The Gift of Pets: Stories Only a Vet Could Tell (33 page)

But my revelry was short-lived. No sooner had Perky been placed back into his carrier than he turned his attention to the tip of his now-shorter tail. In the span of ten seconds, he had snipped the sutures with his sharp incisors. With nothing now closing the wound, his obsessive licking quickly opened it enough so that it started bleeding.

I scooped him up again and replaced his head in the anesthetic mask. When his movements slowed, I quickly placed a couple drops of tissue glue onto the tip of his tail and held the wound closed until the glue had sealed. I then had my technician apply pressure on the tail tip until Perky had once again woken up enough to scamper out of her grasp and back into his carrier.

The glue seemed to stymie him. It was clear that the shortened tail held a fascination for him, since he immediately pulled the amputated stump up to his mouth and licked at it. Fortunately, the glue must have had a bad taste because, though he tentatively tasted it, he did not open the wound again. Putting a makeshift Elizabethan collar on him was out of the question. He was simply too amped to tolerate such an indignity.

And that was my first introduction to the highly charged and caffeinated world of sugar gliders. In the course of one short interaction, I had been introduced to a new species, been bitten by it four times in one minute, anesthetized it twice, performed an amputation on it requiring two methods of surgical closure, and successfully resuscitated it with mouth-to-mouth respirations and chest compressions. I was exhausted.

Perky, on the other hand, seemed none the worse for wear. He went home that night, and though his tail was shorter, he seemed as eager for trouble as he had been when he came in. The Energizer Bunny has nothing on sugar gliders. Cats are supposed to have nine lives. I was not sure how many lives sugar gliders are given. At least one of Perky’s had been consumed that afternoon. As for me, the stress of the afternoon came pretty close to exhausting my own supply. I do know that the stress of treating that sugar glider took a toll on me. Sure, variety is the spice of life, but sometimes spices can get just a little too hot!

Denouement

Lisa’s passing left us weak and drained. So much emotion had been invested in the process, so much energy in the fight. So much had been stolen by the disease and its treatment. So unfair had been the indifferent election of Lisa by Death himself, piled, as it were, on top of the other sweeping inequities Lisa had known. It was just too difficult to explain to two remaining orphans and a grieving mother; too overwhelming on the tenuous emotions of the reeling team of people in the office. The loss was too much to contemplate, too much to accept.

Lisa’s funeral came and went, and still the sheering strain of grief persisted. My mind fought against the enormity of the loss. Surely, I thought, there must be something productive, something meaningful that will emerge from the aching chasm of sadness and frustration left by Lisa’s death. But nothing came to me except new waves of sadness.

Dave, apparently, experienced some of the same thoughts. Unlike me, Dave had more motivation. Three or four weeks after Lisa died, he came to me with the idea of establishing a scholarship in her honor at the college where she had trained to become a veterinary technician. A few quick phone calls to the school provided the details of how to go about getting such a fund started. We learned that a permanently endowed scholarship could be established in Lisa’s memory with a principal amount of ten thousand dollars. We could have five years to build the fund to that amount. But if the minimum endowment of ten thousand dollars was not reached in that five-year span, the money donated would be awarded in scholarships only until the principal was exhausted.

By putting up signs in the lobby of the hospital, we were able to collect in the first months a few hundred dollars from clients whose pets had benefited from Lisa’s skills. Staff members contributed several hundred dollars more. The bulk of the funds contributed came from Dave and from the hospital, which pledged a sizable donation each year for five years.

But as time went on, it became clear that the ten-thousand-dollar figure would not be reached. Life for others had continued after Lisa’s had been truncated, and the flow of time had carried Lisa’s memory from the loud, tumbling rapids of frenetic action to the slow-moving, deeper, and more shadowed backwaters of nostalgia, where fondness is sweet but quiescent. The momentum for the scholarship waned, and in the fifth year of the campaign, I received a letter from the college, informing me that the languishing moneys in Lisa’s scholarship fund would not be enough for a permanent memorial. I let a long sigh of regret whistle through my lips as I read it. It seemed that, once again, Lisa’s potential had been squandered.

Life in the office moved on, as well. There were still patients to be seen and animals to be helped. Plunging headlong into work—in my case, the fray of animal illness—helps to dim the effects of emotion, even emotion intensely felt, and my own and the emotions of the staff subsided with time. New people joined the team after Lisa was no longer there. New receptionists, a new technician or two, new assistants, and even a new veterinarian joined the team. They came and went according to the whims of their circumstances. Many of them contributed greatly to the efficiency of the team and the care of the patients and developed interesting and moving personal stories of their own.

One of the new team members was Krystal Finns. Krystal first joined the staff as a receptionist. She was fairly young, one of the few people I hired soon after she had graduated from high school. She was pleasant and eager, though a bit shy and unsure of herself at first. She had dark hair and eyes and a self-deprecating humor, which accentuated her lack of confidence. I was not sure at first if Krystal would be able to manage the rigors of being a receptionist. Receptionists must be polite and engaging while at the same time maintaining a thick skin and proactive control of their environment. They must be confident in their dealings with a fickle public and have a back bone of steel to handle the onslaught of indifferent and sometimes rude people in a hurry to attend to their companions. They must be clever and witty and armed with an intimate familiarity with a broad range of animal minutiae with which to answer an amazing array of questions. I wasn’t sure Krystal, with her inherent shyness, could master these tasks.

But she surprised me. As her training progressed, she demonstrated a remarkable ability to deal with all kinds of people, putting them at ease in emotionally stressful situations. She quickly learned the information about the patients that made her credible to clients and invaluable to the practice. Her skills with the computer and her grasp of the functions of the office made her the go-to person when technical glitches arose with the computers or the accounting systems in the office. And as time went on, it became clear that Krystal possessed a gift with the animals, as well.

