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.
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