Death by syringe

I have felt, for the first time in my life, the urge to kill someone.

I'm not talking about that feeling you get when someone annoys you. Not that "God I could kill you" thing you say when you're frustrated with someone.

I felt the blind, bubbling-over desperation of true violence.

And, appropriately, it has to do with the love of my life, the reason I wake up in the morning, the most important thing in the world: my dog Sulley. You may remember him from my very first post on this blog and this adorable photo:


If you know me, you know that I would do anything for this dog. So, last Sunday, when he ran underneath the horse trailer in hot pursuit of a his fellow corgis, caught himself on a piece of metal, and slit his back open from one end to the other, I lost it.

I knew it was bad when my Mom screamed, "HOLLY! WALK AWAY!"
You see, I'm not too good with blood and injuries when it comes to animals. Humans, I can handle with a little gagging. Animals? Call the psych ward.

Needless to say, Sulley was in need of immediate medical care, and since we now live in the middle of nowhere, it was a race against time (really, dying flesh) to get him to a vet in time to have surgery before too much damage was done, blood was lost, etc.

Look at me talking about this calmly. I almost seem like I wasn't upset, don't I?

Well I was. I was hysterical. I almost hyperventilated. I sat in the back of the car, as my mom drove us to the nearby metropolis of Hampton, and sobbed. And Sulley looked at me, with his human eyes, and said, "It's O.K.! I'm O.K.! Don't be sad!"

So I cried more.

We finally arrive at the Hampton Animal Hospital and my mom rushes inside to tell them we have an emergency. She comes out, with her calm, cool, nurse self and says "They have a private room waiting for him. Let's go."

Turns out the "private room" is the intermediate room between the waiting room and the actual private rooms. It's probably where surgery would occur in a real vet's office, but instead the glass-fronted cabinets are full of model tractors. I start shooting my mom panicky looks because I'm too upset to verbalize anything.

I was on the brink of hysteria here. I'm pretty sure my mom was thinking, "She can't get any more upset than this. She'll calm down soon." But boy was she wrong, because she didn't know the immensely overweight, bad perm-job, clumsy handed vet tech was about to walk in.

Vet tech, upon seeing the edge of Sulley's wound from under my mom's truly superb wrapping job: Oh. My. God.
Me: death stare
Vet Tech: Mmmmmmmmmm. (Shakes head side to side slowly)
Me: death stare at Mom
Vet Tech, squatting down to look at the edge of the wound more closely: Oh dear god. Oh, ugh. We're going to have to put him to sleep. (She meant anesthesia, but poor choice of words, ma'am.)

She then proceeds to stand up and look at us with her eyebrows raised and her mouth pursed.
Vet tech: Is he...friendly? (disdainful look at Sulley)
Me: He's hurt. He's not himself.
Vet tech: Well my god. I just don't know about this.

And she exits the room.

I don't think she understood. I don't think she saw the fear, the pain, the rage in my eyes. I also don't think she saw that I saw the box of needles sitting on the counter. And she certainly couldn't see the little film that was playing out in my head, where I grabbed a needle, pushed it against her jugular and said,

"I will puncture your life with this needle if you don't see my dog immediately. I don't care if I go to jail. I don't care if the cops come and shoot me dead right now. You WILL fix my dog and you WILL do it right now. Is he friendly? Of course he's not fucking goddamn friendly. He has carved a hole out of his back the size of a basketball! Let me carve a wound like that in your back and see if you're friendly when I shove my fist into it!"

I am not a violent person. I am not an angry person. But for that moment, I could have been.

Luckily, the vet came in shortly afterward and had this conversation with my mother.
Vet: We can't see him until after 1 (it was 10:30). I have patients lined up.
Mom: Well this is an emergency.
Vet: But we weren't expecting you.
Mom: Isn't that the definition of an emergency?
Vet: Well I'll lose customers if I turn them away!
Mom: Forget it. Let's go Sulley.

And we did. We got in the car and drove an hour to my aunt's clinic, The Coastal Veterinary Clinic, where they saw Sulley immediately, and miraculously stitched him up. The had to remove a 2-inch wide, 6-inch long rectangle of skin and fat to close the wound. I told Sulley he got liposuction and not every dog gets the opportunity for plastic surgery, but he was too woozy to understand.


That's my dog on the improvised stretcher they made for him to get to the car. I would post pictures of the actual wound, but I know my Dad reads this blog and if there's one person in the whole word who can't handle injuries more than me, it's him.

You're welcome, Dad.