Lviv

Lviv is a few hours away from Kiev by train and often called the Prague of Ukraine. I know lots of people who have been and recommended it so we spent a few days there.

Our Airbnb in Lviv was a lot cheaper than Kiev but the decor was very, Slavic.

Toilet roll in Ukraine doesn’t have a hole!?

We were never up in time for the 10am walking tours so we found one on Google and did our own.

The city is really pretty with lots of nice architecture, fountains and displays. We didn’t go to any museums but the Folk Museum is meant to be good.

We walked up to the High Castle and viewing tower (which nearly killed me) but the view was nice so I guess it’s worth it...

The main thing we did in Lviv was eat and drink.

Champagne and katchipuri (Georgian break with cheese and egg yolk) breakfast was amazing

Dogs Like Ducks is a vegan hotdog shop (apparently 107% vegan but I don’t get the reference) which were really good. Being veggie I think the only other hotdogs I’ve had have been in Ikea so not much to compare to, they’d have been better with a bit of crunch.

Carrying on the vegan theme we went to Om Nom Nom for dinner, more hotdogs and burgers. The ‘cheese’ sauce was rank so I think get two hotdogs/burgers and skip the fries/wedges!

And finally because we were fed up of meaty Ukrainian food we went for a massive pizza

The Craft Beer and Vinyl Festival happened to be on the weekend we were visiting so we went along. You have to buy a 330ml glass and put tokens on a card but it meant that we got to try beers from loads of breweries. There were loads of food trucks but all very meaty and BBQ’y with hotdogs and ribs so I struggled to find something - the only thing was a caprese pitta bread thing which was decent.

I got a sleeper train from Lviv to Uzghorod which cost £4.47 and was old but fairly comfortable, I slept the whole way so that was fine.

From there I got a bus from Uzghorod to Košice which should have taken about an hour and a half. We got to the Ukraine-Slovakia border and there we sat for 8 hours... Slovaks are renowned for taking their time but this was a joke.

We were sat on the coach inside the border compound just waiting for Border Control to check our passports, I brought some Pringles for the journey but as it wasn’t meant to take long didn’t bring a drink. First world problem I know but annoying all the same.

I got off the coach in Košice and went straight to McDonalds for a drink (and 20 nuggets).

All in we had a great eight days in Ukraine and I’m sure I’ll be back again...

Chernobyl Tour

After years of talking about it we finally made it to Chernobyl!

There are a few companies offering day trips from

Kiev, we booked with Chornobyl Tours and had a great guide so I’d recommend going with them. The tour starts early to make sure you have a full day at the site.

It’s a couple hours drive from Kiev to the Exclusion Zone and once inside you have to stick to the strict guidelines.

We hired a Geiger counter for the day which measures radiation - average background radiation in Kiev is about 0.7mSv/hour and the highest we saw was close to 100mSv/hour.

One of th first things we saw was the Duga 2 Radar which is 150m high, built in secret by the Soviets.

As we drove up it was completely out of view of the road hidden in the forest and the end of the track had the bus stop painted with children’s to disguise it as a children’s summer camp.

I guess in those days you accepted it and didn’t ask questions for fear of being shot!

Driving up to the reactors you start to get a scale of the place

on the left, covered in the sarcophagus, is Reactor 4 where the 1986 accident happened, next to that is Reactor 3 and on the right either side of the chimney are 1 & 2.

The other side of the cooling water lake are Reactors 5 & 6 which we’re being built and never completed, with plans for 12 reactors on the site.

We ate lunch in the canteen just to the right of that photo, a Ukranian feast, most of which we couldn’t finish.

After lunch we visited Pripyat, the modern city built for the power plant workers which at the time was a really desirable place to live with nice apartments, shops, many schools and recreational facilities.

The entire city was evacuated within days of the nuclear accident and has to remain uninhabited for 20,000 years due to nuclear radiation.

The most interesting thing was to stand on a spot where photos were taken at the time and compare it to now. Nature had completely taken over with trees and plants everywhere which largely disorientate you.

Several of the buildings have collapsed which is why tourists aren’t allowed inside, though we did go inside a few and there are plans to make some save to visit in the future.

One of the most famous spots is the Chernobyl Fairground which had only just been finished before the accident happened.

Aside from nature taking over there are also lots of animals living in the exclusion zone.

We met lots of dogs who mainly hung around busy places like checkpoints and the canteen as people feed and look after them.

Interestingly most of the adult dogs were only 4 or 5 years old with no older dogs around, maybe because of human population control or due to radiation?

A friend visited over summer to help vaccinate and neuter the dogs so it would be awesome to come back and help with that.

Kiev

My friends and I have been talking about making another trip to Ukraine for a few years so now I’m in Final year we finally booked it.

I got a train from Košice to Budapest for €9 and then flew from there to Kiev for less than €20 with Wizz Air. My friends flew in from London and met me at the Airbnb which was really close to the city centre.

