Vet Tech Tales: The Early Years

by Phoenix Sullivan

  Almost from the moment I climbed into my dad’s car, words about this awesome milestone experience were already tumbling out. I wanted my excitement to infect him too. I wanted him to see what a wonderful opportunity lay before me.

  But by the time we were halfway home, all I wanted was to break the studied silence that had fallen over him. Something was wrong, though I couldn’t imagine what.

  “I don’t want you going to any more of those meetings,” he said at last.

  Stunned, I could barely stammer out, “Why?”

  “Is this what they’re going to be teaching you? How to castrate bulls? Breed cows? You’re a young lady. You don’t need to be watching that sort of thing.”

  And there it was. My dad, the prude. Friends my age were already doing the mating dance and having babies, but my dad thought discussions about artificial insemination in cows should be off limits for a 15-year-old girl.

  It took a lot of persuasion, but Dad finally agreed to drive me to Dr. Diaz’s clinic for the next meeting. There I found out what a prolapsed gland of the third eyelid was. Dr. Diaz showed us before and after pictures of a Lhasa Apso he’d operated on earlier in the day, removing the engorged gland that had blown up in the inner corner of the dog’s left eye. “Cherry eye” the condition was sometimes called since the exposed gland presented as a brilliant—and rather rude looking -- red mass. Back then, the treatment was to remove the gland completely and send the owner home with a bottle of artificial tears to replace the natural tears the gland produces and keep the eye from drying out.

  The surgery we were going to see was another common procedure – this one to correct entropion in a red Chow about a year old. The dog’s upper eyelids rolled inward causing the eyelashes to rub against the eye resulting in constant pain and irritation. The young Chow squinted at us in obvious distress and we could see tear tracks along her nose. The vet’s assistant injected a bit of pentobarbital into the Chow’s foreleg and the dog slipped into a light coma, ready for her operation.

  A couple of other girls in the troop were a bit squeamish about the eye surgery, but I was glued to the procedure as the vet gently excised a piece of skin from the dog’s upper eyelid, curled back what was left and sewed the eyelid back into its normal position. First the left eye and then the right, and the difference, even with her eyes closed, was immediately obvious. Once she recovered from the surgery, there would be no more red eyes and pain for that lucky Chow pup.

  When Dad came to pick me up that evening I led him back to the kennel where the dog was waking up. Eyes were apparently on his list of approved surgeries for me to see because he never said another word about my quitting the troop, and I never missed a single meeting.

  I know now, of course, how hard it had to have been for my dad to relent his position. Looking back, I realize how many factors were at work against me and against him. Women in the early 70s were asserting themselves more and more and he felt threatened by that. Just as he felt threatened that I’d long surpassed his level of education. Intelligent, assertive young ladies were a thing undreamt of in his middle-aged philosophies.

  Nor did the threat end there. In his way, he was just as overprotective of me as my Mom tended to be; not because I needed his protection any longer, but because it was difficult for him to admit his little girl was growing up.

  When Opportunity Knocks, Throw a Few Raisins Its Way

  As happens with many well-intentioned efforts, the veterinary medicine chapter of the local Explorers lost steam, first from the members who decided they either couldn’t be bothered attending the meetings or realized they weren’t cut out to be vets, and then from the leaders who were having trouble finding colleagues willing to volunteer an evening with the troop. Within a year, those of us left pretty well knew ours was a patient that couldn’t be resuscitated.

  The three leaders, though, seemed determined not to turn their backs on the handful of Explorers still showing up with wide-eyed wonder at all the meetings. On our final night together as a troop, they made an incredible offer. Each weekend, we could show up at one of the clinics, help the regular staff clean cages and bathe animals, and, as payment, spend a couple of hours in the exam room observing and learning. Real patients, real medicine, in real time. What could be more thrilling?

  At least that was the arrangement in theory.

  I was already well acquainted with bartering my time for something other than money. At the tender age of 15, I’d already been burned by a similar work-pay deal – one which I’d just completed with the owners of a flight service at a small airfield located outside the city limits.

