The second week of my internship has been fantastic! Starting Monday, I assisted in the long process of receiving MRI images of a horse’s front feet. From these images, it was determined that this horse had bilateral forelimb navicular syndrome. There was visible damage to both joints and parts of the navicular bone (a significant bone in the horse’s foot). Then we had two horses with a fractured tooth in both horses we pulled the remainder of the tooth and plugged the hole. From there they both received head CTs to make sure their sinuses were not infected because the tooth cavity leads right to the sinuses and sinusitis is very common with tooth problems. The next day a horse came in with a sinus problem, so we scoped the nasal passage into the sinuses. Here we found a fungal growth at the nasal maxillary opening. From here, a biopsy was performed on the growth to confirm it was a fungus. After that, a foal came in with bowed legs, to fix this we reshaped his hoves for proper alinement. Thursday I took a day off from the clinic to volunteer at Storybook Farm. There I help with one hundred kids that came to visit, and I taught them about the medical care of horses. Friday was very busy, as I spent 15 hours at the clinic that day. In the morning, we performed surgery on a two-week-old foal due to the significant inflammation of the carpus joint. First, an ultrasound was performed that showed the fliud was not in the synovial capsule but in the tendon sheaths of the surrounding tendons. The sheaths were clogged with fibrous and cell debris. From here we taped into the tendons and flushed them with saline and performed a regional limb perfusion. The afternoon was quite yet upon rounds the foal presented with heavy breathing and a fever. Ultrasound and x-rays revealed a pneumothorax (when air enters the pleural cavity). Then a chest tube was placed to continuously drain the air and the foal was placed on supplemental oxygen. The pneumothorax was most likely a complication form anastasia.
To wrap the week up, I went mountain biking. Sadly this week there were no cartilage samples to test but I still learned a lot in the clinic. Monday we have samples to test so I’m looking forward to that and the rest of my internship!
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