Squeam

When my sister was about 11, she was bitten in the left leg by a neighbor’s German Shepherd as she dove into a swimming pool. (The dog was trying to “save” her and ripped a nice gash all down her calf muscle.) My mother, superb in any emergency, lashed her leg with a silk dressing gown and drove her to the hospital with a white hanky flying from the window.

I went along a few weeks later to watch them take out the stitches. I fainted dead away. The doctors all left the stitch-removal table and lifted my legs high over my head. I was mortified, of course: I was twelve.

Last night I got a call from the landlady that there was a “sick” magpie in their yard. I went over there with gloves, a box, and a towel, and got the magpie out of the dog-filled yard and over to the Wildlife Health Center.

Magpies have been dying in their hundreds, probably thousands, with this year’s West Nile virus outbreak. My colleague Yvette was still working at 6:30. She wanted to take some samples of the bird before it died. These will help with identifying not just the exact reason for death (it could, after all, have been poisoned) but also can give us important genetic data about this endemic species.

Getting blood from a bird so close to death, where dehydration is a given and there is almost no blood pressure, was a challenge. I held the bird while she tried to draw blood from the jugular, then the leg, then finally the wing.

The wing part did it. Sweat was pouring down my back and although I couldn’t see my face in the mirror I knew I was pale as a ghost.

Guess I didn’t grow out of that one, then. I buried my head between my knees and gave thanks for the life of the magpie (Yvette euthanized it at this point).