This is a story about a dog. That dog's name? You guessed it--Harper. But before I tell you my story, there is one fact that you should know about me. I am notorious for getting blood on my scrubs at work. It happens literally almost every day, and most of the time, I'm not even sure how it happens.
Our story begins around 5:30 pm on Tuesday, December 9. I'm sitting at work and in comes Harper, a 90 pound all white Alaskan malamute. For the previous 2 days, Harper had been vomiting and having diarrhea, and not wanting to eat. The day before that started, he ate a whole loaf of bread. (Granted, for a 90 pound malamute, that's not that significant. But it could cause some stomach upset.) So the doctor recommended the necessary diagnostics to rule out several possible causes--radiographs, bloodwork panel, CPL (pancreatitis test), fecal exam, giardia test. The owner approved the diagnostics, and so we took Harper back to the treatment room to get started. But of course, this is a fairly young, big malamute. He wasn't very happy with what we were going to do to him. It took 3 of us to try to hold him down to get a blood sample, and even then we couldn't do it. He was just too big and feisty. He liked to thrash his head and kick his front legs out at our faces. Dr. Kohler got scratched in several places, and I got a pretty significant bruise on my head. It wasn't going to be done. Our only option at this point was to sedate him in order to get all of the samples we needed and to take radiographs without him flailing all over the place. But it was after 6:00 by this point, and we were closing in an hour. So he had to come back the next day.
Day 2 of Harper: Wednesday, December 10, 8:30 am.
We inject the medications into his muscle, and within about 20 minutes, he is out. We are able to take x-rays, draw blood, and get fecal samples without any trouble at all. I discovered he actually looks quite cuddly and adorable when he's unconscious and not trying to tear my face off. As he is laying sedated on the floor, we are running the diagnostics to see what we can find. After all tests come back normal, we decided to start him on IV fluids because he was dehydrated due to losing water via vomiting/diarrhea. So I placed a catheter in his leg (you should just assume from this point on, anytime I say catheter, it means IV catheter, not urinary catheter). For the next 3 hours, Harper was slowly waking up as the sedative wore off. We checked on him occasionally to make sure he was doing okay and that the catheter was still in. After he had gotten about 600 mL of fluids, the fluid pump beeped at me and I went to check on him. As soon as I looked at his kennel, I saw it--the massive blood bath that was covering him and the entire inside of the kennel. (Keep in mind, this is a completely white dog.) Harper had lain down on the fluid line, causing it to disconnect from the cap on the catheter. Fluids continued to flow into the kennel while Harper's blood kept seeping out of his vein. I rushed to turn off the fluids and stop the bleeding. It took several minutes to clean up all the blood, and we had to give Harper a bath in hydrogen peroxide to remove the blood stains. As soon as I had him all cleaned up and was reconnecting the fluid line, Harper decides to get up and walk away, pulling the cap out of the catheter in the process. So of course, this makes him start bleeding. Again. But this time, the blood was coming out faster. Two other techs tried to help me get the cap back on, to no avail. We decided that he was done with fluids for the day, and removed the catheter altogether. It took even longer to clean him up this time, because he was more awake and getting very impatient. He didn't like being cleaned. By the time we were done, I had blood covering my arms up to my elbows, and the treatment room looked like a crime scene. Harper was finally clean, but everything else was super bloody. The rest of the day, he was pretty calm and just slept most of the time, howling on occasion.
Through all of this excitement, I amazingly managed to not get ANY blood on my scrubs. Not one drop. And for me, that's worth celebrating. That pretty much just made my week.
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Gender confusion and nail trims.
It's been a while. I've been pretty busy with work and managing two living spaces for the past couple months, and nothing too exciting has happened at work. Nothing worth putting on here, anyway. Just average work-related things. Today was kind of exciting, though. Not that we were busy or anything, cuz we've been super slow lately. We're short-staffed and trying to hire new people, so it's gonna take a little time to get back on track.
So far this week I've had all surgery shifts. I enjoy it. We only had two today. In fact, we've only had two surgeries all week as long as I've been on surgery. And I wasn't about to let my streak end today. So, of course, only two of the three showed up. Again. One of the ones that showed up for a dental was a cat named Bella. A boy cat named Bella. Who the heck names a boy cat Bella?? That's exactly what I was thinking as I was talking to the owner while dropping off this cat. The owner had her 7-8 year old daughter with her. As I was explaining the procedure for the dental, I kept referring to the cat as "he", which I thought was appropriate considering it is, in fact, a male cat. I then noticed the owner gesturing behind her daughter and mouthing the word "she". I said something to the effect of the computer is telling me he's a boy. So of course, the daughter turns around and says, "Bella's a boy?" It was then I realized that the daughter obviously thinks this is a girl cat (which is why he is named Bella), and the parents didn't bother to tell her that it's actually a boy. Poor cat. No wonder he was so angry. I would be too.
One of the semi-exciting things that happened today was another fun nail trim. Nail trims are always fun. We have this yellow lab named Joey that comes in often for nail trims, and he freaks out so much that it takes at least 4 of us to get it done. He came in last week, and clocked me pretty good in the jaw. I got a bruise and bit my tongue. The one today was a different kind of exciting though. Another yellow lab, his name is Shadow, and he is very overweight. 122 pounds. And he should probably be about 70. So we had him laying on his side so we could handle him more easily. The nail trim itself wasn't terrible. But then he started to get up. I was holding onto his leash, and as I was still sitting on the floor, he decides to make a run for the door. And drag me along with him. He pulled me probably about 10 feet before I finally just let go and let him stand by the door. At least he didn't run me into anything.
I also broke the pressure gauge on the oxygen tank today. But that's not nearly as exciting. Besides, it's really easy to get a replacement one.
I don't feel like typing anymore. I need a nap.
So far this week I've had all surgery shifts. I enjoy it. We only had two today. In fact, we've only had two surgeries all week as long as I've been on surgery. And I wasn't about to let my streak end today. So, of course, only two of the three showed up. Again. One of the ones that showed up for a dental was a cat named Bella. A boy cat named Bella. Who the heck names a boy cat Bella?? That's exactly what I was thinking as I was talking to the owner while dropping off this cat. The owner had her 7-8 year old daughter with her. As I was explaining the procedure for the dental, I kept referring to the cat as "he", which I thought was appropriate considering it is, in fact, a male cat. I then noticed the owner gesturing behind her daughter and mouthing the word "she". I said something to the effect of the computer is telling me he's a boy. So of course, the daughter turns around and says, "Bella's a boy?" It was then I realized that the daughter obviously thinks this is a girl cat (which is why he is named Bella), and the parents didn't bother to tell her that it's actually a boy. Poor cat. No wonder he was so angry. I would be too.
One of the semi-exciting things that happened today was another fun nail trim. Nail trims are always fun. We have this yellow lab named Joey that comes in often for nail trims, and he freaks out so much that it takes at least 4 of us to get it done. He came in last week, and clocked me pretty good in the jaw. I got a bruise and bit my tongue. The one today was a different kind of exciting though. Another yellow lab, his name is Shadow, and he is very overweight. 122 pounds. And he should probably be about 70. So we had him laying on his side so we could handle him more easily. The nail trim itself wasn't terrible. But then he started to get up. I was holding onto his leash, and as I was still sitting on the floor, he decides to make a run for the door. And drag me along with him. He pulled me probably about 10 feet before I finally just let go and let him stand by the door. At least he didn't run me into anything.
I also broke the pressure gauge on the oxygen tank today. But that's not nearly as exciting. Besides, it's really easy to get a replacement one.
I don't feel like typing anymore. I need a nap.
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
I don't feel like being creative, so I'm just gonna call this post 5/21/2014.
Okay, so I haven't posted in a while. I don't really remember much about the last month or so that would be interesting enough to put on here, so I'll just tell you about the awesome day I had today.
For starters, I was on a surgery shift, which means I have to be at work at 6:30. Usually not a good start to my day, considering I'm not a morning person. EVER. And today was worse, because this was the third day in a row I had to be awake before 6. But I generally enjoy surgery shifts, so it's kind of bittersweet.
Once I got all of my surgery pets dropped off, we ran bloodwork on them and placed IV catheters to prepare them for anesthesia. The surgery doctor usually arrives by 8:30. That didn't happen today. So she was running a little late. It happens. 9:00 rolls around. Still no doctors. By now, all of us techs were starting to worry because neither of our 2 scheduled doctors had shown up, and we had appointments beginning at 9:45. We tried calling them to see if we could find out why they weren't there, but had no luck. Now it's 9:15. Still not there. One of the techs thought maybe they got into a car crash with each other. I was starting to think we would have to call all the appointments and say, "Our doctors have disappeared, so we can't see you today." We were all freaking out and becoming very frustrated because none of us knew what was going on. I had all of my pets ready for surgery, and was running out of things to do. Finally we were able to get ahold of our third doctor (who wasn't actually scheduled), and she told us they had a meeting this morning and were on their way. Yeah, that would have been nice to know earlier. So we got a little bit of a late start.
