custer | Entries tagged with tcd&f

I just discovered one of the receptionists at the cat clinic I work at once held the land speed record in France, and is the first person to ever drive a Citroen faster than 200MPH.

And no, I do not yet know the story behind that.

Sometimes people are more than they seem.

Current Mood: impressed

16:46:30: I have the unique status of being a customer at the clinic that they can tell to go back and make up my own prescription. (fluffy got sick)

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Current Mood: contemplative

Charlie has been constipated for at least two full days, and last night was unable to pass any solid stool. He went in to the doctor this morning.

It is suspected he has a lingering kidney infection left over from when he had the tooth abscess. This led to dehydration, which then led to constipation.

he has elevated BUN/Creatinine levels, partly due to loss of kidney function, partly due to dehydration. He is on fluids to correct the dehydration and antibiotics to deal with the infection. By this time tomorrow we will know what can be corrected and what is chronic kidney damage.

Current Mood: worried

Well the stroke kitty didn't make it. I really didn't think she would, but the fact of the matter is, strokes cause permanent damage. I mean look at Kirk Douglas, if money could fix that it would.

Otherwise today was pretty quiet - this is the time of year when things at a veterinary clinic start slowing down, pets are kept indoors and tend not to get sick or in fights. However, pets kept indoors are not on any sort of timetable, probably why I'm getting loaned out to the home care vet next week.

My own cat seems to be getting unusually lethargic, so I'm going to have to take him in to my own clinic on my day off tomorrow to get him looked at. Hes not blocked or constipated as far as I can tell, so hes OK until tomorrow morning.

It will be an interesting experience, taking him in to my own clinic and doing all of the treatments on him myself. Probably whatever is wrong won't be known without blood work.

Current Mood: listless
Current Location: Home

There's a HUGE veterinary hospital in Culver City that holds CD (Continuing Education) seminars every 8 weeks. Yesterday evening I went to my first one of these. I've noticed in the past the fliers for this event posted prominently in every clinic I've been in, but the place being 32 miles south of here, and the event starting literally the minute the clinic I work at closes, the only way a person can go to it is if they have that Thursday off. Fortunately I do. I Came back with a big packet of material to share next week. Also a coffee cup and a bicycle water bottle, handy as one of my bikes was missing that.

Apparently IDEXX customer support in the Southern California area has gotten bad. So bad that a lot of clinics (including ours) are dumping the Vet-Test 8008 in favor of Heska equipment. This past Wednesday we got a class on the new stuff. Smaller, lower maintenance, faster, all the things you expect with improving technology. Most impressive is that it can do a full blood analysis with .25 CC of blood. For those who don't know, the standard has been a full 3CC of blood in order to have enough for the IDEXX machines to work.

One glitch I see though, is that if you are sending the stuff out to Antech you still need the full 3CC sample as they don't use this whizbang Heska stuff. And while its fast, reliable and just plain neato, doing stuff in-house still costs more than sending it out to the lab. So its going to have to be crystal clear before blood is drawn if the test is going to be done in house or not. I wonder how many mistakes they made over the past couple of days?

Current Mood: geeky

Couldn't concentrate, and they had enough people, so I left a couple of hours early on what fortunately is the one weekday I have a morning shift.

On the entire blood panel, everything was normal except for BUN and Creatinine, which were certainly high but not disastrously so. PCV was 23%, within normal but on the low side. If it hadn't been for the fact he needs anesthesia to have the tooth extracted, he could probably go home and just be put on a regiment of SUBQ fluids.

The sore mouth is obvious now that I know about it, and probably IS what set off the dehydration, along with the 100 degree temperature here. Outside of that he looks better. Getting that tooth out will make it comfortable to eat & drink and thats a big part of this.

I gave him his Clindamycin myself, and since hes on fluids now, the doctor also prescribed a shot of Epogen so his PCV would not fall as his blood volume increased. I did that too.

Oddly, Buprenex seems to keep him awake, not a reaction I've heard of before.

Angry Bengal Kitten in the next cage over would keep me awake too, tell truth.

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: TCD

Today was my first completely solo round at the clinic (its closed on Sunday).

I hate doing Isolation. When I left I actully had to bleach my FACE.

Current Mood: busy

Well my big yellow cat friend never regained his ability to generate body heat. I son't know the medical reason for that, but after giving him some cuddle time this past Saturday I discovered he was euthanized shortly after I left.

He wasn't a charity case, his owners spent well over a thousand dollars trying to save him. When I went in Tuesday I saw he had been sent out for one of the expensive cremations where they don't mix the ashes together. At least I know he was loved and the best doctor available did everything possible.

Current Mood: depressed

Go t a cat in at the clinic yesterday morning with a body temperature of 89.5. I'm not kidding.

Pulse was low at about 120, what you would expect from Anesthesia. Cat was quiet, but minimally responsive, even to the point of managing to purr. Doctor put him under my care at about 8:30 AM.

