Coated With Fur: A Vet's Life Read online

  Everyone laughed. Perhaps my story about Peaches helped them see reptiles in a different light. The ladies moved closer. The dogs pranced behind them, darting between their legs and sniffing the air. I switched Elvira’s head to my left hand as my right one started to cramp.

  Allie reappeared through the office door. She placed both hands on the chrome door handle and waited for my signal. “All right, Allie, pull up on the door handle and I’ll slide her out.”

  “You mean you hope to slide her out,” the schnauzer owner corrected.

  “Always confident, often correct,” I replied and winked at the group.

  Allie pulled with all her might, the muscles in her arms bulging. Her face turned red as she strained. The ladies held their breath, hoping the runaway snake would be freed. I pushed Elvira’s body sideways, but it didn’t budge. She was wedged tight.

  I recalled there was no Plan C.

  “Stop; it’s not working,” I said. “I need more room to maneuver her body.” Still holding the snake’s head, I sat back on my haunches to re-evaluate the situation. “Just another quarter-inch and it would have worked.”

  “May we help?” the cat owner asked. She now bravely stood a few feet behind me. The other two ladies nodded in support. Both dogs sat on chairs next to each other, taking in every movement with their keen eyes and ears. They looked like spectators at a football game waiting for the opening kickoff. The cat wisely remained in the kids’ area.

  “Ah, ah, that would be great,” I stammered, astonished by the transformation. A few minutes ago, these ladies ran for their lives. Now they offered to help. “Allie, go inside the exam room and lift from that side while these ladies lift out here. Ask Elvira’s owner to help you.”

  A minute later, everyone was in position. Designer purses sat on the chairs next to the dogs as the three women stood shoulder to shoulder. Manicured fingernails clutched the door, ready to lift with all their might.

  “Ready, Allie?” I asked loudly.

  Her muffled reply came through the door: “I’m ready, Dr. Nelson.”

  “On the count of three, one, two, three ... Lift!”

  The door creaked as the free end rose about a half inch. I pushed Elvira toward the doorjamb. This time, her body inched sideways.

  “It’s working!” “Keep lifting.”

  I continued sliding Elvira until her body rested against the doorjamb. Next, I pushed the thick part of her body backward under the door.

  “OK, you can stop now,” I instructed.

  After everyone let go, I reached up and grabbed the knob. The door swung open, clearing the top of the snake’s head with room to spare. Elvira was free! Relief washed over me. I stood up and stretched the snake’s body between my hands. Allie needed half a roll of paper towels to remove all of the lube from her scales. Her body looked a little kinked where the door had pinched her. I rotated her from side to side and examined her scales; all of them looked fine. I breathed a sigh and presented Elvira to her worried owner.

  The college student inspected her pet for signs of damage, running her fingers over Elvira’s body and looking closely at the scales. Satisfied that the pet sustained no damage, she zipped the snake into her black leather jacket. The jacket started to move in unnatural ways. First the zipper bulged, then the back swelled as Elvira searched for another escape route. The jacket looked possessed.

  “Elvira!” the owner exclaimed. “Not there!” She unzipped her jacket. The ladies stepped back in utter shock, their eyes fixed on the quivering jacket. Elvira’s tail dipped into the owner’s pants. The ladies covered their mouths with their hands. I thought they might faint.

  “Would you like some help, Cheryl?” I asked.

  “No, I’ve got her,” she said. “Elvira does this all the time. She likes to put her tail right down the crease in my butt.”

  The young woman reached behind her back and removed Elvira’s tail, repositioning it around her side. The snake had other ideas. Elvira’s tail reappeared in Cheryl’s pants as she stood at the counter paying the bill. A look of disgust appeared on the cat owner’s face. The schnauzer owner stood motionless with her hand still clasped over her mouth. The bichon owner looked pale. She plopped into a chair, holding her pet close. This was not standard fare for the society crowd.

