I arrived early for work - not because I needed to but its sometimes nice not to to have to rush into an appointment as soon as you get there. I dodged a few hospital staff that spotted me and immediately inundated me with questions. I went to hide in the office but our bookkeeper, Joyce began asking me questions about bills and payments so I whispered out some excuse and slipped out of the office.
I had a coffee with me and sat next to our treatment room to mentally prepare for a busy morning of appointments. A receptionist, Terry approached me and told me that the 9 o-clock appointment had arrived but instead of bringing two cats, they had brought four. I looked up at my schedule and could see the appointment that followed was a nail trim so I hoped it might still be possible to do the physical examination all four of the cats.
As I entered the room I was handed export papers for the cats. I had hoped they were in for their annual physical examination but it was a pre-boarding physical examine prior to their flight to Hong Kong. This meant that I would also have to fill out all the vaccination history, microchip numbers, and ensure they were fit for travel. I fell a little behind in time but luckily a veterinary nurse was available to assist in the paperwork end of it.
The nail trim appointment went well and they hadn't been waiting for more than 10 minutes but I was again approached by a Terry to say that someone was here for their 9:30 appointment but had mixed up the days and they had come a day early. Not being far behind I decided to do the vaccination of their dog and felt I would still be okay.
When I finished I was now 20 minutes behind schedule when again I was approached by Terry. It turned out that another client had mixed up their days and had not shown up for their 9:30 appointment the day before because they thought their appointment was for today. The person had driven with their cat from Qualicum and I didn't want to have to reschedule them and have them make another trip.
As it turned out the person pulled out a list of problems and concerns she had. By the time I finished I was almost an hour behind schedule and a veterinary nurse pulled me to the back to look at an emergency case that was just rushed in. A four year old male cat had developed crystals and was unable to urinate - a life threatening disorder. I sedated the cat and flushed the crystals out and placed an small indwelling urinary catheter in as the veterinary nurses monitored him and gave intravenous fluids.
I no longer wanted to know how far behind I was and was ready to apologize to the next scheduled appointment because I knew I was well over an hour behind schedule. Terry walked to the back once again and I rolled my eyes expecting another kink in my day. Terry smiled knowingly and told me that my next appointment was spay and the people had just called to say that their dog ate an entire loaf of sour dough bread.
Since their dog needed to be fasted for surgery - we had to cancel the operation and reschedule it for another day. I looked up at the clock and it was just after noon. I walked out for lunch in disbelief that the additions and subtraction had somehow worked out and order was again restored to the schedule.
