Tag Archives: vet tech

Youth in Asia

10 Feb

It’s peculiar and fascinating what people can get used to, what our minds can adapt to. At my vet clinic, there are about two or three euthanasias a week. Sometimes more, sometimes less. A lot of times pets die naturally at home. It’s a part of the job. People always ask me if it’s hard, if it’s sad. The easy answer is yes.

When I started at the clinic as a receptionist two years ago, I began with a wide-eyed optimism. My new job would surround me with adorable puppies and kitties. Somehow I didn’t factor death into the equation. I remember the first time I saw an appointment for euthanasia. I didn’t even know how to process it. I can vividly recall watching the family in tears carrying the pet into an examination room and leaving the hospital, their arms empty. My heart hurt, and I went home that night and quietly cried in the shower.

I remember the first euthanasia I participated in. It was a very old, incredibly sick Yorkie. Dr. S was hoping he could save it and had me sit vigil with it for about six hours while he monitored it between appointments. The dog lay on its side, breathing heavily. It had what my tech friends and I call “death diarrhea.” It’s black, liquid, the most horrible smell you can imagine, and it slowly seeps out. We call it the death diarrhea, because once a patient starts having it, death is almost always a day or two away. The black liquid (Melena) is actually what happens to blood when it is digested, so the presence of the diarrhea indicates that there is extreme internal bleeding along the intestinal tract.

I sat with the dog for hours, trying to not gag because of the smell, and petting the dog’s head lightly. Finally Dr. S spoke to the owner on the phone, and they opted to put the dog down. It happened so quickly. He drew up the drug’s and injected them. He leaned close to her and quietly said, “You did a good job. You’re a good girl. Your dad loved you very much.” I went home and cried in the shower.

Since then I’ve participated in many more, most of the time in pets that are suffering and death seems to be a blessing. Usually the doctor brings the dog to me, I place an intravenous catheter, the doctor takes the dog back to the owner, euthansizes it, they bring the body back to us and we prepare it for the crematorium, which is done offsite. Rarely, the owner doesn’t want to be present, and we perform the procedure in the treatment area.

And I’ve gotten so used to it. Just another duty at work. Sometimes we even make off-color jokes about it that seem hilarious to us, but when I mention them to friends, I obviously get a look of horror. It’s kind of horrible to feel calloused, inured to death. But it’s psychological survival at its finest. I can’t come home everyday from work and cry in the shower. I would lose my mind. Some people do. Veterinarians have the third highest suicide rate among professions. Physicians are number one.

Yesterday we had a euthanasia where the owner didn’t want to be present. It was a new patient. A 21-year-old dog, which is remarkable in itself, who was having difficulty walking and no longer interested in food. It was an adorable ragamuffin terrier. I held the butterfly catheter in place as the doctor injected the drugs. I pet the dog’s head and watched the lights dim in its eyes. I told him what I tell them all, “You’re a good dog. You did a good job,” because I believe that’s all a dog really wants to hear in its life. And then I felt it, that same heartbreak I felt two years ago when the idea of a euthanasia appointment was enough to upset me. But I also felt relief. Relief that I still have a piece of my heart and am capable of feeling that sadness, that mourning. Because I need that to psychologically survive as well.

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Becoming a Vet Tech vs. Becoming a Veterinarian

23 Nov
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Alas, the white coat life is not for me.

It was about a year ago that I decided I would like to pursue a career in the veterinary field. I knew I would start by being a veterinary technician, but I harbored a dream of one day becoming a veterinarian. I’ve debated this ardently with myself for the last year. Some days I would stomp my foot and just know I was going to go to vet school. Other days I would look at the career of a vet tech and think it was the more viable option. So many different people weighed in on it that I ended up feeling absolutely stuck, not sure which path was the right one for me.

The good news is about two weeks ago, I settled on a career path as a veterinary technician. I enrolled in a correspondence program to get the necessary degree to apply for my license. I am so excited, yet calm at the same time. I finally feel as though I have a direction, and I am doing exactly what I should be doing at this point in my life. I have made vet tech friends in the last year, and I have watched some of them settle for this career, and I have watched others begin pre-med programs. All I know is that this is what is right for me. For anyone going through a similar dilemma in the vet world, here are the things to think about, the information I have gathered in the last year.