  “Thanks again for taking care of Elvira, Dr. Nelson,” Cheryl said. “We’ll see you in seven days for the next treatment.” She waved and headed outside to a black van. An unnatural silence filled the lobby. As the van pulled away, the ladies erupted.

  “Why does the owner use her jacket instead of a cage for transporting the snake? What happens if the snake has to go to the bathroom? Can’t you catch disease from a snake? Do the snakes ever bite?”

  My head was dizzy from their rapid-fire questions. I explained that I do not recommend transporting reptiles in jackets. I prefer a travel cage with hot water bottles to keep the animal warm. My biggest concern was that one of my patients might get loose in the car and cause an accident. Unfortunately, not all owners comply with a vet’s guidance.

  “And what about the jacket?” the bichon owner asked. “Why do they put them in there?”

  “To keep the animal warm,” I replied. “The good news is that I have never heard of one biting while in a jacket.” I smiled at the ladies. “I think that shows good restraint on the snake’s part.” My humor rang hollow.

  I decided to ignore the question about defecation. The ladies were already overwhelmed. Because snakes carry salmonella as a normal part of their gastrointestinal flora, an infection from this bacteria is a definite possibility, especially in individuals with weak immune systems. Think of kids who get infected by putting young turtles in their mouths.

  I poured sanitizer into my hands from the bottle on the counter. Due to salmonella, I do not support allowing reptiles to roam free in a house. They drag their vents all over, contaminating the environment.

  For humans with severe allergies, reptiles and fish are good pet choices. In addition, two other groups of people typically own reptiles. The first is young boys –̶ before they discover girls, that is.

  A boy marches with pride into the clinic holding a reptile. After checking in, he sits with the reptile on his lap and offers to show it to anyone who walks in the door. During the examination, he stands close to me and watches everything I do. He asks a lot of questions and tells me all about his pet. His mother, on the other hand, tends to stand in the corner, as far away from the reptile as possible. She shakes her head and often covers her eyes. She seldom speaks.

  The other common reptile owner wears black leather and studs and displays a preference for tattoos, body piercings and motorcycles. At first, I thought the snake was just another accessory for the outfit, perhaps a chain substitute. But I was wrong. Most of these people truly love their pets.

  “How did the snake get stuck under the door in the first place?” the cat owner asked. I shrugged my shoulders. When I finished working on Elvira, I left her on the table with Cheryl. The snake lay coiled on a warm towel. I don’t know what happened after that. I just heard screams.

  “The owner told me she decided to let Elvira chill for awhile because the shot upset her,” Allie answered. “Elvira slithered down to the floor and under the door before the owner could catch her.” She smiled at the ladies. They were not won over. They still thought reptiles should be outlawed as pets.

  “Let me clean up the room, and then it’s Amici’s turn to see the doctor,” Allie said. The bichon’s ears dropped, and he ran under a chair. He hated coming to the clinic, but I was glad to see him. Plucking hair from his ears sounded great. Elvira was enough excitement for one day.

  Chapter 24

  Chewy the Gerbil

  Elvira’s unsuccessful escape put me behind on appointments. After the bichon, schnauzer and the cat, the schedule read Chewy, the gerbil. This old gerbil came in every month or so for a teeth trim, a common problem in rodents and rabbits, so I assumed it was time for anothe
r trim when I saw her name on the schedule. Sadly, I was wrong.

  Billy Carlson adopted Chewy as his fifth birthday present. His parents accompanied him to the local pet store. He surveyed all the possible pets and chose Chewy. From that point on, the two were inseparable. Billy used his allowance to buy Chewy anything and everything a gerbil could want. When Chewy started to lose weight, Billy researched weight loss in gerbils at the library. He looked at her teeth and diagnosed the problem for me.

  When Billy entered the clinic, Allie explained that we were running late because of a runaway snake.

  “Is the snake still here?” he asked, a concerned look spreading over his face. “Chewy hates snakes. She freaks out if she sees one.” He held the carrier under his arm in a protective position.

  “No, Elvira’s gone, so Chewy has nothing to fear,” Allie responded in a soothing voice. “I have an iguana in back, but no snakes.” The boy let out a sigh of relief.