Most of the surgeries went pretty smoothly, with only a couple of extractions on a very angry cat. Also, I did something today that I've never done before. I placed an IV catheter in this very angry cat while it was laying on its side. It wasn't easy, but somehow I was able to do it. Well, the cat was sedated at the time. So that made it a little bit easier....but it sounds more impressive without that little detail. Another first for me was this cat's owner pre-approved extractions for the cat when he dropped off in the morning. Apparently it wasn't really a big deal for him to pay $600, so he was just like, "I'm busy all day. Don't call me unless it's an emergency. If he needs extractions, do it." So that made our job a tiny bit easier.
We finished with surgeries around 4:00, and I finally got to eat my lunch that Bre bought me from Subway. Well, I bought it, but she was nice enough to go get it for me. She also bought herself a sandwich with my money, so it was more like I bribed her. But either way, I got Subway for lunch. That made me happy. We also had a meeting from 6:30pm-8:00, so we ordered pizza. That also made me happy. Plus, another tech I work with brought me a Dr Pepper. For no reason. That just made my whole day better. So yeah, I was at work literally all day, about 14 hours.
One upside to my freakishly long day: I met Tigger's twin. This isn't like Sprite's twin who is evil. Tigger's twin is a sweet old cat with hyperthyroidism who comes in about once a month for a thyroid check. He's very nice. And they're literally identical.
For starters, I was on a surgery shift, which means I have to be at work at 6:30. Usually not a good start to my day, considering I'm not a morning person. EVER. And today was worse, because this was the third day in a row I had to be awake before 6. But I generally enjoy surgery shifts, so it's kind of bittersweet.
Once I got all of my surgery pets dropped off, we ran bloodwork on them and placed IV catheters to prepare them for anesthesia. The surgery doctor usually arrives by 8:30. That didn't happen today. So she was running a little late. It happens. 9:00 rolls around. Still no doctors. By now, all of us techs were starting to worry because neither of our 2 scheduled doctors had shown up, and we had appointments beginning at 9:45. We tried calling them to see if we could find out why they weren't there, but had no luck. Now it's 9:15. Still not there. One of the techs thought maybe they got into a car crash with each other. I was starting to think we would have to call all the appointments and say, "Our doctors have disappeared, so we can't see you today." We were all freaking out and becoming very frustrated because none of us knew what was going on. I had all of my pets ready for surgery, and was running out of things to do. Finally we were able to get ahold of our third doctor (who wasn't actually scheduled), and she told us they had a meeting this morning and were on their way. Yeah, that would have been nice to know earlier. So we got a little bit of a late start.
Most of the surgeries went pretty smoothly, with only a couple of extractions on a very angry cat. Also, I did something today that I've never done before. I placed an IV catheter in this very angry cat while it was laying on its side. It wasn't easy, but somehow I was able to do it. Well, the cat was sedated at the time. So that made it a little bit easier....but it sounds more impressive without that little detail. Another first for me was this cat's owner pre-approved extractions for the cat when he dropped off in the morning. Apparently it wasn't really a big deal for him to pay $600, so he was just like, "I'm busy all day. Don't call me unless it's an emergency. If he needs extractions, do it." So that made our job a tiny bit easier.
We finished with surgeries around 4:00, and I finally got to eat my lunch that Bre bought me from Subway. Well, I bought it, but she was nice enough to go get it for me. She also bought herself a sandwich with my money, so it was more like I bribed her. But either way, I got Subway for lunch. That made me happy. We also had a meeting from 6:30pm-8:00, so we ordered pizza. That also made me happy. Plus, another tech I work with brought me a Dr Pepper. For no reason. That just made my whole day better. So yeah, I was at work literally all day, about 14 hours.
One upside to my freakishly long day: I met Tigger's twin. This isn't like Sprite's twin who is evil. Tigger's twin is a sweet old cat with hyperthyroidism who comes in about once a month for a thyroid check. He's very nice. And they're literally identical.
This is Tigger.
This is Tigger's twin. He's a lot skinnier, but otherwise identical.
So yeah. That was my day. I now have about 35 hours for the week, and I have 2 more days to work. I'm so ready for this week to be done. Cuz then I get to go on a 2 week vacation.
And with the ending to my day, I will leave you with this cute picture of Sprite sleeping on a kitty pillow.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Update on Sam (and other random thoughts)
We recently got the results back from the U of M regarding the necropsy (autopsy) of Sam, the dog who died from cardiac arrest. The results showed that he had a large tumor--most likely cancerous--on his spleen that ruptured following anesthesia. We never saw it coming! I mean, this dog's bloodwork was completely normal, he wasn't acting out of the ordinary, or anything. He seemed a perfectly normal healthy dog. But it kind of made all of us feel slightly better about the whole situation. Not that we're happy about what happened, but at least there was a reason for his passing; it wasn't anything that could have been prevented.
In other news, I met Sprite's evil twin today. Literally, these cats look almost identical. The only difference is that Sprite has a half white/half black nose, and a gray spot on her head, whereas her twin's face is all black. Oh, and her twin is seriously evil. I couldn't come within 10 feet of her without her hissing. Even 10 minutes after she woke up from her spay earlier today, she was growling and hissing and freaking out, trying to lick at her incision. For the most part, she was fine until you went near her. Otherwise she wouldn't make a sound.
Work is making me exhausted, guys. I'll be honest, I need like a week off right now. I've been working 50+ hours a week for the last 2 weeks, and I'll probably end up getting at least 60 this week. On the bright side, I'm still getting 2 days off. But the days I do work are super long and tiring. For instance, today I was on a surgery shift. I was scheduled to work 6:30-4:30. I ended up going on my lunch break at 4:45, and worked until 7:00. I went 11 hours without eating. It wasn't pretty. One positive note from today: we might have had to do a foreign body surgery today, but didn't do it because the owner couldn't afford it. If we did the surgery, I might have stayed til 9. So that's a plus. Although, in a way I wish we would have done it, for the sake of the dog. Poor guy.
One of the most adorable puppies came in yesterday. She was a corgi/border collie mix, but she looked like a full-grown long-haired dachshund. 12 weeks old, black, long silky hair, the cutest little puppy. And smart, too. Her owner said she was already potty trained and knows how to sit. She didn't bark or whine at all while she was at the clinic, and she liked to cuddle. Overall, I'd say she's a perfect puppy. I wish I had a picture of her so I could show you guys. Cuz she's adorable.
In other news, I met Sprite's evil twin today. Literally, these cats look almost identical. The only difference is that Sprite has a half white/half black nose, and a gray spot on her head, whereas her twin's face is all black. Oh, and her twin is seriously evil. I couldn't come within 10 feet of her without her hissing. Even 10 minutes after she woke up from her spay earlier today, she was growling and hissing and freaking out, trying to lick at her incision. For the most part, she was fine until you went near her. Otherwise she wouldn't make a sound.
Work is making me exhausted, guys. I'll be honest, I need like a week off right now. I've been working 50+ hours a week for the last 2 weeks, and I'll probably end up getting at least 60 this week. On the bright side, I'm still getting 2 days off. But the days I do work are super long and tiring. For instance, today I was on a surgery shift. I was scheduled to work 6:30-4:30. I ended up going on my lunch break at 4:45, and worked until 7:00. I went 11 hours without eating. It wasn't pretty. One positive note from today: we might have had to do a foreign body surgery today, but didn't do it because the owner couldn't afford it. If we did the surgery, I might have stayed til 9. So that's a plus. Although, in a way I wish we would have done it, for the sake of the dog. Poor guy.
One of the most adorable puppies came in yesterday. She was a corgi/border collie mix, but she looked like a full-grown long-haired dachshund. 12 weeks old, black, long silky hair, the cutest little puppy. And smart, too. Her owner said she was already potty trained and knows how to sit. She didn't bark or whine at all while she was at the clinic, and she liked to cuddle. Overall, I'd say she's a perfect puppy. I wish I had a picture of her so I could show you guys. Cuz she's adorable.
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Perspective
This is the story of how I got peed on by a dead dog. Before you start laughing, it's not as funny as it sounds. Sure, the end is funny, but the story leading up to it--not so much.
We had always been taught in tech school that you should have a fear of anesthesia. But not like a phobia or anything, a healthy fear, a respect, the type of fear instilled in you when driving a car or handling a gun. One of my instructors always said that the day she stops having that fear in her is the day she stops monitoring for anesthesia. Why? Simply put, when the respectful fear is gone, it becomes more of just a routine, you get too comfortable, and that's when mistakes happen.
I know what you're thinking, and no, we did not lose a patient under anesthesia. But what did happen was almost worse. Almost.
