My first day

I arrived at the small animal hospital promptly at 8:25am on Saturday morning. I was pumped full of caffeine and was looking good in my black pantsuit and lilac blouse. I'd even done my hair up in a bun to look all professional and I was looking damned good considering I'd spent the previous night waking up every hour on the hour shouting random vetty things like "NO THE THERMOMETER IS SUPPOSED TO GO IN THE OTHER END!"

Alright, so I hadn't shouted that specifically. Actually, I can't remember what I was shouting, only that I kept having nightmares of being in the clinic and not knowing a dog's ass from its head. It was my first day ever in the clinics and, let's face it. I was a nervous wreck.

Everyone else in my class had spent the better part of their summer's in vet clinics around town doing vet work and I'd blown mine on doing SPCA and wildlife work in India. Admittedly, my summer was cooler but I knew it'd come to bite me in the butt eventually.

And bite me in the butt it did.

Or at least some of my patients tried to.

There were four of us from my class doing our first clinics day there so I wasn't alone.
We tried small talk but mostly it was nervous chit chat. It was like that pre-exam chit chat that drives me nuts. Stuff meant to make everyone even more nervous.

Things like, "What if we all get a giant pit bull that tries to take our faces off and somehow our animal health technician (vet nurses) gets bit and we get sued?! I'M NOT EVEN A REAL VET YET AND I'LL BE SUED!"

All the frightening possiblities loomed over our heads in a thick miasma of tension. What would our first case be? The suspense was killing us.

Finally, the receptionist came over with our list of cases for the day. We basically lunged at her.

"So at 9am, we have a litter of kittens coming in-"
"I'm so there!" shouted Jason and grabbed the file out of her hands.
We all cursed at him silently in our heads and gave him death stares.

Kittens are like the bubble bath of vet patients. They can't kill you and more often than not, there's nothing wrong with them. Kittens. I could handle kittens.

Well, the cases were doled out super fast after that and before I knew what was happening, i was given my first client ever. The receptionist handed the file to me and leaned in to say something to me quietly.

"Now this client is really special to our clinic. She's been a customer to our services for years and she's made LOTS of generous donations to our college. And, um, she's a bit weird."

I gulped. Why on earth were they giving their "special" client to me?! ME?! WHY?!!!!!!

"Oh, here she is now. Remember what I said. Off you go!"

I took the file and headed out to the waiting area where I frantically read over the name on the file before looking up. There was only one lady standing there. She had mascara that rivalled cleopatras and not one, but THREE giant dogs sitting around her feet.

"Hi, I'm Vivian. I'm a third year vet student and I'll be helping you out today. This must be-" I glanced down at my file, "Fi fi, Chi chi and um, Misty!"

Of the four creatures in front of me, the owner had the hungriest looking eyes. I led them into the exam room and grabbed my animal health techinician student that was supposed to be following me around and learning from me that day (ha!).

I consulted the charts in my hand frantically trying to read up on the history of each of the three dogs. One had a chart the size of an encylopedia that was just about as heavy.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, said a silent prayer and decided to just go for it. This was just a vaccination appointment afterall. I should only be facing healthy happy dogs today.

"All right. Who will we start with today?" I said turning to the Mascara lady.

The first two dogs, Chi chi and Fi fi, went surprisingly well and nothing interesting came up on the physical exam or history.

I vaccinated and dewormed them no problem. Feeling rather confident, I came back into the room to do my exam on the third dog.

The third dog, Misty, was thirteen years old. A senior citizen by dog standards and her huge medical history file proved it. It was bigger than the other two dogs' files combined.

I began my physical exam and palpated her as I asked random history questions from the owner. The eyes, ears and nose were good. The teeth were fine considering she'd had most of them taken out at her last vet dentistry appointment. Happy, healthy dog.

All was going well until I felt a giant lump on the dog's right thigh.

I ran my fingers over it again. It was the size of a golf-ball and fleshy but firm. "Um, did you know your dog has a giant bump on its hind leg over here?"

Mascara lady turned her mascara-caked eyes on me questioningly. I let her feel the bump. "Oh my! No! I never felt that on her before!"

I nodded and kept palpating the dog. Several more lumps could be felt all over her ribs and on her chest. This wasn't normal.

I listened to her heart with my stethescope. Instead of the usual "lub dub lub dub lub dub", a loud "whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh" could be heard. I adjusted my stethescope and tried to listen again.

I did a check under the chin for lymph nodes and gasped. Normally, in a healthy happy dog, you're not supposed to be able to feel them. I put my fingers under her chin and felt two giant nodules there.

I pretended to write in the chart while my mind raced. An old dog with giant lumps all over its body. It could only be one thing: cancer. What on earth was I supposed to do next?! This dog could be very sick!

