Another busy day at the Waterville Veterinary Clinic. There wasn’t an idle moment for 4 doctors all morning. Plenty of difficult surgeries and interesting appointments mingled with face lickers and heartwarming puppies, kittens, cats and older dogs alike, each with their endearing charms. In a moment when one exam room emptied and was awaiting the next appointment to enter, I sat down at our desk to look at the phone messages. One caught my eye because it looked like someone just needed a quick question answered about diet, so I dialed and listened. It was an elderly lady and her friend or daughter who live together in the backwoods about 15 miles south of us. She wanted to know if we could provide her with a diet her dog was on. Sure I replied, we do deliveries twice a week and our delivery man can drop it off tomorrow. She was thrilled because she is losing her sight and had taken her car off the road this past week and didn’t know how she was going to get this special diet her dog is on. I assumed it was one of the prescription diets we carry for all sorts of medical requirements. I asked which diet she needed and she told me it was a major brand name and that it is sold at Pet Smart. By then after all her raving about what a wonderful delivery service we have, I wondered how to tell her that our deliveries are of the food and medications we carry not just anything. I paused for a moment, reviewing in my mind the schedule for my afternoon off that I had carefully planned out. How could I disappoint a blind elderly down on her luck lady. So, I asked what the brand and type of food it was and what size bag she wanted. At the end of morning office hours, I went home and flopped on the couch and slept hard for an hour. When I awoke, I sat at my desk and paid some bills. I went out to the garage and tried to start the chevy, and then I headed north to Utica and picked up her dog food at Pet Smart, then back again 30 miles south to the backroads. Fortunately we have a GPS system in our truck, and it took me straight to her house which is on a seasonal road in the hills of Brookfield, and her driveway is an uphill grass covered path to her small mobile home. I also brought a rabies vaccination for her dog. It reminded me of a time I went to check some cows at a farm around Morris New York. The farmer was a middle aged man who had somehow lost one arm at some point in his life, but he made out fine milking and doing chores and driving the tractor with what he had. I exited my truck by the milkhouse and he came out to greet me, swearing because he tried to call and speak to me before I came, to see if I would stop at the store on my way and pick up a pack of cigarettes for him. Groceries, yeah I would do that, but cigarettes, no I don’t think so. So, such is my life. One minute performing delicate surgery on the urethra of a cat, or the eyelid of a trusted family dog, and the next, delivering dog food and groceries.
Posted on: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 02:03:30 +0000
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