Very unexpected happening

I had a very interesting two days after I got the call for a downed hawk in Lovell on Wednesday night (see below post).

Now comes the interesting, unexpected part. When Malcolm was through with xrays and an exam of the hawk I asked him to listen to my heart as it seemed a bit off. He did and immediately said “you should go somewhere”. You should always listen to your veterinarian. Okay, I stopped at Cody Urgent Care Clinic and saw my friend, Dr. Harvey, who did a EKG and said “go to the ER”. I still had the hawk in my truck so brought him back home and got him settled in. Then I drove to the ER.

That was on Thursday morning. I got home Friday evening about 6:30 after spending the intervening time in ICU hooked up to lots of wires, oxygen, bags of fluids, etc. And wore those lovely thigh high pressure stockings plus automatic squeezing things on my calves to prevent clots. The medicine the ER doctor gave me to slow my heart worked immediately but not completely hence the two day stay.

My heart still wasn’t completely back to normal rhythm so they took me downstairs on Friday and shocked my heart. You know the routine, grease the paddles, yell CLEAR! and then hit the switch. I was out as they also put a tube down my throat to check the back of my heart to see if there were any clots hiding there. And found out one of my valves is a bit thick making a bit smaller opening than normal but the cardiologist said it shouldn’t cause any problem at this time. They will keep a watch on it.

Amazingly I was sent home about five hours after all that was done with a perfectly normal heartbeat. Unfortunately I now have to take blood thinners (not Coumadin) for about six weeks and probably the anti-arrhythmia meds forever. I don’t know what the charges will be for the two days but in ICU ????? Probably tens of thousands. Thank goodness for Medicare.

Also thank goodness for the following:

Kimber for driving the two dogs to Lifetime Small Animal Hospital to board til I came home. That resulted in massive amounts of Corgi hair in her car and she's probably still picking it off her clothes.

Liz for quickly going to my place to take care of all the mice, cavies, bunnies and cats. She's my regular help if I'm on vacation so stepped in and knew just what to do.

Sara, my volunteer, for dropping everything and taking care of the birds which included the new roughie (see below post). That meant wrapping him in a towel and handing him mice as he was pretty thin and I wasn't sure he'd eat on his own. She called me on Friday morning to say he was scarfing down whole mice on his own so she didn't have to go through hand feeding him.

And to Lisa Harvey plus all the doctors and nurses at West Park Hospital in the ER and ICU. They were super and obviously I needed their expertise and caring to make everything come out okay.

As I didn't sleep at all Thursday night it was so great to be home, showered, fed and warm. One of my cats never let me out of her sight from the time I walked in the door til we climbed into bed at 8:30. Ahhhhh heaven to be in my own bed again.