So – The prickly heat is gone, I’m back on the Doxy (having
weighed the pro’s and con’s of treatment vs prevention of malaria) and I spent
most of the night listening to an epic rainstorm. I’m feeling pretty chipper.
Still feeling a bit lost with respect to these monkeys
though. The nurse here is adamant that we should fix the autoclave, buy ethylene
oxide, make surgical packs, make drapes, get surgical gloves and sort out the
gaseous anaesthetic machine. All of which are admirable aims, but the director
and the 2ic are both pretty against any sort of physical interventions. And it
occurs to me that as soon as I leave, the kit which we‘ve been so diligently
restoring will fall back into disrepair.
Not just that even amongst the same species in the same
enclosure, there are some that you can’t touch because they’re submissive and
if they special treatment the others will beat the hell out of them. Complex.
Not to mention that I might not get to use any of it. And I
do want to see if I’ve got the subcut stitching skill it takes to zip-up a
monkey in such a way that it cannot unzip itself. I don’t want a monkey to get
injured and need stitching up. But I do want to stitch up a monkey. You know?
Ah well.
My patient with the itchy skin is responding as expected to
antihistamines: He’s better but not completely better. I think he got mites
while his skin was knackered from his allergies this year. So, next step see if
I can get a skin scrape without him punching me in the eye. I shone my UV light
at him: Nada.
My patient with the torn open arm is doing well, it’s
closing up well. Wish I could have stitched him, but in his case, the risk of
leaving an open wound does not outweigh the risk of the others (who wounded him
in the first place) beating him to death when he gets back. Poor sod. I think
they may have done a nerve, but we wait and see, he may be fine.
I’ve also starting a book. It’s called “How To Be The Vet At
Cercopan” and its intended readership is very small. The next person that is
employed by this place will find themselves faced with a working vet hospital
and an instruction manual. Lucky buggers.
Anyhow, working on a project like this is helping me stop thinking about
this as a prison sentence and start thinking about it as a pilgrimage type-thing.
You know, suffer for your art and all that...
Anyway: here’re today’s
pics. Apparently today was the DAY OF THE MYRIAPODS. Oh, yeah, that centipede is ON MY THIGH. And I don't have small thighs. At all.
I hope you’re all well?
