Vet Tech Tales: The Early Years (4 page)

After six weeks of babysitting, I made my first solo flight in a glider. It was mid-summer, and I had just turned 15 a month before. Fall semester would see me in an aviation ground school class the high school offered, I could begin taking lessons in powered aircraft from
Didi
and Drew, and in a little less than a year I would be able to boast having my private pilot’s license in addition to my driver’s license. Anxiously, I awaited the nanny’s return.

Seven weeks went by, then eight, then nine. “I’m afraid Betty’s not coming back,”
Didi
broke the news to me at last. “I’ll need you here at home for
awhile
longer.”

I sighed. Dirty diapers and housecleaning weren’t what I had agreed to. I was being taken advantage of and I knew it. “I’m sorry,
Didi
. You’ll have to find someone else.”

It was hard leaving, knowing I would probably never fly again. But the bartering scale had tipped too far out of balance.

All, however, was not bleak. I don’t necessarily hold to fate or things happening for a reason. But quitting when I did meant that when the offer to work weekends at a vet clinic came, my time was free to do it.

Maybe, just maybe, I was meant to be a vet after all.

 
First Taste

Lisa, my best friend in high school, lived about a block from me. We were the Mutt and Jeff of the neighborhood. She was tall and blonde where I was short and brunette. But even if we couldn’t share clothes, we did share a passion for animals, books and movies. Sister-close, we did everything together, from riding our bikes to the library to hiking with her Irish
Setter
, Lady, and my white shepherd, Rex.

We both wanted to become veterinarians, so naturally we joined the Explorers together. And since it was convenient for our parents for us to carpool, we volunteered to work together at our clinic assignments. The first weekend we drew Dr. Norris’ animal hospital.

Kathy, one of the veterinary assistants, unlocked the front door for us at 7:30 and, after introductions, gave us a quick tour of the clinic. Down the main hallway we saw two exam rooms with laminated counters and wooden shelves, an open treatment area and cabinets full of pharmaceuticals. Down another hall we saw the lab with three or four mysterious machines, an x-ray table and a microscope. And across from the lab was the surgery with a heavy steel table, imposing light and another set of complicated-looking machines hugging the wall.

I breathed in the acrid scent of bleach and alcohol and disinfectant. It looked right. It smelled right.
Clean and orderly.
Not too modern. Not too large.

Then Kathy opened the door to the kennel and led us through. I sneezed. A dozen dogs started barking.

“I’ll show you how we make up the cleaning solution,” she offered, picking up a half-full jug of yellow disinfectant and a five-gallon bucket. As she measured out the concentrated cleaner and added water from a waist-high tub in the corner, I snuck a peek at the rest of the room.

To the left of the door was a small alcove with a cabinet, sink and chipped exam table. To the right was a row of six dog runs on one side, a bank of steel cages on the other, and a narrow aisle with a concrete floor in between. Fluorescent lights struggled to illuminate the windowless room. Far from the bright, life-affirming area I’d expected, the kennel appeared drab and squalid.
A depressing place for people and animals alike.

Kathy threw three well-used sponges into the hot, sudsy water she had made up. “Now, you clean a cage and put some newspaper in it,
then
you move an animal from a dirty cage into the clean one and then clean the dirty one. Dirty newspapers go into the trash, dirty dishes into the tub.
Any questions about cleaning?”

Honor students both, Lisa and I exchanged a glance, trying not to laugh. “No,” Lisa managed to say. “I think we’re good.”

What we didn’t know then about Kathy was that she’d dropped out of high school when she was 15 to raise a baby she hadn’t meant to conceive. Even so, had she graduated, her grades likely would have been an obstacle into any legitimate college or trade school she wanted to apply to. She was a good, honest lady and a hard worker. She knew her way around the animals and she knew her job, which was to clean cages, bathe and dip animals, shave down surgical sites and hold pets for the vets when necessary. It wasn’t often she was called on to teach others and she took that duty as seriously as she did the rest of her work.
  

In that moment, I’m sure Lisa and I felt a bit superior. Later, after Kathy and I became friends and I understood how a generous heart was far more rare a find than someone with simple book smarts, I was ashamed of looking down on her that first day.
    

“You can take the dogs out for a walk, if you want,” Kathy continued. “Sometimes, one person walks while another person cleans. It just depends on how many dogs there are and how many people we have working. We take them out back in the grassy area. The cats get a litter pan. Don’t use more than a half a cup of litter. We’re not supposed to waste it. Don’t put litter in for the cats that have been de-clawed, though. Use some shredded newspaper.”

There were perhaps 30 cages along the wall. The cages varied in size from large, roomy ones on the bottom of the rack to tiny, cramped ones that topped out about seven feet up. A quick look down the bank of cages showed about three-quarters of them were full, from kittens in the upper cages to large mutts in the ones below. “What are they all in for?” I asked.

“That cat there,” Kathy pointed to a Siamese in an upper cage with a snap lock on the door, “is a blood donor. He belongs to the clinic. Make sure the lock is on his cage or else he’ll open the door and get out. He’s pretty smart. The kitten next to him was de-clawed and should go home today.” The little gray cat mentioned was lying on its chest with its front legs stretched out. Big white bandages on its paws made it look like it was wearing boxing gloves. “The other cats are just boarding.

