The Accidents of Heros by Veronika Waltner

             Even when heroes are at their best, accidents can happen.  This does not make them any less  of heroes. Especially when the accidents were genuinely unpredictable. An example of this took place this Christmas. It was a good Christmas day and we had already gotten though the gifts and were moving onto the stockings. We started off with the stocking for our two dogs Psyche and Odin. My mom sat down at the chair that she almost always gives them food in and they were excited as they had just gotten a bunch of rope toys. The stocking had some more toys and cookies for them both.  All was well until Odin began showing his teeth.  Just as my mom got out the words "He's making an ugly face," Odin growled at Psyche again. She, being a stubborn husky, growled right back at him and they got into a barking, snarling fight. While this wasn't good, it wasn't horrible as they were not biting down and normally don't hurt each other doing this. It had been many months since this had happened and we were more relaxed.  Unfortunately this time Odin managed to clip both my mom and Psyche with his tooth. After doing our best to care for Psyche we decided that there wasn't much we could do without a vet.  Despite our best attempts to shave the fur in the area so we could cover it with something, nothing would stick to her fuzzy head.

         After doing some searching my mom found a vet that was taking emergencies, despite the holiday.  We put Psyche in the back of the Jeep and headed out to the vet. After waiting in the lobby, we took her into the vet's office.  He looked at the injury, sedated her, and put in three stitches. Then he injected the reversal agent for the sedative. As she was beginning to regain consciousnesses we noticed something was off. Her eyes were really dilated and she was not reacting to her surroundings. The doctor informed us that Psyche is fine and was just coming off of the sedative and should be up in about 20 minutes. Sadly this did not happen. She kept twitching, crying, and looking at things that were not there. It turns out that she did not react well to the Ketamine that was given with the sedative to relax her. She was actively hallucinating.  The doctor informed us that he couldn't do anything and that it just needed to wear off.  Luckily after two hours on the floor of the lobby, it did wear off.  Although an unfortunate accident occurred, the vet is still our hero who helped take care of Psyche's wound. She is fine now and after a few days will have her stitches out. She's up to her usual playfulness though, so one stitch has popped out already and we need to be careful. I am still thankful towards that vet for helping us take care of an important member of our family.  Now if only we had someone to save us from the unexpected vet bill.