Double Post

I'm just a little behind in getting all my posts up, so this post covers two very different events in January :)

First let's start with the fabulous birthday day that we had this year. On January 20th Brody turned 1 year old. He had a very fun filled day full of playing with his best dog friend Toby as the weather was gorgeous (50 degrees). Since it was so warm they got to play outside all day.
Then he got the most amazing and delicious dinner. It was this really fancy pouch dog food that actually comes in a very large pouch (13 ounces) which was full of veggies and meat and rice. He LOVED it :)


And we can't forget the cute little hat. I couldn't find an actual 'Happy Birthday' Hat, so instead, he's wearing a hat with Mater on it. He was gettting lots of treats for wearing this, so he didn't complain at all :)



Next was my exciting day in Surgery! But don't worry, I wasn't the one going under the knife, but the one holding it (well maybe that could make some people worry).
In my Animal Physiology class we get to implant a rat with a transmitter so I can keep track of its internal temperature over the next month. My cute little rat's name is Petey (short for Patricia) and she was a very good patient.
I weighed her to determine the amount of anestetics she was getting and then shave her belly where the inscision was going to be.


The only part my stomach did some little flips was the very first inscision, but after that I was good. I cut through the skin and then the muscle and poked the trasmitter in. The transmitter was a lot bigger than I had first expected. It looked a lot like quite a large macadamian nut. I tied it to a muscle, which seemed weird, but the TA said that otherwise when I go in to retireve it in a month I won't be able to find it. Then I stitched back up the muslce, then the skin and she was good to go.


You can see the gorgeous stitching job that I did. I definitely have a new respect for surgeons. I was bent over that thing for an hour and it was not only stressful but extremely hard on my back. I don't know how those guys go in for like 8-hour surgeries.

On the very positive side, the next day in class my teacher said that all the rats were doing fine and running around like normal, so she lived! I made it through my first surgery!