A Woman Walks into Pharmacy

First off, let me say that you probably shouldn't read this post.  If you do decide to read this post, please keep in mind that it is for entertainment purposes only.

True Story at my work:
So a woman walks into the pharmacy.  She asks for a recommendation on scalpels.  Quite an odd thing to ask for.  Apparently, she had brought her cat to the vet.  One of her three cats has a cyst on its left ear.  It would have been too expensive for her to have a vet do it.  Of course it's a simple surgery (on a human at least), so she decides she will do it herself.  She does some research, only to find out how expensive surgical tools can be. 

What a bummer.  Of course it's outside my scope of practice as a pharmacist, but it's well within my scope of practice as a total badass.  At work of course, I practice on my pharmacist license.  That being said... my response (would have been... had I been there for it), "I am sorry, but that is outside the scope of my practice of pharmacy.  However, I do get off work in about 3 hours and will do the surgery for a Subway sandwich." Okay, I probably wouldn't have said that.  However, I did come up with simple surgical techniques to take care of this cyst.
(please note that estimated procedure time includes emotional preparation for the cat as well as physical preparation of the surgical tools and the cyst removal itself)

Option A- The Appropriate Way
Location- Operating room
Estimated cost- $500
Equipment- Operating table, Iodine spray, Alcohol spray cat tranquilizers, surgical drape, scalpel, stitching kit, gauze pads and ace bandage, gunk bucket/test tubes, lollipop made of catnip, pain medication
Procedure description- Sedate the cat before laying him out on the operating table.  Now cover the cat with the surgical drape to maintain the cat's privacy.  Spray down the area that will be operated on with iodine, which is the ear for this particular procedure.  It is proper to surround the ear with a 3 inch radius spray as well.  Now spray the scalpel with the alcohol and let it dry.  After drying, proceed to create an incision into the cyst and massage out the "gunk" either into the gunk bucket (to dump) or into test tubes (for biopsy).  Now you are done and you may open the stitch kit and stitch any openings back to a close.  Then cover the stitches with gauze and an ace bandage, as the wound will likely be weeping.  Your cat is now ready to live a long and happy life, unless the biopsy showed cancer... in which case the procedure probably wasn't clean enough.  All well... Just give the cat the lollipop made of catnip and he'll at least be happy for the time being.  Don't forget to keep the wound clean and to give your cat the pain medication as scheduled.
Estmated procedure time- 45 minutes (15 minutes for the necessary physical preparation and the cyst removal)


Option B- The Backyard Surgeon
Location- Backyard, garage, dining room table, etc.
Estimated cost- $20
Equipment- Picnic table, cage (smallest possible), Alcohol Spray, exacto knife, band-aids
Procedure description- First, you must cage the cat because it will likely not want to go forth with this procedure.  After caging the cat, you should put the cage on top of a picnic table or any table for that matter.  I would suggest doing this in a park on a sunny day to help alleviate any of the painful memories that the cat might suffer from.  Now spray the cat down with the alcohol.  While the cat is freaking out, spray the exacto knife with the alcohol to sanitize it.  After some time, the cat will get tired and will stop freaking out.  Because the cat may freak out for a long period of time, you may need to re-sanitize the scalpel before using.  After the cat has calmed down, it is now the time to carefully try to slice open the cyst to drain it.  It will likely get messy and the cyst could even pop, but the primary goal is to get that stuff out of there anyways.  After draining, make sure to cover the area up with band-aids because the cat will likely bleed quite a bit. Now the cat is as good as new!
Estimated procedure time- 6 hours (10 minutes for the necessary physical preparation and the cyst removal)

Option C- The Cheap and Easy approach
Location- Living room couch
Estimated Cost- Free
Equipment- Cigar cutter, towel
Procedure description- Make sure that the cat is calm, the best place for the cat to be calm will likely be in your lap.  Now you should pet the cat in a calm demeanor until the cat is purring and ready to sleep.  Now take out the cigar cutter and slowly put the cat's ear in the opening.  With a quick and swift motion, cut the ear off.  Because there will be a little bit of blood, you should now cover the cat's head with the towel to soak up any blood that comes out.  The bleeding will stop on its own, but will stop even quicker if you apply proper pressure to the head for at least 15 minutes.  Now your cat is good and ready to go and live out the rest of its happy life :-)
Estimated procedure time- 3 minutes (2 seconds for the necessary physical preparation and the cyst removal)

*Please note that the patient has already ruled out "Option A" due to cost

No animals were harmed in the writing of this blog post.