“The dogs are mainly all boarding too.
Except Caesar there.
He has a pin in his leg.” I peered over at the terrier mix and saw a shaved area on his back leg with a row of neat stitches running down the middle of it. I assumed the “pin” was in the leg, but where was it placed and what did it look like?

“And Sally was spayed yesterday. Her owner’s picking her up this morning.” The little fawn Chihuahua was standing at the cage door yapping, not at all looking or acting like she had just had major surgery the day before. “Cricket’s sick.” The little black poodle lay in a very dirty, very wet cage with her head between her paws. I empathized. She certainly didn’t look like she was feeling well. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her. But always look to see if any of the animals have thrown up or had diarrhea. We’ll want to put that down on their chart. And see if the sick ones have eaten or not. If the doctors get here first, they’ll come back and kind of look at all the cages so they know what’s going on. But if we get here first, like today, we need to note all that ourselves.

“There’s a hose to wash the runs down with. The English
Setter
in that first one is Rebel, our dog blood donor. Hold on to him tight if you walk him. He likes to chase cars. The other two dogs are being treated for heartworms. Don’t go near the Akita, he sometimes snaps.”

I wasn’t sure what an Akita was, but since I knew the other dog in the runs was a Rottweiler, I assumed the medium-sized, compact dog with the red saddle marking and tightly curled tail must be it.

I moved the ladder over and Lisa and I started cleaning the higher cages. We were barely done with our first cage each when a heavy-set woman with long black hair in a white clinic jacket shoved through the door holding a pair of patient records. She moved straight to the exam table. “OK, let’s see how Cricket is doing this morning.”

Her voice was pleasant enough, but something about the way she didn’t look at Kathy or greet her but just expected her to get the dog was a bit off-putting. And while she had to have seen Lisa and me there, she didn’t so much as acknowledge us. She shook down a thermometer while Kathy lifted the little black poodle out of its cage and carried it over, being careful not to hold the little urine-soaked dog too close. The lady in white wrinkled her nose as she inserted the thermometer.

“Did she eat?”

Kathy shook her head. “Dr. Norris told us not to feed her last night.”

“Throw up?”

“It doesn’t look like it, but she spilled her water, so kind of hard to tell.”

The lady in white sighed. “It would be nice to know for sure.”

Then why, I wondered, doesn’t she go look for herself?

After a moment she pulled the thermometer out and jotted down the temperature on the dog’s chart. I wanted to ask what it was since Kathy didn’t appear too interested, but since I didn’t even know who the lady was, I didn’t. Being forward was never my strong suit.

“Is it high?” Lisa raised her voice as she pulled her head out of the cage she was papering.

“I’m sorry?” A haughty ‘
Are
you talking to
me?’ tone rang in the lady’s voice.

Unruffled, Lisa repeated, “Is Cricket running a temperature?”

The lady looked at Kathy, the question obvious in her expression.

“They’re the Explorers Dr. Norris asked to work this weekend,” Kathy whispered fairly loudly.
“Phoenix and Lisa.”

I saw the lady’s demeanor change in a proverbial eye blink. “Oh. Have you girls ever worked at a clinic before?”

We shook our heads. She smiled, and I could swear the tomcat I was holding had never betrayed such a predatory expression. “I’m Dr. Reese. Glad to meet you. And, yes, Cricket’s temperature is high – 104 degrees. But it was 105.2 yesterday. Her lab work indicates it’s probably a bacterial infection, so I’m going to give her some more antibiotics and something to keep bringing her fever down.” To Kathy she said, “Give her just a few bites of dry food. Let me know if she throws it up.”

Dr. Reese shuffled around to one of the cabinets and pulled out two vials and a couple of syringes. She filled the syringes while I finished cleaning the cage I was working on. Kathy tucked the little dog close and put a hand around her muzzle. I heard Cricket yelp as the first needle went in,
then
whimper at the touch of the second. It was a small thing, but just by watching, I was already learning something about restraining a small dog. I hoped it wouldn’t be long before I was asked to hold a dog for treatment.

“OK, Caesar next,” Dr. Reese told Kathy.

Kathy deposited the still wet and dirty little poodle into a clean cage, then eased Caesar out, holding him in as close an approximation to the way he had been laying as she could. Intuitively, I realized the awkward hold meant Caesar wasn’t jarring his back leg any. The soft light over the exam table caught the glint of metal poking out of the sewn skin. It looked pretty painful.

Dr. Reese slipped the thermometer into Caesar and felt gently around the incision while Kathy kept a light hand on Caesar’s head in case he tried to bite. When she took the thermometer out she said, loudly enough for me and Lisa to hear, “No temperature. We’ll just start him on some oral antibiotics. Put some
Veriton
on the stitches so he doesn’t start licking them. And don’t take him outside for a couple of days. Just leave a towel under him.”

“Do you give anything for the pain?” I asked.