April Blog Challenge: J is for Jacked-up Saturday

So, this past Saturday was pretty jacked up. For my new followers, I'd like first to say WELCOME! And for those that pass by via the A-Z Challenge, HI and thanks for stopping by! And since my new followers and possible tourists don't know, I work three jobs - one job is working for the local vet's office. On Saturday's, I'm the receptionist at the main clinic in Town, and three days a week I operate the satellite clinic in our valley.

Anyhoo, when I saw the appointment book on Saturday morning, I knew it was going to be an interesting day. Especially since I saw a gal sitting in her SUV in front, and since I knew her, I could tell she wasn't on the books, and considering she's sitting outside the front doors at 8 a.m., I figured it wasn't a good sign.

I opened the doors and let her in, and she told me about this poor little calf - about a month prior it had been attacked by a coyote. Later by an eagle. She's been trying to get the wounds on its haunches to heal and they just won't. She said the weekday receptionists had told her she could just stop in at 8, since we were booked the rest of the day. I told her she could just pull up out back, and have Dr. J take a quick look at it and see what he wants to do.

Dr. J finally comes in around 8:15 when our first appointment shows up - a dog with a foxtail in it's ear or nose (I can't remember now . . .). I tell him about the calf, and what his first appointment is. He looks at the book and promptly sits down scribbling notes on a sticky note. Evidently the weekday receptionists had scheduled two equine lameness exams - one at 9 a.m. and another at 9:15 (apparently owners were traveling together to save gas as they live an hour or so away), and gave Dr. J only half an hour for both horses. One equine lameness exam takes two hours. I quickly did the math . . . two horses, a calf emergency and a dog with foxtail that was going to require sedation. Holy crap on a cracker - we were already 5 hours behind and it was only 8:15 a.m. Just shoot me now.

The gal with the calf waited about 20 minutes until the dog was taken care of, and then he stitched up the calf and put drains in. The gals with the horses showed up at 8:45, and promptly had to wait about half an hour before Dr. J could get out there. I had explained about the calf and they completely understood. As he ran out the back to finally get to the horses, Dr. J hollered for me to let him know when his other appointments showed up and he'd come in real quick and take care of them. I had offered to reschedule the other morning appointments as they were vaccines only and not things that had to be taken care of today, but he declined.

So I started inputting payment checks into the system, except that every time I pulled out a check, the phone rang. Evil. Then people came in wanting things, so I had to get up and help them shop. And still the phone rang.

At 11, my parents showed up with their dog, Libby. Quick Libby update - the splint she's had on for a month is now off! Dr. J took it off that morning, saying her leg looked real good and he wants her back in a month for a recheck. (For my new peeps, Libby has floating knee caps, and last fall, lost the use of her back legs. My vets have been attempting to fix her legs since Thanksgiving. For the whole Libby story, please click on her name above.)

At noon, I locked up and offered to buy Dr. J and the tech burgers and bring them back since they were working through lunch on those two horses. Yes, they were still there. Three hours by that time. Dr. J declined the burger offer, but the tech accepted. I met my parents for lunch, and brought back a cheeseburger and fries for the poor tech. And a half of my mom's burger that she couldn't eat for Dr. J. His eyes lit up when I told him I brought him half of a mushroom-swiss burger, but he never touched it. I think the tech took two bites of hers. In the end, she wound up taking all of it home.

He called a retired vet to fill in for the afternoon, as he had to do nerve blocks on both horses and couldn't just stop in the middle of that to do regular appointments. Dr. D showed up at 1:30, ready and rarin' to go. His first appointment he wanted to run a CBC, but of course, doesn't know how to run the new fangled machines. Well, neither do I unfortunately as I'm reception on weekends and the satellite clinic doesn't have blood machines. I figured since I used to work for the company that makes our in-house stuff, that it really couldn't be that freaking difficult. I finally figured stuff out, but we eventually had to call a tech at home because our results were zero. Which would mean the dog should be dead. Apparently you have to take the top off and then stick it in the machine. Got it.

The afternoon was busier with people in and out than the morning. Dr. J finally finished the two lameness exams around 2:30 - the exams had taken 6 hours, and then he had a half hour of writing in the records. He finished about the time his equine dental showed up.

We had a couple of people walk in with pet issues - another foxtail (I got a feeling it's going to be another bad year for those bad boys), a dog having seizures, and a dog with a barely-there limp.

I stayed after closing time to get my files put away, clean up the front desk, and finish charging stuff out. Thank God for Dr. D coming in, or we would have been in a real world of hurt. It's not very often we have to call in one of our retirees to help us out because our doctor on duty is over-worked and double booked.

I will just say that the weekday receptionists did not get very nice notes from the vet about the little scheduling conflict (to put it nicely), nor about how long it took him to do the exams.