2. You will second guess everything you want to write about. 'Oh' I say, to no one but the voices in my head ' who is going to want to read about subject X?' And I don't write it. And then you turn around and it's two months later and you've written nada.
3. I read an article recently that said the two best ways to drive traffic to your page were to a) have a list and b) have a negative word in your headline. I think that's hokum. But, we shall see. Numbers will be tallied. Thank you all for taking part in my experiment.
Today's post is the story of Leroy Jethro Gibbs, told in words and pictures. I know many of you have heard the tale, so if you close this window now, I shan't be offended. But I did promise a dear friend to write about how the dogs came into my life a while back, and then completely failed to do so. (See #1 above).
On the first of February, 2010, a certain bluetick coonhound entered my life. It was a cold and wet San Antonio winter day. Cold for Tejas anyways. I had spent all day performing surgery on military working dogs at Lackland Air Force Base. After driving crosstown back to Fort Sam Houston at about 6 o'clock at night in fabulous San Antonio traffic, we pulled up to the veterinary treatment facility. Even though the clinic had closed at 4 o'clock, there was a man sitting outside with the dog in the rain.
Even at a fair distance we could tell the dog was injured. He was 3-legged lame, which means he wasn't bearing any weight on one limb, in his case the right hind. He held it up in the air, misshapen and balanced on three legs. It was a large swelling around his ankle and it was obviously very painful. He was emaciated; virtually every bone in his spine and rib cage could be seen from a few feet away.
The man said he found the dog eating from the dumpster behind the Burger King on base. We took the dog into the clinic and he did a quick exam, and it was obvious he had a leg fracture. X-rays also revealed that the fracture was old and had failed to heal. This dog had been running the streets for sometime, likely a few months.
Since he was a purebred coonhound, we did a scan for a microchip, but of course there wasn't any. There we were, with an unknown stray dog with a broken leg requiring surgery and the only thing I can do is provide pain medication for 72 hours and then euthanize him if he's not claimed.
But this dog is different. He has this face, with eyebrows, and expression. The eyes look right through me. He also has a great personality. He is such a nice dog. We named him Jake just to have something to call him. Before the night is over, he looks me in the eyes and says you need to keep me around doc.
So I hatched a plan. After three days and no one came by to claim him, instead of euthanizing, we did a special mission. We performed an amputation surgery (which I called a training event for my soldiers). Training. Army loves training. Hooah!
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| It's this leg, right? |
I had done 2 forelimb amputations in school, but none in practice, and this was a hindlimb and a bit trickier.
Undaunted, I and my fellow veterinarian John W. xeroxed copies of the pages describing the procedure out of the surgery textbook, stuck 'em up on the wall in the OR & went ahead and did it.
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| Arteries and Veins and Nerves, Oh my! |
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| J-Dub doin' work |
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| After a few hours, I'm not so perky. Would have thrown something at SPC Danelli, but she was probably in middle school that year. |
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| Post-op |
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| Jethro! 3 days post-op. Could you say no to that face? |
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| 5 days post-op |
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| My cat Charlie. Not a fan of the dog. Or much of anything, actually. He bit me frequently. But he was handsome. So there's that. |
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| 1 week out, unassisted walking! |
He recovered quickly, and never left my side for long. We spent much of our first weekend together watching an NCIS marathon, hence the name. Jethro seems to fit a good ole Southern huntin’ dog, don’t you think?
Such a cutie! Glad you kept him.
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