A Note To Make You Understand

Yeah, I'm still listening to Stereo Hearts.

My cats are morons. They so far have managed to destroy three rolls of paper towel (by clawing and playing with it), a cup of hot tea, and the end of my favourite piece of furniture, my passed-down futon. Morons. Anyway, I love them more than anything, despite their idiocy. The lucky buggers. Phoenix is currently trying to trap a fly on the other side of the window. What a smartie pants. Also, I think he's getting fat. Goddamn it.

I'm in pain, and feel ill, but my roommate is caretaking for me. What a delight she is. My foot is doing better, but I still can't walk properly, though I am limping less with each passing day. It's getting to be less of a complete inconvenience.

What else is new? Pfft. Nothing. I'm as boring as ever.

I hope to do some more shopping today. Probably just Willow Point, since I shouldn't be walking around too much. But shopping nonetheless! The dollar store, the book store, probably Serious Coffee so I can sit and use the power of a London Fog to rejuvinate myself, People's if I can manage their high prices, Willow's Market, maybe even visit my mom, if she's home. Should be a good afternoon. After all, I did sleep till 10:30. Of course, I was up till 3 am having..-ahem-...fun times. >.>

When You Feel Lost

My heart's a stereo, turn to me when you feel lost.

Can't get this song out of my head. My coworker listens to it all the time and now it's stuck on me. Not that it's a bad thing. I quite enjoy it.

Today work was rather unpleasant. We started it off with a euth, and the guy wasn't very nice about it, not that it's particularly easy to be pleasant when your cat is being put to sleep. But that aside, he was an uncomfortable person to be around, and I spent a lot of time wondering what to say to him. He was a very cold, confused individual. Then, an emergency dog that came in ended up dying, which was tragic. Her owner pulled out all the stops over the past six months to try and make her feel better, but nothing seemed to work for very long. Eventually, she started having to keep coming in every couple of weeks. This last time (before she came in yesterday), she'd only been at home for ten days in between. It's really very sad. Yesterday she came in for incontinence, bleeding from the vulva, and a swollen muzzle. We put her on fluids, did blood tests, a urinalysis, prescribed her medication, etc, etc. Covered all the bases. But, this morning, she was worse than yesterday, and we started noticing that she was straight up bleeding from her vulva, not just bleeding into her urine. Her muzzle was more swollen. We ok'd xrays with her owners and discovered she was hemorraging from her vulva up to her chest - which was causing the swelling in her nose (it was more hemoragging). Again, the owners were contacted and as a last resort, the attending dr suggested sending her off to Vancouver Emergency for 24 hour fluids and observation. The owners discussed her options and decided that rather than have her suffer without them being with her, to put her out of her misery. She was euthanized as well, and my coworker and I sat up front behind the desk while the mrs tries to catch her breath in her grief behind the scenes. It's incredibly painful to hear someone expressing so much anguish and knowing that we couldn't do anything to stop her from feeling this way. Of course she apologized for her outburst, and her hysteria. And of course, we told her it's perfectly understandable, and consoled her as best we could. It's difficult, in a professional setting, to reach out to someone while trying to maintain the fact that this is a business, and it happens virtually every day.

Anyway, after that I went home for a little bit and then we all went downtown so I could get some more christmas shopping done. I still have some left to do, but Christmas is four weeks and two more paychecks away, so I'm not too worried at this point. I still have lots of time. I just hope that my family will appreciate the gesture - this will be the first time I'll have money of my own (really) to spend on members of my family, my roommate, and my roommate's family.

That's it for today. Yeesh. I'm tired of writing.

Picture Roll

Yup, time for another picture reel of random pictures, mostly because I finally have some pics of my stitches, and I don't really have anything to talk about today.

First, Phoenix, because I'm a crazy cat lady:

Next, my dad's handiwork on my foot from last night. The picture was taken just out of the shower this evening, so the bandage is a little damp.

First look at my disgusting, barbed-wire looking stitches in my toe. Ew.

