Drinking from the Trough Page 11

  When I arrived, Dr. Ingram teased me about sitting around watching soap operas all day, then noticed my swollen right hand. It was about the size of a baseball, thanks to an angry yellow jacket I’d encountered in my garden.

  That didn’t stop me from going into the exam room to see my best canine patient. He had recovered and was well on his way back to working on the beer wagon during parades.

  I was well on my way too. Soon, I’d be a licensed, practicing veterinarian.

  9

  What’s in a Name?

  My own cat clinic! Earl, his dad, and I converted our one-car garage into Blue Spruce Cat Clinic, the only feline-exclusive practice in Northern Colorado. It was wonderful to practice veterinary medicine from my own home.

  Fort Collins is a college town with a more diverse population than the average small city, and I had all types of clients and cats. “Regular folks,” college students, and professors (including vet school professors)—both locals and those from far-flung countries—brought their kittens and cats to me for care. I did free exams for the local shelter when cats were adopted, which helped both the shelter and the cash-strapped coeds who’d fallen in love with a feline sweetie. The Veterinary Teaching Hospital often referred clients to me when their clinicians were stumped. I researched diseases, presented lectures, and wrote for journals and magazines too. It was exciting, fulfilling work.

  But during my senior year in vet school, I had discovered that I missed working with kids. I’d always wanted to be a teacher, and teaching was my first career. So I added it back into my life, teaching junior high school science—initially part time, then expanding to full time—while also running my feline-exclusive veterinary practice.

  It was quite the rat race and made for long and often hectic days. I rarely had time to visit with my friends in the teachers’ lounge. Occasionally, I’d pop in long enough to eat lunch and listen to the school chatter.

  One afternoon during office hours, Ashley, a new client and beautiful young college student, carried a tiny kitten into the exam room for his first visit. She was clearly thrilled with her new buddy, and no wonder: he was an adorable black-and-white tuxedo boy.

  Ashley fretted because she hadn’t come up with a name for him yet. As I examined the endearing mass of kitten fur, I reassured her. “Sometimes, you have to wait for the cat to tell you its name,” I explained. “Based on my experience with my own pets, I suspect you’ll discover his name within a week or so.”

  I gave the unnamed kitten his first deworming medicine, his first round of vaccinations, and his feline leukemia and FIV tests. I discussed the basics of proper kitten care with Ashley, including my advice to never use hands and feet to play with her kitty—that’s how people get scratched, bitten, or ambushed.

  As Ashley was leaving, she spied a photo on the clinic bulletin board. “Who’s that?” she asked, peering at the image of a middle-aged man holding a gigantic black-and-white tuxedo cat.

  I grinned. “That’s my husband, Earl, and our twenty-pound cat, Alexander.”

  Ashley looked like a light bulb had suddenly turned on in her head. She tried out the name: “Earl . . . hmmm . . . Earl!”

  And that was it: her new kitty became known as Earl.

  Ashley returned a few weeks later. Kitty Earl had managed to get a fishhook stuck through his upper lip. Although removing the hook would be relatively straightforward, it would require general anesthesia. Since Earl was now big enough, it would make sense to neuter him at the same time. That would save him the risk of a second round of anesthesia and save Ashley a nice stack of money too. Ashley agreed, and Earl had surgery to remove the fishhook and his ability to reproduce.

  The next day, I dropped into the crowded teachers’ lounge for a quick lunch. As I was getting ready to go back to my classroom, a colleague asked what was going on in my life.

  One foot out the door, I said, “Well, yesterday, I neutered Earl.”

  The entire room fell silent. Teachers stared at me, expressions ranging from puzzlement to confusion to alarm. Finally, someone said, “That’s nice, Mary,” and as the door swung shut behind me, they erupted into laughter.

  10

  Wandering in the Outback

  My graduation present to myself as I headed into my final trimester of vet school was a brand-new Subaru station wagon. I’d driven my 1973 VW Super Beetle one hundred thousand miles during the fourteen years I’d owned it. It had served me well, but I was ready for a car that could handle a house call practice and anything the mountains, plains, and unpredictable weather of Colorado could throw at me.

