Consulting is an art, not a science. No matter how well you know your medicine (and I am certainly not claiming any special expertise in that department), a consultation can often be spun in an unexpected direction by what we shall charitably call 'the human factor'.
Yesterday afternoon, I opened up the medical file of my next consultation - a booster vaccination for a cat. Something about the surname rang a bell, but I hadn't seen this cat before, and the client didn't seem to own any other animals. Something still nagged at me, however, so I clicked another button in the top right-hand corner of the screen. The button is marked 'Show deceased'.
Three more animals appeared under the clients name, all cats. The names all sounded familiar. Sure enough, I had seen all of them. Not only had I seen all of them, it was me that had been with them for their final consultation. I had put all of the owner's previous cats to sleep. The most recent had been several years ago, and try as I might I was saddened to find that I couldn't bring any of the cases to mind, or the client. Nevertheless, I was glad I had checked; I didn't remember the client, but it was a fair bet that they would remember me, having euthanised three of their previous pets. Now, at least, I could show a little tact, caring and diplomacy in the consulting room, even though I was just vaccinating their last remaining pet.
I stepped out into the waiting room, and quickly located a tall man sitting with his daughter, a cat box on his knee. I smiled at him, and with a quiet, respectful demeanor I called his cat's name.
The man looked up, smiled, and nudged his daughter in the ribs. 'Oh hello!' he called, cheerfully. 'It's Doctor Death!' He stood up and cheerfully walked towards me, while his daughter and I competed on which of us would rather a hole opened up in the ground and swallowed us up.
The man continued his own brand of peculiar gallows humour all the way through the consultation. 'Careful, Misty,' he said as I plucked the black and white cat from it's box. 'He should have a scythe, not a stethoscope!' I smiled politely while his daughter rolled her eyes and folded her arms, staring at the floor.
'Yes,' I said, trying to lighten the mood as I drew up my vaccination. 'It's a happier occasion, today, isn't it?'
'I'll say!' said the man. 'At least we won't need a coffin at the end of it!' I felt like saying that if he kept this up, then I couldn't promise anything, but I remained as ever, calm and professional. Still, it was a surprise that I had no memory of this man. If he was like this during a vaccination, God knew what he was like during an actual euthanasia.
'All done,' I said, putting his surviving cat back in it's box and closing the door behind it. 'There,' I said, smiling at the man, 'All of us made it through in one piece!' The man smiled and winked at me. His surprising attitude was growing on me. There was no malice at all in him. Why not be cheerful? The cats weren't suffering, and I had done a professional job. Doesn't joking about a dark subject make it something less to fear? Maybe we could all learn something from his attitude. I was starting to decide that perhaps I rather liked him.
I opened the door and let the man, his embarrassed daughter and his still-alive cat out to reception, where upon he announced loudly to the packed waiting room, 'This is the first time one of my pets has seen that vet and come out alive!'
I shut the door, and decided that maybe the best thing would be if a hole opened up in the ground and swallowed him instead.
Showing posts with label funny. Show all posts
Showing posts with label funny. Show all posts
Thursday, 21 May 2015
Thursday, 15 August 2013
Lingua Medica - medical terminology deciphered
It has, of course, been literally the worst week for the English language ever. A bad week for me, certainly; how am I supposed to snigger in a superior and condescending fashion when one of our nurses tells me that 'When the phone rang, I literally turned round and shit myself.'? Sigh.
All is not lost for me, however. Fortunately for me, I have a whole language that was pretty much custom-designed to make me feel superior to normal mortals: medical terminology.
You see (and this may come as a surprise to you, so I'll whisper it) - many years ago, doctors didn't actually know very much. Sure, they could prod you, and prescribe leeches to suck blood out of you, but it couldn't really escape the notice of the general population that your chances of getting better with the treatment weren't dramatically better than the chances of getting better without. A poser. How could one make a living as a quack when it was patently obvious that you didn't know what you were talking about?
The solution: make it sound like you know what you're talking about. Language is, and always has been, a useful tool for those in power to keep the masses subjugated; Orwell's Big Brother understood this, with his doubleplus sinister idea, NewSpeak, and the founders of the Christian religion understood it too. Latin survived as a language largely because it wasn't understood by the poorly educated masses. The bible was always written in Latin so that churchmen (who had a similar credibility problem to the proto-medics) would be able to interpret it for the poor - and thus control the poor. If you know your history, you'll know the violence and consternation that surrounded the eventual translation of the bible into languages that everyone could read, and if you don't - go and read about it! Fascinating stuff.
In a similar spirit, early practitioners of the medical arts realised that suggesting to a prospective patient that 'I'm going to suck out a lot of your blood and hope that you feel better,' tended to garner a less-than-enthusiastic response. However, if you told them 'I'm going to perform a phlebotomy in order to balance the humours within your body,' people tended to nod, smile hopefully, and (crucially) hand over their coins.
And so medical terminology developed largely as a way of keeping knowledge (or lack of it) from the masses. As medical arts slowly transformed into medical science, it became more than that, however; much of medical language has a very specific and precise literal meaning (unlike, ironically, 'literally', any more - in fact, my money is on 'ironic' to be the next one on the list) which can get across a lot of information very quickly, and nowadays it's an invaluable tool to precisely explain your thoughts on a case in terms that, in theory, mean exactly the same thing to any medically trained personnel who reads or hears them.
I've been told a number of times that learning the medical lexicon is like learning another language. I'm suspicious of this claim...
(certainly there's nothing in medical terminology to compare to my excruciating 2nd year French classes, where Mrs McKee used to point at random suspects in the class room and utter the dread nonsensical phrase 'Eresbotty' in a low growl (everyone else in the room seemed to know what she meant, and after a few lessons I was afraid to ask; fortunately, fate never selected me for such punishment and it was only several weeks into term that I realised she was saying 'Error Spotting,' meaning they had to comment on the next pupil's French skills. I'm not sure why I was considered a bright child, to be honest)
... but I can't deny that I get a certain thrill from being able to say that I'm suffering from post-prandial narcolepsy, rather than 'I'm feeling dozy after eating'. However, I am, as you may be aware, a writer as well as a veterinarian, and as a writer it's my job to attempt to make my thoughts as clear as possible. In the spirit of this, I'd like to offer you up a number of medical terms, and explain to you what they mean, how they're useful (and, hopefully, regain some of my sense of patronising superiority that has been cruelly snatched from me by the opening up of the word literally).
1. Shock
I know, I know, it doesn't have ology at the end, or sound particularly clever - but it's a word that arises often in emergency situations - 'Is he in shock, doctor?' (I do get embarrassed when clients call me doctor, but I'm far too polite to correct them. Okay, okay, I get a thrill out of it too).
I chose this one because it's a good demonstration of the preciseness of medical terms - shock, in medical language, does not mean 'surprised' or 'pissed off that a car has just hit them' but that the patient's tissues are starting to run dangerously low on oxygen, because there isn't enough blood getting to them. Shock is further divided into several categories which more precisely define why the blood isn't getting where it needs to be, such as: cardiogenic (the heart isn't pumping the blood around the body properly), hypovolaemic (literally 'low volume' - you've lost a lot of blood), endotoxic (the blood vessels have become leaky due to infection; you've still got all your blood, but it's leaked out of the blood vessels). It's a useful and descriptive word, and nothing at all to do with the emotional shock experienced when, say, discovering that your evil twin brother has been performing an elaborate decade-long revenge against you culminating in them stealing your job and knocking off your wife. For instance.
2. Cranial/caudal/medial/lateral/dorsal/ventral/left/right
These are among the first medical terms I learned; they're all terms used orientate yourself anatomically so that you can describe exactly where on the body you have encountered a lesion or abnormality. Fans of Jaws (and this will, presumably, include all my readers, as it is literally the greatest film ever) may be familiar with 'dorsal', due to the terrifying image of that grey triangle slicing silently through the water, signifying the arrival of Bruce the Shark. The triangle is Bruce's dorsal fin, named because 'dorsal' means 'on the same side of the body as the spine'. Ventral means the opposite - the side of the body opposite to the spine, so that your belly button is on your ventral abdomen (and if it isn't, a trip to the doctor's may be in order, if you haven't been already).
'Cranial' means, perhaps unsurprisingly, 'towards the head', whereas 'caudal' means towards the tail - so your stomach is cranial to your colon, but caudal to your lungs (unless you really are in trouble) - and you'll see that these terms can refer to internal as well as external anatomy.
'Medial' means towards the midline (i.e. towards the spine) and 'lateral' means away from the midline - so your thumb is (usually) medial to your little finger, and both your eyes are lateral to your nose.
I include left and right as an anatomical point of order - such terms are always from the patient's point of view, so 'left eye' means 'the patient's left eye'.
There's a whole load more of these, for more precise localisation - 'buccal' and 'lingual' for 'on the same side as the cheek' and 'on the same side as the tongue', for instance. Hopefully you can see these terms are very useful for medics, and this help you to understand such gobbledygook as '3mm ulcerated lesion approx 2cm caudal and 3cm medial to most cranial nipple right hand side'
3. Acute and Chronic
A little like shock, these terms are occasionally used correctly, but more frequently abused, by the general public. Taking a history, I often see acute and chronic used as descriptive terms for how severe a condition is, so let's be specific - from a medical point of view, these words say nothing about a condition's severity - all they tell us is about is how long you've had the condition.
'Acute' means the condition appeared suddenly, and has tended to change rapidly - this means, of course, that acute conditions also tend to be more severe when we see them, and more likely to be a crisis - but the term in itself merely means sudden onset, rapid change.
'Chronic' conditions are the opposite - slow to develop and cause symptoms. There can be mixing of the terms; often a chronic disease will arrive in our practice in an acute crisis, because that tends to be when you notice something going wrong.
