Broom Hilda by Russell Myers for May 08, 2024

From Not Always Right: The Vivid Ventures Of The Veterinarian

The vet clinic we go to hired a new urgent care vet. He is easily one of the best vets we’ve ever worked with and is extremely knowledgeable. He also is on the spectrum and very open about this. He’s said some true gems during our dogs’ visits, but this one is by far my favorite.

I’m bringing our dog in for what we suspect is kennel cough. Due to its highly infectious nature, we wait in the car until the vet comes to get us. When he does, he walks us around to the back door of the practice and into an isolation room. It’s very small, with no windows, and even with only two of us and my dog, it feels tiny.

Vet: “You know, the other vets don’t really like these rooms; they say they feel claustrophobic. I don’t think so. I think they feel cozy. It reminds me of the shipping container house the government had me live in for a while.”

As this takes me a moment to register, all I can get out is:

Me: “Umm, why did they have you do that?”

Vet: “Oh, this was back during the anthrax scare. I worked at a lab that studied it and had anthrax, and I was one of two people with a key to where we stored it. So, the government thought I was one of the people who sent it, so they isolated me in a shipping container house until things settled down. I didn’t mind it, though. It was a nice break from everything.”

With this, he starts to examine my dog, but then he pauses and says:

Vet: “It wasn’t me, obviously. They let me go once they figured that out, and obviously, they wouldn’t have let me become a vet if I was a domestic terrorist!”

Then, he went back to checking my dog.

I’ve been back twice since then, and while I have a million questions for him, I haven’t worked up the courage to ask!

NOT my story.

He must work at the zoo. Maybe he has “bird flu” or “swine flu”.

Can’t tell if he’s apologizing to her or to them. Guess it works either way, huh?

Animals, they’re all animals.

She fits right in. I thought she always consulted a vet.

NEVER turn your back on him when he’s getting ready to take a temperature.

Mutants!

If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll take the 800 lb gorilla first.

Aw I finally got it, this was a tough to read before coffee.

No. We’re all animals.

When our son got injured playing indoor soccer as a young adult, we scrambled to find an appropriate doctor who could rebuild his cheekbone, his orbital bone and also could do plastic surgery. We found three. One had excellent credentials on paper but had little actual experience; the second one was the head of a department at one of our local hospitals, but he didn’t take any insurance payments; and the third was a doctor at an internationally known hospital a few hours away. That doctor was both a surgeon and veterinarian. (He often worked in village clinics overseas where he’d treat both people and their livestock.) He was our first choice. I enjoyed telling my son we were taking him to the vet to get his face reconstructed. But in the end, we went with the guy who didn’t take insurance. Our son’s surgery needed to be done quickly and the vet was called out of the country.

I cannot tell what all the animals are suppose to be.

He’s not qualified. Think about it. An MD knows a lot about one species, ours. A good veterinarian can handle not just mutiple species, but different genera. How many differences are there between a cat, chicken, and a snake? Ignore the idea that the last two taste a lot alike….

Finally she found the perfect doctor for her.

Oddly enough, his veterinarian friend would be more qualified to see his patients, then the other way around.

By the looks of the gorilla, I think I’d checkout.