It started out as any other busy day at the clinic. Full appointments, numerous early morning drop-offs, seven surgeries, 3 techs and 2 doctors. This was my fourth day in a row out of five, and I was pretty exhausted from the three days before. Even so, I still had to do my job and help out everyone else where I could. The morning went pretty smoothly in spite of being crazy busy, but it was just one of those days where you could feel something was different. Something in the atmosphere wasn't quite right, and you knew something bad was about to happen. Around 3:00, I came out of a room and noticed a lady sitting on the bench with her dog. This dog had just had a dental cleaning and was being discharged to go home. He was a bigger dog, about 105 pounds (his name was Sam). He was still really sleepy from the anesthesia, and didn't look like he wanted to move. I offered to help the lady take him out to the car, and she thanked me for the gesture, but she thought it might be better if he just stayed at the clinic for another hour or two to give him more time to wake up. I thought it was a good idea, and she helped me take him in the back and put him back in his kennel.
He laid in the kennel for a while, and as we walked by we would check on him to see how he was doing. This has also become a routine for most of us, and we don't really think much about it, especially when we're so busy doing other things, and sometimes don't even notice the dogs in the kennels unless they're barking at us. It sounds horrible, but that's how things go. (It doesn't help that we've been short staffed lately, so everybody's kind of stressed and trying to focus on what needs to be done.)
Shortly after Sam was put back in the kennel, the surgery doctor had just finished with a cat spay and was putting her in a kennel to recover. She noticed something wasn't quite right with Sam. He was breathing heavily and not responding to any noises. So she opened the kennel to look at him. His gums were a very pale shade of pink, and he had a slow blinking reflex. Immediately she got the other doctor to help put him on the stretcher to bring him over to the table and get him on oxygen. At this point, I had just walked into the back, so I didn't know what was going on. The first doctor shouted out that they needed help lifting him onto the table, so I grabbed the sides of the stretcher and lifted him up. I still didn't know what was happening, but both doctors and another tech were scrambling around, turning on oxygen and feeling for a pulse. That's when it hit me: Sam was crashing. We tried to intubate him but failed, so we just put a mask on him to give him oxygen. He had a steady but faint pulse, and low blood pressure. Doctor #2 grabbed a vial of glycopyrrolate and told me to hold off his vein so she could inject the drug. No luck finding the vein, so we attempted to place an IV catheter. His blood pressure was so low that we couldn't get a catheter in either of his front legs. Eventually we ended up successfully placing it in a rear leg, where we were able to give glycopyrrolate and epinephrine. After each time of injecting a drug, his pulse would get stronger and faster, but would grow fainter after about a minute. We decided to try to intubate him again, so that oxygen would be going straight to his lungs. I pulled out his tongue and it was cold and purple. We successfully intubated him that time, but he wasn't breathing on his own. That's when Doctor #1 made the decision to start chest compressions. Between the 2 doctors and 3 of us techs, we tag-teamed CPR for about 10 minutes, stopping after several compressions to check for a pulse. It was getting fainter every time. Our last hope was to inject epinephrine directly into the heart. For a few minutes after the injection, we continued with CPR. But Sam could not be revived.
We took x-rays afterwards and determined he had gone into cardiac arrest caused by anesthesia. It's a rare occurrence, but things like this happen. That's something that will stay with me for the rest of my life, and has really made me stop and think every time I monitor anesthesia now. This was the first time I was actually involved with something like this, and it's incredibly stressful. No amount of schooling can prepare you for these situations, and after that happened, guess what? I had to keep working. I didn't have time to relieve my stress. I had the worst headache for the rest of my shift, but for all the appointments I had to see, they didn't know what had just happened, so I had to act like nothing was wrong.
After we closed for the day, we had to transport Sam to the U of M to have him cremated. He was too big to fit in one bag, so we put a bag over his front half and one over his back half. As we were lifting his rear legs to put him in the bag, I was putting pressure on his abdomen and inadvertently squeezing his bladder. So of course that caused urine to go all over the table and my arm that was wrapped around him. And that's how I got peed on by a dead dog.
When I got home from work, I ate, I showered, I cried a little bit, and I slept it off. Unfortunately, I had to work another 12 hour shift the next day. That wasn't easy, but I got through it. I think that situation caused me to have a different perspective on the medical aspect of my job, not just for anesthesia, but for all of it. I also have a new-found respect for people who work in emergency medicine, both human and veterinary. It's not easy to go through those situations, and often we take for granted the routine of medical care without really thinking about the real-life risks of some of the things we do every day.
We had always been taught in tech school that you should have a fear of anesthesia. But not like a phobia or anything, a healthy fear, a respect, the type of fear instilled in you when driving a car or handling a gun. One of my instructors always said that the day she stops having that fear in her is the day she stops monitoring for anesthesia. Why? Simply put, when the respectful fear is gone, it becomes more of just a routine, you get too comfortable, and that's when mistakes happen.
I know what you're thinking, and no, we did not lose a patient under anesthesia. But what did happen was almost worse. Almost.
It started out as any other busy day at the clinic. Full appointments, numerous early morning drop-offs, seven surgeries, 3 techs and 2 doctors. This was my fourth day in a row out of five, and I was pretty exhausted from the three days before. Even so, I still had to do my job and help out everyone else where I could. The morning went pretty smoothly in spite of being crazy busy, but it was just one of those days where you could feel something was different. Something in the atmosphere wasn't quite right, and you knew something bad was about to happen. Around 3:00, I came out of a room and noticed a lady sitting on the bench with her dog. This dog had just had a dental cleaning and was being discharged to go home. He was a bigger dog, about 105 pounds (his name was Sam). He was still really sleepy from the anesthesia, and didn't look like he wanted to move. I offered to help the lady take him out to the car, and she thanked me for the gesture, but she thought it might be better if he just stayed at the clinic for another hour or two to give him more time to wake up. I thought it was a good idea, and she helped me take him in the back and put him back in his kennel.
He laid in the kennel for a while, and as we walked by we would check on him to see how he was doing. This has also become a routine for most of us, and we don't really think much about it, especially when we're so busy doing other things, and sometimes don't even notice the dogs in the kennels unless they're barking at us. It sounds horrible, but that's how things go. (It doesn't help that we've been short staffed lately, so everybody's kind of stressed and trying to focus on what needs to be done.)
Shortly after Sam was put back in the kennel, the surgery doctor had just finished with a cat spay and was putting her in a kennel to recover. She noticed something wasn't quite right with Sam. He was breathing heavily and not responding to any noises. So she opened the kennel to look at him. His gums were a very pale shade of pink, and he had a slow blinking reflex. Immediately she got the other doctor to help put him on the stretcher to bring him over to the table and get him on oxygen. At this point, I had just walked into the back, so I didn't know what was going on. The first doctor shouted out that they needed help lifting him onto the table, so I grabbed the sides of the stretcher and lifted him up. I still didn't know what was happening, but both doctors and another tech were scrambling around, turning on oxygen and feeling for a pulse. That's when it hit me: Sam was crashing. We tried to intubate him but failed, so we just put a mask on him to give him oxygen. He had a steady but faint pulse, and low blood pressure. Doctor #2 grabbed a vial of glycopyrrolate and told me to hold off his vein so she could inject the drug. No luck finding the vein, so we attempted to place an IV catheter. His blood pressure was so low that we couldn't get a catheter in either of his front legs. Eventually we ended up successfully placing it in a rear leg, where we were able to give glycopyrrolate and epinephrine. After each time of injecting a drug, his pulse would get stronger and faster, but would grow fainter after about a minute. We decided to try to intubate him again, so that oxygen would be going straight to his lungs. I pulled out his tongue and it was cold and purple. We successfully intubated him that time, but he wasn't breathing on his own. That's when Doctor #1 made the decision to start chest compressions. Between the 2 doctors and 3 of us techs, we tag-teamed CPR for about 10 minutes, stopping after several compressions to check for a pulse. It was getting fainter every time. Our last hope was to inject epinephrine directly into the heart. For a few minutes after the injection, we continued with CPR. But Sam could not be revived.
We took x-rays afterwards and determined he had gone into cardiac arrest caused by anesthesia. It's a rare occurrence, but things like this happen. That's something that will stay with me for the rest of my life, and has really made me stop and think every time I monitor anesthesia now. This was the first time I was actually involved with something like this, and it's incredibly stressful. No amount of schooling can prepare you for these situations, and after that happened, guess what? I had to keep working. I didn't have time to relieve my stress. I had the worst headache for the rest of my shift, but for all the appointments I had to see, they didn't know what had just happened, so I had to act like nothing was wrong.
After we closed for the day, we had to transport Sam to the U of M to have him cremated. He was too big to fit in one bag, so we put a bag over his front half and one over his back half. As we were lifting his rear legs to put him in the bag, I was putting pressure on his abdomen and inadvertently squeezing his bladder. So of course that caused urine to go all over the table and my arm that was wrapped around him. And that's how I got peed on by a dead dog.
