Hamster Critical Care

Those words hardly even make sense to me, but there you go. At the moment I'm house sitting in Wales, looking after a hamster, fish and a cat. Oh and working EMS, but everyone knows all about that by now - dogs, cats, trauma, life saving etc etc.

There was a small party on Friday night, leaving me feeling slightly under the weather on Saturday morning. It was quite nice to have the cat come up to see me and lie on the bed for a bit. The cat is warm. He was also not bothering me about breakfast which, for him, is fairly unusual.

I wander downstairs to check on the other animals. In the lounge I am confronted by a hamster cage on the floor, sawdust everywhere and the top of the cage open. And a smiling cat.

Fuuuuuuuuck.

After a small amount of panic (oh god it's dead, what do I do now, what if it escaped and is running around, oh god) I figured the best option was to assume the hamster was still in the cage, stressed to heck, so I placed the cage back on the side, re-arrange the water and food, and head back to bed to convince myself it was all a bad dream.

By midday I had come to terms with the fact it was not just a bad dream and something had to be done. Luckily for all involved hamster solved my stress by calmly walking out of its bed, having a drink of water, then returning to bed.

Success!! Well, mainly due to luck, but I'm calling it a victory anyway. All that was left to do was tidy up. And count the fish...

Chill Out

My relaxation week seems to be going well so far. I've done very little! So far time is spent reading, climbing, walking, visiting friends or going to the pub. It's doing wonders for my sanity.

We are worked so hard in, and out, of University it can be difficult to switch off and just relax for a change. The ones who don't manage it go slowly crazy. There is so much to learn, and so many things to do, I must remember to take a step back and let my body fix itself.

So the rest of my time here will be spent much the same. I have a whisky fringe ticket for tomorrow, there is recovery planned for Sunday, and then not a lot else. Apart from climbing.

4 weeks

I've just completed 4 weeks of EMS in Wales.

4 weeks of solid work, two Sundays off.

It's taken it's toll, because now I'm exhausted. This isn't much of a surprise because I haven't really stopped since starting 4th year. I've even spent most of my nights on call. There are a few cases that stick out, and that I will probably write about later:

The good jobs - Tom the bleeding spaniel, Meg with her puppies, Jess with her bad paw, Ralph who couldn't breathe and Buck the sick cat.

As always there are the bad jobs too - the injured sheep, Scamp the dying dog, Mot the angry puppy, numerous sick cats and the caesar cow.

And the just plain daft cases - mostly these are cute puppies for their first vaccines, but Meg with the ear and the pregnant guinea pig are hot contenders too.

Most of the vets I know have a slightly strange sense of humour which is necessary to stop us all going insane from the daily grind. I'll try and tell a few of our stories, sorry if they offend! As one person wisely told me - "No-one wants to hear when it's gone well. They don't care that you made an excellent diagnosis and saved the day. They do however love to hear about when it goes horribly, horribly wrong." Thanks Pete!