Let's start with something nice. Joe and I have inherited a new cat. About two weeks ago, a very friendly orange male cat wondered into our lives. I brought him into the house. I call him Mr. Montique. I figure he was the cat that was lost when our neighbors moved. In a round about way, we figured out that he had been doctored and was healthy. At that, we released the cat into the household. Mr. Montique and Bess don't exactly get along. Bess is indignant that he uses her litter pan and eats her food. But overall they are doing well including now sleeping in the bed together-not close but the same bed none the less. Here's some pictures:
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| Mr. Montique did not enjoy the penguin hat in the same way that Roosevelt did. |
So Thursday night, I came home and let the dogs out. Joe was already in bed (and as I learned later, already drunk which explained the burned skillet of chex cereal). Mary was yelping occasionally and I noticed she was rubbing her bad eye. Her eye looked horrible with blood vessels (neovascularization), corneal edema and goop coming out of it. Touching the area around it caused Mary to yelp in pain. She was hurting something terrible and I knew she needed help right then. So I woke up Joe and made him come with me to HP where I gave Mary some pain medication. I tested the pressure in the eye and it was 67 (normal is 15 to 20)! Mary had sudden onset glacoma! I called TH, wrote myself a rx for eye meds and went to the pharmacy. Joe was a train wreck. I knew that this problem with the eye was the nail in the coffin for the eye, but we were going to try to make it right. The medication cost $97! Friday, Mary wasn't any less painful and I added in tramadol and an e-collar because I was suspicious that she had scratched her eye. It was confirmed Friday afternoon when Joe had Letha check the pressures which hadn't gone down at all. I had also talked to an opthomologist at this point and he had made some suggestions which ultimately would be enucleation. I found the medication (another $50) that the doctor had recommended. Today, Mary was feeling better-carrying around baby, barking at the cat, laying down (we abandoned the e-collar because she hated it so much). We rechecked the pressures and they were actually much higher. We added in the other medication tonight. Wednesday, we'll make a decision regarding enucleation for Thursday or Tuesday. Poor dog.
Christmas is looking promising for tomorrow, even if I didn't wrap a bulk of the presents. When shopping on the internet especially for others that are across the country, the odds of having things wrapped dramatically decline. And some of the presents are particularly large. It snowed (flurries only) last weekend some. It was nice and helped get us into the spirit even if it hasn't gotten much below freezing (during the day at least). Our flowers on the porch from the summer may make it all winter!
Joe's birthday is today. I made him some brownies and we ate Chinese. I have typical Chinese food gut. Its horrible that I get that each time. I made a pie for the neighbors too but it wasn't well received. (Lil isn't the most sociable person; maybe Stan was already in bed.)
I haven't been sleeping as well as I would like. I've been having very vivid dreams a lot of the time that I am sleeping. Generally, the issue is that I fall asleep on the couch for several hours-sleeping very good when I do so and then can't sleep once in bed. I also am having premonitions about patients-or maybe its just experience coming out. Oh, and I can really remember patients well. We had some problems with a certain clinic and similar problems have been repeated recently. I quickly remembered the orginal dog. I remembered out the blue the name of a dog for which there was a bag of food sitting aside for. I randomly remembered a type of rare tumor for a patient that TS had. As for 'premonitions', I had an emergency call one night about a cat that Meg fielded-I predicted a saddle thrombus which is what it did have. I checked a dog for diabetes based off of the owner stating it was drinking a lot more water. (There are tons of things that can cause PU/PD. 21 I think.) It ended up having diabetes. When I couldn't sleep the other night, I thought about a dog that I hospitalized and hoped that it didn't die overnight. (It did.) I thought when I couldn't sleep that I had left the hotshot at farm but luckily I hadn't.