I’ve been busy with exams and vet stuff this summer so hadn’t really researched it but Kiev way surpassed my expectations and was a really nice city.

It was clean, loads of stuff going on, cheap and the people were really nice.

I’d definitely recommend doing a walking tour ‘cos we got to see things we’d missed after spending a good few days in the city.

I’ve seen the Winter On Fire documentary about the 2013 revolution a couple times and it was really interesting to see everywhere where that took place.

There were so many good bars and restaurants that we ate and drank ourselves silly.

One of the best was OB (Last Barricade) which is under Maidan Square in the middle of a shopping centre. You go in to the small reception area, say a password and then a door opens up to a big restaurant.

We all ordered Chicken Kiev ...when in Rome and all that.

Day one of Equine Block

Day one of our Equine block starts with Equine Anaesthesia sponsored by caffeine

Final Freshers Week

We've just finished my final (hopefully!) Freshers Week and had an awesome time with the best people.
I usually organise the week for the new students, booking bars and events then we finished with a house party at ours on Friday night. There were a few hundred bottles to clean up the next morning so I think everyone had a good time!

This pair came to visit and I didn't take many photos but these sum up the week pretty well...



Reeya and Mairi, bae's from the beginning, moved into our house last week. We lived together for three years in dorms so it's been really nice to have them back!

Canine Blood Transfusion for Lino

Lino came into the ITC having been inappetent for several weeks, we found he had a severe chronic anemia with his Red Blood Cell count being a fifth of what it should be.

His owners had another dog, who was used as a whole blood donor alongside supportive therapy thanks to donated transfusion sets from the USA.

Dogs can be given a first time transfusion safely without being blood typed, but second transfusions must be matched for reactions

25,000 Dogs at WVS ITC

It was time for cake again at the WVS ITC Ooty yesterday as they achieved another massive milestone - their 25,000th neuter surgery!

Emergency Exploratory Laparotomy

After a quiet day we went down to dinner at 8:30 and as we were walking past we noticed there was a case in the clinic so stopped to see what was going on. A young Rottweiler presented collapsed with acute abdomen screaming in pain; the owners said it started today...

We placed an IV to put him on fluids and do a clinical exam while the vets took a history in Tamil language. He is regularly fed chicken bones, was straining to pass feces and had vomited so due to the acute nature we suspected he had a foreign body or GDV.

X-rays were taken which didn’t really show anything (but useful as it ruled out a GDV) and an abdominal ultrasound was also unremarkable except for a small spleen. After strong IV pain relief he was still screaming in pain so the decision was to take him to surgery for an exploratory laparotomy.

The team rushed to get everything ready including kits and warm fluids but the ex lap showed he pathology on liver and spleen; both were pale and discoloured.

Vinay scrubbed out to speak to the owners and advice of a poor prognosis, especially given the limitations of being a low resource charity. The owners elected to close the abdomen and try medication but saw how much pain he was in after recovering from surgery, despite strong pain relief, and sadly he was euthanised.

Midway Weekend

The first surgical group and my uni friends have finished their course and left the ITC today, most of them are going travelling around India (and Thailand) while a couple are heading back to the UK for their first vet jobs, which means I’m ‘on my own’ for two days until the next group arrive.

This morning I did kennel rounds with two of the vets so we checked all the inpatients which had surgery yesterday, gave them wound and pain scores, then pain relief (melox) and rabies vaccinations.

After rounds we had a few emergencies come into the clinic, one being a terrier who’d been attacked by a wild boar.

He had deep wounds and an open tibial fracture so we placed a catheter to give fluids in case of shock and pain relief. The leg was x-rayed and immobilised with a splint until possible surgery on Monday.

Cooking Course with Renu

Renu does an amazing job of catering for everyone at the ITC, course participants and staff, making sure everything is washed in bottled water and not too spicy for us! She gradually increases the heat throughout the course and there's always something new to try.

On the last Friday of the course we had a cooking class where she taught us to cook our favourite dishes we'd eaten during our time here.
My absolute favourite is Gobi Manchurian (dry) which is made out of cauliflower and basically tastes like chicken nuggets! We also made Dal Fry, Dal Makhani, loads of bhajis, paratha and chapati.

It all tasted amazing and I can't wait to cook some when I get home.

First ever cat spay

I've been lucky enough to do lots of surgery so far including lots of cat castrates and many neuter surgeries on dogs, but never done a cat spay so this seemed like a bit of a milestone.

Unfortunately an Indian politician died yesterday so the roads are closed and the boys were unable to go and catch or release dogs, so we were given owned cats to neuter.

As with all other surgeries, the cats are given a premedication, an intravenous catheter placed for induction of anaesthetic and perioperative fluids. Here she is after being clipped and just waiting for a surgery table so she can be scrubbed.
It gets pretty cold in Ooty so you can see the hot water bottle which has the iv line running under it to to keep her warm, and the hair drier which can be used in recovery to warm them up.

