My patients, My life

     I often hear people who deeply love their companion animals recall the deep pain at the loss of a pet.  Many times, that pain is compounded by having to make  the decision to end the suffering of a terminally ill animal or to close the book on unending pain of a dear friend.  Most of the time those decisions are supported by a veterinarian even though most of us suffer quietly along with our clients.

     Euthanasia is a topic that we rarely discuss.  Earlier in my career I just considered it part of my job and survived behind some of those “walls” that I wrote about in the story of  “Buddy”.  But the seasoning that comes with all the gray hair tends to peel all the shucks back and leave me as emotionally naked as an ear of corn when it comes to euthanasia of my patients. It can become such an emotional burden that veterinarians actually require support groups to deal with it. 

     I have watched countless precotious little pups grow into adulthood, often side by side with children in my client’s families.  Then, after the years whistled by, I had to stand there and try to be strong and supportive to my clients when the final decision had to be carried out.  I wish I could say how tough it is to be professional and supportive when, inside, another dagger is placed in my heart.  Even now, as I struggle to broach this very dark subject, I hear the names and see the faces of so many, many great patients, companions and trusted friends.  I hurt, but I do find some peace in the fact that I know the last thing that I had to do to them was truly, in my heart,  for them.

    I am not treading on this difficult terrain to seek sympathy or understanding but, instead, to set the stage for my next little installment in this blog.  Indeed, this very preface has taken me to an emotional place I would rather not be, so it is past time to move to the story.

    A couple of months ago it was my pleasure to meet “Bear”.  “Bear” is a wonderful six year old Wire Haired Fox Terrier.  He is an absolutely fine example of the breed; warm, loving, much calmer than most terriers as as gentle as a butterfly.  He is the kind of dog you just want to hug.  At that meeting I told his owner that the first dog I ever had as a boy was “Whiskers”, a Wire Haired Fox Terrier.  Keep reading →

     Twelve hours after I posted the story on Lilly the Loon I obtained a fecal sample to check on the progress of our therapy to rid her of her parasite burden. It had been just one week since she and I had met under difficult circumstances for her. As I positioned the slide on the microscope I thought about the myriad of organisms I had observed the previous week on this same bird. A bird that was too weak to fly.
     A big smile wiped it’s way across my face as I could hardly believe my eyes. She was nearly completely free of the incredible burden of parasites that she carried just one week before. I was surprised because we had intentionally selected a small dose of Fenbendazole, the dewormer, because it can be harmful to the liver of some birds at higher doses. I was skeptical that we would clear her at that dose but I also knew we would hold her until we safely removed the parasites.
     Because the time frame of her stay at the rehab facility had now been reduced to just a week, we made the decision to put her back in the marsh. I felt the less time she spent away from her world the better. If she was going to get strong enough to migrate, her best chance was to do so, without the parasites, in the water world she called home.
     That afternoon, when we closed the clinic, Melody and I took Lilly down to a remote beach in the marsh to, once again, be free.
I took along my video camera to record the event for those who couldn’t be there. As things unfolded I was sure glad I had the camera. I must apologize for the shaky camera, next time I will be better prepared.
     Many people don’t believe that animals have emotions. I don’t even want to try to persuade those folks how wrong they are. But for those readers who care to enjoy the incredible happiness of a bird, this video is for you.

     I could not just leave it as raw video. My son taught me how to compile it with music.  This is my best way of sharing with you what I felt that day. The bird, on the other hand, had no problem depicting her emotions. I hope you enjoy. Let me know what you think.

Be patient, it takes about 10 seconds to start.

    It is late Spring here in the coastal marsh land.  It is my first Spring here in our new found paradise.  The opening bell was sounded by the dogwood bloom with it’s promise of more to come.  Next, Mother Nature’s paint closet exploded onto the rural roadsides that predominant our county with the most dazzling assortment of wildflowers I have ever witnessed.  I have always loved Spring, heck, doesn’t everyone?

         My neighbor to the south, the pearl called the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, provides a safe and bountiful winter home to a multitude of migratory waterfowl, songbirds and, of course, the Whooping Cranes that I previously wrote about. But this week I met a Loon.

      I hope each person who shares these words with me has had the privilege of hearing a Loon’s haunting, soulful call across the still water of morning. Man’s words could not hope to describe that sound as those who have heard it will readily agree.  To those brief encounters with these marvelous birds I wish to share an “up close and personal” encounter with my readers.

