Manatee Blues Read Online Free

points. “Can you see this indentation behind her head?” she asks.
    “Yes,” I say.
    “It shouldn’t be here. A healthy manatee has a fat, round head with no signs of having a neck at all. This”—she kneels down and points to the curve in Violet’s head—”is what we call ‘peanut head’ because it’s shaped like a peanut. It is a sign that she’s dehydrated—she doesn’t have enough fluids and nutrients in her body. I’m sure you know how dangerous that is.”
    Gretchen stands up. “Violet was probably hit by that boat a couple of weeks ago.”
    “Weeks ago?” I echo. “She’s been hurt like this for weeks? That’s horrible!”
    “I agree,” Gretchen continues. “She hasn’t been eating and has gotten weaker and weaker from her injuries. She’s lost a lot of weight and is worn out. Another day or so and she could have died.”
    “Are you going to give her an I.V.?” Maggie asks Gretchen.
    When a patient at the animal clinic is dehydrated, Dr. Mac sets up an I.V. to send nutritious fluids right into the animal’s bloodstream.
    “Good question,” Gretchen says. “But we can’t do that with manatees. Their cardiovascular system is wired very differently from that of other animals. It helps them thermoregulate—control the temperature of their bodies—but makes it impossible to rehydrate them with an I.V. If she were a little stronger, we’d just let her eat and drink on her own. But because she really needs nutrients and fluids, we’re going to put a tubedown into her stomach and feed her that way.” She turns to Carlos. “All set?”
    Carlos holds Violet’s head while Gretchen takes a thin plastic tube and inserts it through Violet’s right nose flap. The tube keeps going and going. It must be a long way down to the stomach.
    “There we go,” Gretchen says when she finally stops inserting the tube. “Do you have the funnel?” she asks Carlos.
    “Right here,” he says.
    Carlos inserts a funnel in the end of the tube. Gretchen opens a plastic bottle of clear liquid and slowly pours it into the funnel. The liquid goes down the tube, into Violet’s stomach. The manatee just lies there. She really must be sick. If anybody did that to me, I’d be out of there in a flash.
    “Since she’s so severely dehydrated, we’re giving her the replacement fluid farmers use for sick cows,” Gretchen says. “Hopefully, it will help her get her energy back.” She pauses while the last of the fluid flows down the tube. “By tomorrow, we should be able to start feeding her a lettuce slush. The goal is to get her back to eating on her own as soon as possible.”
    “Lettuce slush? Yuck!” says Zoe.
    While Carlos removes the feeding tube, Gretchen puts on a stethoscope and slides the end of it all the way down Violet’s back.
    “Why is she doing that?” Zoe asks Dr. Mac. “The lungs are up in the chest, not down there, right?”
    “Manatees have unusual lungs,” Dr. Mac explains. “They are very long and flat, extending all the way down the back. Large lungs help a manatee control its buoyancy, how high or low it floats in the water. Their bones help them, too. They are solid, not hollow like our bones. That makes them very heavy. By exhaling, the manatee can sink or dive deeper. By keeping her lungs inflated, she can float at the surface. These are great adaptations to the environment the manatees live in.”
    Gretchen takes the stethoscope out of her ears. “When we have an animal with an old pneumothorax like this, we have to worry about a dead lung,” she says. “That’s when the punctured lung has actually died and started to decay. It’s bad.”
    “Does she have it?” I ask.
    “I’m not sure yet, but I don’t think so. Her breath smells pretty good, for a manatee. If she had a dead lung, we’d notice a rotting smell. When I X-ray, I’ll see if there is any fluid in the chest cavity.”
    She turns to her assistant. “Left lung deflated, left side pneumothorax, right