Friday, July 24, 2009
My Own Economic Downturn
I have not been posting any blogs lately because I do not have internet at my house until the end of August. I have been enjoying my own private economic downturn of late and that was the first luxury to go. However, I do need it for school and will be getting it back before school starts. Go figure, now that I have time to write in the blog....there is no internet. I am sure once school starts and the internet is back I won't have any time for the blog again. Sheesh! What a bummer. I hope you guys enjoy what little I am able to post here and there. Hope you are having a great Summer!
Sunday, July 5, 2009
An ER Vet Tech's Holiday: 4th of July Edition
So here we are again on our nations birthday. Folks are out watching fire works, eating awesome BBQ, and spending time with family and friends. But not me, I am an emergency Veterinary Technician. I get to be at the animal ER nursing all of the pets that have had a little too much holiday fun.
It always amazes me that relatively normal, seemingly intelligent people find it necessary to do the things they do to their pets on the holidays. I often wonder what would posses a person to give their dog all of the BBQ leftovers from an entire party of 20 people. Then when they get to the hospital and their dog has a whopper of a stomach ache they give you this confused look and are perplexed as to why their pet could possibly be sick. Sometimes I can't even get them to confess what they did, not because they don't want to tell me but, because it doesn't occur to them that feeding their dog rich, fatty ribs is OK when their dog is used to eating the equivalent of meat flavored KIX cereal every day.
Watching the face of your dog as he chows down 20 peoples leftovers: Priceless
Treatment for pancreatitis: $1200.00
Surgery to remove a bone from your dogs intestines: $2500.00 (not including the 2 days of hospitalization)
My other favorite holiday clients are the ones that take "Spike" who has never been socialized, spends every day of his life in his own house or yard and never has contact with other dogs, over to a relatives house where another anti-social dog lives, for a holiday visit. This generally ends in a fight and one or both dogs end up spending their holiday with us getting their wounds sewn up.
A holiday love affair between "Spike" and grandma's poodle: Priceless.
Sewing up the wounds on both dogs at the ER: $1500.00
I have saved my favorite Independence Day folks for last, these guys are my favorite, after a 12 pack of Bud Light(each) they think it is a great idea to let "Fluffy" run around in the front yard (with no fence and no leash) then are completely blown away when "Fluffy" gets smacked by a car in the street. I love it when these folks show up at the ER. The smell of beer, cigarettes and body odor in a closed exam room is really fun in and of itself but, what really makes my holiday great is, they apparently assume there is safety in numbers because there are never less than 5 of them. They all want to tell their version of the story(at the same time), and it is always the fault of the person just trying to drive on the street and definitely not the fault of the owners of the dog with no leash. They are also a little slow on the uptake and as you can imagine it can be pretty frustrating trying to explain medical care to drunk people.
Wondering what the neighbors are going to say about Ted's jiggling beer gut: Priceless
The cost for life saving procedures on your dog that ran in front of a car: $3000.00 (and that is if we can save them)
Now for those of you that are reading this and think I am full of shit....go ahead and do what you want, but just to let you know the average ER bill starts at $600.00 for diagnostic tests and can be as much as $3000.00 for various surgeries depending on what your pet gets into and what they need. Just to walk into the front door it is $120.00 on a holiday.
I will close with a happy 4th to all of you and please, keep you and, infinitely more important to me, your pets safe.
It always amazes me that relatively normal, seemingly intelligent people find it necessary to do the things they do to their pets on the holidays. I often wonder what would posses a person to give their dog all of the BBQ leftovers from an entire party of 20 people. Then when they get to the hospital and their dog has a whopper of a stomach ache they give you this confused look and are perplexed as to why their pet could possibly be sick. Sometimes I can't even get them to confess what they did, not because they don't want to tell me but, because it doesn't occur to them that feeding their dog rich, fatty ribs is OK when their dog is used to eating the equivalent of meat flavored KIX cereal every day.
Watching the face of your dog as he chows down 20 peoples leftovers: Priceless
Treatment for pancreatitis: $1200.00
Surgery to remove a bone from your dogs intestines: $2500.00 (not including the 2 days of hospitalization)
My other favorite holiday clients are the ones that take "Spike" who has never been socialized, spends every day of his life in his own house or yard and never has contact with other dogs, over to a relatives house where another anti-social dog lives, for a holiday visit. This generally ends in a fight and one or both dogs end up spending their holiday with us getting their wounds sewn up.
A holiday love affair between "Spike" and grandma's poodle: Priceless.
Sewing up the wounds on both dogs at the ER: $1500.00
I have saved my favorite Independence Day folks for last, these guys are my favorite, after a 12 pack of Bud Light(each) they think it is a great idea to let "Fluffy" run around in the front yard (with no fence and no leash) then are completely blown away when "Fluffy" gets smacked by a car in the street. I love it when these folks show up at the ER. The smell of beer, cigarettes and body odor in a closed exam room is really fun in and of itself but, what really makes my holiday great is, they apparently assume there is safety in numbers because there are never less than 5 of them. They all want to tell their version of the story(at the same time), and it is always the fault of the person just trying to drive on the street and definitely not the fault of the owners of the dog with no leash. They are also a little slow on the uptake and as you can imagine it can be pretty frustrating trying to explain medical care to drunk people.
Wondering what the neighbors are going to say about Ted's jiggling beer gut: Priceless
The cost for life saving procedures on your dog that ran in front of a car: $3000.00 (and that is if we can save them)
Now for those of you that are reading this and think I am full of shit....go ahead and do what you want, but just to let you know the average ER bill starts at $600.00 for diagnostic tests and can be as much as $3000.00 for various surgeries depending on what your pet gets into and what they need. Just to walk into the front door it is $120.00 on a holiday.
I will close with a happy 4th to all of you and please, keep you and, infinitely more important to me, your pets safe.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Stay Tuned for the Dog Pack Series!
Hey all I have decided to work on a series of blogs about my dog pack. I have been considering it for some time and have decided to start working on it this weekend. I was going to put all of them in the same blog but once I started writing about Lily and realized that she had an entire page I decided to spare you guys and do them one at a time. It is a funny, sentimental look at my dogs as i see them and I hope the writing is good as sometimes it is really hard to write well about emotional things. Enjoy and please leave comments...They really mean the world to me.
A&P I
So I have been taking an Anatomy and Physiology class (the first of two I have to take) at TCC this Summer session. It started on May 27th and ended today. That was by far the hardest I have ever studied for a class. We fit a lot of information into five and a half weeks. I have been studying, sleeping, working, or eating for the entire session and today I took my last test in the lecture portion. I am so proud of myself I have an A!!! For those of you who are new to my academic goals/plans, this is the best news ever!!! I am applying for the RT program at TCC in November, the program had 233 applicants last year and only 33 of those got in. It is incredibly competitive and only the best get accepted. They take your overall GPA and then the GPA for your science classes and accept you based on those two things. So it is really important to keep a high overall GPA as well as a 4.0 GPA in these science classes. Anyway I am really happy and wanted to share this with the blog followers. I get to relax a little for the second summer session as I am only taking Medical Terminology. Thanks for all of the support form friends and family and understanding why I have turned into a geeky weird hermit type person (I rather like being a nerd). I will keep you posted.
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