A Handful of Happiness

by Massimo Vacchetta

  Giulia went on further, until she had gone through all the primary information. That was the only time we spoke. Later on, our contact, although frequent, was just by e-mail and text.

  After hanging up, I started searching the Internet for pet stores, warehouses, and drugstores. I made more calls than I could count, but the puppy formula Giulia had recommended was nowhere. Some I asked had never even heard of it. Finally, a supplier in Florence told me that he could get it, but it wouldn’t arrive until the following Wednesday.

  “There’s no way to get it faster?” I begged.

  “It’s Saturday. I can’t put in the order before Monday morning. I’ll send it by courier. There’s nothing more I can do.”

  I sighed, resigned. Nothing left to do but wait.

  Meanwhile I’d go on with goat’s milk, perhaps slightly increasing the number of feedings.

  I took the baby and brought him home. Greta welcomed me, curious.

  As I was telling her the whole story, I got a cardboard box, put a soft towel on the bottom, and set the little thing inside. But first I weighed him again: still twenty-five grams. Well, at least he hadn’t lost weight. I put a fresh hot water bottle next to him. I wanted to give him a blanket, but Greta objected: “No, that’s too much. You’ll suffocate him!” I listened to her, mostly because I didn’t want to waste time. I had to give the creature some milk. I took a butterfly needle, the kind for an IV, and cut the tip from the connector on the syringe to the needle down to a centimeter, which made it into a sort of tiny nipple. I removed the needle, attached the nipple to the syringe, and drew in the milk.

  Giulia had explained to me how to hold the hoglet while I fed him. I set him on the table, holding him down with my left hand so he had his front legs extended and back legs flexed. “Like a dog on its back with its head up, just to give you an idea,” she added.

  I placed a finger on either side of his neck, gingerly, to keep him from turning side to side. With my right hand, I brought the syringe to his mouth. I fed him the milk drop by drop, following his pace, with extreme care: one drop, pause to swallow, another drop. I didn’t want it to go the wrong way. I was also aware of the danger of aspiration pneumonia—it’s very serious and nearly always fatal. I pushed the plunger of the syringe, giving him 0.1 cc at a time. It couldn’t be easy for the hedgehog to have a rubber nub in his mouth instead of his mother’s nipple. But it was hard for me, too. My hands were used to big animals and 150 mL syringes.

  It took me a good twenty minutes to feed him. I continued taking care of him, following Giulia’s instructions to the letter, while Greta looked on in astonishment. She, too, was touched and fascinated by the unusual and fragile little animal.

  Then I went back to Andrea’s clinic to finish the work that had to be done there, interspersing it with trips home to take care of the hedgehog. The day went by in a flash. I had an unusual night ahead of me: I had to set my alarm for every two or three hours, because with such young babies, you have to follow that schedule to feed them.

  Sunday morning around eight, after having given the hedgehog yet another syringe of goat’s milk, I realized that I didn’t even feel that tired, despite my practically sleepless night. Maybe my desire to help the little creature was so great it canceled out the toil and fatigue. Just a shower and it was back to the zigzag between home and Andrea’s clinic. First thing after lunch, I weighed the hoglet: twenty-four grams. His weight had dropped. By a gram. Despite my efforts.

  I felt utterly sad and powerless. I was worried. I started weighing him before and after every feeding. My worry turned into obsession. I was afraid for his life. I had another busy night. Just after three, I fell asleep like a rock, a deep sleep. At six, when the alarm went off, I felt like I had only closed my eyes for a second, even though almost three hours had gone by. Once again: weigh, give goat’s milk, reweigh, massage, hot water bottle. I wanted to go back to bed, but it was Monday—I had to go to work.

