by Laurie Hess
It was a logical and caring consideration, but I’d only really wanted one cat, and now she was asking me to take on a second—Bingo’s surly sidekick.
I finally acquiesced. But to get both cats to leave their well-insulated den behind the washing machine, I had to fish them out, hissing and scratching, with a net. I wrestled them both into a cardboard box that I literally had to tape shut. As I drove home with both cats mewling loudly in the back seat, I wondered what had I gotten myself into.
The two siblings lived in a small crate in my bathroom for a month and then in isolation in my bedroom for nearly another twelve. With time and much patience, Gizmo and Bingo eventually became socialized creatures and joined the rest of the household. Ironically, Gizmo softened the most—he often follows me from room to room like a loyal dog. Tilly, our Maine coon and only female pet, joined the pack only after Bean, Gizmo, and Bingo had learned to get along harmoniously. Maine coons are one of the largest breeds of house cat. They have big feet and long, luxurious fur. They’re known to have sweet temperaments, and with people, Tilly certainly does. She loves to be around us and roams from room to room meowing until she finds someone to adore her. But when it comes to her male counterparts, she treats them like mere annoyances. She politely interacts during mealtime and then retreats to the guest bedroom, the quietest room in the house. Unless someone is visiting from out of town, Tilly claims the room as her own. I often find her there, sprawled on the queen-size bed or nestled underneath a heap of antique quilts.
I stepped around my pride of felines without tripping, a move that’s taken me years of practice, as Peter walked into the kitchen. I handed him a cup of coffee.
“Did I tell you that my old intern Elliot showed up again at my office yesterday afternoon? Poor guy, I think I scared him to death,” I said as Peter sat down at the kitchen table.
“You can be pretty scary,” Peter teased. “Can’t she, Dale?” Dale looked up from his regular morning perch on Peter’s right shoulder and chirped in agreement.
“Don’t bring Dale into this.”
Peter looked at Dale and shrugged. “Someone hasn’t had her coffee yet.” Dale chirped again, and Peter gave him a handful of pelleted bird food and seeds and then tossed some out toward the cats. Bingo pounced on a sunflower seed just as Tilly lumbered over and pushed him out of the way.
It’s easy to forget that Dale is my bird, the way those two act together—they’re practically inseparable. Who would believe that before we met Peter had an aversion to birds? I threw a dish towel in their direction, and they both squawked. This was our typical morning exchange. Once Brett and Luke catch the bus to Twin Pines Middle School, and before I run to the gym and Peter heads to the train, we try to give ourselves a few moments of playful time together.
“So what’d he want?” Peter asked as he unfolded the New York Times.
I thought back to my encounter with Elliot the day before. I’d been playing Mr. Huntington’s message confirming that Pockets had come from Johnson Valley Mall.
A deep voice behind me said, “Dr. Hess?” and I spun around in my chair. “What are you doing here?” I’d nearly shrieked when I saw Elliot standing in the doorway.
“Sorry,” he stammered and took a step backward. “I’ll come back later,” he said and disappeared into the hall.
“Elliot, no, wait a minute,” I called after him once my heart stopped racing. “You surprised me, that’s all. Come back. I’m sorry.”
He hesitantly reappeared, and I waved him forward. “Come in, please.”
At the kitchen table, I said to Peter, “He asked if he could help me around the hospital until after the holidays, when he will return to his internship in Rhode Island.” I took a sip of my coffee. “So I gave him a job.”
“That’s great. You’ve been wanting someone to help you organize the hospital inventory and scan medical records, right?”
“Well, yes, I do need help in the back office, but I’m going to use Elliot for something else.” Peter looked up with interest.
“For what?”
“Elliot’s going to help me chase down leads on Sugar Buddies.”
Peter frowned. “I thought I was your lead investigator?”
“Honey”—I smiled and reached for his hand—“you are definitely my top guy, but need I remind you that you already have a full-time job? Elliot’s in town for holiday break with nothing to do except entertain his pet snake.”
“Elliot has a snake now?”
