Buffetting : CM Day 4

Today was a much more chillax day compared to the days before. I went to the clinic early in the morning to prepare for the morning rounds in the elephants shelter with Dr Erica. Just the usual meds, like povidone scrub and flush; chlorohex scrub and flush. I finally took note of her meds box which usually have these stuffs in there:

1- Gloves

2- Gentadine violet spray

3- Swabs

4- Mg SO4 powder for antibacteriocidal purposes as dry treatment

5- Bactacin which is fluroxane cream

6- Antiparasitic powder negasunt

7- Syringes

8- KMnO4 powder as antibacteriocidal

A new batches of meds came in when Dr Katheryn from Arizona popped in, bringing in new meds like:

1- Endorumen tubes

2- Fluxinin Megluminr Powder as pain meds

3- Anaesthetic drugs

4- Catheter and needle jabs

5- Wonderdust which function like MgSO4

Some wonder why don't we administer pain meds much(antiinflammatory) on the elephants experiencing foot problem. I did myself, Dr Erica said that by doing that we take away the pain which is preventing the elephant from using it much; in return making the elephants to actually use more of the foot, making the healing process slower, or worsen the condition itself. Which pretty much make sense. Some elephants which shouldn't be moving around sometimes are still being brought about to move around, inflicting more stress on the foot, reducing the healing time and expose the foot more to pathogens which cause pus. If they are moving around, pain meds will be omitted. However, if they will be confined, Dr erica will consider pain meds since they aren't moving much anymore anyway.

We continued with daily treatment 2 more elephants with pus. i managed to get my hands on flushing the pus today; which was surprisingly hard because of the thick skin of the elephants as well as the areas which the pus actually hides. The elephants are usually with their mahouts so they are being controlled one way or another, when we work on them. So safety willl still be an issue, but much minimized when the mahouts are around. The general work on the elephants with pus problems will be flushing them with water, then povidone iodine until the pus is all out with clean iodine streams, and then injecting them will bacticin to minimize the pus formation on the next day.  

After the morning treatment the vet work is pretty free in the morning session. Since Dr Erica will be catching up on med records, she asked me to join the volunteer work instead. I joined after the team was done with poop scooping, so we went on sawing the banana trunks for the elephant snack. When we were done, whats next is after lunch so I headed for a nap.

Lunch was great, and we continued with kitchen work in the afternoon. Bananas are like staple food for the elephants so we unloaded, probably half a tonnes of bananas in to the kitchen? It was fun when everyone from different background screamed at the falling bananas when we failed the catch them well. After banana work, we proceeded to cleaning up the banks of the river from the feces and food crumbles like the leaves and all before we called it a day, for volunteers.

I proceeded to the elephant clinic and shelter at 3.30 in the afternoon for the afternoon treatment. We packed a lilttle in the clinic, while i was fascinated with the banana balls prepared. there were 2 types, one with heavily injected vitamin B balls, which are given to elephants which are weak. Since vit Bs are neurophysiologically helpful, the results were shown to be quite promising from the treatments before. Another red ones are the ones with mild vitamin B and supplements which are given to the other elephants just to support their growth well.

The elephant shelter treatment today was pretty much the same, though i managed to notice something wrong with Mae Lae Tong left hindfoot when I was trying to flush it with povidone iodine. It kept moving its foot up and down, and I couldn't get a clear shot. Dr Erica said that it might be an infection coming up so she add on some MGSO4 before we headed for another elephant's treatment.

We fixed 5 elephants' foot today, all of them with recurrent foot issues and they are treating twice a day anyway. After that, we helped Crissy to desensitize Fah Sae who is pretty jumpy since she is still new around, as well as Sim Pei.

I managed to hand feed another elephants, Boon Ma directly into her mouth, although we were told not to. She was really close to me while she used her trunk to kind of wave into her mouth, so I just abide. It was really fun and nice of her, because to me its a sign of trust. Not everyone actually wants someone else's hand in their mouth. I'm not too sure whether I was touching her tongue, it seemed like it, it wasn't as papillated as I thought it would be, In fact it was really tender like an inflated balloon. After finishing her feed, Dr Erica proceeded to desensitize Jam Paa with her leg and ear, which was pretty successful. Desensitizing ear, particularly will be useful in the future when she will be drawing blood or making ear swabs.

The day ended with that, while dinner was pretty cool. I should totally make a post on the people I met here.