Pet Peeves

Whizzer wagged his tail at me and panted happily as I massaged and dug my q-tip deeper into his ear canal, pulling out chunks of black stuff. I squirted more ear-cleaning solution in and clamped down on his ear as he reflexively attempted to shake it all out. I began the massage and cleaning again and he groaned happily and leaned in to the q-tip. He was really getting into it.

His owners were busy chatting to me about everything under the sun. "And the vets in Calgary said they wouldn't see Whizzer here and I says to them, I says . . ."

Sigh. Small towns. A fifteen minute vaccination apointment always turned into an hour long chat fest. In a way, I enjoyed it. Some of the old ladies didn't get out of their houses much and bringing "Muffin" into the vets was the highlight of their month.

I waved goodbye to Whizzer, now fully vaccinated and with clean ears, and his owners as they walked out the door. They had spent ten minutes chatting to our receptionist and seemed like they were reluctant to leave. Even as the door was swinging behind them, they turned back and shouted at me, "THANKS VIVIAN! NEVER LOSE YOUR COMPASSION! IT'S YOUR MOST VALUABLE POSSESSION!"

I blushed at the entire waiting room of people and smiled and waved back at the retreating figures of Whizzer et al.

I'd only vaccinated and cleaned out their dog's ears! And they found me compassionate. Sigh. If only all clients could be like them!

I turned around happily to where the receptionists were sitting in fornt of their computers. They seemed to be whispering and conspiring about something. Finally, they turned to me, all smiles. "Vivian, how would you like to vaccinate Mrs. H's little shih tzu?"
"Um, sure," I said, not suspecting a thing.

I picked up the file and went to the waiting room. "Fifi? Fifi H?"
A little old lady and the scrawny little furball on her lap stood up.
"Hi there. Could you guys follow me into this room?"

Mrs H., cradling Fifi like a baby followed me into the first exam room. I closed the door behind them and introduced myself.
"How are you today? I'm Vivian. I'm a third year vet student and I'll be helping you out today. So I understand that Fifi needs her distemper and rabies shots?"
Mrs H. eyed me down. I admit I squirmed a bit in my heinous androgenous clinic shoes.
"A third-year student?" she finally said, as if I'd told her I was three years old.
"Well, technically, I'm a senior year student but I keep forgetting about that."
She didn't seem impressed.
"Right. I'll start with a physical exam."
I went about trying to examing Fifi's head. Fifi attempted to snap at me when I went to look in her mouth.

Why is it that most little shih tzus end up being little shiht heads?

I gave up on the mouth and tried to palpate lymph nodes under her jaw instead. Mrs H, however, thought I was still going for the mouth.
"You don't need to look in there! She's got beautiful teeth. I brush them everyday!"

I do the rest of the exam while Mrs H tells me what a wonderful job she does taking care of her dog and keeps questioning me about my credentials.
"So they already taught you at school how to do a physical exam and give injections then? How many years of university did you say you've studied already? So you know how to give the injection properly? That's one of the first things they teach you right? RIGHT?"

I glowered and went out of the room to grab the vaccines out of the fridge. As I knocked to get back into the exam room, I decided that maybe I could have some fun with her.

"So I'm going to give these injections in Fifi's leg." I said, as I drew up the vaccines into the syringes.
"The leg? Dr. W (my boss) always gives them between her shoulders!" cried Mrs H, looking triumphant. She'd finally caught me doing something wrong.
"Well, actually, at vet school now, they teach us to give vaccines in the leg."
She didn't look convinced.

"You see, ten years ago, they discovered that one of the vaccines caused animals to form a tumour at the injection site," I paused for emphasis after the word 'tumour', "And since you can't amputate anything between the shoulders, we've been taught to give injections in the legs."
Well, for the most part, it was true. Except that the vaccine that caused cancer was actually in cats, not dogs.
"Cancer? Amputate?!" said Mrs. H, looking horrified.
"That's right. If Fifi gets a tumour from this injection today, we can take off her leg and save her life."

I thought Mrs. H would faint.

I then did a rectal exam on Fifi (poor Fifi) and made a big show of expressing her anal glands and telling Mrs H. that the anal glands could get too full and get infected and form an abscess if I didn't help her little Fifi get them cleared out today.
"Ooooooh," I said, "They're reeeeeally full. I don't know about this. HMmmmmmmm. You're lucky I caught this today or it would have been horrible for little Fifi here."

Mrs H was thrilled and terrified.

After I'd finished vaccinating and cleaning out the anal glands and everything, I decided to give Mrs H the piece de resistance.
"Oh, and actually, up to now, I've only been doing classroom stuff at school. We don't really have a lot of hands-on experiences until next year. I only started really vaccinating dogs last month. Glad I could help you out today! Bye!"

Mrs H stood there with Fifi with an unreadable expression on her face. She silently paid her bill and left.

