Finding the Wackiness In Everything
Dec. 10th, 2004 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyspriteEvery job has its ups and downs, but sometimes it seems like this is magnified in veterinary medicine. The rewards are amazing - I actually get paid to spend my days cuddling puppies and kittens, playing peekaboo with parrots, saving lives, and getting endearing cards with painfully adorable photos thanking me for being the special caretaker of peoples' beloved pets. On the down side, there's animal cruelty, defensive medicine, suffering that could have been prevented with an ounce of intelligence or attention, and euthanasia.
The last one is the hardest to categorize. In some ways, it's a good thing. I get to end pain and suffering, and give closure. On the other hand, death is death. And people ask me, from time to time, how I deal with it.
There are a lot of ways that I deal. Sometimes it just helps to allow it to hurt for a little while. Having a strong support group helps more than I can say, too, and so does reminding myself of the puppies and kittens, and all of the cases that turned out well. But the first and foremost tool in the veterinary arsenal is humor. Sick, twisted, morbid, grotesque humor, and the ability to turn the most unpleasant situation into a wacky anecdote once it's over.
So. Given that things have been rough lately, and that I need a reminder of the strange beauty of my career, and that I could use some cheering up, I feel the overwhelming need to write up the story of the Worstest Euthanasia Ever.
Before anyone gets the wrong idea, let me make it clear that I take euthanasia very seriously, and that I do my best to be as compassionate as possible, both to my patients and my clients. Unfortunately, this tends to result in me being the doctor to whom all of the challenging emotional cases are punted. In this case in particular, I had been asked to perform a housecall for euthansia on a particularly old, tough, leathery dog with fairly severe heart disease. The client was one I had worked with, and I had done one housecall before, and it had gone fairly well. Admittedly, old tough leathery dogs are hard to handle, but I was full of confidence in my own skills. 'What could possibly go wrong?' I thought to myself.
I have since stricken that sentence from my vocabulary.
I packed my little bag of death at the end of my shift that evening, and headed with a technician to the client's house. Upon entering, I was immediately clobbered over the head with a wall of floral stench. Apparently the client had decided that the harshness of electric lights was inappropriate for such a somber occasion, and had instead decided to illuminate the house with no less than a dozen gardenia-scented Yankee Candles. (For those unfamiliar with these products, one is enough to strongly scent a large room, and two will cover an entire house in cloying waves of flowery smoke.)
She had also invited a neighbor over to keep her company during the event. I am very much in favor of having emotional support during such a trying event - family and friends are incredibly helpful. However, this particular neighbor was somewhere past ninety years old, nearsighted, mostly deaf, and insisted on referring to me as 'Little Girl' through the entire proceedings, in a particularly loud and shrill voice.
I eventually managed to find the dog, and almost cried. His heart failure had progressed to a point where fluid was building up, not just in his lungs, but under his skin. The practical result of this was that the vein in the forelimb that we usually use for giving injections was not merely invisible, but submerged under at least a centimeter of watery fluid, making it functionally impossible to find. In addition to this, the fluid in his lungs and general discomfort had made the dog restless, and he insisted on pacing around the house in circles. Any attempt to hold him still made him extraordinarily agitated, which made his breathing even more erratic and his owner even more distraught. Ultimately, she insisted that I just follow him, and attempt to poke him as he wandered through the room.
This culminated in the scene of me crawling through a miasma of flickery gardenia-stench on my knees chasing a panting geriatric pooch through the house with a syringe full of pink death-juice while the ancient banshee from next door screeched 'Little Girl! Little girl! Are you sure you know what you're doing, little girl?' and my technician hid in a corner trying to turn invisible.
After what felt like an hour, the dog finally wore itself out and lay down, and the client consented to turn on enough light for me to see what I was doing, and the procedure was completed as smoothly as possible under the circumstances. Tears were shed, puppy stories and photos were shared, thanks were given, and the tech and I conveyed the dear departed to my car, where it promptly spilled bloody death fluids all over my upholstery and my new winter coat.
I'm sure the client, if she noticed us waiting outside, figured that we were engaging in some sort of ritual body preparation. I hope she didn't realize that we were, in fact, laughing until we cried. Sometimes I really do think I live in a sitcom....
The last one is the hardest to categorize. In some ways, it's a good thing. I get to end pain and suffering, and give closure. On the other hand, death is death. And people ask me, from time to time, how I deal with it.
