Fluids and IV Lines
I hit the sack yesterday around 4 pm. No, I wasn't ill -- at least not in body. I was preparing for a cessation of sleep at 11 pm.
I arose around the appropriate time and played some lively music on my way to the large animal teaching hospital. Strange to be arising when I normally go to bed...
I began my shift at midnight and continued until 8 am. It was my first time working in the hospital, so I was glad to have a technician on with me the first four hours. She taught me the ropes of fluid changing and administering K-penicillin IV.
There were a couple horse cases, a couple alpaca/cria pairs.
The most intensive case was a neurological horse with pneumonia -- it ground its teeth, stood base-wide, knocked its water bucket around in a most vexatious manner, and pushed food around its feed dish non-stop. Perhaps it was frustrated because it couldn't open its mouth significantly. We had fluids running full-bore through two catheters into the horse -- even though we hung six 5-liter bags we had to add extra fluids every hour or two. Craziness.
Differentials for the case? Tetanus, RABIES, etc. Were hoping against the latter -- though I'm vaccinated for the disease I'd still have to get a series of shots if the horse was diagnosed with rabies. I'm hoping some of the neuro signs were due to a hypocalcemia that they started treating this morning -- hoping.....
After the tech left, things were good... and then at 6 am I discovered a massively kinked IV line that had occured some time within the past ~ one hour. The kink was incorrigible and not licked until the line was replaced. We had to turn off the lidocaine drip and wait for the clinical fellow to arrive.
And meanwhile the fluids on the neuro horse were trucking along, almost running dry from one bag (not a big deal, we just had to hang more). And the other horse's fluids were in a questionable state...
But we didn't kill anything, and it was really pretty low stress and I had a good time.
***
Tomorrow I'm ushering at the vet school graduation.
I arose around the appropriate time and played some lively music on my way to the large animal teaching hospital. Strange to be arising when I normally go to bed...
I began my shift at midnight and continued until 8 am. It was my first time working in the hospital, so I was glad to have a technician on with me the first four hours. She taught me the ropes of fluid changing and administering K-penicillin IV.
There were a couple horse cases, a couple alpaca/cria pairs.
The most intensive case was a neurological horse with pneumonia -- it ground its teeth, stood base-wide, knocked its water bucket around in a most vexatious manner, and pushed food around its feed dish non-stop. Perhaps it was frustrated because it couldn't open its mouth significantly. We had fluids running full-bore through two catheters into the horse -- even though we hung six 5-liter bags we had to add extra fluids every hour or two. Craziness.
Differentials for the case? Tetanus, RABIES, etc. Were hoping against the latter -- though I'm vaccinated for the disease I'd still have to get a series of shots if the horse was diagnosed with rabies. I'm hoping some of the neuro signs were due to a hypocalcemia that they started treating this morning -- hoping.....
After the tech left, things were good... and then at 6 am I discovered a massively kinked IV line that had occured some time within the past ~ one hour. The kink was incorrigible and not licked until the line was replaced. We had to turn off the lidocaine drip and wait for the clinical fellow to arrive.
And meanwhile the fluids on the neuro horse were trucking along, almost running dry from one bag (not a big deal, we just had to hang more). And the other horse's fluids were in a questionable state...
But we didn't kill anything, and it was really pretty low stress and I had a good time.
Tomorrow I'm ushering at the vet school graduation.
posted by Claire at 16:35
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