Team Lab Rat ;)

Here is the group of us in front of the vet school

Ok everybody, here is some of the stuff that I've been up to :)

This is the Rose Bengal Plate Agglutination Test for Brucellosis (RBPT).  The top middle well is a positive result.

This is a Milk Ring Test (MRT).  If you see a straight pink column like the one on the left, it is a negative result.  However, if there is a ring at the top, as in the second from the left and middle, it is a positive result.  The tube on the right is the antigen we use.  This test can cause false positive results, and that is one reason why we use more than one test to determine if the cow is positive.  This test shows us that the positive result cows can be suspect for brucellosis.

This is me pipetting a milk sample into a tube for PCR.  I am working with Dr. Giri.  Things in labs here are a little different than back at home, but they still manage to get everything they need done.

Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is to work hard at work worth doing.

June 11,2012

This is the very first cow that we worked on. Poor girl just
calved about 5 hours ago.

Today was our first day at the clinic, and I have to say, it was amazing! I learned so much, just from the few animals that we saw.  Our objective for our bovine tuberculosis/brucellosis project was to collect blood, serum, and milk samples from any cows that we could at the clinic.  Our first case of the day was a cow that had just had a calf that morning, and had a large laceration on the left front teat of its udder.  Apparently, the laceration was related to the calving, and it was also leaking fluid out of its vulva that was reddish and sticky looking (due to calving). 

After that I made my first attempt at getting a blood sample.  I ended up getting the needle in, and popping the vacutainer on, however, she struggled, and when she did, my needle pulled out.  

I made Daryl stand next to a cow to show how small
the cows are here compared to the US.

I was frustrated with myself, but Dr. MohanKumar said that I had done great for trying to pull blood on a water buffalo because apparently their veins are really hard to get to.  I realized later that he was right, because the veterinarians at the college tried at least 6 or 7 times before they actually got a stick.  We collected those samples and then moved on to our next case.

This is the water buffalo that I attempted to pull blood on.

Our next case was a cow that appeared to be going blind in both of its eyes, anemic, and it was also crawling with ticks.  In India, ticks are really hard to control, and seem to be a difficulty to treat.  At first it was suspected that the animal had anaplasmosis, which is a blood borne protozoa, caused by ticks, but later it was suspected that the animal had a blood borne pathogen called theriosmosis (sp?).

This is me with the cow that was blind!

Our next case was a Holstein cross that had abdominal distention that was thought to be caused by a rumen infection.  After collecting samples from that, we were taken into the gynecology and obstetrics clinic to look at a cow that had had a mummified calf taken out by cesarean section 4 days ago.  Here is the rundown…the cow was brought in at 6 months gestation after a hard mass was felt during rectal palpation.  The cow was dilated to 1 cm, and upon sonograming, the fetus was pronounced dead.  She was given PGF2a to lyse the corpus luteum, and induce abortion.  She was then given estrogen to prime her structures so that oxytocin, a hormone used for milk letdown and birthing, could take effect.  After that, she was given an inverted L nerve block, and an incision was made on the left side of her body as to avoid the duodenum (part of the small intestine), and to be able to differentiate between the uterus and the rumen, all the while avoiding the omentum.  Then, the mummified calf was taken out, and she was sewn up.  There are many reasons why this calf could have been mummified, but nothing had been figured out yet.  I realize that a lot of you reading this blog have no idea what any of this means, but please know that this is a way for me to journal about the things that I have done as a way to remember them for future cases J

After that, we sampled 3 cows that were all presenting the same problems.  All had calved within the last 2 months, had gone off feed, and their milk yield had dramatically dropped.  These are all classic signs of ketosis.  When cows are milking, they are diverting a lot of their nutrients, and fat into the milk they make.  Therefore, when cows go off feed, they still keep diverting nutrients to that need instead of their bodies, and they mobilize fat.  An intravenous injection of dextrose will generally fix the ketosis, but the bigger question that one must find the answer to is, “Why did the cow go off feed in the first place?”  You can fix the ketosis, but sometimes if you don’t find the root of the problem, it will keep happening. 

This is a native breed of horse that they have here in India.
I'm not sure what it is called exactly, but its ears turn in
to face each other, which is strange, and they have really
long legs!

This is a picture of a Brahman bull.  He was not very happy when
they were working on him, and was actually quite scary at times!