  Didi and Drew ran a weekend operation renting out two gliders and giving soaring instruction in a third. Drew flew the single-engine plane used to tow the gliders up to about 3000 feet and Didi taught students how to fly a plane with no engine. With both of them in the air all the time, there was no one to run the ground operation, and there was too little profit to hire someone to do it. Because there was no way I could afford to pay for lessons, I offered to take care of the customers on the ground: keeping track of time in the air, since rental was by the minute; tallying up tow fees, flight time and lesson costs; taking in the money; and keeping the books. In exchange, Didi would teach me to fly.

  My “pay” usually came at the end of a long day when the thermals, or updafts of warm air that help keep the gliders aloft, had died down, meaning my training flights were always short. Drew would tow us up to altitude while I concentrated on keeping the glider in proper position behind him, then I would “wiggle’ the glider’s wings so he would know I was about to pull the latch to release the tow rope. Then I would pray for a bump in the seat of my pants that would let me know I had hit a weak and dying thermal, and struggle to gain just a little more altitude before Didi had me practice stalls and spins that would take us from 3000 feet down to a 1000 or so in just a few seconds. Once that low, there was no option but to land the glider at the airfield or risk landing it in someone’s pasture and then having to retrieve it by flatbed truck. Believe me, none of their students was willing to put Didi and Drew through that hassle, and I wasn’t going to be one of the unlucky few who did.

  Husband and wife were both tough and no-nonsense. They accepted few excuses from customers or from their help, whether it was how their planes were flown or why the books were a dime out of balance. In fact, Didi proved she wasn’t one to renege on a commitment to take a student up or miss a chance to pocket his money, even if she happened to be in labor at the time. Straight from the airfield to the hospital she had gone, giving birth to a baby girl just a few hours later.

  So, reluctantly, I would turn the glider’s nose toward home and try to make as smooth a landing as possible. Total elapsed time: maybe 10 or 11 minutes. Rate of pay: about one minute in the air for every hour worked. Still, for a 14-year-old who couldn’t legally drive but was landing gliders at 60 miles per hour, it was an equitable trade.

  That is, until Didi’s nanny broke her leg.

  ~~~

  Though the hours were long, my job was far from difficult. I spent a good bit of time simply sitting around the hangar getting wind-burned and sun-burned, talking shop and joking with the regulars. Our customers were mainly young to middle-aged males, soaring hobbyists eager to talk about the sport, who often hung about the airfield for hours just to be near others who shared their same passion. Tall, lanky Steve, for instance, had flown helicopters in Vietnam, and had lost an eye in the war. Jim, one of our few black customers, loved building experimental planes. Aside from Didi and Drew, he was the most experienced of our pilots and, to the envy of everyone else, could somehow keep his homebuilt glider aloft for hours, even on the most uncooperative of days. It was uncanny how he could find enough lift in the calmest of air to stay up.

  “Jim, what’s your secret?” I asked him one day while we were sitting alone watching Drew towing Didi’s two-seater trainer through the cumulus-speckled skies.

  He grinned and pulle
d out a box of raisins. “See those buzzards up there?” I looked up at the large black birds circling lazily in the sky, rapidly gaining altitude without ever so much as a single flap of their wings, and nodded. “They always know where the best thermals are. Maybe they can see ‘em, or smell ‘em or just feel a change in the air.”

  “So you follow the buzzards?” I asked.

  “Oh, if it were as easy as that, everyone would be doing it now, wouldn’t they?” He stood up and crooked a conspiratorial finger at me. “Come here.” I followed him over to his sleek white glider, skirting around its long, tapered wings. He pointed to a small hole just under the canopy.

  “First, you have to make friends with the buzzards.” He shook the box of raisins in his hands. “So, I drop a few of these through that hole and lure those buzzards near enough that I can see which way they turn and how much they have to bank. Then me and the plane follow their lead. Simple, really. Just remember, the secret is in the raisins.”

  He winked, and I couldn’t tell whether he was serious or just having a good time teasing me.

  A few months later I learned that Jim had been test flying an experimental glider in the mountains of New Mexico. The plane crashed and Jim was killed. Everyone thought it must have been mechanical failure. Maybe. But I prefer to think Jim had just run out of raisins.

