Day 46 - Rehabilitation

After today I am physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted.

The morning started off very slow for me. Could not build enough energy to get up until I forced myself to get ready. Ended up slightly late because my breakfast sandwich was too hot when it came out of the microwave. I already dragged out of bed late and overall it just felt like today was going to be "one of those days". Tried to remain positive but here's how things went.

8am meant raccoon feeding so three of us interns prepared solid food, formula, and did dishes. While waiting on the solids to heat up I figured why not start feeding/watering mice while the other two interns either did dishes (as said) or other things...that I am not sure about. Once the food and such was ready I quit the mice job temporarily and we carried the food back before I hopped into the Raccoon Isolation Room (RISO). We first had to weigh all the raccoons since they had not been weighed in a few days. We do this every few days in order to see if they are gaining weight and to see how much formula we should give them based on their weight and some math. Once we know the amount to feed them, we draw it up into some bottles and go to town.

This morning one of the interns that was with me wrote down all weights as I weighed the buggars then started to help me feed. However due to illness she had to take leave and ended up going to the doctor. Meanwhile the other rehabilitation intern was on a goose rescue with one of the education interns. This left one education intern and myself. I fed all the raccoons except for 2 1/2 (one was half fed), changed all of their bedding, gave them all fresh water and solids, and then did all the dishes. Jokingly I told the others no more complaining about raccoons though I am not sure if they took the joke...hope they did. Now don't get me wrong, I didn't mind this at all. I actually really like the raccoons and cannot wait for the day they can be released. Not because I am tired of taking care of them, this isn't the case at all, but because there's a special feeding you get when you release a wild animal back into the wild once it's been raised/healed up. You gave that animal another chance at life and whether the animal is big or small, they all matter. Just like people. Every organism is special in some way. They each have their own niche to fulfill and simply must find it.

 Now after this raccoon episode I exited the riso and just breathed a little. Every time I am inside the isolation room for a long duration of time I honestly feel miserable because of the humidity/heat but later on the in the way we discovered that the air purifier was set on low but should be set on high. It was turned back up to high but unsure how or why it was turned down. Hoping that maybe since its turned back up the air won't be so thick and I won't feel so miserable/sweaty after a long duration of time inside.

Once I was back out of the riso I started filling out the charts for all the raccoons and chatted with a volunteer for a bit. Not exactly by choice but I am not one to be rude and still managed to get stuff done anyway. I started feeding mice again until one of the rehabbers grabbed me and asked if another volunteer could take my spot so I could do other work. I showed the volunteer the ropes, where to get some food items for the mice, and then started to attack some items on the list. While the volunteer worked away I cleaned up the exam room some. Put some donation fish in our freezer and thoroughly cleaned the bucket so it could be returned to the front entrance (no more fishy smell, now its dawn soap smell!) and then had to thrown away some stuff due to bad freezer burn. Not that we didn't appreciate any of the food. After this I took out the trash in the exam room just because it was full and because I didn't really want the meat to make the place smell. Recycled a box too. More or less cleaned up the exam room.

After this I helped load some animals into the back of one of our trucks. The rehab intern that returned back from the doctor was going to drive two Eastern Wood Pewee, a Canada Goose, and a Snapping Turtle to Green Bay's rehabilitation center (Wisconsin). It's 6:30pm and the intern is honestly not back yet (6 hour drive) but maybe in a half hour or so. Once all animals were loaded I ran upstairs with a bunch of egg cartons full of eggshells and started the oven. These shells were crumbled up and baked for 20 minutes before removed. We went to lunch across the street at Hong Kong Buffet (Chinese) for lunch. Was honestly rather good to me though not the greatest. I miss my Chinese places at home.

After shoving two plates of food and an ice cream down I kind of felt rather crappy. I felt like everyone was in a hurry honestly so I was just eating away. Did not want to hold anyone back and knew a staff meeting (not for interns) was coming up at 2pm. It was already almost 1:30 at the time I think. Once we returned for lunch both of us rehab interns thought we had an extra half hour but this was not the case. Today we took only a half hour lunch and went straight back to work without much of a break. We fed raccoons at 2pm which meant giving them all new solids and water. Once this was taken care of and staff went to their meeting we started attacking everything we possibly could on the list. We mostly worked individually. Since I was still in the Raccoon Isolation Room I created two trash bags worth of trash and asked the other intern to take it out. He agreed and so I began to attack the RISO by giving the floors and sweeping, mopping, and scrubbing. This included disinfecting and double dosing with bleach and dawn soap. Once the floors were basically sparkling and all tools were disinfected I then disinfected all surfaces, gloves, and containers we typically touch. If anything bacteria or disease related was anywhere in that room it may as well have died twice because I was going cleaning crazy with the disinfectants. The floor looked almost brand new but maybe I'm over exaggerating.

Once the raccoon room was cleaned out I finally left and went back to the list for a bit of guidance. In other words, by now my brain was basically dead. The hamster stopped spinning and I was ready for sleep. I kept trucking though. I disinfected all the counters through out the whole rehabilitation area while the other intern disinfected, swept, and mopped the pond room (where we kept the snapping turtle for a few days while waiting for Green Bay to respond back to us). Once this was done I think I started to attack dishes in the kitchen. When the other intern was done was tag teamed fixing a part of the cabinet in the nursery that had fallen off. After a while my help really wasn't needed so he finished that off while I made solid for 8pm feeding tonight. I thought all the raccoons got more solids at 4pm but forgot. At least the eggs were made though. I then prepared the formula for 4pm feeding once the eggs were finished and passed it off to the other intern who said he would feed. In the mean time I think I finished off dishes in the kitchen and then started to prepare squirrel/chipmunk trays.

After the trays were loaded with fruits and vegetables the chipmunk and squirrels were fed, charts were filled, and the kitchen surfaces were disinfected again. The intern was finished with the raccoon stuff and put the formula back then we checked out the list. The staff finally finished their meeting around this time so while I began to sweep/vacuum one of our back rooms the other interns asked about some items on the list (whether or not we should do them). We were told we did not have to finish off some items on the list so once I finished cleaning up the back room I disinfected some dishes in the nursery (but forgot to was them.....) and then took out the compost. The other interns fetched some new branches and pine cones for our squirrels then we met back up in the exam room and called the day good. One rehabber that I have been helping with songbird protocols talked to me about some songbird protocol stuff that needs done then I ended up upstairs.

Forgot to wash the nursery dishes and forgot to take the egg shells that were baked today downstairs but will probably make an attempt to do them this evening after raccoon feeding. May end up doing dishes in the raccoon room again, not sure, but no matter what anything not done tonight can be done tomorrow since I am back on rehabilitation again. Glad the place got a good cleaning both on rehabilitation and a few days ago in education (dusting/disinfecting especially) but honestly still worn out and tired. Nausea throughout the day wasn't helping and now the sciatic hurts but I am still trying to truck through. Trying to relax for now but intend to work on protocols at least until 9:30 tonight. Have raccoon feeding at 8pm (it's 6:50pm now). Hoping that maybe the feeding will go fast between two to possibly three interns.

Overall the day was neutral. Not the greatest but not the worst either. I like to think of all potentially bad days as neutral because lets face it, it could always be worse.


Listed below are some pictures of the rehabilitation side of things. Forgot that I never posted these up. These pictures were taken at least 2-3 weeks ago. Just imagine the last picture without the signs in the background and clean counter top to the left.

Rehab Kitchen

Rehab Kitchen

Exam Room