Vet Tech Tales: The Early Years

by Phoenix Sullivan

  Not sure what she expected from me, I nodded again.

  Looking vaguely unhappy, she began filling a syringe. “Then get him over here and let’s get him treated. Hold off that left vein for me.”

  I pushed Jess’ rump down onto the cold tile, then stood behind him and a little to the left. Leaning against him, I crooked my right arm around his neck and gripped him at the elbow with my left hand, rolling my thumb over the top of his leg where the cephalic vein runs. He held perfectly still as Reese knelt in front of him.

  “Don’t let him move. This stuff is very toxic and if it gets out of the vein, it could cause some serious tissue damage.”

  I held onto Jess and whispered in his ear as Reese inserted the needle then began slowly injecting the toxic fluid into the vein. Patient and rock-still, Jess waited it out. Reese slipped the needle out and pinched the vein for a moment to prevent back-leak, then let go. “Okay, we’re done.”

  I assured Jess he had been an excellent boy, then took him out for a walk before returning him to a clean run.

  Dr. Norris hailed me next. “There’s a little black-and-white cat we spayed yesterday. Can you bring her here?” I made a quick search, locating the little cat curled peacefully on a towel in one of the smaller cages. She purred as I carried her over to the table.

  “She took a little while to come out of anesthesia yesterday. Can you get a temp on her?”

  “Sure.” I hunted for a thermometer and shook it down while Dr. Norris looked in on another patient in its cage. Finally feeling like a real animal caregiver, I inserted the thermometer, then began petting the calm little cat, enjoying the feel of the down-soft fur, despite knowing the effect it would no doubt have on my allergies. I was just about to remove the thermometer when Dr. Norris returned. Without preamble, he lifted the cat’s tail, grabbed the thermometer and started to pull it out. Halfway through the motion he stopped.

  “Um, Phoenix.” I looked up at him expectantly. “Did you look where you put the thermometer when you put it in? See, here…” I peered over his shoulder to where he was pointing. “… that’s the vagina you put it in. If this cat had fought any, you could have torn her stitches and we’d be back in surgery with her.”

  I felt my face pinking as I realized what I had done. Knowing I wasn’t making a very good impression so far on my first day, I carried the little cat, whose vaginal temperature was quite normal and who seemed fit to go home, back to her towel.

  “How about bringing me the apricot poodle next,” Dr. Norris called out.

  At least he wasn’t giving up on me yet, I thought, relieved. I found the poodle in question, an older teacup male with a jutting lower jaw that gave his whole face a lopsided look. “What’s wrong with him?” I asked.

  “Vomiting and diarrhea. But we haven’t seen anything like that from him yet. How did his cage look?”

  “Clean.”

  “Did he eat?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, why don’t you take him outside and see what he does.”

  Looping a nylon lead over the tiny head, I carried the little poodle outside and set him on the strip of grass that ran between the building and the street. On the other side of the street, yet another strip mall faced our direction. The little poodle dutifully did his business, then stood up on his back legs pawing my leg. Quite clearly, the little tyke was telling me his walk was done and asking to be picked up. Obliging, I carried him back into the kennel and sat him on the exam table.

  “So, how did it go?” Norris asked.

  “He urinated and –” How to put it delicately? I had grown up in an environment where words for such intimate bodily functions were rarely used. I had heard the cruder terms bandied about by Norris, but I couldn’t bring myself to use them. I lowered my voice. “He had a BM.”

  Norris’ lips twitched into a smile. “And how did his shit look?”

  Offended though I was by such language, I knew Norris was simply trying to get a rise out of me. I schooled my expression and answered blandly, “Normal. Solid.”

  The vet looked a bit disappointed at my reaction, but he rallied well. “Go ahead and take his temperature and, if it’s normal, see if you can get him to eat something.” Then, with a sideways glance, added, “He’s a male, so you should be able to find the right opening easily enough.”

  I wondered how long it would be before the sting in my cheeks would finally go away.

  Susie: A Lesson of the Heart

  All the cages were clean and Charla and I were washing the dishes while Dr. Norris pulled the last piece of tape off of a Schnauzer’s bandaged paw when Joan poked her head into the kennel. “Mrs. Van Buren’s here.”

