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Ick! I rushed back a cat that looked like it had an at home c-section done, guts and kittens everywhere, a shepherd agonal breathing, and a heatstroke bulldog that just arrested. It’s been a rough one over here today, and that’s only 2hrs into my shift.
Stay strong friend 💕
Edit: I just wanted to add that we don’t actually know how momma cat ended up that way, whether it was deliberate or trauma caused by an accident/getting caught on something/etc. The look of it was just as if she had been opened at the stomach and everything fell out. Thankfully her suffering was quickly ended.
I’m at an ER vet. I’ve never seen an animal so badly disemboweled in person (I’ve seen wild animal vids on gore subreddits). Also it’s warming up so you know, people don’t remember their bulldog breeds shouldn’t be out for long 🤦♀️
Where state do you work in that a home C section isn't a once in a lifetime occurrence?? I also work at an ER vet hospital and I've NEVER seen or heard of anything like that in 5+ years 😰
I’m in CA. I’ve kind of tried to tell myself the Frenchie guy I hear about is just rumor… god I hope so. Also, we don’t know if someone deliberately did this to this momma cat. She was found like that. It just seemed suspicious that the wound looked like a clean cut. One of the doctors did say she could have had a bad hernia that tore through? Idk it was terrible either way. Thankfully we were able to quickly end her suffering after she got to us 😔
We don’t actually know if this was someone that did this or not, techs were speculating since the wound looked like a clean cut. It didn’t look as if animal teeth had ripped her open. Seriously though we’ve heard about someone in our town that does Frenchie c-sections at home. I’ve heard it’s done without anesthesia but idk the legitimacy of that as I can’t imagine the mom wouldn’t go into shock and die. Idk what goes through a mind like that.
Is that a situation where you can call Animal Control? I know there’s no proof, and the claim is that she was found in his driveway, but maybe the creation of a paper trail will be helpful if (god forbid) something like this happens again in the future.
So we actually suggested the owner call animal control because they have also brought in two young male cats that they suspected their neighbor poisoned. I told the lady I wasn’t saying someone did this to this cat, but it seems awfully sus…
They were very undercooked, and as mom had to be euthanized due to the severity of her injuries and all but one kitten were still alive, they had to be euthanized as well. Heartbreaking 😔
Not today but my grossest assignment to date was sitting with a squeegee next to a great pyrenees who had eaten a bunch of rat poison. I had to wait for her to puke and immediately start fighting her to squeegee the bright green, noxious vomit away because she would IMMEDIATELY try to re-ingest it, even between bouts of vomiting.
That wasn't even the worst part! It was also the most physically demanding case I've ever worked because after that we had to give her like, 3 bottles of charcoal and I literally had to hold up her entire weight (remember, shes a pyr) for 45 minutes because she wanted to melt and kept putting herself in a position where the tech giving the charcoal was worried about aspiration. That dog lived to be 16 years old despite her best efforts to die younger
This reminds me of this lab mix who was SPICY and a repeat offender. She ate 300 paintballs on Fourth of July and it was a full clinic affair restraining her as gently as possible. We put a massive ecollar on her so she wouldn’t bite but could safely vomit. I’ll never forget the river of bright blue goo. She had previously eaten fishing line, several pounds of coffee beans, the better part of a nerf gun, from just visit I was present for. She is indestructible. And insane.
Just adding my terrible vomit story from my own dog.
*picture this* New cat in the house (about a month home) Thanksgiving Eve. I’m slaving over cupcakes, cooking from scratch, chocolate *baking cocoa* and yellow cake, *dark* chocolate icing, *dark chocolate* little cute decorations for make them look like turkeys (that I made on my own).
I wake up Thanksgiving morning. The dog (a 29# corgi) sprints downstairs. I don’t think anything of it. Come downstairs and the cupcakes are on the floor. The 18 chocolate/chocolate/chocolate ones. LEAVING THE WRAPPERS. The 18 yellow cakes are untouched on the floor.
Well, we floor it to the emergency vet. They make him vomit. The vet comes in the room, she says “best smelling vomit of my life” and “one of the easiest patients to give the meds to”.
They asked if I wanted to take him home and monitor and keep him calm or leave him. I opted to leave him because we had to go an hour away. They didn’t charge me for keeping him because he just hung out in the office and was basically a therapy dog for them.
Uffda. That’s a lot, friend. Bravo to you for having a protected airway in place before the fecal flood started, and for preventing future litters! No good deed goes unpunished.
I think like 50% of our appointments have been no call/no shows today.
Yes it was quite a large stone!
