surreal work moment: the male dalmation with urethral and bladder stones, unable to do more than trickle, sedated and held down by 2 technicians while the doctor tried unsuccessfully to catheterize. "i need an extruder!" she barked, and i was the lucky, gloveless one to lean over the dog's piss-dampened body and unsheath its penis... for what ended up being about 15 minutes... as the other new doctor, a surgeon a mere 4 years older than myself (very quiet guy... kisses the asses of the dvms, ignores the nurses...) fiddled around with another catheter... all of us ended up being covered in various layers of lube, urine, dalmation hair, and saline. never did get the fucking thing passed. cost constraints... euthanized. i did a urinalysis afterwards. unneutered, 10 years old... the sample was filled with tiny urate crystals and many motionless sperm. canine sperm looks exactly the way a photograph of human sperm does.
and as i stood there, hand cramping, slightly cyanotic and unspeakably ugly dog penis drying out in my hand, i thought about how peculiar my vocation is. i had that thought again today as the 40#, dead weight spaniel i was holding proceeded to urinate all over my shoe. or when i was syrine-feeding a baby squirrel. or when i was doing a cardiac stick to euthanize a stray cat with a maggot-filled abscessed foot. at one point one of the techs emerged from surgery (pylorectomy on toodles the poodle) and loudly proclaimed that the treatment area "smelled like butt."
but as i was driving home, through the forgiving glow of downtown seattle, "ride on" played, my favorite ac/dc song, and i got a renewed burst of energy... or a boost of morale, at least. 'tis the li'l things.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment