rarely do at home but an excellent learning experience for our enthusiastic volunteers. It was nice to actually fix an eye instead of sending it to slaughter, as we would do at home . Rick and I found some scrub tops and theatre hats in a cupboard and wore them in an attempt to look like we knew what we were doing! We have a random mix of drugs, mostly donated and mostly out of date so our choices of drugs aren't ideal at times but makes for a challenge. The heavens opened as we took the eye out, and I ended up shivering so much from being so drenched that I could barely suture up the skin at the end, and it felt like we were at home! I had to stand in the farmers bath to wash off my grubby knees. At lunch I was sung happy birthday with an enormous cake, it was so nice. In the evenings I made everyone Amarula hot chocolates, the most amazing drink in the world, and we went out for birthday partying.

Tuesday was lion day! In the morning Kim and I had to think fast to give the students a task for the morning, and we recreated our suturing practical with some dodgy fishing wire and some gauze. We then headed back to Inkwenkwezi with Louie to dart the lioness with the laceration on her leg. Louie darted her in the enclosure and radioed for us to come through, and I was in the collection vehicle. We had to Taser the air to ward the other lions off, especially the 8month old baby who thought this all was an excellent game, and when she was asleep, we leapt out of the vehicle to lift her onto a stretcher and put her in the back of the 4x4. We had the worlds worst getaway vehicle, with one window boarded up with a bin liner, and my door that wouldn't open from the outside! The 3 students climbed in the back, on top of the sedated lion, and we drove at full speed out of the lion enclosure. Sometimes I feel South Africa has different ideas about health and safety than at home. We took her out of the car and to the doorway of the enclosure, which can be closed too, so that she could be separated and reversed in there. Louie and another vet worked super quickly on her to stitch up this enormous laceration on her leg, a giant claw wound. It was absolutely incredible: her paws and teeth were enormous, and even to be that close to her and pull ticks off her and monitor her anaesthetic was something I will never forget. The sedation was reversed, and she started waking up. Louie asked me to help out her into sternal, talk about scary, moving a giant half awake cat in the middle of an enclosure as she is lifting her head! I'm not sure I will ever get that close to a lion ever again.

On Wednesday we returned to the farm to AI some pigs. The enucleated cow lookend brilliant, as did the prolapsed sheep. The students had a great time mildly humping the sows, although none of them believed me that they had to make boar noises, as I was led to believe when I was a student at a pig farm. The lady running the farm is hilarious, and thinks she is being ripped off by the semen company. "They say there are 1000's of sperm in these AI containers, and yet they only have 13-15 piglets! Why don't they just put less in?" We went for a quick game drive to look at their animals (most richer people with land in South Africa have ranches with a few antelope, some giraffe etc, casual) before heading to the Cinsta township where we dip the dogs. The kiwis wanted to teach the children how to look after their dogs well, and how to carry them correctly. Most of the time, when they bring them to us to be dipped, they drag them by a front leg, and lots of them get brachial plexus injuries. The kids seemed baffled by the array of accents but I think they got the gist. We helped in their soup kitchen, preparing lunch, which is a programme that runs to ensure the kids get at least some good nutrition per day. We gave them bouncy balls as prizes, and the kids here are so happy and grateful for anything. In the afternoon we PD'd cows at a farm with the most terrible cattle race I have ever worked with. I got kicked an shat on a lot, but more rectalling than I have ever done in my life. I'm getting quite good at this now!

Thursday Rick went back to England to sort his visa out, so I am now the responsible vet in charge of 15 students. The rain poured this morning, and the world seems to stop here in the rain. Dennis wanted us to go to a shopping centre, but I suggested finishing off the cows from yesterday was more realistic of being a farm vet in the rain. I split the students into 2 groups, and gave half some emergency case studies, including an RTA cat and a blocked cat, and half PD' d with me. Afterwards, we rescued a little blind rat called Mr Jangles from dennis's room, and the little guy had the most love he had ever seen in his life. He is so cute and falls asleep in your arms. In the afternoon, we returned to dip the Cinsta dogs, and saw some weird and wonderful diseases, including more cases of distemper and a dog with a transmittable venereal tumour. We carry a drug box around and the students do the clinical exams and present cases to us, and it is such a great experience for them to get so hands on with no pressure to please clients. It is hard at times to relay information to the owners who speak little English, but the kids sometimes take medications home, such as antibiotics and pain killers. In no other place in the world would I hand out preds (steroids) to a 6 year old child in a latex glove! In the evening we had our first load shed, where the power is cut out for 3 hours. This happens because there isn't enough power to go around, and the power companies have to ration it. It was fun playing jenga in the candlelight.

