*Phew*

[mad_andy]

I survived. I am knackered.

However, here's an anecdote that sums up tonight and, indeed, night shifts here in general:

It's 0615. I am gore and saliva to my eyebrows, because the cat whos tried to stop a car with his face has decided he's going to finish the job by braining himself on the walls of the incubator. Morphine has stopped working. The only thing that is working is me putting the beast in a (gentle) headlock.

So.

Cat. Blood. Saliva. Headlock.

...phone.

"My cat's bandage has fallen off."

There is a moment of silence while I try to come up with a response that does not begin with "WHAT?!!!!!WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?

They sound nervous. So they bloody should.

So I make them an appointment to come in and see the vet, and hang up very gently.

...

People. Gotta love 'em, right?

Comments

[madandy.livejournal.com]

Sadly, he didn't. Talking to the nurse who was on duty during the day, he got worse during the day - there was obviously a degree of brain injury. And as the owner works away from home a lot (thus wouldn't be home to care for him intensively) and the cat was at least 14, the decision was made to put him to sleep.

Yes, we could have kept going. We could have fixed the jaw, done reconstructive surgery on his face, supported his systems. But with brain damage...you just don't know (often for months) if the animal is going to have any quality of life at all.

Plus this cat had already had extensive surgery for a particularly nast tumour (he looked rather gruesome at the best of times, because we'd amputated his nose about three years ago!) - and on examination it looked like it was coming back. So the tumour could have already been invading his brain, causing him to misjudge where the car was....

One of those horribly difficult calls to make - but I agree with what the vet did. I'm just bloody glad I didn't have to make it.