  I specialized in bovines. Gynecology and obstetrics were my forte, delivery my passion. And at this time of year, there were lots of calves about to be born. How could I look after a birthing cow and feed the baby hedgehog every three hours? I couldn’t ask Greta. She only stayed with me on the weekends, then went back to her own place and work. I hopped in the shower. The water flowing over me woke me up. I hastily put on the first clothes I came across—as was not my habit!—and rushed out of the house. I didn’t even bother to look in the mirror. I’d gotten a call from a breeder, a client of mine. What I had been afraid of had come true: There was a laboring cow in distress…a good distance away.

  4

  I reached the farm very quickly. But once I got there, I realized I wouldn’t be able to handle the rest so fast. Certainly not within the measured window of time I had before the hedgehog’s next feeding.

  My client was an expert breeder. He had already tried to help the mother and child, with no appreciable results. The calf was in breech position. And it was huge. A not-good yet not-new situation, but in this case, it was rather dramatic. It was stuck inside its mother’s pelvis. I palpated its legs: cold. And, unfortunately, not moving either. The little one could already be dead. I had to act effectively and quickly. My adrenaline was pumping.

  I immediately asked for some oil to lubricate the birth canal and make it easier to push the calf out. With the help of the breeder and a few of his workers, we tied the calf’s back legs together with two thick cotton laces and attached them to a big hemp rope. In a desperate battle against time, I instructed the others, “At my signal, pull the rope until I tell you to stop. Then just hold it in place. You’ll start pulling again at my next signal.”

  We got started. I signaled in rhythm with the mother’s contractions. The two men at the other end of the rope followed my orders with zeal and attention. Sometimes they slipped, but they planted their feet in the ground again. They wore themselves out, yet the situation didn’t improve. The poor cow was tired, as were those who were helping her unsuccessfully. But I hadn’t given up yet.

  Trying to solve the problem, I pressed on the calf’s pelvis, trying to rotate it. Around the same time, the cow started pushing again. “Pull! Pull!” I cried excitedly. We heard something like a crack. An instant later, the two men holding the rope stumbled, almost falling backward. And the calf was out of the mother. There it was! But there was no time to stop and smile: The little one was limp. He wasn’t breathing, but his heart was beating. I immediately injected him with medication and held him upside down to increase the bloodflow to the brain and free the airways of fluid. At the same time, I pushed his front legs out to extend his rib cage and aid ventilation.

  But the calf was unresponsive.

  I put him on the ground. “Bring me some cold water,” I shouted. I threw it on his ears, on his head, to try and rouse him. But it got no reaction.

  His little head dangled. Atonic. I tried giving him “mouth to nose.” I blew into one of his nostrils while holding the other closed to dilate his lungs.

  It didn’t work. I sank down, exhausted and resigned. Nothing and no one moved in that stable. Everyone had their head bowed in the face of death. A few seconds went by…and then the heavy silence was broken by a kind of sucking sound.

  I knew that sound well.

  I spun around. The calf had let out a breath. He was alive. I went back to resuscitating him, until his breathing became regular. Then we brought him over to his mother, who started licking him affectionately. There, he was safe and sound. But I didn’t have time to enjoy the sight that, despite twenty years in the profession, always filled me with wonder. Now it was time to take care of the hoglet. I had to get to him fast. I’d gone a little past the interval between meals.

  I found him asleep. He woke up just as I put him in my hand to give him his milk. Then the phone rang. It was my client, the breeder. I put him on speakerphone: “Doctor, everything’s okay! The calf is happily drinking milk from h
is mama!”

  There it was. At the same time, a twenty-five-gram hedgehog was drinking a single drop of milk while a forty-kilo calf was gulping it down.

  Life.

  I was happy.

  Monday went by to the rhythm of my back-and-forth from bovines to hedgehog and back. Same on Tuesday. Identical and intense days.

  Giulia told me that I could let more time pass between the hoglet’s nighttime feedings. But with the contingencies and urgency of my work, I couldn’t plan and it was hard for me to stick to three hours between the little one’s feedings. I decided I would make up for it by rigorously respecting that interval during the night. I preferred to sacrifice my sleep.