WHY YOU SHOULD BECOME A VETERINARIAN

  • It’s your dream. You’ve held onto this ideal from childhood when you held your first kitten, puppy, foal, piglet, whatever. This is what you’ve always wanted to do, and you can’t imagine a life without it. Who cares about doing anything else? You get to save animal lives, and you will absolutely love dedicating yourself to it.
  • You will be a doctor! Oh, the prestige of making other people prelude your last name with”Dr.” I’m not being sarcastic here. It’s definitely a plus. You will become an expert with animals, and the possibilities are endless. You can own your own practice, specialize, become a professor, write a book.
  • You get to do the best parts. By the nature of your license, you will get to do three of the funnest things in veterinary medicine. You get to perform surgery. You get to diagnose animals (It’s like a big puzzle!). And you get to prescribe medication.
  • You’ll make more money. You are the doctor after all, and the practice hinges on your license, which means you obviously get more take home pay. You can also become a practice manager and have an even greater opportunity for profit.
  • What’s a vet tech? Since becoming one, I’ve had to explain my job to countless people. It’s not a well-known profession. A veterinarian, though? Everyone knows about them.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE A VETERINARY TECHNICIAN

  • It’s one of many dreams. You love working with animals, but there are also a lot of other things you care about. For me, this was the biggest factor. My passion has always been writing. I spoke to one of the doctor’s about this, and she reassured me that in vet school, you have no time for anything else. A lot of her classmates ended up dropping out a year or two in, because they did not have the single-minded determination to put aside everything else to focus on their studies.
  • You don’t have to put your life on hold. I went to an information seminar for Ross University’s vet school. One of the girls in the audience asked if there were work-study opportunities. The admissions person told her no, that school would be her life. For me, that was a huge sacrifice, moving to an obscure area (only 26 vet schools in the country, mostly rural), doing nothing but studying, and not being able to work in the meantime. The vet tech program I started allows me to take classes on my own time, while still working a full-time job, gaining experience in the field I love. Not to mention that I will have time to travel, time to write, time to visit every baseball stadium in the country, time to play softball, you get the point.
  • You get to do most everything a vet does. Granted the things listed above are the coolest things in vet medicine, there are still a lot of things you will be capable of doing. Once you have a license, you can become board certified in a number of fields and do just about everything a veterinarian does.
  • You will save money. Sure, the starting salary of a veterinarian is about what a veterinary technician will top out at in their career. HOWEVER, vet school costs around $200,000, not including pre-med requirements. As mentioned before, it is also four years of not working. Vet tech school is costing me about $5,000, and I’m working full-time throughout while still making a decent wage. Once I get licensed, there are a variety of opportunities for more money as well. So at 32, I won’t be making as much as I could as a vet, but I will also be relatively debt free.
  • What’s a vet tech? One of the best parts about being a vet tech (this has been verified by countless veterinarians) is that you have much less exposure to the clients. They want to hear from the doctor, they want to talk to the doctor, they might eventually try and sue the doctor. All you have to do is show up and do your job. There is still some client interaction, and the veterinarian could hold you liable for mistakes, but the vet has way more at stake (their license) and will generally support you and make sure you’re comfortable.

Like most things in life, I think it comes down to how much a dream is worth it. There is more that goes into becoming a veterinarian, but if it is such a burning desire for you, it’ll pay off in the long run. I don’t want to discourage anyone. I wholeheartedly admire my friends that are pursuing vet school. But, if it’s not a big enough dream to account for all the time, money, and sanity, then a vet tech career is also a fantastic option.

 

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Frankie says Relax

6 Oct

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When I arrived at work on Friday morning, the overnight tech let me know that there was a new patient, rescued from the euthanasia list at a nearby shelter, in our isolation unit. I went to the back room to see a ball of matted fur curled up in the back corner of the cage. I wish I had taken a before picture, because he was huge. And, heavens, the smell that came off of him. He reminded me of the mentally ill people who live on the subway.

New Yorkers all have this experience when they’re being broken into the city. A subway train approaches, every car that passes is full of people, jammed in together. Then a subway car approaches that is magically, nearly empty. There seem to be one or two people in the car. You think it’s your lucky day, the stars are aligned. You don’t notice the other, more seasoned New Yorkers quickly opting for the crowded car. You board your train, and the doors shut. All of a sudden, your nose begins to sting with the most foul, burning smell you can imagine. It’s a combination of B.O., urine, vomit, and God knows what else. You try to hold your breath and not physically wretch, because the people from which this smell is emanating are watching you closely, curious as to why you boarded their train. At the next stop, you run out the car and onto the next, happily crammed into the car, thanking God you can breathe again. It’s honestly a smell like no other.

That’s what this dog smelled like.