"I'll just, uh, take Misty to the back and have my senior veterinarian take a look at this." I said as nonchalantly as I could and grabbed the dog and bolted out of the room into the corridor.

I could see Jason casually carrying a basket of kittens into the vaccination room and I glared at him. "How's it going Viv?" he asked breezily.

I gave a non-commital answer and ran around trying to find the vet on duty for the day. Having finally located her, I dragged her into the back room to look at poor Misty who was lying there nicely with her head between her paws.

I told the vet about the weird heart sounds and the lumps I had found and stood by nervously as she slowly palpated and examined the dog on her own.

After an eternity, she stood up and looked at me.

"There is definitely something wrong with this dog. It could be cancer. What tests do you want to order next?"
I rambled off some random diagnostic tests that somehow were miraculously in my head and hoped like hell I'd listed out all of them correctly.

"Very good. Ask the owner if she's willing to bring the dog in again next week for a more in depth work up. This is just a vaccine appointment today so we'll need a lot more time. Any more questions?"

"Um, no. Thank you." I said and took the dog and turned around to lead it back into the exam room where Mascara lady was patiently waiting.

"Oh and Vivian?"

I turned around questioningly. Had I missed something?

"Good work. "

I turned around and beamed. I'd done something right! I'd picked up on a sick animal! And I knew what I was supposed to do with her! Maybe I had learned something in the last few years! I knew this dog had cancer!


And then I realised I had yet to go into the room and tell the owner about it. Bracing myself, I knocked and entered.

Mascara lady was quiet for a few moments and looked down at Misty and pet her head gently on her lap.
"Well, she's the last in her litter you know. All her brothers and sisters have passed on. If it really is cancer, I don't want to put her through the stress of a surgery. She's had a good life."

She looked down sadly at her dog and didn't say anything else.

I told her that it might not be cancer or it could be a mild kind of cancer and that we'd need more tests before we could confirm it. She seemed resigned but let me talk her into bringing her dog into the hospital again next week.
My tech and I led them out of the room and said goodbye at the front desk.

I looked at the computer to see who my next patient would be.

There was only one client left for the morning. I walked out to the waiting room where Jason was chatting to a nice couple with two HUGE dogs on the ground beside them. One of the dogs was the fattest golden lab I'd ever seen while the other was a chubby-brown and white thing that looked like it could have been a husky in a former slimmer life.

It was agreed after some chit chat that I would be taking the chubby husky and the husband into one room while Jason would take the wife and the fat golden lab into the other room.

I led them to the exam room which my tech was busy mopping (the Mascara lady's dogs had decided they couldn't make it to the lawn outside before they did their business). I helped wiped down the floor and tie up the garbage and welcomed the husband and husky husky into the room.

My fourth patient of the day. I was starting to feel a lot more comfortable in my role as a vet. "So how is Buster today? Any vomitting, diarrhea, sneezing, coughing?"
"Nope."
"Eating OK?"
"Yup. Three to four cups of food a day plus the table scraps my wife feeds him and a handful of treats."

I tried not to choke. Could they really be feeding this thing THAT much food?
I looked down at Buster who was panting and busy dragging his belly across the floor as he paced back and forth and decided I could believe it.

"Um, I don't know how to say this but your dog is, ahem, well he's a little over weight."

The husband looked at me and seemed a bit embarassed. I realised at that point that he wasn't the slimmest man in the world. I kept my head down and kept examining the dog.

I popped my stethescope into my ears and leaned forward to listen to the heart. I asked the tech student to help me restrain the dog. Instead of restraining the dog, she turned to the husband and went,"So has your dog been vomitting?"

I looked at her, completely taken by surprise. "Um, I already asked him that," I said quietly to her.
"Oh." she said. And stood there, not helping me restrain the dog.

I shrugged and leaned forward to hold the dog down myself while I listened to its chest. I got within an inch of where its heart was supposed to be when I heard a low growl. I leaned back a bit and looked at the head end of the dog.

I backed away waiting for the dog to calm down a bit.

"Shhh Buster!" said the husband. "I'm so sorry. He's really nervous about being here."

I nodded sympathetically and carried on with my exam. It was going well except that my technician kept budging in and asking questions and would act like she was the vet and not help me restrain the dog or anything. I shrugged it off and assumed she was just inexperienced since the poor girl was just in her first year of animal health tech school and she'd just started classes at the beginning of September

"Restrain him please." I said to the tech student again.

She walked up to the dog and put a hand on its back. Like that was supposed to do me any good. I tried to listen to the heart again and the dog wiggled out of mine and the tech's reach.

"We need to get the dog on the table." said the tech student.
"ALright then. Could you lift him up there for me please? Do you need help?" I asked her.

