Saturday, October 29, 2011

The Second Exam Room

I need some cheering up, so I'm going to tell one of my most recent favorite stories:

The curse of veterinary relief work is that when you start out that first year, you have to basically interview and negotiate for every stinking day of work.  Is your practice philosophy similar to the owner's?  Do you mesh well with the staff?  Do you communicate well to this client base?  I adore the meeting of each new staff member and the tour of each clinic.  But, during that first day, when I know I am being watched, I can become a little anxious.


Well, about three weeks ago, I was having one of those first days at My Current Clinic.  I was working extra hard to show each client that I was a friendly, compassionate, and skilled veterinarian .  I was finishing an examination of the dog in the Second Exam Room when I turned to exit into the practice's pharmacy.  To my left, I suddenly saw a small dark cat dart through the doorway of the exam room and into the pharmacy.  I gasped and took a few steps forward to follow after it.  Almost every veterinarian can tell you a story about the cat that escaped from the owner and found its way into some hole in wall of the old clinic building.  Or, worse yet, work that cat will find a way to work through the dropped ceiling tiles, into the attic, and out the roof to the outside world.  My sole intention was to grab this cat before it had any similar ideas.  However, after I had darted towards it, I realized there was nothing to chase.  I looked through the pharmacy - no cat.  I looked back in the Second Exam Room - fortunately the owner was busying herself with looking out that back window and not staring at the freak who just provided her dog with his rabies vaccine and chases imaginary cats.  I am mortified.  "I really need to learn to control my stress better," I chastise myself.  Fortunately, I see no staff present, and breathe a sigh of relief that my secret may actually remain safe with me.  I tell no one of the incident.


A couple of weeks later, this clinic experiences one of those crazy busy Fridays, when you feel like you spend the whole day running from one exam room to the other, never quite keeping up and never quite doing the kind of quality job that you intended to do when you first got out of bed that morning.  So, by the time we close down for the evening, I am exhausted and still need to complete examination notes for my afternoon patients while the technical staff is ready to leave.  Heidi kindly asks if I would like to borrow her key to the building, so I can stay late to finish the notes after the staff heads home.  That all around sounds like a very unwise option.  My committed belief in Murphy's Law would make tonight the night that a drawer full of cash disappeared or a bottle of ketamine walked away without explanation.  I decline the offer and decide that I would arrive in the next morning early with the opening staff to finish my notes.  This decided, we start to head out the back door, when Tabitha makes the joke that maybe I was unwilling to stay alone in the building because I am "afraid of the ghost."  I pause, "What ghost?"  Heidi then goes on to explain that people often hear or see an animal in the second examination room...sometimes a small dark cat.

Happy Halloween!
             Josie

The stats:  Food - water, lamb, carrots, sweet potato, and the pear for dinner which I simmered in water for 20 minutes prior to eating (tasty).  Hats off to my husband, who figured out how to determine a good cut of lamb, because it tastes so much better than the past few days.  The pain has been at a constant 6-8 today (poor me!), predominantly bladder pressure, urethra, and the characteristic vulvodynia "acid burn" in the evening.  Medications: Day 4 of methylprednisolone, amitriptyline SID, prosed DS TID, Zyrtec SID, and flexeril in the morning.  Still not convinced the flexeril worked...and may be the cause for the burn.  But at this point, I could blame anything on anything.  Started small amount of Gelnique over bladder.   I will pat myself on the back for handing out Halloween candy for 2 hours tonight at my church's Trunk or Treat and not eating one single piece.

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