Just Being There

Today was great- I was off from classes due to pure coincidence in teacher conferences and lab dates, and so I slept in, did some cleaning, caught up on my homework  and just relaxed in the warm sun. Remi was thrilled to be in all day with me- no accidents still. She is being so good I can't even explain it. I guess at 4 she finally grew up... I checked out a neighbor's horse at noon since he had just had extensive gelding surgery yesterday (one of his testicles never descended). He was doing great and was as perky and ornery as ever. I call him Princeling because I have been half in love with him since I met him the day after he was born. There is something very wild about him, and he moves like a dream, even as a yearling. I could never afford him, but I hope that one day I might have the chance to ride him just once. He is a warmblood of some sort- I think Oldenburg and Thoroughbred, and has fantastic bloodlines. He is also over 16 hands at a year old. Yikes.

Anyway, I went in at two to the animal hospital (they had a staff meeting, otherwise I would have been in earlier), and had a really good time today with everyone. I got to draw up vaccines, restock things, etc.- they are starting to utilize me which I like quite a bit. One of the dogs in the back, a sheltie, quite took to me and I got him to eat when no one else could. We had a large variety of breeds in both cats and dogs today. Domestic shorthair and longhair cats and a Siamese, French bulldogs, bulldogs, labs, chihuahuas, shepherds, shelties and mutts all came in and out the doors in the 6 hours I was there.

The most interesting cases from today included a cat with weird facial skin lesions- they started out as small scabs, the fur peeled off, and they looked like thumprint size raw marks. He had started with one on Sunday and had at least five today. The poor boy looked perfectly healthy besides that, and wasn't itching at them at all, and they were only on his face. The vet wasn't sure exactly what it was, but suspected it was a reaction to either flea bites or something else new in the environment. He got put on an antibiotic and Frontline for now, and if it gets any worse he will be biopsied to see if it's immune-related.

The second most interesting case was a rather sad one. This big fat orange tabby cat came in on emergency. He was severely dehydrated, unresponsive, with a huge bladder, and one of the girls found he was blocked, unblocked his penis, and he started spraying blood and urine out. He had been unable to go and had gone toxic. His temperature was so low that it didn't register on a thermometer, his paws and ears were cold, his gums pale. He was in terrible condition. We put a heat pad on him, and I of course got the orders to stay with him while the vet went to talk to the family about what was going on and the options. To have the chance to save him would have taken critical care, IVs and a whole lot of time and money. I sat with him for about 20 minutes, rubbing his face and belly, talking to him, while he halfheartedly tried to stay awake and survive, his head and paw over my arm. When the family made the decision to euthanize him, I held him until he took his last breath.  I never met his family, I don't know whether it was a hard decision or an easy one, though from the talk I heard from the techs the family wasn't particularly attached to him, but I know that he was comforted at the end and he went on being surrounded by a pair of loving arms. It was very sad- but I think very important. You can't save all of them, and sometimes you can't even try.

~Melissa