4. ...otomy/...ectomy/ ...ostomy
Ahh, now we're getting to the good stuff - the Greek. The above are suffixes that we apply to parts of the body to explain what we've done to them, only to do it in such a way that makes us sound clever.
'...otomy' means to cut a hole in something. So, instead of saying 'I have cut a hole in your dog's stomach', we can instead gravely pronounce the far sexier 'I have performed a gastrotomy.' It works with anything you can cut a hole in - bladder (cystotomy), small intestine (enterotomy), large intestine (colotomy), chest (thoracotomy) and so on. To perform a phlebotomy, as mentioned above, you make a hole in your patient's vein so the blood can leak out - usually done nowadays with a collection tube to send the blood for analysis.
'...ectomy' - remove entirely. So, no languishing in the 'I cut your cat's kidney out' for us - nope. We performed a nephrectomy. Works for anything you can chop out, so enterectomy (section of intestine), hysterectomy (uterus), orchiectomy (testicles). The ancient Incas were, of course, skilled practitioners of cardiectomy, although this is generally not good news for the patient.
'...ostomy' means to create a permanent hole in something. We don't do this very often in veterinary medicine - possibly the most common operation (and it's not all that common) would be a urethrostomy, a procedure where we permanently open up a male cat's urethra (the tube that runs from the bladder down through the penis) to prevent it getting blocked (stop wincing, men! It's a life saver) although you may be more familiar with a colostomy, performed in humans with damaged or blocked bowels.
5. Hyperplasia/ Metaplasia/ Neoplasia
All to do with tissue growth - or, more to the point, cell growth. If you have hyperplasia, then the organ in question is perfectly normal, but bigger than it should be. This is rarely anything to worry about, but occasionally this can cause trouble if you haven't got a lot of room somewhere. Prostatic hyperplasia - enlargement of your prostate gland - a common ageing change in men - is the reason is gets harder to pee as you get older, owing to the fact that the prostate gland is annoyingly wrapped around your urethra.
Metaplasia is change from one type of cells to another type of cells, usually as a result of some kind of injury or stress. It's reversible (usually if the stress is removed), and benign, and we don't see it all that often - usually because by the time we find out about this, the cells have moved onto the next stage, which is...
Neoplasia. The medical term for cancer. Similar to metaplasia, except that once they get to this stage, the cells aren't going back to their previous state. They're very different cells to the ones that should be there, and unlike normal cells, which know when to stop growing, they just keep dividing. This, as I'm sure you're aware, causes all manner of problems, which I won't go into know. Neoplasia doesn't necessarily mean a malignant tumour - a wart is a form of neoplasia.
For the record, neoplasia, cancer and tumour are all synonyms - none of them mean malignant or benign by themselves, although 'cancer' tends to be used to mean malignant, nowadays (If I'm being pedantic, tumour simply means 'swelling', in the same way that 'rubour' means redness, but almost no-one uses it in this context any more). The difference between a malignant and a benign neoplasm is not clear cut, but it's related to how they behave. Benign tumours tend to stop growing when they reach a natural tissue boundary, and not spread via the lymph tissue or blood. Malignant tumours, unfortunately, are less respectful of tissue boundaries.
6. Idiopathic and ...opathy
And now we really enter the realms of sounding clever, without saying an awful lot. Very, very helpful terms, these. Idiopathic means, effectively, 'we don't know'. More to the point, it means that the consensus of medical opinion is still unsure as to the cause of this problem. So, when I tell you that your dog has 'idiopathic vestibular syndrome', I might be sounding very knowledgeable, but what I'm really saying is that you dog has a condition that no-one in the veterinary world quite understands.
That's not to say this term isn't helpful - just because we don't understand where a condition comes from, doesn't mean we can't treat it, or at least recognise the pattern of the disease - idiopathic vestibular syndrome, for instance, has a well-understood course (i.e. it usually gets a lot better within 24-48 hours) and, if I write it on my notes, other vets who read it will know what I'm thinking. I'm just telling you that it's a shorthand way of us saying 'Oh, it's that thing where their balance centre goes wrong, but usually gets better again'.
...opathy is along the same lines. It's another suffix, and when attached to a particular organ, it means 'something is wrong with it'. Brilliant, eh? Works with anything. Pneumopathy - lung disease. Dermatopathy - dodgy skin. If I tell you that your hamster has an 'acute idiopathic hepatopathy', I'm telling you that your furry friend's liver has gone wrong. I don't know how, or why, but at least I can tell you it happened pretty quickly.
7. Iatrogenic
A classic face-saver. Iatrogenic means caused by medical examination or treatment. In other words - that thing that's wrong with your pet? I did that. So, iatrogenic Cushing's disease is caused by your vet giving your pet too many steroids. In you vet's defence, they may have had no choice, because the disease that they're giving the steroids for is probably more severe than the Cushing's disease they're creating.
Iatrogenic haemorrhage is a euphemism along the lines of a surgeon tell you 'I'm afraid he lost a lot of blood during the surgery'. He didn't lose it - the surgeon did. It's nice that we have a special word for our balls-ups.
8. Borborygmi
Finally, I wanted to make special mention of my favourite word in the whole of veterinary medicine. It's pronounced BOR-BOR-IG-ME. Say it with me, because this word is onomatopoeic - which is to say, it sounds like the thing it's trying to describe.
Borborygmi is the medical term for the sound of stomach gurgles. Say it again out loud, and tell me that isn't the greatest word ever invented. Literally.
All is not lost for me, however. Fortunately for me, I have a whole language that was pretty much custom-designed to make me feel superior to normal mortals: medical terminology.
You see (and this may come as a surprise to you, so I'll whisper it) - many years ago, doctors didn't actually know very much. Sure, they could prod you, and prescribe leeches to suck blood out of you, but it couldn't really escape the notice of the general population that your chances of getting better with the treatment weren't dramatically better than the chances of getting better without. A poser. How could one make a living as a quack when it was patently obvious that you didn't know what you were talking about?
The solution: make it sound like you know what you're talking about. Language is, and always has been, a useful tool for those in power to keep the masses subjugated; Orwell's Big Brother understood this, with his doubleplus sinister idea, NewSpeak, and the founders of the Christian religion understood it too. Latin survived as a language largely because it wasn't understood by the poorly educated masses. The bible was always written in Latin so that churchmen (who had a similar credibility problem to the proto-medics) would be able to interpret it for the poor - and thus control the poor. If you know your history, you'll know the violence and consternation that surrounded the eventual translation of the bible into languages that everyone could read, and if you don't - go and read about it! Fascinating stuff.
In a similar spirit, early practitioners of the medical arts realised that suggesting to a prospective patient that 'I'm going to suck out a lot of your blood and hope that you feel better,' tended to garner a less-than-enthusiastic response. However, if you told them 'I'm going to perform a phlebotomy in order to balance the humours within your body,' people tended to nod, smile hopefully, and (crucially) hand over their coins.
And so medical terminology developed largely as a way of keeping knowledge (or lack of it) from the masses. As medical arts slowly transformed into medical science, it became more than that, however; much of medical language has a very specific and precise literal meaning (unlike, ironically, 'literally', any more - in fact, my money is on 'ironic' to be the next one on the list) which can get across a lot of information very quickly, and nowadays it's an invaluable tool to precisely explain your thoughts on a case in terms that, in theory, mean exactly the same thing to any medically trained personnel who reads or hears them.
I've been told a number of times that learning the medical lexicon is like learning another language. I'm suspicious of this claim...
(certainly there's nothing in medical terminology to compare to my excruciating 2nd year French classes, where Mrs McKee used to point at random suspects in the class room and utter the dread nonsensical phrase 'Eresbotty' in a low growl (everyone else in the room seemed to know what she meant, and after a few lessons I was afraid to ask; fortunately, fate never selected me for such punishment and it was only several weeks into term that I realised she was saying 'Error Spotting,' meaning they had to comment on the next pupil's French skills. I'm not sure why I was considered a bright child, to be honest)
... but I can't deny that I get a certain thrill from being able to say that I'm suffering from post-prandial narcolepsy, rather than 'I'm feeling dozy after eating'. However, I am, as you may be aware, a writer as well as a veterinarian, and as a writer it's my job to attempt to make my thoughts as clear as possible. In the spirit of this, I'd like to offer you up a number of medical terms, and explain to you what they mean, how they're useful (and, hopefully, regain some of my sense of patronising superiority that has been cruelly snatched from me by the opening up of the word literally).
1. Shock
I know, I know, it doesn't have ology at the end, or sound particularly clever - but it's a word that arises often in emergency situations - 'Is he in shock, doctor?' (I do get embarrassed when clients call me doctor, but I'm far too polite to correct them. Okay, okay, I get a thrill out of it too).
I chose this one because it's a good demonstration of the preciseness of medical terms - shock, in medical language, does not mean 'surprised' or 'pissed off that a car has just hit them' but that the patient's tissues are starting to run dangerously low on oxygen, because there isn't enough blood getting to them. Shock is further divided into several categories which more precisely define why the blood isn't getting where it needs to be, such as: cardiogenic (the heart isn't pumping the blood around the body properly), hypovolaemic (literally 'low volume' - you've lost a lot of blood), endotoxic (the blood vessels have become leaky due to infection; you've still got all your blood, but it's leaked out of the blood vessels). It's a useful and descriptive word, and nothing at all to do with the emotional shock experienced when, say, discovering that your evil twin brother has been performing an elaborate decade-long revenge against you culminating in them stealing your job and knocking off your wife. For instance.