We also got to see a few goats that had impactions, which is common in India because they eat a lot of garbage, and one of them had a palpable impaction the size of a baseball!  After we had collected as many samples as we could, and collected the medical histories, we came back to the hostel for lunch.  After lunch we are going back to the clinic to run milk ring tests to test for brucellosis, and to extract DNA from the milk samples.  Should be a fun rest of the day!

We Got Out of the Hostel!

We went shopping for Saree's, and this is about a normal view from our bus on a daily basis. Look at all the people! It's nuts!!!!! Actually yesterday our driver hit, well more or less bumped a guy on a motorcycle, and it was just like whatever.  Imagine what would have happened in the states...insurance and police reports for sure!

Just some cars parked outside of the tailor where we were getting our saree's fitted.  Everything is double parked, but everyone seems to get out fine lol

These little yellow things are called Rickshaws.  We get to ride in one today to go to Spencer's Plaza, which is like their mall.  They are everywhere, and I'm kind of excited to ride in one!

While we were getting our Saree measurements taken, Daryl was very tired of shopping with 5 women all day, and was being a party pooper when I was trying to take a picture, but Pam and Julia were still enjoying themselves...poor Daryl.

 Well today is June 10th, and we got a little bit of freedom to leave the hostel area, and go to Spencer's, which is like a market.  It was really interesting to see some of the differences between American grocery stores and Indian ones.  First off, they have about a billion different kinds of Lay's potato chips, and they flavor them from all over the world.  I bought American Style Cream and Onion, West Indies Hot and Sweet Chili, and Spanish Tangy Tomato.  This should be interesting...

Here is the front of Spencer's :)

This wasn't even all of the flavors, but apparently Americans only
eat Sour Cream n' Onion because that was the "American" flavor.

This is the sign at the front of the place where we are staying.  It's pretty cool :)

To the right is the girls hostels, and to the left is the boys hostels.

Here is the group of us after we made our trip to Spencer's! From left to right: Daryl, Carrie, Me, Pam, Julia, Lindsay

This is just one of the stray dogs that make the hostel their home.  They really seem to enjoy standing on these sand mountain things, and all seem to be friendly, of course none of us touch them, but they tend to keep to themselves.  The people who live full time at the hostel seem to hate them though, and with good reason, because they bark. A LOT!

Uno, Shopping, and Eating Habits

June 9, 2012

Today was kind of a laid back yet tiring type of day.  First, we ate breakfast.  Although the food is good, its allure is wearing off very fast, and I just wish I could eat something other than a sauce thing with some sort of bread vehicle to soak it up.  Needless to say I cannot wait to go to Outback the second I touch down in Detroit.  After breakfast, we had a short meeting with Dr. Grooms to discuss what all we would be doing on our brucellosis, tuberculosis, and Newcastle’s projects, and just to learn a little bit more about the diseases in general.  Then, we all decided to go up on the roof of our hostels for a bit to catch some sun.  After that, our new friend Priyadarshini (the 10 year old daughter of a faculty member at TANUVAS) came to play UNO with us.  She seems enamored with Daryl, and is pretty darn cute.  After lunch, a woman named Katherine took us shopping to a 9 story department store named Saravana’s.  I have never in my entire life seen so many people in one store in America, including Black Friday.  I found a beautiful orange Saree, along with a really pretty pink and blue one for my sister Jen.  After we found the saree’s, we went up a couple floors to look at accessories.  I found some pretty ones along with some nice souvenirs.  Then, we came down out of the store, and we bought some shoes at a shop right by the store.  I bought a pair of gold flip flops with rhinestones for the wedding we have to go to next week for 140 rupees, the equivalent of about $2.80 USD.  Finally, we went to the tailor to have the blouses for our sarees made, and then we headed back to the hostel.  We just finished eating dinner, and I have to say that I feel nauseous, and I’m deciding to become a vegetarian while in India, because if I get one more chicken tendon in my mouth I’m going to lose it.  Anyways, I’m exhausted, and I will catch ya on the flip side.

Hodgepodge Day

June 8^th, 2012

Last night we all played basketball with some of the people who live at the TANUVAS hostels.  It was really fun to just get out and burn some energy, but it was interesting to see how people came out from every dorm and crack in the place to come see the Americans making fools of themselves on the court. 

