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Strange Days Indeed- the things that clients reveal! On Tuesday this week we had a very steady morning surgery which was a pleasant break from the bedlam of the very hectic previous day. The last client of the morning had gone and I was just finishing off my clinical notes and looking forward to a cup of tea when the door buzzer went and I heard a muffled conversation between a client and our nurse, Janet. It sounded like he had an animal that he wanted seeing and I didn’t really mind because we had no ops booked in and I wasn’t ridiculously rushed off my feet. I heard Janet say that she thought his query was definitely one that I should deal with rather than a nurse so I washed my hands and went into the waiting room to see what the problem was. The man rather bashfully looked at me and held out his open hand and said, ‘Can you tell me what these are?’ and then added the immortal line, ‘I’ve just got them off my daughter’s head.’ In his hand he had a piece of doubled-over sellotape with two tiny creatures stuck unceremoniously between the two sides. I had a pretty good idea what they were but we went into the lab, mounted the tape on a slide and had a look under the microscope. I must admit that I always love showing clients bugs under the microscope because there is usually a very satisfying look of horror that comes over them when the seemingly harmless little critter is suddenly transformed into a giant man-eater with big pointy teeth and hooked, menacing-looking claws on all its eight legs. The monsters in question this time were head lice or ‘nits’ as they are more commonly known. The client had thought as much and, as he left, declined our offer of having them back to take home with him. Incidents like this are some of the many things that make our job so varied and interesting. In hindsight over the years I have been shown a tick embedded in an arm pit (bra and all), surgery scars, grossly swollen joints and been asked to feel one elderly client’s son’s back. I don’t really mind too much and I suspect some people seem to have more faith in vets than doctors but vet school doesn’t really prepare us very well for our human subjects and their various states of undress that they seem to so readily adopt for us!
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