Shock, blockage, foxtails

What a night! I have to write it down before I forget. By the way, I was by myself tonight, as a nurses' aide. Usually it is OK by myself, but this....

Emergency #1: Blocked I already told the stories of blocked cats before in my blog, so I'll just quickly talk about poor Frankie. He was a big sweetie, 20 lbs, with beautiful eyes. But the poor guy was straining to urinate, but at least passed some bloody urine. That's much better than nothing, but his urethra was blocked, probably with those struvite crystals. I sat with him for at least half an hour, and helped the nurse put a catheter in and such. He wouold have been an nice cat, but he was in pain, so he was a little bit grouchy. At least he wasn't the type that if we let go of his scruff, he'd attack us. I felt bad for him. The owners were very nice people, they were in the back with us for awhile. They were trying to find out what to do at home, and what exactly is causing this. So I got to listen as the doctor explained everything, and most of it I knew, but I learned some new things, so it was great. I just love how when clients are nice, all the time with them is very pleasant, no matter what the situation.

Emergency #2: Shock This was a more urgent emergency. A kitten, who I guess was in the hospital a few days prior to this, was in shock. This kitten had been dumped about a week ago (I think) on the freeway, and these very nice people picked him up and took care of him. He had a broken foot, but obviously loves them, as he was purring and kneading his paws even in his terrible state. So, shock is when the body has perhaps had a scare of some sort, so it's in shock. The temperature goes down (his was 96.8 degrees f.), the mucous membranes turn pale or blue, and it's very close to death. So this was scary to us, because we didn't know what had caused it. He wasn't eating, so that may have caused it, or, as I listened to the doctor explain, it could be an intestinal blockage. His abdomen was painful, so this would cause peritonitis (an infection of the abdomen), and is extremely painful. We couldn't see it on the x-ray, and I think on the ultrasound we couldn't see it either. This entire time, the kitten was on a heating blanket thingy to warm him up, and had IV fluids running. He needed it a lot. When we had to draw blood, we could only take about 1 mL, whereas we normally take about 3 mL. This poor kitty didn't have much blood, and had a very low blood pressure. So after the doctor explained the options and the owners talked about it, I think they opted for exploratory surgery to see and/or remove the foreign body from his abdomen. It was a rush deal, so they had to call for another doctor or nurse to come in, because it was very busy (with the surgery and all), and they needed backup. I think the surgery was performed last night, so I hope it went well. That kitten really needed a fighting chance, which is exactly what the owners said.

Foxtails: I didn't know about these things until yesterday. They are horrible seed-like things from plants that have about 2 or 3 spines/thorns on it, long sharp ones, and they got embedded into 3 dogs' feet yesterday. I was only there for 2 of them. One, a beautiful Romanian Sheepdog, had 3 deep in his enormous paw. The doctor had administered some medicines beforehand to make him sleepy, and it didn't seem to show... until we started working and he leaned his enormous head and body on me! Then they administered local Lidocaine into his paw, to make it numb. There was pus running out even before they did anything, from two little holes in the paw. The doctor cut open the paw a little bit, and, while flushing the inside with a surgical solution, rummaged around inside with a tool to look for those nasty foxtails. She ended up finding 3, but was of course worried that she had forgotten some more. She had to dig in all the pockets which previously held pus in that wound, and she didn't find anything, but I learned that Lidocaine makes wounds bleed more, so it was tricky to see. Then the nurse bandaged the foot, and led the dog off to his owner with an e-collar. What a sweet sheepdog! Later, we had a smaller dog, kind of Schnauzer-looking, who had a big one in his foot in the exact same place. It didn't require so much digging or bandaging, because it was so big and the wound so much smaller and cleaner. Poor dogs! Poor veterinarian... she told me she was getting quite sick of those procedures!