Today was kind of a hodgepodge day.  We went to an inauguration at TANUVAS for the principle secretary of finance and the secretary of animal husbandry in Tamil Nadu.  We were recognized by people, and were videotaped by a whole ton of Indian TV channels.  It was pretty awkward because they were all focusing on us, and we will probably be on TV later.  Then, we came back to the hostel to eat lunch.

I somehow think that we will be in need of new games as we are quickly moving through every card game that we know.  Seeing as we don’t understand any Tamil, we also have to make up our own words to the TV shows.  I don’t really have much to say about today because we haven’t really done much new.  I’m excited to start on my projects on Monday, but tomorrow we are going shopping for sari’s!!! I’m really excited about that because they are really beautiful.  Tonight I have some reading to do about the different tests we are going to be doing, and I imagine that we are going to flip coins to determine which 2 students will be the leaders on which project.  I really don’t mind which one that I get to take leadership on because they all seem interesting.  Well, hopefully tomorrow I will have more to write!

More is Missed in Pathology by not Looking, Than Not Knowing

So today we figured out a little bit about what we’re going to be doing for the next 6 weeks.  We got up and went to breakfast (which was really good), and then came back to the Hostel for about an hour before heading over to the vet school.  During that hour we had an epic uno game that lasted for like a half hour at least. 

When we got to the vet school we met right away with Dr. L. Gunaseelan and his 2 assistants Dr. Ashok Kumar and Dr. BhanuRekha.  These are the people that we will be working with on project #1, the bacterial diseases in cattle project.  Dr. BhanuRekha told us that we will be focusing mostly on Tuberculosis and Brucellosis.  Brucellosis should be interesting to learn about because we do not have many cases of brucellosis in the states, so it isn’t seen often.  Our tuberculosis research will be to analyze the proportions of Mycobacterium bovis in humans and animals, and to evaluate the proportion of M. tuberculosis in humans and animals.  We will be identifying antigens and antibodies by collecting blood, serum, and milk samples to analyze.  It is a little overwhelming for me at this point, having not started vet school as I don’t know what half of the diagnostic tests are that we are going to be doing, but I don’t think that anyone knows everything, and I’m positive I will become proficient in most of them by the end of this project. 

The cultural aspect of this trip is probably the part of the trip that will teach me the most of anything that I learn.  I am going to have to communicate with people who do not speak any English, by using a translator that speaks Tamil.  Also, I learned an interesting tidbit of information today from Dr. MohanKumar about how children are named in India.  It seems that MohanKumar is his given name, however his full name is P.S. MohanKumar.  You see, P stands for the village that he was born in, S is his father’s given name, and MohanKumar is his given name.  In India, last names are obsolete, and everyone goes by their given names.  The second cultural difference that I learned was about milk.  In India, milk is pasteurized to remove TB, just like in the US, but most people still boil the milk after it is pasteurized, and then they serve it hot.  Eating hot cereal is not my style, but to each country their own I guess.  Also, Indians do not consume a lot of milk or dairy products in general.  It is also interesting that Indians fancy raw milk rather than processed, which is a contributing factor to why Tuberculosis is so rampant in India as compared to the US.  A third cultural anomaly between the U.S. and India is that India is the world leader in diabetes.  I found this particularly interesting because there is a scientific reason to why Indians have a higher incidence of TB.  You see, when glucocorticoid levels are increasing (which can be caused from their high carbohydrate diet and low exercise level), then immunosuppression increases also, which can increase the incidence of contracting diseases, such as TB.

After our meeting we got to see a rabies suspect dog, and learn about the procedure that the veterinary college follows when they have a rabies case.  When the college gets a rabies suspect dog (which is common because there are stray dogs EVERYWHERE), they put it in a cage and put in on UOR (under observation rabies) for 10 days.  While under observation, they basically wait for the animal to die.  The animal will usually die within 5 to 7 days, and then they can test it for rabies.  This dog was dead, so we got to watch the necropsy, which was cool.  They take a part of the brain, and fix it on slides with methanol to look for necrobodies.  If the necrobodies are present, the animal had rabies, and everyone that has come in contact with the dog should be tested.