There is an evolution that takes place in many veterinary hospital team members. When someone is hired as a receptionist, it takes some six or eight months to learn the role thoroughly. By the time the person becomes proficient at the task, she develops an interest in the medical aspects of the work that we do and the animals we treat. Inevitably, this evolves into a desire to move into the role of a veterinary assistant. This, I suppose, is natural and to be encouraged. But it creates a constant flow of personnel from one role to another and leaves a frequent hole in the receptionist pool that requires filling.

Krystal soon began to show signs of disquiet in her role as a receptionist and approached me about becoming an assistant. When a need arose for an assistant, I moved Krystal to the position. In this role, too, she showed similar prowess in learning the tasks and quickly became indispensable.

There was another reason Krystal became a popular member of the staff. We quickly learned that, as an only child, she possessed an amazing power over her parents. This power, though she did not display the typical characteristics of a spoiled child, made it possible for doughnuts, pizza, and other such goodies to materialize in the break room when Krystal placed a quick phone call to her mother.

I suppose it was inevitable that Krystal would take the next step of evolution for a veterinary hospital team member. Just about the time she had become invaluable as an assistant, she approached me with a new goal. She wanted to go to school to become a technician. This, too, was predictable. Over the years, I have seen the same progression in no fewer than five or six other employees who have gone back to school to complete their vet-tech training.

Krystal had it all planned out. Her parents were willing to help with the cost of books and gas for the ninety-minute round-trip daily. Her boyfriend had a good job that would support most of their living expenses, though she would still need to work part-time at the office. And tuition would be covered by student loans and a little help from her parents. It would be a sacrifice financially, but she had decided to make it work.

I was proud of Krystal. She had identified her passion and was taking steps to turn her avocation into a vocation. I knew she would be a very good technician, just as she had been a good receptionist and assistant. It would be difficult for her, but she had demonstrated an ability to complete difficult tasks already, and I knew she would be successful. I wrote a glowing recommendation to include with her application and then waited to hear the results. Krystal was as sure she would not be accepted into the program as I was sure of the opposite. I was not surprised to hear in June that she would be entering school in the fall. Krystal was excited, but edging her enthusiasm was a palpable fear, almost a dread, as the fall term approached.

When school started, I discovered the reason for her fear. For Krystal, school had never come as easily as learning the myriad tasks in the hospital had. She was one who excelled at hands-on learning, but she struggled with taking copious notes, reading textbooks, and taking tests. The stress that these activities built in her was evident as she came to work in the evenings. Fortunately, in the office she could see how the facts she was learning applied to actual cases in the hospital, and this connection to real patients grounded her classroom learning.

Then one evening I noticed that Krystal’s demeanor was suddenly and decidedly sullen. I was immediately concerned about her academic status, until she confided that her boyfriend had lost his job. This threw their finances into disarray and threatened her ability to continue in the vet-tech program. She was heartbroken as she contemplated the death of her dream. I tried to console her with platitudes about how things would work out and allow her to continue, but my words rang hollow.

Krystal slogged through her first semester with rising panic about how she would afford the tuition once the semester had ended. Though she still performed her clinical duties well, I noticed diminishing enthusiasm about her studies and a strikingly pessimistic approach to her future. Her grades began to dip.

Just before the semester ended in December, there was a sudden change in her attitude and Krystal became the same exuberant person she had been before. I was unsure of the reason for this change until a day or two later as I was opening the mail. Among the bills and the odd Christmas card from an appreciative client was a formal-looking letter with the logo of the community college where Krystal was a student. It was addressed to me, and I opened it with interest.

Inside was a letter that thanked the hospital for its commitment to donations toward the Lisa Spalding Scholarship fund and proudly announced the first recipient of a sizable scholarship awarded to a deserving student in the technician-training program. The first student to receive the scholarship would be Krystal Finns. The scholarship would make it possible for Krystal to remain in the program.

There was a catch in my throat as I held the letter in my hands and reread it quickly. Memories of Lisa flooded my thoughts: the utter transformation of a young girl from quivering insecurity into a settled woman of education, skill, and accomplishment; the sadness of a malignant diagnosis in a person so young; the months of wasting illness, of frantic treatment, and of noble acceptance. All of this sped through my consciousness. But for the first time, there was also a sense of justice, accomplishment, and completion. Not that Krystal’s benefiting from the Lisa Spalding Scholarship was worth the sacrifice. A thousand times no! But something of value had emerged from a story so bleak and sad. I knew how pleased Lisa would be that, as a consequence of the pain she had endured, someone had been able to carry on in the calling that had been life-transforming for her. The fact that it had first benefited someone in Lisa’s own practice was icing on the cake, a completion of the circle of yet another story.

Since that time, I have received several additional letters announcing recipients of the Lisa Spalding Scholarship. I suppose at some point the initial moneys contributed will run out and the scholarships will end. But each time I feel much the same satisfaction as I did when Krystal’s academic career was salvaged by the scholarship awarded in Lisa’s name.

There is something profoundly significant about the completion of this circle; something intensely personal about the scholarships themselves. Though they are no doubt appreciated by the recipients, the true significance, I suppose, is lost on them. These scholarships represent more than just a windfall from a fund named after some anonymous decedent. For me, they are a nod to a friend; an acknowledgement of a shared passion; an honor to a fallen comrade in the fight for animals; an affirmation that a life was worthy and valuable and well spent even though it was abbreviated. Not everyone’s memory is sustained by such noble things, but Lisa’s is. Each Christmas, someone who shares her gift and her calling benefits from this award established in her name. It is not enough, of course. But for me, it is of great significance. The Lisa Spalding Scholarship contributes just enough resolution to Lisa’s story to season the ache of bitter nostalgia.