“That’s another story.” I finished my coffee and stood up from the table. “I’ll fill you in later. Elliot’s meeting me at the hospital in ten minutes, and then we’re heading out to Johnson Valley Mall.”
“Who’s covering your morning rounds?”
“Marnie. A gecko, three rabbits, and a chicken in for hormone therapy.” I leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Between the two of you, I don’t know who takes better care of me.” I headed for the back door.
“I do,” he called out.
As I walked toward the Highlander, careful not to slip on the slick driveway, I considered that although Peter has my back, it’s really Marnie who holds my hand. Not only is she my right-hand tech who can anticipate my every move, but she’s also one of my closest friends. For over ten years now, we’ve seen each other through it all: challenging career moves, marriage proposals, pregnancies, illness, and divorce.
We first met at the Bedford Specialty Center after I moved upstate. We recognized in each other a wild passion for animal medicine. Also, we both had young children so we had even more in common. As I moved around the county, clocking in hours at a number of animal hospitals and building a clientele to one day support my own, Marnie followed right along with me. The day we opened the doors of the Veterinary Center for Birds & Exotics, she stood right beside me, scissors in hand. Together we cut the red ribbon and proudly welcomed pets and their owners into our care.
We performed our first major surgery together on Daisy, a five-foot-long and very pregnant iguana. Daisy had arrived at the hospital with a belly full of infertile eggs that she couldn’t lay, a condition called egg binding in which one or more eggs get stuck along the way, which can kill the animal.
Daisy’s well-intentioned owner, seventy-two-year-old Bernice, had severe emphysema and required an oxygen tank to get from one room to another. Bernice was frail, but when her pet became too sick to move, she somehow managed to lift the pregnant lizard into her Buick and drive three hours upstate to my hospital, wearing her oxygen mask the entire way.
I was pretty certain that in Daisy’s case, the egg binding resulted from vitamin D and calcium deficiencies. Iguanas in captivity rarely get the direct sun exposure they require to make vitamin D. If they can’t be outside, they usually need several hours a day under artificial ultraviolet lights to get the amount they need. Daisy appeared to be deficient in the essential vitamins, which meant she couldn’t absorb enough calcium from her food to help her muscles contract and pass out the eggs. I started her on calcium and lubricants to get her eggs to pass, but it quickly became apparent that her condition was dire, and we had to prep the iguana for surgery. Bernice went home to wait.
The moment I incised Daisy’s abdomen, Marnie and I could see a web of tiny blood vessels feeding her oviducts and the three dozen eggs they contained. This would be no simple surgery. As we clamped off one minuscule blood vessel at a time, the vessels began to bleed. No matter how we tied them off—whether it was with sutures or special surgical staples called Hemoclips, Daisy continued to hemorrhage. I couldn’t understand why Daisy was bleeding so heavily. After four hours in surgery, we’d removed all the eggs, but Daisy had lost a tremendous amount of blood, and her gums were pale, indicating that she’d become dangerously anemic. Marnie was trying desperately to keep Daisy’s blood pressure up with intravenous fluids and blood plasma substitutes, but Daisy eventually stopped breathing on her own. She was limp as a dishrag as we inserted a breathing tube down her trachea.
We had to jostle her every few minutes to stimulate breathing. After an hour of this, I looked at Marnie; she looked at me; sweat dripped from both of our foreheads. To survive, Daisy needed a blood donor, and it’s not as though donor iguanas are out cruising the hallways of the animal hospital. I scrubbed out of surgery, leaving Marnie to continue stimulating Daisy’s breathing, to phone Bernice and tell her that I was doing all I could, but it was likely Daisy would die.
“Oh, please don’t give up on her, Dr. Hess,” she wheezed. “She’s all I have.”
Exhausted and weary, I trudged back to the operating room and told Marnie we weren’t giving up. We replaced the tube in Daisy’s airway and continued to administer oxygen, along with Oxyglobin, a blood substitute. We canceled all of our afternoon appointments so that we could focus our energy and attention on saving Daisy. At that point, however, we couldn’t do much more than wait. One hour. Two hours. Still no movement or breathing on her own. Marnie supported me through those long hours, encouraging us both to persevere. We were nearly ready to give up and go home, when suddenly Daisy took a breath. One breath, then another. Shallow at first, then much deeper and stronger. Bernice’s old, muscle-wasted lizard, who had been all but dead, was slowly coming back to life. Marnie and I stared at Daisy in disbelief and then burst into sloppy, tearful laughter and hugged each other tight.
