by Laurie Hess
“Well she’s certainly entitled to her opinion, but I disagree that domesticating gliders is a criminal act. If it were, I guess that makes me an accomplice.”
Elliot raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Do you want me to keep reading them?”
I nodded. “Sorry, I’m tired and testy. Yes, go on.”
Elliot continued to recite objection after objection: “How can you defend that shady company?” “These animals shouldn’t be confined in small cages.” “Defending Sugar Buddies is unethical.” “How can you align yourself with a company that is killing innocent animals?”
I finally put a hand of resignation up in the air. “Okay, enough.” I cut Elliot off in mid-sentence. “I get it. I’m not winning any popularity contests this morning.” I understood that people were feeling angry, frustrated, and desperate. I was too. And I appreciated that many of these comments were coming from people who had sick animals or were grieving pets they’d recently lost. Given the range of emotions associated with this case and with no clear understanding of what was making so many baby gliders ill, I could understand how the public and some of my veterinary colleagues were questioning and even outwardly critical of my defense of Sugar Buddies. And yet, I’d only meant to raise an objective voice. Unfortunately, my intent had been lost in translation, and now my words were coming back to bite me. I sat back in my chair, regretting the position I’d put myself in.
“Also, a Dr. Barnes has been direct-messaging you all morning.”
“He has?” I leaned forward and squinted at the blinking square box in the corner of the screen. “I’m not wearing my readers. What does it say?”
Elliot reluctantly read the message: “Dr. Hess, your insensitivity in this matter shocks me. Animals are sick and dying. Whose side are you on?”
I was already feeling beat up, and now I felt as though I’d been slapped in the face. I stared at the screen in shock, feeling the sting of his words.
“Dr. Hess?” Elliot said.
It took me a minute to recover, and when I did, I was enraged. Before I could catch myself, I screamed back at the screen, “On the side of the animals, you jerk!”
Elliot flinched.
I stood up abruptly. “If anyone else calls or messages or texts to tell me I’m an insensitive doctor and an all-around horrible person,” I sputtered, “you can tell them that I’m in the isolation ward doing everything in my power to save the life of another dying glider. And if that’s not enough, well then send me to jail!”
I stormed out of the office before I could message Dr. Barnes back with more words I’d later regret.
Marnie was already in the isolation ward checking on Mathilda, who was lying facedown on the cage floor with her tiny limbs tucked tightly underneath her. Marnie had to prod her just to be sure she was still alive. Her breathing was labored and shallow, indicating that she was in extreme pain. Marnie gave me a look that I understood implicitly. My anger dissolved, right then and there, into anguish. I stood with Mathilda for several minutes stroking her fur, accepting the reality of her condition. I couldn’t save her. I took a deep breath and faced the job I had before me.
“I’ll make the call,” I said and turned back toward the door. And yet, when I opened it, there was Bob, leaning up against the wall and looking even more exhausted than he had the day before.
“You’re here,” I said, surprised. “I was just about to call you.”
He opened his mouth but couldn’t seem to form any words.
“Come with me in the back.” I gently guided him down the hall into the break room. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Coffee would be good. Just black.”
I poured myself a cup too and sat directly across from him. “I was just about to call you to talk about Mathilda’s condition.”
“Can I speak first?”
I nodded and set my cup on the table.
He paused for a moment. “I made a decision last night. As much as I don’t want to give up on her, I can see that she’s in pain.” He looked down at the table. “Unless you’re about to tell me that something has changed . . .” Bob raised his eyes to meet mine.
“Nothing has changed.” I shook my head sadly.
“Well then”—he cleared his throat as he choked on the words—“I think it’s time.”
“Do you mean . . . to euthanize her?” I asked quietly.
He nodded.
I reached out and put my hand on his. The rough calluses on his fingers didn’t match the softness of his voice. Of all the things I would have to address today, Bob’s grief would no doubt be the heaviest. We sat in silence, both of us letting the reality of his decision sink in. In fact, it was the same conclusion I’d come to, and Bob had just beat me to it.