I gave him a heating pad, a hot water bottle and blankets. I got a minimal response of about a half degree per half hour until about noon, when his temperature went up about four degrees. It kept gaining slowly until I left at 7PM, when it was 98.5, Still below normal, but out of danger.

As far as I can tell, ALL of that body heat came from the heating pad & bottle, and this cat is not generating any body heat of his own at all. My RVT school didn't cover anything like this. We covered in detail what causes a fever and how to deal with it, but I have no clue what would cause this.

Outside of being lethargic and having a body temperature of 89.5, this was a completely normal looking 8 year old DSH neutered male cat. They didn't do blood work as I honestly do not think they thought he was going to survive the day. I also think this may be a charity case.

Current Mood: accomplished

This is how yesterday started off at the clinic...

Angry cat (lots of those yesterday) comes in. Tech takes weight and temperature and returns cat to owner. Cat is pleasant through all of this. After the tech (not me this time) leaves, the cat takes a big bite out of said owner who bleeds profusely all over the table. We wind up treating the owner and the animal and is returned to the cat carrier. The owner decides he doesn't want to go through bringing his cat in again and to continue the visit.

Cat is now resting peacefully up against the side of he cat carrier. Doctor comes in, takes complete patient history, and goes to withdraw cat from the carrier. Cat comes out of the carrier without altering posture one bit. Initially she thinks someone is playing a joke and put a toy cat in the carrier.

No - its the same cat that took a bite out of his owner ten minutes earlier, but now hes in rigor.

"Doctor, whats wrong with my cat"?

"Its dead, thats whats wrong with it"

NO, she didn't go into the Monty Python parrot sketch, but it was probably difficult. She did do a physical exam to confirm the animal was indeed dead from no readily apparent cause, and not some retaliatory action on the part of the owner.

Se we sent the owner with his dead cat to the emergency room. And we didn't charge for the appointment.

At least the owner was less upset about the death of the cat than he might have otherwise been.

Apparently this animal had a hstory of tachycardia and might literally have been killed by the stress of attacking his owner, who will probably never forget him now. This was kitty's way of saying goodbye I suppose.

Current Mood: shocked

I have yet to stick a needle in an actual animal and have it survive more than 72 hours.

Granted, I'm getting the class 4 & 5 Triage patients, but its getting really depressing.

Current Mood: cold
Current Location: Pierce College

Done it plenty of times on models, but this was the first time I've done it on an actual animal.

So what do they give me? An ancient stray cat with almost no blood pressure and tiny little veins. But I still managed to do it, so I guess I'm ok. I also syringe fed her food, gave her 100CC of LRS and a couple of meds I forget the names of. Antibiotics & eye drops for a jaundiced left eye, but the right looked OK. She is getting the best possible care at this point.

Skin & bones, 18% PCV and the most ictaric (yellow) looking plasma I've ever seen from that test, so this old kitty isn't doing so well. Friendly purry old thing though.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: Clinic

Just got a call from the DVM. My AS480 internship is now scheduled for every Tuesday & Saturday at the local clinic for the next 17 weeks.

A LOT more involved than the previous AS181 "work experience" class, this is going to involve a lot of real work and be full speed from the word go.

So for the next 17 weeks its school M-W-Th-F and Clinic Tu-S. Maybe Sunday for Sl and the usual visitors we have at our house.

Entering the home stretch. This is the last full semester.

Current Mood: chipper
Current Music: Radio Dismuke

Go Jeff

Presently just where I'm doing my "Externship

2 Doctors (room for a third)

1 RVT, with two in process of getting qualified via the California "Alternate Route". Supposed to be one per Dr. I'll be the only one they have with the actual degree - a year from now.

Of the two doctors that work at the clinic, the younger one has only had two cats die on the operating table in her entire career. In less than 8 hours on the job, I am halfway caught up.

RIP Buzzy. Your family was not there but you did not leave this world alone.

Current Mood: sad

I suppose if "Pinky" was larger, this might have been bad news. Instead, it's just funny. Bad kitty!

I left work at 2:30 PM

martes left work at 6:00 PM. She got home first. For the first 15 miles of the drive home, I was averaging a speed approximately one mile an hour slower than that at which I walk. A 5 1/2 hour commute. I got home one hour befor emy bedtime - that's it.

Current Mood: frustrated

My job blew it's overtime quota, so for the time being I *have* to actually use my 3 day weekends. It will make going back to 60 hour weeks harder, but when the time comes I will still have to do it again.

Thanks largely to the post by

cooner, I have started cooking again. Starting out small, I just did bacon & eggs for the first time in over 2 years. It was odd opening a ktchen cabinet and seeing a layer of dust on everything, but what I needed was still in there. Nice part of grocery shoppig is that I got what I need for 3 days of this for the price of a single McDonald's breakfast. Didn't take that long to make or clean up after either.

Most of the rest of the day will be spent doing housecleaning and finding my own batch of stuff for Ebay to clear out space and compensate as much as I can for the loss of the overtime income...

Current Mood: awake
Current Music: Blue Mars