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Neuticles

17 May

Obviously Melanie does not have neuticles. OBVIOUSLY.

This post has nothing to do with the cat pictured above. I’m once again luring you in. Did I trick you twice? I play dirty.

Melanie was a heavily matted Persian that I helped one of the techs shave down. I didn’t like her at first, because of the whole trying to kill me thing that happened when I restrained her for the shave. But she quickly grew on me. Every time I looked over to her cage, her cranky face and weird body made me smile. By end of day, I was enamored with this little old lady.

This is about Neuticles, though.

Work has sucked this last week. I have one more week to go, but a lot of the upper management are giving me major ‘tude. Plus we’ve just had difficult clients come in like a parade of neurotic assholes. I feel as though I’m barely holding my sanity together. It’s the brief moments of veterinary oddity and joy that keep me going. Last night I had to stay crazy late at work and was swamped. Dr. R was equally frustrated and upset about having to take on three emergency patients. But to cheer me up, she showed me how Dr. C (our crazy but fun-loving weekend doctor) had written in the chart, “Dog extremely aggressive… must muzzle-tov.” She then clapped her hands and did a little Hora dance. It was pretty uplifting.

Another entertaining moment was when I learned about Neuticles. Neuticles are testicular implants for dogs. Yep. You can read that sentence again, if you feel so inclined. Some people in this world are so wealthy that they have money to spend on testicular implants for their dogs. And one of the doctors at my clinic, Dr. G, is a soft tissue surgeon who has implanted them a couple of times.

“Why, God, why?” you might be asking yourself. So far I have found three reasons. The first one I figured out quickly. Show dogs. In order to compete in shows, a dog must be intact. Leaving a dog intact makes them rather unruly and prone to health issues that make them difficult to show. Plus there is the possibility that he might knock up a bitch and you have a bunch of puppies on your hands. So, some wealthy show dog people neuter their dogs anyways and use the implants to fool the dog show judges. Scandalous!

Reason number two, which is the only reason Dr. G has encountered, is that women want to neuter the dog and their husband/boyfriend/significant other does not want it to happen. Men are so strange about testicles, even when they’re not their own. So the women get the implants for their dogs to hide the fact that they secretly neutered the dog. More scandal!

Reason number three: people are shallow. I did a brief search on the internet for neuticles, because I couldn’t remember the name, and I found the company’s website. Featured on the home page is a picture of Kim Kardashian with her neuticled dog. She apparently got them so he wouldn’t feel emasculated, and he would look intact. I don’t understand the wealthy, and sometimes I’m thankful for that.

So there you go, neuticles. In case you were worried, it’s not just for dogs. The website proudly explains that they have also been implanted into cats, monkeys, water buffaloes, and rats! Your pet rat no longer has to feel less because of his tiny/nonexistent balls.

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Quality Advice from Dr. G

27 Apr
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SPROUT! I want a Brussels Griffon. I want one real bad.

The above dog has nothing to do with this post, other than the fact that I took it at work, and this story also takes place at work. Honestly, I’m just trying to lure you in to read my blog, because I’m sly like that.

So the worst part about working in Veterinary Medicine is the people, the clients that inevitably come with their dogs. Ironic, right? People get into this field, because they want to spend their day with animals. Yet so much of the time is spent dealing with people. And people, in general, aren’t that pleasant.

Some people are wonderful though. Like Dr. G. He’s my favorite doctor at our clinic. He’s older, so a lot of us call him “Pops” which has always been a goal of mine…to have an old man friend whom I call Pops. He’s a lifelong Yankees fans, so we’re always discussing our teams. He continuously attempts to bring me to the dark side, make me a Yankees fan. With other Yankees fans, I find this sort of thing annoying; with Dr. G, it makes me smile.

He’s also the only doctor that doesn’t lose his temper, that doesn’t freak out at clients, never blames any one else if things go wrong. His interactions with clients are legendary. For example:

“Dr. G, is my dog going to die?”
“Well, yeah, one day. We all are. I just don’t know when your dog will die.”
“What am I supposed to do?!!?!”
“Stop worrying about your dog so damn much.”

He’s the only one who can get away with saying this sort of thing.

A couple of weeks ago, we had a client who was persistently calling the front desk, driving us all insane. She was sobbing about how her main vet had left the practice, how someone in her building told her the food she fed the dog was garbage, how she was a single mother and couldn’t afford vet bills. Basically, she called to complain about things that don’t concern me, and I can’t fix. She just wanted someone to whine to.

Finally, she stopped in to the clinic and demanded to speak to a doctor. She was crying and yelling, but she didn’t want an appointment. We only had Dr. R and Dr. G available. Dr. R was doing an emergency emesis, so I approached Dr. G. He rolled his eyes and said, “Oh, these fucking idiots.” Then he straightened his embroidered scrubs and asked, “So, how do I look?” I gave him the nod of approval, and he headed out there.

20 minutes. This woman ate up 20 minutes of an important man’s time. She ranted. She cried. She whined. He sat there. He nodded. He told her his food recommendations. It did not look like fun.

