So a long time ago, I wrote out in long hand two stories I meant to later type out and post. I’m to lazy to do this now and so here’s the gist of the two blogs.
Being Lucy
· Essentially, I was tricked into buying $200 worth of steaks by door to door meat salesmen. Joe didn’t get mad but I saw it as something very I Love Lucy like.
Four Very Long Days
· At the end of August, I was on call for four days in a row. I’m surprised I didn’t perf an ulcer or something.
o Thursday
§ Phone call about a cat in heat
§ Went into the clinic to assist with a foreign body surgery that ended up being euthanized on the table.
o Friday
§ During the day, I was asked to examine a tooth to see if I could determine what animal it came from and to at least rule out human origin. What possesses people to think that the local vet is capable of doing this? I know it wasn’t human, thinking pig.
§ Got two calls within five minutes of turning on the answering machine
· One because bloodwork results hadn’t been called back about
· The other regarding a goat kid with her head stuck between a pipe and a feed bunk
o During the unsticking of the goat kid, I got another phone call regarding unreturned calls from another vet. Apparently they were very busy at the other clinic!
o Using lots of lube and turning the goat upside down we got her out.
· There were several back and forth calls regarding medications of a dog whose owners I spoke with during the goat episode
o Saturday
§ I was the large animal vet for the day and was rather busy in the end.
· First an ADR cow and then a cow with nervous ketosis at another farm. At this farm, I cracked my skull on a water line that didn’t help the nausea I was trying desperately to fight off.
· Then a dystocia at which I found a very small Holstein heifer trying to deliver a breech calf in the mud. I fought to try to get the calf corrected and then fought to get the cow standing but was not successful in either. Obviously this calf wasn’t coming out. This became more evident as I noted calf sized intestines coming out from how hard the cow was straining. I was going to do a fetotomy but after calling Dr. Hasco for like the fourth time that day decided that he was right and if my arm barely fit into the cow, how on earth was I to get the fetatome in? So euthanasia was elected and in speaking to my boss yet again, he told me to shoot it and asked if I had ever done it before. I answered yes but then quickly realized he meant with a gun. Then he declared that I shouldn’t do it because I’d shoot my foot off. The farmer wanted the cow euthanized with Euthasol but that created a $200 environmental problem. Begrudgingly, the farmer understood the whole situation and was willing to shoot the cow himself.
· Then I returned to the poor little goat kid from the night before and gave a vitamin cocktail to fight off whatever she had started to get.
· Luckily, that was all for Saturday
o Sunday
§ I was woken up at 7am for a rare derm emergency and when I finally got to the clinic at 8:30 I was glad that I saw them. I’m pretty sure the dog had gotten into something it shouldn’t have and sent them out with an ecollar and some meds. I now remember that the husband was a dairy farmer and had sent with his wife a post it note containing the word ‘dexamethasone’ because he had it in case we wanted to use it.
§ Then I had a horse with a cut leg which at the time went very well but later didn’t
§ Then another horse with a large cut on its shoulder. This one went okay but later became a terrible mess and would get me lectured about large versus small animal wounds. (A lesson I’m not sure I fully have come to understand yet.)
§ Of course, while in the middle of sewing up this horse, my phone rings and I’m left with a nasty message regarding a cow with milk fever. I follow some poorly given directions and find a red and white Holstein that goes down as soon as I walked into the barn. I thought I heard a ping and decided that I really needed the cow to stand. In the middle of putting on her halter, she leapt to her feet and charged me only to crumple and fall just short of sending me up a gate. I ended up giving her everything I had for cows in these situations-i.e. calcium, dextrose, B vitamins and steroids. I was pretty sure I was going to kill this cow with the calcium but somehow as I walked back into the barn after dawdling cleaning up my stuff she leapt back to her feet. Then the farmer tells me that she’s a mean cow. Thanks.
· Needless to say, it was a very, very long weekend. A nice emergency bonus from Sunday though!
[EDIT-originally published to Blogger-12/21/11]
[EDIT-originally published to Blogger-12/21/11]
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