August 15, 2004
5:39 p.m.

I deffinately need a large 'S' tatooed on my forehead. I am such a sucker, and everyone at work knows it, darn it. Friday, I am grabbing my keys to walk out the door when Carol, Mandy, and Shannon all walk up with something wrapped in a towel. Carol smiles that smile that she uses when she is about to tell me that she has just scheduled us an appointment to express anal sacs at the end of the day. She just stands there, smiling, flanked by Shannon and Mandy looking as innocent as someone completely guilty can look. 'What?' I finally grunt out, wishing I had been a little quicker with the keys, because this was obviously going to be bad. Suddenly, the wrapped lump lets out a "MEOW." I instantly started shaking my head. I am about to start back to school, and I don't have any time as it is. 'But Heather, they're going to euthanize her!' How does it suddenly become my problem? Suddenly, a little head pokes out of the towel. 'Why can't someone else take her?' I got lots of different excuses, along with a 'MEOW!' With a loud grunt/growl, I took the three to four week old kitten and dared anyone to say a word. We were of course out of kitten milk, meaning I had to go to another vet clinic to get some. As I was grumbling about this fact, Carol told me she had two dollars she would give me. Talk about a guilt trip. I told her not to worry about it, and took the little ball of fluff home. She is doing great, and as long as she tests negative for feline leukemia, and feline aids, I think she should be fine. I am going to try and find her a home, there is an older cat at the clinic that I would rather take, just because he is less likely to find a home than a cute kitten. We'll see what happens. I am such a sucker.

Had a horse try to take Dr. C's head off on Monday. Scared me to death. It was a six month old colt that we were checking an eye on. While we were there, the owner asked if we could give him his vaccines. Well, he was okay for the first one, but reared up on the second one, so we twiched him. With the twitch, you take the horses upper lip, and wrap a rope around it. It is supposed to cause a release in endorphins, which calms the horse, almost like putting them into a trance. With the twich on, the colt did perfectly. When we were done, I went to take the twich off. As soon as it was loose, the horse turned toward Dr. C, and lunged at her, while rearing. His left hoof caught my hand, while his right caught his owners arm. He then raked is hoof along the side of Dr. C's body, including her head, while pushing her back into the wall. It's scary watching that, and feeling so helpless. Thankfully, other than a nasty headache, and a couple of scrapes, Dr. C was unharmed. My pinky ended up swelling and turning an interesting shade of purple, and the owner will be bruised as well. The colt earned himself a nice early castration.

Wednesday, we had a horse come in referred from another clinic for emergency colic surgery. It was near closing time, and since my Mom wasn't home, my dogs had not been out since six that morning. Colic surgeries can take four hours to do, and I really didn't want to clean up pee off my carpet. Dr. C let me go home to let my dogs out, and when I got back, the horse had arrived and was in the stocks. Dr. C was telling the owners taht it was pretty bad, and they were looking at around three thousand dollars for surgery, and she couldn't garuntee a good outcome. They finally decided to try fluid therapy. When we went to take the horse out of the stocks, she stumbled to her knees and had a lot of trouble getting up. Once she was up, she walked head on into the side of the trailer. Dr. C asked the owners if she was blind, to which they relplied that she was not. When we put her in the stall, she leaned all of her weight up against the wall, then started walking in circles. After a few moments, she started walking head on into the wall over and over again. I've see horses throw themselves against the wall in pain from colic, but never this neurologic type behavior. Dr. C then asked them if she was up to date on raibes and west nile vaccines, to which they replied she was over due. It became obvious that we were dealing with more than a colic, and the decision was made to euthanize, and send the horse off for necropsy.It was really hard to walk her to the grassy area where we euthanize because she was wobbly. It took three of us to get her to stop walking. When Dr. C gave her the euthanasia solution, she went fast, but instead of a nice easy fall, which I like, she cartwheeled head over heels twice before lying still. It was horrible, because the owners we watching and crying. I felt so bad for the lady, she brought the horse to us so we could try and save her, and all we could do was put her to sleep, and tell her she wasn't allowed to take the body home to bury it. I felt really low at that point. After they left, Dr. C was talking about needing to cut the horses head off to send it to test for rabies. I had to leave. I had to help with a cat once, and it was enough for me. I just feel like shit doing that to an animals body. I understand that's just how it works, but I couldn't do it. I really hope that it doesn't come back as rabies, considering my hands were all around her mouth. Just because I have been vaccinated doesn't mean I am completely not at risk. We shall see.

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