Wednesday, January 11, 2012

My mother represents my clientele

And it's driving me nuts.

I work ER in a small town. Many of my clients can't afford preventative care, let alone the big bills associated with emergency veterinary care. I see many, many "home fixes." It drives me crazy, because by the time I see these patients, they're in far, far worse condition and require far, far more treatment (that's expensive). I can't stand seeing this scenario.

So, on that note, my mom called me the other day. Her dog was attacked by a pit bull. He suffered pretty nasty wounds from her description. Concurrently, my father was in the hospital for emergency surgery. So, instead of taking the dog to the vet, she just let him sit at home with his wounds.

Wait, no. That's not true. She started him on pain medications and antibiotics under her own direction. She didn't even ask me if or what she should use. And for the record, despite my dad being in the hospital, one of my brothers could have taken the dog to the vet. It wasn't as if there was NO ONE to  help with the scenario.

She called me a couple of days later and relayed that the dog wouldn't get up at all, and the wounds were worse than she thought. I tried to hide my irritation when heavily recommending that he should see a veterinarian.

Thankfully, 3 days after the injury, she took him to the vet. He stayed overnight to have his wounds debrided and sutured, and he required drains, as well. Luckily, they don't appear to have become infected yet.

*Gack* Why is it my own family who doesn't take my advice on pet care? I have to see it every single day at work. It'd be nice to not have to watch my own mother do it!

5 comments:

  1. We neutered my parents dane and pexy'd him. A month later, his hair still wasn't back on his belly. No other abnormalities so I recommended melatonin. Two weeks later, almost all the hair was back. What did my dad say? "Wow, that actually worked!" Yeah, it's almost like I went to school to learn stuff like that. Weird.

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  2. From an Agnostic. Matthew 10:36. "And a man's foes shall be they of his own household."

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  3. *sigh* I'm a clinical microbiologist, and despite a couple of different conversations with my dad, he'll tell me things like "my tooth hurt, so I took some leftover antibiotics." Makes me wince.

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  4. The other night my mother accused me of not putting the cat's collar on correctly.

    I've practiced veterinary medicine for more than 14 years. I think I can handle the cat collar, mom.

    Ah, family.

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  5. I'm a veterinary student and my boyfriend and I have a Cocker X who lives with him while I'm away for school. The dog has had a few ear infections so I told my boyfriend he should really clean the ears out weekly, as did the vet when he needed to go in for cytology & meds when his ears flared up. Two months later... dog gets another ear infection. Boyfriend didn't believe me OR vet so had not been cleaning dog's ears. WTF?
    Another time he let his foster puppy run like a maniac in the backyard 24 hours after her spay. Do you think I'm asking you to keep her inside to be mean? *sigh*
    If he won't listen... who will?

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