“…We get all kinds of questions about what sort of animals can get spaded, whether boys are spaded or only girls, whether an old animal can be spaded, etc…”
Left Hand, you have hit on my pet peeve. The word is “spayed”, not “spaded”. Where do you get that extra “d” from?
. . . and of course, there are far fewer w’s in “pet” than I would have had you believe . . .
I’ve checked on this thread a couple times and thought nothing of the thread title.
But, just now, I realized it could be interpreted as “For the last time, dammit, no anal sex!”
will go clean out my mind now.
You should clean out mine as well. Big build up big let down.
That’s a regional thing. The further south you go, the more prevalent the use of “spaded.” I wonder if it started out as an accent misunderstanding, and grew from there. I do grant writing for the local shelter, and although all the board members/employees are very clear with their pronunciation on “spayed,” inevitably the adopters say “spaded” even after hearing the proper word. It’s very strange.
I have to agree with Dr. J here. When my oldest boy was hit by a car, we took him to his regular vet who would come into his office for such emergencies. I was freaking out; there is no way anyone could have mistaken me for someone remotely coherent. Cognitively I understood everything that the vet was having to do, but even now- over seven years later- I still have the image burned into my brain of pulling up to the office and having the vet reach into the car, grab my baby by the scruff and hindquarters, and making him stand up in the parking lot. I had nightmares about the sounds my pup made for months. The vet brought me back into the surgical room because he didn’t have his staff with him and needed me to help hold 'bus… I would have given anything to not have to be there (and this is from the person who- without hesitation- ran out into the road after the accident and found themselves nose-to-bumper with a car that barely had enough time to stop). Thank GOD for the person who drove us to the vet- he was able to get me to focus enough to answer the vet’s questions.
In addition to the safety and space issues, y’all are forgetting one important reason to not have the owners in the back. You don’t want the animal associating the pain they’re going through with the parents. I’m sure those of you who have animals know what it’s like getting them to go to the vet- they know that building and those people, and they do NOT want to go in there. The animal is not going to understand that what’s being done is for their own good- they’re just going to know that mom and dad were in on the whole thing.
Just my .02.
I do hope that it’s clear from the context how I’m using the word: I’m using it in describing the questions we get from the public. I get the y transmogrified into a d from the questions they ask: trust me when I tell you that it irritates me too. 
My guess is that people don’t hear “spayed” as a modified verb like “stayed,” but rather as a root verb like “raid.” They’re doing their best to put it into modified form.
Daniel
Slightly OT, but DoctorJ, have you ever had family members get involved with codes to such a point where patient care was jeopardized? I was in the code from hell (logistically) in which a nurse (in scrubs so we assumed she was a nurse) was yelling orders and brought in a family member and pushed the resident who was running the code and trying to direct line placement and the intern who intubating out of the way.
The “nurse” turned out to be a family member.
Anyway, the codes I’ve seen on people aren’t pretty and aren’t something a patient’s family should see. Also, when they happen in patient’s rooms there is a very limited amount of space in which you have doctors, respiratory therapists, nurses, EKG techs, etc., drawing labs, giving meds, and setting up equipment. Anything that minimizes the chaos is helpful. In noncoding but critical patients, it can be hard to balance the need for family to be with patients versus having as quiet as possible environment for medical staff to work in.
I think that with animal companions and people each situation is different and thinking that telling someone who is in an emotional state that the “rule” is no one’s allowed back there or wherever - and expecting that to work every time - is denying that emotional state and shows poor judgement at a minimum.
I also think that saying that there are things the “patients family should not see” is pretty arrogant. That family member may have experienced a bit more of life than you are aware of.
In short, respect for the situation and the people & animals involved is called for, some people can offer this, some can’t.
Here’s the thing county-it’s impossible for Crazycatlady and her co-workers to screen each owner to determine who will wax hysterical at the sight of pouchie’s entrails and who won’t.
If some one is in an “emotional” state, it’s probably not in the animal’s best interest to have them present.
At best, they’d in the way and, at worst, they’d create an additional problem when the techs should be focusing only on the animal.
My animals have gotten horribly bunged up and I’ve always respected the wishes of the vet.
Normally they’ve had no problems allowing me to stay with my dogs or cats but the key was that I had established a long term relationship with the clinic.
Crazycatlady works in an emergency room.
It’s all about doing whatever is best for the animal at the time.
Not to excuse the lady’s crappy attitude, but if I had a loved one (animal or human) in a medical situation, I would push a little to try to be as near them as possible. Obviously, in a code situation, it is not possible for friends and family to be in the same room, but in my experience, medical personel often exclude family and friends out of habit and/or to reduce the number of demands relating to a particular patient. Also in my experience, this often results in significantly poorer patient care. It is my opinion that everyone in a hospital situation should have an advocate with them, and that advocate should be able to stay with them at all times except when ABSOLUTELY MEDICALLY NECESSARY for them to leave.
This is related (obviously) to some bad experiences I have had, where my friends and family (F&F for short) were excluded much to my detriment.
Post-surgery, my F&F were kept out of the recovery room long after I had woken up - because the doctor had left without prescribing morphine and I was crying in pain. If they had been there, they undoubtedly would have raised hell and gotten me a prescription a good half hour earlier.
My post-surgery nausea was left untreated for * eight hours*, until my mother (who is a doctor) insisted that they give me anti-nausea medication.
Likewise, they didn’t want to feed me after treating me because it was after normal dinner time, despite the fact that I had then been without food for more than 24 hours. My F&F went out and got me food.
