Why I'm not a Veterinarian

When I was growing up I always thought I'd be one of two things: an artist or a veterinarian.

 I realized soon enough that I was not in fact going to sell pictures of ninja turtles any time soon so shortly after I turned 16 I decided to look into becoming a vet. My dad, who always encourages these kinds of endeavors, knew someone that worked in a vet's office and asked if I could come in for the day and shadow her and see what it was all about. I was thrilled!

It was one of the worst days of my life.

First of all, the nice lady that my dad knew was not there the day I came in. She also didn't really fill anyone else in on the fact that I would be there, so I showed up like a noob and was basically shlepped off  on a bunch of busy, irritated, not-so-friendly vets and vet techs. Not a good start to the day.

I sat on a bench with my thumb up my ass in the back for over an hour before someone decided to take pity on me and show me around. I tried to be as cheery sunshine as fucking possible, hoping someone would take me under their wing so I wouldn't feel like such an idiot.

One doctor said I could sit in while he did a spay on a puppy. A spay? Sure! How bad can it be?

Let me tell you how a spay is performed. Better yet, let me tell you how a spay WAS performed, at THIS vet clinic. It was a small poodle, maybe five months old, and she was already unconscious on the table. Quite without warning the doctor just grabs a scalpel and slits her little belly open.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Okay, we're cool, we're cool. Don't freak out.

The good fellow then proceeds to get what appears to be a small silver hook and jab it repeatedly in and out of the dog's belly, attempting to pull her ovaries out through the gap. This took a good fifteen minutes of digging and pulling, then pushing innards back in until the prize was found.

Honestly I do not remember where the procedure went from there because there is only so much dog intestine being yanked out with a hook I can handle before my brain shuts down. The next thing I remember was him sewing the dog back up and sending me on my way back to the bench.

More sitting.

Time to see how a cat gets de-clawed. You know how that's done?

Pretty much all they do is knock the cat out and then take a razor blade to it's claws. PARTY PARTY PARTY FUN FUN FUN.

Then there's a sort of rush. Someone asks me if I want to come stand watch them catheterize  a cat. Sure! Haha! What's 'catheterize' mean?

But here's the best part. No only was this a male cat, this cat was dying. He was dying in front of my eyes. I didn't realize it at first, he jut seemed really fucking out of it.

There were like four people around this bloated thing trying to get the catheter into poor Mr. Kitty and having a lot of difficulty. Thankfully the old sack didn't seem to notice cause he was so far gone. I don't remember the context of the situation but he had crystals in his urine which had blocked up his urethra and now he was dying because he was being poisoned by his own piss.

Awesome way to go, right??

So she's fighting and cursing and roughing this animal around and that's when she says he's dying and I realize what's happening and I start to really lose it. She's got the catheter in and is squeezing some bloody urine down the table into a gutter, but apparently the catheter wasn't working to her satisfaction.

So I'm standing there freaking out at the end of the table watching all this go down and suddenly the doctor decides that this catheter isn't going to work and yanks it out. Not removed it, yanked it. And you know what happened when she did that? It whiplashed towards me and SPLATTERED MY FACE WITH BLOODY CAT URINE.

I don't know how I did it but I managed to stand there while they euthanized the cat. Then I excused myself to the bathroom and sat on the toilet for 20 minutes because I couldn't see straight. I have never passed out before in my life but everything was going black and white and the room was spinning. I couldn't stand up. I didn't know what to do.

When I finally got up the balls to return to the little veterinarian's office of horrors they told me that there wasn't really anything else they could show me today and I'm sure you can imagine that was totally fine with me. They asked me to wait a few minutes though.

The receptionist gruffly took me into a back room and told me that they'd pay me $5 and some change an hour if I wanted to work in the kennels cleaning dog and cat poop and giving meds and water and food. I managed to stand upright while I politely told her I would consider her offer.

I then left the building, tossed my cookies in the parking lot beside my car, and drove home knowing that I would never become a veterinarian. I never called them back about their stupid job, either.