  Within a few days, my physical appearance had changed. And not for the better. But for the first time, I didn’t really care. Over the years, I’d come to place enormous importance on my external appearance, concerning myself far too much with the human side.

  Zia Marilena noticed. She wasn’t really my aunt, even though I called her that. She was a cousin from my father’s side. A very intelligent and logical woman, she had assumed an important role in my life early on. She gave me advice, and helped me to analyze some of my behaviors and to accept myself. She suffered from severe scoliosis. But she bore her conspicuous hunch with nonchalance. To her, those things did not matter. She told me: “Massimo, it’s true, you’re a little narcissistic, but it’s because you’re insecure. You take refuge in your handsome, put-together look. Or you hide behind it. It makes you feel safe, and so you put all your focus on that, but it’s so empty, ephemeral. You have much more to offer. And if I say so, you can believe it.”

  Was she right? When I opened up to her, I was able to dig up my buried anxieties.

  The fact is, besides my fear of abandonment, of separation, that had brought me so much suffering as a child, there was also my father’s criticism. He always told me that I could do better, that I had to do more.

  He certainly didn’t mean to hurt me. Actually, he thought he was nudging me, encouraging me. Yet my level of self-esteem wound up lower than the soles of my feet. I’m sure he didn’t realize it. On the contrary, he pushed me precisely because he had faith in my abilities, but at the time I didn’t understand. As a child I perceived things differently. My father is still a little anxious and hypochondriacal, but now I try to argue: “Daddy, stop feeling incurably ill. You’re almost seventy years old. You used to say you’d be dead before thirty. And then, before forty. And then, before your fifties. But you’re still here. Relax!” But I say it with love. I genuinely want him to put his heart at ease. To live a peaceful life.

  Zia Marilena kept telling me, “Focus on the positive inside yourself.”

  “I can’t find anything—”

  “That’s not true! We all have to find and foster the good things about ourselves. You’re very perceptive, for starters. And remember, you never have to do anything to gain someone else’s approval. You only have to do what makes you right with yourself.” It was as if my aunt had taken my hand and shown me the way to go.

  5

  The hoglet was teeny tiny, with a little belly that was round and a bit cumbersome. His belly stuck out, and his hind legs couldn’t reach the ground. When he wanted to move, he dragged himself along with his front legs. I also thought the little hedgehog stumbled too much. I asked myself if this was just a matter of disproportion between his belly and legs, or if a little bit of weakness was to blame? My doubt tinged the image with sadness.

  Incessantly anxious, I asked Giulia if it would help to give him vitamins. She wrote me that she would ask her husband, Gérard, who was an expert on hedgehogs in his own right. In the end, we decided to give him a few drops of vitamin B syrup.

  How much could the little guy take?

  He didn’t give up, and his struggles filled me with emotion. On Wednesday, finally, the puppy formula arrived. It required a preparation that might have been simple for any mother taking care of a newborn, but not me. Awkward and ill-prepared—good thing Giulia was there to explain things and advise me—I alternated between milk, herbal teas, and almond oil, the best a bovine veterinarian could do. However, I was like the proverbial bull in a china shop. And everything seemed too small for my big hands. Starting with the hedgehog.

  Giulia wrote in an e-mail:

  Make a tea by brewing fennel seeds in hot water. Let it steep for ten minutes. When the infusion has cooled off, pour a little bit into a mug. Then add the formula powder. Mix it thoroughly, until there are no clumps. When it gets creamy, mix in the rest of the tea, but heat it up first. Mix it again and then your milk is ready.

  To keep it the right temperature while giving it to the hedgehog, it’s useful—but not essential—to keep it in a double boiler; i.e., place the cup in a small pot of hot water. Note: The proper ratio is one part formula to two parts fennel tea. To start, though only at first (twenty-four to forty-eight hours), you can dilute it more.

  I followed these instructions to the letter. And just before giving the little one his “bottle,” I poured a few drops on my wrist to check the temperature. I was on my way to becoming a real Mr. Mom!

