Seriously Bad Weekend

I just got done with a seriously bad weekend on call.

Friday, I went into work a little early because the office called and told me that a dog was coming in from the emergency clinic as a transfer. The receptionist said they could schedule them as the first appointment of the day but I said to come right in because I assumed that there would be a catheter, etc. There wasn't. Apparently, they declined all diagnostics and thus treatment. When I saw the dog, the biggest thing I noticed were her terribly engorged mammary glands. I ran some bloodwork and concluded that the dog probably had really, really bad mastitis. I sent her home with some meds.
After the dog, I went out to do a herd health check because DE wasn't working.  By the time I was dong with that, I had three messages for other farm calls on my phone. Now I was scheduled to do small animal appointments in the afternoon and these other farm calls weren't going to get done but CB decided she would prefer to do the appointments rather than go look at sick cows.
SO then I got gas, stopped at Tractor Supply, realized I didn't have my wallet (or driver's license) so purchasing a new spray nozzle for Margie (the name of my vet truck) wasn't going to happen, went a saw a down cow-conclusion-suspected broken leg but not positive, ran back to the office, grabbed a piece of pizza, complained about pizza being ordered without me being there, openned a teat on a cow that I had done several times in previous weeks and ran down to New Wilmington where I had a cow at an Amish farm waiting for me.
Now New Wilmington is 25 miles away but it takes about 45 minutes to get there. When I got close, I got lost as usual. (Roads in PA aren't well marked.) When I found the driveway for the appropriate mailbox, the first house didn't appear to have cows, across from that was a road that looked impassable, down the road and across a covered bridge was a road that there was no way passable and finally, a house that was certainly not Amish. So back to the first house because it at least had a barn. No one came out. So I went up the seemingly impassable road which was surprisingly passable only to be met by an Amish woman that said no, the no way passable road was the way to the sick cow and I had come up her farm road. She suggested that maybe because I had four wheel drive I would be able to go up it. I told her I probably wouldn't try because I didn't like getting stuck. She then pointed to her driveway. Oh, well, I guess I'll go up the driveway because I'm not sure I can make the turn from the farm road back to the main driveway for the other farm. I get about half way up the driveway and get stuck in a snowdrift. Like seriously stuck. So she comes out and helps me dig out around the truck. I used my funnel. I get my floormats under the front tires and the Amishwoman tries to push me out and I do manage to go about 20 foot backwards before getting stuck again. Now her daughter comes out and helps us. This time I get all the way down the driveway. I ended up going down the farm road.
So now I realize that there is no way I am going to even attempt to go up the driveway to the other farm. I park at the bottom and gather everything I can think of that I might need. Luckily, there is a young Amish boy there to help me carry all of my stuff. It was a really, really long driveway through up to 12" snow drifts. I was huffing and puffing and carrying on. I'm really out of shape. Eventually, I would get to the barn, check out the cow, be thankful she didn't have a twist because that was the only stuff that I didn't bring up, treated the cow and then hoofed it back down to the truck. I gave the kid some candy that I didn't like and went back to the office.
Once I got back to the office, I had about 15 minutes to pee before I had a dog with some bad wounds come in. I sewed her up finding more and more wounds as she was now sedated and not shaking terribly. I then saw a dog with a swollen face. Then my mastitis dog came back in. She was vomiting uncontrollably and now her mammary gland was turning black. We hospitalized her for septic mastitis. (The ER vet hadn't noticed anything wrong with her. I told the clients that I was going to treat her like I would a cow.) Somewhere in there, I ate all the remaining pieces of pizza.
THEN shit really hit the fan. Just before 10, as we finished with the 'boobie dog', we get a phone call for a calving at the far east end of our practice range. Because it was only 10 pm, I loaded up to go. Apparently, these people had called everyone under the sun for this cow and no one but us would come out. When I got there, there was a good sized dairy heifer tied up with two front hooves sticking out. The head was back and I could just feel the lower jaw. I tried to get it around with my crayhook but it didn't work. So out came my fetatome. No luck in getting my wire around the calf's head so I took off a leg for more room. Unfortunately, the cow was closing her uterus down around this calf leaving me little room to work. I tried and tried and nothing was working. I offered a c-section (which wasn't a great idea) and another suggestion. The farmer kept us trying. My phone rang. And rang again. I would eventually stop and take the phone call because it was from one of our techs. It was now 2am. My tech's dog had been attacked by something out in her yard. I told her that I was way out on a calving and didn't know when I was going to be back into Greenville. So she was going to call another one of our doctors. Now the farmer decides to that he wants a c-section. So I prep for a c-section, try for about half an hour and there is no way that this calf is coming out. End of story. The cow needs to be shot.
I leave the farm at 3:15. I am exhausted. I get home, shower, take a benedryl because I'm allergic to everything involved with calving and get back up at 8am. I got 3 1/2 hours of sleep. I worked about 20 hours straight including all my driving time.

Saturday, I was busy all day with various sick dogs and cats. I euthanize two cats and a dog. TG  and I go out to see a horse which was kind of fun. We eat McDonalds and then see a dog with a bleeding mass on its side. Its a young pitbull mix. I'm sitting in front of him, petting him and I check out his mouth. Then without warning, he lunges at my face! It was a good thing his teeth didn't line up because if they had, I wouldn't have a nose. I felt his teeth graze my nose and chin as he snapped. So we muzzled him and I squeezed out/opened an abscess. I'm seeing him again later this week. Yea. Another emergency and then I go home for a little while. I catch about an hour long nap before going back in for an emergency. I managed to x-ray and run bloodwork by myself. (I did mess up the machine first and had to call TG.) Then I went to Ohio for a down horse. On my way to Ohio, I got a call from MCHS about a kitten to euthanize. Luckily, CB is awesome and she went and saw it for me. I did get lost going into Ohio but then I ended up at the farm in a round about way. Unfortunately, I found the horse down in the stall and he had bashed his head around. It seems like his backleg was broken. It was a dangerous situation because occasionally this horse would thrash around and paw. The horse went peacefully. And this woman had some giant pony sized goats.

Sunday morning I ran into the clinic to get the 'boobie dog' ready to go home. Her boobies had ruptured and were pretty nasty looking but she was happy and eating without throwing up. I didn't get any calls all day which was super awesome. I slept on the couch most of the day. I ended up getting a call about a sick dog. I went in to see it and the poor dog was pretty much DOA. It ended up dying which was sad. I suspect parvo.

Luckily, I got home in time for Downton Abbey. However, the end of the bad weekend wasn't quite over. I parked Margie in the garage and then heard a giant crash! The garage door broken. Even if I had got more calls, I couldn't go out anyway. Joe would fix the garage door this morning. Joe told me too that his car's heater and passenger window was broken. Great.

Now I'm just trying to get caught up on sleep. It was a long, sad weekend. :(