I saw lots of other clients and their animals that morning. Some nice. Some not so nice. At lunch hour, the receptionists turned to me.

"Sorry Vivian." they said.
"Sorry for what?"
"Sorry about giving you Mrs H. None of the other vets wanted to do her appointment today so we kind of figured we'd pass her onto you. You took one for the team." They smiled innocently at me.
I let out a deep breath.
"I wasn't going to say anything, but man! She's a piece of work! She kept trying to make sure I was good enough to vaccinate her dog!"
"Oh don't worry," said the receptionist, "she even does that to Dr. W (my boss who's been a vet for 30 years). That's why he refused to see her today."
"Thanks guys. Thanks for nothing."

My boss, who had come out to the front in the middle of our conversation smiled sheepishly at me and, at the first opportunity, fled back to his office.

Now I know why they always said to us: never put that you like dealing with animals more than you like dealing with people on your vet school application. Veterinary medicine is all about dealing with people first, then their animals.

I sighed, cuddled our clinic cat who was having a snooze on the reception desk, and was about to turn and leave for lunch when the receptionist came up to me wih a file.
"Vivian, we have one more appointment this morning. Do you think you can do it?"
I could hear my stomach growling.
I looked into the waiting room where a young boy and a red coonhound puppy were sitting patiently, staring out the window.
"Alright. I guess I could."

"He's a bit of a special case. The boy's only fourteen years old and he doesn't have a lot of money. He always comes in here with some dying animal or the other that he found and rescued and he wants us to save it. But usually, it's a hopeless case, or else he just doesn't have enough money for us to do much."
I eyed the boy in the waiting room and felt a pang of pity.
"His dad owns a feedlot and all the calves that get sick and that his dad wants to shoot, he'll bring in here with a twenty dollar bill and try to get us to save it."

The receptionist shook her head sadly.

"Anyhow, he says he got a new puppy. He wants to get it properly vaccinated. See what you can do Vivian," she said and handed me the file.

I ushered the boy and his puppy into one of the exam rooms. "I picked up Buddy here out by Red Deer. My dad said I could keep 'im. He's my dog. I have a job now so I can pay for his shots," he said quietly.
I looked at the scrawny hound on the table and started my physical exam. He licked at my hand enthusiastically and stared up at me with little puppy eyes. I'm such a sucker for the puppy eyes.
I continued on with the exam. All was well until I ran my hand along the belly.

A big, soft bulge could be felt right where the navel was supposed to be.
"Um, feel this." I said to the boy and let him feel the mass.
"That's an umbilical hernia," I told him, "It's where his body wall didn't fuse together properly on his belly and some of his intestines are leaking out into the pouch."

The boy looked grief-stricken. "Well, you can fix it right? It doesn't matter how much it costs. I'll pay for it," he said determinedly.
"Yes, we can fix it, but the surgery's going to be over a hundred dollars, and with his puppy vaccines, you're looking at a few hundred dollars altogether."

The boy looked down and patted 'Buddy' on the head. Buddy wagged his tail and licked at the boy's hand. He looked up at his master with adoring eyes.

"I get paid again at the end of next week. Can it wait till next week?" said the boy, finally.
I examined the hernia again and felt the intestines moving in and out of the hole. That was a good thing. They weren't entrapped.

"Yes, it can wait." I explained how the hernia was still open and what signs to look for if the guts ever became trapped in the hernia. The boy nodded solemnly.
"I'll try to get the money as fast as I can."
I looked down and scratched Buddy behind the ears and tried to ignore the lump in my throat.

"Ooh, and can you show me how to trim his nails and stuff? I want to make sure I take real good care of 'im."
I nodded and showed him how to clip the nails. Then I helped him deworm Buddy and sent him out on his way.
"Thank you!" shouted the boy as he went out. Buddy followed determinedly at his master's ankles, wagging his tail.

The receptionist and I waved goodbye. The moment they were out, we both shook our heads sadly.
"It has been one helluva morning," I said, "how's the afternoon looking?"
"It's booked full," she replied.
The implications of of a full appointment schedule hung in the air.

As I took off for lunch, I wondered just how I was going to make it through the next few months as a veterinarian. Heck, how was I going to make it for the rest of my life as a veterinarian?! I took each case so personally. Surely, I couldn't survive like that? Surely I had to detach myself somehow.
As I went through my afternoon, however, I watched my bosses to see how they handled it all. As I watched Dr. W sitting down with a family in the waiting room and patiently explaining to them that their dog had epilepsy, and as I watched Dr. P making her ritual afternoon follow-up phone calls to the owners of each dog and cat she had operated on that week, I realised that even after 30 years . . . they hadn't lost their compassion.

Compassion. I viewed it as my weakness, but Whizzer's owners were right.

It was also, definitely, my most valuable possession.