Rose’s Boys

D. E. Larsen, DVM

The exam room was crowded with Rose, her two boys, and the cat. The cat was a rough-looking little gray tabby female who looked like she had just come off the street.

“Good morning, Rose,” I said. “I don’t think we have seen you before.”

“We just moved here from Florida,” Rose said. “I have been a nurse in the Navy and just transferred to the Navy Reserves.”

“That must have been quite a move,” I said. “Are you pretty well settled in at this point?”

“Yes, and we like it here,” Rose said. “And the boys found this cat out in the field, and it has made itself at home. I just wanted to get her shots and probably deworm her. Maybe you can tell if she has been spayed yet. I don’t think we are ready for a litter of kittens just yet.”

“Let’s look her over a little,” I said. “It looks like she has probably been out in that field for some time. She is a little thin and rough around the edges.”

With Rose’s concern about the cat being spayed, I picked her up to palpate her abdomen before doing an exam.

“I don’t think I need to look for a scar from a spay surgery,” I said. “This little cat is already carrying a little surprise package of four kittens in the hopper.”

“Oh, great,” Rose said. “Can we just leave her here and have you do everything.”

“We can probably do that. This is an early pregnancy,” I said as I continued to look over the cat. 

And then, I noticed a patch of dry, scaly skin on her right temple.

“I think we better get the black light and look this cat over a bit,” I said.

“A black light. Do you think she has ringworm?” Rose asked.

“This is a pretty suspicious-looking skin lesion on her face,” I said as I slipped out of the exam room to grab the black light.

“Okay, boys, we are going to turn the lights out for a couple of minutes,” I said. “Are you okay with that?” 

Rose’s boys looked around six or seven and were probably well past the age of being afraid of the dark. But I had learned not to surprise little kids by switching the lights off without telling them what was going to happen.

“These boys are big enough that this will be an adventure,” Rose said.

I turned off the light in the exam room and switched on the black light to allow it to warm up. We stood in the dark. I kept a hand on the cat so she wouldn’t get lost.

“We’ll stand here for a moment, so our eyes adjust, and then we’ll look at this cat with this special light,” I explained to the boys.

After a couple of minutes, I pointed the black light at the boys so they could see the change of color of their tee shirts. Then I turned my attention to the skin lesion on the cat.

The lesion on the cat’s temple glowed green. There were many broken hair shafts in the very green lesion. I pointed these out to Rose.

“You can see how the individual hair shafts are broken, and they glow green under the black light,” I said. “This lesion is ringworm. I will do a skin scraping to make sure there are fungal spores. We can culture it if you like, but we will start treatment right away.”

“Do you think a culture is necessary?” Rose asked.

“No, when the black light exam and the skin scraping leaves no questions, I consider a culture to be elective,” I said. “This lesion will be mostly resolved by the time we get culture results.”

I turned on the lights and started to collect items to do a skin scraping when Rose grabbed one of her boys and turned his back toward me.

“Will you look at this with your black light?” Rose asked.

This boy had a half-dollar-sized skin lesion on the back of his head. His hair was cut short, so there was no problem seeing the lesion.

“Rose, I can’t look at your son,” I said. “But you know, I will get this scraping from the cat, and it will take me several minutes to look at it under the microscope. I will leave the blacklight here while I am out of the exam room looking at this sample under the microscope.”

I collected the skin scraping and left the blacklight, plugged in, and turned on, setting on the counter.

“This will take me several minutes,” I said as I started out the door. “You need to keep this door closed, so the cat doesn’t escape.”

The hair shafts on the skin scraping were covered with fungal spores. There was no question about the diagnosis of this cat. I busied myself to give Rose enough time with the black light.

“Rose, there is no question on the diagnosis of the cat,” I said. “That skin lesion is a ringworm lesion. With her pregnancy, we will make an exception and hold on to her for a spay. We will get her vaccinated and dewormed. We will give her a bath with some anti-fungal shampoo and get her started on both oral and topical medication to get that ringworm under control. We will probably need her for two or three days.”

“What should I do with these boys?” Rose said. “They both glowed just like that cat.”

“If they would like, we can give them both a bath in the tub in the back. We could do it at the same time we do the cat and use an anti-fungal shampoo.”

“No way,” both boys said in unison.

“You need to talk with a doctor, or at least, a pharmacist,” I said. “You want to get this stuff under control before it spreads.”

***

Everything turned out okay. We spay the cat, and the ringworm resolved. Rose and the boys visited the local doctor, something they needed to do anyway, and the lesions on the boys resolved with proper treatment.

Over the years, multiple cats were blamed for ringworm on kids. Sometimes, I believe that was the case. But I was never convinced about the asymptomatic carrier state for cats. I cultured many cats without lesions and never found a single cat that cultured positive when they had no visible lesions.

