Surgery is not my favorite thing

So I finally figured this thing out after a half hour of trying to be a contributor instead of a follower. Anyhow, I started my job on July 5. On July 3 I got a text from my boss asking me to go look at his down horse. He was on a trip and the on call doc was on the other side of town. Mind you I had not started working yet. So I go to look at the horse armed only with a stethoscope thermometer and penlight because anything else was still in a box somewhere. When I pulled up to the paddock where the horse was I knew I wasn't going to need those things because the horse was pretty bad off and was going to need to be euthanized. So the farm worker pulled up around this time as I was calling my boss. After only about a three second conversation I asked him if he wanted the horse put down and he said yes and gave me all the clinic info to get the stuff I needed. I had to ask h how much euth solution to use because I had no clue. My hands started shaking around now as I drew up the solution. So then I went out to do what I needed to do armed with my 120 mL of with solution, a 16 g 2 in needle and a pen light. ( it was almost 10 pm). I turned my headlights on and inserted the needle into the vein. I could feel blood but couldn't see it and my needle wasn't in all the way so I pushed it in further. And the blood stopped. I tried redirecting with no luck. Luckily I brought 2 because after one pass through the skin that needle was done. So I tried again. This time I got it and I injected the euth solution. He whinnied halfway through which made me tear up a bit. I cleaned up everything and got a blanket to cover him til the could bury him in the morning. My hands and instruments were covered in blood. Turns out you don't really need a 16 g 2 in needle to euthanize a horse. A shorter 18 g would have been sufficient, probably less bloody and easier. I came back to make sure my first patient was in fact dead and when I touched his eye to check a corneal reflex he let out a huge breath. Naturally that totally freaked me out despite knowing that was a normal thing. So I did what any logical person would do: I drove back three times that night to make sure he was dead. Luckily I live 1/4 mile from there. So lessons learned: save the 16 g needles for the cows, learn to work by flashlight, penlight and if you're lucky, headlight, horses that let the air out of their lungs post euthanasia are probably actually dead and there's no need to check three times.

So I have another story but I'm sort of tired of typing on my phone so perhaps tomorrow.