2. Cranial/caudal/medial/lateral/dorsal/ventral/left/right
These are among the first medical terms I learned; they're all terms used orientate yourself anatomically so that you can describe exactly where on the body you have encountered a lesion or abnormality. Fans of Jaws (and this will, presumably, include all my readers, as it is literally the greatest film ever) may be familiar with 'dorsal', due to the terrifying image of that grey triangle slicing silently through the water, signifying the arrival of Bruce the Shark. The triangle is Bruce's dorsal fin, named because 'dorsal' means 'on the same side of the body as the spine'. Ventral means the opposite - the side of the body opposite to the spine, so that your belly button is on your ventral abdomen (and if it isn't, a trip to the doctor's may be in order, if you haven't been already).
'Cranial' means, perhaps unsurprisingly, 'towards the head', whereas 'caudal' means towards the tail - so your stomach is cranial to your colon, but caudal to your lungs (unless you really are in trouble) - and you'll see that these terms can refer to internal as well as external anatomy.
'Medial' means towards the midline (i.e. towards the spine) and 'lateral' means away from the midline - so your thumb is (usually) medial to your little finger, and both your eyes are lateral to your nose.
I include left and right as an anatomical point of order - such terms are always from the patient's point of view, so 'left eye' means 'the patient's left eye'.
There's a whole load more of these, for more precise localisation - 'buccal' and 'lingual' for 'on the same side as the cheek' and 'on the same side as the tongue', for instance. Hopefully you can see these terms are very useful for medics, and this help you to understand such gobbledygook as '3mm ulcerated lesion approx 2cm caudal and 3cm medial to most cranial nipple right hand side'
3. Acute and Chronic
A little like shock, these terms are occasionally used correctly, but more frequently abused, by the general public. Taking a history, I often see acute and chronic used as descriptive terms for how severe a condition is, so let's be specific - from a medical point of view, these words say nothing about a condition's severity - all they tell us is about is how long you've had the condition.
'Acute' means the condition appeared suddenly, and has tended to change rapidly - this means, of course, that acute conditions also tend to be more severe when we see them, and more likely to be a crisis - but the term in itself merely means sudden onset, rapid change.
'Chronic' conditions are the opposite - slow to develop and cause symptoms. There can be mixing of the terms; often a chronic disease will arrive in our practice in an acute crisis, because that tends to be when you notice something going wrong.
4. ...otomy/...ectomy/ ...ostomy
Ahh, now we're getting to the good stuff - the Greek. The above are suffixes that we apply to parts of the body to explain what we've done to them, only to do it in such a way that makes us sound clever.
'...otomy' means to cut a hole in something. So, instead of saying 'I have cut a hole in your dog's stomach', we can instead gravely pronounce the far sexier 'I have performed a gastrotomy.' It works with anything you can cut a hole in - bladder (cystotomy), small intestine (enterotomy), large intestine (colotomy), chest (thoracotomy) and so on. To perform a phlebotomy, as mentioned above, you make a hole in your patient's vein so the blood can leak out - usually done nowadays with a collection tube to send the blood for analysis.
'...ectomy' - remove entirely. So, no languishing in the 'I cut your cat's kidney out' for us - nope. We performed a nephrectomy. Works for anything you can chop out, so enterectomy (section of intestine), hysterectomy (uterus), orchiectomy (testicles). The ancient Incas were, of course, skilled practitioners of cardiectomy, although this is generally not good news for the patient.
'...ostomy' means to create a permanent hole in something. We don't do this very often in veterinary medicine - possibly the most common operation (and it's not all that common) would be a urethrostomy, a procedure where we permanently open up a male cat's urethra (the tube that runs from the bladder down through the penis) to prevent it getting blocked (stop wincing, men! It's a life saver) although you may be more familiar with a colostomy, performed in humans with damaged or blocked bowels.
5. Hyperplasia/ Metaplasia/ Neoplasia
All to do with tissue growth - or, more to the point, cell growth. If you have hyperplasia, then the organ in question is perfectly normal, but bigger than it should be. This is rarely anything to worry about, but occasionally this can cause trouble if you haven't got a lot of room somewhere. Prostatic hyperplasia - enlargement of your prostate gland - a common ageing change in men - is the reason is gets harder to pee as you get older, owing to the fact that the prostate gland is annoyingly wrapped around your urethra.
Metaplasia is change from one type of cells to another type of cells, usually as a result of some kind of injury or stress. It's reversible (usually if the stress is removed), and benign, and we don't see it all that often - usually because by the time we find out about this, the cells have moved onto the next stage, which is...
Neoplasia. The medical term for cancer. Similar to metaplasia, except that once they get to this stage, the cells aren't going back to their previous state. They're very different cells to the ones that should be there, and unlike normal cells, which know when to stop growing, they just keep dividing. This, as I'm sure you're aware, causes all manner of problems, which I won't go into know. Neoplasia doesn't necessarily mean a malignant tumour - a wart is a form of neoplasia.
For the record, neoplasia, cancer and tumour are all synonyms - none of them mean malignant or benign by themselves, although 'cancer' tends to be used to mean malignant, nowadays (If I'm being pedantic, tumour simply means 'swelling', in the same way that 'rubour' means redness, but almost no-one uses it in this context any more). The difference between a malignant and a benign neoplasm is not clear cut, but it's related to how they behave. Benign tumours tend to stop growing when they reach a natural tissue boundary, and not spread via the lymph tissue or blood. Malignant tumours, unfortunately, are less respectful of tissue boundaries.
6. Idiopathic and ...opathy
And now we really enter the realms of sounding clever, without saying an awful lot. Very, very helpful terms, these. Idiopathic means, effectively, 'we don't know'. More to the point, it means that the consensus of medical opinion is still unsure as to the cause of this problem. So, when I tell you that your dog has 'idiopathic vestibular syndrome', I might be sounding very knowledgeable, but what I'm really saying is that you dog has a condition that no-one in the veterinary world quite understands.
That's not to say this term isn't helpful - just because we don't understand where a condition comes from, doesn't mean we can't treat it, or at least recognise the pattern of the disease - idiopathic vestibular syndrome, for instance, has a well-understood course (i.e. it usually gets a lot better within 24-48 hours) and, if I write it on my notes, other vets who read it will know what I'm thinking. I'm just telling you that it's a shorthand way of us saying 'Oh, it's that thing where their balance centre goes wrong, but usually gets better again'.
...opathy is along the same lines. It's another suffix, and when attached to a particular organ, it means 'something is wrong with it'. Brilliant, eh? Works with anything. Pneumopathy - lung disease. Dermatopathy - dodgy skin. If I tell you that your hamster has an 'acute idiopathic hepatopathy', I'm telling you that your furry friend's liver has gone wrong. I don't know how, or why, but at least I can tell you it happened pretty quickly.
7. Iatrogenic
A classic face-saver. Iatrogenic means caused by medical examination or treatment. In other words - that thing that's wrong with your pet? I did that. So, iatrogenic Cushing's disease is caused by your vet giving your pet too many steroids. In you vet's defence, they may have had no choice, because the disease that they're giving the steroids for is probably more severe than the Cushing's disease they're creating.
Iatrogenic haemorrhage is a euphemism along the lines of a surgeon tell you 'I'm afraid he lost a lot of blood during the surgery'. He didn't lose it - the surgeon did. It's nice that we have a special word for our balls-ups.
8. Borborygmi
Finally, I wanted to make special mention of my favourite word in the whole of veterinary medicine. It's pronounced BOR-BOR-IG-ME. Say it with me, because this word is onomatopoeic - which is to say, it sounds like the thing it's trying to describe.
Borborygmi is the medical term for the sound of stomach gurgles. Say it again out loud, and tell me that isn't the greatest word ever invented. Literally.
Monday, 18 October 2010
Battle of the sexes
It's just possible that, because of my profession, I have a slightly skewed view of humanity. In fact, I'm certain of it - and reason I'm certain of it is because of my answer to the question 'What is the main difference between men and women?'
My answer would be 'Women seems to like pus a lot more than men do.'
This is perhaps a surprising answer. AFter all, aren't the fairer sex made of sugar and spice and all things nice?
(Incidentally, what a horrible, sexist poem that is - so all boys are made of slugs and snails, eh? Might as well say that they're made of dog turd and have done with it. Imagine if the lines of that poem were reversed?)
Anyway, if that is true, then it must also be true that opposites attract because I have yet to work with a woman who didn't look upon the prospect of bursting a ripe cat bite abscess with a glee that would more normally be associated with a minor lottery windfall.
What is it about pus that is so exciting and endlessly fascinating to girls? To me it's a foul-smelling mix of white blood cells and bacteria that is better removed by necessity from an animal. To the ladies in my life it's like wine produced from God's own vineyard. They actually battle over who will get to lance the abscess when a particularily unfrotunate specimen comes in.
It seems to be quite specific to abscesses, too - I've yet to work with a female that will jump up and down with excitement at the prospect of picking maggots out of a rabbit's backside, or providing relief to an obstipated cat (obstipation is like constipation only much, much worse. Think of a cement mixer and you'll be in the right ball park). But thrust a juicy cat bite abscess towards them and they'll be charging for the scalpels quicker than you can say 'purulent'.
(I'm mostly talking about cats here for a few reasons. Dogs are less likely to get into a fight than cats - there's a reason for all that rolling on the back, submissive behaviour. Cats don't do that so much. If they don't get on, they'll generally settle it with physical violence - they're a bit like rednecks in that respect. Rabbits, on the other hand, simply have a problem with their pus. It's more like cottage cheese than anything else, and doesn't squirt satisfactorily out of a hole like lovely cat pus. You generally have to scrape it out with a curette. Apologies if you're eating, by the way.)
This may or may not be a surprise to you - I bet you are either a perpentrator or a victim of the lesser phenomenon, though - humans seem to be another source of endless fascination for daughters of Eve. Anyone who has ever sat through an evening having their spots squeezed (or squeezing the spots of) their siginificant other knows what I'm talking about here. In any case, I'm more than happy to hand the victims of feline violence to my female colleagues for rapid and gleeful lancing. Hey, it saves me a job.
