Panama Day 4-The real work begins

Today the real work begins. We had a restful night of sleep in a very cool house (cool neato not cool as in air conditioned), We did have fans though. The mosquitos are not as bad as we expected..we have only seen a few so far. Although we keep ourselves covered in OFF. So far no need for sunscreen. They are not kidding when they say rainy season. The island is very small. No cars just boats. No interent but there was a phone booth. The houses are mostly small concrete structures with outdoor kitchens. Our house is a vacation rental and certainly not the type of house the locals live in. The people are very friendly and helpful and other than 1 bad meal everything else was great. Our spay and neuter clinic is set up in a vacant concrete building on the beach. There was no water, no lights just one elecrtrical outlet. Spaypanama does these surgery blitzes about once a month and has perfected their technique. Everyone knows their job and works hard. They rely on th local to make sure that animlas are brought in for surgery. We only did surgeries if they were strays or the owner gave permission. Some owners didn't want to have their dogs spayed. This was the first blitz at Isla Grande and some of the locals were a bit leary. It was mostly kids who brought the dogs in and they were very helpful with recovering animals as well. We setup 5 surgery tables and went to work. The vets were Dr Letty, Dr Raquel, Dr Carlitos, Dr Renae (dr Letty's husband) and Dr Cathy. Pat Chan checked in the animals, weighed them, had owners sign waivers and collected donations. Spaypanama suggests a $20 donation for spays and $10 for neuters. However, no one is turned away for lack of funds. Augusto (a vet student from Panama) administered injectable anesthetic to each animal. Then Alberto and Susan tattooed the ear with an S (for sterilized, or S for susan as they joked), administered pain meds and antibiotics , shaved and prepped. Next they called for "taxi". Usually 2 local volunteers would carry the animal to an availbale surgeon. The vets would spay or neuter each animal. The surgeries were much more difficult than in the US. Almost every dog had Ehrlicciosis which made thembleed like crazy. Many of the dogs were nursing puppies or at least had had several litters making surgery more challenging. Rebeca (a spaypanama volunteer, works full time in the Panama equivalent of the census bureaus) kept the vets stocked with gloves and supplies and kept medical records. When we finished a surgery we called for "taxi por favor" and the local helpers would take them to the post op area. Jessica ran post op and applied ointment to the incisions, cleaned and treated ears, gave vitamin and rabies injection and treated for fleas and ticks. Jessica works full time for Chevron and is going to school to become a translator (she speaks excellent english). Augusto would treat any wounds that needed attention, manage any blleding dogs and give anesthetic to any animals that started to wake up on the table. Finally, the local kids would sit with the dogs while they ecovered and within less than an hour the pets were on their way home. (Most were still asleep). When the day was over, we only had 1 complication. A piglet chewed out the stitches n one of the dog (he though the dog was his mother and was trying to nurse). The dog herniated her intestines. Dr Renae repaired the herniated intestines on a make-shift table and limited supplies on the deck of our house since we had already packed up and shipped our equipment to the next location.
Everyone with spaypanama has made a special effort to make sure we enjoyed all the Panamian traditions. We had coconut popcicles, fried plantains (like bananas, but not sweet) A local islander, named Olga, prepared dinner for us which was a marinated beef, coconut rice, fried bananas and coconut dessert. We took a much needed shower (no hot water, but it was refreshing) and off to bed.

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