Venipuncture and the "death grip"

It's been at my job for a month now, and I still love it. Normally, a month is plenty of time for that first bit of optimism to fade away. But not with this job.

Today I placed my first IV catheter. I think it was my 4th or 5th attempt to do so. Usually when I can't get it the first time, I give up. I don't like the idea of poking and digging around a dog's leg in order to find a vein when I am so inexperienced. So for the rest of the day, I was giddy. Earlier that morning, after an unsuccessful try, I had an "ugggh I'll never be able to do this!!!" moment. So yay me, i'm on my way to more experience.



I also killed a dog today. But then he came back to life. I'll explain.
It was a tiny pomeranian that needed to have some blood drawn, so I was holding him still so that we could get the blood from him. Squirming is not really something you want a dog to do when you're poking his jugular vein. Anyway, we finished pulling the blood and I was just loosely holding him when I said, "that's my death grip!" in reference to the way I kept this squirrelly little dog so very still. All of a sudden, he goes limp. He stops breathing, his eyes roll back and he's out! The tiny and very old little dog freaking died. I pass him over to someone else to check for a heartbeat and in the meantime i'm getting the crash cart ready and then the little guys decides to come back.
Good Lord. I can't even imagine having to explain that to the owners, who only brought him in for a checkup and blood work.

No more references to my death grip.