When I got home from work, I ate, I showered, I cried a little bit, and I slept it off. Unfortunately, I had to work another 12 hour shift the next day. That wasn't easy, but I got through it. I think that situation caused me to have a different perspective on the medical aspect of my job, not just for anesthesia, but for all of it. I also have a new-found respect for people who work in emergency medicine, both human and veterinary. It's not easy to go through those situations, and often we take for granted the routine of medical care without really thinking about the real-life risks of some of the things we do every day.
Friday, March 7, 2014
Finding humor in unexpected places.
For some reason, a lot of my interesting stories this week involve euthanasias. I'd really like to share them, because they're actually kind of funny...in a weird kinda way (but hey, if you work in vet medicine long enough, you find humor in literally everything). So if you don't want to read about death, you should probably just leave this page right now.
Somewhat funny euthanasia story #1:
An old black lab came in to get an exam on her eye that was red and swollen and looked kind of gross. She also had a sore on the back of her leg that looked like a ruptured mass. Turns out, she had severe glaucoma in that eye, and the mass that ruptured was on one of her several swollen lymph nodes. Long story short, the owner couldn't afford the diagnostics and treatment that we recommended, and decided not to make the dog suffer anymore. But the owner didn't want to be present for the euthanasia. That actually turned out to be a good thing, because the dog was really anxious and flinchy, and didn't want to lay down. As the doctor was injecting the pentobarbital (euthanasia solution) into the IV catheter, the dog jerked, the syringe came out, and pentobarbital squirted everywhere. This happened twice before the dog passed. I now know what pentobarbital tastes like. It's quite disgusting.
Somewhat funny euthanasia story #2:
We had to euthanize a snake. I volunteered to help, because I was the only tech at the time that would handle a snake. It's basically the same as euthanizing a dog or cat, except you inject the solution into its heart. And you have to sedate it first. It just makes things a whole lot easier. As the doctor and I were watching the snake slowly lose consciousness from the anesthetic gas, we noticed how cute his little face was. And we both actually started getting sad. Then we disconnected him from the gas, felt for his heart, and stuck him with the needle. We both shed a tear or two while watching the snake take his last few breaths. It was sad, guys. Fast forward 2 days....we walk into the treatment room in the morning, and the smell of death is in the air. We have no idea where it's coming from, until one of the techs discovers something in the back kennel. It's the dead snake. On a heating pad. And it had been there for 2 days. Yeah. It smelled pretty bad. Don't ask me how we forgot to get rid of a dead snake, but somehow it happened.
Somewhat funny euthanasia story #3:
It was another old dog. He had several cancerous masses all over his body, arthritis in all his joints, and had a really hard time getting around. He was also a very sweet old dog. Oh yeah, and he weighed 130 pounds. This dog wasn't terribly huge, but he was definitely solid. So we went through the procedure, and afterwards we had to transport him. (We store them in a big freezer in the back until they get sent out to be cremated). We have this stretcher that's supposed to help lighten the load a little bit with such big dogs. After we managed to get a black bag around him, we rolled him over onto the stretcher, and proceeded to lift him off the floor to carry him into the back. We made it probably 10 feet, and I hear this big crack simultaneously with 130 pounds of dead weight being pulled down to the ground. Our one and only stretcher broke. Apparently it wasn't meant to hold that much weight. So we got a third person to help us drag the stretcher back to the freezer. Two people were pulling, I was pushing. If you can picture it, I was pushing this huge dog with my rear end sticking up in the air, slipping on the hard tile floor and trying not to run into walls. One of the techs working just looked at us and said, "Never a dull moment."
Hope you can find at least one of these stories as funny as I did. Otherwise, I'll just feel like a horrible person for laughing about dead things.
Somewhat funny euthanasia story #1:
An old black lab came in to get an exam on her eye that was red and swollen and looked kind of gross. She also had a sore on the back of her leg that looked like a ruptured mass. Turns out, she had severe glaucoma in that eye, and the mass that ruptured was on one of her several swollen lymph nodes. Long story short, the owner couldn't afford the diagnostics and treatment that we recommended, and decided not to make the dog suffer anymore. But the owner didn't want to be present for the euthanasia. That actually turned out to be a good thing, because the dog was really anxious and flinchy, and didn't want to lay down. As the doctor was injecting the pentobarbital (euthanasia solution) into the IV catheter, the dog jerked, the syringe came out, and pentobarbital squirted everywhere. This happened twice before the dog passed. I now know what pentobarbital tastes like. It's quite disgusting.
Somewhat funny euthanasia story #2:
We had to euthanize a snake. I volunteered to help, because I was the only tech at the time that would handle a snake. It's basically the same as euthanizing a dog or cat, except you inject the solution into its heart. And you have to sedate it first. It just makes things a whole lot easier. As the doctor and I were watching the snake slowly lose consciousness from the anesthetic gas, we noticed how cute his little face was. And we both actually started getting sad. Then we disconnected him from the gas, felt for his heart, and stuck him with the needle. We both shed a tear or two while watching the snake take his last few breaths. It was sad, guys. Fast forward 2 days....we walk into the treatment room in the morning, and the smell of death is in the air. We have no idea where it's coming from, until one of the techs discovers something in the back kennel. It's the dead snake. On a heating pad. And it had been there for 2 days. Yeah. It smelled pretty bad. Don't ask me how we forgot to get rid of a dead snake, but somehow it happened.
Somewhat funny euthanasia story #3:
It was another old dog. He had several cancerous masses all over his body, arthritis in all his joints, and had a really hard time getting around. He was also a very sweet old dog. Oh yeah, and he weighed 130 pounds. This dog wasn't terribly huge, but he was definitely solid. So we went through the procedure, and afterwards we had to transport him. (We store them in a big freezer in the back until they get sent out to be cremated). We have this stretcher that's supposed to help lighten the load a little bit with such big dogs. After we managed to get a black bag around him, we rolled him over onto the stretcher, and proceeded to lift him off the floor to carry him into the back. We made it probably 10 feet, and I hear this big crack simultaneously with 130 pounds of dead weight being pulled down to the ground. Our one and only stretcher broke. Apparently it wasn't meant to hold that much weight. So we got a third person to help us drag the stretcher back to the freezer. Two people were pulling, I was pushing. If you can picture it, I was pushing this huge dog with my rear end sticking up in the air, slipping on the hard tile floor and trying not to run into walls. One of the techs working just looked at us and said, "Never a dull moment."
Hope you can find at least one of these stories as funny as I did. Otherwise, I'll just feel like a horrible person for laughing about dead things.
Friday, February 21, 2014
Cats are weird.
It's amazing how many different personalities of cats there are. Not even dogs, just cats. And their personalities usually change when they're at the vet versus at home. For example, I have two cats. My older cat, Tigger, an almost 10 year old 12 pound orange tabby, is more laid back. He occasionally gets a spurt of energy, but will spend most of his day laying in a sunny spot on someone's bed. Sprite is younger, not quite 2 years old, 8 pounds. She is very active. She's also very vocal and food motivated. She always greets me at the door when I come home, meowing and whining like crazy out of excitement because she expects food. This happens every time I come home, even if I was only gone for 2 minutes. And she doesn't do it for anybody else, just me. I've even taught her how to sit. Kind of. Anyways, she has such a different personality when she's at the vet. She just sits there, not wanting to move out of fear, she doesn't vocalize at all, and just clings to me. Tigger, however, will roam around the room and check everything out. Very different cats.
There was a cat in to be spayed today. She was weird. And slightly psychotic. When she was in her kennel, she would chew on the door, wrap her paws around it, and put her hind legs in the air, while screaming quite loudly. After her spay, she kept getting her cone off and licking at her incision. I could only wonder what this cat is like at home.
Other cats are really sweet when they're at home, or even with their owners at the vet, but the second you take them in the back, they turn into spawn of Satan. And then you can't do anything with them. You even look at them and they flip out. This is where a little miracle called DKT comes in handy. It's a mixture or "cocktail" of drugs that is the greatest thing invented for angry cats. It consists of dexmedetomidine, ketamine, and butorphanol. Within about 10-20 minutes of injecting the drugs, the cat is out. At this point, we can handle the cat and do whatever exam or diagnostics we need to do. We had a cat last week that came in for a dental, and as soon as I went to pick up his carrier, he started hissing and growling and just freaking out. We gave him DKT, let him sit and calm down for about 15 minutes, then took him out of the carrier. We drew his blood, placed an IV catheter, performed the dental cleaning, and then started waking him up. We didn't expect him to wake up so quickly, and as I was taking out his catheter, he growled and bit me. He was still pretty out of it, but awake enough to be freaking out again. I'm sure he's nice and sweet at home, but polar opposite while at the vet.
My least favorite cat breed is Siamese. Sure, they're intelligent, but they're loud and obnoxious and quite frankly, rather psychotic. My favorite breed is Maine Coon. They're big and long-haired, which is the main reason I probably won't actually get one, but they have the most mellow, laid-back temperament of any cat. And they have awesome green eyes. But, my overall favorite type of cat is a polydactyl brown tabby. For those of you who don't know what polydactyl means, literally it means "many toes". Polydactyl cats have extra toes, which means they have huge paws. I love it. And it's most common in brown tabbies, which I like even without 28 toes.
