Funny Vet

During our day-to-day activities we use a lot of short-hand things to simplify our lives - acronyms, abbreviations, etc.  We do this when writing in files when taking histories or putting down our diagnositic findings.  Some computer programs, for instance, may only allow you a certain number of characters to input in the problem line when making appointments.  If an owner is going on and on with description after exhaustive description of what’s wrong with the pet, we may, perhaps, end up putting just ADR (ain’t doin’ right) or NDR (not doin' right - what I’ve been told is the northern version of ADR).  The person writing or inputting such short-cuts know what they’re trying to say, and why, yet others reading the entries later may interpret a completely different slant.  These are some of the file entries that I’ve come across over time and what my brain thought when I saw them.

Rash on skin not acting right - Well, yeah.  Rashes, by definition, aren’t supposed to act right.  They’re…….rash.  How do you expect it to act?

Typos can be fun as well.  While still working on this blog an appointment was made to "Check Sin".  There's seven differentials for that: Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, Envy, Lust, Wrath, and Dopey.  One last thing.  We use a lot of acronyms in this profession, both for describing diseases and as file entry short-hand.  There’s one I’d like for us to get away from and that one is this: FU.  It’s supposed to mean Follow-Up, but, ya know, when you see it, that’s not the first thing that pops into your head.  The first time I was exposed to this particular bit of short-hand it was on a sticky note stuck to a chart: FU Dr. Scott.  What’d I do?

It was the dog days of summer and after a great weekend I was feeling pretty good about myself, having partied ‘til the cows came home the night before.  Thinking the goose hung high and being as happy as a pig in slop, I was naturally surprised to hear a catfight break out in our treatment room.  I hurried like a bat out of hell to take the bull by its horns.  Two of my technicians were going at it like cats and dogs.  The bone of contention ended up being trivial, whether to fold the cage towels in half or in thirds.  I knew the real elephant in the room was that one of my technicians was known to drink like a fish, but that particular monkey on her back had never affected her work, so I had always let sleeping dogs lie.  There’s always some kind of pecking order when you have staff and the other workers seemed to keep trying to make her a scapegoat, being catty about small things.
“Holy cow!,” I said, “Don’t we have bigger fish to fry?  Now get off your high horses and get back to work!”
I knew yelling would put me in the doghouse with the staff for the rest of the day, but you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs.  It turned out not much later that we were running around like chickens with our heads cut off because it got suddenly busy.  Mr. Dail had arrived without an appointment as usual, just to get our goat.  He always seemed to have a burr under his saddle but his bark was worse than his bite.  I talked turkey with him for a bit and in only two shakes of a lamb’s tail I was able to get him to hold his horses so that I could see Mrs. Schitty who had brought along some of her Schitty children.  It was chaotic in the room, the children monkeying around with some of the equipment, Mrs. Schitty as calm as a toad in the sun, abdicating any parental responsibilities.  It seemed her cat, Doofus, was as sick as a dog.  I recommended bloodwork but she thought that was hogwash and while I can be bullheaded, I knew I was barking up the wrong tree because she was as stubborn as a mule.  After all, you can lead a client to treatment but you cannot make them think.  I ended up giving some antibiotics that cost chicken feed, hoping I had not used up one of Doofus’ nine lives.  The Schitty children raged through our lobby like bulls in a china shop.
The rest of the morning was like herding cats and by lunch I was as hungry as a bear.  I made a pig out of myself and felt as full as a tick.  Feeling as happy as a clam at high tide I soon learned I’d counted my chicks too soon.  Seems Mr. Bullafarht had tried another home remedy on his dog and the chickens had come home to roost.  This was really the straw that broke the camel’s back though because Meatball was one sick puppy, looking like something the cat had dragged in.  I told Mr. Bullafarht he had no horse sense but this went over like water off a duck’s back.  I didn’t want Meatball to be a dead duck, so we made a beeline to intensive care so he wouldn’t sing his swan song.  Our afternoon went to the dogs and was so packed there wasn’t room to swing a cat (not that we would actually do that).  Feeling like we had a bear by the tail,  we did a lion’s share of work, hoping this day would be a cash cow.  By the end of the day I could tell I was no longer a spring chicken and was feeling meaner than a junkyard dog.  We sent Meatball to the local emergency clinic with Mr. Bullafarht who tried to throw me a bone and said he’d never do this to his dog again.  As much as I liked kicking a dead horse, I let this go.  He cried crocodile tears and left with his tail between his legs, but I knew that a leopard doesn’t change its spots and his judgment was as scarce as hen’s teeth.  “Ass.”, I thought.
At the end of the day we all left the clinic like rats from a sinking ship.  It was raining cats and dogs and was as dark as the inside of a cow’s belly.  I got to looking like a drowned rat as I fumbled with my car key that was suddenly as slippery as an eel.  I took a dog leg left then went straight as a crow flies to where a little bird had told me that I could get drunk as a skunk on days like this when I felt I’d been thrown to the wolves.  After all, tomorrow would be here as quick as a rabbit and I’d have to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed so I could keep feathering my nest.

