Free The Rhino with Glue-On Shoes by DVM Lucy H. Spelman Page B

the scope tomorrow, when we were scheduled to examine Yaloda.
    I evaluated the damage. The piece that attaches the camera to the scope was broken. Without the camera, I could not attach the TV monitor, making it impossible for me to show my Chinese colleagues how to interpret what we'd be seeing inside the panda's stomach and intestines. Nor could I make a recording to document the exam. Without the camera, the scope was virtually useless.
    Determined to solve the problem, I gathered my tools: medical tape, scissors, and hair clippers. My improvised fix didn't result in a perfect view through the lens, but it was better than the alternative, which was to cancel the exam on Yaloda. She'd been suffering from some kind of gastrointestinal disease for months. I didn't want her to go any longer without a diagnosis and treatment.
    With the key piece of equipment repaired, we reviewed the schedule for the next day: first Yaloda's exam, then two more. We'd start early in the morning, setting up and checking all our equipment, including several plastic crates' worth of veterinary supplies I'd brought from the US. Once everything was ready, each panda would be anesthetized with a combination of drugs injected via a plastic dart.
    I also made a point of running through the techniques we'd be using for the endoscopy. Every time we do this procedure together, the Chinese veterinarians gain confidence in their knowledge; one day, they will perform it themselves. When it was safe to handle the panda, we'd move it from its night-house to a room with an operating table. We'd insert a tube into its windpipe to protect its airways and place a catheter in one of its arm veins to give it some fluids while under anesthesia. The exam would include an oral exam, abdominal palpation, a blood sample, and endoscopy. This last procedure would be performed with our special, now-repaired fiberscope. We'd introduce the endoscope inside the stomach (gastroscopy) and into the colon of the animal (colonoscopy). Each exam would take two and a half to three hours at least, maybe longer for Yaloda, since we knew she was the panda with the most severe problem.
    The night before Yaloda's exam, our excellent hosts took us out to a restaurant, where we ate many colorful, delicious dishes. I felt completely at ease with my Chinese colleagues. Though most of China's traditions are very different from Mexico's, some things are the same. For one thing, Sichuan food is spicy, just like Mexican food. And as at home, friendship and trust are established here over a social meal—socializing that usually includes drinking the traditional Chinese liquor, unless you're doing giant panda anesthesia the next morning! (We had tea, instead.) Chinese
baijou
is very strong, not unlike Mexican tequila. We all looked forward to a proper banquet at the end of our three-day stint.
    The next morning, I awoke to the sound of Chengdu's incessantly honking cars, a brutal alarm system, and took a taxi to the Panda Base. Before we anesthetize our patients, we like to look at them first. So I found the head veterinarian and we went together to see Yaloda. She was in her night-house, sitting on a wooden platform surrounded by stalks of bamboo and piles of loose leaves. It didn't appear as if she'd eaten anything overnight. The room temperature was comfortably cool in spite of the heat outside; still, Yaloda seemed uncomfortable. I could see that her feces were soft.
    The panda was thin, her abdomen appeared slightly bloated, and her coat looked dull and coarse. Though only eight years old, she looked older. I'd been told that her feces had been abnormally soft for several years now, and that she had not responded to conventional therapy. In China, “conventional” therapy can vary from traditional Chinese medicine to powerful antibiotics. Although I didn't know why she had not responded to previous treatment, I felt confident that if we could make a definitive diagnosis, we could