He came in under the generic name “Puppy” with a bleeding growth on the side of his mouth and obvious months of neglect. Dr. C decided that he was going to put him under anesthesia to remove the mass, demat him, and perform a dental cleaning. I couldn’t wait though. I got out the clippers and set to work on the inch and a half of mats all over his body. I would take him out between appointments and set to work, starting with the shell-like mound of fur on his back. I cannot tell you the satisfaction of getting those mats off of him. Just seeing him made me itchy and uncomfortable, and I can only imagine how it would feel to finally have air touch your skin again.

Finally we were able to knock him out, and while Dr. C performed the mass excision, I continued to hack away at the fur on his body. His limbs were so matted, it looked like he had a five-inch diameter cast covering them. When Dr. C finished the procedure, I passed the clippers to my co-worker and set to work on his teeth. They were coated in heavy plaque and tarter which I had to physically crack off. Then a full scale and polish with a bit of fluoridated sealant for good measure. By the time I had performed the full dental, my co-worker was still working on the dematting. I moved on to trimming his nails which were so long they were curving back into the paw pads. We also cleaned his ears and expressed his anal glands. All in all, it took about two hours in total to turn this dog back into a dog. My back was sore from bending over him for so long, and my fingers were stiff from all the dental scraping.

While under anesthesia, dogs cannot regulate their body temperature, and he was very cold in recovery. I put him on thermal support, but he kept trying to crawl away. So I wrapped him in a towel and held him close to my body. He laid comfortably in my arms. He really had bloomed into an adorable dog, a true Cinderella story and I christened him “Frankie” for unexplainable reasons.

Dr. L, who used to work at the ASPCA and deal with many cruelty cases needed me to help her with an appointment. She had to put together health certificates for a Maltese to travel to Cancun.

“Sorry to take you away from your fun dematting project,” she said as she handed me the pristine little dog.
“It is actually so satisfying to give that dog a full makeover.”
“I’ve seen this a million times. You’re going to fall in love with him.”
“I think he’s going to be a nice dog without all that fur and dirt.”
“He already looks happier, and you are going to go home today feeling really good about your job today. It’s nice to actually help animals with real issues, instead of this bullshit,” she said pointing to the nippy dog with the studded collar.

And it did. I couldn’t stop thinking about Frankie after I left work that night, and I ran straight to his cage when I arrived at work the next morning to bring him a piece of turkey meat. He hesitantly took it from my hands and seemed terrified to have a human so close to him, but eventually he let me pet him, and he seemed to revel in the feeling of a warm hand upon his bare skin. Working with animals can be unbelievably rewarding sometimes, knowing that you actually improved the quality of life for a wee beast. Even though I was exhausted, I felt so good about what I had done that day.

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Eat, Pray, Poop

3 Sep

 

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Rusty Thomas

I don’t really have a good excuse for why I haven’t posted in so long, but I do have excuses. I’ve been working 50+ hours a week. I’ve been traveling to the beach. I’ve been playing soccer. I’ve had some time-consuming summer romances. I applied to post-bac pre-med programs (fingers crossed, fingers crossed!). I’ve read some good books (Cheryl Strayed is my hero). The memory card on my phone is corrupted, and it makes taking pictures extremely difficult. So when I finally put myself in front of my laptop to write a little something, my browser magically opens to Netflix, and I find myself drifting to sleep while watching either “Law and Order” or “Intervention.”

Like I said, no good excuses.

I will say, though, that I have written a number of posts in my head, taken a number of pictures for said posts (that become corrupted, damn you technology) but it just never made it on here. So I’m sorry. That’s that.

This post I’ve been thinking about for a week, when this cat came in. Rusty Thomas. I’m completely a dog person, but this cat stole my heart. He really is a special animal. All owners say that when they bring their pets in, but Rusty Thomas, he’s…different.

He came in as a new patient, he hadn’t eaten for a couple of days. We ran a bevy of tests on him, but nothing obvious seemed to be wrong. So our new doctor, Dr. L, admitted him for observation.

It turns out that the woman who brought him in, Iris, is actually the owner’s aunt. The owner of the cat is a teenage girl whose father died two years ago. Before he passed away, he gave his daughter this cat. Iris told us that they could not lose the cat. It would be too much loss for the family to take. We had to save Rusty Thomas.

Iris is an eccentric woman, and at first, we all thought of her as a high-maintenance client. She brought in toys and blankets for Rusty T to have during his hospital stay, but she also brought a boombox with a Meditation CD. She claimed that while she did yoga and meditated, Rusty T would likewise meditate, and she requested that we play it for him.

