2001-11-01
11:13p.m.

Just a note, if you wake up at eight thirty, feeling refreshed after only four hours of sleep, it might be wise to stay in bed a few more minutes, and try and sleep. Going into work six hours early, with little sleep is not the best idea. I, however, ignored that little information..oops.

This entry contains lots of vet stuff..bewarned..hehe :)

I went into the clinic around nine thirty, and it seemed to be a pretty easy, laid back day. Which was fine with me. I ended up standing in a surgery that I thought was going to be a normal spay, should have asked first. We ended up removing four mamary tumors, which had me searching the clinic for formaldehyde. Dr. C decided that she was in a teaching mood, and put me on the spot by holding something up, and telling me to identify. I could recognize the uterus, because I have seen a lot of spays..the white stuff that was connected to it had me a little confused. So, my grand answer..'A uterus with something hanging off of it?' Dr. C kind of laughed at that, and explained that the "stuff" was the mesentary, and it was supposed to be free floating. Since the dog had had a c-section, however, it was connected to the uterus. So, at least I didn't make a complete idiot of myself. Then, she holds up another structure, telling me to identify it. I had aboslutely no idea, and told her as much. The other tech, Kathy, had no idea either, so at least I wasn't alone. It turned out to be spleen cells. Sometimes, in dogs, spleen cells will come from the spleen, and will form small fragments of spleen around the dog. It's a common thing, but I had never seen it before, it was actually quite facinating.

Now, while Dr. C was removing the masses, Heather was standing close for a close look. Well, Dr. C clipped an artery, which decided that merely bleeding wasn't good enough, noooo, it had to shoot blood directly at yours truely. All over the face, arms, scrub top, aaaand pants. Good thing it was halloween.

If that wasn't enough blood on me, Dr. C let me clip her dogs toe nails, which I can do fine on my own dogs..but when it's someone elses, I always manage to quick them...which is where you clip the vein that is in the nail. I even managed to do it to a cat who was asleep, and not moving, and that takes skill. So, Dr. C teasing tells me not to quick her dog, and I do fine while she is standing in the room with me..which you would think would make me worse. Then, she leaves the room, and the dog moves his paw as I am clipping, and bam, blood. I quicked the boss' dog! So, she comes in, sees the blood, and shakes her head. Normally, using a 'quick stick' the bleeding will stop instantly, well, no such luck for me. I finally had to get Dr. C to do it. Embarassing.

Then, she is cleaning her dog's teeth, and asks me to rinse the mouth out. I haven't used our dentistry set yet, so I didn't really know how it worked. Well, while not paying attention, I managed to find the right button..and..well..I squirted Dr. C. With water dripping from her bangs, she looks up to me "That would be the water." Eh..hehe..oops. "You are a very strange child." She just noticed this? I then informed her that I made the work day interesting. "Yeah, emensely." Should I be offended? Hehe. Then, she gets a call, and has me finish cleaning her dogs teeth. Which I had never done before..but I didn't kill him, so that's a good sign.

Then, we had some guy come in to teach us how to use one of our blood machines. So, after he teaches us, and leaves, and I am there alone with Dr. Fuller, we get an emergency come in that requires use of that machine. Well, when he taught us all, he never bothered to tell me what to do when it was in stand by. It starts telling me to condition it..I didn't see any hair on the machine, what did it need conditioning for. While I am looking lost, Dr. Fuller walks by, and he looks just as lost as I am. He starts pushing the buttons, creating strange sounding noises from the machine, while I read the directions. I finally figure it out, with a doubtful look from him, I got it to work. Evil, stupid, good for nothing machine.

So, after working until seven, and managing to set off the clinic alarm, did I get to go home? No, of course not! I had to take my little cousin trick-or-treating. When I got home, I collapsed into the bed. I slept until almost eleven o'clock today.

With the Nation Novel Writing Month, I have created another diary for those writings. I only have the first chapter up, and the layout's not finished, but, I'm hoping by keeping it in a diary, it will make me keep writing. Let's all hope. You can read it here

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