There was a cat in to be spayed today. She was weird. And slightly psychotic. When she was in her kennel, she would chew on the door, wrap her paws around it, and put her hind legs in the air, while screaming quite loudly. After her spay, she kept getting her cone off and licking at her incision. I could only wonder what this cat is like at home.
Other cats are really sweet when they're at home, or even with their owners at the vet, but the second you take them in the back, they turn into spawn of Satan. And then you can't do anything with them. You even look at them and they flip out. This is where a little miracle called DKT comes in handy. It's a mixture or "cocktail" of drugs that is the greatest thing invented for angry cats. It consists of dexmedetomidine, ketamine, and butorphanol. Within about 10-20 minutes of injecting the drugs, the cat is out. At this point, we can handle the cat and do whatever exam or diagnostics we need to do. We had a cat last week that came in for a dental, and as soon as I went to pick up his carrier, he started hissing and growling and just freaking out. We gave him DKT, let him sit and calm down for about 15 minutes, then took him out of the carrier. We drew his blood, placed an IV catheter, performed the dental cleaning, and then started waking him up. We didn't expect him to wake up so quickly, and as I was taking out his catheter, he growled and bit me. He was still pretty out of it, but awake enough to be freaking out again. I'm sure he's nice and sweet at home, but polar opposite while at the vet.
My least favorite cat breed is Siamese. Sure, they're intelligent, but they're loud and obnoxious and quite frankly, rather psychotic. My favorite breed is Maine Coon. They're big and long-haired, which is the main reason I probably won't actually get one, but they have the most mellow, laid-back temperament of any cat. And they have awesome green eyes. But, my overall favorite type of cat is a polydactyl brown tabby. For those of you who don't know what polydactyl means, literally it means "many toes". Polydactyl cats have extra toes, which means they have huge paws. I love it. And it's most common in brown tabbies, which I like even without 28 toes.
This is a picture of polydactyl cat paws. Aren't they awesome??
And this is the cat those paws belong to. He's a cutie. :)
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
This job gives a whole new meaning to "Blood, Sweat, and Tears"
I'm sure you guys are tired of hearing about my long days, but I just have to vent about this one.
I was on surgery again today. I don't know why, but I always seem to end up with the difficult surgery days. Five were scheduled: 4 dentals and a spay. Now, surgery appointments are supposed to drop off between 7 and 7:30 in the morning so we have plenty of time to run bloodwork and the doctor can do her exam and call the owners with any questions or concerns. Three of them showed up by 7:45; the other two didn't come in until after 8:30. The owner of these 2 pets told me, "I'm in a hurry, I really need to get going." Which really makes me want to question him as to why he decided to show up an hour late. --Frustration number 1.
Frustration number 2 begins with the scheduled spay. To start off, this dog was a 7 month old, 70 pound lab puppy. What's wrong with this picture?? a) Dogs and cats should be spayed or neutered by 6 months at the absolute latest. This is when they reach sexual maturity, and several complications can occur. For instance, if this dog we spayed today had been in heat, not only does that mean an additional charge of $65 for the owner, but a lot of extra bleeding in the abdomen, which can and will extend the time of the surgery. b) Performing abdominal surgery on a 70 pound puppy is not an ideal situation for many reasons. The larger the animal, the longer it takes for the incision to heal, allowing for opportunities for infection to occur. Also, the fact that this is a lab puppy (and a very untrained one at that), it will be very difficult to keep her from jumping and running around, tearing the incision open, thus allowing for even more opportunities for infection to occur. Infection means extensively longer healing time, pain and discomfort for the dog, being on antibiotics for several weeks, and more money spent by the client.
Part B of Frustration number 2: I mentioned earlier that this puppy is very untrained. I'm saying, like as untrained as a dog can be. First of all, as I was talking to the owner about what to expect for the surgery, the dog isn't sitting nicely beside him. Of course not, why would she? Instead, she is jumping up on me, thrusting her whole 70 pounds and long nails on top of me repeatedly while her owner just sits there and laughs. It's not funny. I wanted to tell him to get his dog off of me, and make her sit like she actually has some manners. Also, this dog hates going in kennels. It's not exactly easy to force a 70 pound dog into a kennel. Needless to say, I got my workout early in the day. To top it all off, these people have her littermate, an intact male dog, running loose in the house with her. They are so oblivious that they think just because their dogs are brother and sister, they won't make puppies. I mean seriously, do they know NOTHING about dogs?!?! It pains me to think about it. So we were worried that we might find little tiny puppies when performing the spay. Fortunately, though, we did not. Even so, the spay took almost 2 hours.
Frustration number 3: After our surgeries were finished, I was helping out everybody else around the clinic. One dog came in for a nail trim. I was thinking, this is gonna be quick and easy. Little did I know the dog had something different in mind. I was trimming the nails, and I quicked one of them. (For those of you who don't know, there's this thing called the quick inside of dog and cat nails. It's basically the blood supply. To quick a nail means to cut the part and make them bleed.) So I got some quickstop (powder to stop the bleeding), put it on the nail, and continued trimming. A couple minutes later, I noticed the nail was still bleeding. This dog was really worked up, so she probably had high blood pressure at the moment. I put more quickstop on it and finished the nail trim. When I was done, the nail was STILL bleeding. So what did I do?? That's right, I grabbed more quickstop. This time, I held it on the nail for a good 2 minutes before walking the dog back to its owner. No more bleeding, but by this point, half of the treatment room looked like a crime scene, as did my scrub pants.
4th and final frustration of the day: We were so busy, I offered to stay past my scheduled shift and help people finish up things they needed to get done. I didn't mind, but I ended up staying until almost 7:30 after arriving at work at 6:30 this morning.
So that's my day in a little more than a nutshell. Hopefully my future posts won't have as much venting in them. Also, I discovered this today and it made me laugh:
Friday, February 7, 2014
Conventions 101
I went to a convention today. The MVMA convention, to be exact. What does that stand for?? I'm glad you asked. The MVMA is the Minnesota Veterinary Medical Association. I've never been to a convention like this before, and I figured I would get a head start on my CE (continuing education) credits. I don't even have my paperwork for my certification yet, but it can't hurt to start early. I had fun, I learned a lot, I even saw a few people that I know. Plus, I got all this cool free stuff!
This is some of the cool stuff I got. Can't beat free!
I also got a leash. I put it on Sprite's collar to see how she would react. Let's just say she didn't really catch on to what it is and how to use it. Currently she is running around the house trying to figure out why this weird red string is chasing her.
I like conventions. Not just because I get free things, or because of the muffins (free muffins!). The whole point of this convention was to learn something. I learned quite a few things. I won't bore you with the details, but the classes I took were about how to handle aggression in dogs, and client education on preventive care. I'm so glad I went, because now I have learned several important things that I can implement in my clinic, and hopefully lead my co-workers to implement those things as well.
I've also decided that I need to be better about brushing my pets' teeth and giving them heartworm prevention every month. You people should do the same. If you want to know why, I'll be glad to start a conversation with you via facebook or email, because it would take up way too much space if I wrote all my thoughts on the subject on here.
Me with my name tag, just in case you didn't believe I was actually there. I was.
I had this incredibly good pizza today. Maybe it was so good because it was made by hand and it had all the natural grease that a slice of pepperoni pizza is supposed to have, or maybe the taste was amplified because of the fact that I wandered around for half an hour getting lost in the skyway system to find it. Either way, it was pretty darn good pizza. It was also the size of my face, which definitely helped with the taste factor. I had 2 face-sized slices. They were good.
One thing I learned about conventions: if you're going to one downtown, go on a Friday. Traffic is generally lighter than on any other weekday, especially around rush hour. Also, have an idea of where you are and what street you need to be on BEFORE exiting off 394 and hoping for the best. Downtown metro areas have WAY too many one way streets. And bad drivers.
Anyways, those are my novice convention experiences. Hopefully I'll be going back next year, and not just because I'll need 20 more free pens!
Thursday, February 6, 2014
My crazy week, part 2
Day 4: Monday, February 3.
