Dr. Nik

I changed River's bandage tonight. It definitely takes 2 people. The cut was bloody and crusty but not actively bleeding or oozy or infected looking. She has at least 5 stitches from what I could tell, though she didn't let me look at it really well.

She was not a fan of the whole process. I think it probably hurt a bunch, but once we got her on her back with a cone on her head, she calmed down. Carolyn's head scratches and soothing sounds probably helped, because I was going, "Ooo! Ick! *sucks in breath* I'm sorry! Oh, ouchy! Stop it! I know... I know..."

But, it's changed... so, I hope we can keep it dry because this isn't something I want to have to do again if I don't have to.

Dumb dog.


End Blog.

Suicidal Dog Slits Wrist

Tonight River took a sliding shoulder into the back door and broke the bottom pane of glass. In doing so, she managed to cut the outside of her right paw and puncture the area right near her dew claw. The laceration was clean and right to the muscle and was bleeding enough that I didn't think I'd be able to stop it myself.

I trapped her in the bathroom and tried to clean her up a bit and then taped paper towels to her paw to apply some pressure and stop the bleeding. (You know, after I stood in the bathroom for a minute staring at the medicine cabinet thinking, "I need gauze." "I don't have gauze." "I need gauze." It was a vicious cycle.)

Carolyn looked up an emergency vet and drove us there and I called Belinda to pick up Remy and take her to her house so that she didn't somehow get into the broken glass. I didn't need two cut puppies and bills to go with them. (Remy got a bath at Belinda's! How cool is that?)

When we got there, the vet cut off my make-shift bandage, looked at the wound, and bandaged her back up. Then he gave her a sedative. And it knocked her out. It also made her vomit up her dinner. She she is being really sleepy in the doctor's office.



And here is my shirt with dog blood on it. Luckily, I was in my lawn mowing getup, so I don't really care.



I think I might donate this shirt to the lab. What's not fun about dog blood on a shirt?


They gave her some stitches and bandaged her up. While she was there, I went to Lowe's to buy some stuff to fix the window. I settled on plexiglass and silicone to fix it in there, with a backup plan of plastic tarp in case I wasn't handy enough to fix it.

The bandage can't get wet and it needs to be changed if it does. If not, I have to change it every 3 days. It's starting to bother her because she keeps licking at it and limping and favoring it.

I put a latex glove over her paw to keep it dry and carried her outside because I thought she might have to pee. She turned right around a gimped herself back into the house. Then I fed her because I realized she threw up all her food earlier. She liked that, because she always likes food... and I gave her an antibiotic and some pain meds that are supposed to make her drowsy. It's kind of working, but she keeps messing with her paw.

Hopefully it will kick in soon.

Carolyn babysat her while I fixed the back door. Turns out I am awesome and managed to clean up the glass and put in a piece of plexiglass to fix it. Not sure how permanent of a fix it is, but I'm going to try to keep it for as long as I can. I'm pretty sure a new door or new glass might be really expensive.




I know, those pictures were really exciting.

Update: I took her out again and she peed and ran right back to the door. Then came in a drank a whole bowl of water. Maybe I'll set my alarm for the middle of the night to check on her.

Because this is the kind of thing she does when I'm sleeping:

(Not all the time, she just apparently didn't like Kovu's bed.)

Okay, it's late and been an eventful day. I'm going to try to get some sleep. I hope River does the same.


End Blog.

Bloodstain Pattern Analysis

This last week I attended a 40 hour bloodstain pattern analysis class taught by Mike Van Stratton, Holly Wasinger, and Kevin Winer. They are three of only 32 certified bloodstain pattern analysis experts in the United States. Maybe some day I will join their ranks, because I know that I would love to.

The class involved lecture and practical exercises where we broke into teams to observe first hand what types of patterns blood makes when certain events occur. After learning all of the various patterns possible, we determined the characteristic size, shape, appearance, and distribution of stains, learned how to describe them, and how to document a scene.

The final exam included a written test and a practical exercise where we had a staged crime scene. This was probably the most fun and educational training I've ever had. Where else do you get to throw blood around?

Here are some pictures of my team in action. Here we are observing target surface effects on the bloodstain patterns.


This is an experiment observing blood dripping from tools or other possible beating instruments. It's surprising how much blood must be on an item to actually drip off of it.


Here we are putting blood on objects and looking at transfer and contact patterns. I also had my hand in blood, which makes this picture of a bloody hatchet even cooler.


We also did impact pattern studies where we made our own stains. I just got finished hitting a pool of blood with a hammer. Don't try this at home. It's really messy. Even in my Tyvek suit and face shield, I still managed to get blood on my neck. You can see the stains on my clothing and face shield, but if you look closely, there are even impact stains on my neck. Awesome.


This is a projected bloodstain, and a really neat picture. There was some force here, as seen by the spines and radiating stains.


Here one of our instructors is demonstrating another kind of projected blood characteristic of arterial spurts.


This was our first stringing project. We did really well on it, as our area of convergence and area of origin are relatively small. Turns out trigonometry is useful after all.


This is my favorite target. I made it myself! This was blood dripping down a pipe which was then rolled across the floor. Notice the repeating pattern and dilution as it moves on. Someone else liked it too because I didn't take this picture, another team did. Obviously I have a future in modern art.


We did some other experiments as well, but I either didn't want to bore you or didn't have really good pictures of them.

The last pictures are of our final scene. It was a domestic dispute in the kitchen. We determined it was a beating with a cast iron frying pan.




This says: KU, KSU: A marriage made in heaven. Heaven was crossed out in blood and hell was written by it. I pretty much just laughed the whole time. Also - see the phone on the floor in the picture above? When we turned it over, the 9 and 1 had blood on them: Somebody called 911. I thought that was a pretty nice touch for a mock crime scene.


Here is our scene as we started stringing the impact sites. We had three of them in all, which was the most out of everyone. I think they just like making me do math a lot.


Overall it was an excellent class. I had fun learning (because I'm a big dork) and met some great people. I think my team did a good job as well, minus that pairing knife that was stuffed inside the oven mitt that took us forever to find.

I think I'm now one step closer to having my own TV show. Just call me Dexter.


End Blog.