My Patients and Other Animals by Suzy Fincham-Gray

Author:Suzy Fincham-Gray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2018-04-10T04:00:00+00:00

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About six months after we adopted Emma, I took a case from a referring veterinarian, who, after seeing her patient’s pale gums, had requested an emergency internal medicine appointment. Sweetie arrived within the hour.

I could tell by looking across the treatment room that she was a young pit bull terrier, not yet fully grown. Her ears had a soft puppyish flop, her white coat with dove-gray patches looked fresh, and the length of her legs told me she was probably eight or nine months old. She held herself tentatively, lying with her head flat between her front legs and her tail cautiously rubbing the floor whenever someone passed by.

I sat next to her and offered my hand. She raised herself onto her elbows and sniffed my palm.

I carefully petted her head. “Hi, Sweetie, how are you?” I said. But her flash of interest had disappeared and she slumped back onto the hard floor.

Resting my hand on the smooth nape of her neck, I continued talking to her. “I’m sorry you don’t feel so good. I’m just going to take a look at you, okay?” I slid my hand along her body and placed my fingers flat against the inside of her thigh. Her pulse felt frantic.

“Good girl. Are you anemic?” I moved back to her head and examined the color of her gums. I lifted her lip and noted the perfect whiteness of her teeth, confirming her age. Her gums were washed out, the pink of a drop of blood in a bowl of water. There was a faint muddy stain on her front legs that suggested she’d been bleeding from her nose or mouth and had licked away the blood, leaving a rusty smudge. This explained her weakness and reluctance to stand.

“You are anemic,” I said. “How did that happen?” I continued with my physical examination, palpating her lymph nodes, listening to her chest. I encouraged her to roll onto her side so I could evaluate the skin on her belly. The sparse hair there made identifying bruising or discoloration easier. She flopped more than rolled, and she let out a soft groan that reminded me of an elderly man lowering himself into an easy chair. I ran my hand over her abdomen where there were small, blooming splotches of purple-red blood collected beneath the skin.

The puce daub over Sweetie’s skin and her pale gums suggested an abnormally low platelet count with severe bleeding as a result. It was a condition I’d encountered before. I hadn’t yet taken a history from her owners or reviewed the medical record—it was still being faxed from her regular veterinarian—but I knew what was wrong. Leaving Sweetie, I lurched on half-asleep legs to the battered central desk in the treatment room and pulled out a pink treatment sheet before heading to the exam room.

Sweetie’s owners were seated on the short bench opposite the examination table. They were a young couple, huddled together on the thin blue vinyl cushion. They looked afraid.

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