Patches

On Friday I went to do clinics at the Humane Society and we had a scary experience while spaying a dog. She was pregnant, and about two thirds of the way through the pregnancy. The puppies were pretty big, the mother was a heeler by the name of Patches. So I was prepping a labrador puppy for a spay when I heard the vet, Dr. Manning, say "S***!" I turned around to see Patches, hooked up to the anesthesia machine, waking up. I ran over and held her front legs down, the tracheal tube was getting pushed out of her throat, so I held it in. Another volunteer turned the machine up to 5, which is the highest, and the dog calmed down.
The he vet started cussing again because blood started to pour out of the incision. The six different "lumps" of the uterus were out, the puppies not-so-safely inside, and the uterus began to turn purple. We knew this meant the mother wasn't getting enough oxygen. We checked the machine and all looked well. Dr. Manning was placing clamps all over where he had made a cut into the uterine horn, the blood kept coming and he soon ran out of clamps. After shouting a naughty word, the doc yelled for someone to grab another sterile kit because he needed more clamps. A woman there who is preparing for vet school grabbed the items and put on a pair of sterile gloves to help out.
Dr. Manning put more clamps in place, he re-situated the uterus to find why the blood hadn't stopped yet. As soon as he moved the uterus, blood squirted strait out of the dog's body and all over the wall. It was now that the dog decided to start waking up again. No bueno. Clamps, clamps, clamps; hold down the open dog; what's wrong with the anesthesia machine?
After a lot of stress, Dr. Manning was able to get the bleeding to stop. He sutured up the insides and then the three layers of skin. We took out the trachea tube and put Patches on a towel on the floor and cleaned her up. Kendyll, another girl from my class, and I got to clean up all the blood on the table and floor. I have never seen so much blood in my life, nor had I heard so much swearing in such a short span of time. It was then that I realized how amazing it would be to be a veterinarian and be able to save a life like that.
So now I'm all sorts of confused with what I want to do with my life. I have always dreamed of being a stay-at-home mom. But now I have another dream. I talked to Susan, the instructor for my Vet Tech program, about the education required to be a vet. I would have to get a Bachelor degree in Pre-Vet science, which is offered at USU, then get accepted into a vet school. This would all take about seven years to accomplish. And I don't know how possible that is, especially with Ross going to school. If he can be a pilot, he's gonna be one, and flying school is not cheap at all. I have decided, for the moment anyway, to just continue with my program and see how I feel later.
(The picture at the top is the kind of dog that Patches is.)