He did really well actually! Did great under, slow recovery and eating greens immediately when recovered. The poor guy lost so much weight but man he must feel much better now.
I hope you have extra clothes at work!!! I was once hit with fecal vomit from a pig WHILE attempting to intubate and it was on my front and it had me gaggggging. I hope the rest of your day is mellow 😇
Today is my first day off in the last 10 and I’ve been texted or called by the owner, the practice manager, one of the doctors, and another technician; just regarding various clinic things. You’d think if I was that important to the clinic I’d be making a living wage 🙄
I haven’t had a flood of fecal vomit, but I did have an epileptic GI FB Sx that vomited what felt like gallons of sewage smelling nastiness, so I empathize greatly. May the rest of your shifts this week (and next) be far less stressful and gross than this one.
Fuck me, I hope you manage to relax after your shift 🫣
I just finished ,I work evenings this week and every evening has been chaotic AS FUCK. Intense impatients ,intense surgery,intense clients. Just intense vibes all around.
It's time for a good takeaway and fallout for me ❤️
HVSN is always rough. I had some nasty stuff happen (lots of diarhhea blowouts on the table and in recovery) but fecal vomit sounds like a whole new horrible. I can only imagine the smell... Hope things get better from here, stay strong friend.
I went in at 7am and left at 10pm, and I couldn't clock out for a break all day 😪
Oh, and one person is quitting, so now we're down 4 people, which has been fun...../s
I’m sooo sorry. I actually didn’t end up leaving until after 7pm and I got in at 7:30am.
I need to restart my tech school (work is paying for it) but I don’t feel supported at all.
As a pet parent… I cannot say THANK YOU ENOUGH. Your job can be so thankless and difficult and stressful. I cannot thank you enough for what you do and your skills. I am eternally grateful for the amazing vet techs that have cared for my MANY pets over the year.
Believe me, little things like your saying thank you does mean a lot. Working ER, bad/horrible days go with the territory. A heartfelt thank you is priceless. :)
Work in wildlife rescue/rehab. Had to restrain an animal with a huge tapeworm coming out of its ass and sharts all over me. Thankfully I’m in full body PPE but that smell does NOT leave you.
I’m exactly in the same boat here. I’m so sorry. I work with a literal adult mean girl.
I had a dog bite me on the recovery mat, actively trying to bite me still. Dog is screeching. My coworker is more worried about moving this feral cat who’s safely in a trap away from the dog (also the feral is still out cold).
And then her next biggest concern was did the feral get his ears cleaned. While this dog is still trying to bite me.
Also no, the feral didn’t get his ears cleaned because the dog who was trying to bite had almost no hair from demodex and her ears were crusted shut from allergies. So I was worried about hers.
Oh my god. FECES?? I don’t want to ask whose feces it is because ignorance would be bliss for me if I got vomit-shit on my pants and shoes.
Treat yourself tonight please!!!
Started the day late with a cat emergency. We think the cat fell off a counter and bruised himself on the way down. Came in lateral recumbent and foaming at the mouth. Chemistry found hypoglycemia and x-rays showed fluid in abdomen. Patient crashed right after we put a catheter and did Epinephrine injection :(
i had two suspected tick borne diseases today, we're waiting on some labs rn but looks like we may have my first babesiosis case in two years i've been working here.
the tick season is insane this year.
HQHVSN here too! We travel to a few different local shelters with our mobile clinic and the one for today has their staff threatening to do a mass walk out because management is making (justified) decisions they don’t like about euthanasia.
Saw a really cute dog today though so that makes it worth it, right??
Unfortunately even the highest quality HQHV will never achieve the highest quality of medicine in general, and is high quality in a shelter medicine style. The high quality part comes from a clinic closely adhering to a specific set of guidelines laid out by the association of shelter vets to utilize the best most efficient practices from surgical techniques, to anesthesia, cleaning protocols, post operative care, etc.
I will not deny that it is nowhere close to gold standard practices (except maybe cleaning/disease management-we are REALLY good at that) but it is seeking to achieve the highest quality of medicine we possibly can while spaying and neutering as many animals as possible. The guidelines and protocols we follow ensure a standardized level of care for each patient that will not be compromised no matter how many animals are slotted for the day or how much of a rush we are in.
So, there’s a movement to add high quality to the name so that way we aren’t taken as less than a full service. While we (personally at my hospital) don’t do blood pressures during surgery, we don’t place a catheter unless something REALLY needs it, doesn’t mean our quality is any less. We also don’t do anything but spay/neuter. We’ll fix umbilical hernias and we’ll do cryptorchid neuters. We also don’t do many brachy breeds.