By this point, I had lost track of what day it was. Went in at 9. I'm just glad I got to sleep past 6. As soon as I got to work, though, appointments were filling up. Thankfully, most of the morning appointments were for vaccines, so those were pretty straightforward. But we had a lot of drop offs earlier in the day, including a dog that needed IV fluids all day. I hate IV fluids. Mostly because the fluid pump hates me, everybody else, and just life itself. It gets angry and starts beeping (very loudly, I might add) for no reason at all, then you have to reset it 20 times until it stops beeping. It also beeps every hour to tell you the fluids have stopped and the dog needs to be TPR'ed (stands for temperature, pulse, respirations), walked, and reset the fluid rate if needed. EVERY HOUR. It gets really obnoxious, especially with the LOUDEST fluid pump in existence. Anyways, the afternoon appointments were mostly sick pets. One in particular really annoyed me. It took a lot of convincing to get the owner to do diagnostics on a dog that potentially has kidney failure. Eventually, she agreed to let us do bloodwork and urinalysis. Because of all the appointments we had, we didn't get around to getting blood on this dog for about an hour. By the time we got samples and got results from the tests, it was 6:00. Finally, appointments were done for the day. The doctor called the owner of this dog, and of course the owner decides this late in the day that now she wants to go with the doctor's recommendation of taking radiographs of the dog's abdomen to look at its kidneys. Even though this was a small dog, he put up quite a fight when we were positioning him for the x-rays. We had to take multiple shots because he wouldn't stay still. Eventually, we got some good shots, and they were being sent electronically to a certified radiologist. But since it was so late, they wouldn't get them until the next day, so we told the owner to come pick him up. We were already past closing (7:00), and I didn't get home til 8:15. I'm pretty sure I hadn't sat down all day.
Day 5: Tuesday, February 4.
Another 7am day. I'm not even exactly sure what happened this day, it's all a blur. I just know I was at work from open til close. At some point, though, I went to the vending machine to get a snack. It wouldn't take my dollar because it wasn't straight enough. It's a very picky and pretentious machine. So I yelled at the machine for being stupid, went back and got another dollar, and it took this one. Good. Because that's the only other dollar I had. I punched in the numbers for the cheez-its that I wanted, and watched as the spiral-shaped prison slowly turned to release the bag of crunchy cheesy goodness from it's grasp, only to get stuck halfway. I almost cried. I was out a dollar, and I still lacked food. That's pretty much the only thing I remember from that day, and I'm not even sure that this was the day it happened. All of my days are starting to run together in a giant blur.
Day 6: Wednesday, February 5.
This was supposed to be the start of my 6 day weekend. That didn't happen. I was awakened yet again by a phone call from work. At least this time it wasn't until after 8:00. I ended up going in at 10, taking over a surgery shift for a tech that had gotten her wisdom teeth out 2 days before. I wasn't going to say no, because I know exactly how she felt. When I got my wisdom teeth out, I slept for 4 days straight, eating not much more than strawberry jello. So I went in for her to do a neuter and 3 dentals. Except there only ended up being 2 dentals. So that was a plus. All the surgeries went pretty smoothly, with only a couple of extractions. Then, after my break that I didn't take until 3:00, we had a golden retriever that we needed to get a urine sample on. Normally we do it by cystocentesis, which means we use a needle and syringe to go directly into the bladder to get as sterile a sample as possible. Couldn't get any. So I took the dog outside to see if I could get a free catch. She walked around in circles for a few minutes, then decided to climb up a snow pile and sit completely in the snow to urinate. I couldn't get my tray under her to catch it because she was surrounded by snow. Two hours later, we tried again. Cystocentesis failed again. I took her outside, and this time she immediately went and sat in the same snow pile. I failed to catch it again. I was becoming very frustrated with this dog. So another two hours went by. Tried and failed again with the cystocentesis. The owner was here to pick her up, and we still didn't have urine from this dog. So we decided to have the owner walk her outside while I try to catch her urine. Sure enough, she sat in the snow pile again. As soon as she did that, I grabbed her tail and lifted it up, shoved the tray under her, and hoped for the best. Finally, I got the urine sample we needed, along with a large amount of yellow snow. (Don't eat it, kids!) My hand was frozen, but I accomplished my job.
This was probably the longest, craziest, busiest, and most exhausting 6 days of my life. I'm just glad I was able to sleep in this morning and get some much needed rest. Overall, it was a pretty good week. I learned a lot, laughed a lot (mostly because I was almost to the point of sleep deprivation), and I finally got my almost 40 hours for the week. Specifically 39.93. If I had worked another 5 minutes, I would have hit 40. Oh well. But now I don't have to go back until Tuesday, and I'll probably have plenty of other adventures next week.
By this point, I had lost track of what day it was. Went in at 9. I'm just glad I got to sleep past 6. As soon as I got to work, though, appointments were filling up. Thankfully, most of the morning appointments were for vaccines, so those were pretty straightforward. But we had a lot of drop offs earlier in the day, including a dog that needed IV fluids all day. I hate IV fluids. Mostly because the fluid pump hates me, everybody else, and just life itself. It gets angry and starts beeping (very loudly, I might add) for no reason at all, then you have to reset it 20 times until it stops beeping. It also beeps every hour to tell you the fluids have stopped and the dog needs to be TPR'ed (stands for temperature, pulse, respirations), walked, and reset the fluid rate if needed. EVERY HOUR. It gets really obnoxious, especially with the LOUDEST fluid pump in existence. Anyways, the afternoon appointments were mostly sick pets. One in particular really annoyed me. It took a lot of convincing to get the owner to do diagnostics on a dog that potentially has kidney failure. Eventually, she agreed to let us do bloodwork and urinalysis. Because of all the appointments we had, we didn't get around to getting blood on this dog for about an hour. By the time we got samples and got results from the tests, it was 6:00. Finally, appointments were done for the day. The doctor called the owner of this dog, and of course the owner decides this late in the day that now she wants to go with the doctor's recommendation of taking radiographs of the dog's abdomen to look at its kidneys. Even though this was a small dog, he put up quite a fight when we were positioning him for the x-rays. We had to take multiple shots because he wouldn't stay still. Eventually, we got some good shots, and they were being sent electronically to a certified radiologist. But since it was so late, they wouldn't get them until the next day, so we told the owner to come pick him up. We were already past closing (7:00), and I didn't get home til 8:15. I'm pretty sure I hadn't sat down all day.
Day 5: Tuesday, February 4.
Another 7am day. I'm not even exactly sure what happened this day, it's all a blur. I just know I was at work from open til close. At some point, though, I went to the vending machine to get a snack. It wouldn't take my dollar because it wasn't straight enough. It's a very picky and pretentious machine. So I yelled at the machine for being stupid, went back and got another dollar, and it took this one. Good. Because that's the only other dollar I had. I punched in the numbers for the cheez-its that I wanted, and watched as the spiral-shaped prison slowly turned to release the bag of crunchy cheesy goodness from it's grasp, only to get stuck halfway. I almost cried. I was out a dollar, and I still lacked food. That's pretty much the only thing I remember from that day, and I'm not even sure that this was the day it happened. All of my days are starting to run together in a giant blur.
Day 6: Wednesday, February 5.
This was supposed to be the start of my 6 day weekend. That didn't happen. I was awakened yet again by a phone call from work. At least this time it wasn't until after 8:00. I ended up going in at 10, taking over a surgery shift for a tech that had gotten her wisdom teeth out 2 days before. I wasn't going to say no, because I know exactly how she felt. When I got my wisdom teeth out, I slept for 4 days straight, eating not much more than strawberry jello. So I went in for her to do a neuter and 3 dentals. Except there only ended up being 2 dentals. So that was a plus. All the surgeries went pretty smoothly, with only a couple of extractions. Then, after my break that I didn't take until 3:00, we had a golden retriever that we needed to get a urine sample on. Normally we do it by cystocentesis, which means we use a needle and syringe to go directly into the bladder to get as sterile a sample as possible. Couldn't get any. So I took the dog outside to see if I could get a free catch. She walked around in circles for a few minutes, then decided to climb up a snow pile and sit completely in the snow to urinate. I couldn't get my tray under her to catch it because she was surrounded by snow. Two hours later, we tried again. Cystocentesis failed again. I took her outside, and this time she immediately went and sat in the same snow pile. I failed to catch it again. I was becoming very frustrated with this dog. So another two hours went by. Tried and failed again with the cystocentesis. The owner was here to pick her up, and we still didn't have urine from this dog. So we decided to have the owner walk her outside while I try to catch her urine. Sure enough, she sat in the snow pile again. As soon as she did that, I grabbed her tail and lifted it up, shoved the tray under her, and hoped for the best. Finally, I got the urine sample we needed, along with a large amount of yellow snow. (Don't eat it, kids!) My hand was frozen, but I accomplished my job.
This was probably the longest, craziest, busiest, and most exhausting 6 days of my life. I'm just glad I was able to sleep in this morning and get some much needed rest. Overall, it was a pretty good week. I learned a lot, laughed a lot (mostly because I was almost to the point of sleep deprivation), and I finally got my almost 40 hours for the week. Specifically 39.93. If I had worked another 5 minutes, I would have hit 40. Oh well. But now I don't have to go back until Tuesday, and I'll probably have plenty of other adventures next week.
My crazy week, part 1
So I've been at work for the last 6 days. Not by choice, of course. People called me asking to fill in for them for lame reasons like their car won't start because it's too cold, they just got their wisdom teeth out and they're in a lot of pain, or they've had the flu for a week. But on the bright side, I'm finally getting my 35-40 hours that I'm legally entitled to according to my full time status. Being at work for 6 straight 10+ hour days is pretty exhausting. Things start to get to you.