Please check out our 2009 blog about pet names. These are the ones I’ve been keeping track of since.  Though I’m not above such tactics for the sake of humor, I’d like to remind everyone that I did not make up any of these names.

Anyone else have a problem when you get the owner’s name confused with the pet’s name because the owner’s first name seems like it should be the pet’s name?  It doesn’t happen often, but recently we had an owner who’s name was “Tikelia” (pronounced Tequila).  When you are just skimming the file folder before walking into the room, I think you should be excused for calling the dog by the owner’s name.  Especially when you do it really enthusiastically, like, “Hey, Tikelia!  How ya doing?  Who’s a good dog?!  Who’s a good dog?!”  Right?  Does this happen to anyone else?  Anyone?  Fine.  Maybe it’s just me.

I had two encounters with those people who like to alter a pet’s name just to give others a hard time when it's mispronounced.  In your mind think about how most anyone normal would pronounce “Sheba”.  Hint: "Shee-ba".  Got it fixed in your head?  Okay.  After I called out for “Sheba” to come into the exam room, I was corrected with just that right amount of archness and condescension, “It’s pronounced Sheb-ah!”  The “e” being a short-“e” sound, unlike the socially understood and accepted long-“e” sound.  Then there was the Chihuahua named “Katty”, which I thought was one of those too-cute things where we name them after a different species, like the cat we have named “Dog”.  After calling them to the room, I was informed that it’s pronounced “Katy”, to which I couldn’t help but say, “Well, if you’d dropped one of the "T"s, I would have gotten it right.”  These kinds of interactions make it certain that I will never say the pet’s name ever again; I will only refer to them as him or her, he or she.  And then get corrected when I mess up the pronouns.  And when that happens my default response is, "Hey, I just barely got people's genders figured out."

I’d like to throw a little sympathy toward our front-line receptionists who have to put up with the brunt of silly and frustrating client interactions.  What is it with people, for instance, when asked for their last name in an attempt to pull or access their file, who reply with: “My last name or my dog’s last name?”  Does your dog have its own last name?  Is it like a step-dog where the last name would be different?  Does it have a middle name too, so that when you’re really angry at it you’ll yell, “Eileen Luann Smith, you stop sniffing that other dog’s butt right now!”  What do they think you mean?  Yes, ma’am, your last name.  You filled out the client information form that generated the file.  Your dog doesn’t have its own legal name enabling it to go independently open a savings account, buy a car, or file separation procedures with a lawyer to get away from your craziness.

Speaking of last names, here are some pet names that combine in funny ways with owner’s last names and what they make me think when I hear them:

Then there are the pets who’s names become more interesting when they have a particular problem.  I think we’ve all had or known the diabetic pet named “Sugar”.  For variety there’s the diabetic dog named “River”.  Irony combined with PU/PD!  Recently had a dachshund named Skippy, who wasn’t really that skippy when he came in with intervertebral disc disease.  (As an aside, I hadn't noticed that Skippy was included in the 2009 Pet Names blog, but on that visit he was limping.  Poor Skippy can't get a break.)  Anyone out there been bit by "Karma"?  In the literal sense, that is.  And what about the two cats, "Booger" and "Sniffles" with upper respiratory infections?  Did the owners know that these guys were going to be so afflicted in their lives and that's why they named them or did the mere act of naming them cause the disease process?  Starts to sound like the names for the Seven Dwarves - "Sneezy", "Booger", "Sniffles", "Wheezy", "Snotty",  "Sinusitis", and me, "Doc".  Then there's the epileptic dog named “Spaz”.  It's almost too easy.  I'm proud to say that I am assured getting into heaven because I can truthfully say I neutered "Satan".  Then there's "Mr. Biggles" and "Miss Bailey" who, apparently, are unashamedly living together in sin.  We can only hope that "Mr. Biggles" will do the right thing and one day make an honest woman of "Miss Bailey".  My favorite, though, has to have been "Braveheart" who had gotten to the age that he needed to be on NSAIDs pretty regularly.  All I could picture was an aged Mel Gibson with a Scottish brogue: “You can take our lives!  But you can’t take our……Aaaarrgghh!  Ow!  My back!  Oh, god, my back’s gone out!  Someone help me up here!”