no biggie, right?

so last night, my co-worker texted to tell me that she had gotten into a car crash and wouldnt be able to go to work today. i said okay. no biggie, right? we only had two appointments scheduled for that day. no problem. our boss wasnt there either, it was just us manual laborers and the vet. piece of cake. we could handle two measly appointments spread out across five hours.

wrong.

first thing in the morning there was a walk in. but still, no big deal. our first appointment was at eleven, and it was only nine oclock. we dealt with him, and sent him on his way, to wait for the next appointment. soon we ran out of things to keep us occupied work-wise. kelli (the other worker) started texting and reading a disease book. i occupied my time drinking jasmine tea my chinese veterinarian said i should, and flipping aimlessly through a dog breed book, sometimes writing down the names of the dogs i wanted. and thats how it went, me thinking this would be the easiest saturday of my life. oh the irony.

our appointment finally comes. we get her squared away..."Georgia" who needed a physical exam and a blood test for a refill of rimadyl-used for arthritis. she almost bit us, clipping her nails. stupid little dog. then another walk in came in, right as "Georgia" was leaving. a beagle, whose name escapes me, but was pretty much the whole reason we stayed an extra hour at work, walked in. she had been hit by a car on new years eve, and the owners took her to an emergency vet hospital and were coming in for a followup...she had a hematoma. a huuuge pocket of skin was just full of blood on her shoulder. we started draining it--there was about 100 cc in there. we were draining it with a 12 cc syringe, so it took awhile to get. then, when we were finishing, dr chang was moving the needle around to make sure we got all the blood out, he hits a nerve. the dog FLIPS OUT, while i'm holding her, and then steps on the side of the bowl containing all his blood. it ends up on my face and my shirt, all over the ENTIRE cat room, and on dr changs white pants. ON MY FACE. good thing i'm not squeamish about blood. but it was still pretty gross. then the dog sat in it. we spent a good deal of time cleaning both the dog and the room. while we were entertaining ourselves with that, another walk in arrives. a STUPID chihuahua named "Buddy" Lin, and who never make appointments. good thing we made them wait. and then our twelve oclock came, a yellow labrador named "Huckleberry" who we were going to put to sleep (PTS) today. which is, obviously, a sensitive subject anyway. and they walked in when we were hectic. holding the seventy some odd pound dog in his arms. with his wife crying hysterically beside him. and her sister. and all three of us holding bloody towels or cleaning solution..that was bad. we hurried them into the back as quickly as possibly, setting up the back for a PTS and trying to make them and the dog comfortable. while "Buddy" barked and "Sadie" bled. oh that was her name..sadie. we took care of the appointment first. we kept "Sadie" in the back and told her owners to come back later. we left "Buddy" Lin and his parents out in the waiting room, getting what they deserve-a nice long wait. but the PTS was far from smooth. we keep the owners out of the room while we try to insert an IV catheter into a vein in the dogs front leg. we could not get it right. the veins were too sickly, constricted and twisted. it refused to work. i believe we were poking that poor dog for a half hour before we finally got it to enter a vein and stay there. it was backbreaking work, literally. bending over the table for half an hour, straining to hold the dogs leg just right for the frustrated veterinarian, trying to anticipate what he needed next. quite frankly it was exhausting. then we finally killed the poor thing..is that terrible to say? i have to say i am quite unmoved, except by the grief of the owner, to have participated in killing an animal today. he was sick, and was in pain. they dont understand sicknesses like we do..they know they hurt, and putting them through things like chemotherapy and even some other treatments just seem to them as torture..i wouldnt want that for any of my own pups, so i didnt even feel bad letting this one go. it had almost no muscles left, it couldnt get up on its own, it had a huge porous bleeding tumor on its neck, and it was obviously in pain. i felt good, assisting the killing. sometimes i wonder if i'm a heartless being because i can do that and move on in less than a minute..but then i remember. and that fleeting thought flits away. anyway. but he passed on, as he would have done sooner or later, more slowly and more painfully. and then we had to deal with the body. this process is made extremely difficult by the fact that we make paw prints of every animal we euthanize. to send to the owners. we have to trim the nails, clip the hair away from the paw, put ink on it, and make a pretty print on a pretty card. i kind of like doing it, though..comforting the grieving owners. i just always hope that they dont think about how we do it..they always want you to be gentle with their animals, to handle them softly and lovingly..well after they are gone and the animal is dead we are almost brutal. we toss them about this way and that sometimes, to get the right angle to stamp their paw on a paper. their limp bodies flop about, sometimes releasing their bowels, sometimes not. its almost disconcerting to think about, but there is no time to be gentle with an empty shell. so then we toss, or hug it if its heavy, into a big plastic bag. or, also depending on size, two plastic bags. and we tape it around and around and stick a tag on its paw, then plop it in the big freezer we have, to wait for the people to come dispose of the bodies. the big freezer usually smells pretty bad. i hold my breath. and look at all the tortoise shells that make it smell raunchy. and the other dead bodies bagged up & labeled. but we still had work to do. the bleeding hematoma dog, "Sadie" was still waiting in the cage. and the stupid chihuahua was waiting too. something wrong with his eye. gross bug eyed dog. always wearing some type of vest thingy. probably cuz he doesnt have enough hair to survive without it. its called natural selection for a reason. but we tended to him, because he's money all the same. well i didnt..i let kelli, the rat-dog lover handle that case. while i dealt with a dead dog. then we all dealt with the bleeding one. and thats pretty much how the story goes. we ended up working until two, when we should have been gone by one, and i had important things to do.

as in, go to disneyland.

which was, in short, amazing :):)