Chapter 2, Part 3

The surgery the next morning went very well. Dr. E is a great teacher, informative without hovering. I incise through the skin and superficial muscle layers of the dog’s thigh then separate the muscle bellies of the quadriceps muscles until I locate the fractured ends of the femur. I then place the stainless steel rod through the middle of the femur, passing down along the marrow cavity and screwing the threaded end into the thick bone by the knee joint. The tricky part is to not go all the way through the bone and into the joint itself. After the pin is placed it is a simple matter to close the incision. It takes about 30 minutes from start to finish and is really a lot of fun. The rest of the day passes uneventfully.

That evening, Emily and I drive into Oklahoma City to have dinner with Moose and Amber. After graduation, Moose took a job at a small animal practice close to where he grew up. His employer was excited to add Moose’s extensive exotic animal experience to their range of services. As we drove to the restaurant, Moose and I traded war stories in the front seat.

“I really thought that they would kind of ease me into the on-call schedule,” I say, complaining to Moose. “At least let me get my feet under me and figure out where things are at in the clinic and the pricing, but no. Pretty sure I was there for a week before they put me on call, and then it was Memorial Day Weekend, so it was a three-day weekend to boot!

Moose shakes his head sympathetically, “Dude, that sucks.”

“Being on call really sucks, especially at first,” I say as I navigate the metro traffic. “Half the time I didn’t know what was going on with the patient or I didn’t know what to treat it with, and if I did figure it out, I couldn’t find the medication in the clinic anyway. And then I didn’t have a clue what to charge because they don’t have a set price list for anything! I bet I called the other guys at least five times a night that first weekend. I really looked like a jackass. It’s getting better, but my heart rate still goes through the roof whenever the pager goes off.”

Moose shakes his head and says, “Yeah, I’m really glad that we’re not on call. That’s what the emergency clinics are for.”

“We don’t have any in our area,” I say, “and besides, none of the emergency clinics see large animal cases anyway. So even if we did, I’d still have to pull calves and treat colics.”

“Are they letting you do much surgery,” Moose asks. “The guy I work for is kind of a surgery hog. I’ve only done a couple of spays and neuters since I started.”

“That’s one thing about these guys,” I reply, “they definitely believe in getting your feet wet, even if sometimes it is sink or swim. I do a couple of spays and neuters a day most days. And so far I’ve done a cystotomy on a dog with bladder stones, enucleated an eye on a kitten, and even got to pin a broken leg on a dog that had been hit by a car the other day.”

“Wow, that’s cool they are letting you do all that,” Moose replies. “Are you set up pretty well with diagnostics?”

“Not as good as I would like,” I confess. “We have an ultrasound and a really old radiograph machine, but no in-house blood-work.”

Moose asks, “Where are you sending your blood to?”

“To a lab in Edmond,” I answer. “A courier comes to the clinic every weekday around noon to pick up the samples and they fax us the results by that afternoon. So if I can draw a blood sample in the morning during the week I get same-day results. The problem is if the animal comes in after lunch I have to wait a full day for results and if it is on the weekend you might as well forget it. By the time three days go by, half the cases are better or dead. How about yall?”

“We’ve got in-house blood-work, but it is kind of slow and cumbersome to work with,” Moose replies. “Our x-ray is pretty decent, but we don’t have ultrasound.”

In the backseat, Emily and Amber discuss things other than veterinary medicine. Amber has been attending physician’s assistant school at the University of Oklahoma. It is an intensive program, lasting two-and-a-half years with no breaks. She is discussing her latest test.

“We had a cardio test on Wednesday and I don’t think there is anyway that I could have passed. I felt like I knew nothing on that thing,” she complains.

“Oh, Amber, that’s what you say every time, and you always end up acing them,” Emily says with a smile.

“I’m just sick of school,” Amber groans. “I’m sooo ready to be done.”

At this I have to smile. I know exactly how she feels. I had those exact same thoughts through almost four years of veterinary school.

“Be careful what you wish for, Amber,” I say. “Moose and I said that not that long ago and look how much fun we’re having now.”

We arrive at the restaurant and our evening passes eating good food in the company of our good friends. It is some years later that I learn that during the car ride to the restaurant, while Moose and I griped about the pitfalls of our new jobs, I had accidentally made a call on the cell phone in my pocket. It had dialed Dr. E, who heard every word of our conversation. I would have been mortified if I had known that he had heard me complaining about the job, but he didn’t say a word about it until some two years later. When he did, he didn’t give me a hard time about it as I deserved, but was actually sympathetic. He seemed to remember having a similar conversation thirty years ago with one of his classmates.