After lunch we went back to the college to meet with Dr. Thirunavukarasu to learn about project 2, studying the economic losses of mastitis in Tamil Nadu.  This project seems especially interesting to me because Indian farmers do everything so differently from how the U.S. manage cattle.  The first MAJOR difference is that there is NO withdrawal time for antibiotics in milk.  This is very interesting because since there is no withdrawal time for antibiotics, there are antibiotic residues in the milk, which then causes HUGE antibiotic resistance in humans who consume the milk.  In the U.S., all antibiotics fed to meat or milking cattle have a printed withdrawal time (usually a few days or weeks) on their labels that the farmer must abide by.  During the withdrawal period, the milk from the animal cannot be sold, and the animal cannot be slaughtered for human consumption.  Once the withdrawal period is finished, the milk and meat no longer have antibiotic residues, and the products can be sold.  This parody is one more reason to love living in the United States, and just one more reason that people who talk about American meat and milk being the cause of antibiotic resistance in the U.S. have no idea what they are talking about, and should be viewed as uneducated.  I think that is my biggest pet peeve, when people who have no idea what happens in animal agriculture in the U.S. to protect the human population criticize things for which they have no basis to criticize.  If you want to make a statement about my field of interest, know your sh**!  Anyway, I’ll get off of my soapbox now…

I Have Arrived! Now What??

June 6, 2012

Well world, today I made it to Chennai FINALLY! Although the 12 hour layover was rough sitting on a cold tile floor most of the time twiddling my thumbs with what to do.  I learned quite a few things at the airport in Delhi.  Apparently blueberry muffins are a dessert food, and are served with ice cream and chocolate sauce.  The flight from Delhi to Chennai was pretty smooth seeing as I slept 2 hours and 35 minutes of the 2 hour 40 minute ride ;)

When we arrived in Chennai today, the shocks started for me. What I mean is, everything my eyes witnessed from the minute I stepped off of the plane was unlike anything I had ever seen before.  The first thing I did was have my very first experience with an Eastern style toilet.  It is very true that the foot grips are there for a reason, and I was not a huge fan.  It is similar to going in the woods, however, for some reason, going pee behind a tree seems more appealing than in an airport bath stall.  Must just be the country girl in me I suppose.

After that eye opener, we got our bags and headed out the door where we met with Dr. Mohan Kumar, and a taxi van thing that was to take us to TANUVAS.  Holy cow is the driving in India insane! The lines on the road, stop signs, and stoplights that people in the US abide by so vigilantly are more of suggestions here, and there is a ton of close calls and horn honking.  I cannot even count the number of times I almost saw a motorcycle get taken out by a bus. Dr. Kumar says that it is just a trust thing here when it comes to driving, but holy sh** you would never catch me behind the wheel of anything here.  I suppose I would take the bus or walk instead.  It was also very interesting to just look around at my surroundings.  There are very crowded and cluttered streets filled with street vendors and merchants, COWS, and a ton of garbage.  If I take one thing away from this whole trip, it will be a thorough appreciation of how lucky I am to live in the United States of America, and just how many things I take for granted.

After about 45 minutes of driving (around 3:00 p.m.), we finally arrived at TANUVAS, and got to put our things inside our little homes for the duration.  The “hostels” as they are called, are really quite nice!  I have my own bedroom with an attached bathroom, there is a large common area, a kitchenette thing, WI-FI, and AIR CONDITIONING!  It is so nice to have air seeing as it is in the hundreds everyday here.  Once we dropped our bags off we were whisked away to the hostel guest kitchen where we were served a delicious lunch by our personal chef Rajinran.  We had fried rice, a potato dish, capati, and a chicken dish.  Needless to say, our bellies were full.  Then, we went back to the hostel just to hang out, unpack, try to stay awake after 48 hours of being up, and watch a little Indian TV. 

At 7:00 p.m. we went for a light dinner with my favorite Indian dish so far.  I don’t know what it is called, but it is kind of like a potato soup thing served with a deep fried puff thing…anyways it is delicious.  I also got to try some awesome mango!

Now I am sitting here, alone in my room, after dinner, and I’m feeling a bit homesick.  Our internet is down, so there is no chance of communication with my life back at home, and I guess I’m just feeling a tad bit lonely in this big world.  I’m also feeling a tad bit pathetic because I am the one who chose to be here, and I know that I am going to have the trip of a lifetime, so I should probably stop feeling sorry for myself.  Tomorrow we are taking a tour of the vet school, and are going to meet some very cool people, and then this weekend we are going shopping for sari’s.  Hopefully our internet is back up tomorrow so I can video chat with my loved ones…ahh one can only hope. Well goodnight world, this is Audrey signing out for the night.