Heart made of glass, my mind of stone.I often get accused of being savage. My friends say it lovingly because they know that yes I may be very blunt and a little to honest at times but they know I'm the first one there to cry with them or hold their hand. I can try to blame it on my profession but I'm sure there are a few deeper wounds that contribute further. This is a glimpse of what my day looks like. Coffee, blood, tears and a little bit of swallowed rage, which yes, does go down easier with more coffee! A day in my life on paper is pretty simple. I get up, I work 9-10 hours, I come home, eat and go to bed. Off paper, it can get pretty intense and chaotic. 5:45 am: It all starts when my first alarm goes off, it’s not necessarily when I actually get out of bed, but, I try to haul out by 6:30. I've been know to hit snooze every 9 minutes for an hour before. Now, I am not to be confused with a morning person, I'm not. I’m grumpy, I’m irritable and I do not like people to talk to me until at least 8. I just like time to myself so it doesn't feel like all I do is work. Coffee is a very vital part of my day, it's always the first thing I get when I get up. I generally can’t function without it, although, I have been trying a few alternatives here and there. Trying, but I still have 2-3 a day. 6:40 am: Once brewed, I head back upstairs to make my bed, always needing to dig Bandit out first. Sometimes I just make the bed around him. He's a lump, also not a morning person. I try to do a quick tidy before heading to the living room, this is when Bandit will move, when he realizes I'm leaving him. He'll then sadly stare at me until I pick him up so he can snuggle on the couch while I meditate and read my tarot. I'll meditate for about ten minutes, but I'll only pull my tarot on Mondays. You know, get a feel for the week ahead. 7:00 am: Once caffeinated and meditated, I’ll do yoga. My job requires a lot of heavy lifting, kneeling and awkward positions holding animals. Sometimes your muscles will cramp from holding something intensely for an extended period of time. I mean, have you tried taking blood from the back leg of a cat, or had to sit on the floor restraining something while fluids are drained? Just awkward and uncomfortable for you and the pet. Here's when I like to sit around and watch my favourite vloggers on YouTube for a while because I know once I get to work I won’t stop until I leave. I usually just have oatmeal at this point for breakfast. I prefer it with peanut butter and bananas. 7:30 am: I take Bandit out, he's a straight to business kinda guy so we sometimes play a bit if he’s awake enough. Honestly, he’d sleep all morning if I let him, ah, the joys of a senior pet. This is when I'll actually start getting ready, it doesn’t take long. I'll wash my face and brush my teeth before getting dressed, wearing scrubs means it takes me two minutes. I keep my makeup very limited as working with animals doesn’t mix well, so it’s basically just concealer around my eyes, mascara and a little blush to make me look alive again. This also only takes me like two minutes. 8:30 am: I'll try to leave before 8:30 but heading into the colder months now I may need to rethink that. My commute can be anywhere from 20-25 minutes, so I'll try to be productive and listen to podcasts or audio books but since I’m being honest, I’ve mostly just been listening to Post Malone or Twenty One Pilots’ new album Trench. Time for work. 8:50 am: I start at 9, which means I start at 8:50 so I’m there before appointments. Mondays and Fridays we have morning and afternoon appointments while the rest of the week we have surgery in the mornings. My job is very fluid since I work in a very small clinic. There are only three of us and one is still training, I’m in charge of training her. My main duty is front desk meaning I deal with all incoming and outgoing calls, appointments and emergencies. I discuss homecare for surgeries and explain medications with clients, I take care of orders and shipments, check stock and inventory. I also make sure the Dr has everything she needs and is aware of what her day looks like. Again, on paper sounds simple, and it is, it just can be very testing. The main thing they don’t tell you about the animal industry is how hard you have to be or the insane memory and attention to detail you need. Organization is key, so is swallowing your tears and pretending everything is fine. Insert the meme of the dog sitting in his burning kitchen. If you work within the veterinary field you probably get the classic “Oh you must love working with animals!” Yes, I do. I also strongly dislike people. Or your family thinks you just pet dogs and cats all day. Not really. The clinic cat is my best work friend and I love her with my entire being and sometimes sit with her in my sweater...but I don’t really have time to interact much with the animals and when I do it’s because an extra hand is needed, or I’m creepily petting a sedated animal while discussing another client with the Dr. The point being It’s a busy, stressful, sometimes emotional, crazy profession. Also, gross, beautiful and very messy. I’m talking ALL bodily fluids. Blood, anal glands, urine, pus from an infected uterus, whatever it is that comes out of a dead animals mouth while you’re carrying it (I know what it is and I hope you never have to), stool that has been building inside a constipated cat for God only knows how long