abigail414's diaryland diary
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Coming Up for Air
I'm surfacing after 4 days of nothing but work. The above flowers are in my courtyard � they are papery thin bougainvillea and are everywhere around here. Plus, the sun shines almost all the time (note the intense blue sky) which to me is amazing after 20 years of cloudy Michigan. The trees in the background are olive to the right and eucalyptus to the left. I think the bougainvillea is next to a citrus tree, but it isn't blooming or bearing fruit, so am not sure.
This is what I see on my morning walks (that is the moon in the upper left corner - the sun had not quite come up yet). It is a lush environment for being in the desert, and intensively manicured - much different from my fairly feral four acres in Michigan (I never understod the appeal of square bushes?).
Then, on my brief commute to work I get a snippet of the outside world on NPR: a �sigalert on the 10�, �CHP letting debris naturally clear from the carpool lane'. It sounds like code talk to those of us 100 miles from LA traffic. To the east, there is desert with rolling hills. To the west, there are mountains reaching up to 10,000 ft, and even though they look mostly barren from a distance, they reportedly have canyons with springs and indigenous palm trees, and are topped with pine trees. On the top of the other side of the mountain is Idyllwild, which is a cool place to visit when temps get over 100 degrees here.
___________________________
Thursday�s vet theme was urinary incontinence. A poodle who wakes up in a puddle. A cat who dribbles and makes a mess of herself. Two yorkies who are drinking more and piddling. And another yorkie who is straining to piddle every hour. No joke. Four out of 15 appointments. And, they all had different causes.
I�m starting to have some intuition about what things might be - not 100% of course, but little signals go off in my brain as the client tells me the history. Plus my guardian angel(s) are kicking in � I�ll feel a little nudge reminding me to do things. I still need to make lists, look things up, etc, but am glad the more organic part of me is starting to show up. Thank you to my angel(s), whoever you are.
____________________________
Thursday night I prepared for an earthquake. That was a bit weird. The animals at work were all edgy, two assistants got bit by cats, I�d been thinking about my lack of earthquake preparedness, and even the ducks were quiet. So, I started with water, a satchel of essentials, and a stash of pet stuff outside. After a 12 hour day, that was all I could do for now. I guess we are overdue for a shaker, so it should be interesting. People here are very blas� about quakes, they have a number of them every year (makes sense, since the San Andreas fault is nearby). ____________________________
Friday's vet theme was vomiting. I hospitalized a very sweet boxer dog that I had initially seen on Thursday. When I first saw him we thought he had a stomach or intestinal obstruction, but the owners declined surgery and wanted to wait overnight. He came back Friday morning pale, cold, in pain, in shock, and had a clotting problem that gave him a much worse prognosis. He got a bunch of IV fluids and pain meds and a lot of my worrying while his owners decided what to do. I regretted not being more assertive about going to surgery earlier, and really need to get over regrets if I'm going to keep on doing this. The magical child in me hoped that sleep and fluids would somehow help, but at the end of the day an X-ray confirmed he was still obstructed and dying so we euthanized him. Afterwards, with the owner�s permission, we took a look-see inside, and he had a stomach tumor blocking outflow, plus it had ruptured and he had been bleeding internally (and he had splenic and liver masses). We all felt a little better about not going to surgery because this was not repairable. This was my first post-death necropsy since school, and even though they make me squeamish, it was rewarding to have an �answer� for the owner and myself.
Also on Friday, the cranky old lady with 'pink Kugo' (see 1/12/06 entry) came back - still barking ferociously at me, but this time only one pink pigtail on the center of her head (I'm talking about the dog not the owner). Turns out Kugo�s been vomiting black stuff (meaning GI bleeding) and not defecating or eating. And the cranky owner again did not come at her appointment time and made a huge scene in the lobby demanding to see me so we fit her in. Surprisingly, Kugo didn't look dehydrated, had good gum color, so we took bloodwork and X-rays and sent her home with medications and stomach protectants to help with ulceration. An X-ray showed a suspicious abdominal mass, or maybe she got into something, or is having unusual delayed vaccine reaction from a week ago. I need to follow up today (yes, on my day off) because I�m worried about this little menace and for some reason feel a connection to the owner in spite of herself.
10:49 a.m. - 2006-01-21 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
other diaries: |
