It Felt Like Old Times

Well, this evening I had to go in and unblock (or place a urinary catheter) in a sweet black kitty. 


This is a cat that came in nearly dead. He had been blocked for likely just under 72 hours. He was in acute renal failure and his potassium was so high, his heart was in danger of stopping.


We saved him and he was doing great. We took the catheter out and he was going to go home but our wonderful surgery nurse palpated his bladder before putting him in the carrier and was like "um..uh oh..Dr.B?" 


So, sure enough, he was reblocked. Not that unusual, especially in the first two weeks after the initial blocking. He didn't have stones but a lot of "sand like" material in his urinary bladder. 


So we kept him and decided to keep him through the weekend because the owner was not going to be home AND to save the owner money from a potential emergency hospital visit. 


Thank God we did.


Another wonderful nurse at the practice, called me to report she thought he was blocked this evening. 


Chris and I drove in and yep, he was. I unblocked him with the assistance of Chris, acting as my trusty technician. I trained him when I was doing mixed animal practice because I wasn't "allowed" to call a tech in though we lived in a rural area and there were plenty of large and small animal emergencies.


I should say, we were "allowed" but when I did call one in for 3 emergencies we saw back to back, I got reprimanded. They didn't want to pay her. I inquired how I was supposed to take blood, put a catheter in, and get x-rays by myself. Then I was told I see too  many emergencies. You know what? You cannot tell when someone calls you up how serious it is. If I am on call and there is any doubt, I, in good conscience, can't blow it off. I'd rather go in and find it's not a big deal. 


But tonight's trip in reminded me of those times we used to go in. He saw me do an emergency C-section/spay where I had to cut a dead pup in half because it was lodged in mom's birth canal. We had a hell of a time once euthanizing a 100lb+ nastier than a son of Satan Komondor even though I used the horse drugs I had access too. Oh and there was the nasty cat that needed gas anesthesia to just be examined. The German Shepherd we found on the way home from another call - lying in the  middle of the road bleeding from his nose. We took that one back and found the owners who proceeded to be nothing short of difficult and truly "not getting it." That one died. 


I don't miss those days but we do have some memories from them.


As for tonight's sweet kitty, since this is blockage number 3 in the past week, he's going to need a little sex change operation we call a PU (perineal urethrostomy).