  ~~~

  Despite my innate shyness, I felt comfortable socializing with our customers. We met on common ground, sharing a common interest, and age, color and gender didn’t matter. The experience was special, the outdoors appealing and watching the planes fly fun. I looked forward to the weekends. That’s why when Didi asked me to babysit Crystal until the nanny’s leg healed, I felt my heart flop.

  OK, I thought. I can do this. I’m only a few more lessons away from soloing, and it can’t take more than six or eight weeks for a broken leg to mend, right?

  In retrospect, save for the fact that she was saving money, Didi no doubt realized the mistake she had made in asking me to tend her child. I knew very little about babies and cared about them even less. No maternal instincts bubbled to the surface when faced with a squalling ball of baby flesh. Days at Didi and Drew’s house were tedious and painfully long. As a nanny I was totally inept. I did manage to keep the baby clean and fed and somewhat entertained. But the crockpot of beans Didi asked me to watch for supper dried out and nearly burned, pot and all. I used the wrong cleaning agent on the wood floors. And washing and ironing -- not among my better skills.

  After six weeks of babysitting, I made my first solo flight in a glider. It was mid-summer, and I had just turned 15 a month before. Fall semester would see me in an aviation ground school class the high school offered, I could begin taking lessons in powered aircraft from Didi and Drew, and in a little less than a year I would be able to boast having my private pilot’s license in addition to my driver’s license. Anxiously, I awaited the nanny’s return.

  Seven weeks went by, then eight, then nine. “I’m afraid Betty’s not coming back,” Didi broke the news to me at last. “I’ll need you here at home for awhile longer.”

  I sighed. Dirty diapers and housecleaning weren’t what I had agreed to. I was being taken advantage of and I knew it. “I’m sorry, Didi. You’ll have to find someone else.”

  It was hard leaving, knowing I would probably never fly again. But the bartering scale had tipped too far out of balance.

  All, however, was not bleak. I don’t necessarily hold to fate or things happening for a reason. But quitting when I did meant that when the offer to work weekends at a vet clinic came, my time was free to do it.

  Maybe, just maybe, I was meant to be a vet after all.

  First Taste

  Lisa, my best friend in high school, lived about a block from me. We were the Mutt and Jeff of the neighborhood. She was tall and blonde where I was short and brunette. But even if we couldn’t share clothes, we did share a passion for animals, books and movies. Sister-close, we did everything together, from riding our bikes to the library to hiking with her Irish Setter, Lady, and my white shepherd, Rex.

  We both wanted to become veterinarians, so naturally we joined the Explorers together. And since it was convenient for our parents for us to carpool, we volunteered to work together at our clinic assignments. The first weekend we drew Dr. Norris’ animal hospital.

  Kathy, one of the veterinary assistants, unlocked the front door for us at 7:30 and, after introductions, gave us a quick tour of the clinic. Down the main hallway we saw two exam rooms with laminated counters and wooden shelves, an open treatment area and cabinets full of pharmaceuticals. Down another hall we saw the lab with three or four mysterious machines, an x-ray table and a microscope. And across from the lab was the surgery with a heavy steel table, imposing light and another set of complicated-looking machines hugging the wall.

  I breathed in the acrid scent of bleach and alcohol and disinfectant. It looked right. It smelled right. Clean and orderly. Not too modern. Not too large.

  Then Kathy opened the door to the kennel and led us through. I sneezed. A dozen dogs started barking.

  “I’ll show you how we make up the cleaning solution,” she offered, picking up a half-full jug of yellow disinfectant and a five-gallon bucket. As she measured out the concentrated cleaner and added water from a waist-high tub in the corner, I snuck a peek at the rest of the room.