Rusty Thomas continued to not eat. So, we were forced to insert a feeding tube into his esophagus, and four times a day, we make a paste like food and insert it slowly through his feeding tube. During this time, I like to take him out of his cage and place him on the main treatment table. He’s a good cat that just sits there while I prepare his feeding. I turn on the meditation tape, and we listen to a rather monotone woman talk about breathing, about letting go of thoughts and emotions. Rusty sits still, purring away, staring off into the distance. Our feeding time together is so peaceful.

He quickly became a joke around the office. Some started referring to him as the “yoga cat,” and Dr. S will holler with pent-up rage if he hears the meditation tape playing.

“If I have to hear that woman’s voice one more time, I’m going to break that boombox!” he’ll bellow. If anyone needs to get in touch with the Buddha, it’s that man.

But with all that mocking, this cat has had a noticeable effect on the office. Last Wednesday, I was doing his feeding, listening to the tape. The woman was telling us to breathe deeply, to focus on the breath, to feel the breath. I looked up to see everyone in the room quiet, not just quiet, but they were all breathing deeply, all in sync with each other and with the meditative instructions of the woman. The only sound was the rumbling purr of Rusty Thomas.

So we found a way to feed the cat, the only problem now was that he wasn’t pooping. We were waiting until he had a nice BM before we sent him home. At last, it came. And you have never seen a group of people happier about a cat pooping than our office on that day. He could go home to his new-age family that loved him.

He was discharged yesterday afternoon, but I fed him in the morning. It was 8:30AM, and the office was quiet. I was exhausted from working so much the last week. Since I was alone, I told Rusty Thomas how much I was going to miss him, and how happy I was that he was finally pooping. That fat cat curled up into my arms while I pushed a slurry of cat food into his tube. I put my head against his back and listened to the motorcycle-like thrum of purring. We breathed in and out together.

Oh, Rusty Thomas, I hope everything works out well for you in Yonkers. Namaste.

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Crane

5 Jul

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I didn’t have any big plans for the fourth of July this year. I expected I’d get together with some amalgamation of friends, drink beer, sit in the sun, watch fireworks. It would be nice. But when my boss asked me to work the holiday shift, I sighed and said yes. This is life at the bottom of the totem pole.

So I worked 8am till 8pm on the fourth of July, and it was a relatively slow day. There was a rush between two and five where we had a slew of emergencies come in. We even performed a surgery, the name of which I can’t remember. In layman’s terms, we sewed a cut on a Vizzla’s nose under light sedation. Oh, we also saw a cat with ringworm. So we were all scrubbing ourselves like crazy and bleaching every inch of the hospital. I’m still itchy and constantly checking my skin for lesions. So far, so good!

Most of my day was taken up by the gentleman pictured above. Crane.

Crane is a bulldog. Crane is a hot mess. His owner is kind of a jerk, but he’s wealthy and travels constantly. So Crane boards with us often. So often that when Crane’s owner walks him into the clinic, all he has to do is unleash him and Crane marches straight to the back area of the hospital, through all the swinging doors and walks up to a cage and waits for us to let him in. He knows the drill. So on Tuesday when we heard a loud thump through the doors of treatment and heard labored, phlegmy breathing, we all just looked up and said, “Oh hey Crane.”

Where do I start with his issues? He’s not castrated, so he has prostrate issues and urinates everywhere. He has dermatitis in his face folds. His eyes give off this thick green discharge, as do his ears and nose. He overheats easily and makes creative breathing noises. He requires so much care. Most everyone at the hospital finds him amusing but chooses not to deal with him, because he is simply disgusting. The only one who really loves Crane is Christine who is out on maternity leave. So with her gone, I had to step up.

He requires treatments almost every hour of the day. He has different pills to take, different ointments, drops, cleaning routines. He’s nearly blind, so he doesn’t like to leave his cage. I often have to climb into his cage with him and scruff him by his folds to get his eye drops in. He hates having his face folds cleaned, but I must. Crane, I must!! So I have to wrassle his head still while he snorts and spews weird bodily fluids all over me, and I try my damnedest to get into those folds with some wipes which quickly turn brown and black from the debris that gets caught there. Crane is a full-time job.

After it slowed down on the fourth, I sat idly flipping through his chart, the catalog of issues, and I got to wondering how happy he can be. I thought I was alone in the hospital so I went over to his cage and squatted in front of it, just looking in at this disgusting, slobbering mess, thinking about his life.