Well, there you have it. The lesson for tonight - there's something in the feminine psyche which takes great delight in seeing nice fresh pus oozing from a gaping wound. Whether this lesson is of any use to anyone is another matter entirely. Hey, I don't make this stuff up, I just report it.
And please, next time your cat has a suspicious sweling on it's head two days after getting into a fight, ask for a female vet. They, and I, will be very grateful.
My answer would be 'Women seems to like pus a lot more than men do.'
This is perhaps a surprising answer. AFter all, aren't the fairer sex made of sugar and spice and all things nice?
(Incidentally, what a horrible, sexist poem that is - so all boys are made of slugs and snails, eh? Might as well say that they're made of dog turd and have done with it. Imagine if the lines of that poem were reversed?)
Anyway, if that is true, then it must also be true that opposites attract because I have yet to work with a woman who didn't look upon the prospect of bursting a ripe cat bite abscess with a glee that would more normally be associated with a minor lottery windfall.
What is it about pus that is so exciting and endlessly fascinating to girls? To me it's a foul-smelling mix of white blood cells and bacteria that is better removed by necessity from an animal. To the ladies in my life it's like wine produced from God's own vineyard. They actually battle over who will get to lance the abscess when a particularily unfrotunate specimen comes in.
It seems to be quite specific to abscesses, too - I've yet to work with a female that will jump up and down with excitement at the prospect of picking maggots out of a rabbit's backside, or providing relief to an obstipated cat (obstipation is like constipation only much, much worse. Think of a cement mixer and you'll be in the right ball park). But thrust a juicy cat bite abscess towards them and they'll be charging for the scalpels quicker than you can say 'purulent'.
(I'm mostly talking about cats here for a few reasons. Dogs are less likely to get into a fight than cats - there's a reason for all that rolling on the back, submissive behaviour. Cats don't do that so much. If they don't get on, they'll generally settle it with physical violence - they're a bit like rednecks in that respect. Rabbits, on the other hand, simply have a problem with their pus. It's more like cottage cheese than anything else, and doesn't squirt satisfactorily out of a hole like lovely cat pus. You generally have to scrape it out with a curette. Apologies if you're eating, by the way.)
This may or may not be a surprise to you - I bet you are either a perpentrator or a victim of the lesser phenomenon, though - humans seem to be another source of endless fascination for daughters of Eve. Anyone who has ever sat through an evening having their spots squeezed (or squeezing the spots of) their siginificant other knows what I'm talking about here. In any case, I'm more than happy to hand the victims of feline violence to my female colleagues for rapid and gleeful lancing. Hey, it saves me a job.
Well, there you have it. The lesson for tonight - there's something in the feminine psyche which takes great delight in seeing nice fresh pus oozing from a gaping wound. Whether this lesson is of any use to anyone is another matter entirely. Hey, I don't make this stuff up, I just report it.
And please, next time your cat has a suspicious sweling on it's head two days after getting into a fight, ask for a female vet. They, and I, will be very grateful.
Wednesday, 9 June 2010
Seen and not heard...
This will be a brief one, but it's a neat little illustration of...well, I've not really got the faintest clue what it illustrates, or why, but I'm pretty sure it illustrates something. When I work out what it is, I'll probably make some money out of it.
It wasn't the busiest surgery this evening - the waiting room wasn't packed, which in light of what was about to follow is probably a good thing. I walked out into the waiting room to call the name of the cat I was about to see (see my previous post for client-calling in strategies through the ages). I saw the woman sitting with a cat box, and standing next to her were her children, a little boy and a little girl. They were...oh, I don't know, I'm not good at estimating child ages. Puppies, kittens, I'm fine with, but kids...well, they were about yea high. Old enough to walk without dribbling, just about. They both looked cute to my untrained eye, anyway - the boy looked a little like a smaller version of Phil Mitchell's sprog in Eastenders.
So, I stood in the waiting room, patented vet-smile (TM) on my face, and called out the cat's name.
'Marny?'
The boy looked at me, caught my gaze, smiled, and shouted out 'You sound gay!'
Now, I've had a number of unusual responses in waiting rooms, but I'll be honest, this was a new one on me. I believe I might have lost control of my jaw for a moment, but years of practice left the smile on my face, so that my mouth lolled open like a sedated guppy's.
Okay, any of you who know me, it may have crossed your mind by now that our young Satan had a point. I have not been blessed with the deepest voice in the civilised world. I have, on occasion, been known to mince, and it's true that most practices I've worked at have been surprised to discover I had a girlfriend (or, as is now the case, wife). It's not the worst disability in the world, having a rather effeminate manner without actually being gay, and I genuinely don't mind it, but it can get a bit wearing at times. Still, old ladies seem to like it, and if works for the clients it works for me.
The lady uttered not one word of remonstration to my new arch-nemesis, but picked up the cat box and headed towards my consulting room. As I closed the door to the waiting room I could see the receptionists leaping to my defence by doubling up with laughter at the front desk.
The rest of the consult was, if possible, even less fun. The cat was fine, it was only a second vaccination, but Tiny Terror had decided that the next torment to inflict was to loudly repeat everything that I said, in a rather unflattering tone of voice. Whilst I longingly looked at the needles in my cupboard and wondered if it acutally might be worth doing some prison time, the mother decided to very quietly say to the monstrous spawn that she had produced 'Now, be quiet, the man's trying to work'.
Well, at least she said 'man'. Sigh. I managed to complete the consult without strangling anyone to death, or bursting into tears. As the woman left, she let her offspirng out before her, then turned to me and said in a conspiratorial tone 'He's autistic.'
Great, so not only had I been bullied by a child for my entire consultation, and ridiculed for it, I was now also a complete bastard for wishing various sharp unpleasant things to happen to the kid because he was disabled, rather than, say, an undisciplined little turd.
I was hoping to come to some great insight for having jotted this down, but thus far none has come to me. I'm no expert on autism, or children, or anything to be honest that doesn't involve animals (or science fiction), but it strikes me that children can get away with any behaviour they like so long as you put a label on it.
The label I have chosen for this paticular behaviour is 'bastard'. (I probably would have felt much better about the whole incident if the woman had turned to me at the end and said conspiratorialy 'He's a bastard.')
Anyway, if anyone wants me I'll be in the x-ray room, repeatedly radiographing my testicles until they couldn't produce a sperm if their life depended on it. Thankyou, and good night.
It wasn't the busiest surgery this evening - the waiting room wasn't packed, which in light of what was about to follow is probably a good thing. I walked out into the waiting room to call the name of the cat I was about to see (see my previous post for client-calling in strategies through the ages). I saw the woman sitting with a cat box, and standing next to her were her children, a little boy and a little girl. They were...oh, I don't know, I'm not good at estimating child ages. Puppies, kittens, I'm fine with, but kids...well, they were about yea high. Old enough to walk without dribbling, just about. They both looked cute to my untrained eye, anyway - the boy looked a little like a smaller version of Phil Mitchell's sprog in Eastenders.
So, I stood in the waiting room, patented vet-smile (TM) on my face, and called out the cat's name.
'Marny?'
The boy looked at me, caught my gaze, smiled, and shouted out 'You sound gay!'
Now, I've had a number of unusual responses in waiting rooms, but I'll be honest, this was a new one on me. I believe I might have lost control of my jaw for a moment, but years of practice left the smile on my face, so that my mouth lolled open like a sedated guppy's.
Okay, any of you who know me, it may have crossed your mind by now that our young Satan had a point. I have not been blessed with the deepest voice in the civilised world. I have, on occasion, been known to mince, and it's true that most practices I've worked at have been surprised to discover I had a girlfriend (or, as is now the case, wife). It's not the worst disability in the world, having a rather effeminate manner without actually being gay, and I genuinely don't mind it, but it can get a bit wearing at times. Still, old ladies seem to like it, and if works for the clients it works for me.
The lady uttered not one word of remonstration to my new arch-nemesis, but picked up the cat box and headed towards my consulting room. As I closed the door to the waiting room I could see the receptionists leaping to my defence by doubling up with laughter at the front desk.
The rest of the consult was, if possible, even less fun. The cat was fine, it was only a second vaccination, but Tiny Terror had decided that the next torment to inflict was to loudly repeat everything that I said, in a rather unflattering tone of voice. Whilst I longingly looked at the needles in my cupboard and wondered if it acutally might be worth doing some prison time, the mother decided to very quietly say to the monstrous spawn that she had produced 'Now, be quiet, the man's trying to work'.
Well, at least she said 'man'. Sigh. I managed to complete the consult without strangling anyone to death, or bursting into tears. As the woman left, she let her offspirng out before her, then turned to me and said in a conspiratorial tone 'He's autistic.'
Great, so not only had I been bullied by a child for my entire consultation, and ridiculed for it, I was now also a complete bastard for wishing various sharp unpleasant things to happen to the kid because he was disabled, rather than, say, an undisciplined little turd.
I was hoping to come to some great insight for having jotted this down, but thus far none has come to me. I'm no expert on autism, or children, or anything to be honest that doesn't involve animals (or science fiction), but it strikes me that children can get away with any behaviour they like so long as you put a label on it.
The label I have chosen for this paticular behaviour is 'bastard'. (I probably would have felt much better about the whole incident if the woman had turned to me at the end and said conspiratorialy 'He's a bastard.')
Anyway, if anyone wants me I'll be in the x-ray room, repeatedly radiographing my testicles until they couldn't produce a sperm if their life depended on it. Thankyou, and good night.