“Bob, I’m so sorry.” Tears welled up in my own eyes. “I’ve tried everything.”
“I know that you have. I don’t blame you,”
I don’t often feel the need for pet owners’ reassurance that they know I’ve done my best, but in this case I felt huge relief at Bob’s words. I wondered if he’d seen my statement online defending Sugar Buddies.
“I’ve been working closely with the company that you adopted Mathilda from and with other vets across the country, too, to locate the source of illness,” I paused. “But I still don’t know what is making her so sick.” I shook my head regrettably. My first interest in veterinary medicine was internal medicine because I love solving problems—putting an animal’s symptoms together to arrive at a single diagnosis so that I can provide treatment. I looked into Bob’s sad eyes. “At this point, I don’t know what more I can do to save her.” I couldn’t think back to a time when I’d failed so absolutely to help an animal in need of care.
After a moment of silence, Bob said, “I want to be with her. Right with her until the end.”
I left him alone in the break room, and Marnie met me just outside the door.
“He’s signing the formal permission form for euthanasia,” I said.
10:30 A.M., SURGICAL ROOM
WE’D GIVEN MATHILDA the first shot, a tranquilizer that would relieve her immediate pain and sedate her enough that she wouldn’t be fully conscious when we gave her the final injection, an overdose of pentobarbital. This barbiturate, administered directly into the heart, would immediately end her suffering. As I prepared the injection, I reminded myself to breathe. Though the procedure was predictable and routine, and one I was all too familiar with after so many years of practice, this time felt harder than most. Heartbreaking. I reached out and put my gloved hand on Bob’s arm. “Are you sure you want to be here for this?”
“Yes.”
“Once I administer the injection, you can stay with her as long as you need to.”
He nodded again.
“If you feel ready, now is the time for final good-byes,” I said as gently as I could.
Bob picked up Mathilda from where she was resting on top of the exam table, held her to his chest, and whispered into her tiny gray ears. He cradled the little animal in his large, calloused hands with a love so much greater than Mathilda’s small size. He stroked the top of her head, and after a few moments she appeared to fall asleep. He lay her back on the examination table, turned to me, and nodded his final consent.
The room went silent other than for the quiet sounds of Mathilda’s slow breathing. I parted the fur on Mathilda’s chest with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball and injected a tiny volume of euthanasia solution into her heart. Within seconds, her little body went limp.
“Good-bye, sweet girl.” Bob was outwardly weeping now, and I was choking up myself. More than ten years before, I’d had to put down Bailey, my cherished gray tabby cat. That easy-to-purr, lovable fluff ball had been my constant companion for nearly two decades. Throughout my twenties, as I trudged through vet school and before I adopted Dale or met and married Peter, Bailey had been by my side. He had eventually become sick from a slow-growing, inoperable liver tumor. One night after my shift at the Anima
l Medical Center in New York City, I came home to find his frail body collapsed in the corner of my bedroom. I rushed him to the Center, understanding that his time had finally come. There was nothing anyone could do to save him. When I entered the waiting room, I was the client, not the doctor. And the animal I held was my pet, my beloved friend. Bailey lay nearly lifeless in my lap in the intensive care unit as I gave my colleague permission to administer the final injection. I cradled him in my arms, watching the euthanasia fluid pass from the syringe into his veins. Bailey’s body tensed at first and then became limp and relaxed.
When I first became a vet, I mistakenly thought this aspect of the job would get easier over time. It doesn’t. Losing a pet is one of life’s great heartbreaks, and saying good-bye hurts every time. My mentor Dr. Miller said, “Every vet struggles with this. But when an animal is suffering with no chance of survival, you must remind yourself that you are helping, even when it feels extraordinarily sad.”
I wiped away my own tears with the sleeve of my lab coat and turned to Bob. “When you’re ready, I bet Lily would love to see you.”
Lily was the one comfort I could provide Bob in this moment. Mathilda was gone. But Bob’s constant companion was still alive.
