This past Mother's Day weekend, on a rare Friday that vet tech Allison and I got to work together, I filled our schedule to the top with dental work. Usually we do one or two surgeries or dental procedures in a day, and schedule them for the morning in case we also need the time before afternoon appointments start at 2 pm to finish. We had three dental procedures scheduled for Friday morning.
"Are you sure that is a good idea, Friend?" Allison asked.
"That is not a good idea," Angie said.
"It'll be great!" I said.
I pride myself a bit on guessing accurately how complex a dental procedure will be, how long it will take and how much it will cost - though truly you cannot know all of that for sure until a pet is under anesthesia. These three dogs all have great teeth, and we expected no extractions. They were all from the same family, and Mom wanted to get them done at the same time, so I told her we would.
Jen and Allison doing dental work
Allison had her doubts, but was a good sport about it all.
"We'll see," she said.
We created a back up plan that if the procedures took longer than expected, we would reschedule the third dog for another day.
Here's the part that was the most fun...
I was so sure of Allison and her ability that I commissioned Abby to make a thank you card for Allison the night before. Abby went above and beyond, and painted the beautiful dogs we were seeing from my description. Her paintings look just like them!
Russ called flower shops and bakeries until he found a team willing to help us on the weekend of Mother's Day. He coordinated with Petit's Pastries, the awesome bakery up the street from Gentle Doctor, to deliver cupcakes with Abby's card at 11:30 am, right when I figured we would be finishing up.
Our team showed up early ready to go.
Jen was there to help. Stephanie was there to help. I was there to give anesthetic medications. As any vet tech knows though, in any dental procedure, the technician does the majority of the work. Allison was ready. The dogs came in one by one...and it went as well as I had hoped.
One of the women from Petit's Pastries came in with Allison's card and cupcakes and set them on the counter. Jen brought them back to Allison who was finishing anesthetic recovery of the third dog. Allison asked who they were from. Jen said she didn't know. Allison said they were probably from Hannah. Because Allison insisted on making sure her patient was fully recovered before letting anything break her focus, even Cookie Monster cupcakes, I had to wait a full ten minutes for Allison to check the card and see it was from me.
Timing In Real Life is not my strong suit. I am almost as proud of myself and my timing in this situation as I am of my family for making it work and Allison and the rest of the vet team in taking care of these three great dogs and their Mom. Almost.