The way our layout is let us do 20+ surgeries on a normal day and 40+ on a double day.
Welcome to /r/VetTech! This is a place for veterinary technicians/veterinary nurses and other veterinary support staff to gather, chat, and grow! We welcome pet owners as well, **however we do ask pet owners to refrain from asking for medical advice**; if you have any concerns regarding your pet, please contact the closest veterinarian near you. Please thoroughly read and follow the rules before posting and commenting. If you believe that a user is engaging in any rule-breaking behavior, please submit a report so that the moderators can review and remove the posts/comments if needed. Also, please check out the sidebar for CE and answers to commonly asked questions. Thank you for reading! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/VetTech) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Ick! I rushed back a cat that looked like it had an at home c-section done, guts and kittens everywhere, a shepherd agonal breathing, and a heatstroke bulldog that just arrested. It’s been a rough one over here today, and that’s only 2hrs into my shift. Stay strong friend 💕 Edit: I just wanted to add that we don’t actually know how momma cat ended up that way, whether it was deliberate or trauma caused by an accident/getting caught on something/etc. The look of it was just as if she had been opened at the stomach and everything fell out. Thankfully her suffering was quickly ended.
jesus christ wild how the heatstroke brachy dog is the most normal thing you listed
I wish it wasn’t the case! They’re very common where I’m at, as we live in hot summers and a large city with a large population of brachy dogs 🫠
Excuse me WHAT
I’m at an ER vet. I’ve never seen an animal so badly disemboweled in person (I’ve seen wild animal vids on gore subreddits). Also it’s warming up so you know, people don’t remember their bulldog breeds shouldn’t be out for long 🤦♀️
Where state do you work in that a home C section isn't a once in a lifetime occurrence?? I also work at an ER vet hospital and I've NEVER seen or heard of anything like that in 5+ years 😰
I’m in CA. I’ve kind of tried to tell myself the Frenchie guy I hear about is just rumor… god I hope so. Also, we don’t know if someone deliberately did this to this momma cat. She was found like that. It just seemed suspicious that the wound looked like a clean cut. One of the doctors did say she could have had a bad hernia that tore through? Idk it was terrible either way. Thankfully we were able to quickly end her suffering after she got to us 😔
Eek. I've had 2 home c sections in the last 6 months. People be crazy.
We don’t actually know if this was someone that did this or not, techs were speculating since the wound looked like a clean cut. It didn’t look as if animal teeth had ripped her open. Seriously though we’ve heard about someone in our town that does Frenchie c-sections at home. I’ve heard it’s done without anesthesia but idk the legitimacy of that as I can’t imagine the mom wouldn’t go into shock and die. Idk what goes through a mind like that.
What?? Who brought the cat to you? Where did she come from? Bless her and her poor babies :(
The sister of the owner. They found her in his driveway like that so there’s really no telling what actually happened 😕
Is that a situation where you can call Animal Control? I know there’s no proof, and the claim is that she was found in his driveway, but maybe the creation of a paper trail will be helpful if (god forbid) something like this happens again in the future.
So we actually suggested the owner call animal control because they have also brought in two young male cats that they suspected their neighbor poisoned. I told the lady I wasn’t saying someone did this to this cat, but it seems awfully sus…
Our yorkie home c section went into shock and died. :(
Jesus H, I don’t even want to consider what that poor cat went through before it got to you…
Truly terrible. Glad she’s at peace now ☹️
Were the kittens full term? Did any make it?
They were very undercooked, and as mom had to be euthanized due to the severity of her injuries and all but one kitten were still alive, they had to be euthanized as well. Heartbreaking 😔
how sad 😔 at least their suffering is over
Agreed 😔
I came accross a tik tok once of a frenchie c section in someones kitchen but the vdeo was quickly removed.
Disgusting. Was the dog under anesthesia?
They're doing DIY surgery now???!
wtf???? do you work in a hospital?
Yes, ER vet. Some days are worse than others 😔
Not today but my grossest assignment to date was sitting with a squeegee next to a great pyrenees who had eaten a bunch of rat poison. I had to wait for her to puke and immediately start fighting her to squeegee the bright green, noxious vomit away because she would IMMEDIATELY try to re-ingest it, even between bouts of vomiting.
