Last night was unbelievably busy and I've been running on 4 hours of sleep since Saturday at 11:51 PM. I never seem to get very much sleep on Sundays. If it's not one thing, it's another that keeps me up all day. Most of the time it's just friends that I want to see or talk to... but it's always worth it! Anyways, about the night...
Last night was so busy it didn't even "start"; it just blended with the day shifts. When I clocked in at Midnight, there were already 9 animals in the treatment room either being treated or waiting to be. Several more were waiting in the lobby. Minutes later, a large, seizuring dog was rushed in. Things "settled' by 2 AM, but it wasn't for very long. Through most of the night we were looking after several patients. There were 3 cats, 5 dogs and a ferret (and actually he came in a couple times in the night! I'll get to that in a bit). Out of those 9 patients, 3 of them were operated on. This consisted of 2 cats and the ferret. One of the cats was a 12 month old stray that had been attacked by a dog and the dog's owner paid $802 for the cat's eye to be removed, as it was completely destroyed. Another cat had a laceration in its left armpit so we fixed that up as well. The ferret was brought in because it had previously been in surgery and the incision opened up, with part of his Omentum hanging out. (Note: apparently "Omentum" isn't in my browser's dictionary. No idea WHY! *sarcasm*) I'm not sure what the doctor did, but I believe she just wrapped him up firmly and sent him home to avoid a large medical bill. However, hours later we got a call and the girl told me that he (the ferret) freaked out, tore off the bandage and that the Omentum was hanging out further. They brought it in and we removed the part of it that was hanging outside the incision and stitched him back up!
There was a particular part of the night that was insanely crazy though. "Buster", a 14 year old dog, was out in the lobby with his owner. They were waiting on the results from the blood work diagnostics. All of a sudden we heard a "HELLO? HELLO? HELLO?" The tech, doctor and I rushed through the swivel door to the lobby where we saw poor Buster was having a Grand Mal seizure. This was his first and the owner's daughter was absolutely scared to death. I quickly grabbed his head and mid-section to support him and keep him from hitting his head on the tile floor. The tech grabbed the drugs while the doctor supported his lower half. We stabilized him and found out he had had small tremors in his limbs, but nothing ever this bad. If you're not familiar with what a Grand Mal seizure is, its when the whole body is basically having convulsions, all parts at different rates causing them to move in all different directions at once. The first one I witnessed almost put me in shock, but now I know how to handle them. It's just one of the few things that working in an emergency hospital has taught me.
But that wasn't the crazy part! The crazy part happened once we got him back in the treatment room. He was still quite anxious and squirming all around and actually bit me in the neck. So while we were trying to calm him down to get a catheter in him, a 2 year old Beagle, who was also in for seizures, started having a Grand Mal in the kennel directly behind us. All this commotion prompted a Pit Bull, who had been hit in the nose on accident with a machete, to start jumping up in down in his open topped cage, breaking open his incision.
GAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!! It was crazy for about 30 minutes straight and then silence...
Well, kinda. We stayed busy all through the night. I took a 10 minute break to eat and then started working again. Close to the end of our shift the tech told me I did a good job. I told her I didn't feel like I got much done (referring to cleaning). She told me we took care of all the patients and that's what really matters. I agreed and it got me thinking though... my supervisor has been on me about cleaning, cleaning, cleaning and so that's where my mind has been set, so I literally forgot what was the most important part of the job and the real reason I'm here in the first place. It does somewhat show how they take advantage of free help. Anyways, not to complain, as I am very fortunate to work here and have learned a lot of tech skills as well as better work ethic!
I don't have any pictures from last night obviously, but here are some good ones I haven't shared yet!
Here is the room I stay in. Pretty basic.
We make paw prints for free for those who have private cremation. It's a service we provide to give something of memory to a client that lost their best friend. Here are the steps we go through to make one.
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