  Dr. Norris smiled. “Why don’t you come with me, Phoenix, and meet her?”

  I glanced at Charla who simply tilted her chin toward the door, grinned, and said, “Go on.”

  The petite, blue-haired lady was leaning against the reception desk, quite obviously needing the support. Blue veins showed stark along the deeply wrinkled skin covering her hands and bared arms. The skin drooped hound-dog sad beneath her opaquing eyes. Her thin voice quavered when she spoke. “Hello, Doctor Norris. I brought you some doughnuts today. I thought you and the girls could use a little pick-me-up this morning.”

  “Well, we certainly can, Mrs. Van Buren. Thank you.” I noticed Dr. Norris spoke a little louder and enunciated more clearly. “How is Susie today?”

  “Oh, I think she’s doing a little better. Happy. She was wagging her tail at breakfast.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. Let’s go give her a shot then. I’m going to let Phoenix hold her today.”

  I smiled as Mrs. Van Buren squinted at me. “Phoenix? I don’t believe I’ve met you, dear. Are you new?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I answered. “I just started today.”

  Mrs. Van Buren frowned. Dr. Norris stepped in quickly. “Phoenix has worked for me before, though, so she is experienced. You needn’t worry.”

  The elderly woman didn’t seem too convinced, muttering, “Well, if you’re sure, Doctor. I just want Susie to be cared for properly. She’s my everything, you know, now that David is gone.”

  I raised an eyebrow, curious as to what we were about to do to Susie and wondering who David was. Mrs. Van Buren’s husband? Her son?

  Joan, on the other side of the desk, handed Norris a small, thin syringe.

  “Let’s go out and do it then, shall we?” Norris headed for the front door and held it open. Even more perplexed, I followed him and Mrs. Van Buren outside. They headed for a sleek, black tank of a Cadillac parked at curbside. Inside, a youngish woman in a brown cotton dress and stiff white apron sat in the driver’s seat. Beside her on the tan leather passenger seat lay an old gray poodle. The dog’s rheumy eyes, slightly opaqued, looked a lot like Mrs. Van Buren’s. And the thinning coat reminded me of her owner’s hair as well. But where Mrs. Van Buren was thin and delicate with age, the poodle was round and plump.

  Dr. Norris opened the passenger door, lifted out the old poodle and placed Susie in my arms. Mrs. Van Buren stood by anxiously. Still not knowing what to expect, I held Susie, my hand automatically stroking her under the chin, while Norris pinched the skin over her left shoulder, slipped the ultra-thin needle into the fold and injected what amounted to no more than a couple of drops of fluid. The dog never flinched and I continued to stroke her chin and cheek as Dr. Norris backed away.

  “All done for today,” he announced. “You can put Susie back in the car now, Phoenix.”

  I carefully slid the old dog back onto the leather seat and smiled at the woman behind the wheel. She rolled her eyes in what looked like an apology. With a final pat on Susie’s head, I closed the car door.

  Mrs. Van Buren’s hand on my arm was hummingbird light. “I think Susie likes you, dear. We’ll bring kolaches tomorrow morning.”

  I wasn’t sure what one thing had to do with the other, but I replied, “Thank you, Mrs. Van Buren. I like Susie, too. How long have you had
her?”

  The old woman’s eyes misted over. “David gave her to me on Valentine’s Day in 1960. She was just a puppy then. Almost coal black.”

  “Well, she looks like she’s still going strong. I’m sure it’s because she loves you so much.”

  I’ll never forget the look of gratitude in Mrs. Van Buren’s eyes over such a simple comment. “She does love me, doesn’t she?”

  “Of course she does. And I can see how much you love her, too.”

  “I do, dear. Very much. In fact, I worry so. When I’m gone …” her voice trailed away.

  “If you go before Susie does, Susie will come live with me.” I turned and stared at Dr. Norris. He had children and cats at home. No dogs, though he could have had his pick of dozens abandoned at the clinic had he wanted them. And he would shelter this aging poodle out of compassion for an old woman? I didn’t believe him for a minute. Did Mrs. Van Buren? But whether Mrs. Van Buren believed him or not wasn’t the issue, I realized, as I saw her anxious frown melt into a comforted smile. Dr. Norris had told her exactly what she wanted to hear. Needed to hear.

