Exhausted And Compassion Fatigued

Ugh.
I'm tired. Luckily, I had today off. Today, I slept in while Joe mowed the yard after getting off of work, laid on the couch, ate McDonald's, did a load of laundry and planted the garden. I eventually made dinner and here I am. I needed this day off even if I took it off in a sneaky manner-originally, I had something planned for today but that fell through so here we are.

So what's been going on?
Last week, I spent two days in State College at the PVMA Spring Conference. It was a fairly good time. Lots of really good food. I ran into people from my old clinic there. I really miss them. Sounds like they are managing to get by without me but maybe barely...:)
Anyway, I came back to DE and TC being out of town and poor CB pulling her hair out because of frustration. And I was on call so that sucked.
Friday was the most mind numbingly long dreadful day. The bright spot was the 17 puppies I examined for one of my favorite Amish clients. She's super nice and exactly the opposite of what people think about when they think of Amish puppy breeders. The first appointment of the day was a dog that came in for seizures. Unfortunately, this dog was also very pale and had a very distended fluid filled abdomen. An x-ray confirmed it and surprisingly, the abdominal fluid was not frank blood. Bloodwork and additional radiographs confirmed a poor prognosis-left sided heart failure, liver failure and fluid filled chest and abdominal cavities. I was rather blunt with the clients which I apologized for but this was a very sick dog. A very sick dog that didn't know it yet. So I hospitalized her, put her on fluids and high doses of lasix and we hung out for a couple of days. If the owners weren't ready to give up, neither was I. This dog certainly wasn't. I also revisited a mean little dog for bloodwork. Unfortunately, this dog was fairly young but had kidney disease. The owners declined to hospitalize it and I sent it home with fluids under the skin. I can't remember much else of Friday other than being terribly behind in appointments and regretting that I was so busy. I had like one emergency right at close and it was quiet that night.
Saturday picked up where Friday left off. I hospitalized two patients-an elderly cocker with kidney failure to be diuresed and a lab with a mystery infection. I had thought it was a pyometra-an infection of the uterus but Sunday when I took her to surgery after stabilizing her Saturday night, it turned out to be not so. The good news is that she did well after going home. Fingers crossed that it continues to go that way. Saturday, I also sewed up a dog, saw various sick animals, pulled a large bull calf from a small Hereford and admitted a 110# dog for a pyo. This one was unmistakenly a pyometra! Then at 11, I got a phone call for a calving. When I got there, I was presented with a very large but short heifer. The calf was very large as well and the cow was not well dilated. The farmer remarked that he hoped that we wouldn't have to do a c-section. Umm...you've had to do c-sections before. Internal groan. Luckily, I felt if we took this very slowly allowing time for the cervix to dilate as we pulled, we wouldn't have much of an issue. I was wrong. So using the calf jack, we very carefully pulled. It wasn't going very well but was going well enough. We managed to pop the head through then the calf came sliding out until the last part of the rib cage. Ugh. I hope its hips aren't locked I think. There is no way I can even put my hand in there to feel. So we pull some more. Then there is a bright red flash of blood-the umbilicus has separated prematurely. Ugh. The calf is delivered but has died right before our eyes. As we were reviving it, the cow is pushing out huge volumes of blood. I reach in and realize the devastating news-the cow has torn her uterus at the pelvic brim. Not only that but she has torn her uterine artery in the process. I'm literately holding it clamped with my hand until I can get the owners to find what I need in my surgery box. I get the artery clamped and tied and wish the cow luck. I'm skeptical that she made it to morning.
Sunday, I did my pyo and not a pyo surgeries. I saw two cats-one of which had a huge tail tumor that required tail amputation. I was going to eat lunch and prepare for all four hospitalized cases to go home but then got called away to a prolasped uterus. Exciting. Luckily, one the cow was froglegged, the uterus-though very torn up, slipped right in. I went home (almost killing myself/totaling Margie on the way-an intersection had a dip in it that I hit too fast and sort of lost control for a moment!), showered and then within 15 minutes of getting out of the shower and preparing to eat some grilled steaks, I get a call for a calving at the far expanse of our practice. Luckily, the cow didn't need my assistance at the time, just more time (and eventually lots of help from the farmer) but I checked another cow for him. This cow I had seen several weeks earlier for a DA but could not find one. She had went back and forth since then and on Sunday night had a twist. She would wait till Tuesday and Tuesday afternoon when I went out to check her she didn't have one. I cut and tacked her anyway. Sunday ended with euthanizing a dog.
Monday was surprisingly slow.
Tuesday-back to work. Surprisingly though, even though I didn't get home until after 7:30, I wasn't that busy.

