Vet Tech Tales: The Early Years (9 page)

“I’m Phoenix.” I thought about thrusting my arm out and shaking hands, but halfway through the motion, shyness overtook me and my hand sort of dangled there in the air. Without missing a beat,
Charla
rescued my abandoned hand and pumped it hard.

“I am so glad you’re here!”
Charla’s
jaw was a bit too square and her face a bit too broad to be handsome, but there was a gentle twinkle in the eyes that shone out from beneath her short strawberry blonde bangs. “Dr. Norris said you used to work here?”

“Just as a volunteer on Saturdays.
With Kathy and Ashley.
Are they still here?”

Charla
shook her head. “Ashley quit about a month ago. She’s who you’re replacing. And I guess Kathy must have been before my time. But I’ve only been here about six months now. I took Pam’s place. Was she here when you were?”

“No. But I saw Joan, the receptionist, still is.”

Charla
brightened. “She likes to be called the office manager. She’s good, too. This place wouldn’t run without her.” I nodded non-
commitally
. I had liked Joan well enough from what I’d seen of her, but since I had rarely been up at the front desk, I hadn’t seen much of her or the work she did. “Oh, and Brenda will be here this afternoon. We rotate staying late. So hey, we’re really full this morning; if you’re ready, let’s
get
to work.”

As she led me through the clinic to the back, I saw that little had changed. Even the file stand holding the records of the animals kenneled in the back was still in the same place. And the chalkboard was still being used to announce the activities for that day: Jackson – bath and dip; Lewis – board two dogs; Martine – cat spay; and so on.

What I probably should have been paying attention to, though, escaped me completely at the time. Not only were Kathy and Ashley both gone, but there had been a Pam working there who was also gone. And a Brenda was here now. In College Station, I had, in five short months, become accustomed to the high turnover rate in the fast food industry. But how many people actually aspired to becoming fast food workers? How many kids dreamed of donning a hair net and assembling food items for a daily parade of anonymous eaters? Workers and managers alike took for granted that the majority of folk working in fast food were only there for the interim -- that other jobs, other destinies awaited them. But wasn’t animal care worker an end goal in itself?

Unless of course, like me, you were still harboring remote thoughts of returning to college and pursuing a degree in veterinary medicine.
Only then was it a stepping stone and learning ground on the way to something better.

So, never once questioning why all the others had left, I followed
Charla
through the familiar kennel door.

The noisy yapping began almost at the same time the allergies hit.
A couple of sneezes and then that stuffy feeling in the sinuses.
I looked down the row of cages, counting the cats in them. Fully enough to cause major congestion, I soon realized, as I sniffed my way down the aisle. Allergy shots as a child had done nothing to daunt the response I always had around cats.

I made a mental note to pick up an industrial-size box of antihistamines and decongestants on my way home. If Madame Curie could hang around radium until it became the death of her, I thought, I could surely hang around cats if I were armed with enough allergy meds. Today, though, it looked like I was going to have to tough it out.

Throwing My Weight Around

I went straight to work cleaning cages and walking dogs.
Charla
and I developed a nice rhythm, moving animals and scrubbing cages and runs without getting in each other’s way. At 8:00, Dr. Norris came bustling in, charts in hand, tailed closely by Dr. Reese. Without
so
much as a glance down the aisle of animals, they began asking
Charla
to bring them the patients that needed treating. Only when it became obvious
Charla
couldn’t be carrying or holding animals for both vets at the same time was I at last recruited to help.

Dr. Reese picked up one of the 5X7 record cards, pushing a strand of long brown hair behind her ear as she read over it. “Phoenix, I need a weight on the male Golden. Can you get it for me, please?”

I winced. Reese was always polite enough. “Please” and “thank you” had always fallen easily from her lips. If only there had been any hint of sincerity behind them. But she struck me as a little too cold, a little too calculating. And the nearly two years I had spent away had not changed
her a
whit. Couple that with her habit of peering over the top of her reading glasses and making snap judgments regarding people, animals or situations, and it became clear why most anyone acquainted with her for any length of time went from being easy and open in her presence to being guarded and standoffish. Passive/aggressive behavior has a way of distancing those who catch on to it.

But it wasn’t merely the insincere “please” that made me wince. A proper scale for weighing larger animals was not in Norris’ budget. So instead of leading a big dog onto a low platform and simply getting the pooch to stay still in order to get an accurate weight, we had a pair of ordinary bathroom scales in each exam room. One of the assistants would step on the scale and weigh themself first, then pick up the dog and weigh dog and self together. A quick exercise in subtraction, and the result would be reported on the record for everyone’s future reading pleasure.

Forty and 50 pound pups posed little problem. Sixty and 70 pound animals topped my comfortable weight limit, and only if the animals were tractable. Trying to heft a struggling dog off the floor, find and step onto the tiny scale platform, then look over the bulk of the thrashing animal at the wildly fluctuating dial hoping for it to settle on a number for even a split second could strain anyone’s back. Occasionally, one of the vets would step in to help keep a struggling dog still. Or another assistant would be called in to help lift the dog. But the ultimate position for the dog was, by necessity, resting in the arms of one person perched atop the scale.

I eyed the Golden Retriever in question. Big-boned and well-fed, he would easily weigh in at 90 to 95 pounds. I figured I might have had 10 pounds on the dog.
Certainly no more than that.
Dr. Reese carried double my weight and more. Maybe she was too embarrassed to step on the scales herself. Maybe she was truly afraid of springing them with the additional weight of a heavy dog. At any rate, in all the time I worked at the clinic, I never once saw her step on the scale to weigh an animal. And part of me harbored the theory that whatever other motivations might have been lurking in her refusal to step on the scales, control was certainly foremost among them.

Where Dr. Norris took his pleasure in overt control, Reese delighted in passive control. “Can you come help me, please?” is the request I would get after Dr. Reese searched me out. In the early days, I hoped my help was needed to control a feisty dog or cat. Or, better yet, to help in some diagnostic procedure. Most of the time, I would enter the exam room and there would be an obese German Shepherd, a massive Mastiff, or a tall Wolfhound – something close to my weight and size – that needed to be weighed. And as often as not, the owner would be a sturdy male in the prime of life who took his workouts at the gym quite seriously.

Often the sturdy male would offer, “Oh here, let me do that,” as I moved toward scale and dog. And before I had a chance to reply, Reese would quickly point out, “No, that’s what Phoenix is here for.” Only on the rare occasion when it was clear an enormous dog would simply dwarf me, would Reese relent and allow me to step on the scales and let the owner help get the dog into my arms.

And every time, Reese smiled and laughed as I grit my teeth and heaved the dog up without complaint. This time was no different. Luckily, Jess proved to be polite and accommodating as most
Goldens
are, and the dial stopped briefly at 194 pounds before my grip on Jess gave and down he went, catching himself easily like an acrobat.

“Ninety-two pounds,” I announced.

Reese looked at me over the top of her glasses. “You’re sure?”

What? Did she think I was lying, or that perhaps I didn’t know how to subtract? Either way, I felt insulted. And the band of tension that gripped the inside of my head just behind my eyes was maybe an omen I should have paid more heed to. But I stifled my annoyance and simply nodded.

“The dose on this
Levamasole
has to be precise, you know.”

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?”