All in a day's work

I went on a farm call today and got to see one of my old patients.  And she remembered me.  According to her owner, she NEVER barks at anyone.  Well, she barked at me all right.  She barked at me to say "I remember you, get the hell off my property."

But it was great seeing her.  She was my very first hit-by-car emergency case.  She came in early afternoon on a day when I was already slammed, Doc was backed up on appointments that were waiting in the lobby and no one knew where he was, and I was trying to coordinate everything.  Then a guy walked through the door who was younger than me, with tears streaming down his face as he carried in his dog that had just been run over by a truck.

Her gums were white.  Her heart rate sounded like a train.  Her pelvis ground whenever it was moved.  A needle into the abdomen came back with bloody fluid.  I wanted to refer her, he had no money.  I told him we had to do an exploratory because I thought she had ruptured her spleen.  He quickly agreed.  I had never done a splenectomy, I had never even done a real exploratory surgery by myself.  But I got in there and her spleen looked beautiful.  Her stomach and kidneys looked beautiful.  The intestines were intact.  Then I got to the bladder.  It had a huge tear. 

We flushed her out with about a million gallons of saline, I sewed up the bladder and then the abdominal wall, we sent her home on multiple antibiotics and pain meds with instructions to stay calm and make sure she was peeing.  It took several days before we were sure she could urinate, and I spent a lot of that time on the phone with the owner.  But she was okay.  A few days later she was walking on 3 legs.  A few months later, she was moving the 4th leg.  And now, 9 months later, she's just a little gimpy.

Makes ya feel pretty damn good about what you do for a living.

Then there's the other side of the job. 

I went out there today so we could vaccinate some heifers.  Vaccinating for brucellosis involves tattooing and tagging the ear as well.  Which cows don't like.  Especially unhandled black cows.  I usually have very quick reflexes, but my brain has been all over the place today.  Within the first two cows, my right hand had been banged.  The third cow tried to bite me.  I swear to God I felt teeth going down my arm.  Never mind that cows only have bottom teeth in the front of their mouth.  It was the fourth cow that nailed me.  She was already trying to lunge at me through the head catch.  I was very carefully trying to spread ink in her ear, ready to jerk my hands back at any second, when she swung her head around as hard as she could.  I didn't get my hand out of the way fast enough and she smashed the outside of my left hand between her head and a bolt in the chute.

Now, if it had just hit the rail, it would have been painful enough.  But the bolt was smaller, sharper, with worse edges.  It scratched the skin off my hand and I was bleeding under the glove.  It took three more cows before I could even begin to move that hand again.  By the time I got back to the clinic, it felt like I had stuck my hand in a fire and I couldn't move my pinky.  The outside of my hand was definitely starting to look a lot bigger than the other hand.  And now, nearly 12 hours later, it's turning black.  And it still hurts.  Especially when the cats try to rub their heads against it.  I still can't move my pinky.

I tried to take a picture, but unfortunately the camera just does not do it justice.

However, injuries like this are pretty common in my job.  It'll be better in a day or two.  Just to be replaced by some other injury in a week or so.  Such is life in the field of cow medicine.  And as twisted as it may make me, I'm going to miss it.  Although my body may disagree.