Marketable Skills
Sep. 3rd, 2010 08:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyspriteFor the past couple of weeks, work has been fairly slow. I'm not surprised or concerned about this; it tends to happen at this time of year. People are focusing more on back-to-school and season change, and less on their pets, and the end result is that I wind up with more time at work spent reading journal articles and gossiping with the staff. It'll change again in a few more weeks.
However, this meant that I was a bit surprised to wind up spending my shift yesterday performing emergency transplant surgery on a sheep.
......well, sort of.
I work at the clinic in question on a fairly regular basis, and they have a very casual policy regarding staff bringing their pets to work, so the tech I work with tends to bring her dog with her most days. He's little, and cute, and friendly, and - other than his inordinate fondness for stuffed squeaky toys - harmless.
His favorite squeaky toy is a little stuffed sheep. Unfortunately, being his favorite, it has become rather.... well-loved and much played with. And while the story of the Velveteen Rabbit teaches us that toys that are well-loved and much played with by good children can eventually become Real, there's a good reason that it doesn't touch on dog toys. If anything, they have a tendency to turn into hideous, misshapen, drool-soaked Frankensteinian monstrosities.
So when I went into the office yesterday, I was unsurprised to see the little dog sitting half-under my chair with a brand new Squeaky Sheep, and the old, filthy, mutilated sheep about to head into the garbage. However, instead of happily prancing around with the constant SQUEAKA SQUEAKA SQUEAKA SQUEAKA SQUEAKA that has become the background music of my days at this office, he continued to just lie there with his new sheep, tail down, chewing on it halfheartedly as the sheep went *click* *click* *click*
I looked over at the tech, and she shrugged sadly, explaining that she had forgotten to test the new sheep and make sure it worked before giving it to him. I looked back at the forlorn little pooch, then at the old toy and, reminding myself that I had, in fact, touched more disgusting things in my life, poked it in the tummy.
SQUEAKA
The dog perked up immediately, then sighed and seemed to slump back down to his new toy.
*click*
I glanced at the schedule for my day, and registered the three-hour gap between appointments, then turned back to the tech. "I could.... you know. Just take the squeaker from the old one and put it into the new one, if you want...."
She brightened up and looked at me with surprise and wonder. "You could do that?!"
I refrained from telling her that, if I could perform surgery on a live animal I could most certainly push my way through it on a stuffed toy, and instead just asked her if they had any expired suture they were going to throw away, and a pair of non-sterile needleholders.
Within minutes, Old Sheep was laid open on the table in front of me, his squeaker pulled out and stuffing spilling around. Suture scissors made quick work of the main backseam on New Sheep, and I fished around inside its belly for a moment before pulling out the broken squeaker. Getting the new one to fit inside was a bit of a challenge, since I didn't want to thoroughly disembowel or mutilate my patient so early in its functional life, but eventually I managed to squish it in, pull some stuffing over it, and give it a gentle test squeeze to confirm function. Then, as in all surgeries, it was all over but the sewing, giving me flashbacks to the year in vet school that I practiced surgical instrument handling by doing all of my hobby embroidery using needleholders and thumb forceps.
I sewed the poor old donor sheep back together, out of sympathy - no one deserves to be thrown in the garbage with their stuffing hanging out - and as soon as the recipient recovered, I tossed it back to the loving jaws of my client, who jumped and danced with joy and proceeded to spend the next half hour parading through the hospital accompanied by a nonstop chorus of SQUEAKA SQUEAKA SQUEAKA SQUEAKA SQUEAKA.
It appeared my first squeakectomy and transplant was a success.
However, this meant that I was a bit surprised to wind up spending my shift yesterday performing emergency transplant surgery on a sheep.
......well, sort of.
I work at the clinic in question on a fairly regular basis, and they have a very casual policy regarding staff bringing their pets to work, so the tech I work with tends to bring her dog with her most days. He's little, and cute, and friendly, and - other than his inordinate fondness for stuffed squeaky toys - harmless.
His favorite squeaky toy is a little stuffed sheep. Unfortunately, being his favorite, it has become rather.... well-loved and much played with. And while the story of the Velveteen Rabbit teaches us that toys that are well-loved and much played with by good children can eventually become Real, there's a good reason that it doesn't touch on dog toys. If anything, they have a tendency to turn into hideous, misshapen, drool-soaked Frankensteinian monstrosities.
So when I went into the office yesterday, I was unsurprised to see the little dog sitting half-under my chair with a brand new Squeaky Sheep, and the old, filthy, mutilated sheep about to head into the garbage. However, instead of happily prancing around with the constant SQUEAKA SQUEAKA SQUEAKA SQUEAKA SQUEAKA that has become the background music of my days at this office, he continued to just lie there with his new sheep, tail down, chewing on it halfheartedly as the sheep went *click* *click* *click*
I looked over at the tech, and she shrugged sadly, explaining that she had forgotten to test the new sheep and make sure it worked before giving it to him. I looked back at the forlorn little pooch, then at the old toy and, reminding myself that I had, in fact, touched more disgusting things in my life, poked it in the tummy.
SQUEAKA
The dog perked up immediately, then sighed and seemed to slump back down to his new toy.
*click*
I glanced at the schedule for my day, and registered the three-hour gap between appointments, then turned back to the tech. "I could.... you know. Just take the squeaker from the old one and put it into the new one, if you want...."
She brightened up and looked at me with surprise and wonder. "You could do that?!"
I refrained from telling her that, if I could perform surgery on a live animal I could most certainly push my way through it on a stuffed toy, and instead just asked her if they had any expired suture they were going to throw away, and a pair of non-sterile needleholders.
Within minutes, Old Sheep was laid open on the table in front of me, his squeaker pulled out and stuffing spilling around. Suture scissors made quick work of the main backseam on New Sheep, and I fished around inside its belly for a moment before pulling out the broken squeaker. Getting the new one to fit inside was a bit of a challenge, since I didn't want to thoroughly disembowel or mutilate my patient so early in its functional life, but eventually I managed to squish it in, pull some stuffing over it, and give it a gentle test squeeze to confirm function. Then, as in all surgeries, it was all over but the sewing, giving me flashbacks to the year in vet school that I practiced surgical instrument handling by doing all of my hobby embroidery using needleholders and thumb forceps.
I sewed the poor old donor sheep back together, out of sympathy - no one deserves to be thrown in the garbage with their stuffing hanging out - and as soon as the recipient recovered, I tossed it back to the loving jaws of my client, who jumped and danced with joy and proceeded to spend the next half hour parading through the hospital accompanied by a nonstop chorus of SQUEAKA SQUEAKA SQUEAKA SQUEAKA SQUEAKA.
It appeared my first squeakectomy and transplant was a success.