  “Please tell Chewy that it shouldn’t be too long before her teeth trim,” Allie said.

  But Billy’s mother, Jill, explained that Chewy’s teeth were fine. They brought her in because she had started limping on her back leg the previous day. Jill thought it was a sprain and wanted to wait, but her son insisted on a visit to the vet.

  The boy held up the plastic crate for Allie. Inside a gerbil stared at her with dark eyes, wrinkling her nose back and forth a few times. The little rodent touched the toes of her back left leg to the ground but did not bear significant weight on it.

  Twenty minutes later, Allie escorted Chewy and her family into the dog exam room. When I asked about Chewy, the normally talkative boy remained silent. Jill looked at her son and waited, surprised. Billy sat in the chair with the carrier on his lap, his feet swinging back and forth in the air. His mother answered my questions. When she wasn’t sure about the answer, she looked at Billy. He nodded, but still did not speak.

  “Other than the limping, is she eating and drinking OK?” Billy nodded. “And she’s urinating and defecating normally?” He looked at me with a blank expression on his face.

  “Dr. Nelson wants to know if she’s peeing and pooping OK,” Jill explained. He looked down at Chewy and nodded twice.

  When I motioned for Billy to place Chewy on the table, he jumped out of the chair. Chewy stuck her nose through the bars of the door. When I opened it, she sat on her haunches and surveyed the table from the safety of her crate.

  “It’s OK,” Billy whispered. “You know Dr. Nelson; she won’t hurt you.” Chewy didn’t move.

  “I think she’s worried I’m going to work on her mouth again,” I said. At the sound of my voice, Chewy scrambled to the back of the carrier. “See, she’s a smart gerbil.” Billy beamed with pride, looking up at his mother and smiling from ear to ear. I turned the carrier toward me. “Come here, young lady,” I commanded as I stuck my arm inside. Chewy allowed me to scoop her up without a fuss.

  Performing a physical examination on a gerbil is the same as any other animal. I started with her head and worked my way back to her tail. Gerbils normally have four big incisors at the front of their mouths. Because these powerful teeth have open roots, they continue to grow throughout life. That means a gerbil can gnaw as much as it wants without fear of wearing out its teeth. Unfortunately, Chewy did not have her upper incisors, only the lower incisors and molars. She stuffed food into the back of her mouth with her front paws. I trimmed the lower incisors every month or so to keep them from interfering with the roof of her mouth.

  Chewy cooperated with me until I touched her leg. When my fingers ran over the area between her paw and ankle, she jerked the leg away and turned to face me. She let me feel her knee and hip without complaint but would not let me go any further. The area on her left back leg between her toes and ankle was swollen to twice its normal size. I flipped her over to get a better view. A purple discoloration covered the area on the inner side. Was it a bruise from trauma or something else? I ran through the ruleouts in my mind. None of them were great.

  “What do you think it is?” Jill asked, her voice interrupting my thoughts.

  “We need to X-ray the leg to see what is going on beneath her skin,” I replied. I made a note in her record under the section titled muscular/skeletal system. “She could have a broken bone, an infection or ...” I paused. I did not want to say the last possible cause.

  “Or what?” Jill and her son stared at me. I took a deep breath.

  “Or cancer.” I paused again. “Rodents get a lot of different cancers. Breast cancer is the most common, but I’ve see other types as well.” I waited for the weight of my words to sink in and give them a moment to process the news. “We won’t know until we take the X-ray. Hopefully, she sprained her leg, and it will heal with a wrap.”

  Billy exchanged a worried glance with his mother. He cradled the gerbil with both hands over his heart. I picked up the carrier and held the front toward Billy. He ignored me. I smiled and held the crate a little closer. He turned away from me toward the wall.

  “Billy, give Chewy to Dr. Nelson.” The boy looked up at his Mom without moving. “William,” she said in a firm voice. Billy turned around, kissed Chewy’s head and placed her inside. “Don’t worry. Dr. Nelson will take good care of her,” Jill said as she patted his back and ushered him out of the room. The two headed off to Burger King for a snack while Chewy received her X-ray.

