Friday, September 19, 2008

I should've known better

Yeah, I know better to complain about being bored. It's like that ancient Chinese proverb, "May your life be interesting." Something crazy is bound to happen. Yesterday was like that.

I'd been gone for two days doing various things, and came back yesterday. First thing in the morning my receptionist hands me a chart and says, "The lady on the phone's dog has been having seizures all morning." There's nothing like the mention of seizures, either cluster or status, that is guaranteed to send me shuddering. Then, right as the seizing dog comes in, another weak dog comes in with what tunes out to be an abdominal tumor. A huge abdominal tumor. A huge, bleeding abdominal tumor. Also, I have a cat in the hospital with a protein loosing enteropathy who was chewing his IV catheter out. And all the other routine vaccines, ears, and other things I saw. And that was just before 11 am!

So, we got the seizing dog stopped. Luckily he'd only been having cluster seizures for about two hours and hadn't yet gotten an elevated temperature or lactic acidosis. He got diazapam, we loaded him on IV phenobarb and he went home ok. Stoned, but ok.

Same could not be said of my tumor dog. Sadly, he had myriad of other metabolic disorders along with his bleeding abdominal tumor and his owner elected to euthanize him. Frankly, I think that was a good choice since he was a poor anesthetic risk and those spleen tumors have a very high rate of metastasis and a low survival rate after removal.

My cat loosing protein looked really good after he chewed his catheter out, and I started him on some new meds. We'll see how he looks tomorrow.

Tomorrow should be pretty ok- I get to spay an alien! A dog named Alien, that is!

2 comments:

Evil Transport Lady said...

See evil knows;) I knew you'd get slammed, it happens all the time;)

Hope your next week goes smoothly:)

Purple Stinky Onion (PSO) said...

I have to admit, I agree with evil transport lady--I knewyou would get slammed, but sometimes that is what ya' need!

Sorry to hear about the tumor dog! That sucks.

Whatever you gave the seizure dog worked great in a stoned sort of way...(he-he):))))

BTW, my kids, oopps I mean...I have this adorable hamster at home named Moose Tracks- He really is a great guy- we are up all night together, me being the night-shift sort of person I am and he, well he likes to run in his wheel or chew on some wood things especially between 0400 and 0530 and I love it when the Other half sleeps down stairs, Moose drives him nuts running in the wheel and everything!
How much longer can our affair go on? What is the longest you have heard a hamster live?