Where da Brain?

Sometimes it feels like a person can try very hard and yet fail because of sheer forgetfulness/momentary breaches of judgment.

I performed another first today. My "only consolation" is that a married lady whom I admire did similarly once when she was young and in college.

Dare I admit it? I completely forgot to put my headcovering on this morning. I drove to work, saw my first patient, and talked to multiple people in the clinic. Nobody said anything until SN asked where my hat was. Hand rushes to back of head -- no cloth covering found. Er, I was embarrassed and really feared for my senses. I feared that other people feared for my senses (even more than they already do, that is).

I even recall slicking my hair back in readiness for the covering which reposed on the (heap of clothes on the) counter. I must have been thinking about being/not being late to work or who knows what and I completely spaced the donning of the hat.

My kindly office manager allowed me to drive home in between appointments to obtain my head gear. On the way back from my house, my car began to jerk in the lovely "I'm running out of gas" dance. You see, I had planned to get gas this evening, had not planned on any extra trips during the day.

You can imagine the fear which my car's status engendered. Not only had I left in the middle of work to get my covering, it would take me way longer to get back if my car ran out of gas. The ironic thing is that I had asked if I could "run to get my covering" and CL (receptionist) jokingly stated that it would probably be much faster to drive. Now I actually would be running in the true sense of the word.

I made it through the Stephens/Edenbower intersection, I made it over I-5, I made it to the Sleep Inn... and decided it would be much too embarrassing to run out of gas in the front of the clinic. So I parked my car in the hotel/Applebee's parking lot, and walked to work.

This evening was the test. Would the little car make it the 1/4 mile to the gas station, or would it fail an eighth of a mile away? Would I be forced to learn my lesson the really hard way, or would mercy be granted?

The little car began seriously shaking as I pulled in beside the gas tank. I turned it off before it died.

Following the fill-up, the poor little car seemed a little weak and then it purred to life.

Mercy.

Veterinary Crazy

Last week I had a cow dystocia, donkey dystocia, horse with upper airway noise, goose that was attacked by swans. By the Oregon Vet Conference on Friday, I was very sore in the muscles from pulling on feti that didn't want to be pulled. It was a good soreness.

I attended the OVC with my friend VB, and was educated about small animal emergencies, better cattle handling, and puberty in bulls. I got to reconnect with a few old homies from vet school -- though there weren't nearly as many there as I thought there'd be. Got to visit my bro that weekend, too, and attend the Hopewell Mennonite Church Bible conference. It was: go to OVC during the day on Fri, drive to church at night, back to OVC on Sat, back to church that night, then church all day Sunday. Not much rest time and I was already ill, but it was all worth it.

This week I was feeling unlegitimate (I know that's not a word, but illegit. has implied meanings) as a vet because I hadn't done any cesarean sections as a veterinarian. I was feeling this particularly on Tuesday... and ended up doing a C-section on a 13 yr Jacob sheep ewe with twins. They were all alive at the end of the procedure, in spite of the ewe's incredible old age.

Wednesday I took a much appreciated breather, listening to "Ramona Quimby Age 8" (book on tape from the library) while I crocheted. Sadly, the second tape had the tape part severed and it wouldn't play. And the tape didn't have screws to get inside it, so I couldn't fix it by gluing the tape back on the reel.

And LAST night. Whew! I wasn't even on call for the Greater Roseburg Vet Emerg Service and I was here until 10 pm. We were doing a blood transfusion on one dog, and surgery on another. The surgery was to repair a hernia caused by a dog fight, and it was very large. In some ways it felt like stitching hamburger, but I feel like the final repair was quite stable. A very cute dog -- I hope it does well.

Remains to be seen what the weekend holds.

Sick Dog in Room 3

It was 5:30 pm (closing time), give or take, last Monday. I was sitting in my office thinking about calling a client, or having just called a client, when Dr. Hendy stepped up to the door.

"Uh, there's one more client here with a sick dog. I'd like it if you would go see the case. They're in Room 3," says Dr. Hendy.

"Hm, who's on call tonight? aren't you?"

"Yes," Dr. Hendy conceded. "But I have a meeting I need to go to. What's new?"

"Humph." I thought, and said: "Okay, well, I'll look at it and see what it needs [implying that if it needed a lot hopefully it would devolve upon Dr. Hendy]."

(I was a little irked that it was Dr. H coming to get me instead of a tech -- as if I wasn't doing my job or something. And furthermore, I was imagining a very sick dog in need of IV fluids which I would spend two more hours dealing with when it wasn't my night on call, and thinking it would be very unfair of Dr. Hendy to leave this for me. So much for the restful night of crocheting and listening to Hardy Boys book #2 "The House on the Cliff." The interesting thing is that I don't normally complain like this, but this one night I did...)

So we walked toward Room 3, and there was no chart in the door.
"Are they ready for me?" asked I, hesitating, thinking the tech was probably still taking the animal's temperature.

"Just go in," said Dr. H.

So I did....

and there, behold, were the staff and techs with a pie and ice cream and I think they sang some Happy Birthday song. And I felt rather bad for my complaining, even though the complaints were legitimate.
Once again, the joke's on me.