Monday, 8 March 2010
The Mutt's Nuts
Just wanted to blog a quickie whilst a consult I did this evening was fresh in my mind. You could look upon the consult in two ways - either (if you're feeling charitable) it gave me an interesting perspective on how people view their animals, or (if you're not) it sent me into further despair about the future of humanity (maybe it's something of a relief that it doesn't look like we've got much of one)
I was seeing a dog out this evening after his castrate. The consult hadn't got off onto the best start when the owner (who I will refrain from describing because I don't want to predjudice anything. Let's just say she was 'dog rough', and leave it at that) was a bit aggrieved that I suggested we might have to charge her for the special shampoo I suggested to cure her dog of its potential fatal skin condition that I had diagnosed during the procedure (I didn't dare charge her for the skin scrape!)
'I haven't got that kind of money, what you doin', tryin' to rob me?' was the general gist of her reasons for not wanting the twenty-quid bottle of shampoo. (along with the polite 'Where the fuck did he get those fuckin' mites from, then?')
That's when we got onto the castrate. I explained that her puppy should have a light meal tonight, as he might feel a little sick after his anaesthetic.
(How the fuck am I supposed to cook fuckin' rice without a cooker, eh?)
Moving on, I explained where the wound was, and how although her dog's scrotum would look a bit peculiar now it was empty, it would all shrink down over the next few months.
Long pause.
'You what?'
'Erm...I'm just saying, it will all shrink down, and look very normal in a few months.'
'Are you telling me you've cut his bollocks off?'
(My turn with the long pause)
(slightly nervous at this point)'Well, he was in today to be castrated, wasn't he?'
'Yeah, but I didn't think you'd cut his balls off as well!'
Now, at this point, dear readers, I wasn't really sure what else to say. My gaze moved to the consent form for her dog, which she had signed, right under the words 'Dog Castrate'. The owner was now in a state of some consternation, huffing and swearing, and muttering 'I don't believe it.' I decided to go for the scientific approach.
'Erm...can I ask you what you think castration is?'
'It's the snip, innit? His tubes. Don't fuckin' believe it!'
'Um...no, I think you're thinking of a vasectomy. Castration is...well, removing the testicles.' Distressingly, I caught myself gesturing to my own crotch, as if this would somehow help to illustrate the procedure. Thankfully, the owner distracted me before I got too much further.
'Well, that's great, he's gonna attack all the other dogs now, isn't he?'
I didn't really follow the logic there, so I resorted to 'What?'
'He's gonna be jealous, isn't he? Lookin' at himself, and then seeing them with their balls hanging out, he's gonna kick right off, innee?'
It slowly dawned on me that the owner genuinely believed her dog was going to have such a self-image problem that he was going to take out it's anger and frustration on other dogs.
'I...um...dogs don't really think that way, to be honest.'
'Are you saying my dog is stupid?'
This is the point where my last, faint hope for humankind waved it's little white flag. Several minutes, and lots of swearing (only slightly on my part) finally convinced my owner that her poor puppy was not going to develop some kind of castrato-complex*, and that castrated dogs tended to be less aggressive than uncastrated. Somehow, I managed to survive the rest of the consultation without getting thumped, and even managed to get a 'Thanks' from the owner. We might even convince her to get her dog treated for that potentially fatal skin condition, if we're really lucky...
And that is my story. Bit too early to have much of a point to it, other than I wanted to write it down before my brain rejected it as too strange to be true. If there's a lesson to this tale, I suppose it might be this - if you need a surgical procedure, make sure you know what it is before you sign on the dotted line. Not much of a moral, I know, but what do you want from me? I'm a vet, not a philosopher (though I am occasionally a reluctant social worker too)
*(which, it occurs to me as I type, opens on to another issue, slightly less flippant and so not really belonging in this blog - is it justifiable to mutilate an individual of a species, for the good of the species as a whole? My honest answer is yes, I believe it is - I've seen too many unwanted puppies and kittens get euthanased or suffer to even slightly think otherwise - but I'm not blind to the fact that being neutered is a stressful and unpleasant thing to go through, and given the choice dogs and cats probably wouldn't go for it - I mean, a good way to add eight years to my own life would be to get castrated, but you don't see me lining up for it, do you? Anyway, I digress....maybe the subject for another blog, that one)
I was seeing a dog out this evening after his castrate. The consult hadn't got off onto the best start when the owner (who I will refrain from describing because I don't want to predjudice anything. Let's just say she was 'dog rough', and leave it at that) was a bit aggrieved that I suggested we might have to charge her for the special shampoo I suggested to cure her dog of its potential fatal skin condition that I had diagnosed during the procedure (I didn't dare charge her for the skin scrape!)
'I haven't got that kind of money, what you doin', tryin' to rob me?' was the general gist of her reasons for not wanting the twenty-quid bottle of shampoo. (along with the polite 'Where the fuck did he get those fuckin' mites from, then?')
That's when we got onto the castrate. I explained that her puppy should have a light meal tonight, as he might feel a little sick after his anaesthetic.
(How the fuck am I supposed to cook fuckin' rice without a cooker, eh?)
Moving on, I explained where the wound was, and how although her dog's scrotum would look a bit peculiar now it was empty, it would all shrink down over the next few months.
Long pause.
'You what?'
'Erm...I'm just saying, it will all shrink down, and look very normal in a few months.'
'Are you telling me you've cut his bollocks off?'
(My turn with the long pause)
(slightly nervous at this point)'Well, he was in today to be castrated, wasn't he?'
'Yeah, but I didn't think you'd cut his balls off as well!'
Now, at this point, dear readers, I wasn't really sure what else to say. My gaze moved to the consent form for her dog, which she had signed, right under the words 'Dog Castrate'. The owner was now in a state of some consternation, huffing and swearing, and muttering 'I don't believe it.' I decided to go for the scientific approach.
'Erm...can I ask you what you think castration is?'
'It's the snip, innit? His tubes. Don't fuckin' believe it!'
'Um...no, I think you're thinking of a vasectomy. Castration is...well, removing the testicles.' Distressingly, I caught myself gesturing to my own crotch, as if this would somehow help to illustrate the procedure. Thankfully, the owner distracted me before I got too much further.
'Well, that's great, he's gonna attack all the other dogs now, isn't he?'
I didn't really follow the logic there, so I resorted to 'What?'
'He's gonna be jealous, isn't he? Lookin' at himself, and then seeing them with their balls hanging out, he's gonna kick right off, innee?'
It slowly dawned on me that the owner genuinely believed her dog was going to have such a self-image problem that he was going to take out it's anger and frustration on other dogs.
'I...um...dogs don't really think that way, to be honest.'
'Are you saying my dog is stupid?'
This is the point where my last, faint hope for humankind waved it's little white flag. Several minutes, and lots of swearing (only slightly on my part) finally convinced my owner that her poor puppy was not going to develop some kind of castrato-complex*, and that castrated dogs tended to be less aggressive than uncastrated. Somehow, I managed to survive the rest of the consultation without getting thumped, and even managed to get a 'Thanks' from the owner. We might even convince her to get her dog treated for that potentially fatal skin condition, if we're really lucky...
And that is my story. Bit too early to have much of a point to it, other than I wanted to write it down before my brain rejected it as too strange to be true. If there's a lesson to this tale, I suppose it might be this - if you need a surgical procedure, make sure you know what it is before you sign on the dotted line. Not much of a moral, I know, but what do you want from me? I'm a vet, not a philosopher (though I am occasionally a reluctant social worker too)
*(which, it occurs to me as I type, opens on to another issue, slightly less flippant and so not really belonging in this blog - is it justifiable to mutilate an individual of a species, for the good of the species as a whole? My honest answer is yes, I believe it is - I've seen too many unwanted puppies and kittens get euthanased or suffer to even slightly think otherwise - but I'm not blind to the fact that being neutered is a stressful and unpleasant thing to go through, and given the choice dogs and cats probably wouldn't go for it - I mean, a good way to add eight years to my own life would be to get castrated, but you don't see me lining up for it, do you? Anyway, I digress....maybe the subject for another blog, that one)
Sunday, 18 October 2009
Jim Morrison said it best
'People are strange, when you're a stranger'
Quite right, Jim, they are. What the Doors lead singer neglected to mention, however, was they're strange when you're just about anything. They are especially strange, for some reason, when they are in a consulting room talking to me.
Now, the purpose of this post is not to make fun of anyone, or to suggest that I am in any way less strange than any of the rest of us - we're all human, aren't we? (Oh...except you at the back with the tentacles). It's more to jot these things down so that I don't forget them, as my life would be considerably less stressful but also greatly less amusing without the general public involved.
And what are 'these things' of which I speak? Well, they're all things that have said to me or a colleague at some time or another in a consulting room, usually with a straight face and an earnest expression. I'm not mocking any of the people involved. It's cruel to mock the afflicted. (Ooh no, stop it! Ooh.) (That was supposed to be a Frankie Howerd impression, if you're confused. It might not work so well via the medium of the written word)
(And we'll skip over the basic cliches that everyone is allowed to say, and in fact do say to me on a regular basis. I'm sure every profession has them - the comments that come straight out of people's mouths when they hear what it is you do for a living without way of their brains, but that somehow they seem to feel is original. You know what I mean - for doctors it would be to automatically list everything wrong with you at the current moment as if the doctor cares. For builders it's the same, only with houses. For archaeologists it's to make some highly amusing comment along the lines of 'oh, you'll have to come and dig up my garden, ho ho ho'
(Note - I am sadly not immune to this curse. Upon meeting a marine cartographer when I was slightly the worse for wear with drink, I am ashamed to report I honestly said 'Oh, that must be easy then, it's all blue.' Not only this, when he didn't laugh I assumed he hadn't heard my witticism, so I said it again, louder. I'm sorry.)
