Not sure if I under assessed or if the pet was just progressing quickly because of the stress of being in hospital (probably a combo of both), but I found myself having to make the unexpected "hey this is your warning call that your pet is likely about to die, what do you want me to do?" call this afternoon. never a fun call to make. this was an exotic, and i'm definitely no exotics specialist (or even close to comfortable) so it makes me feel slightly less like a failure, but still. had another recently where we were intra-op and as the 3rd set of hands, i had the great job of calling an owner to tell them that their dog had briefly arrested twice and that fatal arrest may be imminent. that owner was very calm about it and was happy to have us realistically keep going without being heroic. dog did awesome and survived to discharge days later, much to everyones surprise.
