Poor Fisher was laying in an upper kennel with a big pile of puke in front of him.
I grabbed gloves and a roll of paper towels before I pulled him out of the cage.
“What’s going on with him?’Josh asked behind me.
I pulled out the soiled towels and started cleaning up the pug’s front end.“Do you have the lab work, Becky?”
She handed it to me.I stared at the numbers.“We need to ultrasound him.”
Josh pointed at a small room that housed the imaging equipment.
A part of me was surprised they had an ultrasound.When I saw the machine, I was doubly surprised by the high quality.Becky and Josh positioned the pug on his back in a padded trough.I doused his belly in alcohol and scanned.
“He’s got a bleeding splenic tumor,” I announced.“If they want to save him, he’s going to need surgery.Based on his blood work, I’ll need to give him a transfusion.Do you have a donor and supplies for that?”
“No,” he said.“We can get them for the future.For today, let me see what I can do.”
I spoke to Fisher’s mom who wanted his spleen removed.I warned her if we couldn’t get a transfusion going before surgery, she might have to drive him to another emergency clinic that had blood.She agreed to leave him with us to sort it out.
Moments after I left her, assuming she’d depart out the front, she burst through the door into the back treatment area.“Dr.Hurst… Dr.Hurst!”She hurled herself against Josh.“I can’t afford this.He’s going to die.”Tears fired out of her eyes like a sprinkler on full blast.
Josh gave her a squeeze and untangled himself from her.He reached for a tissue box I hadn’t noticed on the counter and handed her one.“Now, you know we’ll take care of Fisher.We can work out repayment like we have in the past.”
“Really?”She blew her nose loud and wet into the tissue.
Josh gave her a charming, confident smile.“We got this.Dr.Chomping is the best in the state to care for him.”
“God bless you.”She jumped in to hug him again.Before leaving, she gave me a stare of uncertainty mixed with gratefulness.
Josh followed her up front and reappeared moments later.“Marty will drive over to Raleigh to get blood.”
That seemed like an awful imposition.“His owner can drive him there, instead.”
“I think he’ll do better here with you, don’t you?”Josh conveyed quiet confidence in me.
Something about his faith in me squeezed my chest.I said a garbled, “Yeah.”Then I waved for Josh to follow me back to the exam room to continue our private chat.Inside, I said, “I’ll do the surgery right after we get the blood transfusion started.Can Becky handle that?”
“Marty can help you and Becky can go up front.”
I wished for Sarah.If I could convince her to move here, could we pay her what she deserved?Probably not.
Josh sat on the edge of his original chair, shoulders tight and back ramrod straight.The hint of blue along the roughness of his jaw almost made me smile again.
I glanced down at the complicated schedule.“I can’t commit to this schedule today.I need to look it over and think about it tonight.What do you need from me today and tomorrow?”
“Today, you can deal with this surgery and appointments here until you have to pick up Vinny.I really need for you to be on call tonight, if that’s possible.I’ve done a lot of days in a row and need a break.”
“All right.I’ll be on call.”
“You’ll see whatever calls for now?”His persistence bordering on bossiness was kind of hot, but compromising with him was so painful it felt like I’d swallowed a bunch of needles.
“For now,” I managed to say.“Why are you obsessed with being off tonight?Do you have a hot date?”
His cheeks flushed along the top.
“I’m going to take that as a yes.”A wave of something sharp and complicated hit me, but I pushed it down.“What about tomorrow?”
“I don’t have a date tomorrow.I scheduled farm calls in the morning, but I’ll open it all day for me to go out and see stuff.You can be here at the clinic for appointments.”
