Mine will heal, but they will never have their balls back!
The day began with a lovely sunrise drive across town to the clinic. Did I mention how much I love sunrises? About as much as I love slamming my finger in a car door or having someone punch me repeatedly in the face. Read: Not a Big Fan.
As I pulled up to the clinic, the chaos was already apparent by the sheer number of cars and the incredibly tall lumberjack of a man directing traffic in the middle of the intersection. I found a parking spot and wandered into the clinic from the back entrance where the double doors were open and people were streaming in and out. I found a volunteer shirt and started feeling very excited about the prospect of spending the next few hours hanging out with my Vet BFF JoAnne (not to be mistaken with my Main BFF Jen). I had been promised (bribed) the position of doctor tech in order to lure me out of bed at this ungodly hour.
Sigh. My Mentor.
As I pulled my shirt over my head in the office, I was not-so-gently informed that my assignment had changed slightly and that I was now going to be helping with anesthesia. You can imagine my surprise (indignation) at this (crappy) turn of events. Why would I get out of bed so early just to prep cats on anesthesia?
Oh No. Not PREP. Administer. As in: hey you, we don't have enough people with experience working in clinics, so we're taking away your Fun Happy Place and replacing it with Hell, also known as The Pre-Med Station. We want you to spend the next 5 hours restraining mostly semi-feral and quite a few completely feral pissed off male tomcats who are quite sure something is up since they have been piled together in a mass of kennels where they can mark each other's space and scream at the top of their lungs as they fling themselves all over their box testing it for weaknesses.
Just in case we didn't know where we were.
Our little slice of Heaven (Hell).
Oh Saskia, you say. Such the dramatist. Everyone knows ferals come into clinics in traps. And those are easy to pre-med, you just stick that funny extra-large tong looking thing into the trap and force the cat against the side.
HA! That covers about 9% of the surgeries for the day.
The rest were either 18 pound cats stuffed into 12" wide kennels, itsy bitsy teeny kittens in cardboard kennels who flipped out at the injection as if we were tearing his balls off right there, and kennels containing seemingly innocuous kitties but with stickers on the front top that had statements like: "Hi! I used to be feral until about 2 months ago. Now I'm sweet. I just don't like to be handled very much." (Winner: Understatement of The Year)
To be honest, the first hour and a half was great. Every cat let me pull him out of the kennel with no fight, barely resisted restraint, and hardly flinched at the injection. I'm pretty sure they were all night owls like me, and thus had not yet had their morning coffee to perk them up.
I suppose what came next was my fault, although to be honest I blame the first hour and a half's worth of kitties for being so nice. Big White (well, more dirty yellow-white with all the urine, but who's being picky?) wasn't too keen with the poorly faked soothing voice I was using and he rudely slapped my hand away. Course, with talons that hadn't been cut in 6.34 years, my thumb came away in ribbons.
This is why I dislike restraining animals of the Feline Persuasion. They have an unfair advantage.
I realize it may look tame, but it certainly stung like a bitch. There was no way I was sticking my hand back in that cage to tangle with Mr. Yellow-White.
Thankfully, my partner Tim was quite the Squeeze Cage enthusiast. Not to say he was frightened (like his partner), actually he is quite the Cat Whisperer. But he's also a realist, and since the Number One Rule of the day was:
You think I'm kidding. These were posted all over the clinic a la New York Subways.
Tim wasn't playing games. Any growls, major hissing, swats or attempts at escape earned them a one-way ticket to The Cage.
Have I told you all how much I love Tim? I think we'll have a Spring Wedding.
Anywho, the day wore on as group after group of cats were brought into our little work space, popped with yummy drugs by us, and sent off to the next station. That's one of the great things about these Spay/Neuter-thons, they really have them organized (despite the potential image of chaos). There are these great volunteers that just sort of hang out watching in the different stations who are called "Transport". No one (and I mean NO ONE) is allowed to leave their station at any time, so if you have cats that need to be moved you just yell Transport! and these kids come running from all directions. It's really fun to just yell it every once in a while, just to make sure they're paying attention. It might seem like a stinky job, but really those Transporters make the pace of the entire operation!
Toe Tag and Pain Meds Station
(this was the next stop for our victims, and though you can see the proximity between us &them via Tim's left arm and the kennels behind him, but we still used Transport as often as possible so their feelings weren't hurt)
Surgery Prep Station.
Surgery Station
JoAnne giving this Tom a quick Happy Ending before giving him the Other Happy Ending.
In other parts of the clinic JoAnne was popping balls like nobody's business. And despite her distance from me, it was like she was right there since her voice carries quite well into multiple rooms. In fact, there was probably not a person there who couldn't hear her thoughts when she chose to speak them aloud. One of the Hot Topics of the day was who would win the Biggest Balls contest. Yes, that's right. They were saving balls on glove wrappers to measure after all surgeries were complete to determine who had the Biggest Balls. I think the winner got a free surgery or something.
JoAnne hard at work. This is a rare photo, as most of the time she appears as a blur.
This may seem like a joke, but it is Serious Business here in Testicle Town.
After Tim and I gave the last cat his Nice High, we wandered off to watch the rest of JoAnne's surgeries. I think they were having way too much fun in the surgery suite, personally. Not that I didn't have tons of fun with Tim. But he's just not JoAnne... (they are actually quite amazing opposites: tall/short, dark/light, taciturn/loquacious) Though it was kinda nice to get my hands back in the game.
Side Note: The most terrible injury by far was the one I incurred via closing a kennel door during the clean-up phase. The kennel door bit me.
Mortal Wound to the cuticle. Ouch!
All-in-all, that first day of the two-day event we neutered 193 Toms! And while that wasn't quite our goal for the day, it is still a nice little dent in the overpopulation problem, and for that I salute the Team Neuter-Thon! With a nice well-earned bottle of wine! Yay!
Wendy and JoAnne. Two Very Interesting People.
(Who should, for future reference, probably NOT be allowed in the same room at the same time.)
hee, hee :)
Oh, and JoAnne could you update us on the numbers for the second day? I'm just sooooo out of The Loop. Or is it The Circle of Trust?
UPDATE:
Seems the two-day Squeezing of the Balls was quite successful! They neutered well over 500 cats over the entire weekend! Congrats all and thanks for such a successful event!
