[Vaccination is vital not just for the health of our pets, but for our own health as well. Image courtesy of the WHO.]
Vaccination is a topic near and dear to my heart. I am a rabid (no pun intended) proponent of vaccination and particularly enjoy educating my clients on its importance. This letter is the first in a series which will hopefully shed some light on the myths, facts, and importance of routine vaccination not only for your pet’s health but also the health of all those around them.
[My year came to an end with a massive cold snap (-37C) and a callout delayed by a battery drained by the frozen weather. Luckily a friend came to my rescue, and I made a quick resolution to always make sure my car would start before taking call!.]
2018 is upon us, and resolutions are on everyone’s lips. While I’m not a real fan of New Year’s resolutions I have been recently mulling over some changes I’d like to make in my life. In this profession it’s easy to get lost in the job, but we do ourselves no favours when we stop separating work and play.
[A classic veterinary Christmas shot — ‘Santa’ was my veterinarian coworker-slash-roommate and the patient resisting the snuggles is ‘Pollywobbles’, a kitten I fostered while she recovered from a hypoxic brain injury. Turns out that getting a partially deaf and blind kitten to look at the camera is really hard.]
Christmas is fast approaching and with it comes the season of emergencies. After volunteering to take call for the week of Christmas and New Years this year, I found myself contemplating what the holiday season means in vet medicine and what I want clients to know — both to protect themselves and their pets, and to help them help us.
[I originally posted this image (a dog’s ear covered in ticks) on Facebook captioned “I guess he was a little…ticked off!” The dog was treated for tick infestation and at time of discharge was parasite-free!]
Black humor and other coping mechanisms are a fact of life in veterinary medicine. Sometimes I forget that not everyone sees things the same way we do. The above picture, much to my surprise, received quite a bit of flack for the pun in the caption. People were upset not because the pun was terrible (I will freely admit that!) but because they saw it as making light of an animal’s suffering. The sad fact is that veterinary medicine is full of suffering; whether you’re in general practice or specialty, wildlife or shelter medicine, spay/neuter or disaster relief, and we all find our own ways of dealing with it. I think I had forgotten that. For me, this was an interesting picture showcasing a heavy parasite infestation in a village dog. The dog was with us to be sterilized and treated. I knew that we would be alleviating his discomfort as well as we could. I also knew that in the weeks before and after I had seen and would see so much worse, from gangrenous legs to massive blunt trauma, emaciation and deliberately inflicted injury. And I knew that my sorrow, my discomfort, my anger, my personal emotions — none of that would help my patients.
[My beautiful senior Rupert, whose massive size didn’t stop him from trying to cram himself into the smallest beds possible. Padding (and a sweater for old, cold bones) helped a little.]
As the standard of pet care and the knowledge of veterinary medicine both grow with leaps and bounds, we’re seeing pets begin to live longer and longer lives. Our sweet seniors are no different than people as they age; the organic machinery of bodies begins to wear out and break down no matter how hard we work at supporting and repairing what we can. The golden years of our pets can be an uncertain time and one full of hard decisions, but it can also be some of the best times of our lives together — and a time when you can give back to your best friend all that they’ve given to you. As Cicero wrote, “Old age: the crown of life, our play’s last act.”
Appropriate pain control after this little kitten’s chest surgery meant a quick start on physical therapy and a fast return to health!
There’s a running joke in veterinary medicine that our job is harder than human medicine for two reasons, one: that we’re required to treat more than one species and two: that our patients can’t talk to us. While I have no interest in restarting the ‘who has it worse’ argument (especially with close family members who work in human medicine!) I do want to address one of the most difficult parts of veterinary medicine: the where does it hurt conundrum. How do you identify and treat pain in an animal which can’t tell you how much pain it’s in or even why?
Recall: they did not offer.
Recall: they did as they were asked
hoofbeats in the dust, dragging heavy burdens
the noiseless tread of swift paws, nosing among brush
for mines, the beat of wings below the clouds
passing messages where no one else could,
returning bloody and battered
or not at all–Recall: they did as they were told
ran beneath the cannonfire, into the guns
to bring back the wounded or stand at their side
until help could be found, carried their riders without question,
bore loads too great for any others through mud, rain, snow,
until they too, had fallen–Recall: they gave all they had
in body and soul, saved countless thousands
who in turn would save thousands more, recall
the love in a dog’s eyes and a gentle tongue when all else seemed lost,
the rusty purr, the softness of feathers,
the sweet scent of a horse’s breath–Recall: they did not offer
but were asked, and told, and gave all in return
for us, a sacrifice that we might know peace,
recall: the animals of war, who gave and gave again,
who never questioned why.
[No one, least of all the pet, likes the Cone of Shame. But it’s necessary…and up to you to make sure your pet keeps it on]
A common conversational topic among any group of veterinary personnel in any setting – work, conferences, even dinner – is clients. It makes sense. Although our work is nominally all about the animals it’s nearly impossible to have an animal without a client attached. A huge part of my job as a technician is interacting with clients in a variety of circumstances, good and bad. I take an initial history when you come in for an exam, discuss estimates for care, review medications and some test results, discuss homecare, and generally act as a resource and go-between for you and your veterinarian. I understand that our experiences together are not always easy; we see you during the panicked and stressful times of emergency, during financial hardship, family troubles, and at the end of your beloved pet’s life no matter when that time comes. I will never judge your sadness, your anxiety, your frustration. My job is to advocate for your pet. But with that said, there is one thing that comes up again and again in discussions, one thing that I hope all clients can keep in the back of their minds as they interact with their local vet services…
Hello, and welcome to Stethoscopes and Sunsets, a blog focusing on creative nonfiction and essays about life as a veterinary technician and my work with animals both on and off the job. The perspective of a vet tech is a unique one; our job is vital to the running of the hospital and comes with huge responsibility, yet is often overlooked as the clients deal mainly with the veterinarian and all too frequently brush us off as “just the tech.”
I want to change this. I want to shed light on an underappreciated profession and, more than that, I want to offer a new view on life in veterinary medicine. In these days of frequent misinformation and the dreaded Doctor Google, I want to educate and foster the trust between clients and their veterinary teams. I would like to humanize the faces behind the surgical masks, and speak honestly about not just the great joy that comes with animal medicine, but also the great pain. Our profession is a roller coaster, and I’d like to take you along on the ride.
Sunsets and Stethoscopes will update every Wednesday, alternating between educational essays and creative nonfiction about my life in vet med, my experiences volunteering with veterinary charities both in Canada and overseas, and the animals and humans who have touched my life.
So to kick us off…
“What Isn’t A Veterinary Technician” — in which we discuss the myriad ways your vet tech contributes to your pet’s care