Day 1: Friday, January 31.
This started off as every other normal day that I didn't have to work. I was sleeping. Then I got a phone call at 7am from a co-worker saying her car wouldn't start. I agreed to come in for her because so far that week I had only worked about 14 hours. I went in at 8, worked til 2. Not bad at all. Overall, not a horrible day.
Day 2: Saturday, February 1.
A regularly scheduled day. One of my longer days, I went in at 7. (Now, for those of you who don't know me well, I'll just tell you now that I am probably the furthest thing from a morning person that exists. My ideal sleeping time is from 3am til noon.) Most of the day went pretty well, nothing too exciting happened, and I left at 7:30pm.
Day 3: Sunday, February 2.
This is the point in my week that starts getting unbearably crazy. I was scheduled for surgery that day, so I got to work at 6:30. Unfortunately, I had to wait for the Petsmart manager to show up to unlock the doors so I could go in. I could have gotten another 10 minutes of sleep. We only had one surgery scheduled, a dog neuter. No big deal, it was looking like a pretty slow day. Then a dog showed up for a dental cleaning. Apparently, somebody forgot to mark in the computer that it was a drop off, so it didn't show up in the section for scheduled surgeries. But I could deal with it, we still only had 2 surgeries. Then the owner of the dog to be neutered decided that he doesn't want to pay $25 for an e-collar (cone of shame) or pain meds to go home, because he thought that everything his dog would ever need was included in the price of our wellness plans for which he pays a monthly fee. I tried to clear things up with him, to no avail. So I told him I would talk to the doctor about it and get things cleared up. This was at 7:15, and the doctor doesn't usually arrive before 8:30. When she got there, I filled her in on what happened, and she called the guy right away. Of course his phone went to voicemail, and they played phone tag for a good half hour trying to come to an understanding about wellness plans, what is covered, etc. Eventually the guy was satisfied, and we could continue with the surgery. We didn't even pre-med the dog until 10:00, and it has to set in for at least 30 minutes before being induced into anesthesia. So we got a late start. (Normally, we already would have been done with the surgery.) So we went into surgery, neutered the dog, recovered him from anesthesia, and started on the dental. This particular dog needed about 5 extractions, but didn't really like staying under anesthesia. She didn't stay stable for very long periods of time, and insisted on waking up as soon as the doctor started extracting teeth. We got one tooth out, and decided this dog shouldn't stay under. So we turned the gas off and woke her up. She was breathing really hard, her heart rate and blood pressure were both high, and her temperature was pretty low, so we had to keep monitoring closely until she stabilized. About 45 minutes later, she calmed down and we were able to move on with our day. That was about 1:30. I still hadn't gone on break, and we had appointments starting at 2:15, and several people had already called to set up walk-ins at 2:00. I got back from lunch at 2:30, and sure enough, we had 3 rooms there. 2 of those were sick pets that would have to be dropped off to do diagnostics. The rest of the day was like this, and I didn't even finish cleaning up my surgery stuff until 5:30. (We close at 5 on Sundays). Thankfully, nothing too exciting happened after the 2:00 hour, but we were still running around like crazy trying to get things done up until 7:00. Then, I finally got to go home.
Day 1: Friday, January 31.
This started off as every other normal day that I didn't have to work. I was sleeping. Then I got a phone call at 7am from a co-worker saying her car wouldn't start. I agreed to come in for her because so far that week I had only worked about 14 hours. I went in at 8, worked til 2. Not bad at all. Overall, not a horrible day.
Day 2: Saturday, February 1.
A regularly scheduled day. One of my longer days, I went in at 7. (Now, for those of you who don't know me well, I'll just tell you now that I am probably the furthest thing from a morning person that exists. My ideal sleeping time is from 3am til noon.) Most of the day went pretty well, nothing too exciting happened, and I left at 7:30pm.
Day 3: Sunday, February 2.
This is the point in my week that starts getting unbearably crazy. I was scheduled for surgery that day, so I got to work at 6:30. Unfortunately, I had to wait for the Petsmart manager to show up to unlock the doors so I could go in. I could have gotten another 10 minutes of sleep. We only had one surgery scheduled, a dog neuter. No big deal, it was looking like a pretty slow day. Then a dog showed up for a dental cleaning. Apparently, somebody forgot to mark in the computer that it was a drop off, so it didn't show up in the section for scheduled surgeries. But I could deal with it, we still only had 2 surgeries. Then the owner of the dog to be neutered decided that he doesn't want to pay $25 for an e-collar (cone of shame) or pain meds to go home, because he thought that everything his dog would ever need was included in the price of our wellness plans for which he pays a monthly fee. I tried to clear things up with him, to no avail. So I told him I would talk to the doctor about it and get things cleared up. This was at 7:15, and the doctor doesn't usually arrive before 8:30. When she got there, I filled her in on what happened, and she called the guy right away. Of course his phone went to voicemail, and they played phone tag for a good half hour trying to come to an understanding about wellness plans, what is covered, etc. Eventually the guy was satisfied, and we could continue with the surgery. We didn't even pre-med the dog until 10:00, and it has to set in for at least 30 minutes before being induced into anesthesia. So we got a late start. (Normally, we already would have been done with the surgery.) So we went into surgery, neutered the dog, recovered him from anesthesia, and started on the dental. This particular dog needed about 5 extractions, but didn't really like staying under anesthesia. She didn't stay stable for very long periods of time, and insisted on waking up as soon as the doctor started extracting teeth. We got one tooth out, and decided this dog shouldn't stay under. So we turned the gas off and woke her up. She was breathing really hard, her heart rate and blood pressure were both high, and her temperature was pretty low, so we had to keep monitoring closely until she stabilized. About 45 minutes later, she calmed down and we were able to move on with our day. That was about 1:30. I still hadn't gone on break, and we had appointments starting at 2:15, and several people had already called to set up walk-ins at 2:00. I got back from lunch at 2:30, and sure enough, we had 3 rooms there. 2 of those were sick pets that would have to be dropped off to do diagnostics. The rest of the day was like this, and I didn't even finish cleaning up my surgery stuff until 5:30. (We close at 5 on Sundays). Thankfully, nothing too exciting happened after the 2:00 hour, but we were still running around like crazy trying to get things done up until 7:00. Then, I finally got to go home.
Saturday, February 1, 2014
What's in a name?
We had another euthanasia today. But I promised a couple of my friends that my next post would be happy. So I had to find a different, less-sad topic.
This morning we were all having a conversation about different names that some pets have, and how they can sometimes be ironic. Some examples:
A very aggressive cat named Happy.
A Saint Bernard named Poco (Spanish for little).
A sweet little tabby kitten named Diablo.
A yellow lab named Cocoa.
A dog named Lucky who had been shot twice, was blind in his left eye, and had a chronic case of hookworms. (Then again, I suppose he was lucky to be alive.)
A dog named Teddy who is...let's just say less cuddly than a teddy bear.
And then there are those names that are super predictable, like:
Numerous black and white cats (and dogs) named Oreo.
A pomeranian named Pom Pom.
A black and white tuxedo cat named Tux.
An orange tabby cat named Garfield.
A chihuahua with any sort of Spanish name.
Black labs named Rocky (yes, I have seen more of these than you can imagine.)
And then there are more creative, interesting, and just off-the-wall names:
Tootdahls (pronounced "Toodles")
Amidala Sparkles
Bruno Von Axel
Puffles with Socks
LB (short for Little Bastard)
Moondancer
Snapdragon
Jefferson Starship
Some names are just all too common. The names I probably hear the most often for girl dogs are Bella, Lily, and Lucy; most common for boy dogs are Rocky and Buddy.
At any rate, names are important. Some better than others, but you can usually tell the owner's personality based on their pet's name. Not always, but most of the time. (Once we had a dog named Barbie, I walked into the room and the lady was putting on makeup.) I have seen a lot of good names and a lot of bad names. I've even helped name some puppies and kittens. Honestly, picking out names is one of my favorite parts of being a pet owner. It lets me show some of my creative side. I have a huge list of names for my potential future pets, now I just need pets that fit those names. Someday.
This morning we were all having a conversation about different names that some pets have, and how they can sometimes be ironic. Some examples:
A very aggressive cat named Happy.
A Saint Bernard named Poco (Spanish for little).
A sweet little tabby kitten named Diablo.
A yellow lab named Cocoa.
A dog named Lucky who had been shot twice, was blind in his left eye, and had a chronic case of hookworms. (Then again, I suppose he was lucky to be alive.)
A dog named Teddy who is...let's just say less cuddly than a teddy bear.
And then there are those names that are super predictable, like:
Numerous black and white cats (and dogs) named Oreo.
A pomeranian named Pom Pom.
A black and white tuxedo cat named Tux.
An orange tabby cat named Garfield.