because people with multiple cats never really know who’s going and who isn’t and you truly haven’t lived until you get hit with anal glands from across the room. This profession can also be very sad, after all, it is still a medical hospital dealing with living beings. Decisions can mean life or death for certain cases. It brings a lot of difficult conversations and situations and as cold as it may sound you need to develop a certain level of detachment in order to survive. Every person who calls believes that their pet’s case is an emergency, some are, but most aren’t. As a pet owner, you understand the worry and concern clients feel but you also know better. Unfortunately, some cases are booked in the next available spot, whether that is one later that day or later that week, and clients can become agitated, to put it politely, that you’re making their pet wait. You may feel guilty but you have to remember if they’re truly concerned they can go to the emergency clinic or they could have even called four days ago when it started. Unfortunately, there are only so many hours in a day and only so much one Dr. and four people can do. All you can do is calmly assure them that if the Dr. felt it needed to be seen right away then she would find a way to see them. They need to trust the Dr’s judgment and so do you. Now that doesn’t mean things still don’t haunt you. This job can also become very heavy. A dog comes in for a routine exam and leaves with a cancer diagnosis or doesn’t leave at all. To be extreme, but you get the point. There are times when you close the door to one exam room and you have to close your eyes and take a deep breath to compose your anger or tears so that you can walk into the next with the client who has a new puppy or the next phone call which is an old lady sobbing because her dog collapsed. You need to remain composed and alert at all times. There are days when you just get into your car and cry or days when you don’t realize how hard something hit you until you start bawling watching some random video on Facebook. There are also certain pets that stick to you, that will always make you cry. I remember my first death, not to be confused with my first euthanasia which had the song Don’t You Forget About Me by Simple Minds playing in the background. No joke. But my first death was a cat. He was morbidly obese and came in because he hadn’t been eating. I had fallen for his fat cheeks the moment I saw him. I was in the back alone and had just been about to do his hourly TPR. I had my hand on his side and was adjusting my stethoscope when he took a deep breath and exhaled, his head just slowly fell to the side and I’d never felt such fear in my entire life. I tried desperately to find his heartbeat but I knew what had happened. He died, I felt that final breath leave him and I remember sitting in my car later that day and just sobbing about it. That happened two years ago and it’s not even the worst thing I’ve seen, but it’s one of my most vivid memories. The second pet I’ll never forget was an emergency cesarean. It was one of the worst days, but it was also one of the best days of my life and made me believe wholeheartedly that I was in the right profession. There were ten puppies, nine lived. It’s a terrible feeling when your warming a puppy and clearing their airway and trying to stimulate them and they just won’t breathe. It’s gut-wrenching, but it happens. It’s also an amazing feeling when they do breathe, and they make their little squeaks and grumbles. This last pet I never got to know. He came in last month actually and in theory, it wasn’t that bad of a situation, really a quite common one, it just hit me too close to home. This couple brought in their dog to be cremated, he had died at home and it was a pug the same age as Bandit. To make it worse when the man handed me the body, the pug’s little head leaned against me and it let out this sad breath from the pressure of our hands. I’ve never had my voice crack so much with a client. I couldn’t even look them in the eye because I was trying so hard not to cry. Death is a very real part of the job and it happens almost daily and it never gets easier to deal with. At my old clinic, I played the role of veterinary assistant and I did a lot, everything from injections, monitoring the pet’s under anesthetic, assisting with minor procedures like enemas or inserting catheters, I mean I even groomed sedated and non-sedated cats. I did everything and anything that was needed. At my new clinic, my main duties are the front desk and administrative assistant. It’s a long day and a lot of responsibility and I do my best to keep everything moving smoothly. But then an owner calls with a rottweiler who’s been attacked by the rescue their fostering and an hour later your scrubbing blood off literally every surface in the clinic while the Dr sews his ear back on. There’s really no set routine for my day, guides maybe, but it’s really a be ready for anything kinda job and I actually am in love with it. 6:30-7:00 pm: When I finally do get home, I cuddle the hell out of Bandit. We watch something, have dinner and try to be in bed by 9:30-10. Weekends we rage of course, and by rage I mean we go for a hike or to some store that lets you bring your dog in and then I clean the house while he watches. You know, cool things. Just a day in the life of a girl and her pug. -N
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