Reason No. 6: I believe in miracles

Every once in awhile, there are cases that no one can seem to help. With every remedy comes additional complications until we are reminded with the stunning reminder that every one of the multitudes of living creatures on this Earth are decidedly mortal. All the medications in the world can't save an animal whose time it is. But sometimes, just sometimes, we're lucky enough to witness an event that renews our hopes that we can beat death yet. Or maybe not really beat death, but to deliver a sense of justice to the force that takes away what should be ours. This is the case with Jessie. She was a relatively young Dachshund that came in as an ADR (Ain't Doing Right). Her owner had noticed a few out of characteristic behaviors that pointed to something not being right. But Jessie was bright eyed and a real friendly girl. There was no fever and subsequent radiographs, and in house bloodwork showed nothing that pointed to any sort of real cause. Thus being the tried and true method of administering some fluids and monitoring her was applied.

The next morning we received a frantic call from her owner that simply stated that she was coming in with Jessie. All of us wondered what could of possibly happened, as most of us agreed that the little dog seemed fine the night before. Jessie came paralyzed in her hind legs and yet her tail was still wagging, and she was trying in vain to get around. The main doctor went in and talked long and hard with the owner. She gave her estimates for back surgery and gave her time to think about it. Coming back in to see the decision, the owner knew that she could not afford to give Jessie the surgery to correct her back injury and tearily explained that she would opt to put Jessie to sleep. At that point the doctor closed the door behind her, protesting that there was no reason to do that just yet. Subsequently it was decided that Jessie would be staying with us over the holidays and would be under the vigilant care of the nurses and kennel staff on a plethora of steriods and medications to try and remedy her situation.

For the first week she was with us, there seemed to be no improvement and in fact there seemed to be more of a degregation in her status. It seems that she could not urinate on her own, a complication to the paralysis. The muscles that allowed her to urinate could not be told to relax and therefore we could not even force the urine out of her on palpation. So she was placed on Prazosin to allow her to urinate. Even still, she was a happy little girl, and never was seen sleeping or hiding from us. She wanted to be held and would paw at the cage when we came over. At our lunch breaks or when things were slow we would hold her while doing menial tasks.

At the beginning of this week, it was announced that the doctors had spoken with Jessie's mother and if there was no improvement she would be humanely euthanized on this coming Monday. All of us protested this, and yet understood that for a dog, being this handicapped was not a good quality of life. We looked into alternative methods, such as the carts that have helped dogs with amputated limbs. But these carts were rather expensive, and since we knew Jessie's mom didn't have the money for a surgery, the chances that she could afford a cart were slim to none. All of us were thinking that it was rather shameful since she was such a little trooper and was still bright-eyed and happy.

On Tuesday she began to kind of walk.

On Wednesday she could walk with some difficulty. And she continues to improve.


I want to be a vet because I believe in miracles.

Reason No. 5: Discovering good in the bad

Monday's can be hellish in the right circumstances. There's usually surgeries, as well as only two doctors. So while one doctor is doing surgeries, the other is basically going room to room to room. It stresses everyone out, and usually, everyone is rather irritated by the smallest things. Needless to say, when everyone is stressed out, overworked and under appreciated we can get rather irritated over the slightest things. Usually this is about our clients. Rarely it's about the patients. Anyways, this woman came in, and after a relatively steady afternoon wanted vaccinations for her dogs. We hadn't seen these two sweet dogs in over a year so I calmly explained every shot they were due for, as well as the fact that we couldn't give them a shot without having a doctor examine them.

After a three ring circus, she agrees to the exams and 1 shot per dog. We've all run around like mad people, shaking our heads, giving empathy for having to deal with this woman and in general being annoyed at the whole fiasco. Finally I'm able to grab a doctor, and I go into the room to get the dogs up on the lift. Anyways, we start talking, because its awkward not to talk to the client while waiting for the doctors. Most of them share a little about their dogs or their lives. It's idle chatter but good nonetheless. She asks about school. I explain that I'm done with my undergrad but applying to vet school. She asks the standard questions: How long does it take? Where did I apply? Have I heard anything yet? I give her the answers and she sits back, eyeing me beneath a thin line of fake eyebrow. You're smart to do that. Study while you're young and then you can have whatever you want. The honesty and the sheer confidence in me from a stranger was heartening. I suppose it's because I don't often hear things like that from the people around me. Yes they are supportive, but out-of-the-blue encouraging is rare and far between. Anyways, I suppose the moral of this little story is that even the most frustrating of people in this world have something to offer. Even the most annoying woman can make your day a little bit brighter with just a few words of encouragement.

I want to be a vet because sometimes there is a lot of good in the bad.