![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Damaged goods
Oct. 6th, 2006 05:33 amYesterday was one of those days that makes me wish I'd stayed in bed. Total death count--3 dogs, 3 cats.
Had a fairly full afternoon of surgery scheduled, and then got 2 porcupine-chewin' dogs dropped off over lunch. Got the first one (the one with only 3 dozen quills) done between appointments.
Mid-afternoon featured an escaped heifer that we had to chase down--the owner went home and got his motorcycle with which to chase her, and apparently was oblivious to the rather pissed-off state patrolman who followed him into our parking area. We did catch her, she didn't get out on the highway, and I don't believe the crazy driver was given a ticket.
Then I had the wonderful experience of spaying a dog who wouldn't stop bleeding. This was particularly nerve-wracking, as the first dog who'd died that morning was one of another doctor's spays from 2 days before, who'd bled out internally. Tied off 4 or 5 bleeders from tissue that's not supposed to be particularly vascular (for you anatomy freaks and students reading this: at least one extra vessel in the mesometrium each side, lots of oozing in the subq and skin, and the one that frustrated me the most was clear back caudal and ventral to the bifurcation--I had to extend the incision much further back than I wanted to just to get to it).
Having finally closed up the spay, I figured we'd get the dog neuter done fairly quickly and move onto the really bad porcupine dog and still manage to get home relatively close to closing time. Until the technician asks me "who checked in this dog? It's only got one testicle down." So I pull the chart out, and call the owner--or try to, anyway. The number we have gets me a woman who has no idea who I am or who I'm trying to contact. By a lucky break, the correct phone number was actually in the phone book, so I did get in touch with the owner--who said go ahead with the surgery. In case you're wondering, removing a testicle from the abdomen is sort of like doing a spay, except that you have to cut through the muscle (so it bleeds alot!) because you can't go on midline--there's a penis in the way. And unlike a spay (where the ovaries are generally in an expected place), you don't know where the testicle is. So you have to kind of guess where you want to put the incision. In this case, the testicle was only a few inches back from the kidney, and I guessed wrong. So he got a fairly long incision as I had to extend it forward a couple extra inches. Needless to say, this did not go as quickly as a standard neuter.
While I was stitching the one-nutter closed, Doc S knocked out the second quill dog and started pulling--he and the technician were still pulling quills when I finished with the neuter. So we started rotating out around other tasks--ended up with 2 people pulling quills for an hour from this dog. Lost count of the quills, but they were many. Legion, even. Nose, muzzle, soft palate, tongue, between the teeth, in the cheeks up by the eyes, down the neck, chest, legs, in 3 of her feet...
So I was an hour and a half late leaving work. Happily enough, no calls all night.
There was a doozy this morning though--
Thankfully I was already out of bed, though I was still in my pajamas. Gent calls and informs me that he has "a damaged cat." Wants to know if he brings it to the clinic at 8:30, will I look at it? I told him I'm not sure what the schedule is, so I don't know who will look at the cat, but if he brings it in, someone certainly will. Then he wants to know if he'll have to leave the cat and go home. Told him I really don't know--since I have no clear idea of what's wrong with the cat, I can't even begin to guess what we'll be doing with it. Perhaps he could explain what he means by "damaged"? Well, his explanation wasn't all that helpful--it didn't want to be picked up, and was oozing something from it's side. He speculated that it may have been "shot or attacked or something." Well, if it's an injury that needs stitching or extensive cleaning, we will almost certainly have to knock the cat out to do it--so yes, you'd need to give us some time to work on the cat. Whether he goes home (since the distance appears to really concern him--it's an 18 mile drive, which doesn't seem too bad to me) or just goes into down and gets breakfast, or sits in the lobby and reads the magazines I really don't care. Apparently it has never occurred to him to wait while we work on the cat. He says he'll be at the clinic at 8:30.
He wasn't. He still wasn't there by closing tonight. So I still don't know exactly what "damaged" means.
Had a fairly full afternoon of surgery scheduled, and then got 2 porcupine-chewin' dogs dropped off over lunch. Got the first one (the one with only 3 dozen quills) done between appointments.
Mid-afternoon featured an escaped heifer that we had to chase down--the owner went home and got his motorcycle with which to chase her, and apparently was oblivious to the rather pissed-off state patrolman who followed him into our parking area. We did catch her, she didn't get out on the highway, and I don't believe the crazy driver was given a ticket.
Then I had the wonderful experience of spaying a dog who wouldn't stop bleeding. This was particularly nerve-wracking, as the first dog who'd died that morning was one of another doctor's spays from 2 days before, who'd bled out internally. Tied off 4 or 5 bleeders from tissue that's not supposed to be particularly vascular (for you anatomy freaks and students reading this: at least one extra vessel in the mesometrium each side, lots of oozing in the subq and skin, and the one that frustrated me the most was clear back caudal and ventral to the bifurcation--I had to extend the incision much further back than I wanted to just to get to it).
Having finally closed up the spay, I figured we'd get the dog neuter done fairly quickly and move onto the really bad porcupine dog and still manage to get home relatively close to closing time. Until the technician asks me "who checked in this dog? It's only got one testicle down." So I pull the chart out, and call the owner--or try to, anyway. The number we have gets me a woman who has no idea who I am or who I'm trying to contact. By a lucky break, the correct phone number was actually in the phone book, so I did get in touch with the owner--who said go ahead with the surgery. In case you're wondering, removing a testicle from the abdomen is sort of like doing a spay, except that you have to cut through the muscle (so it bleeds alot!) because you can't go on midline--there's a penis in the way. And unlike a spay (where the ovaries are generally in an expected place), you don't know where the testicle is. So you have to kind of guess where you want to put the incision. In this case, the testicle was only a few inches back from the kidney, and I guessed wrong. So he got a fairly long incision as I had to extend it forward a couple extra inches. Needless to say, this did not go as quickly as a standard neuter.
While I was stitching the one-nutter closed, Doc S knocked out the second quill dog and started pulling--he and the technician were still pulling quills when I finished with the neuter. So we started rotating out around other tasks--ended up with 2 people pulling quills for an hour from this dog. Lost count of the quills, but they were many. Legion, even. Nose, muzzle, soft palate, tongue, between the teeth, in the cheeks up by the eyes, down the neck, chest, legs, in 3 of her feet...
So I was an hour and a half late leaving work. Happily enough, no calls all night.
There was a doozy this morning though--
Thankfully I was already out of bed, though I was still in my pajamas. Gent calls and informs me that he has "a damaged cat." Wants to know if he brings it to the clinic at 8:30, will I look at it? I told him I'm not sure what the schedule is, so I don't know who will look at the cat, but if he brings it in, someone certainly will. Then he wants to know if he'll have to leave the cat and go home. Told him I really don't know--since I have no clear idea of what's wrong with the cat, I can't even begin to guess what we'll be doing with it. Perhaps he could explain what he means by "damaged"? Well, his explanation wasn't all that helpful--it didn't want to be picked up, and was oozing something from it's side. He speculated that it may have been "shot or attacked or something." Well, if it's an injury that needs stitching or extensive cleaning, we will almost certainly have to knock the cat out to do it--so yes, you'd need to give us some time to work on the cat. Whether he goes home (since the distance appears to really concern him--it's an 18 mile drive, which doesn't seem too bad to me) or just goes into down and gets breakfast, or sits in the lobby and reads the magazines I really don't care. Apparently it has never occurred to him to wait while we work on the cat. He says he'll be at the clinic at 8:30.
He wasn't. He still wasn't there by closing tonight. So I still don't know exactly what "damaged" means.