There's a Nuubie in the bathroom corner

A look at my roommate's handiwork - a hand decorated bandage and a hand drawn Phoenix! :)

Yay. <3



5 Stitches

Well, what started as a good day off yesterday ended in disaster. I was gathering up some things to go upstairs for some soup, when I decided I should turn back and get my tea mug too so I could make a cup of tea at the same time, when the can of soup slipped, causing the bowl to slip against the tea mug. I then of course, stumbled and lost my bowl, which fell against the mug, snapping off the handle. The bowl shattered against the table on the way down, and a piece of it sliced my foot, right across the big toe, starting on the inside (so there was a small cut on my other toe too). Now, it took me about an hour to realize how this actually happened. I was barefoot, and I remember looking at my foot thinking "ooh, that's bleeding". My roommate, of course, runs over to me and starts putting paper towel on my foot (which immediately soaked through with blood). I meanwhile am watching my kitten, Phoenix, who is shamelessly trying to chew on a piece of ceramic from the bowl. So now I'm holding my foot, which is bleeding on the carpet, and trying to stop my cat from eating something which could potentially send HIM to the emergency room instead! By the time my roommate's dad comes down and says I'll need stitches, I've gone into shock a little bit, and start shaking, and my biggest concern is my cat, and the slowly growing stain on the carpet.

They got me to the emergency room, my foot wrapped in an old pillowcase, and the attending nurse wrapped it up nicely in some guaze. Then we waited for almost three hours before the Dr would see me. I was doing my best to be cheerful - I mean, it was about 11:00 by that time and I'd hate to work at that hour, so I was trying to be a good patient. The guy was pretty funny, though. While he was freezing my foot (which hurt enough that apparently my pupils got very, very small for a split second) he was carrying on conversation with me, talking about where I worked, I was telling him about my comparisons between human medicine and pet medicine. He thought it was funny that one of my coworkers asked why I didn't come into the clinic where I work, and I joked back, "then I'd have to pay the after hours fee!". Anyway, after the whole sewing process, he cleaned off my foot and waited for another rn to come and bandage me up. The one the came was a very kind British man, who kept calling me "darlin". I got some homecare instructions (just like my work, haha) to keep it dry for four days, change the dressing after a day, and after a second day, take the dressing off but keep a bandaid on it. After the four days I don't have to wear a plastic bag over it in the shower anymore, but I should be keeping a bandaid on it and make sure to watch for infection.

I was impressed with the care that I got there. Besides the wait (which I could understand anyway, since there was a little boy who kept having nosebleeds who obviously took presedence over my clumsy mishap), the people were nice and the dr was cheerful. It was a pretty good experience, besides the fact that I now have 5 stitches in my foot, which I will need to get taken out in a week. I shudder at the thought of that.

Anyway, last night sure was interesting. I have spent the entire day so far sitting on the futon with my foot up on a pillow. It's all wrapped up and tucked into a loose-fitting sock too. The hardest thing is going to the bathroom; since I can barely put any weight on my foot - the cut is right across my toe, so when I step it really, really hurts - it's hard to walk, so right now I'm crawling, so I don't have to hop. Then I'm faced with the issue of standing up again. Yeesh. I'm such an unbelievable clutz.

I would post a picture, but I don't have to change the dressing till tonight so I'll snap a quick one then and post it tomorrow. Bet that's gonna be fun.

I will share this though. I edited this picture from the original I posted yesterday - I ended up going with this one for my profile on Facebook. By the way, I got a ton of attention by posting a status about waiting for stiches last night. Yay, it's nice to know so many people care about me. Even if it's facebook care. XD

Ego Fest

I took some new pictures today and wanted to post a bit of a stream of them here before deciding which one I'll eventually use for my new profile picture on Facebook. Yeah...I've been jumping between some lately, and for some reason I have acquired a liking to taking pictures of myself. Vanity = 1, Sam = 0

I think this one's a bit model-ish? Le gasp. Am I actually...starting to see myself...as something less ugly than the creature from the black lagoon? Score 2 for Vanity.

Now, if only I had the build of a model. I like this scoop-neck shirt, though.

This is really bright (I was standing by the window for the best light) but I kind of like it. :0

Staring right into the camera...gotta utilize them blues.

More vanity.

So there's my line of pictures of myself. Yeesh. I'm such a camerawhore...