Alton Veterinary Clinic, Alton NH

Last weekend was my 25^th high school reunion in Wolfeboro, NH. I attended a small private school called Brewster Academy and we (me, Diedra, and Joe), decided to make a long weekend of the event and visit our old house were we grew up and meet some of our old friends from our early days.



Me and Diedra at our old house

My first stop in NH was at Alton Veterinary Clinic. Stephen Barsanti has been practicing veterinary medicine there for almost 35 years. When I was there we saw every pet within a 40 mile radius. This included horses, cows, goats, dogs, cats, birds, wildlife, and just about everything else in between. It was one of the things I loved most about being at his practice; we never knew what was going to walk-in, or be driven up in the bed of a pick-up truck.

It was simple, rural, country veterinary medicine at its finest.

Entering Alton Veterinary Clinic

I remember spring meant lots of babies of all species. Turns out I was a very devoted foster mom from the smallest beginnings. If it needed time and attention, then I was volunteering for the job. I sort of imposed myself into helping. Looking back on this I understand why it is important to keep fresh young blood and energy in your hospital. Taking care of a helpless needy babies fuels your fire to learn, and binds you to the mission of the veterinary hospital. It is the ultimate sense of purpose anyone in veterinary medicine. (I should really think about forcing my new summer interns to take a kitten for the summer. It is sort of like the high school kids who get forced into carrying a sack of flour around for the semester so they understand what proper parental care entails, not that this project ever lowered the teen pregnancy rates).

A warm "Hello!"

The three of us took a short tour through the vet hospital with Steve. Very few things have changed there. The rooms all have the same layout and the same décor. He has updated his anesthesia equipment, but I think that’s about it. The same rooms (he does have a nicer surgery room than my 5 doctor practice has) and areas are all consistent with my far visions of what I remember it to be. It is a small, happy, soulful place. I was lucky to have learned from him and I am a veterinarian in much part because of him. He still has his sweet gentle kind patient demeanor and I would benefit now from learning to just smile more often, nod, and say “OK,” as much as he does. He reminds me to not internalize, to not blame, judge, or argue. Our clients may not always listen to us, no matter how sure we are of ourselves of being right, but we don’t have to drive ourselves crazy trying to win. He reminded me to should just nod, smile and say “OK.” Seems I do struggle with trying to save everything, teach everyone, and it is exhausting to feel as if you are always falling on dumb ears. I will start practicing his “smile and say ‘OK’” more often.

Me, Steve, and Diedra

He has built a veterinary practice that is solid and a vitally important part of our old community and he is still happy, successful, and respected.

We swapped our best and worst horror stories, and reminded each other of how much has changed with the passage of decades and how much remains the same despite the worlds attempts to sway us. There were lots of kisses and hugs and smiles and I feel blessed to have friends that have guided me through the best and worst and still love me in spite of knowing all my secrets.

He is now looking towards retirement. He showed me his note for the day, (which he still writes out each morning and stores safely in his front left pants pocket). “Think about hiring a vet” was written on the 4 in by 4 in white paper. He has never had a fellow vet share his exam rooms or staff. His ex-wife and I talked about this and we both wonder how that transition will go? It is hard to share anything when you have never had to. I love that fact that I have 4 other vets around me at my practice. I can swap ideas, questions, cases, speculations, and go on vacation without fearing for my clients needs. I couldn’t be a single doctor practice and I told him that hiring a vet was a department I could absolutely give him some assistance in. I know what new vets are looking for and I know what he can offer them.

He has an apartment above the clinic. It is where he raised his first child and spent his first decade practicing. It would make a great place for a new vet school graduate. They could live there rent free and have the world’s easiest commute to work. He is also a great mentor and teacher. He has a calming smile, rock solid un-quivering demeanor, and can teach any skill to any new vet willing to try. It is a great opportunity for any new grad. He also provides a practice for them to buy somewhere down the road. (I think I will be his agent, I could totally do this!). This is exactly the job I would have wanted out of vet school.

Diedra, my sister, reconnected with Steve’s 32 year old parrot Primo. Primo was the one creature that I saw over the weekend that hadn’t aged one single tiny little bit. (If anything he looks better than I have ever seen him). But like the rest of us he has slowed a little. I remember being in the clinic with him and hearing him scream his “hello!” down the hallway, or signing his bird chants to the point of us needing to close doors and provide time outs. He has slowed his chants, chimes, demands, and harassing a tad, but he remains the effervescent social butterfly he always was.