  I’d driven that Subaru for nine years, crisscrossing the country between home and Washington, DC, cruising west to Utah and north to Wyoming, and climbing into the Colorado high country. My “Sube” and I had even made it to the top of Colorado Yule Quarry in Marble, Colorado. That’s the quarry where the marble for the exterior of the Lincoln Memorial and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier came from. That drive had convinced me that the reason Subarus were (and still are) one of the most popular brands in Colorado is because they’re part mountain goat.

  By the time I was ready to retire my first Subaru and replace it with a new model, I’d opened my home-based cat clinic and returned to full-time teaching at two junior high schools, one in the morning and the other after lunch. My usual routine was to teach all morning, then zip home to check on my patients and the horses and, after eating a quick lunch, head over to the second school to teach my afternoon classes.

  It was 1995, the year of the first Subaru Outbacks. I bought a sapphire-blue model with silver trim—so pretty! The tech teacher at school noticed my new machine in the staff parking lot and recognized it as the sports utility wagon of the future.

  A few days later, I crossed the parking lot to my new beauty. It was a lovely spring day, warm and sunny. I was looking forward to spending a little time enjoying the fine weather during my short lunch break at home.

  I slid into the driver’s seat and fired up the engine.

  Oh no! What was that strange bumping noise coming from my brand new engine? What was wrong with my car? It was brand new; nothing should be wrong!

  The Subaru dealership was nearby, so I drove there straightaway. All the sales and service guys there knew me. I’d always brought my first Subaru to them for service, and they’d taken good care of my Sube and me over the years. Of course, I’d purchased my new Subaru from them too.

  They popped open the hood and yowl! A young coal-black cat exploded out of the engine compartment. Airborne for a second or two, it hit the floor and vanished behind a barrel in the corner.

  I knew exactly what had happened. In cold weather, cats like to crawl under car hoods to enjoy the warmth of the engine. Worst case scenario, when the engine starts, the cat gets chopped up by the fan. On cold days, you should bang on your car’s hood, just in case there’s a cat hiding out on your engine. But it was a warm April day, and the possibility of a cat curling up on my new Sube’s engine had never occurred to me.

  The poor panicked cat dashed around the garage like a cat version of rodeo barrel racing as the guys tried to catch him. The more they tried to herd the cat, the more the cat dodged and ricocheted around the room. One of the young women who worked at the dealership started chasing the cat, shrieking, “Get that cat! It’s got to go to the vet!”

  I said, “Let it calm down a little, then you’ll be able to—”

  She screamed again, “It’s got to go to the vet!”

  Whereupon all of the guys shouted in unison, “She is the vet!”

  Finally, we managed to corral the feline youngster into a carrier I keep in the car for wounded animals on the roads. Engine problem solved; now it was time to tend to the cat.

  I took him home to my clinic. It was well after noon, and I had to be at my afternoon school by two. My business partner, Dr. Patton, was on duty, and together, we examined the little guy. Fortunately, he’d escaped major injury; all he had was some soreness a
nd a dose of pure fright. I administered fluids and steroids for shock and put him in a cage to rest. Dr. Patton would watch him until I returned home after school.

  No time for lunch or anything else; I made it to my afternoon class just as the bell rang.

  Back home after the day’s classes were done, I examined the cat again. He seemed fine. He didn’t have a collar or other identification, so I called the local newspaper to tell them what had happened and ask them if they’d put an announcement in the paper so the owner would know where their cat was.

  True to the reporter’s word, the article appeared in the next morning’s paper. But it wasn’t a simple announcement; it was an article about how the town’s cat doctor had found a cat stuck in her own car engine.

  I felt doomed, a victim of the First Amendment. The facts were accurate; I couldn’t argue with the story, regardless of my embarrassment.

