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First things first:

Gacked from [livejournal.com profile] screwthedaisies and [livejournal.com profile] hector_rashbaum...

Comment with two characters I write, and I'll write about their first kiss.

That done, I'm almost out of another week of nights, yay!



Mind you, this week's Hell Wednesday is going to be fun - Chris is away for the week at a snake show in Holland, so I'm looking after the shop. *Squeak*

At least he doesn't expect me to do anything with the false water cobras or the African rock python. Even filling water bowls is interesting with those devils, I swear - but if I has to, I has to. Good job I know how to use a snake hook and a towel.

(Wiki entry on the false water cobra, if you're interested. The pair that Chris has at the shop are both about 2 metres long, and although the female is quite a phlegmatic beast the male is an absolute shit. If he didn't want to breed from them I'd handle the damn thing with a shovel, I swear.)

On Monday I'll have to do the weekly order as well. Here's hoping I don't screw it up!

Now, a cat came in last night - collapsed, dragging his hind legs, distressed - and when M__ did the handover to me, she said that she'd thought that it was aortic thromboembolism (a horrid condition when a blood clot blocks the aorta where it splits to supply the back legs with blood - it's absolutely agonising for the cat, and I've never, ever seen one resolve permanently. The condition always recurs, and usually kills the cat in the end).

Vets always want to treat it, because in theory if you give the cat enough pain relief and aspirin, heparin and whatnot (and treat the underlying heart disease) it's controllable.

They, of course, do not have to spend all night trying to comfort a patient that's screaming in pain and trying to bite its own unresponsive hind feet off.

Anyway, wasn't that. We both heaved a great sigh of relief.

A__ and I gave said cat a shot of beta blockers and he settled down a bit, so then we gave him a quick ultrasound scan to see if we could get a look at his heart.

Oh. My. Fucking. God.

I have never seen anything like it, and I've seen a lot of feline heart scans.

This cat's heart? Is sort of twitching a bit rather than pumping. All four chambers are bloated to the point of unrecognisability, and the left atrium is full of a blood clot... which is about five centimetres across. I shit you not. Oh, and there's fluid in the sac around the heart, which can be a fatal condition in and of itself.

How this cat isn't dead is a mystery. That heart? Fucked. Totally screwed.

Turns out that because he's impossible to medicate (and having seen him fight A__ last night when she tried to give him a pill I can believe it - he was blue and one squawk from death and he still tried to bite!), his body has adapted to the heart condition. So his red blood cell count must be through the roof; it has to be, because there's sod all flow round his body, and yet oxygen is getting round somehow.

And you know what else is amazing? Shot of beta blocker last night, two shots of heparin and this morning? He's had a leg stretch round the cattery, polished off a bowl of biscuits, had a cuddle, meowed at me to go home... to look at this animal you would swear there is not a damn thing wrong with him.

And yet he could fall over dead at any second.

Tragic, really; lovely friendly cat, nice owners... and he's dying. You can't see it, but he is.

*Sigh*

I hate being on deathwatch. Because that's all we're doing now - waiting for him to deteriorate to the point where euthanasia is the only option, or just drop dead. Poor little sod.

And what's the betting that the place will be overrun when I get here tonight?!

Wish me - and Lloyd, the cat I've talking about - luck!

I think we're both going to need it, but he rather more than me....
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April 2010

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