Well, for vets you get either one of two responses. Please avoid either of these, as they will make any vet to say it to want to sneak into your room at night and sterilise you sans anaesthetic. Firstly 'A licence to print money, that is.' No, you seem to have me confused with the Royal Mint. Now kindly drop dead.
Secondly, (and by far the most popular)....'Huhuh huh huh you put your hand up cow's bottoms heheheh hehe he huhuh huh'. Yes, yes I do. It's my job. I have also wanked off a dog for the same reason. Yes, rubber gloves and lubricant were involved. Are you over it now? Oh no, you're still laughing. Tee hee. Now drop dead.)
There is something about a consulting room which... you know, I was about to write something along the lines of 'turns otherwise sane people into gibbering lunatics' but I'm starting to question the usage of the phrase 'otherwise sane people', so I think I'll just leave it. Here are some situations I have been in whilst talking to the dreaded 'general public'.
- Once, not very long ago, whilst I was kneeling on the floor examining a dog for its vaccination, the owner asked me if I could have a check of its bladder. I felt it from the outside and it felt fine (not the easiest organ to check, the bladder, in fairness - you're much better going off clinical signs initially). The owner didn't seem entirely satisfied with my response that it all seemed okay, so like a good vet I proceeded to procure an anamnesis.
(That's 'get a history' to mere mortals who are not blessed with the wondrous Latin language of obfuscation so beloved of doctors and medics. My favourite word - Idiopathic. It means 'I don't know.' So idiopathic vestibular syndrome means that there's something wrong with your dog's brain, and I have no idea what that is. Fortunately, no-one else has any idea either so I can't comfortably, and quite officially, say 'I dunno' and still sound clever. The next best word is, of course, iatrogenic. That means 'caused by your dumb-ass vet'. an iatrogenic ruptured tympanic membrane would mean I poked my otoscope too far down your dog's ear)
I asked what the clinical signs were in this case to make the owner worried about her dog's bladder. There were none - the dog was peeing absolutely normally. However, the client told me, she knew there was something wrong there. I asked how, and looking slightly sheepish, she said 'Well this might sound a bit strange but...'
(Always a worrying phrase to hear!)
'...well, I have this horse whisperer comes round to see my horse, you see. And she told me that my horse had been speaking to my dog, and my dog told my horse that she's got a pea-sized lump in her urethra.'
Quite how this cross-species conversation got started, I do not know
('Alright Dobbin?'
'Yeah, not so bad. Yerself, Fido?'
'Well, now that you mention it....')
but I love the idea of them standing in the stable like old women waiting for their hair appointments, discussing their various ailments. I never found out how much Doctor Doolittle charged the client for her 'services', but I checked the dog's urethra rectally (hehe, yes yes. It's my job.) and funnily enough no such pea-like lump was found. The annoying thing is, I bet the client still believed her wondrous horse-whisperer over me. I wonder where the dog learned the horse word for 'urethra'?
- A colleague of mine recently saw a dog with a small slice wound in its paw, next to a little wart. When she asked how it happened, the owner told her that her daughter had been trimming the dog with scissors. Thinking that she had misheard, she suggested that the client would be better taking the dog to a grooming parlour to cut its hair.
No, the client said, she was trimming the dog, not the hair. She liked to cut warts off. The owner thought it would be okay, because she trimmed warts of her brother as well, and this usually turned out fine. It lead to the memorable line in the clinical notes 'Advise owner not to allow daughter to use scissors on dog in future.'
- My wife was on a house visit to examine a week-old litter of bulldogs (born via caesarian, of course). Aside from the owner not having a great grasp of basic maths...
(Five puppies, two boys. The repeated question (at least three times) 'So how many girls?')
...she soon demonstrated a rather limited understanding of genetics too. Whilst my wife was examining the pups, it became clear to her that the dog and the bitch who had produced this particular batch of dogs both had the same mother and father.
'Erm...you mean they're brother and sister?' My wife asked, nervously.
'No!', said the client, obviously taking some offense at the fact that anyone would be as stupid as to breed brothers and sisters together. 'They're from different litters!'
- I was once asked by a rather creepy looking gentleman whilst I examined his cat 'Would there be any problem with him eating a lot of human hair?'
- My wife called a client in to the consulting room, a rather large and somewhat hairy woman, who plonked the cat basket on the table, and then announced before she had said a word
'Just so you know, I'm a TS, all right. A trans sexual. I don't want there to be any question of that.'
Sadly, for comedic purposes, my wife did not then ask to examine the client's pussy. Oh what the hell, it's my blog, I can say what I like. She politely asked to examine the client's pussy.
- Just last week, I had a regular client of mine come in for an appointment for a vaccination of their cat. I was sure I had vaccinated it relatively recently, so was slightly confused. As she came in, she put the basket on the table, and said
'I hope you don't mind, there's nothing wrong with him, but I got a cotton bud stuck in my ear this morning, and the doctors was full. Can you get it out for me?'
- Not really the client's fault, this one, but I once did an unexptedly smelly fart during a consultation and succesfully blamed it one the dog's anal glands
- Honourable mentions must of course go to the numerous times I (and I'm sure every other vet) have had to examine dogs because they have developed two large lumps around their penis whilst playing with the owner (um... your dog has an erection, Mrs Smith) and the many many hamsters I have examined with a pair of large lumps just underneath their bottom (erm... your hamster has a pair of testicles, Mrs Jones)
Well, I think that'll do for a start. There are more, but they'll have to wait for another time. Thank you to all the weird, wonderful, and very ssstrange people who make my day job just a little more bearable, and certainly a whole lot funnier.
Quite right, Jim, they are. What the Doors lead singer neglected to mention, however, was they're strange when you're just about anything. They are especially strange, for some reason, when they are in a consulting room talking to me.
Now, the purpose of this post is not to make fun of anyone, or to suggest that I am in any way less strange than any of the rest of us - we're all human, aren't we? (Oh...except you at the back with the tentacles). It's more to jot these things down so that I don't forget them, as my life would be considerably less stressful but also greatly less amusing without the general public involved.
And what are 'these things' of which I speak? Well, they're all things that have said to me or a colleague at some time or another in a consulting room, usually with a straight face and an earnest expression. I'm not mocking any of the people involved. It's cruel to mock the afflicted. (Ooh no, stop it! Ooh.) (That was supposed to be a Frankie Howerd impression, if you're confused. It might not work so well via the medium of the written word)
(And we'll skip over the basic cliches that everyone is allowed to say, and in fact do say to me on a regular basis. I'm sure every profession has them - the comments that come straight out of people's mouths when they hear what it is you do for a living without way of their brains, but that somehow they seem to feel is original. You know what I mean - for doctors it would be to automatically list everything wrong with you at the current moment as if the doctor cares. For builders it's the same, only with houses. For archaeologists it's to make some highly amusing comment along the lines of 'oh, you'll have to come and dig up my garden, ho ho ho'
(Note - I am sadly not immune to this curse. Upon meeting a marine cartographer when I was slightly the worse for wear with drink, I am ashamed to report I honestly said 'Oh, that must be easy then, it's all blue.' Not only this, when he didn't laugh I assumed he hadn't heard my witticism, so I said it again, louder. I'm sorry.)
Well, for vets you get either one of two responses. Please avoid either of these, as they will make any vet to say it to want to sneak into your room at night and sterilise you sans anaesthetic. Firstly 'A licence to print money, that is.' No, you seem to have me confused with the Royal Mint. Now kindly drop dead.
Secondly, (and by far the most popular)....'Huhuh huh huh you put your hand up cow's bottoms heheheh hehe he huhuh huh'. Yes, yes I do. It's my job. I have also wanked off a dog for the same reason. Yes, rubber gloves and lubricant were involved. Are you over it now? Oh no, you're still laughing. Tee hee. Now drop dead.)
There is something about a consulting room which... you know, I was about to write something along the lines of 'turns otherwise sane people into gibbering lunatics' but I'm starting to question the usage of the phrase 'otherwise sane people', so I think I'll just leave it. Here are some situations I have been in whilst talking to the dreaded 'general public'.
- Once, not very long ago, whilst I was kneeling on the floor examining a dog for its vaccination, the owner asked me if I could have a check of its bladder. I felt it from the outside and it felt fine (not the easiest organ to check, the bladder, in fairness - you're much better going off clinical signs initially). The owner didn't seem entirely satisfied with my response that it all seemed okay, so like a good vet I proceeded to procure an anamnesis.
(That's 'get a history' to mere mortals who are not blessed with the wondrous Latin language of obfuscation so beloved of doctors and medics. My favourite word - Idiopathic. It means 'I don't know.' So idiopathic vestibular syndrome means that there's something wrong with your dog's brain, and I have no idea what that is. Fortunately, no-one else has any idea either so I can't comfortably, and quite officially, say 'I dunno' and still sound clever. The next best word is, of course, iatrogenic. That means 'caused by your dumb-ass vet'. an iatrogenic ruptured tympanic membrane would mean I poked my otoscope too far down your dog's ear)
I asked what the clinical signs were in this case to make the owner worried about her dog's bladder. There were none - the dog was peeing absolutely normally. However, the client told me, she knew there was something wrong there. I asked how, and looking slightly sheepish, she said 'Well this might sound a bit strange but...'
(Always a worrying phrase to hear!)
'...well, I have this horse whisperer comes round to see my horse, you see. And she told me that my horse had been speaking to my dog, and my dog told my horse that she's got a pea-sized lump in her urethra.'
Quite how this cross-species conversation got started, I do not know
('Alright Dobbin?'
'Yeah, not so bad. Yerself, Fido?'
'Well, now that you mention it....')
but I love the idea of them standing in the stable like old women waiting for their hair appointments, discussing their various ailments. I never found out how much Doctor Doolittle charged the client for her 'services', but I checked the dog's urethra rectally (hehe, yes yes. It's my job.) and funnily enough no such pea-like lump was found. The annoying thing is, I bet the client still believed her wondrous horse-whisperer over me. I wonder where the dog learned the horse word for 'urethra'?
