Life and Death in the E.R.

Life had some stressful moments yesterday. I worked on the floor downtown as a tech, then at the blood bank at westside and then back downtown again. The most disturbing memory I am dealing with today is that of a black and white domestic shorthair kitty who was brought in by a good Sam. He assumed financial responsibility for the cat.....we did some labwork and the poor cat had a PCV of only 13. Could be leukemia, though we didn't run a feleuk test that I know of. There was a good possibility that it could have been hemobartonellosis--a blood parasite, treatable with hydroquinolones or perhaps doxycycline. However, the guy declined further diagnostics and treatment, and requested euthanasia....and we aren't legally supposed to supercede that. At the time, it was busy and there was a client visiting her dog (who, in my estimation, was 85% dead), and so this poor unknowing cat sat more or less complacently in his cage, with food bowl and litter box and blanket inside--an almost cozy vision-- but affixed to the cage door was the bullet--a 3 cc syringe full of pink "Sleepaway"....what an eerily pleasant name for massive overdose of barbiturates and potassium chloride to stop the heart. It bothered me every time I looked in that direction. Finally, the dust settled, the client with the almost-dead dog left, and then Shawn, a technician called over to Beth, another technician--"hey, we can do that cat now".....and that is when I decided that I'd go downstairs and see if there was any labwork that needed to be run. It just bugged the hell out of me--"do the cat"???!!!! No, not "do" the cat....euthanize the cat..... a moment later I heard the sound of a feline vocalizing and howling and I remembered how Shawn has a less than perfect bedside manner at times....he said the cat was vicious--why then, did that same cat permit to scratch his chin and behind his ears, skewing his whiskers forward in a way that only pleased kitties can? When I heard the distressing racket, I stationed myself in the storeroom and did a quick check of inventory, since it was acoustically as far as I could get from the noise. What a truly disturbing job mine can be sometimes.

current mood: distressed
current music: Possum Kingdom--the Toadies

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3:05 am - Nevermind, nevermind, nevermind
The past is overrated. Except when it comes to someone I really knew. That's our lesson for the day.

current mood: touched
current music: Digging Your Scene--The Blow Monkeys