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CPD Solutions has announced the winners of the competition held on vetnurse.co.uk to find the best nursing stories.
The overall winner was Alison Devonshire from the Orwell Veterinary Group, who wins a free place on CPD Solutions' Nursing Exotic Animals course. The runners up were Carrie Apps from South Beech Veterinary Surgery, and Donna Lewis from Pet Care Veterinary Surgery. Both win a luxury champagne and chocolate gift box.
The stories were:
Winner: Alison Devonshire. "Superpug, Superpug!" It was only a few weeks ago that during a particularly hectic morning surgery me and my colleagues were in the prep room, gasping for a cuppa, after a morning of dentals, dematts and dog castrates, that a flustered receptionist called through to say that a client had phoned in on her way to the practice, with her dog who had just fallen from a second floor window.
Cups of tea were put on hold and the crash box was positioned ready, with trainee nurses squabbling over who would get to use the case for a fist aid procedure in their portfolio.
The duty vet and I waited at the reception to help the client in. She arrived soon after and appeared to be hysterical with concern over the bundle in her arms (who was proudly wagging his curled tail and trying to get down to check out the waiting room!) It was only at this point did myself and the vet notice, that the Dog, a large fawn pug, was wearing a lycra "Superman" suit! After gleaning some history from the client (yes, he had fallen from a second floor window and she found him lying on the lawn, motionless) we took the dog through to the prep room for a full clinical examination leaving the client with a sympathetic receptionist and a box of tissues.
Once in the prep room, realising that the poor pug was certainly in no imminent danger, did we allow ourselves a fit of giggles! Altogether now: "Superpug, superpug, does whatever a superpug does. Can he fly through the air? No he can't, he's a pug!"
I removed the offending costume and after a full clinical exam, superpug was evidently fit as a flea, infact he appeared to be quite excited by the whole debacle. We opted to keep him in for observation for a few hours to be safe and let him and his owner calm down.
Of course superpug was sent home and seen the next morning for a recheck, again he was absolutely fine. Again he was wearing his superpug outfit!
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Runner Up: Donna Lewis My story takes us back to winter almost two years ago now. It was a busy morning surgery, the same as most and I was duty nurse. Our receptionist came through to the cattery carrying a cat basket and plonked it on the table in front of me and said the Cats Protection League would like a normal cremation!!
I picked up the basket and carried it through to another room, opened the basked and had a look at what appeared to be a dead black and white cat. I removed it from the basket and my goodness it was frozen, absolutely never in all my years (almost 25 of them) have I seen a frozen body (well not one that hasn't been in the cold storage). The poor thing I thought, as I looked a little closer, I saw the slightest chest movement!! I couldn't feel a heart beat he really did appear to be frozen solid, then I thought I saw another very slight movement. I called for backup, this frozen cat that laid before me wasn't dead......well not yet anyway.
I then proceeded to defrost him. I wasn't really 100% sure if I should do it fast or slowly, so I warmed heat pads and got reflector beds and with the help of a hairdryer that I use to circulate warm air around the kennel, this cat started to defrost. By 5pm that very same day he was sitting up and eating.
This is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. This cat stayed with us for a while and was taken home to live with my boss and his family. His name is very suitably "Frosty".
Runner Up: Carrie Apps I always knew there would be exotic patients at South Beech. I often sat in the waiting room with my own animals and figured that one out. Parrots and lizards were quite normal and I was expecting a few on my first day. I wasn't expecting Elvis.
Elvis was fairly small, about the size of a small dog, he was skinny and had gone bald. His owner had bought him in at the weekend, as Elvis was diabetic and had collapsed. Over the weekend Elvis was stabilised and was much stronger and, although he was still very weak from muscle wastage, he was still strong enough to need two nurses to pin him down, with another to hold an arm and a vet to take a blood sample, to measure his glucose.
Halfway through my first day the head nurse Rachel, asked me ‘have you seen Elvis yet?' I had no idea who she was talking about. ‘Elvis?' I replied. ‘He's in Consulting Room 1'. Rachel and Linda, another nurse, started telling the horror stories; ‘Elvis was nearly dead at the weekend but has perked up a lot now, he's very strong, it takes two of us to hold him, he bit his owners finger off and he had to have a blood test they have horrible diseases'. ‘Yeah' finished Rachel, ‘you can help us soon, we need to take blood for a glucose test. You can hold the arm.' After this, I was thinking, me? I have been here for 4 hours, I've never even seen blood being taken and you want me to help you get a raving Elvis out of his cage and hold an arm while you take blood. Well I suppose they wanted to see what I was made of, and I wanted to help them.
The two nurses prepared me well, explaining exactly what would happen. I was nervous when Linda and Rachel took him out. We were all done up to the eye balls in PPE (I was thinking, people keep these as pets?!? Rachel and Linda held Elvis down, wrapped in a towel, the vet pulled me out an arm and showed me where to raise the vein. He took the blood and I applied pressure to the injection site, to prevent haemorrhage. Safely back in his cage Elvis was being all sweet again, taking food from us and chatting.
It was definitely a first day to remember and 2 years on Elvis is doing well and still visits us, although he is much stronger now (we can't remove him from his carrier, it would probably take 4 nurses) and he is much hairier (we occasionally shave his arm through the cage so the owners can administer the insulin). But 2 years on I am still enjoying my job as a student veterinary nurse. Even though I learn something new every day, I will never ever forget my first day meeting Elvis, the Capuchin monkey.
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