#vettechnicallynotyet

[vettechnicallynotyet]

So if y’all have ever wondered what guinea pig dental disease looks like

[vettechnicallynotyet]

So we had a Doctor come in...

Pediatric doctor, owner of 3 cats, insists on being Called Dr.

We work her 3 cats in for dentals with the caviot that if they need extractions, we may not be able to do them because we already have enough chaos in the treatment happening. Dr Owner says ok, drops cats off, leaves.

Hours later, we are discharging these cats, and we tell her she will need to come back for some extractions, there are some resorption lesions on some of the teeth—owners goes from 0-60, breaking the sound barrier in her intense rage.

“What do you MEAN you didn’t do any extractions??? That was the whole point!!!” She then proceeds to tear the technician unfortunate enough to be present a new asshole, leaves in a huff despite the inpatient doctor that day telling her we didn’t have time, (plz see aforementioned “we may not have time” note above) and that we didn’t want to put other patients at risk by taking time and attention away from them.

Nah, that wasn’t good enough. Dr Owner proceeds to write us a long preachy message about how we put her cats at risk, we were rude and didn’t want to make time for her, and that since Dr Owner is a Doctor, she NEVER puts a patients life at risk blah blah blah.

I don’t understand how some people can function like this.

Owners be trippin’.

[vettechnicallynotyet]

So some cute things have been at work lately…

[vettechnicallynotyet]

So this Hamster comes in...

Alright. Ok. So this little thing comes in presenting for wet tail. And I don’t mean campylobacter wet tail I mean literally wet tail. And some other symptom I can’t seem to recall.

This thing’s name is Fairy (not really, but anonymity–this is close enough). She’s owned by a little girl and a mother. She’s timid, and not used to being held very much.

I like rodents, don’t get me wrong.

But.

It’s a hamster.

Whatever we try to do to her is going to be a shitshow.

Alright. Time to get a weight.

Hammy is in a tissue box. This is fair. I wouldn’t think most young girl and mother ham ham owners have carriers for their little things.

I need to weigh the ham. I reach in to grab her and she shoots out like a rocket and I catch her to my chest. Luckily mom and kiddo are distracted because children. Ham is weighed, not dropped. Phase 1 accomplished.

Now onto phase 2: the exam.

Oh geez. I want to scruff little hammy, but the little girl is already freaking out,“no don’t hurt Fairy!”

“No, we’re not hurting her, it’s just an exam–”

Ham begins to screech, much like a ring wraith.

The doctor and I glance nervously as the ham continues to demand the One Ring and the little girl loses her shit and begins to sob hysterically.

Oh golly guys.

At this point, my hands that are trying to restrain the Ham, are thoroughly in the way, so I give the hobbit-seeking Ham to the doctor.

Doctor is bit not 3 seconds later.

OH BALLS WE GAVE HAMHAM A TASTE FOR HUMAN FLESH

Dr laughs it off, and we gather fecal matter to do poop tests and exit the exam room. The doctor turns to me, serious look in her eyes.

“Turd bit me real good.”

I look and there is a decent amount of blood coming from a tiny ham bite. Oh boy how exciting. Sure am glad I could have avoided that by restraining hamtaro better for the doctor.

Ifailedyoudoc.jpg

While we wait for stool tests to shit out some results, doc wants fluids for Fairy.

Oh ok yeah sure no prob bob anything you want no problemo get that taken care of right now gonna do it so good give that ham some fluids into its tiny 70 gram body definitely doable no issues will arise it’s gonna get done.

Ham is collected and as I turn to leave the exam room, little girl remarks, “please don’t hurt Fairy…”

Every fiber of my being is set on edge and my adrenal glands are rapidly firing off into my bloodstream, my heart is attempting to launch out of my rib cage, because that, my dear friends, is what is known as a death flag.

“We’ll take good care of her.” I say as reassuringly as possible.

DAMMIT I RAISED A SECOND DEATH FLAG

Thisisfine.avi

Hamstastic is now in the treatment area and I have fluids drawn up. All 5mL of them.

“Who wants to help me give fluids?”

A coworker steps up. “To what?”

“A Hamster.”

“Shit. Really?”

“Yeah. Why do you say that?”

His eyebrows raise so high they practically levitate off his forehead. “Because it’s a hamster.”

“Yeah, and?”

“It’s a hamster. They always bite.”

“Not always! This one’s…uh. Ok yeah this one bit the doc. Wanna hold or give fluids?”

He glares at me as I try to grin reassuringly.

Hold onto your hats folks. It begins.

Coworker grabs ham. So far so good. He tries to restrain, that doesn’t look right–aaaaand coworker is bit. His bite wound is gushing blood and the ham skitters across the counter and he grabs her, smearing blood onto the ham.

Whydowekeepfeedingthisthing.gif

Nooooo that’s going to look so bad! Images of handing a bloody ham back to the little girl flash through my mind with a “well at least it’s not her blood, right?”

Coworker gets ham restrained back in hand, another coworker cleans ham face with hydrogen peroxide. Ok then aaand there’s blood around the eye. It looks like Hamham has turned my coworker’s blood into war paint.

Ring Wraith Ham has reengaged and the decibels being put out far exceed what a Hammy should be able to expel. To further emphasize how pissed she is, and how much she’ll fuck us up, her mouth opens wide, seemingly unhinging as she beckons us to continue with our procedures and bring her the hobbits.

We give her fluids.

The dark deed is done.

And she’s not dead. Death flags avoided!

Ham is handed back to owners and they leave.

Well, they would have, except Ham had learned how to leap out of the tissue box, so I offered to tape a tissue over the hole to act as a cover. It worked for all of two seconds and then–

Remember that scene from Alien? You know what I’m talking about.

