Love Is the Best Medicine

by Dr. Nick Trout

  As she stood there, paralyzed, her brain caught up with Dave’s words. Sonja didn’t turn around. She could sense his presence behind her.

  “When did this happen?”

  She made no attempt to hide the accusatory tone in her voice, and they both knew she was really asking a series of different questions altogether. What did you do to her? What happened on your watch that went so terribly wrong? How did you let this happen?

  “Shortly before you came home,” said Dave.

  His voice was at her back, her eyes were focused on Cleo, her mind’s eye focused on her mother. She spun around wearing a facial expression trapped somewhere between incredulity and panic.

  “How shortly?”

  Dave shrugged, trying to convey concern and not terror.

  “I don’t know, half an hour.”

  Sonja turned around and saw him now, for the first time, all casual in jeans and a T-shirt that said “comfortable,” not anxious, as she thought he ought to be.

  “Christ, Dave, why didn’t you call me on my cell? Why didn’t you take her straight to the vet?”

  Dave looked down at the floor, glanced up, looked down again, swallowed, and finally met her eye.

  “Because it’s probably nothing. Because she will probably be fine in a couple of hours.”

  Incredulity crept into Sonja’s glare.

  “Since when did you get a veterinary degree?” And then, “I don’t believe you.”

  She brushed past him, Dave feeling her breeze by like a ghost as she went to a linen closet and found a clean beach towel. She picked up Cleo as though the dog were broken glass, easing her bit by bit into her cotton stretcher before gentle levitation.

  “Well if you won’t take her, I certainly will.”

  She picked up his car keys sitting in a bowl on the kitchen counter and headed for the door. Dave thought about reaching out to her but caught himself, as Sonja seemed to anticipate his move, veering her body out of his reach.

  “She got caught up in her own leash,” he shouted after her. “She twisted and fell down. It wasn’t my fault, Sonja. Honest.”

  But Sonja had no time for excuses and closed the door behind her, sealing him on the wrong side of their relationship.

  DR. NICK Glynn, Odin’s regular veterinarian, made short work of diagnosing Cleo’s injury: sudden-onset lameness; pain on palpation of the right thigh; lower leg dangling in the breeze like a silent wind chime. A quick X-ray sealed the deal—Cleo had refractured her right femur at the junction between normal bone and the bone plate from the previous surgery.

  Glynn put up the X-ray on a viewing box for Sonja and watched her response. At first Sonja wore a tight grimace, every muscle frozen, a full-facial Botox, and then a freckled hand flew up and clasped her lips tightly, muffling a scream.

  Eventually she loosened her grip and said, “I don’t understand. My husband swears she just got caught up in her leash. How can such a minor thing result in such a major catastrophe?”

  Glynn tried to get a read on this woman reeling from shock. He didn’t think she was pointing fingers. Instead, he sensed fear and a desperate need to understand and justify what had happened. If not for herself, then for someone else.

  “You said this is Cleo’s third fracture, right?”

  Sonja managed a nod.

  “And she’s only fourteen months old?” asked Dr. Glynn.

  She nodded again, hypnotized by the X-ray, the proof, the crack in Cleo’s white bone big as a crevasse. How was she going to tell her mother?

  “Sorry, what did you say?”

  He repeated, “Cleo’s only fourteen months old?”

  “Yes, yes,” said Sonja, back now.

  “Fed a regular canine diet? Adult, not puppy?”

  “That’s right. She gets the same food as Odin. For treats she gets blueberries, grapes, cranberries, and carrots. She also gets a wild salmon oil pill every day. Do you think she could have some sort of birth defect in her bones?”

  Glynn pursed his lips, took a deep breath, and turned his gaze to the X-ray, as though the answer might be there. In truth he was raiding his mental database, flicking through a Rolodex in search of diseases that predispose young dogs to fractures.

  Sonja had raised an excellent point. Fractures resulting from everyday, prosaic activities beg the question, is there an underlying problem with the bone? Is the bone weak and therefore vulnerable, and if so, is that weakness a congenital problem, because the dog is so young, or is it an acquired disorder that has developed early in life?