12:00 P.M., WAITING ROOM
MARNIE HAD PREPARED Mathilda’s body for burial by wrapping it in our customary black tissue paper and slipping it into a silver cardboard gift box. I slowly approached Bob where he sat in the waiting room and handed him the small parcel, along with a silk jewelry bag containing a clipping of Mathilda’s fur. As he took both from my hands, the waiting room fell silent. I glanced over at Mr. Rasmussen, who was bouncing his baby kinkajou on his lap, and Mrs. Ellis, who was nuzzling her angora bunny, Petunia. She put a sympathetic hand up to her heart as she recognized the somber exchange. She’d been handed a similar box before.
Bob stood up. “Thank you,” he mouthed. I tried to say, “You’re welcome,” but the words caught in my throat. I nodded my head instead and watched silently as he turned and walked out the front doors alone. Knowing that his wife, Jeanne, neither appreciated nor had ever even tried to understand his feelings for his gliders, on this somber day I was sorry Bob would grieve the loss of his Mathilda alone.
2:00 P.M., MY OFFICE
EMOTIONALLY SPENT, I wanted to hole up in my office, pull down the shades, and join Bob in his sorrow, but I somehow summoned my strength for Lily. She was still alive. She had a chance. Lily’s movements were slow, and her appetite was poor, but she was holding on. I reasoned that her strength was supported by her age. Lily was over five years old, and Mathilda had been just a baby. Just like the other baby gliders who had died, Mathilda had been too vulnerable to fight off the spreading illness.
Wait a minute. Spreading illness? What if the illness wasn’t spreading, at least not in the way I’d thought?
I recalled when Bob had first brought Mathilda and Lily into the hospital and I had presumed that the illness must be contagious since both gliders were sick. And when I had discovered that Pockets, Georgie, and Mathilda had all been adopted from the same Johnson Valley Mall kiosk, I had further suspected that the illness was spreading from animal to animal and cage to cage. Of course I wasn’t absolutely sure, as you really cannot know whether an illness is contagious until you know what is causing it, but since both of Bob’s gliders were suffering, it seemed very likely that the illness had spread from young Mathilda to Lily.
But now I wondered if my assumption were dead wrong. If the illness was contagious, why had only a handful of Simon’s gliders from Johnson Valley Mall become sick? So many gliders in one place in such close contact. If the illness was contagious, the entire population of young animals transported and housed together should all be showing similar symptoms. I wondered the same thing now about Winslow Mall in Long Island. So far, there was only one reported case of illness, and Hannah was treating that failing young glider now.
If the illness wasn’t contagious, spreading from glider to glider and mall to mall, there had to be another connection linking the sick gliders in different locations. Instead of studying the commonality of conditions within the mall populations, we should be looking at what the small subset of sick gliders shared in common. What was their special relationship?
I searched through the stack of papers on my desk, looking for Elliot’s list. I found it quickly, as it was marked up with highlighter pen. I’d struck a bright yellow line through every city where gliders had been reported sick and dying and where Exotic Essentials distributed Simon’s animals. Every city on the list had a yellow mark through it. Except—I took a deep breath—I’d jotted down in the margin of the paper several mall locations: Chicago, Detroit, Tulsa, and St. Louis. In those cities Exotic Essentials had set up mall kiosks, but there had been no reports of illness. Not yet, anyway. I logged in to the Vets Connect message board: no new posts indicating an outbreak of illness in any of those cities. I quickly wrote a new post: “Has anyone treated a sick glider in any of the following locations?” I listed the scattering of states and then wondered aloud why some of Simon’s gliders were getting sick when others weren’t? In at least five cities across the country, they were seemingly immune.
As I pondered this new information, Marnie poked her head around the office door. I waved her in, and she slid down into the chair next to mine. We often retreated to the office like this after difficult procedures. We sighed in unison.
“That was pretty awful, wasn’t it?” The image of Bob cradling Mathilda’s still body resurfaced in my mind. “How are you holding up?”
She nodded. “I’m okay.”
“I’m so glad you were there. I couldn’t have handled that sad scene without you.”
