Breesa

Today we got to show Mike the island by going on our Tuesday home visits. Esley, a 30-year old man who is paraplegic, has yet another infection and we're worried about it moving to his kidneys. Because he is resistant to so many other antibiotics, we gave him Levoquin. I hope that treatment will help. We then visited Ms. Nella, who is a dear woman but wasn't very happy with me because this week I did not bring her the meds she hasn't been taking. Unfortunately, her pressure is still up to 190/110. The team decided that when a patient is noncompliant with taking meds, it's important to stop giving them until they can show that they can be consistent. Sometimes it's tough teaching people how to be responsible for their own health!

Among other things, we swam to Ross Key today. It was quite the workout for me as a novice swimmer - 1 1/2 miles there and back. Whew, I can run that no problem, but swimming is a different story, especially when you're going against the tide. But, it was SO worth it! The reef was absolutely gorgeous! I felt like I was in Finding Nemo.

To our devastation, we came back to hearing that one of the beloved three clinic cats (who I have been feeding for the last 3 weeks) was seriously mangled by one of the island mutts. The dog had her by the neck and was swinging her around like a rag doll. Poor Breesa actually survived the trauma and we found her under the porch, breathing extremely fast and shallow respirations. Mike grabbed heavy duty gloves and towels and pulled her out. She was on our clinic table and seemed so close to death that we decided to put her out of her misery. Yes, that's right, cat euthenasia (sp?). Mike gave her 15 mg of Morphine IM, an amount we assumed would slow her breathing for a painless death. To give you an idea of how much Morphine that is, normally in the hospital a patient is given 1-2 mg for pain. Guess what? She is still alive!! We think she'll survive (on her 8th life). I'll keep you posted on her condition, as we've now added "Veterinary medicine" to the clinic's capacities.