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.