When I arrived at Vescone for my first shift, I honestly didn’t know what to expect. However, it went well, and everyone was helpful. The first thing I did was help Amy Cambell, one of the CVT’s, to anesthetize her cat so we could rewrap his femoral catheter. Leo, a DSH tuxedo, is very fractious and is in kidney failure. We had to rewrap his catheter because it had become very wet because he could not move very well and had urinated on himself. Then we decided that his bladder was still very full and we should empty it while he was under so he did not urinate on himself again. Amy used a butterfly catheter with a 35 cc syringe attached. After she hit the bladder, I pulled out about 50 cc’s of urine. Later that night, Amy decided to euthanize him since he was doing worse and clearly not getting better.
Amy then took me on a tour of the hospital and pointed out specific items they use frequently and also pointers about how they do certain tasks.
Vegas, a pitbull cross 3 year old spayed female, came in for hematuria. On triage, we noticed that she was also very yellow and had a fever. We placed a catheter and then drew blood.
Lincoln, a DSH black cat, is an Internal Medicine long term case. He came in about 5 or 6 years ago with a really high PCV, around 65 or 70 and was diagnosed with absolute polycythemia. Now, every 5 to 6 weeks, Lincoln comes in, they check his PCV and if it’s above 63 percent, they take about 100ml’s of his blood. Then they support him on fluids for a few hours, recheck his PCV and if it has dropped then they send him home. This seems to be just fine for him and his owners. Today, his PCV was 67, so we had to “bleed him” we sedated him with Propofol and then used a butterfly catheter in his jugular. I used a 20 cc syringe and pulled out 100 cc’s of blood.
While all of this was happening with Lincoln, another tech got a urine sample from Vegas, it was completely red. Also, the blood that we spun down did not separate very well. Because of this, we did an agglutination test. We took 1 cc of fresh blood from her and put 1 drop on three slides. Then we put 1 drop of saline on each drop of blood and moved the slide around to see what the blood did. All of Vegas’ blood clustered together, telling us that she was aggluting. We then took a VD and lateral view radiograph of her chest and abdomen which I helped with and I was then shown how to develop using their dark room. The doctor who was on had us give 10 mg of Dexamethasone SP, I calculated this out to be 2.5 ml and we gave it IV in her fluid line. I found out on a later day that she was diagnosed with IMHA; or Immune Mediated Hemolytic Anemia.
The shifts changed and we rounded with the new techs on for the night so the other techs could go home.
Buckey, a Scottie, came in for having vomiting and diarrhea for a few days. I helped take a lateral and VD view of the whole body.
Amy then took me on a tour of the hospital and pointed out specific items they use frequently and also pointers about how they do certain tasks.
Vegas, a pitbull cross 3 year old spayed female, came in for hematuria. On triage, we noticed that she was also very yellow and had a fever. We placed a catheter and then drew blood.
Lincoln, a DSH black cat, is an Internal Medicine long term case. He came in about 5 or 6 years ago with a really high PCV, around 65 or 70 and was diagnosed with absolute polycythemia. Now, every 5 to 6 weeks, Lincoln comes in, they check his PCV and if it’s above 63 percent, they take about 100ml’s of his blood. Then they support him on fluids for a few hours, recheck his PCV and if it has dropped then they send him home. This seems to be just fine for him and his owners. Today, his PCV was 67, so we had to “bleed him” we sedated him with Propofol and then used a butterfly catheter in his jugular. I used a 20 cc syringe and pulled out 100 cc’s of blood.
While all of this was happening with Lincoln, another tech got a urine sample from Vegas, it was completely red. Also, the blood that we spun down did not separate very well. Because of this, we did an agglutination test. We took 1 cc of fresh blood from her and put 1 drop on three slides. Then we put 1 drop of saline on each drop of blood and moved the slide around to see what the blood did. All of Vegas’ blood clustered together, telling us that she was aggluting. We then took a VD and lateral view radiograph of her chest and abdomen which I helped with and I was then shown how to develop using their dark room. The doctor who was on had us give 10 mg of Dexamethasone SP, I calculated this out to be 2.5 ml and we gave it IV in her fluid line. I found out on a later day that she was diagnosed with IMHA; or Immune Mediated Hemolytic Anemia.
The shifts changed and we rounded with the new techs on for the night so the other techs could go home.
Buckey, a Scottie, came in for having vomiting and diarrhea for a few days. I helped take a lateral and VD view of the whole body.
