Not for the Sqeamish

Every veterinarian has little stories of their strangest patient, (or client!) most memorable, or both. One that certainly falls in that category for me happened when I was a fairly new doctor, getting much needed and welcomed experience at a very busy emergency clinic. It wasn't unusual to be faced with crying family members, and Rufus had a very emotional, tearful young owner, not more than 8 or 9 years old. She had a little shoe box, closed with some apparent breathing holes cut into the top. We often saw "pocket pets" at that ER service, rats and hamsters and even hedgehogs and chinchillas. It was how I got my beloved Edgar, a wonderful little chinchilla who was missing most of his hair. Now, chinchillas are known for their thick, lustrous coats, and a naked chinchilla is really pathetic. His owner didn't want the hassle of working up his alopecia, (hair loss) so surrendered him to me. I suspected he was pulling his hair out from a stressful living situation, and for some reason he settled into his new life with Michael, me and all our menagerie just fine. Edgar didn't think cats hanging onto his cage were anything to stress about, apparently; they were fascinated with this giant "rodent." Anyway, Edgar was a way cool pet, grew all his hair back and lived with us for another 10 years! He passed away earlier this year and I still miss handing him his daily raisin treat and watching him munch them eagerly.

Back to Rufus and his distraught little owner. She told me through her tears how very sorry she was that she had dropped him when cleaning his cage and he had "broken open." Unsure what she could mean by that, I opened the lid of the shoebox and got quite a shock. There was a GIANT, fuzzy brown tarantula! Ummm, I know veterinarians are supposed to treat "all creatures great and small", but spiders???? Rufus had, indeed, broken open---his abdomen was split wide open and what looked like intestines were out on the toilet paper lining the box. I figured the owners would simply like Rufus to be humanely euthanized; this was a very serious injury (duh!) and one I had no experience in handling. Nope. His owner pleaded with me to save his life. In those days and at that time of night there wasn't anyone to call for advice. There weren't any "spider medicine" textbooks on the shelves or online resources to consult. I was it.

I used some very long wooden cotton tipped applicators to manipulate Rufus in the box and do a cursory exam. The area of his body that was split open was not like a mammal's skin; it was like a hard "crust" or "shell." The intestines themselves looked in pretty good shape. I got some saline solution and lavaged them, (rinsed them off) then proceeded to reduce the herniation of the intestines (push them back into the abdomen where they belonged.) I used the moistened cotton-tipped applicators for this, and they reduced pretty easily. So, now what? How were we going to keep them in place? I didn't even know for sure if the hard shell would heal eventually. It made sense that it would, but I sure didn't look forward to suturing this crunchy material, possibly breaking it apart even more. Besides, that would likely require anesthesia of some kind, and I REALLY didn't want to attempt that in a likely debilitated patient that I had no way of monitoring (and had no idea of normal parameters like heart rate, respirations, blood pressure-ha! Could you see putting a blood pressure cuff on one of those little hairy legs?!) We often use a type of tissue glue for closing skin wounds or the last layer of multiple layer suture closures. I thought that might be a good option, so still holding the abdominal contents in with the applicator, drew a line down the crack with the tissue glue. I was so relieved when it held fast. I really couldn't think of any "post-operative" instructions other than to make sure to keep Rufus quiet and warm, get him eating right away, and to get him to his regular veterinarian if he had any problems with that or with eliminating waste. (Do spiders even poop?) I couldn't know what his prognosis would be, but his little owner was delighted to have him all back in one piece. I called to check on him a few days later and all was well....amazing. You can bet that is one patient I will never forget.

Peace,
DrReneigh