As we sat and swapped our best cases, worst cases, drama cases, and “how the times have changed” stories I watched his teenager technician behind him clean a cage, monitor a waking patient, and clean the treatment room, and I thought of those many years ago when that was me, and I smiled quietly to myself. Seems I have come a long way too. He helped shape me into who I am, and he continues to do that to this day. I am lucky to have had the Barsanti’s as my other family, and I am happy to be following in his footsteps and forging my own path in what is now “our profession.”

Cait

There are many challenges that a veterinarian faces. It is a job that most of us come to because we feel compelled to do it. It is our calling. For some of us it is because we have a strong sense of caring for something that has no voice to ask for help. In my opinion, this "mothering instinct" is one of the biggest reasons women are beginning to dominate this career choice. For others it is a way to help people, practice medicine, and be "out on the farm" with a truck, a dog, and a schedule that changes with every call, every case and everyday. Not many of us veterinarians could ever go back to or choose to embrace the 9 to 5 cubicle life.

Some of us come from families of veterinarians. Others grew up on a farm, where the arrival of the vet was the equivalent of Christmas morning. But most came into veterinary medicine simply because we love animals and want to spend our whole lives surrounded by them. I fall into this later category. I was lucky enough to have spent elementary, middle, and high school in rural N.H. My parents moved to Alton N.H. from Oyster Bay, Long Island, N.Y. just to be able to own some land, a horse, a dog, and a cat. (Although to be honest there was also a random sheep my mom spontaneously bought on a trip to the state fair). Ours was a small farm, but it was enough for three little kids who never needed, or had, any neighboring kids to play with.

When I started middle school I got a babysitting job watching the town veterinarians 6 month old little boy. They had just moved to our little town and the new vet needed his wife in the afternoons to help out answering the phone. Theirs was a three person veterinary clinic. The vet, (Dr. Barsanti), his wife, (aka the receptionist), and one vet tech. And then there was me, half babysitter, and half veterinarian-wanna-be at age 13. They quickly became my after school family. I loved their little boy, loved being in their home, and I especially loved to watch Dr. Barsanti practice.

I would rush out of the double glass school doors at 3 pm sharp! Run the one block north towards Main Street, where his practice, the white clapboard sided 2 story cape, was at the intersection of School and Main Streets. They all lived in the tiny 2 bedroom second story of the house because he had converted the main floor into his 1 and 1/2 exam room, reception area, and laboratory space. It was a very small house, that bulged with pulling double, triple, quadruple duty of; house, hospital, surgery, and boarding facility. Only two people could fit in the largest of the examination rooms, and that was only if that other person did not have a large dog. The surgery suite had an enormous floor to ceiling 6 foot wide picture window that was adjacent to the walkway that led into the clinics front door.

The most consistent source of chatter in that little town was who was at the barber shop, the post office or Dr. Barsanti's surgery table. His surgery window could be seen from Main St, School St, and the grocery store. For me, (and I know I wasn't alone), it was impossible NOT to rubber neck whenever you were at any of those three places if his surgery lights were on. For the critical cases, or especially gory surgeries, he would pull up the shade so that they blocked him from the shoulders down so that you could only see his surgical cap and the surgery lights tentacles escaping from the surgery rooms' ceiling. 

I, to this day, have no idea why they hired me. As I recall it, and I dare think that my father can't argue this, Dr. Barsanti, and my dad were not close friends. To put it nicely, out of respect for my father, I will say that I think that my dad was probably not one of his "favorite clients" I am not even sure we were "good clients." I know that on at least two separate occasions my dad called him in the middle of the night because our obsessive Border Collie had come home covered in porcupine quills. Our dog, Bonnie, had porcupine quills embedded in her face to the point that she could not close her mouth. Those quills were stuck in every square inch of her face, neck, front feet, and worst of all her tongue and mouth. She was the canine version of pin head. I know my dad was infuriated that she came back in that state (definitely more infuriated on the second assault), and I know my mom pleaded with him to call Dr. Barsanti. For reasons that still escape me Dr. Barsanti told my dad that he could bring her over to the hospital so she could stay there overnight, sedated, so his three kids didn't have to listen to her cry all night in the laundry room.