A chihuahua with any sort of Spanish name.
Black labs named Rocky (yes, I have seen more of these than you can imagine.)
And then there are more creative, interesting, and just off-the-wall names:
Tootdahls (pronounced "Toodles")
Amidala Sparkles
Bruno Von Axel
Puffles with Socks
LB (short for Little Bastard)
Moondancer
Snapdragon
Jefferson Starship
Some names are just all too common. The names I probably hear the most often for girl dogs are Bella, Lily, and Lucy; most common for boy dogs are Rocky and Buddy.
At any rate, names are important. Some better than others, but you can usually tell the owner's personality based on their pet's name. Not always, but most of the time. (Once we had a dog named Barbie, I walked into the room and the lady was putting on makeup.) I have seen a lot of good names and a lot of bad names. I've even helped name some puppies and kittens. Honestly, picking out names is one of my favorite parts of being a pet owner. It lets me show some of my creative side. I have a huge list of names for my potential future pets, now I just need pets that fit those names. Someday.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Life and death
Life is funny sometimes. You can live your life one day and everything's fine, and then that could all change in a matter of moments.
A cat came in this morning to be neutered. No big deal, happens every day. The owner told me he vomited last night. Okay, so that happens sometimes. He vomited 4 times. Right, now this is sounding a little more serious. So we decided to run some diagnostics. Most of the bloodwork was normal, with the exception of elevated white blood cells. He tested negative for pancreatitis. He had an elevated temperature of 104.2 (normal is 99.5-102.5). We let the owner know what we found, and made some more suggestions. She approved radiographs and IV fluids. So we got the cat (his name is Moe, by the way) all hooked up to the fluid pump and set up the x-ray machine. When we took him out of the kennel to take x-rays, he vomited again. A lot. Once we got that mess cleaned up, we positioned him to take the radiographs. They showed a small ring-like object in his small intestine near his stomach, and several inches of blockage in his colon. It was looking like we would have to perform a foreign body surgery on Moe. So we put him back on the fluids while we waited for his owner to call us back with the decision of whether or not to do the surgery. He seemed to perk up a little bit in the meantime. Then we got a phone call. It was Moe's owner. She told us she wouldn't be able to afford the surgery, and wondered if there was anything else we could do for him. Unfortunately, our only option at this point was to wait and see if he would get better with some more fluids and supportive care. But it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened. So the owner reluctantly, and in tears, came to the decision that is the hardest one for anyone to make. She decided to euthanize.
The most depressing part of this story? This lady had only had Moe for about 2 weeks. She found him abandoned in an apartment building. He was less than 2 years old.
To end on a lighter note, I got to play with a 6 week old kitten today. He was a gray tabby named Simba. There was also a 5 month old long haired dachshund puppy named Remy that came in to be spayed today. She was the happiest little puppy! Even after her spay when she was probably really sleepy and in some pain, she would sit up and wag her tail really hard every time somebody walked by.
Moral of the story: a) Don't let your pets eat anything other than pet food. EVER. b) No matter how attached you are to a pet, remember that there are many other animals out there that are waiting to steal your heart.
A cat came in this morning to be neutered. No big deal, happens every day. The owner told me he vomited last night. Okay, so that happens sometimes. He vomited 4 times. Right, now this is sounding a little more serious. So we decided to run some diagnostics. Most of the bloodwork was normal, with the exception of elevated white blood cells. He tested negative for pancreatitis. He had an elevated temperature of 104.2 (normal is 99.5-102.5). We let the owner know what we found, and made some more suggestions. She approved radiographs and IV fluids. So we got the cat (his name is Moe, by the way) all hooked up to the fluid pump and set up the x-ray machine. When we took him out of the kennel to take x-rays, he vomited again. A lot. Once we got that mess cleaned up, we positioned him to take the radiographs. They showed a small ring-like object in his small intestine near his stomach, and several inches of blockage in his colon. It was looking like we would have to perform a foreign body surgery on Moe. So we put him back on the fluids while we waited for his owner to call us back with the decision of whether or not to do the surgery. He seemed to perk up a little bit in the meantime. Then we got a phone call. It was Moe's owner. She told us she wouldn't be able to afford the surgery, and wondered if there was anything else we could do for him. Unfortunately, our only option at this point was to wait and see if he would get better with some more fluids and supportive care. But it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened. So the owner reluctantly, and in tears, came to the decision that is the hardest one for anyone to make. She decided to euthanize.
The most depressing part of this story? This lady had only had Moe for about 2 weeks. She found him abandoned in an apartment building. He was less than 2 years old.
To end on a lighter note, I got to play with a 6 week old kitten today. He was a gray tabby named Simba. There was also a 5 month old long haired dachshund puppy named Remy that came in to be spayed today. She was the happiest little puppy! Even after her spay when she was probably really sleepy and in some pain, she would sit up and wag her tail really hard every time somebody walked by.
Moral of the story: a) Don't let your pets eat anything other than pet food. EVER. b) No matter how attached you are to a pet, remember that there are many other animals out there that are waiting to steal your heart.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Battle Scars
I think that people should be aware of what really goes on inside a vet clinic. So I've decided to start a blog about it.
My cat Sprite is currently sitting on the top of the couch, watching every word I type, silently judging with her tiny cat mind. Daily I wonder what she thinks when she greets me as soon as I walk in the door, covered from head to toe in the smells of every animal and bodily fluid that I came into contact with that day. Does she feel like I'm cheating on her by playing with these other pets all day? Or does she think I'm being held captive against my will while dogs, cats, and who knows what other creatures attack me, only to send me home bleeding, tired, and hungry?
I can't tell you how many countless scratches I have gotten. I call them my battle scars, because usually I get them fighting with angry cats. Most of them are on my arms, but occasionally I will find bruises, cuts, and scrapes on my legs, face, and even my back--though it's still a mystery as to how my spine got so bruised up. At any rate, being a vet tech is a physically demanding job. It's not easy holding down a 90 pound dog that is actively resisting having its nails trimmed.
There's never a dull moment in the profession, though. Something different happens every day. A cat swallows a footlong piece of someone's knitting; a beagle gets its leg caught on a barbed wire fence; a husky eats an entire pan of brownies--including the pan. Definitely makes life interesting. But there are sad times, too; times that make this job one of the hardest. A few weeks ago we had to perform surgery on a cat to remove part of its intestines. The surgery went better than we had expected, and the cat was doing pretty well afterwards. Two days later, the cat went into respiratory distress and died. We did what we could to try to save the cat's life, but unfortunately it wasn't enough. She was only a year old. Sometimes those difficult situations hit closer to home, like when we had to euthanize an orange tabby cat. My older cat is an orange tabby, so that was hard for me. I fought to hold back tears as I watched the cat take his last breath. But life has to go on. Fortunately for me, the next appointment I saw was a 10 week old chocolate lab puppy. Definitely one of my favorite parts of the job.
Even though there are a lot of difficult and often stressful situations that come with my job, I wouldn't trade it for anything else.
And now that I've made you all depressed, here's a cute picture to make you smile.
My cat Sprite is currently sitting on the top of the couch, watching every word I type, silently judging with her tiny cat mind. Daily I wonder what she thinks when she greets me as soon as I walk in the door, covered from head to toe in the smells of every animal and bodily fluid that I came into contact with that day. Does she feel like I'm cheating on her by playing with these other pets all day? Or does she think I'm being held captive against my will while dogs, cats, and who knows what other creatures attack me, only to send me home bleeding, tired, and hungry?
I can't tell you how many countless scratches I have gotten. I call them my battle scars, because usually I get them fighting with angry cats. Most of them are on my arms, but occasionally I will find bruises, cuts, and scrapes on my legs, face, and even my back--though it's still a mystery as to how my spine got so bruised up. At any rate, being a vet tech is a physically demanding job. It's not easy holding down a 90 pound dog that is actively resisting having its nails trimmed.
There's never a dull moment in the profession, though. Something different happens every day. A cat swallows a footlong piece of someone's knitting; a beagle gets its leg caught on a barbed wire fence; a husky eats an entire pan of brownies--including the pan. Definitely makes life interesting. But there are sad times, too; times that make this job one of the hardest. A few weeks ago we had to perform surgery on a cat to remove part of its intestines. The surgery went better than we had expected, and the cat was doing pretty well afterwards. Two days later, the cat went into respiratory distress and died. We did what we could to try to save the cat's life, but unfortunately it wasn't enough. She was only a year old. Sometimes those difficult situations hit closer to home, like when we had to euthanize an orange tabby cat. My older cat is an orange tabby, so that was hard for me. I fought to hold back tears as I watched the cat take his last breath. But life has to go on. Fortunately for me, the next appointment I saw was a 10 week old chocolate lab puppy. Definitely one of my favorite parts of the job.
Even though there are a lot of difficult and often stressful situations that come with my job, I wouldn't trade it for anything else.
And now that I've made you all depressed, here's a cute picture to make you smile.
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