Well, that's one way to start the week. in Ponderings of the Universe

Today at work was such a shit show.

It was Monday Plus.

Busy morning, but not overwhelming. Was working on notes and then decided I’d eat my lunch around 1.

M left for lunch.

Realized we had a cat that needed to be sedated for grooming that we hadn’t been able to get to due to being somewhat busy in the morning. Decided to get it done before eating.

So, in the process of working on that, J left for lunch.

That leaves me by my lonesome as the only doctor.

As I’m waiting for my very fractious cat to become sedated, M’s hospitalized patient starts doing something bad.

I call M, she says to call owner for permission to do XYZ.

I call and the number the owner gave was incorrect. Ugh.

As I’m dialing the second number, T, the receptionist comes to to tell me that we have an emergency coming in shortly. Eek! I don’t like emergency cases when I don’t have another doctor to bounce things off of.

So, I call M’s patient’s owner’s other phone number and get a voicemail.

As I’m leaving a voicemail, the emergency case comes in with crying owner.

Pop into the room, try to calm owner with awkward jokes as I’m doing the physical (it actually worked pretty well, I got her to laugh).

Discovered some not so great things. Recommended bloodwork. Owner Oked.

Only tech available was our new hire who is great but she’s done more assistant work than tech work. She wasn’t holding the vein off for me in the way I needed her to.

So, I held off the vein and drew blood all on my own, got it on my first try. Felt kinda like a rock star.

Ran bloodwork, which confirmed some of my suspicions.

The other doctors come back and oy! It’s 2 and time to start afternoon appointments.

I recommend xrays for my emergency case and then pop into another appointment while the technicians get everything set up for them.

All of our 2pm appointments were sick appointments, meaning they take time.

We ended up 4 appointments backed up, which is A LOT.

Xrays on my emergency case don’t tell me as much as I wish they would. Discussed options and prognosis with what is most likely going on.

Owner emotionally decided that euthanasia was the best choice. I agreed. It sucks. Gave her time to say goodbye. She cried a lot.

M’s hospitalized patient died.

J euthanized the patient in the sick appointment he went into.

I euthanize my emergency walk in.

We all get dead patients! Woo.

Then, the insanity of the afternoon does not slow but it’s at least less full of death.

Finally, things slow down and I eat lunch at 4pm, 2 hours before my shift ends.

Holy. Shit.

In other news, 4th year veterinary student extern starts tomorrow. Wish she had started today as it was a perfect example of how things can go in general practice that you do not learn in school. But, alas, it was a university holiday, thus she had it off. Instead, we have like 5 scheduled appointments tomorrow and a dental. Oh, well. Hopefully there will be some good teaching moments. Or maybe it’ll be another unforeseen shit show.