Suture experiences

We went to have the sutures removed from our kitten from
her neutering. The vet allowed me to remove them. No big
deal. He had a nifty pair of "scissors" that looked a lot
like cat nail clippers. She had 5 little stiches and it
took all of 30 seconds to remove them. She did not like
it one bit when I pulled them out. We explained why we
were intersted and he said if we were willing he would
let us assist him in stiching up a horse that he was
going to slice open to remove an abcess.

We walked out to the large animal surgery, and helped
prep the horse, washing the area where the incission
was going to be, then wiping the area down with betadin,
then I shaved the area. Guys I thought a 3 day growth
of beard was tough, this was like shaving steel wool.
The he injected the first numbing agent, and let us
alternate and surround the area to be excissed. We
injected very tiny amounts, like o.1cc. Then he used
a scapple and just sliced a ~1.5" long cut. He kept
slicing with each cut going in about 1/8" or less.
When he reached the abcess this vile smelling ***
ozzed out. He kept cutting and the gunk freely flowed
out. Then he used a rense of saline to flush the wound.
He poked and prodded wtih "q tips", and cleaned the
cavity rensing the entire time. when he was done, he
lined the wound with a antibiotic gell and inserted
a drain tube an daksed who wanted to start. My wife
is the brave one, so she started. It is next to
impossible to discribe the technique with words, but
it is very easy to see and duplicate. I was a little
unsteady but my stitches were labeled as "serviable".
This was his daughter's horse, not used for competion,
just riding around the farm. He said if it had been a
competion horse he would have used much smaller needle
and many more sutures, but warned that the finer the
suture, the more likely the smaller "thread" will pull
through.

One important step is to have an assitant close the
wound as you work and keep what is already "sewed"
from splitting. He said my wife had a better stitch
then he did. But upon learning she wuilts allowed
that she had sewn many thousand more stitches then
he had. He also asked if she might be interested in
doing some microstiches on a couple of show horses
next week. Hey, she gets to learn a new skill, get
paid for it and generally have fun. I will be around
tos ee what I can learn but suturing requires some
simple skills and a lot of nerve.

A very interesting afternoon.

Now am I ready to stich up a friend next field trip?
I hope I don't have to find out.

Terry

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