I really needed today off.

 Our anniversary is Sunday. We don't really have anything planned nor do we have the money for anything. I have a three day weekend in a couple of weeks and maybe then, we can get away.

On the TMI/baby front-no news. I actually haven't taken a test recently. I had a period where my boobs were really sore but attributed it to a cow hitting me in the chest with her head. I have also been crying a lot for no particular reason but attribute that to being tired. I guess we'll see how the next few weeks turn out.

Girlie

I like to think of myself as the modern woman. Or a real Renaissance woman.
I'm not one of those hippie, liberal chicks that spells woman wombmyn or any such nonsense. I do believe that there are very few things that a man can do that I can't do. (Or at least make a valiant attempt.)
Honestly, I'd probably make a better uhousewife than a hippie, equal pay sort of chick.
You're just as likely find me in the kitchen baking as you would doing something 'manly'. Admittedly, I don't do any mechanical work or mow the lawn. I have a husband. That's what he's for.

On the front of veterinary medicine though, we have to realize that greater than 50% of veterinary students are female and greater than 50% of veterinarians practicing are female as well. (This last one has just occurred in the past few years.) In realizing this, we also have to recognize that when you are looking for a large animal vet, that there is a pretty decent chance of getting a woman. Just because you have a dick doesn't mean you went into large animal medicine. I mean I can't imagine one of my closest friends/male classmates being a large animal vet. It would be a disaster every day!

Here he is petting a cow. He tried to pick up its foot like a horse. Luckily, she was a pretty tame cow.

So anyway, I have a tale of two stories of women power...or lack thereof.

A few weeks ago, I was called out to pull a calf just outside of Greenville. When I got there, there were two old men to help. They proudly told me that one was 78 and the other was 82 or something. (I love little old men.) One of the old men had a hook for a hand!!
Anyway, they kept telling me to 'be careful, girlie!' because this big cow was not exactly in the best mood to have a calf pulled. So from the relative safety of the other side of the fence, I managed to drop a lasso around her head and get a halter on her. We got her tied up. The hook handed man kept yelling to mind that my hands didn't get smashed. I suppose once you loose a hand, you're a little more careful where hands get placed.
Luckily, once tied things became fairly easy. The calf was just a little too big and needed a little push (or rather pull). I got the chains hooked up and me and the two old men pulled. We only pulled a few minutes when I convinced them that we should get out the calf jack. With the calf jack, we got the calf out and all was well. He was a big strapping bull calf and everyone was happy. The two cute old men were happy. I was happy (and surprisingly clean). And not once did they mind that I was a woman. And I didn't mind being called girlie.

And now the reverse tale. When I get an emergency call first thing in the morning, I dread it. One because it roused me from sleeping and two because depending on when and what it is, it ends up ruining my day and plans. So I was woken up at 6am by the phone ringing and sleepily answered it. They were looking for DE. I explained that I was the vet on call and maybe I could be of assistance. The insisted that they wanted DE. I was getting annoyed by this time and asked what was the problem was, maybe I could help them. They explained that they had a calf bed out (prolapsed uterus) and the last two times they had a girl out and wanted DE. So I called DE. I was pretty mad. Not only was I mad that they didn't want me to help but that they didn't want a girl...couldn't say woman. Here's the thing. Prolapsed uteruses are not easy to put back no matter who you are.
Luckily, DE explained that I had put in several recently (probably an exaggeration) and the man sort of apologized.
So anyway, the moral of this story is when you have an emergency, don't be a dick. Take what you get and just be grateful that there was anyone on the other end of the line that was willing to help. Even if they don't have a penis.