The Spit-zhu

Like usual, I pulled into the clinic at breakneck speed so I'd actually make to to work on time. My boss pulled in to the lot behind me in his jeep. I gave him a sheepish smile as I opened the back door and ripped upstairs and put on my lab coat with a minute to spare. My lab coat was freshly out of the wash and absolutely pristine and professional-looking. It even had my name and the emblem for the canadian vet association embroidered on it.

I wandered down to the treatment area and looked at the board. Two spays, a neuter and a lump removal. Just as I was reaching into the kennel to grab the cat for the neuter, one of the vets came wandering into the treatment area with a shih tzu tucked under her arm. "Vivian? Can you help me with this dog? It has a blocked salivary duct."

I came out of the cat room and grabbed a hold of the shih tzu. I gaped. On one side of its face, a gigantic, balloon-like mass hung there, filled with saliva. It was almost as big as the rest of the dog and just as heavy. "The owners said that it's been there for a year but they didn't want to go to the vet in their town cus they didn't trust him. They're on vacation here in town and thought they'd get him looked at while they were here."
"A YEAR?! Geez. WHO FREAKING LEAVES THEIR DOG LIKE THAT FOR A YEAR?!"
You can imagine what it looked like.

I grabbed the dog and supported the mass with my hand while I brought him over to the treatment table. The vet picked up a scalpel and aimed it at the bottom of the salivary mass.
"Ready?" she asked me.
"Ready." I said and held onto the shih tzu tightly around his neck and legs.

She jabbed it with the scalpel and a little bit of blood and saliva began dripping out. The dog began whimpering.
"I'll have to make the incision a bit bigger. It's not draining." she said.

She jabbed again. A bit more saliva came oozing out and then, without warning, the salivary mass suddenly exploded. Saliva and blood gushed out in a giant wave and splattered all over me, the vet, and anything within a two meter radius.
The sleeve and front of my lab coat were soaked through with warm, sticky, bloody saliva. The cloth was clinging to my skin and I could feel some splatter on my face. Fortunately, I'd kept my mouth closed.

The receptionist and technicians frantically began to wipe up the blood and saliva around the room. Meanwhile, the dog began squirming around in my arms. I lost my grip on him for a second and that's when I noticed the blood. It was gushing out of the loose skin pocket that used to be the salivary mass.

I frantically grabbed a paper towel and clamped it to the dog's neck. I felt the paper towel soak through and the stench of warm blood filled the air. I grabbed another paper towel and put more pressure on the wound. The blood soaked the second paper towel through and I could feel my fingers getting sticky and warm. I clamped on for dear life.
This was an eight pound dog. It wouldn't be long before it lost enough blood to put it in shock.

The other vets had come into the treatment room now and were staring at the mess around the room. "All this came from that little dog?" asked one of the older vets.
"Did you hit the jugular?" asked one of the other vets, staring at the blood and my hand.

We decided to mask down the dog with some anesthetic so we could sew up the gaping hole on its neck. I removed my hand briefly and turned to grab the anesthetic mask. The dog was soaked in blood and saliva at this point and, like any wet dog, decided to shake itself out.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooo." I shouted, as I tried to jump on the dog to stop it.
But it was too late.
It was almost like slow motion as I watched the walls of the room get covered in splatters of blood and goop as the dog shook its whole body. I felt the blood land all over me and watched as the files and the sink and the paper towels got covered in blood.

I jumped on the dog, clamped the paper towel to its neck as the vet put the mask on its muzzle and cranked the gas. Five minutes later, the dog was intubated and I cautiously removed the paper towel from the dog's neck. The blood had slowed to a mere trickling but was still pooling on the table.

The vets all looked at me in my not-so-white lab coat and asked, "So? You still want to be a vet?"

I nodded mutely and went to change into my scrubs. I rubbed some of the blood clots out of my hair. We did a load of laundry with all the blood soaked lab coats in the room. Mine was obviously the worst, but they all came out relatively unstained in the end.

The shih tzu had a drain put into its neck and was sent home with some antibiotics and strict instructions to the owner not to wait A YEAR before bringing the dog into see a vet again.

I looked at the clock. It read 9:30am.

The day had only just begun.