  That afternoon, Roger, the reporter from 9 News Northern Bureau, called to ask if he could interview me to follow up on the story. I’d had two years of TV experience when I’d served on the school board, so I figured sure, no big deal, and we agreed to meet at the clinic.

  Roger stood at the ready with his camera as I opened the hood of the Subaru. There was fur everywhere. Roger gasped, then tried not to laugh as the camera rolled.

  We went inside the clinic, and I presented the cat, whom we’d dubbed “Outback,” showing that he was, in fact, fine.

  The story ran on the news twice that night, at six and ten. The six o’clock newscaster giggled into the camera and said, “Do you believe it? She actually drove that car!”

  Every village needs an idiot, and today, it was my turn. But it was only the local evening news. This, too, will pass, I reminded myself.

  The next day, a man from North Carolina called the clinic and offered to adopt Outback.

  North Carolina? How did he even know about this cat and its misadventures?

  The next call was from Arizona; could Outback be the cat she’d lost a year ago?

  Not possible; Outback was barely old enough to be her lost cat. And this was years before social media and viral internet videos, so how did she know?

  The network affiliates, always on the lookout for quirky, bizarre, or funny stories, had picked up my “Outback in the Outback” story and run it all over the country. It was just too funny to pass up.

  The news spread even farther. The day after the calls from North Carolina and Arizona, one of my students said, “Hey, Dr. C., I saw you on TV last night, channel three.”

  Good grief! Channel three was CNN! I didn’t know whether to be appalled that the story had hit the big time or delighted that this teen-ager—a rough kid who claimed gang connections—actually watched CNN.

  I resigned myself to accepting that I was the town’s feline vet who’d saved a hidden cat that was taking a siesta in her car engine and the doofus who had driven with a cat stuck in deadly machinery.

  No one called to claim Outback. After a few days, we noticed he had a slight limp in his forelimb. The X-ray showed a minor greenstick fracture of the radius. I put a cast on the limb, and Amy, one of my school colleagues, took Outback home to care for him.

  She returned the next day, holding the cat in its carrier in one hand and the cast in the other. I used a different bandage to protect Outback’s leg—he was fine—and sent him back home with her again.

  Amy tried to adopt Outback, but he had other ideas. Even though I’d neutered him, he ran away from Amy’s house, never to be seen again. Some cats just like to live solitary lives, I guess. I’m pretty sure Outback was a feral cat, but he was a sweet one, not the more common vicious-feline-rascal variety.

  I wished him well, wherever he was, and hoped that he remembered to stay away from engines, regardless of make and model.

  And I always bang on my car’s hood, no matter the weather.

  11

  Sex Changes and the Amazing Testicle Hunt

  I felt a wonderful sense of anticipation when meeting new clients and their cats. Being professional meant that I had to be ready for the diversity of all who entrusted me with the care of their feline friends. It was like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates. I never knew what I was going to get.

  I always enjoyed seeing guys come into my clinic by themselves. Manliness was the order of the day, especially when the guy in question was the owner of the cat. People often think of women having cats and men having dogs, just as they think dogs are masculine and cats are feminine. This is not necessarily true.

  One scruffy college student named Finn brought in his tiny four-month-old jet-black kitten, Kitty Monster. Kitty Monster was adorned with a wide black leather collar with silver-colored spikes sticking out of it. That collar really complemented Finn’s Goth look of hair dyed black and styled bristly with lots of gel, black jeans, a torn black T-shirt, and black boots. Teenage Finn may have thought his style was fierce and intimidating; I thought they were both totally adorable. I insisted on taking a picture of them for the clinic bulletin board before I gave Kitty Monster his exam, deworming, and shots.

  Another client, Max, was a huge motor-head, complete with a long ponytail, scraggly beard, tattoos, and Harley. Max owned an adult brown tabby cat called Slash, named, I presume, for the potential damage the cat could inflict. But Slash was no vet killer, despite the mental images that whirred through my mind of a kitty sidecar on Max’s Harley for the annual Sturgis roundup. He was a pussycat, one of the sweetest patients I ever had.