  And right there in the parking lot is where I learned that veterinary medicine isn’t just about helping the animals. It’s about helping their owners, too. In other company, owners might be reluctant to express how much their companion animal means to them. Might even be uncomfortable referring to themselves as the animal’s “mom” or “dad.” But in a vet clinic environment such expression comes easily. There is, I came to understand, a bond between clinic staff and owners that breaks barriers of age and gender, social status and race – that speaks to the heart alone.

  As we watched Mrs. Van Buren, Susie and the woman in the brown dress drive away, Dr. Norris told me their story. “Susie is diabetic and gets an insulin shot every morning. Mrs. Van Buren can’t bring herself to give the injection, even though Susie puts up about as much fuss as a stuffed animal. Doris, the maid who was driving, keeps offering to do it, but Mrs. Van Buren insists on bringing Susie by every morning. Including Saturdays and Sundays. Whoever’s free gives the injection, and since Susie likes you, looks like you’ll be helping, too. The real benefit is that two or three times a week, Mrs. Van Buren brings donuts or chocolates for everybody. The woman is old money. And every so often, Susie – not Mrs. Van Buren, mind you, but Susie – sends over something from the caterers for lunch. That little dog isn’t much to look at, and she probably doesn’t do anything more than waddle to the kitchen in the morning and at night and sleep the rest of the time, but she’s everything to Mrs. Van Buren since her husband died.”

  Over the next few months, Mrs. Van Buren and Susie were at the clinic every morning without fail. I came to realize that the ritual trip to the clinic gave Mrs. Van Buren a purpose in life, a reason to get up in the mornings. Even on days when the elderly woman wasn’t feeling well, she still made the trip, though she stayed in the car with Susie while Doris came in to let us know they were there. And without fail, it was always Doris driving, making the trip along with them.

  “Don’t you ever get a day off?” I joked with her once.

  “Not from this, no ma’am. The missus gives me three days off a week, except for this. Since I live with her, it isn’t that inconvenient to bring her here, I guess. And the work really isn’t hard. She has a cook come in on my days off, and I only have to take her out shopping once a week, and maybe to the doctor every now and again. We visit her son every other week, and we go to church together. That’s it, so how much trouble can one old woman and her house be? Besides, if something should happen to that dog, I don’t know what the missus would do. Up and die, maybe. Then I’d be out of a job. And where else would I get three days off and still get a full week’s pay and board?”

  I wish I knew for Doris’ sake, because about six months after I first met Susie, the old dog died peacefully in her sleep. The mornings seemed awfully lonely without our familiar friends stopping by every day, though the occasional box of donuts still showed up. I wondered how Mrs. Van Buren was doing, and found out about a month later when Dr. Norris came in with the newspaper. In it was Mrs. Van Buren’s obituary.

  That’s another lesson I learned about working in an animal clinic where, during a crisis especially, a few of the owners become fixtures, often for only a few days at a time, some for much longer. There’s an intense sharing that occurs between owner and staff. A sharing of concern, of support, of confidences. You and they connect for a time, become best friends, family almost.

  Then the crisis turns and you drift apart. Leaving you to wonder if little Johnny’s softball team made the playoffs, if Aunt Pearl and Uncle George decided to divorce after their trial separation, or if Grandpa Phil survived his stroke and by-pass surgery. Wondering, until chance or the next annual exam throws you together again. But by then, the mood has swung, the closeness once shared gone. You engage in small talk and rhetoric, neatly sidestepping the important issues reserved for close friends and family. Important issues that by unspoken, mutual consent, are no longer to be brought up, no longer to be acknowledged. You bury them, and soon forget those little vignettes of life that brush so fleetingly by – but that shape the future self you are still becoming.

  Please Check Under the Hood – Er, Tail

  After my first meeting with Susie and Mrs. Van Buren, I was headed back to the kennel when Joan, holding a black Chow on a leash, stopped me. “Phoenix, will you take Samson to the back for me? He needs a bath and brushout. And check his tail end. Mr. Jackson says he’s been biting his rump.”

