veterinary lingo

i'm so angry right now that i need to talk about something to take my mind off of my fury.

some veterinary lingo:

how to talk prescription: so the RX reads like this:

take 1 tab PO BID x 5 days.

that means take 1 tablet by mouth (PO) every 12 hours (BID) for 5 days.

other prescription abbreviations: IM - intramuscular, referring to an injection into the muscle, IV - intravenous, referring to an injection into the vein, SQ- subcutaneous, referring to an injection beneath the skin, IP - intraperitoneal, referring to injection into the abdomen, TID -three times a day, QID -four times a day, SD/SID - once a day, although this is not ACCEPTED in the pharmacy world and should be written as q 24 hours (q = every).

strange veterinary acronyms

TTJ: code for a patient that needs to go to heaven (transfer to jesus)
ADR: ain't doin' right - a highly technical description of general malaise
V/D: vomiting and diarrhea (in a record - to denote a patient has vomiting/diarrhea: V/D+)
GDV: gastric dilatation and volvulus
PSS: portosystemic shunt
NFC: what we often write on the board when a patient has an undiagnosed problem (stands for no effing clue)
TPLO: tibial plateau leveling osteotomy - how we most frequently fix cranial cruciate ruptures

things you might hear us say (and interpretation)

you hear: the patient suffered acute ischemic necrosis of the jejunum and proximal large bowel after a mesenteric rent. interpretation there was a hole in the fat in the abdomen, the small intestines and some of the large went through the hole, were cut off from their blood supply, and died. alternate interpretation: this is some bad shit.

you hear: that bulldog required an emergency c-section because the owners had never bred bulldogs before. all pups were non-viable, and the uterus was perforated. OHE was performed. interpretation: people who know nothing about bulldogs bred one, assumed it could have the puppies naturally (NOT the case), required a c-section. the uterus had a big 'ole hole in it, her abdomen is full of nastiness, and all the pups are dead. alternate interpretation: some people shouldn't reproduce. neither should their dogs.

you hear: the patient developed a marked phlebitis and became febrile due to his IV catheter. removal and replacement of the IV resolved the fever and inflammation. interpretation: whoops, we left the IV catheter in for more than 72 hours in the same leg, and the vein did not like that. so we moved it to another leg. problem solved.

you hear: the bite wounds dehisced after surgical repair, there is gangrene, local and systemic infection, and DIC is present. interpretation: a wound was closed when it shouldn't have been (contaminated wounds should NEVER be sutured closed), the sutures came out, the patient has a raging local infection that has become systemic and is now suffering systemic collapse of the hemostasis system. whoops.

you hear: an iatrogenic foreign body was identified during your cat's exploratory laparatomy. it was removed, and the granulomatous tissue around it excised. interpretation: whoops. the vet left a sponge in your cat after she was spayed. the body walled it off, and now we've taken it out!

do i sound bitter today?