- A colleague of mine recently saw a dog with a small slice wound in its paw, next to a little wart. When she asked how it happened, the owner told her that her daughter had been trimming the dog with scissors. Thinking that she had misheard, she suggested that the client would be better taking the dog to a grooming parlour to cut its hair.
No, the client said, she was trimming the dog, not the hair. She liked to cut warts off. The owner thought it would be okay, because she trimmed warts of her brother as well, and this usually turned out fine. It lead to the memorable line in the clinical notes 'Advise owner not to allow daughter to use scissors on dog in future.'
- My wife was on a house visit to examine a week-old litter of bulldogs (born via caesarian, of course). Aside from the owner not having a great grasp of basic maths...
(Five puppies, two boys. The repeated question (at least three times) 'So how many girls?')
...she soon demonstrated a rather limited understanding of genetics too. Whilst my wife was examining the pups, it became clear to her that the dog and the bitch who had produced this particular batch of dogs both had the same mother and father.
'Erm...you mean they're brother and sister?' My wife asked, nervously.
'No!', said the client, obviously taking some offense at the fact that anyone would be as stupid as to breed brothers and sisters together. 'They're from different litters!'
- I was once asked by a rather creepy looking gentleman whilst I examined his cat 'Would there be any problem with him eating a lot of human hair?'
- My wife called a client in to the consulting room, a rather large and somewhat hairy woman, who plonked the cat basket on the table, and then announced before she had said a word
'Just so you know, I'm a TS, all right. A trans sexual. I don't want there to be any question of that.'
Sadly, for comedic purposes, my wife did not then ask to examine the client's pussy. Oh what the hell, it's my blog, I can say what I like. She politely asked to examine the client's pussy.
- Just last week, I had a regular client of mine come in for an appointment for a vaccination of their cat. I was sure I had vaccinated it relatively recently, so was slightly confused. As she came in, she put the basket on the table, and said
'I hope you don't mind, there's nothing wrong with him, but I got a cotton bud stuck in my ear this morning, and the doctors was full. Can you get it out for me?'
- Not really the client's fault, this one, but I once did an unexptedly smelly fart during a consultation and succesfully blamed it one the dog's anal glands
- Honourable mentions must of course go to the numerous times I (and I'm sure every other vet) have had to examine dogs because they have developed two large lumps around their penis whilst playing with the owner (um... your dog has an erection, Mrs Smith) and the many many hamsters I have examined with a pair of large lumps just underneath their bottom (erm... your hamster has a pair of testicles, Mrs Jones)
Well, I think that'll do for a start. There are more, but they'll have to wait for another time. Thank you to all the weird, wonderful, and very ssstrange people who make my day job just a little more bearable, and certainly a whole lot funnier.
Thursday, 1 October 2009
Erm...is there anyone else working today?
I finished work today and confidently strolled out of the back door of the practice, whistling a merry tune and secure in the knowledge of another day's work done well.
(Okay, that's a lie. It was a horrible evening surgery, I was in a rotten mood, I'm struggling with man flu and one of my favourite vets to work with handed their notice in. But otherwise it's all true)
On my way to my car (a shiny newish red Fiesta of which I'm inexplicably proud, especially considering that it's a red Fiesta) I passed the clients (a nice young couple) who I had just finished seeing, waiting at the entrance of the practice with their cat, Peanut, presumably waiting for a taxi to come and take them home. I nodded and smiled at them, and they nodded and smiled back (expect for Peanut, who was in a mood with me on account of the fact that I had just stuck a needle into him) and approached my car.
Balancing an 8kg bag of dog food on my shoulder (it had just gone out of date. Nothing but the best for my pooches!) I manuevered the car keys from my pocket into my hand, and pressed the button which is supposed to open the boot.
(Or trunk, for my American readers. I would complain about the Americanism, except that, really, if you think about it - doesn't calling it a trunk make more sense than calling it a boot?)
Still pleased with the whole dog-food-balancing-on-shoulder thing, and glad that I hadn't dropped it and so made an idiot of myself in front of the clients, I failed to notice that the boot had not, in fact, unlocked. I only noticed when I tried to open the boot, was thwarted by it's still firmly locked state, and dropped the bag of dog food on the floor.
Undaunted (okay, a little daunted), I pressed the button again. No reaction from my car. Again. Nothing. Changing tack, I decided to press the button that unlocked the doors to the car, not just the boot. My Fiesta remained stubbornly inert.
Losing patience with the stupid car now, I pointed the key fob directly at it, and very very obviously pressed the 'unlock' button, not once, but twice, leaving my car in no doubt as to what I wanted it to do. Unbelievably, my car ignored me. I stared at it, angrily. The bag of dog food lay reproachfully on the ground at my feet, a constant reminder on the client's eyes boring into my back.
I couldn't resist it. I turned round to see if they were looking at me. As I did so, I pressed the unlock button three more times, just to show my car I meant business.
The clients were staring right at me. Why wouldn't they? What else would they look at in this car park other than a vet making a tit of himself? However, as I glanced, a flash from next to them caught my eye.
The flash came from the car that they were sitting next to. A Fiesta. A red Fiesta. My red Fiesta, that had been frantically flashing me to step away from the random person's car that I had somehow decided was mine.
Recovering my cool, and trying not to think about how many times I had pressed the button on my key fob to an answering click and flash from the car right next to the nice young couple and Peanut, I picked up the bag of food, approached my car, nodded and smiled once more, slid the bag into the by now very open boot, drove around the corner, and sank into a deep pit of embarrasment.
(On a side note - why is it you can remember embarrassing moments in your life with near-perfect clarity? Happiness, misery, depression all flit by in my mind as vague feelings, but I can remember perfectly when Sarah Hawkins turned me down in front of all of my mates in the first year of college. Thanks, brain.)
I suspect those clients probably won't want to see me again (and Peanut certainly won't) but the whole incident reminded me of something I've known for a little while. Which is this - clients really don't care how good a vet you are. They don't care how many textbooks you've read, or how much you know about the immune system, or kidney disease. If they like you, it's because they think you're a nice young man (and not the kind of idiot who can't even work out which car is his). And if they complain about you, it's not because you've made some major medical mistake. It's because you got off on the wrong foot with them.
I'm not blaming the clients for this at all. I mean, what else have they got to go off? All they know is whether they trust you or not. The sad thing is, this has got very little to do with how much you know about veterinary medicine, and everything to do with how charming you can be.
I have known absolutely terrible vets, with a client following that would eat their own pet's head if their hero vet told them to. I personally have made some dreadful mistakes medically, admitted them to the owner, and not been blamed for them because the owner trusted me. I (like most vets) have a string of clients that will 'only see me', despite the fact there are far better medics and surgeons than me in the practice I currently work in.
But, in all things there is a balance, and in this case, it's with the complaints. When someone complains about you, it's a fair bet it will have absolutely nothing to do with your skill as a veterinary surgeon. The astute amongst you may have noticed I have removed the first blog I ever wrote - this I because the case I talked about in it has been referred to the Royal College, a complaint of negligence against myself and a colleague. Now, I am normally phenomenally good at beating myself up about making mistakes (rivalled only, coincidentally, by my aforesaid colleague) but I can genuinely, wholeheartedly say that neither of us could have done more in that case. Royal College aside, this is not an unusual situation - complaints come from poor communication, or (rather more frequently since the credit crisis) from the bill.
So, there you have it. A brief rail against the vagaries of fortune, that reward undeservedly, then just when you start to celebrate, turn around and bite you in the ass without warning.
I can understand what it's like seeing a vet, and building up a trust - but please remember that all the other vets in the practice passed their exams and qualified too, and a small part of them dies when they call you through to their consult room and you say 'Oh, I only see Tim.'
And, most importantly, if you see a man struggling with a bag of food behind someone else's car, when he works out what he's done, just nod and smile as he walks past, and try and let him leave the scene with as much dignity as possible.
Thank you. Goodnight :)
(Okay, that's a lie. It was a horrible evening surgery, I was in a rotten mood, I'm struggling with man flu and one of my favourite vets to work with handed their notice in. But otherwise it's all true)
On my way to my car (a shiny newish red Fiesta of which I'm inexplicably proud, especially considering that it's a red Fiesta) I passed the clients (a nice young couple) who I had just finished seeing, waiting at the entrance of the practice with their cat, Peanut, presumably waiting for a taxi to come and take them home. I nodded and smiled at them, and they nodded and smiled back (expect for Peanut, who was in a mood with me on account of the fact that I had just stuck a needle into him) and approached my car.
Balancing an 8kg bag of dog food on my shoulder (it had just gone out of date. Nothing but the best for my pooches!) I manuevered the car keys from my pocket into my hand, and pressed the button which is supposed to open the boot.
(Or trunk, for my American readers. I would complain about the Americanism, except that, really, if you think about it - doesn't calling it a trunk make more sense than calling it a boot?)
Still pleased with the whole dog-food-balancing-on-shoulder thing, and glad that I hadn't dropped it and so made an idiot of myself in front of the clients, I failed to notice that the boot had not, in fact, unlocked. I only noticed when I tried to open the boot, was thwarted by it's still firmly locked state, and dropped the bag of dog food on the floor.
Undaunted (okay, a little daunted), I pressed the button again. No reaction from my car. Again. Nothing. Changing tack, I decided to press the button that unlocked the doors to the car, not just the boot. My Fiesta remained stubbornly inert.
Losing patience with the stupid car now, I pointed the key fob directly at it, and very very obviously pressed the 'unlock' button, not once, but twice, leaving my car in no doubt as to what I wanted it to do. Unbelievably, my car ignored me. I stared at it, angrily. The bag of dog food lay reproachfully on the ground at my feet, a constant reminder on the client's eyes boring into my back.