  I took the leash and peered down at Samson. He was a handsome-looking Chow with a full coat and friendly disposition. He had a few mats, but overall the hair situation didn’t look too bad. We walked to the kennel and, before I put him in a cage, I ran my hand up the back of his thighs and against the fur in front of the full tail that curled tightly over his back. Rump biting in the summer usually means fleas, but I didn’t immediately see any, although the black coat and black skin did make spotting black fleas a bit of a challenge.

  Samson turned his head to give my hand a lick and smiled at me, ready to play. I patted his shoulder, then tugged on his tail, lifting the plume up and away from where it curled over his back. At once I knew the patch of white where tail met body should not have been there. I knelt down beside Samson and pushed his tail out of the way to get a better look. The white patch moved.

  “Ewww!” Within a circle about the size of a silver dollar, a couple of dozen short, plump bodies wriggled. Instinctively, I knew what they were. “Maggots!”

  Charla came hurrying over. “Ewww,” she echoed. The expression on her face validated my first “official” diagnosis. “Get him in the tub, and I’ll go get one of the doctors to take a look.”

  Dr. Reese ambled in bearing plastic gloves and tweezers. She scooped out a palmful of the larvae, revealing raw, pink tissue beneath. “He probably had a hot spot under that bushy tail and a fly laid her eggs in the wound.” She ran the tweezers just under the skin at the edge of the wound and fished out a couple more of the fat white beasts. “Use the spray head to flush out that wound real good. Then put some antibiotic cream on it after he’s been bathed. We’ll send him home with some of the cream, and he should be good to go.”

  Another lesson learned. Even a well-kept dog could have hot spots and maggots. The owner had been concerned enough to notice the dog acting strangely, but simply hadn’t been astute enough to diagnose the problem himself. It’s easy to fault the owner in such situations, but sometimes even the most diligent of us can overlook the obvious.

  “I’ll take care of him,” Charla told me. “Why don’t you start brushing out Sasha?”

  I picked up the Himalayan she pointed to. The big, gentle cat reminded me of a long-haired sealpoint Siamese. As I worked on getting Sasha’s fur detangled, I kept one eye on Charla, watching as she ran the water over the area where the maggots had been living off of Samson’s wound. Charla didn’t strike me as overly knowledgeable
about medicine or as someone who even wanted to be, but she was industrious and kind, and certainly seemed competent in the back room. In fact, she reminded me a lot of how Kathy had been. Was this, then, the model of the veterinary assistant?

  I aspired to more. But was there anything more between helping in the kennel and being a veterinarian? Another stepping stone? At the time, I had no idea a new plan was brewing at the state level that would acknowledge the existence of that stepping-stone position. I only knew that while I was thrilled to be in the company of animals once again, one day soon I would wake up and resent having to clean another cage or dip another dog if something more challenging wasn’t waiting on the near horizon.

  In the meantime, there was Sasha to bathe and Max to clip.

  Personality Cuts Both Ways

  Max was a 30-pound terrier mix who looked like he had a healthy dose of Lhasa Apso in him. He was a happy dog with a perpetual smile and a matted coat.

  “Personality cut for the summer,” Joan had said when she deposited him into a cage.

  A “personality cut” referred to the standard way all of Dr. Norris’ staff clipped any dog’s coat that needed extensive grooming. Dr. Norris certainly wasn’t going to pay to have a professional groomer on staff, but by the same token he wasn’t going turn away another source of profit. So, for those animals who didn’t have a regular groomer but were needing to be clipped down because of mats or fleas or just wanting to be kept cool in summer, we clipped them down close over their body between the base of the tail and the base of the ears. The tail we trimmed with scissors to avoid a nude, “rat tail” appearance. But the ears and head demanded some artistry. That’s where the “personality” part came into play. Fluffy eyebrows or that plucked appearance? A scraggle of beard or a clean-shaven chin? Mostly it was mutts needing our attention, so we looked at the dog’s face and tried to decide what breed it looked most like. Then we used scissors to trim their heads to match that image. I had given the personality cut to maybe a dozen dogs during my volunteer days, and I believed I had a flair for turning scraggly into cute. And sometimes even scruffy into classy.