That Ham came tearing through that tissue paper like flesh and nearly off the reception desk. I think everyone in the room had multiple heart attacks (sans little girl, who was distracted. This is good.) as the mom caught the hammy.

After that, they left and I was at some ease.

“I think that Ham has Campylobacter.” The doctor whizzes past me to go do paperwork.

Well crap.

I’m glad little Ham was still alive at the end, even if there were casualties. I’m thinking since Ham was still eating and drinking normally, we might have caught her illness quickly enough.

On another note, her stool sample was weird. Like, she had all sorts of bacteria, motile rods, cysts, possible coccidia, and other things I can’t describe.

[vettechnicallynotyet]

So this Snake Comes in…

He had necrosis all over his body. That image showing his debridment? Yeah that’s his spine showing. It’s not good.

The doctor was thinking his own prey ate him. Which is very tragic. How miserable must this snake have been?

Guys, I’m not a snake owner and don’t know as much as many out there, but try to avoid live prey if possible. Do freshly killed, or thawed. I know that some snakes only eat living, moving prey, and if that’s the case, try to feed your scaly buddy when they’re actually hungry, and monitor them too. This way bites (and huge chunks of missing flesh) can be avoided.

I do not know the fate of the snake. The doctor was able to clean him up, but it didn’t look good.

Starting to fear rodents a little. The box turtle the other day, now this guy?

[vettechnicallynotyet]

So this One Day I Got Bit...

And I’m not referring to the poodle incident.

I was holding an Australian Shepard for an anal gland expression–my manager at the time was the one expressing the glands–and my hold on this furry thing started to slip.

‘No big deal, I’ll just fix my gripOH SHIT’

The dog'a gross mouth chomped around my chin so fast I barely even knew what just happened. My manager, wrist deep in dog rectum, her eyes wide like a deer, screams at me what just happened, and not to let go again since her hand was still entrenched in dog ass check and it would sure be unpleasant if he got her next.

I had scruffed the dog without knowing, but rolled with it while the gland expression continued and a coworker stood above me, filling out an accident report. Luckily for me, the dog had let go as soon as he bit down and it wasn’t a hard bite. Unfortunately, it still drew blood so I had to go to the medical facility where clinics make bitten techs go.

The dog was up to date on rabies, and this was before immune suppression, so now one died/had their head cut off.

I was, however, yelled at for getting bit. I mean, ok. This is fine.

[vettechnicallynotyet]

So this snake came in…

I didn’t get to work with him while he was alive, but he was a gorgeous little guy.

I DID, however, get to deal with the phone call that led up to bringing his body in for a necropsy.

Now I haven’t done reception work at a vet clinic before, nor have I scheduled an appointment, and I’m still learning the system, estimates, what we do/don’t do. But it was 7:15am and the phones were already screaming at me, giving me quite vivid flashbacks to when I was but a young pizza slave answering phone orders. I digress. There’s no one around me to get this phone like usual. My manager comes back and points at me. “Get the phone.” She says, and leaves.

I reach for the phone and then immediately forget how to initiate and proceed with a verbal conversation. But my hand slips and oops I picked up the phone and now it’s at my ear and now I have to make the words do the mouth noise derrrrrrrp.

“I wanted to call and say my snake didn’t make it.”

Oh. Well crap. That sucks.

(Expressing sympathy is not my strong suit. I will always feel terrible when an animal passes away, but I can’t put how sorry I am into words. I use stock “I’m sorry for your loss” type phrases and try to mean them)

She wants a necropsy done.

Oh cool, I like those (from a medical standpoint). I don’t know how to proceed. Dang. Uh.

My mind is a blank slate that cannot be filled. I’m slamming on the keyboard trying to figure out if the doctor offered it to her free of charge or if this is to be paid for. It’s supposed to be in the medical record aaaaand it’s not there. I give her the price of the necropsy. She agrees, then asks if she can bring him in that day.

“Sure!” I say, completely unaware of how overbooked every doctor is. “We can get that taken care of today!”

My mouth is a train hurdling down the unfinished tracks and I still can’t stop myself.

We discuss the body after the procedure (that was a…fun conversation) and the phone call ends.

It is then chaos and hellfire as more patients come spilling into the building.

Oh geez.

Anyway, coming back full circle to the grotesque image above:

I still don’t know why he died, or what he originally came in for. It was so busy that day his body came to us that I never got to stick around for the necropsy. This image shows him full of worms and I don’t know how that managed to happen. It’s…horrifying. I’m not even sure how this could have been diagnosed without intensive diagnostics.

[vettechnicallynotyet]

So this turtle comes in missing a foot... There's no punchline. Apparently this guy was out chilling (burmating) and the owner found him missing his foot. He had a toe dangling by some flesh, but no bone. We think he got munched by a rat, but guys. Guys. Come on. Watch your little guys closely, even while they burmate. This could have been avoided. I heard something unfortunate today, kinda bitter about it, like green tea bitter: "you can't call a reptile coming in an emergency because it's never an emergency. They live slow, they die slow." I can't even believe that was a thing that was said at what is supposed to be a place of compassion. We bandaged the foot up with tegaderm and vet wrap, but he needs surgery or something. And probably antibiotics. Before me and a fellow tech bandaged the foot, I was trying to give this kiddo reassuring head pats. He leaned into my thumb and didn't tuck his head! We had a moment together!! And then it was ruined when the foot was being messed with. Box T kept giving me the side eye and nearly caught my finger when I wasn't paying attention. And then he hissed several times at me. Moment ruined. For the rest of the time he was giving me some dubious side-eye. (The person who said that 'reptiles can't be an emergency' was later but in the face by a dog.)