  He would need more time, as well as his textbooks and the Internet, but his memory tossed out a list of words: calcium, phosphorus, vitamin D, sunshine, rickets, and, to his surprise (and, one would imagine, the surprise of those who taught him pathology at vet school if they knew about it), osteogenesis imperfecta, known in people as brittle bone disease.

  Of course, lacking all the details of how these factors specifically influenced Cleo’s bone structure and anticipating that this was precisely what Sonja sought, he packaged his insight in the following manner.

  “I think that’s a very good question. It is hard to imagine that poor Cleo can have this much bad luck in such a short lifetime. We should definitely take some blood samples and a urine sample for analysis to make sure we’re not missing something obvious.”

  In fact, unbeknownst to Sonja, Cleo’s vet in Canada had previously hunted for, and failed to discover, an underlying cause after the second fracture. Still, she agreed, especially if there was a chance to find some explanation for her mother other than a failure to properly care for her dog.

  “But what about this?” she asked, forcing herself to tap a finger against the image at the break, like a tongue searching for the pain of a loose tooth.

  “Cleo’s going to need surgery, yeah,” said Glynn. “The kind of surgery we might not be comfortable doing here—you know?”

  Sonja’s eyes widened and for a brief moment it was if she was sucked up in a vacuum. All that was left was a whisper.

  “So where will she get the surgery?”

  Here Glynn smiled, offering confidence and reassurance.

  “I have a friend who works at Angell in Boston. It’s a huge animal hospital. One of the best in the world. I’ll give him a call right now.”

  “You’re saying it’s safe for Cleo to fly? With a broken leg?”

  Glynn pursed his lips, nodding his appreciation of her concern.

  “You’re right. It’s not ideal. There’s no good way to stabilize her fracture for travel, but she’s definitely small enough to fit under a seat and with the benefit of a few pills I guarantee she’ll be comfortable for the flight. It’s direct as well.” Then Glynn added, “Less than two hours,” and regretted it, thinking he sounded like a travel agent.

  Sonja was silent, suddenly feeling tired and demoralized.

  “Don’t worry, everything will be fine,” said Glynn. “I’ll go and make that call.”

  And he left Sonja and Cleo alone in the examination room. Sonja looked at the X-ray and looked at Cleo snuggling in her towel, trying to get comfortable. She ran a hand across the dog’s skull, flattening the velvety ears, while Cleo’s wet eyes blinked open, checking who it was, and content with the discovery, she closed them again.

  Sonja wondered if this innocent dog was somehow destined for disaster on her watch as some sort of payback for the way she occasionally treated her mother. In the next few minutes she would have to put her fears aside, pick up a phone, and call Sandi, and what made it worse was knowing exactly how their conversation would play out. This was when her mother was at her best, in a crisis, able to separate personal feelings from what needed to be done. In times of fear and uncertainty Sonja would let down her defenses and allow Sandi to tend to her emotional needs, allow Sandi to play the loving mother. This was when they were always at their closest, and the certainty of her mother’s unconditional support only reminded Sonja of how unresponsive and cold she herself could be, e
specially when she felt the oppressive weight of Sandi’s neediness.

  The bustle of the hospital continued all around them—barking dogs, a woman’s voice asking for a prescription refill, the copycat parrot she had noticed on the way in voicing his opinions—but inside the examination room there was silence as Sonja and Cleo came to an understanding. It would be awful telling her mother the bad news, but at the same time, here was an opportunity to prove herself, to handle the situation and take care of Cleo in a way that told Sandi she understood, respected, and approved of this special dog’s role in her mother’s life. Sonja would drop everything, fly all the way to Boston, and fix her up. Whatever it took, whatever it cost, she would make it happen and the world would right itself and all would be well once again.

  NOBODY ever suggests that what I do for a living is boring. They might say “gross” or, occasionally, “wicked awesome” and I’ve certainly witnessed facial expressions ranging from respect to sympathy to dismay, but no one, to my knowledge, has ever labeled my career choice as boring. Unpredictable would be my one-word synopsis because implicit in this adjective is the certainty of surprise. No amount of training will ever fully prepare you. Education may teach you the science but you have to live this job to discover the art.

