Our
second sterilization blitz was held on May 21, 2006. Francia Pinedo (owner
of Bienes Raices Volcan) graciously allowed us to use her offices for
the surgeries. Her office is closed on Sundays, the days the surgeries
are performed. The setup is better than the previous one and her
office is in a central location. It is on the main road to Rio Sereno,
catty-cornered across from Super Berard's. Francia said we could
continue to use her offices for future sterilizations. An additional
bonus is that Francia is fluent in both Spanish and English.
That
day, Dr. Tello sterilized 14 animals (12 dogs - five males and seven
females) and two
cats, both female. Plus he cleaned the teeth of my latest
"adoptee," which were in very bad condition from severe early
malnutrition. Cleaning Prissy Lou's teeth took longer
than many of the surgeries!
One
cat, only about four weeks of age, had just been found in the street
by Yina, who adopted the kitten and had her sterilized that day.
Yina
Ortiz again worked as Dr. Tello's assistant, and
sisters Betsy Boeve and Cindy Reichert again attended and gave
valuable help. They carried animals from the operating table to the
recovery area, made sure they were covered and warm, and attended the
animals as they recovered from the anesthesia.
Several
Panamanian passersby stopped in to see what was going on. Some of the
passersby asked to be notified of the next sterilization blitz. One
woman has several animals and Betsy Boeve offered to pay half of the
surgical cost for sterilizing the woman's animals. This woman came with her daughter and
they observed the surgeries for several hours. The daughter wants to be
a veterinarian and she was enthralled by watching Dr. Tello perform
the surgical procedures!
Of
the 12 dogs, five were brought from Boquete by Ruby McKenzie and three
of her friends. They all help organize sterilizations in Boquete. They have a date scheduled for June 4th but wanted to have these dogs
attended to right away. Four of the dogs from Boquete, all female, are owned by
Panamanians. One was pregnant. Three of the Panamanians could pay only $10 per dog and
Herta (from Boquete) donated an extra $30 to Dr. Tello. Pat from
Boquete brought her own
personal "baby" (Sandy) and paid the regular fee.
Ruby
McKenzie contributed $60 for one Panamanian dog, Poly, who has had a very sad
life, including almost being beaten to death by intruders into the
store of her owners. In addition, Poly has had two previous
surgeries by "vets" unknown to me. Each time the vets supposedly
spayed Poly and removed a venereal tumor which "magically" seemed
to grow back. In fact, Poly had NOT been spayed. Dr. Tello removed a
huge uterus from Poly and also removed her venereal tumor. If
the tumor grows back, Poly will also need chemotherapy. But I suspect
that during the previous surgeries, the "vets" did not
remove the tumor in its entirety (if at all) and this final surgery by
Dr. Tello may solve the problem without chemotherapy - which is said
to be very painful for the animal.
Contributions
and payments for Dr. Tello this day averaged $40 per animal. The fees
collected included discounts to Panamanians who could not afford to
the regular prices, my paying Dr. Tello accordingly for the length of
time it took to clean Prissy Lou's
teeth, the full regular fee from gringos, the full regular fee from a
few Panamanians - including from Francia Pinedo who had a male and female dog
sterilized. I also paid for most of the cost for the sterilization of the recently adopted
male dog of my Panamanian worker, Jose Espinosa.
It
was a long day - but very satisfying. We didn't finish until 5:30 p.m.
With the first sterilization blitz, we finished at around 3:30 p.m.,
but that day there were many more cats. Dogs require more surgical time,
especially females. This second time we had only two cats, and the
majority of the dogs were females.
Pictures
are below. (Next time I will get pictures of Betsy and Cindy in
action! Thanks again, you guys!)
