Friday and Saturday 11/ 14 and 11/15

Whoa, lots of stories... these were days filled with tons of new stuff!

Bandaged Toes (A Gross Story) A poor little young cat had his front two feet declawed. People, please don't ever do this... I think it is cruel. It is basically taking out the bones of the feet, and it's a painful thing. So this poor kitty, he took his bandages off, so he was bleeding a LOT. So the doctor came to check on him, and said, WHOA! She then moved him to another cage, which is always a bad sign for me. When I wakled by, she said, "Oh, by the way, when you have time, can you please clean this cage?" Since it is my job, I agreed of course, and when I saw it my jaw kind of dropped in disbelief. There was blood spattered everywhere in the cage... even on the top. This was the most bloody cage ever ever ever. It took me a long time to clean! Then we bandaged the kitty's feet with clean bandages, and he was happy and left them there. He seemed much more comfy. Let this be a lesson to people who own cats... please DO NOT declaw them unless they will kill you if you don't! There is usually another way.

Murphy Murphy was a dachsund who had gotten in a fight with a much bigger dog, and felt the response of it. He was all bruised and sore, poor guy. He was the most injured dog I've seen in a while, and his entire tummy was purple. Poor dog... I felt so sorry for him. I was icing his belly and he was resting a lot. But he's much better Saturday than Friday, much more stable and less emergency-like, so he'll be OK. He just needs time to recover. I may update this next week if I learn more about him.
*NEXT WEEK: He is gone. He went home, safe and sound! : )

Ultrasounds YAY! I finally got to see ultrasounds, up close and personal! The first one was of a kitty's bladder. It was a very beautiful view of a really big bladder. Lots of nice colors... black and white and gray. When they put rubbing alcohol on his belly to make it slippery to move the thingy around, he was surprised that he had cold wetness on his belly. Funny!
I also got to hold a labrador for an entire-abdomen/chest cavity ultrasound. It was neat! He was big, so he was laying there, mostly calmly, and I was sitting there, scrunched into a one-and-half by three foot area. It was awkward, but I'm alive, so it's OK. Most of the abdomen was a picture of gray and other shades of gray, but it was neat if I saw an outline of the liver or right kidney or something. It was hard to tell... the doctor said it's from experience though. The entire thing took about 45 minutes. At one point, actually, I had to lay across the entire dog because he was squirmy. I held his back feet with one hand, front feet with another hand, and while my arms were completely spread out, I just laid my head on his side, because it looked clean enough. I took a shower when I got home, haha. He had ultrasound goo on his abdomen, and it was gooey, but that should be self-explainatory.
The coolest thing, however, that I'll remember for a long time, was seeing the heart on an ultrasound. The picture is transmitted directly from the probe thingy to the computer, so everything that is moving in the body is moving on the screen. I saw the heart expanding and contracting, and it was so cool! It just made me be in awe.