      Now, for starters, there is nothing “common” about a Loon. Up close these guys are as “common” as a 5 carat diamond and to my eye, every bit as beautiful. Keep reading →

     I do what I do for my wild patients for principally two reasons. I want them back home and I deeply enjoy the opportunity to help them get there.  Home to their world.  A world that is so radically different than the one we humans enjoy. Their world is absolutely unforgiving. The weak, the lame or those with infirmaries are quickly eliminated by predators, competitors or starvation.  So many of us refer to their world as a cruel world. But it seems to me that their world is a more perfect one than ours. Keep reading →

    I just want it clear on the front end, the only people that call me Opossum are a bunch of stuffed shirt, book-worm, over-educated nerds.  The rest of the normal world simply call me a Possum. For me to hear you say “Look! An Opossum!”, sounds about as dumb as calling a crawdad a crayfish. Get real, it’s crawdad and possum, get it right and let’s be friends. 

Me, upon arrival at the hospital

    As the only member of the Marsupial family of animals to inhabit North America, I have to admit that I often feel a bit unwelcome.  I guess the rest of my relatives could never get used to the way you people drive!  Oh my GOD! Can you not slow down at night? OK, maybe I’ve got a little problem with your lights. Excuse me if my beady little eyes can’t adust to twelve million candle power in two seconds. Heck, my brain is the size of a peanut, it’s not like I’m packin’ a Cray supercomputer between my ears to solve the problem of getting out of your way in 2 nanoseconds while you barrel through my dining room in your truck. 

     Sorry for that little outburst, I guess I am a little sensitive and I have a major headache. Probably wouldn’t be nearly as painful if some bozo in a Mercedes hadn’t run over my head!!  Sorry, there I go again.  Yes, I was in the road. Yes, I saw the lights, and yes I said, “Legs, could we not move?”  But, the last thing through my mind was your right front Michelin. Keep reading →

     In my new practice I meet new folks every day.  What a great pleasure it is to feel so welcome  in a new community over 600 miles from the place I knew as home for most of my life. I meet people from all walks in life; retired folks near the beach, school teachers, foresters, craftsmen for all sorts of disciplines, medical professionals and you name it.  So many nice people, all very eager to share local facts and lore with me.  According to my staff of two, this is why I stay behind in my appointment schedule.  No worries, to me it is just part of what I do.  And it’s very enjoyable.

     Last week I spent a considerable amount of time with another new acquaintance and, as you can probably guess, it is covered in fur or feathers.  “Hootie” is a male Great Horned Owl and is the first of his kind I have ever formally met. He found his way to the clinic because of a fracture in his wing.  Most of the owls are injured or killed flying low across the highways at night.  They appear out of the darkness and are hit before a motorist can even recognize the impending collision. Keep reading →

     At last count, in the past month, there have been eight pelicans through the clinic that are in or were in rehab down at FWMA.  No two of them were sick or injured for the same reason, so treating them is a challenging and, at the same time, rewarding proposition. 

Brown Pelican in flight

     If you have ever had the pleasure of meeting a Brown Pelican up close and personal you understand what I am about to say.  They are delightful, curious, intelligent and playful birds.  They deal with the stress of injury and confinement  with relative ease and because of that they make good patients.  It is good that they possess all of those wonderful attributes because the downside of pelican care is, without a doubt, they have to be just about the nastiest creatures on earth.

Keep reading →

        I believe that the call came about two days after I posted the last udate on the progress of our hyperkinetic little Muntjac with the fractured leg.  In hindsite, I should have known that I was going to jinx her recovery with my good report.   

    Her keeper, Susie, noticed that her bandage had slipped down and during the subsequent rebandage they found that the wound over the plate had opened. 

Bobbie, asleep during her latest exam.

     We had worried about just that possibility as her leg is so small in diameter there was precious little skin to cover the increase in diameter that the plate and screws added to the leg.  As her bone healed the skin became tighter and finally split along the previous suture line. Keep reading →

     I remember to this very day when I first discovered the Whooping Crane.  My third grade teacher, Mrs. Carter, handed us a copy of The Weekly Reader to peruse and discuss. On the front cover stood, in all it’s majesty, an exotic and beautiful bird with, what I thought at the time,  to be a most ungainly name.  A Whooping Crane. 