  I leave home in a shirt and chinos and change into my pajamas when I get to work. I ask way too many questions, crawl around on the floor, and wear a hearing aid around my neck. Sometimes I even risk life and limb (well, mainly limb … okay, maybe a finger or two), but the point is there is always an element of danger. There is also mystery and intrigue, passion and intensity, fear and hope. I get to say “Sweetheart” without feeling sexist or inappropriate, and petting, kissing, and public displays of affection are encouraged in my workplace. Arguably, I have the best job in the world. I am a veterinary surgeon and I am a lucky man.

  Anything could happen from the moment I pull into my parking space and turn off the engine of my car. I practice (and few words could be more appropriate) at the Angell Animal Medical Center, located on the fringe of Boston’s hospital district, yet another enormous brick building that from time to time attracts disoriented humans looking for a “real” doctor. Working with seventy other veterinarians, my days in this state-of-the-art facility are, by definition, design, and desire, unpredictable to say the least.

  It may be no more than fifty yards and twenty seconds from the click of my vehicle’s central locking mechanism to the swish of the automatic doors at the hospital’s entrance, but there is ample opportunity to be accosted. It could be an anxious owner who has just dropped off his or her pet for surgery, armed with more pressing questions, eager to ensure that I have brought my A game, my mind sharp but not overly caffeinated. It might be my first appointment of the day, early and wandering the perimeter of the lot, a gimpy canine patient staking claim to a patch of yellow snow as his owner looks my way and juts a sharp chin in my direction as if to say, “Ready to see us or what?” But on one mean morning in January, nothing but black ice and a dusting of pet-friendly ice melt stood between me and the warmth of our vast reception area.

  “Is it Friday the thirteenth?”

  Sweeping in from my left, keeping pace as I headed to my office, came one of our interns, Dr. Elliot Sweet, greeting me with that question.

  “Because if it’s not, last night had to be a full moon.”

  We were walking together, as though he happened to be going my way, and it seemed obvious that he needed to confide. In fact it was a Tuesday, though I could forgive his disorientation. The telltale stubble on his cheeks told me all I needed to know. Dr. Sweet had been working the overnight shift.

  “Did one of your clients appear overcome by the Roman goddess Luna?” I said.

  He stopped me with an enormous hand on my shoulder and a smile that said this would be worth my while, and he set the scene.

  The doors to our emergency service are open 24/7 and last night the waiting area had been packed with a variety of patients hoping to be seen. Among them were a Persian cat who had mistaken his owner’s stash of pot for his own stash of catnip; a Weimaraner puppy with a cut pad, blissfully ignorant of the bloody crime scene he was creating across the hospital floor; and a Pomeranian with a chronic, greasy, malodorous skin problem that, according to his cranky owner, simply could not wait until tomorrow.

  And then there was Mr. Turret and his dog, Dillon. Mr. Turret’s resonant mantra had been heard long before he breached the automatic doors, his arrival all the more dramatic for the silence that ensued as he stormed into the center of the waiting room.

  “Rabies,” he boomed, dropping the piece of twine that loosely tethered his placid mutt, his great hands extending before him, joining his eyes in pleading to the audience, circling before the waiting room turned theatre-in-the-round.

  Mr. Turret commanded attention. He was an enormous barbarian of a man with untamable black hair contiguous between head and beard through which poked a bulbous ruddy nose and quick menacing eyes. Only the horned helmet and the evidence of rape and pillage were missing.

  “For the love of God, it is rabies.”

  He stressed every word, enunciating with Pentecostal precision.

  “Rabies, the Lord’s blight upon man and beast. I know it and you know it. Just look at him.”

  Suddenly he strode toward the strung-out guy clutching the floppy Persian cat.

  “Look before you,” he said, gesturing dramatically in the direction of his dog, like a magician’s assistant accentuating a trick, the cat and its owner too stoned to feign interest.

