The saddest patient ever

Our 8-week Clinical Sciences 3 course covered 5 main topics in the small animal section:

1. Orthopedics
2. Reproduction
3. Neurology
4. Lower urinary tract
5. Upper urinary tract

Our final exam this past week was "case-based," meaning they gave us a theoretical patient (thankfully a fictitious animal, which you'll realize is a great thing once I tell you everything that was wrong with this poor dog).

We had physical exam findings, xrays, and lab work for "Daisy," our non-existent dog, who came to us with a history of hit-by-car. Since we were presented with only 1 case, and there were 5 body systems that we'd covered in lecture and needed to be examined on, that meant that poor, poor Daisy had something wrong in each section. Let's look:

1. Orthopedics: craniodorsal coxofemoral luxation (i.e. her hip had popped out of its socket and was wandering around where it shouldn't be)

2. Reproduction: during Daisy's recovery from her HBC, we notice that she has a purulent vaginal discharge (which ends up being a pyometra)

3. Neurology: spinal cord lesion affecting bilaterally the sciatic and pudendal nerves

4. Lower urinary tract: urinary tract infection during recovery

5. Upper urinary tract: ruptured bladder inducing azotemia; upon surgical exploration, Daisy had a traumatized kidney and ureter that required nephrectomy (hey, I could do that surgery!)

Although all of these things could happen to a dog after experiencing a major trauma, or during recovery in hospital, I'm pretty sure they should have given Daisy an ironic name like "Lucky" instead.