8:05 A.M., ANIMAL HOSPITAL
I WAS PULLING into the hospital parking lot when my phone buzzed. It was a text from Peter: “Don’t forget Brett’s soccer practice—4pm.”
I hadn’t needed the reminder. The event was in my calendar, and I planned to be there, although I really didn’t want to be. I felt awful admitting this to myself, but attending my sons’ practices was like torture for me. While I love watching Brett and Luke play sports (they’re both natural athletes), the rivalry on the sidelines often leaves me feeling as if I’ve been kicked in the shins. I still hadn’t recovered from the last game I’d attended earlier in the season. I’d shown up with Vitamin-waters and energy bars for the boys. My neighbor Katherine, who was still pregnant then, had somehow stretched her son Gilman’s team T-shirt over her swollen belly. I willed a smile when I saw her on the edge of the field and waved. We weren’t friends, but we were neighbors. I reminded myself of what Peter always says: be nice. Katherine waddled hastily toward me.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” she said in a chiding tone. “I was sure you’d be working again today.”
“I was,” I said lightly, “and now I’m here.”
She cast a disapproving look at my plastic bag from Duane Reade. “You know, a cooler holds a lot more drinks. That way, every child on the team can have one.”
“Oh, I didn’t know I was supposed to—”
“You were probably in a hurry to get here from work,” she waved me off. “Maybe next time you can bring something for everyone. The team plays better when everyone is hydrated.”
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as Katherine brushed past me to join a group of parents grilling hot dogs and hamburgers at the far end of the benches. I stood abandoned on the sidelines with my pathetic bag of drinks. I was just about to retreat to a solitary bench on the other end of the field when I heard the players erupt, “Awesome, Mozo!” Brett—fondly called “Mozo” by his teammates because it’s short for his last name, Mozarsky—had just scored a goal.
“Nice play!” I yelled, clapping wildly.
Brett tends to be hyperfocused and stoic on the field, but when he heard my voice, he looked over and gave a smile. That little exchange made Katherine’s cutting words fade away—until later that night when I grumbled to Peter, “So sue me. I didn’t know I was responsible for hydrating the entire team. She acted like I was some monster denying our kids their basic human rights.”
“Water is essential to survival,” Peter cracked.
“Ugh, I will never win with that woman,” I said, bristling.
“Maybe not,” Peter shrugged. Then he brightened. “But we know who does win—MOZO!”
I returned his smile. Peter always knows how to cheer me up.
Since then, Peter had offered to attend most practices and games even though it meant taking an early train home. Katherine couldn’t have been happier. Peter, much more gregarious than I am, is an easy crowd pleaser.
But today Peter had a late-afternoon call scheduled with his West Coast office. The time difference would keep him late in the city, so Katherine and her neighborhood coterie would have to settle for me.
“And don’t forget the drinks,” Peter texted, with an emoticon wink.
10:00 A.M., TACONIC STATE PARKWAY
AS ELLIOT AND I rode out to Johnson Valley Mall, we relived some of our more memorable cases together.
“Remember Ninna and her wild toad from Barbados?” Elliot asked.
“You mean her illegal and poisonous toad?” I said. “I remember feeling so protective of the interns and the staff, but you were practically sparring with each other to get into the examination room with me.”
“Can you blame us? As far as exotic animals go, there’s not much more exotic than that.”
While traveling in her native Barbados, Ninna had illegally captured two bufo toads in the woods surrounding her hotel. She hid the small amphibians in an instant coffee can that she stuffed under clothing and souvenirs in her suitcase and flew them back with her to New York City. Unlike Ninna, who had adapted to a new country, the toads were suddenly strangers in a strange land, and Ninna had no idea what they needed in order to survive. In less than a week, one of the toads had died, and when the other began to exhibit signs of illness, Ninna took the toad on the train from Manhattan to our hospital in Westchester, where she hoped I would help.
