I had a really, really bad day at work yesterday.
I slept awfully the night before – woke up feeling my aloneness so intensely it took a few hours to get out of bed. It’s remarkable how easily dreams twist in and out between sweet escape and cruel “self”-abuse.
Walked through the clinic doors and was immediately faced with a returned inpatient who should’ve re-presented 3 days ago (not to mention the owners were wanting “an appointment” with me first thing, on a day of the week I usually see as my respite shift in the sanctuary of surgery suite far away from the consult rooms), and then shortly after: a problem patient (a puppy) who had vomited 6 times overnight and may have eaten something she shouldn’t have (whose mother left a bulleted list of concerns over half a page long which included the vomitfest but also the fact that the dog has ear wax), a dying inpatient with a fraction of the already suboptimal blood supply he had the other day with a surprise liver value in the 2000s (from 62), a request for a same-day euthanasia for an old, beloved regular, a favorite patient (also aged) needing seen for an acute-onset dramatic facial swelling, an in-progress echocardiogram, a staff blood-handling error, a staff member scolding the sensitive foster, a possible underlying, insidious lymphoma on a creature I’ve been working on for months, and the drug I needed for a rat’s post-op care today having mysteriously been deleted off last month’s order list after the head tech had added it on after expressly gaining approval from both the boss and myself.
Steady flow of techs and receptionists with this call and this request and this question, worse than the usual Monday morning onslaught without boss here to field some of it for the week.
I guess I should say proudly–to my own credit–that the staff are at the point these days where they know to just carry on and keep the work-flow going, keep getting what they need from the vet, keep talking when she prompts “go on,” or “how can I help you?” or “please tell me what you need,” despite the tears, the swollen eyes, the intermittent hobble, maybe the face buried in a dog or a cat while she keeps on going and going and going. The job will get done. And it’ll get done well.
One of the receptionists shuffled up to my side later in the afternoon, after the first euthanasia but before the second and between surgical procedures, and must’ve braced herself for the sniffly “yep?”. But instead of another checklist item, she took a deep breath and rambled out:
“I know you’re having a really, really bad day so I just thought maybe I’d tell you this so you could find a little something to make you a little happier – we have this veterinarian play set at home that [4-year-old] loves to play with and over the weekend he had his friend over and I heard him say ‘Let’s play animal doctor! I’ll be Dr. [me] and you be so-and-so and I thought it was so adorable because he knows you’re [lovelydog]’s doctor and you make her feel better!”
So I had a really, really bad day at work yesterday like the one before that and the one before that and yup probably the one before that, too, and it’s been a bad few weeks/months/years, but at least I’ve got “Let’s play animal doctor! I’ll be Dr. [me]” to hold tight to in my little growing box of treasures. Every wee glimmer of lightness helps carry me through these really, really bad days.
orchidmantis 