  “You see it, sir. I know you do. See the devil’s froth and spittle, see it pouring from his innocent lips; see those kind and devoted eyes possessed by Satan’s defiant stare.”

  Dillon sat perfectly still, unperturbed, watching his master’s every move. However, to the trained eye, Dillon swallowed with increased frequency, effort, and considerable discomfort. The corners of his lips were wet and accumulating saliva, in a manner remarkably similar to those of his ranting owner.

  “Rabies. Can there be any doubt?” Mr. Turret scanned his audience and, getting no reply, leapt to Dillon’s side, squatting beside him.

  “Can you smell it? Well, can you?” He cocked his head back, forcing a long sniff, in and out, copious nasal hair caught in the flow, and to his delight one or two in the audience cautiously joined in.

  “Am I right?” Mr. Turret nodded and kept on nodding as he encouraged the tentative in an olfactory investigation that yielded little more than confirmation of the new and pervasive aroma of alcohol in the room.

  “Of course I am right. It is the devil’s virus. The rabies. And mark this.” He stood towering above them, holding out the back of his hand for all to see.

  “Satan has bit me too.” He pointed to what looked like an innocuous scabby cut near his thumb. “That’s right, he has possessed my dog and now he comes for me. Now, my friends, on this very night, he is coming for us all.”

  His final words might have stretched into a maniacal cackle if it were not for the attempts of a hospital supervisor to take Mr. Turret by the arm and steer him, and his ambivalent pet, toward a wooden bench.

  Even from his sitting position, with the dog lying at his feet, the sermon continued, spittle flying, his arms gesticulating far and wide regarding the plague that Dillon would unwittingly inflict upon mankind.

  Enter our bright and shiny overnight doctor, Dr. Sweet. Elliot may have been a relatively new veterinary graduate, fresh-faced though prematurely balding, yet despite his awkward, gangly, mumbling and bumbling manner, he possessed a dedication to animals and owners alike that was fueled by a heart of gold.

  The supervisor collared Elliot, shoved a hastily created record into his hand, and insisted, with an enigmatic smile, that he take the madman and his dog off into an examination room. Elliot did as he was told, guiding patient and owner, though failing to halt the incessant, vociferous sermon that condemned poor Dillon to a slow and gruesome demise.r />
  “Rabies, rabies, my dog’s got rabies.”

  Mr. Turret would not be pacified. His belief in his diagnosis was total, unwavering, although eventually simplified to a single word that he repeated over and over again, in a whisper that softened while Elliot began to perform a physical examination on Dillon.

  “Rabies, rabies, rabies.” Two syllables merged into one wobbling, hypnotic sound, a rhythm percolating into the tired and sleepy gray matter of this hardworking intern, as Elliot stretched open Dillon’s mouth and found exactly what he had suspected he would see in the back of the dog’s throat.

  Mr. Turret leaned forward in his chair, the whisper reduced to repetitive lip sounds as he waited for the verdict.

  Conversely, Elliot leaned back in his and took a deep, cleansing breath.

  “I am one hundred percent certain that your dog does not have rabies” is what Elliot had meant to say. But, unfortunately, he did not. Chalk it up to brainwashing, sleep deprivation, or some inherent phonetic deficiency—Elliot left out, forgot, or slid by the single most important word in his sentence: not.

  There followed a brief moment of silence in which neither man spoke. But just as Elliot realized the absolute horror of his mistake, divine judgment, swift and final, descended upon Mr. Turret.

  Even the Persian cat, now munching his way through his second bag of Cheetos from a vending machine, sat up when he heard the relentless screaming headed back toward the waiting room.

  “The devil’s benediction! He is rabid, he is. Dillon is rabid, and I am rabid too. Dear God, you have forsaken us both.”

  Mr. Turret dropped to his knees, shoulders pitching forward in time with his sobbing; drool, mucus, and tears trapped in luxuriant whiskers as he heaved, wailed, and swiped at his face.

  It was another twenty minutes before Mr. Turret finally accepted that the cause of Dillon’s problems had been a chicken bone lodged in the back of the poor dog’s throat.