Monday, June 16, 2008

My glamorous job and other stuff...

Just thought I would post a small blurb about how glamorous my job is...Just kidding really...Last weekend was an interesting time for me at work...We had a hospital full of patients with all sorts of different illnesses.

The following list is just the ones I can remember: 2 dog in heart failure in oxygen, a cat who had been bitten on the butt by something, a dog who got into the trash and ate a combination of corn cobs and teriyaki sticks (for those who don't know, dogs can't digest corn cobs, please don't feed them unless you want to pay for surgery). We also had a couple of cats in kidney failure being diuresed, a dog hit by car with 2 broken back legs waiting for surgery. A dog with iatrogenic (meaning caused by treatment for something else) Addison's disease, a cat who had kittens and needed 2 blood transfusions, a weimeraner who ate 2 1/2 pounds of chocolate, and a dog who likes to eat socks and had horrific diarrhea.

I am sure there were more in the hospital, and that doesn't include the patients we saw that went home. Last weekend was much worse, however, we had 19 patients in 36 hours that were sick enough that the owners opted for euthanasia. I think that was the most I have had to deal with in that short period of time. That was a day that ended with a stiff drink.

The whole point of this rant was to show you this lovely picture I took of myself after getting home on Saturday night...We had a couple of dogs who had eaten rat poison and we had to give them activated charcoal to absorb the toxins. They didn't like it...

This doesn't show all the charcoal I had on my top and on my face...Luckily it washes off fairly easily.

Another thing you can't see in this picture is the splatter of diarrhea that I had on me as well. The dog who liked to eat socks was a very happy dog and liked to wag her tail when you went near her, whether she had diarrhea on her tail or not...YUCK!! She luckily seemed to pass the sock (which almost never happens) and didn't need surgery. ( I didn't mention that this same dog had a socked removed from her intestines 4 months before)

My new job as a surgical nurse hopefully will be starting July 1st, at least from what they tell me. I am looking forward to this greatly, as I am on overnights this week, and I won't have to do overnights anymore with the new job. I was supposed to start June 1st, but they didn't find someone to replace me in the ICU until now.

An update on a previous blog. A few blogs ago I spoke of 2 dogs that had gotten into something bad and one dog made it and the other dog didn't. We finally got the tox screen back this week. (we just found out that this test existed when this happend, previously there were no tests for animals that we knew of) As I had suspected, and was concerned about...

The 2 dogs had eaten euthanasia solution. It can last in tissue for a long time, so potentially they had eaten an animal that was euthanized a while ago. None of their neighbors knew anything about such a situation. It was either that or someone did something very very bad! (Euthanasia solution isn't easy to come by, you need a DEA license to purchase it) The police were involved in the case from the beginning, we aren't sure if there will be an investigation or not.

No new news about Kyler yet, it is going to be a couple more weeks until we can do an ultrasound to check for pregnancy. I am hopeful, as she is acting piggy when it comes to food (my food, at least). Her last pregnancy, I woke up in the morning to find that she had eaten an entire apple pie that I had made the night before! I was very sad about that, as I was really looking forward to eating it myself!

On another note...

Here is a recent picture of Lucie who lives in VT and is learning to hunt with falcons!




So, I am heading to a judging seminar this Saturday so I can learn about becoming a judge for hunt tests. Hopefully it will give me a new perspective on the whole thing. We'll see how it goes...Then Sunday I am heading to my parents, as it is my dad's 60th birthday! He doesn't look 60!

The picture on the left is of Skyla, Kyler's another one of Kyler's puppies from last year, in this picture she looks a bit like her dad, although up close you can tell that she is Kyler's baby! (at least I can, anyway!)

Then the weekend of the 28th we are probably heading down to Flaherty field in CT for a training day then a Vizsla hunting stake on Sunday. There is also a brew fest in Springfield on Saturday night, I think Mike will go with his friends and I will be the lovely DD. I would love to participate, but someone has to be the responsible one!


4 comments:

Andrew Campbell said...

Kim: recognized the charcoal seeing as Jozsi was still covered in it when we got him back from the emergency room. Have fun down in Windsor at the judges' seminar... and we'll see you at Flaherty the next weekend.

A+M+M+J

Melyna K. Huff said...

Love the VIxsla pictures...reminds me of ours! We have a 9 year old and an almost 3 year old! www.cocoandtana.com

Kim said...

Andrew, we'll see you there!

Melyna, loved your doggie site! I have hoped to own my own doggie internet business (natural food/products) as well. I own the site (mynaturalcanine.com), I just don't know where to begin, so, alas, I still have gotten nowhere! (my busy job doesn't help either!) Any hints? I have no business experience at all, just love natural products and natural dogs!

Kim

Delilah and Rocket said...

A responsible DD always takes markers, glue & feathers!!!

Your writings about your glamour job are always interesting and I learn something.