On the second day of clinics, my best tech gave to me: And a linear foreign body! ... Read more »
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The Twelve Days of Clinics
I miss singing the 12 days of Christmas with you all, so I'm working through the 12 days of Clinics from a clinic perspective. Feel free to toss me ideas- we have 12 days to work through after all. Shall we begin? On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: Tinsel never looked so sinister. ... Read more »
A Veterinarian’s Holiday Wish
It's the holidays, and that means lots of things: peace on Earth, goodwill to men! Just kidding, it means cranky people fighting in the parking lot, someone getting shanked over the last PlayStation, and passive aggressive fruitcake gifts. I wasn't always this cynical. I, too, was once a merry-eyed elf with stars in my eyes and garland round my neck, until I worked long enough in veterinary medicine. Then I began to dread the month of December. It is a month of ill portents: Too ... Read more »
The greatest Thanksgiving ever
I grew up in New England, a place where tradition runs supreme. Holidays were a big deal, and we spent most of the major ones shuttling from this aunt to that grandmother and back again, enjoying the camaraderie only a large and extended family can afford. Those were the halcyon years, when my mother could still get away with dressing me as a doily. When I was eight years old, we moved across the country to Southern California, and those days came to an abrupt end. We still celebrated ... Read more »
The Long Dark Twee-Time of the Soul
As you probably know, I have a bit of a complicated relationship with the PTA moms. Not moms in general, mind you, just the small subset of Pinterest loving, glue-gun wielding domestic lifestyle experts whose expectations I can never, despite my best efforts, seem to live up to. It doesn't matter what school we're at, it happens every time. First it was the art project/pooper scooper incident in kindergarten. Then it was the Have a Very Agro Valentine's Day episode. And now it's crudite, crudite ... Read more »
Rumble in the Doghouse: Evil Breeders vs Crazy Animal Rights People
There was a time, back in a pre-internet era known as the Good Old Days, when two people who had different opinions on a topic could talk about it and, even if they did not come to an understanding, could at least part ways with a better grasp of the other person's point of view. People with different opinions were still, at the end of the day, people. I'm not entirely sure that is the case anymore. Lest anyone doubt me, proof enough should be the fact that we've just come off an election ... Read more »
Halloween has hit rock bottom
Things were simpler back in the 80s. We only has three things to do the week before Halloween: 1. Watch the Great Pumpkin. 2. Carve a pumpkin. No one helped. If you cut your finger off, oh well. 3. Run to Woolworth's and pick out your plastic costume that tied in the back like a surgeon's gown and suffocating mask you could only see out of one eyeball at a time. Trying not to kill yourself tripping over the pavement was half the fun. And that was it. Our biggest worry at ... Read more »
I do not have Ebola (I think)
Back when it was just a foreign concept whose name was limited to public health journals and the occasional horror movie, my sister and I used to joke about Ebola. Every time we got the flu and felt like garbage we would text each other "Ugh, I have Ebola." It was shorthand for "I feel very under the weather at the moment." But now that it's finally happened, this snaking into the global population that public health experts have warned of for many years, we stopped joking about having Ebola ... Read more »
The midwife at the end of life
Like many of you, I’ve been mesmerized by the bravery of Brittany Maynard, a 29 year old woman who is dying of Stage IV brain cancer. After hearing the course of the disease progression from her doctors and considering what the end of her days were likely to be like, she made the incredibly difficult decision to move to Oregon, one of a handful of states in which assisted suicide is legal, and choose the day and manner in which she will die. While her story is compelling and ... Read more »
Low Stress Week: Dog Approaches
I have an idea. Let's make this a week where we all walk away with at least one new idea, one way to make things better for the animals we work with and/or love. ETA: I'm actually going to pause and take a little more time with this idea, and hopefully get more ideas and more people involved! Stay tuned!! Today, I want to remind everyone of the best way to approach a nervous dog, featuring a short clip from Dr. Yin: I chose this for a few reasons: 1. I don't know any people who ... Read more »
