a day at work for me

Some days my job is very rewarding. Yesterday was one of those days. It started off as a routine surgery day but then we had some odd ball stuff come in and we were incredibly busy for the 10.5 hours I was there. I usually work in surgery 2 days a week. The other days of the week I work I'm either the lab technician or in management working on scheduling, ordering & inventory and misc. other junk.

We had a walk in emergency come in yesterday. We don't get those too often as we are not an emergency hospital & most of our patients are scheduled appointments or scheduled surgeries. Yesterday this little dog named GiGi came in with all her intestines hanging from her little body. She had been spayed at another clinic and then had went home and removed her own stitches, then preceded to eat some of her own guts. Gross, I know. She will be lucky if she makes it to be perfectly honest. I felt really good that we were able to get an IV catheter going and got her prepped and ready for surgery in under 5 minutes. What a great team I work with. The doctor that did her repair was done within an hour. That is a good surgeon there, amazing!! By 4 o'clock she was wagging her tail at us and responsive when we talked to her. All of this going on while little Stevie here barked and whined ALL live long day! He was too cute to get mad at though, don't you agree? GiGi will have to really fight for her life now for the next 5 days or so. He body will have tons of infection to fight off. I really hope she makes it and it felt good to get her this far. In the meantime, while GiGi was undergoing emergency surgery another doctor was doing a shoulder luxation surgical repair on ANOTHER dog named GiGi. (it's not usually a common name...) She is an 11 year old poodle. Here is her picture post-op. I ended up carrying her around some in the afternoon as she is a total lap dog and cries when she is in the kennel. Plus her morphine was starting to wear off and she couldn't have more for a another hour so it seemed to calm her to be held.

We also had Sophie who came in to be spayed. She really started the whole photo session because she was so comfortable snoring off her anesthesia. Here she is all laid out on her back sleeping away. Her owners say she lays like that all the time at home. We thought it was adorable.

This is a photo of me on the job. This schnauzer is under anesthesia and ready to be moved into the surgery room for an upper GI. It can be pretty busy but most days I do enjoy my job. I love the animals and feel they have a special bond with me. I can go to a very anxious animal that is trying to bite someone else and it will relax around me. The neat thing is I can just feel them completely relax into me as I hold to restrain them. It's like they know I'm okay and not there to harm them even though some of the stuff we do causes pain. If I talk soothingly to them they seem to stay calm and let me do whatever needs to be done. I have even drawn blood samples before without anyone else holding the patient for me. I also do have to brag that the only time I was ever bitten was when I had a puppy under anesthesia and while I was intubating her, she sneezed and her sharp puppy tooth came down in the center of my finger. Ouch! Otherwise, just scratches and one torn ligament from a wrestling match with a Rottweiler. My thumb got caught in his collar wrenching it backwards. I had to have surgery on that a couple of years ago. & it still bothers me most day.

So, it will be 16 years on the job in June and I won't lie~sometimes I'm burnt out, sometimes I'm sick of the politics and the people, sometimes I'm tired of the meetings and especially the test. I'm tried of the long hours on my feet and how sore my body gets lifting and carrying. I get really tired of the cleaning and all the hair...but where else can I work and get hugs and kisses, purrs and tail wags? I can be a major factor in how well that pet is taken care of while they experience something they totally don't understand.