She rushed in and grabbed the dog under its belly and began trying to lift it on her own. The dog started growling again as she pulled up on its abdomen.

I stepped in.
"Here, you're supposed to put an arm under its forearms here and then put your other arm behind his legs."

The tech student outright ignored me and began lustily lifting the dog the way she had been before.

Not to anyone's surprise but her own, the dog snapped at her.

The owner was just as nervous as the dog at this point and the tech student somehow managed to convince him to help her lift the dog onto the table. AFter much kerfuffle, they got the dog on the table but to the result that the dog wouldn't let anyone near it without growling. I told the owner I'd let the dog calm down a bit first before I carried on.

"We need to put a muzzle on it." said the tech.

"Um, I'll try my exam without one first. I think it will just aggravate the dog." I said.

"NO. We need a muzzle." she said and got the gauze out.

She ran up to the dog with the gauze and it snapped at her. "See? He needs a muzzle."

The owner was nervous about his dog biting us and agreed to let her put on a muzzle. I decided it was gettting out of control and decided I would be the one to put on the muzzle. I asked the owner to restrain the dog for me seeing as my tech was basically useless when it came to restraint. I wrapped the gauze around the dog's mouth and tied the knot and was leaning in to tie it up behind the dog's ears when the tech student grabbed the gauze from my hands and shouted, "NO! You don't do it like that! you're not doing it tight enough!"

And with that she reefed on the gauze until the dog's lips curled up and bulged around the gauze. My shock at having hte gauze ripped from my hands gave way to panic as Buster began to struggle violently while the owner and I restrained him desperately.

I decided I had had enough and asked the owner if I could take the dog to the back to finish the phsycial exam. I dragged the dog and my tech out with me.

"I think you tied the muzzle too tight." I said to the tech.
"No. You have to do it that tight or else the dog will be able to bite you."
"I'm a little worried we're cutting circulation off from the dog's nose which is why I think we should losen this muzzle."
"No, you have to do it this tight!" she argued and gave me a dirty look.

I took a deep breath and led the dog into the vaccination room where the supervising vet and some fourth year students were hanging out.

I attempted to losen the dog's muzzle a bit but the tech student grabbed out the gauze from my hands again and reefed on it harder than before.

"Whoa!" said the supervising vet. "You probably don't want that so tight there."
I looked at the floor and didn't say anything. I was hoping for her sake that my tech was doing the same. Instead, she went, "No! I you have to make it that tight or the dog'll get lose!"

The supervising vet was speechless. I looked up at her and just gave her an exasperated look.

The tech dragged the dog over to the scale to be weighed. "Hey, where's all this blood coming from? It's all over my lab jacket." she exclaimed.

We all looked over at the dog. It was bleeding from its mouth where the gauze was cutting into his lips and gums.

I just sighed and asked the tech to restrain the dog while I quickly gave it its shots. Obviously, she couldn't restrain the dog properly no matter how I showed her so in the end, the supervsing vet and a fourth year student had to hold down the dog (which was freaking out by now and calling so loud that the owner had come into the back to see what was going on).

I ripped the muzzle off Buster while the husband had him restrained. "Here's a few deworming tablets," said the supervising vet and shoved the pills at the husband. She leaned in beside me and whispered, "there's no way we're pilling that dog right now!"

I walked them to the front desk where they met up again with the wife and the golden lab which seemed to be doing just fine.

Jason asked me how it went and I just rolled my eyes.

My tech meanwhile was standing by trying to look important and asking about pilling the dog.

I told her to help me clean the exam room. We cleaned in silence. "Well, I'm off now." she said after we were done and left for the day.

And good riddens too.

I went back into the vaccination room where the supervising vet was writing up some charts. The other vet kids that were on with me that day were in the back too. "So how'd it go everyone?" she asked.

"Good."
"Good."
"Good."

I hesitated for a bit. "Good. . . but my tech was really pushy."

The supervising vet and the fourth year students who had been in the vaccination the whole time nodded and went, "I know! What was up with her? And that muzzle! That was way too tight!"

And with that, we all started venting about the various bad bits of our morning. For me, it was my pushy tech and the dog that tried to take our heads off. For the others it was pushy clients, difficult to handle cats and missing paperwork.

In the end though, we all decided it was a good experience. And it had been a good experience. Despite the bad bits of the day, I felt like I wanted to be there. Like I wanted another client to walk in through that door right at that moment so I could do it again.

I'd been doubting my decision to become a vet lately and after a day in the clinics I realised that what Iw as doubting was vet school, not veterinary medicine. Knowing what is waiting for me on the other side of graduation, however, makes even vet school seem bearable and I am am a lot more inspired to keep on trucking.

So with that, I am off to go study.

Hope everyone is doing well and that their weekends were a bit less stressful than mine but just as gratifying!

Cheers!


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