Midnight-thirty addendum to my evening...

[draggonlaady]

So at 11:00, I get tired of waiting for Cheapskate and/or Dingbat to call back, and start getting ready for bed. Right on cue, Cheapskate calls--Twitchy is vomiting now, and she's getting really worried, can she bring him in? Sure! I'd be more than happy to forsake sleeping so as to come tend the problem that's been ongoing for over 24 hours but is now suddenly an emergency. Absolutely...but we're going whole hog on this, no half-measures because we're tired! IV catheter, fluids, bloodwork, antibiotics, anti-emetics, and the dog's staying with us until it can hold down oral medications, so bring your check book, honey! No, no, I did not actually say that to her. She did tell me that her "kids' father" will be paying for everything since the dog got sick at his house.

Called my tech back in, 'cuz it's only fair that if I have to get dressed again so does she, put a catheter in the dog and went through the basic toxin vs infection speil, got permission for bloodwork, got a cel number to call when the blood's been run. So when the blood's been run, I call the cel--and get a kid, who asks if Twitchy (who, by the way, wasn't really twitching, and I couldn't get a really good explanation from Cheapskate as to why she told me it was), can go home now. I tell him no, the dog will have to stay at least the night, is your mom there? "Well, yeah, but we're at the hospital right now..." some fumbling and talking in the back ground and eventually a man picks up the phone. Seems this is the "kids' father" whom Cheapskate has not explained anything to--so I start all over with the toxin vs. infection spiel, relate the blood work results, the plan, the dog's current condition, refrained from asking why the 10 year old is still awake at midnight.

Came home and am planning on going to sleep now, even though I'm almost certain that as soon as both my tech and I are asleep, Dingbat will be calling.

Oh, and Nice Dog is doing fine--peeing like a racehorse from all the fluids we gave him, and eating his blanket because we didn't give him dinner (want all that whiskey to be absorbed, no sponging it up with food!). Hopefully I won't be updating this any more before tomorrow night. er, tonight, it's officially tomorrow now I guess. G'night all.

Comments

[sagaciouslu.livejournal.com]

Congrats. You are more than cool.

You may wish to consider two things: 1) sometimes changning your inside voice to your outside voice ('cuz nothing is funnier than watching people's faces when you tell them the bared arsed truth....); and 2), implementing an additional after-hours emergency fee for stupid people who make you come in after hours when really you oughtn't to have had to.

And, why did you feed Nice Dog(tm) whiskey?

[cheshirecatco.livejournal.com]

Actually, my vet kind of does that. Their fees are on the high side, but they've waived them more than once for my guinea pigs. I suspect it's sort of a case where they make the nominal costs higher and then they can chose to lower them. Makes them look nice and lets them thwack idiots.

[draggonlaady.livejournal.com]

That's the "doctor likes you" discount :) Especially easy to get away with for small/pocket pets, because they don't take as much drug.

[draggonlaady.livejournal.com]

1: Well, I could--except that I live in a very small town, and it would be bad for business to have these people telling all their friends that I was a cranky bitch who was rude to them and wouldn't help with why they called.

2: There is an after-hours call, and while there isn't an official "stupid charge", there are other little things we can tack on to people that annoy us--not that we would ever make a policy of doing that, of course!

Because we didn't have vodka or everclear. :)
The medical reason behind any alcohol is what you were asking about though, I'm sure. Antifreeze (ethylene glycol) in itself isn't toxic. It is, however, processed into a series of toxic metabolites by the liver. The first-step enzyme that starts that whole chain off is the same enzyme that metabolizes alcohol--and it prefers alcohol. so if you get the dog drunk within an hour or 2 of drinking antifreeze, the liver will not process as much of the ethylene into the toxic substances, and it can be passed out the kidneys unchanged.

[omnifarious.livejournal.com]

Whee! I would hate to have your job. Though having the pager at Amazon storngly resembles it. I hated that too. :-)

[draggonlaady.livejournal.com]

Yah. I usually like it, actually. Was harder when we tried it week on/week off... then if you had a bad week, you'd end up not sleeping several nights in a row. this way (day on/day off) i can at least try to catch up tonight on the interrupted sleep last night.