  The prepared milk could be stored in the refrigerator for twenty-four hours. But I preferred to make it throughout the day so it would always be fresh. Giulia explained to me that diluting the powder in fennel tea instead of water helps to avoid bloating, which could be very risky for a little hedgehog. But even with this new milk, we didn’t change our routine: Every three hours, I weighed the hoglet, prepared his milk, gave it to him with the little syringe, reweighed him, massaged his belly a little, and placed a hot water bottle next to him.

  As Giulia had predicted, with proper nutrition, the little one started to thrive. He slept and ate, ate and slept. I watched him, verklempt. He’d lie on his side, relaxed. His tiny mouth seemed to form a smile. Usually he crossed his front legs under his chin, the two paws clasped like little hands. It was a sweet image. Or he would lie on his side with front and back legs extended all the way out. He looked like an easel or a bridge.

  Often when he woke up, he’d stretch and yawn. It made me laugh. He held his front legs out and at the same time opened his mouth wide, and you could see that little strip of tongue, thin as a rose petal, unfurl. It was so sweet, I was touched.

  Every time I held him in my hand, I was astonished at how soft he was. And I loved feeling those little feet flutter in silky steps over my palm. It was like a caress.

  One thing that came as no small surprise were the marks I discovered on his abdomen. I looked closer and then I understood: The skin on his belly was so thin you could see through it, like tissue paper. When his stomach was full of milk, a white spot appeared on the left. You could see it clearly—it was like a sack. Further down, on the right, was a dark, almost purple spot. That was his bladder filled with urine. This translucence highlighted for me, once again, a baby hedgehog’s extreme fragility.

  Anyway, everything seemed to be going perfectly. Then one day, when I came home to feed him, I went over to his box and stopped cold: The white sponge floor of his box was streaked with blood. Red skid marks in all directions. My heart skipped a beat. My eyes stared, fixed as if in a still image. I took the hoglet in my hand. He might be bleeding from the tail, but I couldn’t quite tell. Its genitals and anus were also in that area. It wasn’t easy to identify the source of the blood loss. Upset, I immediately contacted Giulia. I sent her photos of the hoglet.

  She replied fast:

  He’s losing blood from his tail. It’s irritated because hedgehog urine is so acidic. Gérard says you need to clean the area well and apply an antibiotic cream.

  I rushed to treat the hedgehog, and only after having taken care of everything did I notice I had another e-mail from Giulia.

  I read it right away, and a smile spread across my face:

  Massimo, I took a closer look at the photos of the hedgehog’s “nether
regions.” Don’t worry, the inflammation won’t be hard to cure. Oh, and your hoglet…it’s a girl!

  A girl! It made me feel even more protective knowing it was a baby girl. Which isn’t true, really—I would have had the same reaction if she had told me it was a boy. It was knowing the gender that was so touching. It wasn’t just a “hedgehog” anymore. It was a girl. I had to come up with a name for her.

  6

  The next day, Greta arrived. We’d known each other for over a year, since we’d traveled to Australia together with a group of mutual friends.

  We kept on seeing each other after we returned to Italy, and almost without realizing it, we became a couple. She came over every weekend, and we spent time together.

  As soon as she walked in the door, she wanted to see the baby.

  “She’s grown! Yes, yes. She’s a little bigger,” she said enthusiastically.

  I smiled, unable to hide my satisfaction.

  “I can see she sleeps a ton,” she continued.

  “She eats and sleeps, like all newborns.”

  “Since she likes to sleep so much, why don’t we call her Ninna, like the lullaby? What do you say, Massimo? Do you like it?”

  I liked “Ninna.” Meanwhile, in a high-pitched voice, Greta gave the name a try: “Ninna! Ninnaaaa! Are you hungry, Ninna? Are you sleepy, Ninna?”

  And so, now my little hedgehog was Ninna.

  I wrote to Giulia:

  Ninna is starting to open her eyes!