Bea and I had to hold down the pack today at the clinic.  Mother had to go to Arcadia to help some pets out there.  We weren't allowed to go, "Too many fleas and hookworms in Arcadia", mother said.  But that didn't decrease my interest any.
As luck would have it, the clinic had enough going on to keep me from having to give myself an entire tongue bath just to kill the time.  An old lady yellow labrador named "Bam-Bam" was carried into the clinic this morning.  You only get carried in if you're really sick or really special:  I had a feeling that Bam-Bam was both. 
As dogs go, you couldn't ask for a better neighbor.  She slept most of the day.  She woke once or twice and I managed to get a little of her story from her.  She said that her belly started hurting really bad last night and she thought she was going to bring the kibbles back up.  But she tried, and tried, and tried again and nothing came up.  The pain in her belly got worse and worse and the next thing she knew she woke up in an animal hospital in a sleepy haze with a different, but much more tolerable, belly pain.
Patient Pam, another of my parents nurses, took control of the case.  Patient Pam spent the last year with her nose buried in the books, and she took on Bam-Bam's case with the same zeal with which I attack my veggident treats.  There is no place I'd rather be than chewing on a veggident!
Patient Pam went to work connecting wires and beeping devices to Bam-Bam.  "We have to make sure her heart is ok after a surgery like that." my father explained, "Bloat affects a lot more than just the stomach.  The physical injury and the shock can damage the heart, spleen and other organs". 
Vonnie was doing her usual howling on and on as well.  I guess Bam-Bam was originally moved from the "emergency clinic" -- which is where you go if you're sick and it's nighttime  -- to her regular doctors clinic to be watched for the day.  But the doctor that had seen Bam-Bam from the time she was a playful pup turned her away, and so did the next place she went, until Bam-Bam finally found her way to my clinic, and the loving, caring arms of Patient Pam and my dad.   According to Vonnie, none of the other clinics were properly staffed to handle a dog as sick as Bam-Bam.
So the sweet sick old lady dog slept here for the day enjoying many doses of the sleepy pain medicine, and then was carried back to the emergency clinic for the night.  As the day went on I heard her heart beat getting stronger, and her breathing getting deeper so I know she's going to end up alright. 
I, too, will rest better tonight, knowing that if I ever get as sick as Bam-Bam, that at least I live at a clinic that could watch over me if I did.  I wonder what mother will say about her day in Arcadia?