Saving Miss Milou

Sunday morning, Lim Jia, my mom, and I set off for St. Charles, where Jake's dad lives. Jake is in Miami, Florida this weekend. Sunbathing and girl-watching. Well, actually just playing tuba for several performances and meeting up with his uncle. He actually had several negative things to say about the girls there, and I won't repeat them. Basically, Lim Jia's the girl for him.

We missed our exit and went to Birch Run, the outlet mall instead. Maybe later, we decided, and turned round. We got to see some nice Michigan country lanes and plains before reaching the clinic. They've got some peculiar system for speed limits. Within two minutes of driving, there were three different speed- limit signs - 25, 35, 45.

Milou didn't realize she was on her first road trip. She didn't care; she had her carrot, her green bean, lots of water, and fresh litter to bury her nose in. My mom sat beside her and had her cage strapped under the safety belt.

Erwin's Animal Clinic (Erwin was the name of their first dog) is pretty large, literally built by Jake and his dad. We met Jake's dad and mom, Mr. Mahoney (a white cat), and Charlie, a sixteen or seventeen year-old crippled pug. It was heartbreaking to watch him - his hind legs are useless so he drags himself forward with his front ones. Jake once told me he's pretty frustrated with himself and whinges a lot. He sat underneath the examining table while we were fawning over Milou, and I reached down every now and then to make sure he didn't feel too ignored. He's really quite a sweetie (pictures when I figure out this Flicker business). Jake's mom usually carries him around and he adores her, with good reason.

Jake's dad said we had to drug Milou to examine her properly. Getting the dosage right so it wouldn't kill her was probably the most important thing. He weighed her (30 grams), then measured out the littlest amount of Ketamine, which can be used on hamsters and elephants and just about any other animal in between. I may have remembered wrongly but it's about 1 cc for every 10 kg - I think.

After that, we had to wait for her to plop down. In the mean time, we got a tour round the clinic, a most splendid place (if I were living in St. Charles, I'd want to work there.) All the drugs are locked in an old bank safe from the 19th century, which Jake had to help his dad haul into the clinic after they bought it from an auction. It has tiny drawers and even tinier keys. Plenty of addicts break into clinics - human and animal - to steal drugs, so Jake's dad doesn't have much choice. I got to examine a microscopic creature that was making a cat's ear itch; stones from a dog's bladder; a manual autoclave (to sterilize instruments); the surgery; equipment to gas a dog; and X-rays of various animals.

We went back to check on Milou. Still mucking around her food bowl. So we prepared a second dose. I watched Jake's dad really stretch her out. With a hamster, you can pick her up by the scruff of her neck them pull her tail, and she doesn't feel a thing. The needle went into one of her muscles and she was out like a light. Jake's dad brought the stethoscope and I got to listen to Milou's heartbeat. So fast!

He went straight for the leg. It could be either a tumor or a scab. It came off pretty easily with a cotton bud - a scab! She'd hurt her leg and taken off a lot of soft tissue, so the scab grew round her entire leg and looked very much like a tumor, but we couldn't have known this until she was out. Jake's dad then got out a curved needle with black silk thread and a long pair of scissors meant to grasp the tiny needle. He deftly stitched up the wound while Milou slept on. It was amazing to watch. Such skill - he pulled and knotted so calmly, and without microscopic glasses too. Milou is a dwarf hamster, so her little foot is as small as an orange seed.

After Jake's dad cut off the leftover thread, I made a pocket out of my shirt and kept Milou warm while she came out of her daze. He said it was important she be warm while the drugs wore off, otherwise she could die easily. We decided to go for coffee and I brought her into the Rustic cafe and bar. Every wall was lined with taxidermied animals from Alaska - racoons, deer, elk, and a big bear.

Milou was nosing her way out of my shirt so it was time to put her back into her cage. We were planning to leave the Rustic anyway, since it didn't have any corn-beef hash. We went across the street to another cafe in hopes of some good corn-beef hash. The cafe seemed to be plucked from a movie. A real small-town place with simple, homey decor. Everyone knows everyone. So when the town's vet and his wife take three little Chinese ladies out to lunch, it's something to talk about. Maybe.

Jake's parents live just outside of downtown. Their house is next to a cemetery, and they have 20 acres of land hidden from the road. Really beautiful. Jake's dad has a huge motorcycle collection, and Jake's mom, a pathologist and a linguist on the side (she's read Lord of the Rings in Dutch) has more books than I do. So many that the floor beneath the shelves was sinking, and the guys had to reinforce it with nails and planks.

After we said our goodbyes, we did a very Asian thing. We went back to Birch Run, the factory outlet, and did some shopping. I found a discontinued Gap perfume I love and bought three bottles. I also bought some rich, sinful fudge. A whole bar of it, which I ate on the drive home to keep myself awake. The highways weren't as fun to drive on as the country lanes. Maybe I'll go back another day with the White Rabbit. Maybe.

Posted by Monoceros at April 17, 2005 9:38 PM