THE AMMONIA REEK OF FRANCIS’S BREATH filled the examination room. Jemma forced herself not to pinch her nose, instead gripping onto the sides of her clipboard. Dogs with kidney disease had breath that could make a litterbox smell pleasant. She winced as Dr. Werner forcibly grabbed the schnauzer’s jaw, checking his teeth.
“Also want to sell the owner on a dental cleaning while he’s under. You can pitch it as eliminating a second round of anesthesia,” said Werner.
Jemma clicked and unclicked her pen, letting the sound stand in for her response. Shifts as Dr. Werner’s vet tech made her question her life choices. Once upon a time, she had thought assisting in veterinary medicine would be a worthwhile career, one where she wouldn’t get paid particularly well but where she could help. She wanted to return animals to health. She wanted to ease suffering. But tasks wore into her wrists and she began to feel less and less helpful as the months were dragged out of her. Francis whimpered as Dr. Werner palpated his belly, prying his fingers into the place where Francis’s fourteen-year-old kidneys were failing him.
“What day did you book in for the transplant?” Dr. Werner let go of Francis, and he backed against the wall.
Jemma pretended to look for the date, running her finger down the clipboard, like it wasn’t already in her mind. “Two weeks out.” A kidney transplant for a fourteen-year-old dog was insanity. It was a new procedure, one she had only helped with once,
…
Jaclyn Adomeit lives in Calgary with her husband and a trio of rescue pets. Her work has appeared in Electric Literature’s The Commuter, Booth Journal, Flash Fiction Magazine, and elsewhere. She daylights as an environmental engineer, cleaning up contaminated soil and water, and holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia.