Saturday, January 22, 2011



Even though it's winter, we have times when we are just as busy as summer!

Yesterday was one of those days. I was dealing with a very critical swan who was on oxygen, having a hard time breathing. My technician had anesthetized another swan (with gas anesthesia) to take xrays. While she was doing that, the doorbell rang-it was a tiny mouse that was dying--taking its last breaths. I didn't want it to suffer so put it in the same mask as the swan (we only have one anesthesia machine). The doorbell rang again! It was a squirrel who's finger was caught and bleeding in a birdfeeder. We needed to anesthetize him to get it out, so we took the swan off the mask to recover, I put the mouse on the table to dispose of later, anesthetized the squirrel, amputated the finger that was caught, quickly figured out the drug dosages I needed for him (so he could get those before he woke up from surgery) and put the swan in a closed room to recover. Whew! I then went to dispose of the mouse and was completely astonished to find it moving!! I gave it fluids, sugar, put it on a heating bad and 5 minutes later it was running around--a miracle mouse!

What an hour!