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oh FINALLY

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Long Suffering Boyfriend: 101 Bulldogs

It’s often said that nobody other than other veterinarians know what we truly go through. This isn’t helped by the fact that we’re often barred from discussing our work in civilized company and so we often don’t talk about these things, even with our nearest and dearest.

As a recent graduate I had explained to my dear Long Suffering Boyfriend (LSB) that my days at work were busy, hectic and fast. The message he absorbed from these descriptions was that I sometimes didn’t manage to eat lunch until 4pm. So he decided one day that he was going to be Best BoyfriendTM and bring me lunch at the clinic. A gourmet sandwich he’d made himself. He was going to show up right on 1pm and make me stop work for five minutes to eat this delicious food, and make all the other staff members insanely jealous.

At least, that was his cunning plan.

When he walked through the staff entrance into the back of the clinic, he was not greeted with adoration and delight. 

He was greeted by a stern veterinary nurse with all the attitude of an army sergeant.

“Excellent. You! Take this!” she commanded, whisking my future lunch onto the bench and thrusting a towel into my LSB’s hands. Before he knew what was happening, he was dragged into the surgical suite.

“Here honey, catch!” I greeted him, not bothering to question his unexpected appearance and plopping a fresh bulldog puppy into his hands, still coated in amniotic membranes, before I returned to retrieving its siblings from the caesarean in front of me.

He would go on to describe the subsequent events as “Like 101 Dalmatians but with newborn bulldog puppies!”

He was swiftly educated in puppy resuscitation, learning how to rub them to stimulate breathing and how to make a makeshift oxygen crib out of a rectal glove.

The puppies just kept coming and coming. Twelve bulldog puppies revived by my two nurses and LSB. That uterus was more packed than a clown car. Let me tell you there is an art to stimulating four newborn puppies at a time to breathe properly. There were puppies everywhere, on tables and the counter. The sandwich was swiftly moved as more bench space was required.

While everyone was glad to see him, this was not the outcome he had been expecting when he walked into the clinic.

He did, however, refuse to leave the clinic until I’d eaten at least one bite.

I asked him what the one stand out lesson from the experience was. He said that “they’re weird and gross but it’s strange how quickly they go to cute and snuggly fuzzles as soon as they’re dry”. Also that bringing me lunch was appreciated, but pointnless.

I think he enjoyed it, really.

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Just One Litter

Fridays were a mad house at my first job. Not only was the main clinic super busy between people who had let problems fester all week because they wanted to see if it would get better, but now wanted it fixed for the weekend, and people who simply preferred their pet’s elective surgery performed on a Friday so they could have two whole days to supervise them immediately afterwards, but we also had all the sick cases transferred to us from the branch practices. All the sick cases needed something done, whether it was treatment or diagnostics, and since they all arrived at the same time after 6 in the evening, things got hectic.

There is a phenomenon in veterinary medicine called the ‘Friday Night Specials’. These are the cases that present on a Friday night, usually at the last possible moment, that need a huge amount of workup to treatment, and there goes your evening/weekend plans out the window. Often they are something that should have been dealt with a day or more before, like a diabetic in ketoacidosis or a cat with a urethral blockage.

Tonight, it sounded like an emergency caesarian case was on the phone and had no money.

It might seem heartless, but the reality of veterinary medicine is that most people who get payment plans through the clinic simply don’t pay. A vet clinic runs as a small business, it has large overheads and constant downward price pressure because we’re all softies and genuinely do want to save animals, but the practice at the time had over $100k owed to it by people who were all promising to pay on payday, and had been for weeks, months or years.

So it is vital that we establish, before treatment begins, that yes there will be a bill and it is expected to be paid. I was given the phone to explain this, and quickly ascertained the situation.

This was a bull mastiff cross’s first litter and there was at least ten puppies in there.

She’d been pushing for hours and was becoming distressed.

This was a planned pregnancy, to let the dog ‘experience motherhood’.

Their usual vet had performed an ultrasound in early pregnancy, and an Xray to count the puppies last week.

But, they would not perform a caesarian without payment on the day.

They had not mentioned at any point what a caesarian was likely to cost

The other vet clinic had sent her to us under the pretense that ‘we do payment plans’.

She now had the dog in our carpark and was bringing her in.

Keep reading

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Did some exams on transferred in guinea pigs. This one ous every so slightly immensely pregnant. Based on the size of the fetus I palpated, she’s hoping to pop in under a week.

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ok I thought the sir thing might have been „I’m a nervous 19 yo intern and I want to be polite“ but it’s been like 29 years and this little cunt is still going SIR :3 at every fucking opportunity he can I hate him so much

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BRUH YOUR SON OR SOMETJING IS DYING CAN YOU SHUT UP 😭

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ok they shot someone. May I ask who

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ok they shot someone. May I ask who

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AUGH.

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fact: day old guinea pigs are 90% head.

Fact: my job is sometimes the best job ever.

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promising??

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my guinea pig agrees that Alexander is a piece of shit

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how have you been?

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I KNOW THIS SONG THATS FIRST BURN

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PLEASE let the last few songs be good I’m begging

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now THAT was what I was expecting of this musical

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OH MY GOD A GOOD PART HOLY SHIT