There are a lot of ways that I deal. Sometimes it just helps to allow it to hurt for a little while. Having a strong support group helps more than I can say, too, and so does reminding myself of the puppies and kittens, and all of the cases that turned out well. But the first and foremost tool in the veterinary arsenal is humor. Sick, twisted, morbid, grotesque humor, and the ability to turn the most unpleasant situation into a wacky anecdote once it's over.
So. Given that things have been rough lately, and that I need a reminder of the strange beauty of my career, and that I could use some cheering up, I feel the overwhelming need to write up the story of the Worstest Euthanasia Ever.
Before anyone gets the wrong idea, let me make it clear that I take euthanasia very seriously, and that I do my best to be as compassionate as possible, both to my patients and my clients. Unfortunately, this tends to result in me being the doctor to whom all of the challenging emotional cases are punted. In this case in particular, I had been asked to perform a housecall for euthansia on a particularly old, tough, leathery dog with fairly severe heart disease. The client was one I had worked with, and I had done one housecall before, and it had gone fairly well. Admittedly, old tough leathery dogs are hard to handle, but I was full of confidence in my own skills. 'What could possibly go wrong?' I thought to myself.
I have since stricken that sentence from my vocabulary.
I packed my little bag of death at the end of my shift that evening, and headed with a technician to the client's house. Upon entering, I was immediately clobbered over the head with a wall of floral stench. Apparently the client had decided that the harshness of electric lights was inappropriate for such a somber occasion, and had instead decided to illuminate the house with no less than a dozen gardenia-scented Yankee Candles. (For those unfamiliar with these products, one is enough to strongly scent a large room, and two will cover an entire house in cloying waves of flowery smoke.)
She had also invited a neighbor over to keep her company during the event. I am very much in favor of having emotional support during such a trying event - family and friends are incredibly helpful. However, this particular neighbor was somewhere past ninety years old, nearsighted, mostly deaf, and insisted on referring to me as 'Little Girl' through the entire proceedings, in a particularly loud and shrill voice.
I eventually managed to find the dog, and almost cried. His heart failure had progressed to a point where fluid was building up, not just in his lungs, but under his skin. The practical result of this was that the vein in the forelimb that we usually use for giving injections was not merely invisible, but submerged under at least a centimeter of watery fluid, making it functionally impossible to find. In addition to this, the fluid in his lungs and general discomfort had made the dog restless, and he insisted on pacing around the house in circles. Any attempt to hold him still made him extraordinarily agitated, which made his breathing even more erratic and his owner even more distraught. Ultimately, she insisted that I just follow him, and attempt to poke him as he wandered through the room.
This culminated in the scene of me crawling through a miasma of flickery gardenia-stench on my knees chasing a panting geriatric pooch through the house with a syringe full of pink death-juice while the ancient banshee from next door screeched 'Little Girl! Little girl! Are you sure you know what you're doing, little girl?' and my technician hid in a corner trying to turn invisible.
After what felt like an hour, the dog finally wore itself out and lay down, and the client consented to turn on enough light for me to see what I was doing, and the procedure was completed as smoothly as possible under the circumstances. Tears were shed, puppy stories and photos were shared, thanks were given, and the tech and I conveyed the dear departed to my car, where it promptly spilled bloody death fluids all over my upholstery and my new winter coat.
I'm sure the client, if she noticed us waiting outside, figured that we were engaging in some sort of ritual body preparation. I hope she didn't realize that we were, in fact, laughing until we cried. Sometimes I really do think I live in a sitcom....
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-11 03:55 am (UTC)I can sympathize
Date: 2004-12-11 05:27 am (UTC)Death be not proud...
Date: 2004-12-11 08:38 am (UTC)You would think the image of my naked, dead grandmother would have scarred me (hell, you'd think the image of my naked grandmother would be bad enough!) but actually I really only remember the faces of the two men -- sort of "caught in the act"...
no subject
Date: 2004-12-11 11:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-11 08:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-12 03:42 am (UTC)I have since stricken that sentence from my vocabulary.
Good idea. In my experience, uttering those words or even thinking them too smugly causes the Dire Dice of Destiny to land on you both sixes down.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-13 05:17 am (UTC)Random Death Quote
Date: 2004-12-13 01:10 pm (UTC)The absurd lurks in even the darkest of corners of life, as you have ably demonstrated. Tragedy and Comedy are siamese twins, one turning to the other at the drop of a hat.
To tell the truth, what the above reminded me of was the euthenasia scene from 'Soylent Green' where the old man is wheeled into a chamber with soft lights and music and projections of beautiful landscapes. At least in your case the dog didn't have to become food!
Rob
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 09:26 pm (UTC)