Saturday, September 17, 2011

quick mid-mid term update...

Hellooo! so I just wanted to throw in a quick, QUICK update because I said I'd update more often this year....AND, my mom's reading this! so, yea.

The last few weeks leading up to midterms have been insane. not only are we hit with a TON of material to learn in just a few weeks, but my wildlife team has been extremely busy this year. I was on call a few weeks ago and was paged NINE TIMES. So many head trauma squirrels, orphaned bunnies, cat deglovings of bunnies, hit by car turtles...and then this past week...a turkey vulture with a broken wing, 2 great horned owls with longstanding injuries, more turtles and neuro squirrels...and the most painful I think-was the fawn.

She appeared to be around 2 days old (not much bigger than an adult cat), cachexic (anorexic to the point of wasing), was completely lethargic, floppy when picked up, had grey gums and was barely responsive. We tried everything we could, put her on IV fluids with dextrose, gave her dextrose directly on her gums, put her on heat and 02 and watched her for around 2 hours. She seemed to go agonal every now and again. It was extremely sad and excrutiating to watch, not to mention that the person who brought her in told us he knew the mother had died days ago-so this poor baby had been without nutrition for at least 2 days. She was definitely not long for the world. Alas, we ended up deciding the most humane course of action would be to help her get to heaven, there wasn't much more we could do for her. It was one of those sad cases that you wish you hadn't seen or been involved with.

It was a good dose of reality though, no, being a veterinarian is definitely not just vaccinating cute puppies and kittens. It's about life and death, and the helplessness you feel against nature. Some days I feel like a junior doctor and some days I feel like the grim reaper. *sigh*.