When our oldest was three, we found our house there in New Hampshire was mosquito central in the spring, there being a wetlands area nearby. We got to watch mallard ducks arrive in our back yard for awhile, eating the larvae, just, I guess there needed to have been a few more quacking back there.
She went out to play on the swingset one late afternoon and came back inside after fifteen minutes. One look at her and I was horrified. I stopped and counted, trying to wrap my mind around it: 64 little red welts growing–it was that fast. “Oh, my poor Jennie!” I exclaimed, very sorry I hadn’t bought bug repellent before I’d let her go out there, especially at that time of day.
She looked at me, and with the wisdom of a three-year-old that spoke of so many times to come when she would be able to shrug off bad things as something she could handle on her own just fine, more worried about upsetting me than about herself, offered thoughtfully, consolingly, “I’d be more poor if I got eaten by tigers.” I laughed and cried just a tear and scooped her into my arms to try to make it all better, knowing that only time would make the bites go away but a mom’s hugs helped both of us. Just amazed. Out of the mouths of babes.
And then our kids grow up…
Nina from my book and her daughter Amy just stopped by for a visit while Amy’s in town. Amy’s a young veterinarian, and her new home and job happen to be near a wildlife rescue center.
Which is why she was just telling my husband and me about one of her most memorable recent patients brought in, carried in in a cage; when I asked, she told me sure, I could blog it.
Cats are one thing. Um. The sick patient that came in their door was a three hundred pound lion. Well, let’s see, so many cc per pound of weight… An assistant drew up and delivered the dose after Amy calculated it, to knock it out so Amy could intubate it.
Sweet dreams. Okay, ready. So there’s Amy, at the lion’s head just about to go put the tube down its throat…
…and the lion roared. I guess it didn’t like that mosquito bite in its backside.
Note that there were no windows in that surgery room and no escape except, as she put it, “through the lion.”
Obviously, they got a second dose into that thing fast and everybody came out okay. But it makes a great story.
Besides, you’re not supposed to eat when you’re going to be under anesthesia.