Kaminoke
River Valley Reptiles
I am not usually one to share my woes on the internet. But, damn, today was just something else.
Today started off well enough. I won the bid in wade's Taiwan Beauty auction last night and paid him. I got ready for work - blech - and all of a sudden out of nowhere I got this extremely painful cramp in my right side. It sucked, but I didn't think twice about it. I figured it was just a muscle cramp or gas or something. On the way to work I got shots of pain strong enough to make me actually shout profanities out loud, to myself. At work it didn't get any better. I waited a couple of hours, and when it got to the point that I couldn't even walk I decided I should go to the doctor, despite the fact I was terrified that I would go through all of this trouble and just have really bad gas. I had to convince my managers to let me - I work in retail, and Christmas Eve is a huge crazy busy day for us. Eventually I left, under the condition that if it wasn't life threatening I would return, pain or no pain.
I got to the minor med in one piece and waited forever, because apparently everyone and their mom gets sick the day before Christmas. They did the usual tests, and they had to draw some blood. DISCLAIMER: Do not read the rest of this paragraph if needles make you squeamish!! Now, it is next to impossible to get blood drawn from my arms. The veins just will not come up, and if you somehow manage to catch a glimpse of where one might be, they are tiny "baby veins." Only once in my life has anyone been able to, and even then they had to call the best nurse in the hospital at the time. Under most circumstances, when I provide this information people understand and switch to the finger-prick method. This nurse, however, insisted that there has never been anyone she couldn't do. Anyone until me that is, and it was not for lack of trying multiple times. OUCH. For the record, I hate needles (though I watched this time, since I need to get over it if I'm gonna be a vet). So... they didn't want to do the finger prick thing because it apparently meant the results they needed would not be as accurate, so they called in another nurse who apparently can always get the job done. She decided my arms were a no-go and searched for other places. I have had blood drawn from and IVs put in the top of my hand before. It stings, but it's not the end of the world. I figured we would end up going that route. Nuh uh, she couldn't get those to come up either. So she ended up getting a needle syringe and drawing blood from the underside of my wrist. Do you have any idea what that feels like?? OH MY GOD. I decided to watch at first, and was like "okay, well that's cool I gues.... HOLY F***!!" It hurt so, so bad. My side was killing me too and I didn't even care anymore. I was crying out all kinds of obscenities, all the while using every ounce of willpower to not move my right hand at all lest I rupture the vein. Holy crap, it hurt, and it wasn't quick. Afterwards I had to hold a lot of pressure on it so the vein wouldn't BLOW UP, and I was still muttering obscenities sporadically, for both my wrist AND my side. UGH.
Long story short, my wrist hurts AND my side hurts. I do not have anything serious though, thankfully. And it wasn't just gas! Just a bruised abdominal wall. I have absolutely no idea how I achieved that, but I did. I went back to work afterwards, and it was very rough. I wasn't allowed to pickup anything, and we were BUSY.
And the worst part of the day, and the only part that is herp related.. I got home from visiting family just a short while ago. I am exhausted and have prescriptions to take, but before I did anything I walked around the house to give a cursory check on all of the critters. When I walked in the main animal room, where most of my snakes are, I smelled the smell that we all fear. The smell of death. I immediately figured someone had regurged and was upset about that, and of course started checking everyone for regurges. Instead I found something much worse - Amarilla, my female ball python given to me by a friend, is dead. I have no idea how or why. She has been on a hunger strike for a bit, but her weight and activity have been healthy, her temps were normal, she had water, and she had just shed last Saturday. It seemed like just a normal ball python-style finickiness. I have no clue what happened and I am heartbroken. I want to do a necropsy - she was a very young snake, but no one is open tomorrow and I know freezing basically would make it impossible to do one.
So... yeah. My side hurts still, my wrist is tender, my boyfriend is out of town, and most of all my Amarilla is gone. Not the best Christmas Eve I've had.
On the upside, my family is healthy, I had a good time having dinner and opening presents that we were not expecting at my mom's house. I won two beautiful snakes from wade at a great price, and I have the perfect gift waiting to surprise my sister - who is expecting to get nothing - tomorrow morning when she picks me up. So, I am going to take a deep breath (but not too deep - ow!), take some muscle relaxers, get a good night's rest, and then tomorrow will be another day.