Friday was the best day of my life to date. We darted 2 rhinos who had been in a fight! I was lucky enough to be in The darting car with Louie, and I could barely hold my excitement in as we drew up in the truck next to these amazing, enormous creatures. Louies aim was incredible, and watching an ataxic, darted rhino wobble about and then fall over was unreal. Louis jumped out with his other surgeon vet, Manuel, and whilst she was still awake, placed a blindfold on her. There were some game rangers around trying to ward off the other rhino by throwing hay at them to eat. Hay...at a rhino! Manuel scrubbed the enormous wound whilst Louie injected her with wormers and antibiotics. The wound was debrided and then louie DRILLED HOLES into her skin, with a power drill, to be able to get the sutures in. They stitched her up with orthopaedic wire. Unbelievable. Her skin was 2 inches thick, like armour. It's a wonder how much force it would have taken to puncture it in the first place.

As if that wasn't enough we darted a second one, and I think Louie realised just how happy I was just to be there. I asked about the IV line they place in the ear vein, and he said "why dont you help me next time". So second rhino down and I find myself helping push this 2.5tonne rhino onto its other side to look at her wound on her leg. I thought, if I die today, at least I died doing something cooL. This one wasn't as bad, and didn't need stitching, but I helped Louie place the IV line and scrubbed at her skin with Manuel the vet. I also helped keep the circulation going in her compressed leg, to prevent myopathies. I was actually touching this gentle, beautiful, wrinkly giant. What an absolute honour.

Afterwards we watched Louie post mortem a baby rhino that was found dead. A huge loss to the local population. The baby died from fighting, and they have had problems due to a lack of dominant male. So sad.

We can't post any pictures of them for fear of poaching. Rhinos are on the brink of extinction. The sad reality in South Africa is poaching is a massive problem, with 2000 being poached this year already. All of these rhinos had been de horned, a procedure when they get darted and the horn removed with a chainsaw, to reduce their risk of poaching. This is common practice across lots of South Africa. Sadly some even get poached for the stump that's left. They have to be dehorned every 2 years, and the horn is kept in a safe. Rhino horn is extremely valuable, and used in the Middle East for traditional medicine, when it has no medicinal value whatsoever. There is a big debate at the moment as to whether legalising the trade of rhino horn with reduce its value and therefore desire to be purchased. There are thousands of rhino horn in storage, and freeing up the trade would undercut the black market and allow parks to reinvest in protection measures for the rhino.

Saturday was giraffe attempt 2, and this time we were successful! We ran another giraffe drill, and once darted, Louie followed the giraffe on a motorbike and our capture team blindfolded her, put cotton wool in her ears, and put ropes around her. Giraffe capture is seriously stressful and a pure adrenaline rush! She got up once after Louie reversed her IV, and then she crashed down and rolled onto a rock. Every plant in Africa is spiky and we all got seiriosly impaled on some sort of bush whilst trying to push her up. I held her head up, and my mind was in overdrive. You forget what you are doing-holding an actual Giraffes head, because you are so worried about getting her up and into the trailer in one piece. In an ultimate demonstration of teamwork, 20 people and lots of ropes led an ataxic, gangly giraffe into a giraffe shaped trailer and one of the students balanced precarious on the edge of it to gaffatape the mask to her head. We then drove 3 hours to take her to her new home. At the other end, when she was released into the new park, the giraffe managed to escape the trailer before they could take her head mask off. Free, in the middle of a clearing, was a wobbly blind giraffe, with a head mask on, and no ropes attached. The group planned and decided to try and tackle her to the ground, and somehow managed to rope her feet enough to bring her down, and one of the students whipped the mask off, just as the sun was going down.

Sunday was our day off, and a wonderful cure from a party-filled night before was a 2 hour safari quad bike experience at areena, a local resort. Health and safety again was number 1 priority as I drove this powerful quad bike at full speed next to zebra and antelope, and up and down some crazy rocky areas where I had some concern over my health. It was a total adrenalin rush though and the views over a ravine with a river below were spectacular. The park has a tame giraffe called "Abby", meaning "baby" in Xhosa, the local language. Abby was rescued as a baby when his mother was poached. He lives a wild life, but also enjoys tearing up most if the buildings when he is given a chance. You can go up to him and stand right next to him and have him kiss your head if he is in the mood for socialising. He was enormous! After lunch we went to the petting zoo at the park, where a goat ate an entire bag of corn, including the plastic whole, and we fed these greedy ostritches by hand, which was some what terrifying!

Someone needs to pinch me. I touched a lion, 2 rhino, and 2 giraffe in 1 week, miles and miles away from my normal day job!

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