Excerpt from “THE VET from the urban jungle”

Smile

Some people are top-teeth smilers. Other people are bottom-teeth smilers. Most are partial upper-and-lower-teeth smilers.

Ms. Nowak was a no-smiler. At least not this morning.

Lisa told me that my next patient would not tell her why she had brought Beanie, her pet hamster, in for an exam. In fact, Lisa said, Ms. Nowak didn’t say much of anything. She just insisted on seeing the doctor – immediately.

I brought Derwin, our new student of the month, in the room with me and, in my typical cordial way, introduced him first, then myself.

“I’d kill this little bastard if it didn’t belong to my grandkid.” The clearly grumpy woman barely opened her lips as she spoke. It was more of a sub-audible mumble than actual talking. To say she was difficult to understand was a gross understatement.

The oddly pear-shaped lady had short salt and pepper hair cropped just above her outwardly pointing ears. She had clearly been a smoker as her roundish face bore the wrinkles of a lifetime of cigarettes. Her lips were clamped together when she spoke. Like a ventriloquist, you could hear her speaking but her mouth hardly moved.

“I need to get him X-rayed.” She pushed an old K-Mart shoebox across the table at me. The top had been robustly taped closed and I noticed there were no air holes in the carton. The woman offered no other information as to why she was here. She just demanded the X-ray.

“May I ask why?” I used the edge of a pair of bandage scissors to slice open the tape. Inside was a dark brown and white-patched ball of fluff. It jumped out and scampered around the tabletop. It scurried over to Derwin, sniffed his stethoscope, then waddled back over to the woman.

Almost always, when a person asks for X-rays of their pets they are looking for something – like something the pet may have eaten.

“The little shit ate my tooth!” The grandma quasi-snarled through pursed lips. She reached into her purse and pulled out a partial plate of upper dentures. They were old, cigarette and food stained, looking like they had not been cleaned, and right in the center, one of the bicuspids was missing.

I really wanted to laugh but I couldn’t. Even though I thought it was hilarious, it certainly wasn’t to Ms. Nowak.

“How did this happen?”

“I was eatin’ corn and when I finished, I took my plate out and set it on the table.” She pointed to the dentures as if I didn’t know what a plate was. ‘’Beenie usually runs around the table when we eat. We all feed him little scraps from our plates.”

I could see where this was going already.

“He went over and sniffed my teeth, and before I could do anything, he took a huge bite and chomped off one of ‘em.”

I choked back a laugh. I noticed that Derwin tried to as well, but was not so successful.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Nowak. It’s not funny.” I lied.

My initial thought was that if the hamster had actually swallowed the tooth it would most likely still be in its cheek pouch. Hamsters, like squirrels, will consume as much food as possible, storing it in their large cheek pouches, one on either side of their mouth. Later on, generally when in the privacy of their hide boxes, they slowly empty each pouch and enjoy their meal. If the tooth was in one of the pouches I should be able to feel it, and thus not have to spend the money for an X-ray.

I carefully reached down to pick up the patient for an exam and as soon as I placed my hand next to the rodent it lunged forward and sunk its two long, curved upper incisors into the tip of my right index finger.

“Yow!” I yipped, jerking back my hand. The truculent little rodent stood defiant in the middle of the table barking at me in hamster talk.

Ms. Nowak was right. He was a little bastard.

“Okay. That changes things a little.” I grabbed a paper towel and wrapped my finger. Blood was rapidly soaking into the white tissue.

“Let me give him a little sedative, just a little happy gas, and I’ll get the X-ray and if there is a tooth inside I will let you know.” Derwin was looking on. I could tell he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be in shock or laughing.

“Can I get it back?” Ms. Nowak mumbled. “The tooth, I mean, 'cause if he ate it, I'll have to wait ‘till he shits it out before I can put it back on my plate?”