I discovered in the middle of the night (after F&F get kicked out) that my nurse call button was broken. They had a saline drip in and I needed to pee frequently, but was unable to call the nurse. When I finally got a nurses attention by screaming (not very loud, due to a torn-up throat from the intubation), the nurses decided that having a bedridden patient unable to call a nurse was “not an emergency”, and they wouldn’t call to get it fixed until morning. If my F&F had been around, they could have helped, and ripped the nurses a new asshole while they were at it.
The list goes on, and I didn’t have it nearly as bad as the woman in the bed next to me. She spoke only Spanish, and the hospital hadn’t bothered to provide a translator - despite the fact the the hospital is in an entirely Spanish-speaking neighborhood and half the staff is probably biligual. She was in pain and unable to ask for medication, she was being yelled at for wetting the bed because she couldn’t explain that her call button was also broken, she was terrified because she had gathered that they were kicking her out of the hospital but they hadn’t told her that they were sending her to a hospice for long-term pain care - she thought they were putting her out on the street right after hip surgery. She really could have used some F&F around. My mother, horror-struck by this lady’s situation, translated for her for the time we were both there, but I don’t know what happened after.
So okay, this is a long and rather personal list of greivances. But several hospital experiences of my own and others have led me to never leave a friend alone if it can possibly be avoided - and to be pushy if it seems that I’m being kicked out for convenience’s sake. Judging by conversations with others (including doctors) these are not unique experiences or conclusions. Something like this may well play a role in other people’s decision to question their exclusion from a loved one’s bedside.
Now mind you, I am not debating your decision to exclude this woman from an emergency situation - there are places and times where F&F are unequivocally barred. I’m just pointing out that there are reasons why quite reasonable people try to insist on attending to their loved ones personally.
mischievous
I have ample experience with Vets. I used to breed Siamese cats, and I was scrupulous ALWAYS with my babies health. All of them, both my “children” AND their babies. I got references before I sold a kitten, and I actually checked them, too. But I digress.
What makes me supremely qualified to speak to this is that for the past two months, my only remaining cat, Kobii, has been at the Vet more than she has been home. And no, I am NOT exaggerating. Long story, I won’t bore you with it.
BUT…when I take Kobii in, I go with her into the examination room and hold her until my Vet gets there. Then I keep my hand on her while he examines her…takes her temp or whatever. Mostly I do this so she knows that it is okay with me for him to handle her. I think this calms her. [sub]Of course at THIS point, it is her second home and I don’t need to worry about that anymore, but before when I took her in, she didn’t know them very well[/sub] THEN, when he determines that she needs help NOW…I let him take her away to where SHE CAN BE HELPED. If I didn’t trust my Vet, why on earth would I TAKE her there? Why would I want to compromise the care she gets by distracting my Vet by hanging around in the background?
That’s just silly.
And I am also, right along with CrazyCatLady, disturbed by anyone who cares more for being thwarted than for her “baby” to get urgently needed care.
Sounds to me like she was more concerned with getting her way than with her dog’s well being.
Of course, I wasn’t THERE, so maybe her anxiety over her dog was misconstrued. It doesn’t sound like it to me, though.
Upon posting and reading what was posted while I was writing, I find that I am horrified by your experiences, mischievous! I guess I have been very lucky in both my Vets, the local hospital who care for my friends and family… and in our respective Doctors.
That is all just SO WRONG!!!
I know it’s wrong. But it’s only a partial list of things I have seen and experienced happening to patients who are too sick/ doped/ in pain to speak up for themselves. Some times are simple ommissions - noone told me that I had to ask for more pain meds, so I kept waiting for a shot I presumed was scheduled - until I couldn’t stand it any longer. Some times bordered on actionable (like the broken call button). I’m sure no harm was intended in any case, but I still wish that someone coherent had been around to speak for me. Many of these experiences were in world-class hospitals, so I don’t think it’s a matter of careless staff for the most part, I think it’s a matter of your F&F being more attentive and caring for you personally than nurses possibly can be.
And thank you for your sympathy.
mischievous
Yes ma’am, that’s exactly what it was. I was talking to the tech who handled this woman’s initial phone call last night, and she related quite the interesting story.
The owner called about two hours before she brought the dog in, saying that he had very suddenly started throwing his head around and gasping for breath. His eyes were rolling and he couldn’t get up, and she wasn’t at all sure he’d make it till the morning. When the tech agreed that it sounded as though he needed to be seen asap, the owner started to hem and haw. “Well, we just put the kids to bed. Who’ll stay with them if we bring the dog in?” (Most people would come to the conclusion that one person stays with the kids and the other takes the dog, but that’s really beside the point.) She went on in this vein for quite some time before my coworker finally interrupted to tell her that if they worked it out so they could come, to call and let us know.
So we have a woman who thinks her dog might be dying. She calls the emergency clinic and is told that yes, the animal sounds in very bad shape, but she delays bringing him in for 2 hours rather than either bring him by herself, or let her husband bring the dog by himself, or bring the kids along with them. All this time, the dog’s slowly going downhill, and yet she still threatens to deny him treatment if she doesn’t get her way.
That’s just fucking sick, imo. To ignore an animal’s obvious distress for your own convenience is quite bad enough, but to then treat him like a furry little bargaining chip is simply unthinkable.
Of course, last night we had an owner of a very critical patient call her mother, who proceeded to rip one of the other technicians a new asshole for not taking care of her daughter. Were we so heartless and stupid that we couldn’t see that she needed to be with the dog?
Unfortunately, this lady’s still new enough at the job that she didn’t feel comfortable telling the woman that when making an owner happy conflicts with taking care of an animal, the animal wins. Every single time.
Even more unfortunately, Shelly’s not at all the type of person to threaten to hang up the phone if the verbal abuse continues. And she’s not at all the type to say, “What? Can you repeat that? You’re breaking up. What did you say?” Click. (I’d never do that to a client, but it’s terribly tempting sometimes.)