‘Jon, before I go, can I just ask you about something else?’ Miss Toyah asked as I went to get the door for her and Sally.
‘Of course.’
‘I have two male sugar gliders, they’re brothers. I’ve had them about four months and they’ve been fine together. But recently they’ve started fighting quite a lot, so I think I need to get them castrated. Do you think that would help, and is that something you’d be happy to do?’
‘If they’re young males then they’re probably just reaching sexual maturity, in which case castrating them does usually help, yes,’ I replied confidently. ‘But it’ll take several weeks before the hormone levels are reduced so it won’t be an instant cure. In terms of castrating them, I’m sure you can appreciate that we don’t see many sugar gliders, but I’ll read up on their specifics and I’m very happy to do the surgeries.’
‘Oh, that would be great. I know that self-mutilation is a big problem with them post surgery, so good pain relief and feeding them on recovery really helps … but I don’t want to tell you your job.’
‘No problem. I’ll look into all those things, and if you want them done sooner rather than later I could always do them this Wednesday?’
Miss Toyah gratefully agreed, and after showing her out I quickly googled ‘sugar glider’ on the office computer. Kind of a cross between a chinchilla and a hamster. Who knew?
I spent my Tuesday evening researching and finding out everything I could about the sugar glider and what I needed to know in order to successfully operate on these two on Wednesday. Self-traumatization was indeed a big issue, as Miss Toyah had said; Buprenorphine was the recommended painkiller of choice; oh, and the male sugar glider had a bifurcated penis. Not that this would have much bearing on my surgery, but it’s always good to learn an interesting fact! Armed with all this newly acquired, if moderate, level of knowledge of Petaurus breviceps, I felt prepared enough for the procedures that lay ahead.
‘Oh my goodness you have got to take a look at the two sugar gilders,’ said Julie as she came into the prep room that morning. ‘They are so unbelievably cute, with their big eyes and little noses.’
‘You’ve admitted them, then?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, they were the first on the list to arrive. The owner’s brought some food for them, and says we have to feed them as soon as they wake up,’ she added, and then, with a slightly puzzled air, ‘And she’s also brought some pouches to put them in afterwards.’
‘Yeah, they’re prone to self-traumatizing on recovery so you have to feed them as soon as they wake up to distract them. Being marsupials, the pouches will probably make them feel secure and less interested in their wound.’
‘Huh. You seem to know a lot about them, Jon. I can see someone’s been doing their homework. I’d never heard of a sugar glider before yesterday.’
‘I might have had a bit of a read last night,’ I admitted. ‘They’re actually really interesting. Sugar gliders are nocturnal, which is why they have such large eyes. They literally glide through the air, travelling from branch to branch in search of sugary nectarous food. Hence the name.’
‘Huh, cool. So where do they come from, and do many people have them as pets?’
‘They originate from Australasia, and they’ve got quite a fan base in the States as a pet, apparently, but are only just starting to gain some popularity over here, which makes them pretty sought after and quite expensive.’
‘Listen to you! You have been doing your homework! So what’s the plan with the anaesthetic?’
‘There are a couple of different protocols that I’ve found, but given their small size I think it’ll be best to just gas them down. I don’t particularly fancy trying to give them an intramuscular injection when they’re awake, it’ll just stress them out.’
‘Sounds logical. And what about analgesia?’
‘Buprenorphine is best. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatories are debatable, so we’ll steer clear of them.’
‘OK, glad you know what you’re doing. So what order do you want to do the ops in?’
‘Let’s do the cats first, then the dog, then the lump removal, then the sugar gliders and we’ll finish with the dental.’
Two hours later and I was putting the final stitch in a ten-year-old female boxer, from whom I had removed a suspicious-looking lump in her left flank, and the time had come to turn my attention to our two little Antipodean friends.
‘Do you want Sean or Shane first?’ Julie asked.
Sean and Shane the Australian sugar gliders? Of course, what else could they be called? Especially with Socrates and Shakespeare the cats and a skunk called Sally. I wondered how many other animals she had. Simon the salamander, perhaps, Seth the saluki. ‘I don’t mind. Can you tell them apart?’
‘Apparently Shane has a larger black stripe on his forehead and a more yellow tinge to his underbelly compared to Sean.’
‘Good to know. Well whichever, I honestly don’t mind.’
We carried Maisie the boxer back to her kennel where Heather would recover her, and then returned to the prep room to prepare for the first sugar glider. With everything set, Julie disappeared, returning moments later with a small bundle in her hands, which she placed in a small box on the table. A little nose poked out from a green knitted pouch, followed by two beady eyes eagerly searching for something to munch on. I had to admit he was pretty adorable. The box Julie had placed him in was specially designed to anaesthetize any such small animal. Closing the lid on it, I connected up the anaesthetic machine and turned it on, thus delivering a mixture of oxygen and vaporized Isoflurane into the box. After a few minutes the sugar glider was sound asleep. I flushed the box with air before opening it and removed the little fella.
‘So this is probably Shane then?’ I said, seeing the large black stripe on his forehead.
‘Yeah, I think so,’ Julie agreed as she connected a small anaesthetic mask to the machine, which we then put over Shane’s mouth and nose to maintain anaesthesia throughout the procedure.
Turning Shane over, I got quite the anatomical shock. None of my extensive reading up on sugar gliders had prepared me for quite how large and pendulous their testicles were.
‘That’s quite the landing gear for these little fliers,’ Julie commented.
‘Indeed. I understand now why they refer to them as the “pom-pom”!’
‘The what?’
‘Apparently a sugar glider’s testicle sac is referred to as the pom-pom.’
‘You serious? I love it. Well, do you remove the pom-pom at the same time as the testicles?
‘I’ve read about both the normal technique and the scrotal ablation, or de-pom-pomming, but I haven’t really decided which I was going to do. I was going to see when I did the surgery.’
‘De-pom-pomming? Amazing! Is that the technical term? So, do you want me to clip up the pom-poms and prep him?’
‘Let’s get him settled in theatre on a heat pad and make sure he’s stable. I’ll draw up some Buprenorphine and scrub up while you prep him.’
‘Sure.’
I calculated the dose – barely a needle full – drew it up and gave it under the skin. Shane didn’t flinch.
‘He seems nicely asleep,’ I said to Julie as she busied herself setting him up on a pile of towels over a heat mat and cocooned in a space blanket.
‘That should keep him cosy and warm.’
I started washing my hands as Julie clipped away at the surgical site. It was a delicate procedure which she took great time and care over. So much so, that I’d finished scrubbing up before she had finished, so she briefly broke away to open my sterile kits, which contained hand towels, drapes and surgical instruments. With my sterile gloves on, I started laying out the instruments and sorting through the equipment, and Julie turned her attention back to clipping.