Marnie’s eyes suddenly filled with tears.
“Marn?” I leaned forward, searching her face.
I was thrown off by her swell of emotion. Even on our hardest days, Marnie is reliably tough. She looked away with a pained expression.
“Hey,” I reached out. “We’re going to solve this. We’re not going to lose another glider. I promise.”
She wiped her face with the back of her hand and looked squarely at me. “That’s not it.”
“What is it, then?”
“This is really not the day to tell you this,” she said and paused. “But I’ve been putting it off for a week.”
I sat back in my chair. “What is it?” I asked again.
She took a deep breath. “I’ve been offered a job with the Los Angeles Exotics Veterinary Specialists.”
I heard her, but it took a minute before I could really put the meaning of the words together. Once I did, my stomach tightened, and I thought I might throw up. No, no, no. Don’t say this to me. Take it back.
“Laurie? Say something.”
What could I say? I hadn’t seen this coming. I was shocked. Even on my most frazzled days, when I feel pulled in a million directions between home, work, and whatever else, I still keep it pretty well together. Well, at least I think I do a commendable job of acting as if I have it all together. But this completely unraveled me. I felt the heat rush to my cheeks. Before I could stop myself, I clenched my fists like a defiant three-year-old and wailed, “You can’t do this! It wasn’t our plan!”
This was now my second meltdown moment of the day, and it reminded me of Maryanne Odette, who’d reacted similarly when I delivered to her unexpected news.
“She’s nesting,” I said as I took Ginger, a cockatiel, out of her cage. “That’s why she’s shredding all this paper.” I nodded at the mound of newspaper scraps that Ginger was settling into. “And look at this.” I pointed to Ginger’s swollen abdomen. “She’s getting ready to lay an egg.”
“An egg? I didn’t plan for an egg,” Maryanne said. “Can you give her an injection or something to make it stop?”
“There’s nothing to stop. You may not have planned for it, but it’s going to happen regardless. She’s a young female bird, and it’s almost spring. I suggest you take
her home and let nature take its course.”
But before Maryanne could respond, Ginger’s breathing started to race. She extended her wings and made a loud, clucking sound.
“Oh, boy, here it comes,” I said.
Ginger strained against me as she pushed out the egg. Splat! The unfertilized egg landed on the floor right at Maryanne’s feet. As if relieved to be rid of the extra weight, Ginger took a deep breath. Maryanne and I looked at the broken shell and then back up at each other.
“Nothing to plan for now,” I said.
Marnie and I had shared a dream to open a veterinary hospital solely dedicated to birds and exotic pets, where the animals and their clients felt special, not like add-ons at a traditional cat and dog hospital. At our hospital, the care, equipment, and technology reflected the unique needs of those very special animals. We’d realized this dream together. I was proud of what we’d created, and I couldn’t imagine continuing the work without her. I’d assumed we’d be walking the same hospital hallways until we were older, grayer, and ready to retire. At the thought of her leaving and of facing the challenging cases and overwrought clients without her, I felt a seismic emptiness. I slid down in my chair.
“This wasn’t our plan,” I said again, more quietly but still in the voice of a hurt child.
“I know,” she said with apology in her voice.
“You’re going to take it, aren’t you?”
She nodded. “Probably.”
“Couldn’t you choose somewhere a little closer,” I asked, “like the Animal Medical Center in the city? That’s only a train ride away.”
“Laurie, I wasn’t looking for a job. I love our work here. They found me, and as much as I don’t want to leave you or this hospital, I have to consider it. You know how hard it is for me to be so far away from my sister in California.”
Marnie and her sister, Claudia, were tight. They shared the kind of connection and closeness I’d always craved from my only sibling—my brother, Geoffrey. Even though they lived on opposite coasts, Marnie and Claudia managed to see each other four or five times a year. After Marnie’s divorce, she and her sister had started vacationing together. “We do it for the kids,” Marnie said, a little defensively, but I knew those so-called family vacations were a guise for Marnie and Claudia to travel to exotic resorts and sip cocktails together poolside.