  To the left of the door was a small alcove with a cabinet, sink and chipped exam table. To the right was a row of six dog runs on one side, a bank of steel cages on the other, and a narrow aisle with a concrete floor in between. Fluorescent lights struggled to illuminate the windowless room. Far from the bright, life-affirming area I’d expected, the kennel appeared drab and squalid. A depressing place for people and animals alike.

  Kathy threw three well-used sponges into the hot, sudsy water she had made up. “Now, you clean a cage and put some newspaper in it, then you move an animal from a dirty cage into the clean one and then clean the dirty one. Dirty newspapers go into the trash, dirty dishes into the tub. Any questions about cleaning?”

  Honor students both, Lisa and I exchanged a glance, trying not to laugh. “No,” Lisa managed to say. “I think we’re good.”

  What we didn’t know then about Kathy was that she’d dropped out of high school when she was 15 to raise a baby she hadn’t meant to conceive. Even so, had she graduated, her grades likely would have been an obstacle into any legitimate college or trade school she wanted to apply to. She was a good, honest lady and a hard worker. She knew her way around the animals and she knew her job, which was to clean cages, bathe and dip animals, shave down surgical sites and hold pets for the vets when necessary. It wasn’t often she was called on to teach others and she took that duty as seriously as she did the rest of her work.

  In that moment, I’m sure Lisa and I felt a bit superior. Later, after Kathy and I became friends and I understood how a generous heart was far more rare a find than someone with simple book smarts, I was ashamed of looking down on her that first day.

  “You can take the dogs out for a walk, if you want,” Kathy continued. “Sometimes, one person walks while another person cleans. It just depends on how many dogs there are and how many people we have working. We take them out back in the grassy area. The cats get a litter pan. Don’t use more than a half a cup of litter. We’re not supposed to waste it. Don’t put litter in for the cats that have been de-clawed, though. Use some shredded newspaper.”

  There were perhaps 30 cages along the wall. The cages varied in size from large, roomy ones on the bottom of the rack to tiny, cramped ones that topped out about seven feet up. A quick look down the bank of cages showed about three-quarters of them were full, from kittens in the upper cages to large mutts in the ones below. “What are they all in for?” I asked.

  “That cat there,” Kathy pointed to a Siamese in an upper cage with a snap lock on the door, “is a blood donor. He belongs to the clinic. Make sure the lock is on his cage or else he’ll open t
he door and get out. He’s pretty smart. The kitten next to him was de-clawed and should go home today.” The little gray cat mentioned was lying on its chest with its front legs stretched out. Big white bandages on its paws made it look like it was wearing boxing gloves. “The other cats are just boarding.

  “The dogs are mainly all boarding too. Except Caesar there. He has a pin in his leg.” I peered over at the terrier mix and saw a shaved area on his back leg with a row of neat stitches running down the middle of it. I assumed the “pin” was in the leg, but where was it placed and what did it look like?

  “And Sally was spayed yesterday. Her owner’s picking her up this morning.” The little fawn Chihuahua was standing at the cage door yapping, not at all looking or acting like she had just had major surgery the day before. “Cricket’s sick.” The little black poodle lay in a very dirty, very wet cage with her head between her paws. I empathized. She certainly didn’t look like she was feeling well. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her. But always look to see if any of the animals have thrown up or had diarrhea. We’ll want to put that down on their chart. And see if the sick ones have eaten or not. If the doctors get here first, they’ll come back and kind of look at all the cages so they know what’s going on. But if we get here first, like today, we need to note all that ourselves.

  “There’s a hose to wash the runs down with. The English Setter in that first one is Rebel, our dog blood donor. Hold on to him tight if you walk him. He likes to chase cars. The other two dogs are being treated for heartworms. Don’t go near the Akita, he sometimes snaps.”

  I wasn’t sure what an Akita was, but since I knew the other dog in the runs was a Rottweiler, I assumed the medium-sized, compact dog with the red saddle marking and tightly curled tail must be it.