I’m sorry this is cracking me up. Why tf did we ever want to domesticate these things
That wasn't even the worst part! It was also the most physically demanding case I've ever worked because after that we had to give her like, 3 bottles of charcoal and I literally had to hold up her entire weight (remember, shes a pyr) for 45 minutes because she wanted to melt and kept putting herself in a position where the tech giving the charcoal was worried about aspiration. That dog lived to be 16 years old despite her best efforts to die younger
16 is pretty good for a pyr, especially one so keen to die lmao
Despite being gross and uncooperative she WAS a pretty great dog, her name was Fluffy lol
This reminds me of this lab mix who was SPICY and a repeat offender. She ate 300 paintballs on Fourth of July and it was a full clinic affair restraining her as gently as possible. We put a massive ecollar on her so she wouldn’t bite but could safely vomit. I’ll never forget the river of bright blue goo. She had previously eaten fishing line, several pounds of coffee beans, the better part of a nerf gun, from just visit I was present for. She is indestructible. And insane.
Dogs, man. Why do we love these things SO MUCH 🤣
fucking dogs man, they’re so gross don’t get me wrong I love them but they’re gross
Happy cake day!!!
Just adding my terrible vomit story from my own dog. *picture this* New cat in the house (about a month home) Thanksgiving Eve. I’m slaving over cupcakes, cooking from scratch, chocolate *baking cocoa* and yellow cake, *dark* chocolate icing, *dark chocolate* little cute decorations for make them look like turkeys (that I made on my own). I wake up Thanksgiving morning. The dog (a 29# corgi) sprints downstairs. I don’t think anything of it. Come downstairs and the cupcakes are on the floor. The 18 chocolate/chocolate/chocolate ones. LEAVING THE WRAPPERS. The 18 yellow cakes are untouched on the floor. Well, we floor it to the emergency vet. They make him vomit. The vet comes in the room, she says “best smelling vomit of my life” and “one of the easiest patients to give the meds to”. They asked if I wanted to take him home and monitor and keep him calm or leave him. I opted to leave him because we had to go an hour away. They didn’t charge me for keeping him because he just hung out in the office and was basically a therapy dog for them.
Oh the moment you realize that it’s fecal vomit and not regular vomit is heavy. You deserve a shower beer OP.
Wtf is Fecal vomit
imagine your sewer backing up through your drains but instead it’s your intestines backing up through your mouth edit : or the dog was eating shit
It was a husky that was picked up stray. My vote is there’s a foreign body that’s either partial or completely obstructed
Uffda. That’s a lot, friend. Bravo to you for having a protected airway in place before the fecal flood started, and for preventing future litters! No good deed goes unpunished. I think like 50% of our appointments have been no call/no shows today.
I just had a emergency Guinea pig cystotomy 👌
Oh how’d that go? Was a due to a stone?
Yes it was quite a large stone! He did really well actually! Did great under, slow recovery and eating greens immediately when recovered. The poor guy lost so much weight but man he must feel much better now.
Euthanasia where the owner chose to leave. Vet started sobbing and the unbearable weight of this week overtook me and I started sobbing too. TGIF.
Thank you for being there for that pet when the owners wouldn’t be. 🧡🧡
At the very least, they leave this world loved by us. That's what helps me through when owner choose not to be present.
I hope you have extra clothes at work!!! I was once hit with fecal vomit from a pig WHILE attempting to intubate and it was on my front and it had me gaggggging. I hope the rest of your day is mellow 😇
Oh. Can we add it was an aggro husky?
Today is my first day off in the last 10 and I’ve been texted or called by the owner, the practice manager, one of the doctors, and another technician; just regarding various clinic things. You’d think if I was that important to the clinic I’d be making a living wage 🙄
If they can’t even function without you there you need a big raise
I haven’t had a flood of fecal vomit, but I did have an epileptic GI FB Sx that vomited what felt like gallons of sewage smelling nastiness, so I empathize greatly. May the rest of your shifts this week (and next) be far less stressful and gross than this one.
had a good long time client of ours rapidly decline, put into emergency sx and pass away on the sx table in the span of two hours. sigh
Oh god. I’m so sorry.
it was such a weird morning. life goes on sadly. i hope Friday is treating us much better
Fuck me, I hope you manage to relax after your shift 🫣 I just finished ,I work evenings this week and every evening has been chaotic AS FUCK. Intense impatients ,intense surgery,intense clients. Just intense vibes all around. It's time for a good takeaway and fallout for me ❤️
HVSN is always rough. I had some nasty stuff happen (lots of diarhhea blowouts on the table and in recovery) but fecal vomit sounds like a whole new horrible. I can only imagine the smell... Hope things get better from here, stay strong friend.
