Adventure In Australia: Chapter 9: Living Like A Local

Perth, WA Australia

January 23^rd-24^th 2016

Saturday I decided I needed to go to the beach, because why the hell not when every day is 30+ degrees! I packed up my stuff, got a ride to the station (thank you Steve!) and took the train down to Cottesloe Beach, just outside of Fremantle. It was a gorgeous little beach, and I got a few glorious hours in the sun (and a quick dip in the water!). It ended up getting pretty windy so when I got tired of the sand blowing in my face I packed up and hopped back on the train to go into Fremantle. It’s a cute little town with a mix of historic buildings and tourist spots, and I enjoyed wandering around and browsing for a bit. Eventually I got hungry, so I popped into “Monk”, a kitchen and brewery for dinner. The chicken salad was like no other chicken salad I’d had before and I enjoyed it and my beer, but the service unfortunately left a lot to be desired (basically I was invisible).

Sunday I had a couple more things to pick up, so I took the train into Perth and finished some shopping before heading back to Kanyana for a lazy afternoon in the Ranger’s Hut. Definitely felt like a typical Aussie weekend! :)

ADDENDUM: Forgot that on Sunday before catching the train Sue let me help feed Lex and Noah the joeys! Was happy to hear Noah was recovering well from GI upset.

January 25^th 2016

Monday at the clinic Tim and I started with a barium series on the green wing macaw I described previously. Essentially you give the animal food filled with barium, a radio-opaque substance that shows up white on radiographs, and take radiographs periodically throughout the day as the food passes through the digestive system. The barium outlines the digestive tract, allowing you to (hopefully) see any defects like strictures (narrowing) and foreign bodies (where the barium doesn’t fill – a “filling defect”). Our barium series showed that food was passing slowly through the gastrointestinal tract, suggesting a motility issue that was leading to poor absorption and weight loss. The next step for our macaw is endoscopic-guided exploration and biopsies of the proventriculus, which seemed to be dilated and may have a foreign body in it. Analysis of the tissue may also reveal why our bird has poor gut motility.

We also had a little swallow come in, which Tim asked me to examine on my own. I found that the bird was very weak (he could barely stand and made no attempt to fly), but I could not find any injuries like fractures, other than a tilt to his head that I thought might suggest a concussion. He was very thin and kept his eyes mostly closed. Basically this little bird was starving (he was found trapped inside someone’s shed), and needed supportive care in the form of nutrition, heat, and fluids. Hopefully Kanyana will be able to get him to eat (it can be very hard to do in little songbirds without having to handle them and stress them out too much; stress can and does kill!).

Sadly the next thing I was asked to help with was euthanizing an injured adult rainbow lorikeet, which can not be rehabilitated anyways or released into the wild as they are not native to Western Australia. At least it was a humane death, and gave me the chance to practice jugular venipuncture in a bird (I did pretty well other than causing some bleeding when I pulled the needle out). And don’t worry, the bird was already anaesthetized when I euthanized him, so he didn’t feel any of my pokes (just one yay me!) into his neck.

After that I watched Tim castrate two male rats, which is just a tiny bit different from castrating dogs. I learned that rats have HUGE testicles and lots of fat in their scrotum (or at least fat rats do). It is important to replace the fat as it reduces the risk of herniation through the inguinal canal.

When the Kanyana animals arrived I unfortunately learned through the paperwork sent down that the duck I had seen on Thursday night was euthanized for a broken neck :( (not that I didn’t expect that). There was a rainbow bee eater with an injured left wing over the carpal area, which fortunately looked like soft tissue trauma as no fractures showed up on radiographs. There was another echidna hit by a car that I radiographed with Lisa (yay no broken bones!) and one of the resident bilbies “Yiibi” who was in for dental work – we ran out of time and she is coming back on Thursday. Lisa also looked at a raven with a spinal cord injury and a kookaburra with a damaged leg, wing, and open rotting wound; both animals were euthanized. In between all the wild animals I watched Tim perform feline tooth extraction, learned about ultrasound with Lisa, and practiced taking blood and urine from the dog that was being ultrasounded. I also learned what a “V sign” is on the radiographs of the kookaburra – when there is damage to the internal environment such as when a bird is hit by something, the heart and liver separate and you can see a “V” space between them (normally they lie flat overlapping each other).

January 26^th 2016

Tuesday was Australia Day! It commemorates the day the first ships landed in Australia in 1788 (so it’s actually a pretty awful memory for the indigenous people of Australia). Todd invited me to hang out with his friends for the day, so I picked up a cheap Australian bikini (sent my other one home with Mom, oops) and took the train down to Fremantle where he lives. He picked me up at the station and we walked to his gorgeous apartment where he lives with his fiancé Minya (who is also a veterinarian!). We pretty much headed straight to the beach (just stopping to grab picnic food at the IGA) and had a lovely lunch with Minya’s dad and his partner Erica. Enjoyed a few beers too ;)

After lunch we went to a park to watch the Australian citizenship ceremony, since Todd and Minya’s friend Killian was becoming an Australian citizen. We celebrated afterwards with a beer at Little Creatures brewery, which was great. It was really nice to be included in a nice group of friends, since I have spent most of my down time in Perth alone (not that I haven’t had fun doing that but it’s also nice to be social!).

We went back to the beach for a bit (this time I jumped into the Indian Ocean for a dip) then grabbed lunch at the Local Hotel (that’s the name), before heading to another friend’s place for a house party. It was a typical raging 20s and 30s something house party so no need to bore you with a detailed (and scandalous!) description, but let’s just say I had a lot of fun :P Even met a few Canadian brethren! I’d say I had an authentic local Australia Day experience!!