My busiest days yet

Finally a day off!! I just came off of two of the busiest days ever. I was the 2p-2a Fri and Sat….me and Jason my ternmate got absolutely plowed over!!! I walked out the door of the clinic at 9am on Saturday and came back at 1p…2 hours of sleep…I was dragging on my Saturday shift, and of course we were busy-from 5p to 2a there was always at least 5 waiting to be seen!! On Fri I admitted 5 patients, euthanized 4, had one DOA (dead on arrival), and saw millions of outpatients. Sat I admitted only one, had 2 DOA’s, euthanized 3, saw millions of outpatients. So what did I see…had a hit by car-head trauma-not walking-anisocoria (uneven pupil size)-swollen head-not walking, took abdominal and chest survey films—no damage seen yet, but can take 24-48 hrs to see any changes, placed on fluids, gave dose of mannitol and lasix (for brain swelling), placed on a fentanyl CRI (for pain control), elevated head 15-20%...so how did she do? Well, looked like death on Sat then all of a sudden shook her head, got up, and went for a jaunt around the CCU—still hooked to her fluid lines!!!! Yay!! Admitted a patient with pancreatitis (inflammation of pancreas) causing post hepatic biliary obstruction because of all the inflammation. Placed on fluids, antibiotics, placed nasogastric tube for feeding. Dog doing ok, its an old dog so that doesn’t help it any. Saw a kitty who had onychectomy (declaw) performed a few days before and was still bleeding, so had to rebandage the paws and send him home with a cone on his head! Poor kitty! Did a laceration repair all alone—at 6am in the morning after my shift,,,it was cool but I am sure that the owners wouldn’t want to hear that I was half asleep while doing it!!! Incision looked good though if I do say so myself. Dog will be fine. Admitted two baby birds again….why can people not leave nature outside,,,,I am too busy, please do not bring it in to the ER on a Fri or Sat night when there are dying animals waiting to be seen…that is not the time for me to be wasting my time seeing a baby bird that fell out of a tree! Sorry but there are dying pets waiting for my time and it’s already past my shift. Saw lots of vomiting and diarrhea of course…always see that…saw some respiratory cases…did a necropsy on one of my DOA patients. Had a dog with a rawhide stuck in its esophagus, did endoscopy to push it into stomach, it will likely dissolve there..bad thing? Dog now has aspiration pneumonia (aspirated his vomit while choking on the rawhide at home)…not good…especially since it was a 14 year old Husky…old pets don’t always do as good. But for the owners bank accounts sake ($1200), hope that he does ok. Placed him on sucralfate (antacid, coats stomach), famotidine (antacid), unasyn (IV antibiotic for the aspiration pneumonia), and nebulization/coupage. He was doing ok when I left, lots of inspiratory effort (could be tracheitis) and occasional expiratory grunt. Hopefully owners will let us re-take radiographs in the morning of the chest, because I took them right after the procedure so some of the lung artifact could be positional due to anesthesia (atelectasis-lung collapse-can occur during surgery) so want to see what they look like this morning, maybe aspiration isn’t as bad as it originally thought. Although, when pulled out endotracheal tube (breathing tube) after surgery, there was a thick, green mucous inside the tube, smeared on slide and tons of degenerative neutrophils!!! Not a good sign—usually means severe inflammation. It’s so sad, it is so busy there and I see so much but then I come here to try to write about it and cant remember. Lots of DOAs in the past two days…always sad because the owners are so confused about what happened, you always have to make them feel like it was not their fault, even if sometimes it might be. One sad one was a 2 year old cat that the owners found dead in the bathroom on the rug. My thought was probably seizure or vascular event (stroke), but could also be poisoning or other disease. Who knows. Well, I guess I will get going. It is about 8pm and I am getting tired again but should study some. Went to mall today, finally got groceries, went for a run…relaxed, it was nice!