Wacky Veterinary Adventures, Number 162
Jul. 12th, 2004 08:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyspriteI love my career. It is fascinating, and exciting, and challenging, and different every day. Sometimes it's frustrating and painful, sometimes it's sad or silly, sometimes it's heartwarming and cheerful. And sometimes it's just plain twisted.
Part of working in a field dedicated to saving lives is coming to terms with death as a day-to-day occurance. Death is an unpleasant part of the job, but it's always going to be there, and there are practical as well as emotional factors to consider. We always strive to be as serious and compassionate as possible, and to treat both the client and the patient with respect and dignity. That said, sometimes the absurdity of a situation breaks through that solemnity, and you have to laugh to avoid going mad.
When a patient passes away, we have a service that comes to pick up the bodies and take them to a pet crematory. Unfortunately, they can't be there constantly just in case something dies - they come once or twice a week, usually, and we store the bodies in a freezer until then. It sounds morbid, and I guess it is. We don't have the funds or facilities of a human hospital, to give each critter its own private cubby; the bodies are individually bagged and then placed in one big communal freezer that's maybe a little bigger and taller than a twin bed. Most of the time this is no problem.
Some days, though, it seems like the clinic is having a special focus on death in all its many variants. Terminal illness, DOA emergencies, trauma, euthanasia, and every possible variant of those themes. Somehow, this always seems to happen when the crematory's pick-up service has closed for the weekend, and somehow it always seems to involve large, unwieldy animals. Last weekend was one of those times, and the practical result of this was an entertaining game we cheerfully refer to as 'Death Tetris.'
The first few bodies came in, and were taken care of with as much respect and dignity as possible, placed rather randomly in the freezer. Then the next three arrived, and we started to worry. By late morning, as we tried to arrange a rottweiler, a labrador, three or four cats, a disturbingly large iguana, and a poodle in a rather cramped cube, things had become rather ridiculous. As I tried to write up charts in the next room, I could hear the nurses debating the most geometrically feasible positions.
"Maybe if we put the big dogs on the bottom, and then tuck the others in the corners?"
"Lie the rottie on his back, then put the iguana on his tummy and the cats in a row next to him?"
"No, not face down, then there's empty room under him that we can't fill...."
"Damn, take them all out again - the front desk just called back, and Mrs. Jones is bringing in her german shepherd who died at home. Do you think we could fit him in the space we left for the poodle, if we.... um... folded him, kinda?"
I think it was at that point that I went in to try to help, and we all wound up on the floor somewhere between laughing and crying. There's really nothing else you can do, in that sort of situation....
It could have been worse, though, all things considered. I have been the head player in enough games of Death Tetris to learn that, on the days that the universe truly hates you, you will get the freezer packed and filled and closed and done just in time for the Smith family to come by the clinic and decide that they want to see Foofoo one last time to say goodbye. Under normal circumstances this is no problem - frozen animals aren't the most cuddly to pet, but we do our best to put them away in a fairly natural, curled-up position just in case. Not on Tetris days, though. Those days, it always turns out that Foofoo is sandwiched between two mastiffs, frozen solid with one leg pointing straight up where you wedged it into the corner and another hind leg snugged up under his chin, and both front paws wrapped behind his back, leaving you sitting in the lab desperately attacking the dog with hair dryers in an attempt to thaw him into pose-ability while the receptionists stall the owners at the front desk.
All of this is done, of course, with respect and dignity. For the animals, if not for the doctors and nurses ourselves. Then again, I traded in my dignity for a pocket full of kittens and a 'Dr. Becky' name tag some time ago. All things considered, I think it was a fair trade.
Part of working in a field dedicated to saving lives is coming to terms with death as a day-to-day occurance. Death is an unpleasant part of the job, but it's always going to be there, and there are practical as well as emotional factors to consider. We always strive to be as serious and compassionate as possible, and to treat both the client and the patient with respect and dignity. That said, sometimes the absurdity of a situation breaks through that solemnity, and you have to laugh to avoid going mad.
When a patient passes away, we have a service that comes to pick up the bodies and take them to a pet crematory. Unfortunately, they can't be there constantly just in case something dies - they come once or twice a week, usually, and we store the bodies in a freezer until then. It sounds morbid, and I guess it is. We don't have the funds or facilities of a human hospital, to give each critter its own private cubby; the bodies are individually bagged and then placed in one big communal freezer that's maybe a little bigger and taller than a twin bed. Most of the time this is no problem.
Some days, though, it seems like the clinic is having a special focus on death in all its many variants. Terminal illness, DOA emergencies, trauma, euthanasia, and every possible variant of those themes. Somehow, this always seems to happen when the crematory's pick-up service has closed for the weekend, and somehow it always seems to involve large, unwieldy animals. Last weekend was one of those times, and the practical result of this was an entertaining game we cheerfully refer to as 'Death Tetris.'
The first few bodies came in, and were taken care of with as much respect and dignity as possible, placed rather randomly in the freezer. Then the next three arrived, and we started to worry. By late morning, as we tried to arrange a rottweiler, a labrador, three or four cats, a disturbingly large iguana, and a poodle in a rather cramped cube, things had become rather ridiculous. As I tried to write up charts in the next room, I could hear the nurses debating the most geometrically feasible positions.
"Maybe if we put the big dogs on the bottom, and then tuck the others in the corners?"
"Lie the rottie on his back, then put the iguana on his tummy and the cats in a row next to him?"
"No, not face down, then there's empty room under him that we can't fill...."
"Damn, take them all out again - the front desk just called back, and Mrs. Jones is bringing in her german shepherd who died at home. Do you think we could fit him in the space we left for the poodle, if we.... um... folded him, kinda?"
I think it was at that point that I went in to try to help, and we all wound up on the floor somewhere between laughing and crying. There's really nothing else you can do, in that sort of situation....
It could have been worse, though, all things considered. I have been the head player in enough games of Death Tetris to learn that, on the days that the universe truly hates you, you will get the freezer packed and filled and closed and done just in time for the Smith family to come by the clinic and decide that they want to see Foofoo one last time to say goodbye. Under normal circumstances this is no problem - frozen animals aren't the most cuddly to pet, but we do our best to put them away in a fairly natural, curled-up position just in case. Not on Tetris days, though. Those days, it always turns out that Foofoo is sandwiched between two mastiffs, frozen solid with one leg pointing straight up where you wedged it into the corner and another hind leg snugged up under his chin, and both front paws wrapped behind his back, leaving you sitting in the lab desperately attacking the dog with hair dryers in an attempt to thaw him into pose-ability while the receptionists stall the owners at the front desk.
All of this is done, of course, with respect and dignity. For the animals, if not for the doctors and nurses ourselves. Then again, I traded in my dignity for a pocket full of kittens and a 'Dr. Becky' name tag some time ago. All things considered, I think it was a fair trade.
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Date: 2004-07-12 08:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-13 05:05 pm (UTC)