Friday: May 3, 2013
I was asked to help out in surgery today
and the first surgery up was Joe Taylor's hind limb amputation. You
might remember that he's the cat that had an open wound on it's tarsus
and had a dislocated hip as well. Last week his surgery was delayed due
to a nonregenerative anemia. This week his surgery was scheduled even
though his anemia had not fully resolved. Oh, and he is also FIV+. For
these reasons I was pretty nervous about monitoring him under
anesthesia. It turned out that his surgery went very smoothly -his
anesthesia was super smooth thanks to the doctors very skilled use at
nerve blocks (both an epidural and a sciatic nerve block). The next
surgery was just a healthy 3 year old Pomeranian's neuter. But, the
poor thing just wouldn't stay under anesthesia. It was horrible and
proved that you can't predict how an animal will react under anesthesia!
Saturday: May 4, 2013
"Stability
Check on a dog who has been vomiting and not eating for four and a half
days and now cannot walk". Turned out to be an 8 month old pitbull who
was severely dehydrated, weak, and tachycardic. I asked the owner if he
was vaccinated and she said yes, he came with all his shots when she
got him. I asked how old he was when she got him and she said 9 weeks.
She got all her puppy shots through us for her previous dog, so it is
clear she was mislead by whoever sold her this pitbull puppy. It turned
out to be Parvo positive. The dog was surrendered and we euthanized
it.
"Stability Check on a kitten who's having trouble
breathing". I ran out to the lobby and a giant man handed me a kitten
the size of a mouse while pleading "you've got to save her, I'll do
anything, pay anything". Seriously, maybe 7 days old. I didn't stop to
ask any questions. The kitten was limp in my hands, cold but pink, the
corneas slightly opague. On the way to the treatment area I didn't
notice any breathing and I could not feel a heartbeat despite feeling
his tiny ribs easily because he was so emaciated. We got him on oxygen
right away and I started heating up a warmie while a fellow tech
attempted to warm the kitten in his hands while the doctor checked for a
heartbeat with a tiny pediatric stethoscope. There was a heartbeat,
but it was slow. He was breathing, but slow. Another doctor ran to
talk with the man about the situation to see how far he was willing to
go to save the kitten. Like many cases we see due to our location, the
man still insisted he wanted everything done, but admitted he had no
money to pay us. After much back and forth while the kitten started
going agonal. He finally agreed to surrender the kitten and we humanely
euthanized the poor thing.
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