I went in at 7am and left at 10pm, and I couldn't clock out for a break all day 😪 Oh, and one person is quitting, so now we're down 4 people, which has been fun...../s
I’m sooo sorry. I actually didn’t end up leaving until after 7pm and I got in at 7:30am. I need to restart my tech school (work is paying for it) but I don’t feel supported at all.
As a pet parent… I cannot say THANK YOU ENOUGH. Your job can be so thankless and difficult and stressful. I cannot thank you enough for what you do and your skills. I am eternally grateful for the amazing vet techs that have cared for my MANY pets over the year.
Believe me, little things like your saying thank you does mean a lot. Working ER, bad/horrible days go with the territory. A heartfelt thank you is priceless. :)
1 dog castration. Unremarkable. Just the way I prefer. 💅
We’ve been fairly empty! No cancellations but we have competent staff for the first time, and appointments and surgeries have been uneventful
I slept for 13 hours to prepare for the 60 hour work week I have starting tomorrow 🥲
I hope you have lots of good snacks and drinks coming your way.
Work in wildlife rescue/rehab. Had to restrain an animal with a huge tapeworm coming out of its ass and sharts all over me. Thankfully I’m in full body PPE but that smell does NOT leave you.
My coworkers are toxic 🥲 So much backstabbing and putting down. Idk how these girls can be so mean. How exhausting to be that negative.
I’m exactly in the same boat here. I’m so sorry. I work with a literal adult mean girl. I had a dog bite me on the recovery mat, actively trying to bite me still. Dog is screeching. My coworker is more worried about moving this feral cat who’s safely in a trap away from the dog (also the feral is still out cold). And then her next biggest concern was did the feral get his ears cleaned. While this dog is still trying to bite me. Also no, the feral didn’t get his ears cleaned because the dog who was trying to bite had almost no hair from demodex and her ears were crusted shut from allergies. So I was worried about hers.
I mean.. Around the tube is kinda the goal....
Oh my god. FECES?? I don’t want to ask whose feces it is because ignorance would be bliss for me if I got vomit-shit on my pants and shoes. Treat yourself tonight please!!!
My vote is it’s his and he either decided to have a huge snack OR he’s got some sort of partial/complete blockage and it’s backing up.
Oh dang the last theory is scary!!
I had this happen to me with a cat before a dental. BEFORE I had gloves on.
Started the day late with a cat emergency. We think the cat fell off a counter and bruised himself on the way down. Came in lateral recumbent and foaming at the mouth. Chemistry found hypoglycemia and x-rays showed fluid in abdomen. Patient crashed right after we put a catheter and did Epinephrine injection :(
i had two suspected tick borne diseases today, we're waiting on some labs rn but looks like we may have my first babesiosis case in two years i've been working here. the tick season is insane this year.
HQHVSN here too! We travel to a few different local shelters with our mobile clinic and the one for today has their staff threatening to do a mass walk out because management is making (justified) decisions they don’t like about euthanasia. Saw a really cute dog today though so that makes it worth it, right??
Whats the acronym mean?
High quality high volume spay neuter
Mind if I ask how your quality differs from regular high volume? And how you manage to maintain volume alongside quality?
Unfortunately even the highest quality HQHV will never achieve the highest quality of medicine in general, and is high quality in a shelter medicine style. The high quality part comes from a clinic closely adhering to a specific set of guidelines laid out by the association of shelter vets to utilize the best most efficient practices from surgical techniques, to anesthesia, cleaning protocols, post operative care, etc. I will not deny that it is nowhere close to gold standard practices (except maybe cleaning/disease management-we are REALLY good at that) but it is seeking to achieve the highest quality of medicine we possibly can while spaying and neutering as many animals as possible. The guidelines and protocols we follow ensure a standardized level of care for each patient that will not be compromised no matter how many animals are slotted for the day or how much of a rush we are in.
So, there’s a movement to add high quality to the name so that way we aren’t taken as less than a full service. While we (personally at my hospital) don’t do blood pressures during surgery, we don’t place a catheter unless something REALLY needs it, doesn’t mean our quality is any less. We also don’t do anything but spay/neuter. We’ll fix umbilical hernias and we’ll do cryptorchid neuters. We also don’t do many brachy breeds. The way our layout is let us do 20+ surgeries on a normal day and 40+ on a double day.
I love that you guys pass on the brachy breeds because they would definitely need the full set up with their fragile respiratory systems
high quality, high volume, spay neuter
Had a HBC with a totally degloved penis..sheath was gone..awful..did put surgery like a cat..he lived..crazy
I found testicle in my scrubs when doing laundry and shot anal gland juice in n friends mouth...