Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Sometimes it dosen't pay to get up in the morning.

Vet med is full of things that make you go, "ewwwww"

So, I'm oiling a horse. Oiling a horse, often done during colic, involves passing a NG tube (often while the horse is sedated or twitched) and pumping a gallon of mineral oil down into his stomach, being VERY careful to NOT pass the tube into the lungs. You'd be surprised at the particularly nasty aspiration pneumonia mineral oil can create. Anyway, I had just finished this operation, it was late at night, and I had just unhooked the NG tube from the pump I had used to pump the mineral oil. I was holding it up getting ready to kink it off to pull it when the horse sneezed. This put pressure on his esophagus and propelled mineral oil mixed with water (that was in the tube) into the air and down on my unsuspecting head. Needless to say, a shower was taken upon arrival home.

2 comments:

david0314 said...

EMS can be messy @ times, but vet medicine definitely holds more potential!

case-in-point: this post.

EE said...

Hah, funny how are careers are so much alike, just with different breeds of patients.

I'm fairly certain that the horse you treated is smarter than, ohh...50% of my patients.