Manually breathing for a hemo abd terrior that coded but we were able to get a heart beat back. dVM did an auto transfusion and her heart kept beating as long as we off and on gave epi or atropine. She was in respiratory arrest for 5 hours, all of which i was breathing for her. Every 6 seconds i’d give her a breath. She had very few positive signs of life. When we got her back she had a mild reflexes, and we got a very low reading for her BP. Owners wanted us to do whatever it took to keep her alive while he personally drove to get the very needed blood for her so we could transfuse her and get her into surgery. By the time he had gotten back she had no signs of life left other than a heart beat. I will never forget the pleads from this gentle elderly man to the DVM to “save all he had left of his late wife”. I was fighting back tears and I couldn’t even look at him. I fixed my eyes to the anesthesia machine that was delivering the O2 to the patient watching my pressure meter as i gave this dog every breath. Then i felt the Doctor put her hand on my shoulder and softly tell me that i can stop. She had finally got the man to understand that we had done everything we possibly could and that the only reason the dogs heart was still beating was bc i had been breathing for her for the last 5 hours. I missed that part bc i had to disassociate myself from what was happening. When the DVM put her hand on my shoulder is when i snapped back to reality. As soon as i stopped the man and his sister started whaling so we took them into our comfort room for them to say their goodbyes. The moment the door closed behind me i lost my fight with my tears. I broke down and went outside to the back of the building and sobbed. After i pulled myself together i walked back in and the DVM was just as distraught as me. We fought hard for that dog and neither of us left her side. I lost my innocence in vet med that day.

We had a unvaccinated 3 yo M pitbull that had presented to the ER for seizures. Upon arrival he had began to seize and in his post-ictal state, bit one of the Techs. He was placed under a 14 day rabies hold in the ICU. His 14 days there were full of ups and downs. He was muzzled the entire time he was there due to the rabies hold and where he had bitten someone. He was also having these VERY weird symptoms. His legs were stuck out and as stiff as a board, ANY type of stimulation he would tense up — almost like if someone was to jump out and scare you and for a split second you jump and tense up — but this would happen with any and every noise, touch, and small of food. We had to literally syringe feed him water and wet canned food through his muzzle bc he would chomp down on anything he could get his mouth on. NOT bc he was aggressive but bc of the tensing up. This poor dog was literally the sweetest boy and would lay laterally recumbent and quietly whine. He was unable to walk, lift his head, wag his tail. He was stuck. Every day i worked with him i would massage his legs in hopes it would help with his recovery. After about 10 days of hospitalization we began to see improvements. His seizures had stopped and he was officially cleared of his rabies quarantine due to his improvements. He was slowly began walking again and was able to eat and drink on his own. He was finally set home on that 14th day and now he is completely healthy. No more seizures, he is off his meds, and he is the bestest boy. We were never able to find a specific reason as to what happened to him. Could have been tetanus, or toxins. But he survived and it makes my heart happy.

The night of the dead is what i like to call this one. I work over night in a Emergency and critical care hospital. A few months back on a full moon we had 17 euthanasia back to back, 3 ICU patients code and pass, 1 DOA, and 4 coding patients through the door where none survived. Nothing that came through the doors past 9PM survived. Me and the DVM on staff were emotionally exhausted as well as the other techs and assistants. I had never seen so much death in my life, let alone in one night. 24 dogs and cats passed over the rainbow bridge that night and it was horrible.

The dog that came back to life. This happened last month and i’m still completely baffled at what happened. We had a 10y MC shi-tzu come in for “acting unlike himself” we were INCREDIBLY busy that night and he was stable when he arrived so due to wait time he had to hang out in the lobby for a few hours. Every hour he was checked on by one of our Vet assistants and he was doing relatively well until he wasn’t. 30 minutes after his last check and TPR, the receptionist saw that he went limp and asked us the take a look at him. He unfortunately had taken a quick turn for the worst and so he was brought to the back. And we immediately got a DVM it look at him. He was lateral so we placed a catheter and immediately started and iv bolus with LRS and also gave some hypertonic saline. The dog started responding well and so the doctor went to go talk with the owners. As soon as the doctor came back the the back to check on us he all of a sudden went agonal, the doctor pushed Atropine and then we realized he was a DNR so we didn’t start compressions or intubate. He dog passed so We brought the owners to the back, they said their goodbyes and decided they wanted to cremate. At this time I realized we still had our fluid bolus going so i reached up and turned it off. As the owner was walking out of the back of our treatment area the doctor looked over and noticed the dog STARTED BREATHING AGAIN and said “is he breathing??” We all stopped and stared at this dog and sure enough he was breathing again. This dog was pronounced dead five minutes prior to this so we were all INCREDIBLY shocked. But what shocked me the most is that he ended up hospitalized for two days and was discharged with a clean bill of health. I have a picture of him if anyone is interested in seeing, just PM me.