I couldn't resist it. I turned round to see if they were looking at me. As I did so, I pressed the unlock button three more times, just to show my car I meant business.
The clients were staring right at me. Why wouldn't they? What else would they look at in this car park other than a vet making a tit of himself? However, as I glanced, a flash from next to them caught my eye.
The flash came from the car that they were sitting next to. A Fiesta. A red Fiesta. My red Fiesta, that had been frantically flashing me to step away from the random person's car that I had somehow decided was mine.
Recovering my cool, and trying not to think about how many times I had pressed the button on my key fob to an answering click and flash from the car right next to the nice young couple and Peanut, I picked up the bag of food, approached my car, nodded and smiled once more, slid the bag into the by now very open boot, drove around the corner, and sank into a deep pit of embarrasment.
(On a side note - why is it you can remember embarrassing moments in your life with near-perfect clarity? Happiness, misery, depression all flit by in my mind as vague feelings, but I can remember perfectly when Sarah Hawkins turned me down in front of all of my mates in the first year of college. Thanks, brain.)
I suspect those clients probably won't want to see me again (and Peanut certainly won't) but the whole incident reminded me of something I've known for a little while. Which is this - clients really don't care how good a vet you are. They don't care how many textbooks you've read, or how much you know about the immune system, or kidney disease. If they like you, it's because they think you're a nice young man (and not the kind of idiot who can't even work out which car is his). And if they complain about you, it's not because you've made some major medical mistake. It's because you got off on the wrong foot with them.
I'm not blaming the clients for this at all. I mean, what else have they got to go off? All they know is whether they trust you or not. The sad thing is, this has got very little to do with how much you know about veterinary medicine, and everything to do with how charming you can be.
I have known absolutely terrible vets, with a client following that would eat their own pet's head if their hero vet told them to. I personally have made some dreadful mistakes medically, admitted them to the owner, and not been blamed for them because the owner trusted me. I (like most vets) have a string of clients that will 'only see me', despite the fact there are far better medics and surgeons than me in the practice I currently work in.
But, in all things there is a balance, and in this case, it's with the complaints. When someone complains about you, it's a fair bet it will have absolutely nothing to do with your skill as a veterinary surgeon. The astute amongst you may have noticed I have removed the first blog I ever wrote - this I because the case I talked about in it has been referred to the Royal College, a complaint of negligence against myself and a colleague. Now, I am normally phenomenally good at beating myself up about making mistakes (rivalled only, coincidentally, by my aforesaid colleague) but I can genuinely, wholeheartedly say that neither of us could have done more in that case. Royal College aside, this is not an unusual situation - complaints come from poor communication, or (rather more frequently since the credit crisis) from the bill.
So, there you have it. A brief rail against the vagaries of fortune, that reward undeservedly, then just when you start to celebrate, turn around and bite you in the ass without warning.
I can understand what it's like seeing a vet, and building up a trust - but please remember that all the other vets in the practice passed their exams and qualified too, and a small part of them dies when they call you through to their consult room and you say 'Oh, I only see Tim.'
And, most importantly, if you see a man struggling with a bag of food behind someone else's car, when he works out what he's done, just nod and smile as he walks past, and try and let him leave the scene with as much dignity as possible.
Thank you. Goodnight :)
Tuesday, 21 July 2009
Happy Anniversary!
It was a momentous anniversary last week, as I'm sure you all know. No, not the forty years since mankind first walked on the moon. Something much more important. Well, to me at least.
It has been ten years since I became a Bachelor of Veterinary Science (decidely not hons) and a member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (which, I have just worked out, means that I have paid the Royal College so far roughly £3000 for the privelidge of being a vet. Yay.).
Ten years. Several ways of celebrating this anniversary spring to mind, but as I no longer have a firearms licence, and all the pentobarbitone is at the practice, I'll settle for a glass of beer and a Blog entry.
I've being trying to think today when the idea of being a vet first curdled it's way into the youthful cream that was my young mind. I'm fairly sure that I've narrowed it down to a holiday in Germany when I must have been about eight or nine. I always took several books to read with me, and one was a copy of 'Every Living Thing' by James Herriot...
(... and yes, I'm very aware that it's a massive cliche that I decided to be a vet because of James Herriot. What do you want me to do, lie? In retrospect, it's a shame I didn't base my career choice on one of the other books I took with me - Deathwing over Veynaa by Douglas Hill. I could have ended up as an intergalatic Legionnairy of Moros with an adamantium skeleton! Now that wold have been a fun job)
...and I loved that book. It all sounded som much fun, and the guy was helping animals! For a living! When I was a child, I loved animals (Not in that way, before you start, okay), and I loved Biology. When I read that book, it just made perfect sense to combine the two. Plus, it sounded really funny when James Herriot wrote about gruff Yorkshireman having to explain that their dog 'had a problem with his...with his pencil, Mr 'Erriot).
So I was very fortunate - from that time on, I had a sense of purpose. I knew exactly what I was going to do for the rest of my life. That nagging, insistent voice at the back of my mind, that was always telling me that I should try and make the world a better place, would be silenced! I would be making the world a better place with my day job! I could even spend my evenings playing rolepaying games and computer games, and not feel guilty about it!
The determination lasted through all the teachers, and all the careers advisors who told me that it was a waste of time (seriously, has anyone -ever- recieved one useful scrap of advice from a careers 'advisor'? My wife's told her she should be a florist. Though, considering my current feelings towards the profession, maybe we should have listened back then), it lasted through my GSCE's, through my A Levels, and right up to that final glowing day when I recieved my one (and only) offer to go to Bristol, to study being a vet.
I have now been a vet for twice as long as I studied to be one. I am older, arguably wiser, and a whole lot tireder. That nagging voice, the one that I hoped would finally shut up when I was doing good deeds and getting paid for them, is not fooled, and though it has grown quieter over the years, it has never been silenced. My job does not consist of doing good deeds, all day, every day, as I imagined it would. And though I may relieve some suffering, I also help to perpetuate it in the form of helping dog and cat breeders continue to spawn the various mutants that they seem to consider 'cute'. The best thing I do, the honest-to-goodness kindest act I generally perform, is euthanasia, and with the best will in the world, it's hard to feel good about oneself for repeatedly killing small animals.
Ten years gone. My attitude to my job is, and I suspect, always will be, mixed, but it has brought me the greatest thing in my life so far - my wife - and for all the wonderful years we've had together, I actually feel it was worth it all!
There are many more things I could write about, but I'll leave them for another time. For now, sit with me and raise a glass, for years gone by, and to absent friends.
Cheers.
It has been ten years since I became a Bachelor of Veterinary Science (decidely not hons) and a member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (which, I have just worked out, means that I have paid the Royal College so far roughly £3000 for the privelidge of being a vet. Yay.).
Ten years. Several ways of celebrating this anniversary spring to mind, but as I no longer have a firearms licence, and all the pentobarbitone is at the practice, I'll settle for a glass of beer and a Blog entry.
I've being trying to think today when the idea of being a vet first curdled it's way into the youthful cream that was my young mind. I'm fairly sure that I've narrowed it down to a holiday in Germany when I must have been about eight or nine. I always took several books to read with me, and one was a copy of 'Every Living Thing' by James Herriot...
(... and yes, I'm very aware that it's a massive cliche that I decided to be a vet because of James Herriot. What do you want me to do, lie? In retrospect, it's a shame I didn't base my career choice on one of the other books I took with me - Deathwing over Veynaa by Douglas Hill. I could have ended up as an intergalatic Legionnairy of Moros with an adamantium skeleton! Now that wold have been a fun job)
...and I loved that book. It all sounded som much fun, and the guy was helping animals! For a living! When I was a child, I loved animals (Not in that way, before you start, okay), and I loved Biology. When I read that book, it just made perfect sense to combine the two. Plus, it sounded really funny when James Herriot wrote about gruff Yorkshireman having to explain that their dog 'had a problem with his...with his pencil, Mr 'Erriot).
So I was very fortunate - from that time on, I had a sense of purpose. I knew exactly what I was going to do for the rest of my life. That nagging, insistent voice at the back of my mind, that was always telling me that I should try and make the world a better place, would be silenced! I would be making the world a better place with my day job! I could even spend my evenings playing rolepaying games and computer games, and not feel guilty about it!
The determination lasted through all the teachers, and all the careers advisors who told me that it was a waste of time (seriously, has anyone -ever- recieved one useful scrap of advice from a careers 'advisor'? My wife's told her she should be a florist. Though, considering my current feelings towards the profession, maybe we should have listened back then), it lasted through my GSCE's, through my A Levels, and right up to that final glowing day when I recieved my one (and only) offer to go to Bristol, to study being a vet.
I have now been a vet for twice as long as I studied to be one. I am older, arguably wiser, and a whole lot tireder. That nagging voice, the one that I hoped would finally shut up when I was doing good deeds and getting paid for them, is not fooled, and though it has grown quieter over the years, it has never been silenced. My job does not consist of doing good deeds, all day, every day, as I imagined it would. And though I may relieve some suffering, I also help to perpetuate it in the form of helping dog and cat breeders continue to spawn the various mutants that they seem to consider 'cute'. The best thing I do, the honest-to-goodness kindest act I generally perform, is euthanasia, and with the best will in the world, it's hard to feel good about oneself for repeatedly killing small animals.
Ten years gone. My attitude to my job is, and I suspect, always will be, mixed, but it has brought me the greatest thing in my life so far - my wife - and for all the wonderful years we've had together, I actually feel it was worth it all!
There are many more things I could write about, but I'll leave them for another time. For now, sit with me and raise a glass, for years gone by, and to absent friends.
Cheers.
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