Never A Dull Moment

The samples and cases submitted to the veterinary diagnostic lab are inherently unpredictable. No appointments need to be made, although we do ask that clients call the lab before bringing in a large animal for necropsy. With a few exceptions, we accept submissions directly from owners and commercial entities. The result is that there is nothing like a normal day to day routine at the lab. My section, Pathology, which includes necropsy and histopathology, is particularly prone to unexpected surprises. 

Surprise! There's a dead goat in the cooler on the dock, on top of two neonatal calves, all dropped off over the weekend. And the goat has no paperwork with it....

Surprise! There's a dead chicken in that box on the counter, shipped without any ice packs, literally creating a stink in the Receiving.

Surprise! It's 2pm, and Tyson just arrived with 36 live broiler breeder hens from three different farms, and didn't call ahead!

Pathology has no routine or predictability at all. We have to be ready to accommodate whatever comes in. In just the past week, I've had to deal with several cases that nicely illustrate how unpredictable my job is.

We have an incinerator to dispose of the tissue waste we generate. The incinerator occupies a fair bit of my management time each week. It is touchy (won't start if it is raining, or right after it has rained, for example). It is also a dangerous piece of equipment. We burn around 4,000 lb of animal remains a month, and use a forklift to hoist bags weighing as much as 1300 lb into it. But remember that unpredictability factor? In December, we burned just over 9000 lb due an unusually high number of horses submitted for necropsy. I was scrambling to keep the propane tank filled during the last two weeks of the year. 

The incinerator lid is raised by cranking up two bottle jacks, one on each end. The jacks and the lid roll back as a unit on a track, exposing the interior of the incinerator. A week ago Friday, one of the jacks failed. It had been leaking hydraulic fluid, and I knew it was on its last legs. So when the techs came back and reported they couldn't get the lid opened, I drove to the incinerator (it's in a secure fenced maintenance yard across from the lab), measured the existing jacks (their labels had been scraped off by the incinerator manufacturer so they could be painted black), and drove to AutoZone to get two more. On Tuesday, one of my techs and I ripped out the old jacks and rammed in the two new ones. Good thing I'm handy with tools.

On top of that, I was scrambling to get more propane. Our walk in cooler was full because we didn't burn on the Friday as we often do to clean it out for the next week because of the jack issue. I usually call or text the propane delivery driver directly but he wasn't answering on Monday. It's pretty useless to call the company directly. But our director still has the business card of a "customer experience" rep at the propane company who helped him set up the tank back in 2018. One call to that guy and we had a full tank of propane (1000 gallons) the very next day. 

A young boa was submitted for necropsy that week. Against the usual backdrop of dogs, cats, cows, and chickens, I quite enjoy these unusual species. Even if I am not on necropsy duty that day, I always take these cases when they come in. They are challenging to handle, and their anatomy and pathologies are always interesting.

On Wednesday morning, I get this picture via text from a veterinarian friend.

That is a very sick calf with green snot coming out of his nose and eyes. Poor little guy. I actually received three photos of the calf, along with this text: "what tests?"

I had to laugh. This particular vet is young, but very good. He works really hard to help his large animal clients. And obviously, we have a lot of mutual trust and respect since he knows he only has to text me to get an immediate response. 

I first replied "gross" then I suggested some testing options and the samples needed, and let him know what I thought should be prioritized in case the client couldn't afford or didn't want to run everything I recommended. 

I had another vet call me on Thursday morning to tell me about a horse she had seen that had large bleeding ulcers in its mouth. Uh oh, a short list of differentials, at least one of which was reportable, came to mind. I've worked with this vet before so we chatted for a while about the case. I told her, I've got to escalate this so hang tight and I will get back to you. I texted the state vet. He happened to be in his office, and came right down to mine. He said, get her to email everything including pictures. She did, and I forwarded all of it to him and to the USDA APHIS vet in charge. They eventually decided it was not a disease issue that needed their involvement, and passed the entire mess back to me and the vet who called me. 

I get calls like this from vets and animal owners/producers daily. Since taking this job, I've worked very hard to make the lab a resource for reliable information and assistance. The result is that I spend many hours each week helping other vets and animal producers and owners, calling, texting, emailing, gathering information. By now, most of the practicing vets in the state have worked with me, and they just call me directly. It also helps that I have a solid relationship with my state and federal colleagues. 

Finally, it was Friday, and I was taking a breather in my office thinking the crazy week was almost over when the state vet pops in. We have a situation, he says. New developments, he added. I thought he was still talking about the horse with the oral ulcers. He said, oh no, something entirely new.