But I wasn’t alone. Rob, a kennel staff member, was there. He was reading his book out of boredom when I asked him, “Do you think Crane’s happy?”
“Of course he is. It’s Crane. Why wouldn’t he be?”
“I don’t know. He’s gross and weird and has all these problems and no one pays attention to him. That’s gotta get him down.”
“He’s Crane, though. He is what he is, and he’s happy. He doesn’t know any better.”
I looked down at Crane, listening to the gurgling of his brachiocephalic trachea pushing air in and out with such effort. He thumped to the floor and started licking his paws, slobbering over them.
“He’s totally happy, Chrissy. C’mon, it’s obvious.”

So I let myself believe that, as I take the time to take care of Crane. Somebody has to love and take care of the messes of the world. Right?

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New Jobs Suck

12 Jun

Nail trims are the most dangerous things we do. Here’s proof.

My job as a technician isn’t new. I’ve been training at it for months. But, now I’m full-time. When they offered me the position a couple of weeks ago, they put me in the tutelage of my co-worker Christine who was due to give birth the first week of July. Dr. Z (the practice owner) very firmly told me that I had two months to “sponge Christine’s two years of college-level tech training and her 16 years of experience. You must become the best technician.”

One and a half weeks into my intensive training, Christine is out on bed-rest, and I am completely unprepared. I am a perfectionist. I hate not doing things well and starting a new job kills me. I hate being discombobulated and feeling useless.

Last week went really well. Christine is an awesome trainer. I was inserting catheters in pit bulls, intubating poodles, running ear swab cytologies, setting up ultrasound equipment and scrubbing in a dog for a nasty gastrotomy. I was feeling amazing. Drawing blood from the jugular vein of a cat? That ain’t no thang.

I don’t know what was wrong today. All I could think of is watching Mariner’s games where Felix Hernandez doesn’t pitch well. He’s such an amazing pitcher with exceeding talent, but sometimes things are off, and it gets into his head, and he pitches a shitty game. Today, I pitched a shitty game.

I made so many simple mistakes. I was tripping over myself, and I felt like I spent most of the day just standing around taking up space. It makes matters so much worse that Dr. S, the vet that once told me he’d help me in my path to becoming a vet tech and that he had complete faith in me, now wants me gone. He was happy when I quit, and I only got the tech position because of Dr. Z and Christine’s efforts. He glares at me. He snaps at me. But most of the time, he pretends like I’m not there. The man hates me for a lot of inconsequential and silly reasons. Stupid metaphor, but I feel like the dog that keeps getting kicked.

It got into my head. I’m my own worst enemy when it comes to criticism, and I’ll beat the shit out of myself mentally when I make mistakes. At some point in the afternoon I was running an ear swab cytology for Dr. R. I could not for the life of me focus the microscope. I kept checking the oil lens, readjusting, making sure the slide was in place. It just wasn’t happening, and Dr. S was standing nearby staring me down while flipping through his charts. I felt like crying. But I didn’t. I just kept focusing until I found the swabs I was looking for. But it took forever. Dr. R appeared at my side.
“How’s that slide coming? Got a yeast party for me?”
“Um, the left ear has tw0 to three yeast per field with occasional cocci, but I’m still checking the right ear. I’m so sorry it’s taking so long.”
“No worries. Listen, you are doing fine. It sucks that Christine had to leave early, but if you need help, I’m here. I’ve been exactly where you are. I can answer any of your questions.”
It was reassuring, but I hate being so helpless.

After that I held a Cairn Terrier for my co-worker Daryl to cut his nails. The dog started flipping out the second Daryl touched its paws. I tightened my grip and braced myself. This dog was going crazy. I had the dog in a muzzle and a headlock to keep him from biting us, but his foot got up under my arm and sliced me (see above.) I’ve been scratched a million times before, so I didn’t think anything of it until another technician Clive walked by.
“Woah, he got you!” I looked down at the gashes in my arm, gushing blood. No dog had ever broken skin before. Clive and Daryl started clapping.
“Welcome to being a technician! You are one of us now!” They patted me on the back and started to show me all their scars.

I’ve been staring at that stinging wound all day. I rolled up my sleeves on the subway so everyone could see.

I was a shitty barista at first, and my boss wouldn’t let me anywhere near a steam wand. Now I can make you gorgeous latte art and the silkiest milk imaginable. I was originally dead weight with the Mariners, but I ended up running my own kiosk and raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars for the team I love.

I am a technician now. It’s just going to take a while before I’m a really really good one. But I will be. I’ll be the Felix Hernandez of veterinary technicians.

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