Last night I was at our clinic's yearly summer picnic. I spent the day cleaning and then got home late - so, no blogging.
I thought I would share today one of my FEW vet stories that 1) I have a picture of and 2) is ok to tell at the dinner table. (I often have to remind myself that most of my stories are NOT ok for dinner conversation.) :)
This picture was taken late summer 2002. I had been practicing vet med for likely only 3 months at that point. I thankfully had been taught how to load and shoot our dart gun because on this sunny Sunday afternoon I got this call:
"I need you to come out and dart my bull."
Um, ok. "Why, exactly, do you need me to come and dart your bull?"
"Well, I've been having trouble with raccoons in my feed room, so I set out some muskrat traps to catch them. Today, my bull broke into the feed room and has one of the traps on his jaw. He's too big to fit in my chute and though he's normally a really nice bull, he's having a bit of a bad day. The only way I can figure we can get it off is if you come and dart him."
"Alrighty then, I'll be there after I go to the clinic and get the dart gun."
I then put my camera in the truck. :)
I called Dr. B for a quick refresher on how to use the dart gun and to find out how much sedation I should actually give him. The bull was in a small paddock, so he was very easy to just pop with the dart in the back leg. I took a couple of pictures of him as he was getting sleepy - poor guy. He was drooling and obviously uncomfortable.
After 10 minutes or so, he laid down. We were able to go in and remove the trap without trouble and there did not appear to be any damage to his jaw except for some abrasions on his gum tissue. I talked to the farmer a few days later and other than him being very sleepy for 48 hours, he was fine.
It's one of those calls that I was very nervous about beforehand. What if I miss when I try to shoot him? What if I don't give him enough sedation and I have to do it again? What if I give him too much and I kill him? What if we can't get the trap off? What if his jaw is broken? What if we think he's asleep and then he wakes up and the farmer gets hurt? What if? What if? What if????
At that early stage in my career, everything and every call was something new. Every beep of the pager brought about some new challenge I was not completely confident I could handle. I literally vomited every time my pager went off.
But slowly and surely, I gained confidence. And calls like this one - that went WELL - helped me to understand that I had all the necessary tools to do this job, and to do it well. One of the key tools was a mentor like Dr. B who communicated to me daily that he believed I could do it. :)
That first year was very memorable. I so wish I had kept a better record of the things I saw and did. Oh, well. At least I have this one.
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