Life at a vet hospital

I have one of the coolest jobs in existence: I work in client intake at a vet hospital. Seriously, my life at work is puppies and kitties ALL DAY. I say "hospital", because it's not a standard day clinic. We don't spay and neuter, we don't do shots, we don't give Fluffy his annual check up. We're pretty big, there's an opthomology dept, surgical, internal med, neurology, cardiology, and imaging (yes, we do CATscans! yes, I make endless jokes!). We are primarily an emergency room and intensive care unit. Admittedly, we see the sickest of the sick animals. On an average day, we see two to three animals "go to a better place". I print euthanasia forms on a daily basis, and have perfected the shoulder pat/tissue pass-off routine. I can recognize a DOA (which yes, we do get), and the close to dead conditions. So yea, my job could be pretty depressing. A lot of the girls have had issues with it. Working ER, we see victims of vehicles and of neglect, I've had blood on me, I've gently taken a dead dog out of a child's arms. This job could royaly suck...

But it doesn't, because I focus instead on the awesome. We'll start on the list of awesome with intake. I check patients in all day, so we'll start with the hilarity of that. For all the uncreative dolts in the world (our patient database has almost 200 Stella's, not to mention Brody, Marley, Gus, Spike, etc), I see some ridiculous pet names. And yes, this is coming from a woman who named her cat Smoosh. One of my favourite kitties is Socrates, a tabby who comes in weekly for chemotherapy. Optimus Prime had a broken foot last week (he was a persian, which made the name even more fantastic). There was a cat actually named Fluffhead in last week for dialysis. We have a King Charles Cavelier who's chart lists his full name as "Woody (the wonder dog)". I saw a pekinese a little while back named Lil Fart, and a cat named Booger. If you don't smile carrying a handful of charts with these names, something is wrong with you.

For all the death, we do a hell of a lot of saving, and of course the minor stuff, like mending wounds and fixing broken legs. Nothing is more adorable than watching a basset hound negotiate a corner with a cast on his front paw. There was a very irritated Devon Rex in last week who had bronchitis, so I got to scratch the top of her head for the 24 hours she was in an oxo-tank in our facility. She went home purring, but not before giving me a thorough lovin'. I have a feeling I will be blogging quite frequently of the random happy days for these fuzzy patients, because seeing them pull through makes every moment worthwhile.

And who does the saving? An amazing set of doctors. I've been to crappy vets before, they hardly listen to the owners, and they barely glance at your animal before racking up an insane amount of charges. You know, the ones who just seem to be in it for the money. Those aren't our doctors. Our doctors genuinely love animals, same with the techs in back. I handed a chart to an ER doc the other day, as she sat on the floor checking out a different patient (a very gentle little golden retreiver named Bobo). She leaned back to check the notes on the chart, one hand tenderly scratching the awaiting forhead of her little friend. The picture was precious. I also watched a technician casually walking about the patient banks with a cornish rex in her arms, giving her a bear hug (apparently he was quite the codependent little thing). I watched a doctor vehemently demand an owner relinquish a kitten they wanted to euthanize, and she is now the proud owner of a "neurologically damaged" little furball named Bonkers. He randomly jumps into walls and has no equilibrium, so will ocassionally tip sideways. Two weeks ago we had two little 3 month old pug puppies that were so damn cute I about lost my mind every time I walked by their cages (the naughty little things had eaten raisins, so we had to flush their systems).

My job is a happy place, most of the time, and I look forward to sharing tales of fuzzy awesome with you, my readers. I have linked each animal on this blog entry to a picture of their breed, because I know not all of you know what these are. But if you click, you can see the "patients" I get to work with every day, and you can see why I smile so much!!

It's a new dawn...

It's a new day, and I'm feelin' fine! That song pretty much sums up the scope of my life right now. I suppose I am considering myself still in the "dawn" of this new world I am living in. I've been in the new apartment for about a month now, and have the last bits of furniture put away. I've settled into the new job, and completely love it. And since Jesse got over his 24 hours of insanity and we worked things out, I am back to enjoying my new relationship. But it's still the dawn, as I don't start classes til fall, and I've been slowly developing the other little bits of my reality.

I got my paperwork in order, so I will be able to go visit Jesse in his home, and see his world. He'll be meeting my friends in a month when he comes down for my birthday. So far all of his visits have been spent cloistered with me and getting to know each other (and kiddo). I've enjoyed this slow build, as it's helped us form a great bond. We're tighter than ever, especially after working out that rough patch. But the time has come to intertwine the last pieces of our worlds...the "other folks". He met Dad (who approves), and I do speak with his sister on facebook. The other sis and I have become penpals. But I've yet to interact with them in real life, and there's still the brothers and his folks. I've never seen his home, his work, or where he tromps around when not trapped in a kitchen. My friends are a huge part of my life, but so far he's only met my sitter and a handful of coworkers.

Relationship awesomeness and intertwining aside, I have been tweaking my work schedule to suit the needs of my impending class schedule, and begun working out the finances for all the last bits of edu-stuff (books, supplies, etc). I may even have found an option for lower cost child-sitting, as one of my coworkers has children kiddo's age who offered to help out. Less money spent on baby-sitting = less top ramen during the school year! And with dad right next door, transport is less and less of an issue.

So the dawn of this new world is looking pretty good. I look back at how things used to be...I can't imagine why I accepted less from the world and of myself. I deserved better, and now that I have better I am basking in these blessings.