I took a midline approach and opened the abdomed, searched for a couple of minutes and couldn't find her uterine horns or ovaries. We checked, twice, to make sure she wasn't a male so the supervising vet stepped in to find the uterine horns, which he was unable to do.
Another vet scrubbed in to check, and another, who were all unable to find them! Eventually we found a cervical stump which would indicate she had been spayed before but as there was no midline incision scar and her eartip was not clipped, she must have been done flank and by someone else.

All very odd but I closed the abdomen which was good practice and will wait for another opportunity for my first proper cat spay!

Mission Rabies Vaccination Drive

Up bright and early on Saturday morning, we left the ITC at 6am headed for Kotagiri for a Rabies vaccination drive.

We split into three teams, each with vets, vaccines, educational leaflets (in English and Tamil) and most importantly a team of expert dog catchers and their nets.

We went through villages on foot vaccinating dogs, most of which are free roaming but some are owned so their owners showed us their dogs and were given vaccination cards.

It was quiet an operation as we had to find and catch the dogs, load vaccines and get them to wherever the dogs were caught, then those vaccinated had to be marked with a paint spot so they weren’t re-vaccinated and all vaccines were recorded in the Mission Rabies app which adds them to a map with the age, sex and neutered status of the dog.

Between us we vaccinated over 400 dogs throughout the day and our team vaccinated the most - not that it was a competition of course

Life is never boring at WVS India

I was sat watching my dog recover post bitch spay when a goat walked past the window coming in for a consult.

Life is never boring at WVS India!

WVS India; Take 2

Last summer I had the most awesome time at the WVS India ITC and after becoming more involved with the charity and becoming the first International Student Rep I signed up twelve students from my vet school to attend the surgical training course this summer.

Eight of us flew from Heathrow to Ooty while the other four headed to Goa. The transfer from Bangalore to Ooty takes about 6 hours but when we reached the hairpin bends back to Ooty the excitement hit me and I was so glad to be back!

It was prety quite when we got to the ITC as the vets have a day off so we found our rooms and chilled out ready to start the surgical training course tomorrow.

Avian Veterinary Services; Week 2

Back up to AVS for a second week seeing avian practice and another great week!
I'm so used to being rushed at the PDSA that this week has been completely different, as they're so specialist they have fewer clients but have really long consults and spend a lot of time with each case.
During the breaks Richard gave me a series of lectures and practicals which have been really useful.

We saw a young Gyr falcon last week who had changed vocalisations and generally 'off' - falconers spend a lot of time with their birds, especially young imprints like this, so notice clinical signs really early. She came back in this week for an endoscopy as she still wasn't quite right and it was like a military procedure.
Richard and Carli have so much experience that everything is ready and basically read each others minds! She was induced with inhalant anaesthesia, a doppler placed, positioned onto a plate and a series of x-rays taken.

After the x-rays they did an endoscopy which confirmed she was a female and also found some aspergillus fungi in her respiratory system. Luckily as it was found so early it can be quickly treated and got under control.

Later in the week I got to practice endoscopy on a few cadavers which was great to practice as it looks so much easier that it is, especially with different scope angles where you're looking up 15 degrees rather than straight forwards!



I think my favourite specimen in the building is this one, Dave the Buzzard...

...Richard uses him in nearly all his consults to explain cases to owners and it works really well to help them understand. I'm quite a visual learner as well and I love skeletons so all round win for me!

Avian Veterinary Services

Having always been interested in birds and wanting to specialise in avian medicine for a few years, I've been aware of Avian Veterinary Services for a few years. We follow each other on Twitter and (I now know) after a few outspoken tweets by me, they invited me to see practice with them.

Richard and Carli are based up in Cheshire and are an awesome bird vet team!

I booked myself into the local Travelodge and spent the week seeing practice with them, having a great time.

I know quite a lot about chickens and a fair bit about raptors but have learnt so much already, and started getting to grips with parrots and other birds!

As birds are generally pretty small and surgeries pretty intricate, Richard uses surgical loupes for magnification and microsurgery tools for precision surgery. I was given the honour of having a go (play!) with them as they cost a few thousand pounds!

First up I practiced writing as small as I could to get used to the focus and slight feelings of seasick-ness

Once I'd mastered writing I moved on to suturing witha high tech practice pad (examination glove) which was kinda tricky being so small so I'm quite happy with how I got on!

I think I'm going to have to get a cheap pair of loupes and some microsurgery instruments to practice suturing and doing surgery on grapes!

Consults are half an hour as exotics need quite a thorough history taking. We usually take the birds out the back to examine them as parrots especially can be quite bonded to their owners, and vice versa, so it's best for everyone that they're out of sight and if examined in theatre we have everything to hand should it be needed.

I never really appreciated behavioural problems in parrots and the problems imprinting them can cause so have learn loads about that this week and seen the real impacts it can cause!