      I remember looking carefully at the picture of such a giant bird with such striking color pattern. It was long and graceful, snow white, black wingtips and with a really neat little red cap and mask.  I was anxious to learn more about such a bird and I did.

     That day was over fifty years ago.  It was a memorable day, not only because I met the Whooping Crane, but I met something much larger.  The weekly reader was using the near extinction of such a beautiful animal to teach tender young minds the perils of mankind’s impact upon the creatures with whom we share this planet.

        I learned that we were studying them to try to learn more about them and the reasons for the population decline to a critical point.  I learned that we had killed them for sport and curiosity. In addition, man was also complicit in the disruption of the nesting habits of these birds.  I was left with the sobering impression that there was a good chance I would never actually get to see a Whooping Crane. Indeed, like the Passenger Pigeon and the Ivory Billed Woodpecker, I might be obliged to remember them only with photographs. I recall with crystal clarity the uneasy feeling that I associated with that notion.  Keep reading →

     Another one of those days off to a routine sort of start.  Alison, my receptionist advised me as I peered through my microscope that our good friends at the county animal control office were on the way in with a dog injured in a dog fight.  As the reader might imagine,  these are fairly routine reasons for a visit to the clinic.  I acknowledged her with a grunt and thought;  probably a few puncture wounds,  a gash or two, perhaps, as I returned to my stare down the ocular lenses of the microscope toward a sheet of blood cells.

     I had just finished thinking about that sick hawk’s blood counts when I heard the commotion surrounding the scramble of several people rushing into my exam room.  Kathy, my tech, didn’t need to say a word as she rushed into the lab.  The look on her face said The Lords Prayer in one syllable.

     My exam room was about five steps away and I still hurried.  Buddy was lying prostrate on his left side, all four legs in rigid extension.  The little red Dachshund had a look of sheer, unadulterated terror frozen on his face.  I looked at the concerned faces of those crowded around the table for an explanation.  Buddy had been attacked by a much larger dog while walking in his yard.  He had apparently gone to the aid of his sister as she was approached by the big lab.  Some growls and cries were followed by screams and it was over. Buddy laid in the autumn leaves struggling, but unable to stand.

     Buddy was in a condition known in the medical books as spinal shock.  His spinal cord had sustained some serious trauma as was evidenced by the neurological signs that I mentioned.  His eyes spoke the unfathomable pain of red-hot ice picks piercing his neck. Before I continued my assessment I went to the locked box where the narcotics are kept and fetched Buddy the first good thing to happen to him that fateful day.  I drew up about double the dose that I would normally use as I thought Buddy was about to die, either because of the severity of his wounds or because euthanasia was his best option.  If this was his day to die, I was going to make darn sure he didn’t die in pain.

    Those types of drugs hurt when they are injected.  I hoped to get a little whimper as I injected into his rear leg.  My heart began to sink as he made no reaction.  Loss of pain is a bad sign for spinal patients.  The neurons that carry the pain signals to the brain lie deep within the spinal cord.  His lack of a reaction suggested the damage may be as bad as I feared.  I maintained my best poker face and finished my assessment of his wounds. 

     Have you noticed that if you are in severe pain, not toothache pain but broken bone kind of pain, that your brain doesn’t bother to let you know that you that you have a nagging hangnail?  It is all relative, right?  Buddy’s brain said what difference does it make if your butt is on fire from an injection if your spinal cord, the holy grail of all nerves, is burning like a blow torch? He felt the injection alright but it just doesn’t matter sometimes. I hoped that was the explanation for his lack of reaction as I wrestled with my next move.  I really didn’t want to talk to these people now.  I could not hide my concern with any sort of soothing, encouraging words.  I gently scooped Buddy up and we went back for X-Rays while I gathered my thoughts. 

     I have a really cool digital X-Ray machine that I bought to provide quality images of all the little wild critters that I enjoy caring for.  It allows us to manipulate the images to show minute detail through contrast enhancement and magnification.  As Buddy’s image hit the screen,  my eyelids slid shut, I exhaled and dropped my head. Buddy’s first thoracic vertebrae was split right down the middle. No image enhancement needed.  I have a considerable amount of experience with spinal patients and all my instincts and experience said this little dog’s life was over. 

     However……. you kind readers should relax, this is a happy story. Y’all beat me up when I tell too many sad ones.

Keep reading →