  Back in the radiology suite, Allie stood with the technique chart in front of her. The chart contained grids for dogs and cats, but nothing for an animal as small as a gerbil. She studied the prior films of rabbits and birds for guidance. I removed Chewy from her carrier while Allie put on her lead apron and thyroid collar. The brown gerbil crawled up and down my arm, her nose wiggling constantly as she explored her new environment. Chewy was the most well-behaved gerbil I had ever met.

  “OK, I’ll take the little princess,” Allie said as she reached for Chewy. Chewy sniffed her fingers and turned around. Allie looked crestfallen. “What’s up? You know you like me better than Dr. Nelson. She’s the mean one who trims your teeth, not me.”

  “But you’re the one who holds her for the procedure,” I observed. I handed Chewy to her. “I think she remembers your smell.” I pulled a second apron off the table, slid my arms into the holes and tied the strings over my abdomen. My shoulders drooped a little under the weight of the heavy garment. Next, I fastened the thyroid collar around my neck with the Velcro ends. Whenever I feel the stiff thyroid collar pinching my neck, I feel sorry for men who have to wear ties to work. I can see why my husband hates them so.

  While Allie held Chewy in her arms, I applied two pieces of medical tape to her back legs, encircling her toes with one end and letting the other dangle in the air. Tape handles make it easier to take X-rays of small creatures. With a lead glove over her hand, Allie held Chewy on her side. I teased her legs into position with the tape and covered my hand with a lead shield.

  I nodded, and Allie pushed a pedal on the floor with her foot. The machine vibrated and chugged until a loud ding rang. We both let go of Chewy. She rolled onto her side and turned to look at the tape on her feet.

  “OK, I’ll take them off while Allie develops your film.” Chewy crawled into my hand with the strands of tape trailing behind her.

  “She really is a good gerbil,” Allie remarked. “I hope it’s nothing serious.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  It took 10 minutes for the automatic processor to spit out Chewy’s film. Allie stood in the darkroom with her hand in the tray. When the film cleared the machine, she snatched it and hung it on the viewer in the treatment room.

  Because of her small size, Chewy’s entire body fit on the film with room to spare. I followed the bones from her skull to her spine to her back legs with my eyes. The bones displayed bright white against the film’s black background. As I continued down her leg, the bones looked great until I reached the tarsal area. I could not visualize the many little bones that make up this c
omplex joint because a large mass obliterated the rows of ankle bones that should have been there. The mass seemed to originate from the largest bone in the tarsal joint, exploding from the bone in a starburst.

  “What is it, Kris?” Allie asked. She knew from my expression that the prognosis was poor.

  “I’m afraid Chewy has cancer,” I replied. I continued to scan the rest of the film for other masses. “Based on its appearance, I’m guessing it is an osteosarcoma.”

  “Poor Chewy.” Allie took the news like a professional, but one with a heart. “Why do nice animals with nice owners who will spend money on their pets always get the worst diseases?”

  “And mean animals with nasty owners who won’t spend a dime on them always live?” I said completing the thought. “I wish I knew.”

  “It just isn’t fair,” she continued. The doorbell dinged twice. Allie and I looked at each other. “Are you ready for me to bring them back?”

  “No, but bring them back anyway. Waiting won’t make it any easier.”

  Chewy rested in the carrier after her films, her nose poking out a ventilation hole in the side. Her little nostrils opened and closed as she investigated the clinic by smell. The scents from so many animals fascinated her – her nose never stopped moving. She jumped to her feet when she heard Billy’s voice. He ran over to the carrier and put his finger inside. Chewy rubbed against it.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have good news.” I paused to collect my thoughts. There was simply no way to sugarcoat my diagnosis. “I’m afraid Chewy has cancer.” Billy and his mother stared at me for a minute without speaking. I stood by the viewer and waited for them to respond.