Today started off well enough. I won the bid in wade's Taiwan Beauty auction last night and paid him. I got ready for work - blech - and all of a sudden out of nowhere I got this extremely painful cramp in my right side. It sucked, but I didn't think twice about it. I figured it was just a muscle cramp or gas or something. On the way to work I got shots of pain strong enough to make me actually shout profanities out loud, to myself. At work it didn't get any better. I waited a couple of hours, and when it got to the point that I couldn't even walk I decided I should go to the doctor, despite the fact I was terrified that I would go through all of this trouble and just have really bad gas. I had to convince my managers to let me - I work in retail, and Christmas Eve is a huge crazy busy day for us. Eventually I left, under the condition that if it wasn't life threatening I would return, pain or no pain.
I got to the minor med in one piece and waited forever, because apparently everyone and their mom gets sick the day before Christmas. They did the usual tests, and they had to draw some blood. DISCLAIMER: Do not read the rest of this paragraph if needles make you squeamish!! Now, it is next to impossible to get blood drawn from my arms. The veins just will not come up, and if you somehow manage to catch a glimpse of where one might be, they are tiny "baby veins." Only once in my life has anyone been able to, and even then they had to call the best nurse in the hospital at the time. Under most circumstances, when I provide this information people understand and switch to the finger-prick method. This nurse, however, insisted that there has never been anyone she couldn't do. Anyone until me that is, and it was not for lack of trying multiple times. OUCH. For the record, I hate needles (though I watched this time, since I need to get over it if I'm gonna be a vet). So... they didn't want to do the finger prick thing because it apparently meant the results they needed would not be as accurate, so they called in another nurse who apparently can always get the job done. She decided my arms were a no-go and searched for other places. I have had blood drawn from and IVs put in the top of my hand before. It stings, but it's not the end of the world. I figured we would end up going that route. Nuh uh, she couldn't get those to come up either. So she ended up getting a needle syringe and drawing blood from the underside of my wrist. Do you have any idea what that feels like?? OH MY GOD. I decided to watch at first, and was like "okay, well that's cool I gues.... HOLY F***!!" It hurt so, so bad. My side was killing me too and I didn't even care anymore. I was crying out all kinds of obscenities, all the while using every ounce of willpower to not move my right hand at all lest I rupture the vein. Holy crap, it hurt, and it wasn't quick. Afterwards I had to hold a lot of pressure on it so the vein wouldn't BLOW UP, and I was still muttering obscenities sporadically, for both my wrist AND my side. UGH.
Long story short, my wrist hurts AND my side hurts. I do not have anything serious though, thankfully. And it wasn't just gas! Just a bruised abdominal wall. I have absolutely no idea how I achieved that, but I did. I went back to work afterwards, and it was very rough. I wasn't allowed to pickup anything, and we were BUSY.
And the worst part of the day, and the only part that is herp related.. I got home from visiting family just a short while ago. I am exhausted and have prescriptions to take, but before I did anything I walked around the house to give a cursory check on all of the critters. When I walked in the main animal room, where most of my snakes are, I smelled the smell that we all fear. The smell of death. I immediately figured someone had regurged and was upset about that, and of course started checking everyone for regurges. Instead I found something much worse - Amarilla, my female ball python given to me by a friend, is dead. I have no idea how or why. She has been on a hunger strike for a bit, but her weight and activity have been healthy, her temps were normal, she had water, and she had just shed last Saturday. It seemed like just a normal ball python-style finickiness. I have no clue what happened and I am heartbroken. I want to do a necropsy - she was a very young snake, but no one is open tomorrow and I know freezing basically would make it impossible to do one.
So... yeah. My side hurts still, my wrist is tender, my boyfriend is out of town, and most of all my Amarilla is gone. Not the best Christmas Eve I've had.
On the upside, my family is healthy, I had a good time having dinner and opening presents that we were not expecting at my mom's house. I won two beautiful snakes from wade at a great price, and I have the perfect gift waiting to surprise my sister - who is expecting to get nothing - tomorrow morning when she picks me up. So, I am going to take a deep breath (but not too deep - ow!), take some muscle relaxers, get a good night's rest, and then tomorrow will be another day.
I'm sorry that you had such a horrible day. Losing an animal to unknown causes is so sad. But, I do hope that you have a much, much better Christmas!