Bonnie also got pregnant twice. Two litters of 9 and 13 puppies. We never did figure out who Bonnie shacked up with. For my 15 years of living up there in the freezing cold Arctic tundra, where the snow only melts long enough to let the massive swarming mosquito and black fly population suck the last tiny remnants of vitamin D any living creature has left coursing through their vasoconstricted veins, it was a lonely life. Where she met a lover when I could never even meet a friend is a true testament to her OCD. She must have traveled miles, at least to the next county, where there was actually entertainment (a roller skating rink). I went back to visit after I graduated from vet school and like many of us have had to do at some point in our lives, I apologized for my parents. I think that my youth must have distorted my memory, or in typical veterinary fashion, (which I now understand, acknowledge, and own) he told me that he had no recollection of any of that. He just said that he remembered me growing up in their house, playing with their son, watching every patient, every surgery, and riding his coattails through every corner of their clinic. It is a valuable life lesson to learn to see and only remember the world through rose colored glasses and a half-full glass.

As I left for college, and my siblings followed, my parents started to fill their emptying nest with dogs. In particular Jack Russell dogs. 4 years of veterinary college and they never thought to ask me about their dog preferences, purchases, or pet care. Jack Russell's are best singly, unless you have horses and they have something else to focus on, than each other. My parents went from a terribly OCD breed to the worst OCD breed. Jacks, like paranah are best if they have their sights focused on a kill. If they don't have a target in their sights they can turn on each other. Many a client has walked into our clinic with one of their dogs sporting war wounds inflicted upon them by a sibling. To this day, my parents run their home like a penitentiary. The dogs are let out in shifts and only with certain other dogs, or a brawl will begin and everyone is put in lock down.

Many of my parents generation also still believe that spaying and neutering will change the personality of their dog. It is a fight I have conceded to stop losing sleep over. It is a small attempt to tolerate rose lens. It is a discussion I hear myself saying all to often. My speech goes like this; "If you got your dog to be your pet then spaying or neutering is the best way to keep your pet safe and healthy. An unneutered dog has a different agenda then staying at home where he is safe and sound. His hormones will encourage him to roam to find a mate. The huge majority of hit by car animals that I see are unneutered males. Ontop of roaming they will likely mark their territory by lifting their leg to urinate all over your property. This may include the inside of your home. Spaying will protect your dog from unwanted pregnancies, (which trust me do happen), and uterine infections, also known as, a pyometra. I tell my clients that if you don't spay your dog, and your dog lives long enough, there is a very high likelihood that I will be spaying her at some point in the future because of mammary tumors, unwanted litters, or worse of all a pyometra. I would estimate that 95% of the dogs we see at the clinic are spayed. Of those remaining 5% that live past age 10, 85% of them need an emergency spay surgery because they have developed a uterine infection. It is far more dangerous and expensive to spay them when they are sick and dying of a uterine infection. Also, in the US alone, we euthanize 2 plus million animals a year because there aren't enough homes for all of the dogs and cats in the US. SO help save a life, and  please, spay and neuter your pet, because you love them, at age 6 months old."

My parents never took my advice with this either.

One Sunday a few months ago my dad brought Cait, their 14 year old female Jack Russell, in to see me because she was not eating and was lethargic. An x-ray,  blood work panel, and ultrasound few minutes later and it was discovered that she had a severe uterine infection.

I vividly remember telling him that "If I didn't do her spay surgery right now, she would likely be dead by morning, and even if I did do the surgery right now, I couldn't guarantee she would live through it." 20 minutes later Cait was belly up on the surgery table.

Thankfully, her surgery went well. And she is a new dog now.

Surgically removing a dilated, pus-filled rotten uterus is a surgical procedure that most dogs should not have to go through. Most dogs present just like Cait did. Painful bellies, lethargic, not eating, and dying of internal infection. There is no reason not to spay your female pet. The old wives tale about "them getting fat, or changing their personality" is ridiculous. It is as silly as saying that "40 is old." (Remember being 10 and thinking that 40 was approaching the grave? 40 is the new 20. Isn't that what I am telling myself? Aren't you all telling yourself that too?) Your dog will get fat if you overfeed and under exercise. In fact, that's the same for all of us. And if a change in personality means that they choose to stay home with you, then your pet is probably living up to the expectations that you had for them in the beginning.

I will however note that I have had more than 1 male client react to the discussion of neutering their pet as a deeply painful personal insult. To them I remind them that "I am proposing to remove their dogs testicles and not their own."




This is NOT what your uterus should look like. This is a swollen dilated, full of pus, uterus. It is engorged with blood because the body is trying with all its might to fight the infection. It is also very fragile. We take great care in being very gentle so that the uterus doesn't rupture and spill its contents into the abdomen.

 

Cait recovering post-op