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.
