Turpentine Creek: Vet visit

Today has been a pretty exciting day so far. We have had several cats in need of veterinary attention over the past few days and today I was lucky enough to be on habitats to see and help with the process. Tubby, CJ, Lisa Dawn and Husky all had to be put under and looked at. Lisa Dawn went down without a hitch, she didn't seem to mind the giant pole syringe coming at her. CJ is another story all together. He is one of the more aggressive lions here to begin with and severely distrusts our supervisor, so she had a heck of a time getting the chance to inject him. I had meat as a distraction but he could really care less, he was more intent on trying to attack us. Sarah couldn't even get him to think he was getting the chance to go outside but that didn't work either. Two hours later, he is out and there are doing his surgery in his lockdown. They are currently amputating his tail, it is a huge ordeal because they have a shovel in front of his face because cats have been known to randomly wake up even with three time the dosage they need to be knocked out. The front legs get tied and so do the back, with a tourniquet around the tail. Really fascinating stuff. Tubby had a biopsy of the tumor last month and it came back benign so he is having it removed. Lisa Dawn has been the big scare of the day. She has had blood in her mouth for the past week and her brother died young of mouth cancer so we were all dreading the radio call that she might be put down. But, the vet took a sample and said it looked more like a cyst than a tumor! We will get the results next week to be sure. By the end I was feeling quite proud of myself because I could keep up with and join in with the 'vet talk' thanks to Malcolm and Erin and their willingness to share their animal medicine knowledge! :)
I am on lunch now and have to go scarf some food but will continue the update tonight.