Today, I had the best day. Work started off Rocky since we were running a man down. (I’ll try to leave our gore details as I talk about it, but fair warning it involves surgery!)
Since I am one of the strongest ladies and one of the ones who know how to handle aggressive patients, I signed up to be the assistant in surgery that day working alongside one of my technicians.
Our first surgery was an emergency pyometra surgery. (A pyo is a uterine infection that is a result of leaving a female intact. This can be life threatening and if we didn’t quickly spay her, she would have died).
I was watching the surgery, as my doctor began to pull out the uterus and my technician was monitoring. She stated that she needed a hand – and I was that hand, I got to assist as she ligated vessels and when it was done, I was handed this uterus c a r e f u l l y – because we were in the splash zone. (7.5 pound uterus by the way and HUGE).
The second surgery we had an emergency c section on this sweet as can be pitbull. (Accidentally bred, and in trouble since the first pup was a stillborn, and the rest were stuck). We all had a plan and a job to do. Spay this dog, and get the babies out and immediately start resuscitating them. So we all, stood by hands at the ready.
And doctor looks at me and asked again for a second hand – I think I put those gloves on in 5 seconds flat and I was right back in surgery holding the pups still in the uterus.
I helped doc maneuver them and ligate again, but we discovered the stuck pup and we could not remove the uterus and pass it off to the other doc to get the pups out. We had to get them out right then.
Essentially, I milked this pups out of the uterus and passed them along individually to people to start warming them with doc. While this happened, blood poured down to which my shoes took a massive hit. (I threw mine in the washer and it came out great, however, I wore doc’s shoes and let’s just say…clown shoes on me).
All three pups lived. The mom lived. And our pyo was back to her aggressive self when we discharged her this afternoon.
I love veterinary medicine.