Tuesday 8 May 2012

Fixed it!

I know it says if it breathes I can fix it, but one of the most recent patients wasn't even doing that recently!

We had just induced him when things went rather badly. His heart didn't have a brilliant rate, his pulses were impossible to find and he stopped breathing. Luckily I had a great team of students with me as well as some backup from other anaesthetists, nurses, students, etc.

We managed to resuscitate him and all is well once more. It was a rather hectic half hour, but definitely worth the effort.

What went wrong? He is an old boy - at least 16 years - and had lost of lot of weight recently. He had some kind of disease, although we were unsure what exactly, and were anaesthetising him for more tests. The theory is the drugs caused his blood pressure to drop quickly meaning his heart was none to happy.

No-one really knows for certain as we gave up with the tests and the owner decided to take him home for a bit before thinking what to do next. He wasn't any worse for his ordeal, after we were comfortable with his status he went back to the kennels where he ate all his food!