Progress reports...

Back to work for the past three days, today is my fourth and last day and then I have 5 days off because I am switching over to the Thurs-Sun shift from here until Dec or later. Work has been ok, of course it's hard going back, but I guess it has been at least a little slower now that fall is coming...except at midnight - everyone still comes in - and last night we had 5 hit by car dogs in a row come in....someone was out hitting dogs!! Just kidding. What have I seen? I feel like I have been seeing a lot of older patients and doing a lot of euthanasias....and it's been making me really sad. I had one cat who an older man and his son brought in to euthanize because it was declining in health. The old man didn't want to be present so the son and I went into another room with the cat...just as I am euthanizing the son starts to say that this cat took care of their mother when she was dying and has been like his Dad's best friend since....and so that was really sad for me...and the man gave me a hug afterwards...weird. Then I had a younger girl my age come in with her big fat girl kitty - kinda like a patches - who was anemic and had been lethargic for the past couple days...turns out the cat had FeLV one of the feline leukemia viruses - she had been in a cat fight a year ago and probably got it then. Some cats can clear this virus, but in others it invades the bone marrow and starts causing the signs of anemia, low plateltes...which is what this unlucky cat had...unfortunately, it is a pretty grave prognosis - most will die within a couple months of complications due to the immunosuppression. So it was sad but we ended up euthanizing that one as well - as it was sitting and purring on her lap - that was hard for me because I just kept seeing patches. Last night I saw a cat who the owner lets outside at night for a little while, well she went missing last night and then the owner found her across the street in the park...when she got her home she noticed blood on her side and that she wasn't able to walk well in the hindlimbs. We clipped her up and she had some big puncture wounds (dog?? coyote??) so discussed surgical fix, owner just wanted to try antibiotics at home. I convinced for radiographs of the pelvis to make sure no fractures because cat was not wanting to use the back limbs which I thought was odd...results--spinal fracture (fracture of caudal endplate of L6) - ouch...oops...talk with owner and get cat admitted for a surgical consult tomorrow - don't know if will regain function of the hindlimbs, but owner will do anything for this cat so hopefully it gets some back...sad but cool case...so I will see when I go in today how she is doing. I saw a little black pug last night that had an ulcer on his eye that had possibly ruptured...it has mucous coming out of the middle of it...referred him to an ophthalmologist for further care and possible surgery on the eye....there is more to the story though, the rDVM stained the eye and found an ulcer on Tuesday and prescribed eye drops with steroids in them....if you learn one thing in vet school---it is you never give steroid drops with a corneal ulcer!!! Ooops...yeah this vet may have just caused the loss of that pug's eye...scarey!! So I placed him on Atropine drops to dilate the iris, triple antibiotic ointment in the eye, oral antibiotics, and oral NSAIDS....he also had uveitis as well...hopefully things go well. Had a 10yo seizuring dog last night in status epilepticus (meaning he was constantly seizing and would not stop)...finally had to sorta anesthetize him with propofol because he did not respond to the regular midazolam...long discussion with owners and finally decided on euthanasia because in an old dog with a first seizure it is always an underlying disease or brain tumor....not good, sad because owner had just had open heart surgery and so really wanted to be positive and give dog as best chance as possible...but they also were financially restricted. Other than that, I have seen a lot of cases but can't remember any other ones that stick out to me as being really interesting.