This month’s post was supposed to be about fleas & ticks, and I’ll get to them later in the month. Instead I wanted to write about some of our in-house diagnostic equipment. I have written about them a lot before, showcasing how great they are and how useful it is to have information about a sick pet within minutes. But before Thursday I hadn’t really gotten how important they are. You see my own dog, Veda, is a 10 year old Doberman who literally lives to eat. So on Wednesday night when she slowly ate her dinner and just moped around it was of concern. When Thursday morning rolled around and she wouldn’t eat anything, not even if being handfed her favorite treat (air popped popcorn) I was alarmed. Like any good pet parent I waited a few hours, why do we do that? But by 10 am she still wasn’t eating and had started breathing heavy, I called Dr. Altman. She of course told me to bring her in right away. Within 10 minutes of being in the office we had bloodwork results, both a CBC and a general health screen, had taken several xrays and were powering up the UltraSound. Because we could do all these things in house we were able to start with one screening and move onto the next as necessary. Her bloodwork showed nothing unusual so we took several xrays, they showed only normal ag
ing signs so we moved onto the Ultrasound. Thankfully nothing showed up on any of her tests, we even sent her xrays via email to a board certified radiologist and they confirmed everything was normal. The magnitude of what we are able to do has never really sunk in before this. Think about how awesome technology is and how wonderful that the owner of our hospital embraces it, instead of running scared like some do about change. We were able to draw a small amount of blood, put it in a machine and it told us that Veda’s kidneys, liver, blood glucose and much more were functioning normally. We were able to lay her on a table, press a pedal on the floor and within 3 seconds of a beep see full screen xrays, that we could then enhance since they were digital. 
And to top it all off we could use the Ultrasound to see what her organs looked like inside. Truly amazing. Because she had a 104.5 temperature she was sent home on antibiotics and some pain meds. I am happy to say she is back to normal, begging to eat any chance she gets and chasing the cats! I am grateful to work at a place with such caring doctors and high tech equipment to care for sick pups.