Back on the Triage floor...

God how much do I hate the triage floor!! Although...I did see some pretty interesting cases this past four days and it is true..winter does bring some relief. I saw a little dog the other day that had the clip from another dogs rabies tag pierced through his lower eyelid!! - yes and so his eye was wearing this other dogs collar - ouch!!! So I sedated him and threaded it back out, stained his eye - no corneal ulcer - woke him up, and sent him home with pain meds and antibiotics. Satsifying case I guess. I also saw a bird that had dipped its beak into nail polish and then was acting all drowsy and tipsy on its perch. That would be from the butyl alcohol in the product - causes drowsiness, seizures, pulmonary edema - bird was fine once at hospital and lungs sounded fine - sent him home for them to monitor him over the next 12 hours as it can take that long for the pulmonary edema to develop. Had a pitbull with a neck laceration due to being tied out on a cable. Anesthetized him and fixed it, had to be carefull of jugulars and trachea in that region but I think I did a good job. The gross thing about this case, while under, tape worms start coming out of his butt - so the tech started to pull them and she got a huge hand full that looked like spaghetti and would not come out so we had to cut them!!!! It was so gross!!!! Yeah- he got dewormer also. Ich!! What else did I see - urinary tract infections, broken toenail, hot spots, pesiticide ingestion, ... the list goes on, I forget as the days go on. Oh yeah - saw a very sad heart failure case, 10 yo dog, came in in respiratory distress, couging up bloody froth, mucous membranes blue - gave her injection of lasix, torb to calm her down, and nitro on her gums and placed her in oxygen. Talked to owners about this being heart failure as she has history of heart disease. Said we need to get her out of the episode of failure - if we do she has progosis for survival of 9-12 months, every episode after decreases about 5 months. Said to do that we may need to place her on ventilator - she needs CRI of heart meds, echo. Talked about the fact that if she ruptured one of her chordae tendinae (ligamentous part of heart valves) then there is really nothing we can do. Well, after crying for a long while and talking on the phone to her husband they decide they will euthanize and wife wants to sit with her while husband gets there. So I bring her back to ICU to the oxygen cage and let her sit there - meanwhile the dog has not improved and still has pink fluid dripping from it mouth and nose. I walk out to go grab the forms I need them to fill out and all of a sudden they are calling me back - the dog is now laying on its side in the oxygen cage, pink fluid just pouring out of its mouth and nose, struggling for each breath. I say we cannot wait for her husband we have to euthanize now - so we do and of course the owenr is just bawling, what a mess of a case!!!! Poor dog and poor owner. Ok, enough work talk. I am applying to 13 residency programs...13!!!! I hate this, I probably will spend all this time and money and not get a residency. I hope I do. I have the three clinicians from AEC writing me letters....I know they know a lot of people!! We will see.