  I expected clients to bring their cats safely to the clinic. My staff and I discussed this with new clients on the phone before their appointment rolled around. I once had a client bring two cats to the clinic in the trunk of his old beater, without the safety of pet carriers inside the car. The instant he opened the trunk, out flew the terrified cats. I normally won’t chase cats, but my clinic was on a busy street, and the cats ran away after fleeing the trunk. We did eventually capture them, but when I insisted that the owner buy two cardboard cat carriers from me to go home, his attitude made it clear that he wasn’t interested in safer transportation for his terrified pets. I declined to take him on as a client after that first visit.

  Fortunately, Max drove Slash to the clinic safely in a cat carrier in his car, not strapped to the back of his Harley. He was such a charming man—one of the tattoos on his forearm was a likeness of Slash within a heart—and so careful with Slash and mindful of his proper care.

  I have also done many sex changes in the office, often during that first visit.

  Sex changes?

  Yes, really!

  It’s not as difficult as you think. Bonny’s a good example of the procedure.

  Bonny’s older owner, David, brought her in. When David left a short time later, Bonny had become Sir Bonny, no muss, no fuss. Well, not much fuss.

  How is this possible, you ask?

  The exam began simply enough. I positioned the cat on my exam table. Cats were pretty comfortable on my table, because instead of the usual cold stainless steel surface, my beautiful cat-sized exam table was a converted antique Singer sewing machine stand. Its oak tabletop was covered with a pad and towel so my patients wouldn’t slip or slide.

  I rolled the friendly adult cat over so it was belly-side up. And there, right where you’d expect it to be, was a scrotum containing two testes.

  Bonny was definitely a male. Instant sex change!

  As politely as I could, I asked David if he had looked for the scrotal sac. He turned bright red and stammered, “I didn’t see anything hanging.” This is a pretty common scenario, and I always imagine myself replying, “Cats don’t hang, sir.” But I know better; my clients are already uncomfortable enough as it is.

  So, very gently, I pointed out Bonny’s male genitalia and explained that cats, even lions and tigers, have scrotal sacs very close to their abdomens, which can make them difficult to recognize. Bulls hang, rams and buck goats hang, dogs hang a little, but not cats, nor horses for that matter.
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  Talking about testicles to a guy is dicey. To ease the embarrassment, I often shared the story of El Toro, the Brave Black Bull.

  El Toro is a life-sized anatomically correct sculpture of a bull and matador outside a Mexican restaurant in Tucson, Arizona. El Toro is amazingly well endowed—so well endowed, in fact, that it has become a tradition to paint the hanging scrotum in a seasonal theme, such as Santa and his reindeer at Christmastime, shamrocks for St. Patrick’s Day, or the University of Arizona’s signature A during basketball playoffs, depending on the time of the year. There is a long waiting list to be allowed to paint that bull’s huge privates. There is no vandalism on this statue—it is art. This story is true and ridiculous enough that my clients can laugh about hanging versus not hanging and girl cats suddenly becoming boy cats.

  Owners are not allowed in the surgery room, but they are welcome to stay in the exam room for treatments. Some clients walk out of the room when their cats get vaccination shots; others are fine no matter what procedure needs to be done. No one is required to stay, of course, but guys like me to know that they can handle observation of medical treatments.

  One young man, Callum, brought in his adult long-haired cat, Lionel, who had an abscess on his back from the bite of another cat, a common reason for a trip to the vet. I diagnosed this before the cat ever got to the examination room. The feline mouth is a cesspool of bacteria, one species in particular, Pasteurella multocida, which is instantly identifiable by the putrid smell the moment the cat comes through the clinic door.

  Fortunately, Lionel’s abscess still had a scab. This could be treated in the exam room and not compromise the antiseptic cleanliness of my operating room. I could just pull the scab off and squeeze the pus to the outside, thus avoiding general anesthesia, a surgical incision, and a drainage tube stitched in.