Turns out a brown bat had gotten into the atrium of the building and people were running around in panic while others were trying to catch it. The atrium of the building divides the building into two halves, the lab side and the Department of Agriculture admin side. All of us on the lab side have been vaccinated for rabies as a requirement of our job. Nobody on the admin side has received this vaccine. 

I told the state vet, I'm on it. He and I rushed towards the atrium, only to be met by two admin folks coming towards us with a very small bat trapped in a very large net someone had rounded up from Forestry. Neither of them had gloves. Oy.

I asked repeatedly, any human contact? Any spittle, blood? Any scratches or bites? Negative, negative.

Since the bat was secure for the moment, I had them follow me back to our necropsy area. We ran into the lab director on the way, and I told him, just keep moving, don't look, everything is under control. I put on gloves, grabbed a plastic sample transport container out of necropsy, and maneuvered the bat (stunned into immobility or injured) into the container. I closed the lid, and sent them on their way. 

As a general rule, we don't accept live animals for necropsy. As a result, we don't keep euthanasia drugs at the lab. That's partly because we don't want to euthanize animals here, and partly because we don't want the hassle of maintaining DEA licenses and keeping inventory and so on. However, we do accept live poultry. We use CO2 gas to euthanize them. While this is not recommended for euthanasia of mammals, it was my only option and was how I euthanized the bat. Within an hour of the state vet showing up in my office, the bat had been euthanized, packaged with completed paperwork, and was on its way to the Department of Health for rabies testing. 

Admittedly the bat was kind of unusual, but most of the rest was just a normal week for the lab. Never a dull moment.

Kitchen Theater

 Back when I was traveling a lot for work and leisure, I was entranced by the enormous array of food that I encountered--ingredients, flavors, textures, methods of preparation. I would try to recreate many of those dishes back at home, to greater or lesser success. I was never a cook who acquired specialized gadgets, but I would spend time and money acquiring exotic and unusual ingredients, including spices. 

Since coming back from Saudi Arabia in 2013, my culinary palate has shrunk a little. Cooking is still my primary hobby after working with my dogs, but I no longer spend hours making fancy desserts or finding a source for some weird ingredient that I end up only using once. 

Certainly one big change is that, since starting my second career as a veterinary pathologist, my diet has become more and more plant-based. I'm not a strict vegan as you will have to pry the half and half I put in my coffee from my cold, dead fingers, but I only eat meat products a few times a week. 

Mostly I eat some variation of sauteed or baked vegetables with rice, decorated with black pepper or chipotle pepper, fresh squeezed lime or balsamic vinegar, and a bit of salt or feta cheese, which is itself quite salty. I developed a taste for feta in Saudi, where there was always six or seven fresh varieties to choose from. I only cook with olive oil. Sometimes I add honey to promote browning (the Maillard reaction).

And that's it: pepper, salt, fat, and acid. Sure, there are the stereotypes that link this spice to that culture's cuisine, as in you have to use X if you want to prepare a dish from Y country. That's great, but I don't cook like that anymore. Cooking is less of a production for me now. I am no longer interested in performing theater in the kitchen.

You may have seen the Salt Fat Acid Heat show or book. What I am talking about is miles away from what she promotes. Her elaborate preparations have little in common with my simple meals, other than her promotion of the core uses of salt, fat, and acid.  

These change in diet and kitchen activity have also shifted my palate quite a bit. I find most processed and restaurant food to be pretty gross. Palm oil and corn sugars don't taste good to me anymore. I'm certainly not above picking up a box of muffin mix now and then, but I'm much more careful about what's inside the box. 

I also started meal prepping when I was in vet school, and that habit has stuck. Elaborate, fancy dishes with lots of delicate ingredients don't lend themselves to meal prepping.

And COVID took quite a whack at my view of cooking and eating too. Once I started traveling for agility trials again, I started bringing all of my own food--every single meal and snack. Another strike against elaborate and delicate preparations, which don't travel well. After all, if I'm bringing all my own food, I have to bring it in containers that I have to keep track of and cart home.

None of this is to say that I've just rolled over and eat mush every day. I like big, bold flavors and bright colors, which is easy to satisfy with fresh vegetables. I do have to think about protein sources, but there are lots of plant-based options available now beyond just tofu or beans and rice. Although I quite like tofu, and beans and rice.

Take the theater out of cooking, and it becomes a calm, considered activity.