Regarding emergencies, I am 'on call' this weekend. I'm only fielding calls from clients and referring real emergencies to the ER clinic. BF is doing large animal calls. Last night, I was on call to see emergencies. Despite getting one call, I didn't see anything. My call didn't go well. The owner was rather frantic when they called. They couldn't remember the name of the clinic, were hard to understand and admitted that it might have been a while since they had been there. I was already angry when I was explaining about payment, costs, calling in a tech, etc and they insisted that the dog wouldn't need stitches because it just had puncture wounds. I kind of exploded all over them at this point yelling at them that they weren't a vet and I'd be the one to determine if the animal needed stitches. They then tell me that the dog is a biter. I'd need a tech. They decided to go to Mechanicsburg. Good.
So last Friday, we had a walk in emergency come in. It was a dog that had been shot in the flank. The dog was shocky and where the wound was, indicated that radiographs would have to be taken. We radiographed it and it appeared that there was fluid in the belly. Exploratory surgery was indicated. The bullet was lodged under the skin on the otherside. No telling the internal damage done. An estimate was given and the dog was started on fluids to help stabilize it for surgery. I finished appointments and the techs started prepping the dog. Meg noted that when the dog was breathing, air was puffing out of the wound. While a bad sign, I took it as an indicator of what I might find in the belly-a ruptured hollow organ-intestine, bladder, colon. I noted though before going to surgery as we added the second bag of fluids that the dog's pupils were fixed and constricted. Not really a good sign. So we get the dog to the table for surgery, she goes out with only a half dose of Telazol and Letha starts clipping. We go to turn the dog on her back and blood comes gushing out of the gunshot wound. I mean gushing. So we clipped faster, all my careful precautions of gowning up, double gloving, preemtive antibiotics went out the window. I opened the belly and was greeted with a bellyful of blood. It poured everywhere. We hooked up suction and pulled 800ml of blood that didn't clot off of her belly. I couldn't locate the bleeding. I couldn't get it to stop. The bullet hadn't caused much damage-tore through a ureter (I think), nicked a piece of small intestine, nicked several pieces of omentum and of course, had nicked a major vessel-which I couldn't find. I called the owners and gave the poor prognosis. We euthanized on the table. Letha was there to help me and she has tons of experience. Letha didn't think that anyone could have helped that dog. I think because the blood didn't clot that the dog had slipped into DIC (disseminated intravascular coagulopathy or death is coming). It wasn't good anyway. Sad case. Then I saw the cat with the saddle thrombus.
I'll eventually get a three day weekend...
Joe and I are making some progress with the wedding planning. We met with a photographer and hired her. She seems really nice and I am super excited about her photographing our wedding. You can check out her stuff at this link-Dreaming Tree Studios. Joe and I have also met with one caterer. They sent us an estimate and it was super high! So I'm hoping that nobody comes. I have another one that I sort of pushed off but now am going to investigate more. And in January, a florist. I need to make a list of things for Joe to be in charge of.
And to wrap things up...Pinterest failures. I have mentioned before that there were somethings-mainly baked goods-that I have tried from Pinterest that didn't turn out as good as they looked on the site. Now I have some crafting failures as well.
SO crafting failure number 1-It was advertised as a good method to cut glass. Unfortunately, it didn't work. I got one wine bottle to break but it wasn't where I wanted it to and it did so unevenly. I was trying to make this as a Christmas gift.
SO after crafting failure number 1 was crafting failure number 2- As a cheap alternative to foam craft wreath rings, it was said that you could use foam pipe insulation-$1 or so. This is what I ended up with after Joe spent an hour or so wrapping it in wine colored yarn:
Its not exactly a circle is it? I tried to make it more circular but it never would. I eventually gave up and got a grapevine wreath. This is what I ended up with---it was sent to Joe's mom and stepdad as a Christmas present (attempt number 4-you can't mail wine across state lines apparently.)
I also made these-birdseed ornaments. They weren't as easy as you might imagine. Only about half turned out decently. I mailed them to my grandma. No word on how they got there. I think I learned some things about making them-use large or easy shapes-heart, circle, maybe start. Plastic is better than metal. Try using some PAM on the ornaments to help easy them out.
Okay, that's all for now. I put in the rest of my blogs for the remainder of the year already so from here on out is only new entries! I'm hoping to figure out how to rearrange all of the entries so that they are in a different easier to read order-by year not day. Also an easier to publish order. Enjoy.
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