Eventually she left, and I followed him back into the treatment area.

“That was amazing, Pops. I don’t know how you handled that woman for that long.”
“Let me tell you something I learned a long time ago,” he began. All of treatment turned to listen to the wise, old doctor. “It takes two people to argue. One person can complain and cry and scream all they want, but if you sit there calm, you aren’t in an argument, you aren’t upset. The second you raise your voice and give in to anger, they’ve won. They pulled you into a fight. So I listened to that woman’s crazy rant. And even though I sat there for 20 minutes and could only think, ‘Go fuck yourself, you crazy bitch,’ I didn’t say it, and she didn’t get to win.” All of treatment erupted in laughter and applause.

I lose my temper with clients every once in a while, but I’m really trying the Dr. G method of dealing with it. It really does work. I’m not as good at it as Dr. G is, but I suppose I have 40 odd years to perfect my craft.

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The Poodle Room

11 Mar

I was working back in the treatment area of the clinic when Dr. S barged through the swinging doors.

“What the hell is that thing hanging up in Room 1?” he said to no one in particular. The techs and kennel staff looked around at each other confused. “That poodle picture on the wall! Where did it come from?! It is creeping me out! I’m trying to talk to a client, and I just keep staring at it. It needs to be moved!”

I vaguely remember one of our elderly clients coming in earlier in the week holding a large picture frame, wrapped in brown wrapping paper. I put her in the exam room with her dog. I remember her walking slowly, grasping on to a walker, so I offered to carry the picture for her.

“It’s a gift for the doctor’s!” she said with gleaming eyes. So I leaned it against the exam room table, never getting to see the actual picture. I had completely forgotten about it until Dr. S brought it up that day. As a technician, I don’t have to go into the rooms anymore, so I didn’t see the poodle picture and promptly forgot about it.

On Monday, I was back to working reception. I cleaned out room 1 for a client and led them around. I told them to have a seat, and I went to shut the doors. There are two on either side of the room. I shut the first one and jumped nearly half a foot back. There was the most terrifying poodle portrait I’ve ever seen, and it had been creepily waiting behind that door.

I slowly backed out of the room, not taking my eyes off of it. Likewise, it didn’t take its eyes off me. It reminds me of the portraits in cheap haunted houses. No one in our office can really stand it, except Dr. C who has the softest heart and truly loves all creatures great and small.

Needless to say, it has been moved to the deepest recesses of the office…in room 6…which we now call….the poodle room.

My First Surgery

4 Mar
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Me in my scrubs.

My vet tech training has been going slow. I am still working full time at the front desk (the practice manager is not letting me go easily), so I can only do my training one day a week. There is so much to learn, and it isn’t easy to do it once a week for five hours. I’m fairly comfortable running lab tests, and I am getting better at restraining animals, although cats still scare me, squirmy little bastards.

I meant to write this post weeks ago when I actually did assist in my first surgery, but as always, I’m way too busy. Four/Five hours of sleep a night has become the norm. Lots of coffee, lots of power-napping, I somehow get by.

Anywho, my very first surgery! Shit just got real. My first procedure was a neutering on an adorable French Bulldog. Of course, the first thing to do is to knock out the animal, which I’ve done many times since, and it’s fun. I’m usually restraining the animal, while another technician injects them with Ketamine and Valium. Animals, like humans, don’t enjoy having needles stuck into their veins. So I hold the animal in a tight grip. They squirm, make confused yelping noises, try to scratch/bite. Then, at last, the other technician hits the vein. The animal stops squirming, sits, lets the front paws slide forward. My grip is loosened, as the animal kind of looks around in a blissed-out stare.

“There you go,” Darryl, one of the other technicans likes to say. “Ket/Val is your friend, baby.”

The animal is out. We intubate and prep them for surgery. Anesthesia is a scary and delicate thing. All of the surgeries I assist in, I just stand there in cap and surgical mask, watching carefully, trying to not get in the way. Techs aren’t allowed to touch the pet during surgery. They’re more there to make sure the patient is okay and get the doctor sutures, collect biopsy samples, etc. I kept wanting to watch the deftness of the surgeon’s hands, see what he was doing, but I had to remind myself, that’s not my job.

During my first surgery, Dr. S kept asking me if I was okay. Was the blood making me woozy? Did I feel nauseous? He kept telling me to go sit down if I thought I was going to pass out. I actually felt fine. The only thing that was bothering me was breathing through the surgery mask, which sometimes feels smothering.

After the procedure, Dr. S also did a lacrimal duct flush, and while he did he asked me what I thought. I stood there talking to him for a moment, before I realized absentmindedly that there on the surgical table in front of me, among the surgical knives, scissors, sutures, were two tiny testicles. Once I realized they were there, it was hard to look away. It’s easy to use the euphemism “neuter.” But there were two excised testicles sitting in front of me. I can’t believe where my life has taken me.

It was a simple procedure, one of the most common ones done in veterinary medicine, and I really had no problem with it. Oh, but the mass excision of a bloody anal mass we did last Friday? I had to go sit down, put my head between my knees, and take many deep breaths.

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