As soon as Ninna peeled back the lid of her coffee can, I recognized the wrinkly animal as a bufo toad, also known as a giant toad because it can grow to over two pounds and as long as four to six inches.
“Do you know what you have here?” I asked her.
“I know it’s big and ugly,” she said, “but kind of cute, too. No?”
“This is a bufo toad, and it’s very sick.” I could tell by its large, sunken eyes and droopy eyelids that it was weak. It was also motionless and bloated, which indicated that it was dehydrated.
“Also,” I said, “it’s extremely poisonous.”
“It is?”
“See this,” I said pointing to the wart-like glands that protruded from the skin behind its eyes. “When threatened, a bufo will secrete a white, fatty, and very poisonous toxin from these glands to deter its predator.”
I asked Marnie to run and grab me a special pair of moistened rubber gloves, a paper gown, and protective goggles. I was soon outfitted like a character from the movie Outbreak.
I explained to Ninna, “Their skin toxin is highly dangerous to other animals, and it can be equally irritating to human skin. I’m surprised you haven’t already suffered burns from handling him.”
She held up her hands. They were indeed pink and swollen.
“I thought it was from the chilies in my Bajan Pepper Pot. My recipe is extra spicy.”
I wanted to scold Ninna for adding one more bufo toad to a growing problem. Tropical bufo toads like Ninna’s had become an invasive species, specifically in Florida, where they were outcompeting the native species, and also there were reports that their toxic venom was killing dogs, cats, and other animals that came in contact with them. For this reason, I do not recommend bufo toads as pets. A fire-bellied toad or a White’s tree frog is so much friendlier—and cuter, in my opinion. But what could I do? Ninna had illegally poached the animal from its native habitat, and now here it was on my examination table. I could deny treatment of the animal, but then she’d likely release it back into the wild where it probably wouldn’t survive, or if it went untreated in her care, it would likely die in the bottom of the coffee can—neither of which, as far as I was concerned, was an acceptable option.
I try not to get too pre
achy on this point, but as a veterinary doctor, I feel it is my responsibility to provide animals—whatever they are—with the care they need to thrive in captivity. Of course there are some exceptions to this rule, such as treating extremely venomous animals like a sick rattlesnake, which has a deadly bite and needs to be properly restrained to protect me and my staff. I simply don’t have the equipment necessary to treat a poisonous snake like that.
Ninna’s bufo fell into a gray area. The toad was poisonous but not venomous, and I did have the proper tools to treat him safely. I took another look at the parched and withered toad, knowing full well that amphibians can go downhill quickly once they stop eating and lose a significant amount of water weight. I decided to treat him.
“The first thing I will do is run some diagnostic tests,” I said to Ninna. Amphibians can be difficult to perform tests on, as they don’t have readily accessible veins, so I carefully drained a small amount of fluid from under the bufo’s skin to culture it and have it examined microscopically at the lab. Then I administered an injection of antibiotics and an oral calcium supplement pending the test results.
“Take your toad home, and I will call you as soon as I have test results,” I instructed Ninna. “He’ll need a temperature-controlled and humidity-controlled tank with ultraviolet light and heat. He will not survive in this coffee can.” I handed her a pair of gloves. “And remember, handle this animal with extreme care.”
I TOOK THE Maple Avenue exit off the freeway and pulled into the Johnson Valley Mall parking lot. It was already jammed.
“Holiday shopping,” I groaned. “Prepare to be pushed around in the name of good cheer.”
Elliot and I trudged through the crowded Sears, passing flat-screen televisions trimmed in silver garland and Craftsman tools wrapped in bright holiday bows. We emerged into the mall’s central corridor, which smelled like my grandmother’s cupboard throughout Hanukkah: vanilla, cinnamon, and brown sugar. I glanced at Elliot, who was humming along to Kelly Clarkson’s rocky rendition of “Run Run Rudolph.”