Photo by Piers Olphin from Pexels

A Note to My Readers

I have just published the ebook to my second book, Widow Woman’s Ranch. I have two books available on Amazon now, The Last Cow in the Chute & other stories and Widow Woman’s Ranch & other stories. There are free previews available on my title page.

Links are here:

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If you would like autographed copies, send me an email atd.e.larsen.dvm@peak.org with your order and email address. I will send you an invoice that you make a secure payment with a credit card on Square. Fill out your address and any personalization on the signing you would like. Autographed books are @19.99 plus $5.00 shipping and handling. Order two books with only one shipping and handling fee (good for up to three books).

Advice for Jacob

D. E. Larsen, DVM

“There is a young man out front who is wondering if you are hiring anyone,” Sandy said. “My guess is he is fatherless. At least, he has never had any discussion on job hunting. We are open for the next couple of appointments. Why don’t you go out and help him out a little.”

“Okay, it will take me a couple of minutes to finish up treat this cat, and I will be out,” I said.

When I walk out to the reception area, Sandy introduced me. I could tell that she was determined to take this kid under our wing, even if it was just for a few minutes.

“Jacob, this is Dr. Larsen,” Sandy said.

I walked up to Jacob and waited a moment for him to extend his hand. When he did not raise a hand, I reached out with my hand.

“Good morning, Jacob,” I said. He did take my hand and gave a limp shake, trying to avoid direct eye contact. “What can I do for you today?”

“Aw, I was wondering if you were hiring anyone?” Jacob said, shuffling his feet and looking more at the floor than at me.

  “We don’t have a job today, but we are always willing to keep a resume on file for future openings,” I said.

“Okay,” Jacob said as he turned to leave.

“Wait a minute, Jacob,” I said. “How long have you been looking for a job?”

“I have been looking after school for several weeks now,” Jacob said. “But nobody is hiring right now.”

“I have a few minutes right now,” I said. “Why don’t we step into my office for a few minutes, and I will go over a couple of things with you.”

I lead Jacob back to my office and move a stack of books from the guest chair.

“Have a seat,” I said as I cleared a small space on my desk for a notepad. “They say that a clean desk is a sign of a sick mind. Or something like that. Mine is always a mess.”

Jacob sits down but doesn’t respond to my drivel. He is looking at the corners of the ceiling as if he is checking for cobwebs. Probably doesn’t have to look too hard.

“Jacob, if you have been looking for a job for three weeks and you haven’t found anything, you are doing something wrong. I want to solve all your problems in the next few minutes.”

“I guess that would be good,” Jacob says.

“I am going to take notes, so you just have to listen,” I said. “Can you do that?”

“Yes, I am a pretty good listener,” Jacob says. “I have three sisters, so I don’t get much of a chance to say anything.”

“I understand that,” I said. “I am going to give you a list of instructions when we are done, but before we do that, let’s cover a couple of basics. The first is handshaking. When you meet someone, every time, you extend your hand to shake. Even if it is a lady. You grab their hand firmly like you would if you were going to help up off the floor. Then one shake is adequate. But just as important, you couple that shake with direct eye contact. You try to make sure you can remember what color their eyes are. If it is the first meeting, you introduce yourself before you let go of their hand. Got it.”

“I think so,” Jacob said.

“We will practice that before you leave,” I said. “Then second, you need to hand them a resume. You can get a book from the school library that will tell you how to write a resume. At your age, it doesn’t have to say much. But it does have to say your name and address, and contact information. Maybe say what your interest are and your best classes in school. Don’t say you are a hard worker. You need to show that. And you need to show that you will show up for work every day and that you will be on time every day.”

“How do I show those things?” Jacob asked.

“You need to consider you already have a job,” I said. “That job is finding yourself a job. You need to pick out three places in town where you would like to work. It would be good if you had something specific to offer those places, but that is not vital. You pick three places, walk-in, and ask to talk to the boss if possible. If you can’t talk to the boss, talk to someone. Shake their hand, introduce yourself and look them in the eye. Then you say you need a job and you would like to work for them. And you hand them a copy of your resume.”

“How do I know if they are hiring?” Jacob asked.

“It doesn’t matter, you say,’ I need a job, and I would like to work for you.’ Then you listen. The boss will say we don’t have a job right now, but they will keep your resume on file. You say, thank you, I will check back.”

“On day one, you repeat that process at those three places that you picked out. Space out your time, so you are not rushed between the places. Then on day two, you check back. You say, ‘I am just checking on that job.’ They will say there’s nothing yet. And then you check back on the other two places.”

“Aren’t they going be bothered by my checking back?” Jacob asked.

“You check back, at the same time, at each of those places, every day. Every day for at least two weeks before you consider changing places. If they tell you not to come back, you still come back, ‘just to check.’ One day, you will walk into one of those places, and someone will have not shown up for work, or was late, or had called in sick, and the boss had seen him heading down to the river to fish. That day, you will have that guy’s job. I can almost guarantee you will find a job in those two weeks.”

“So why are you helping me?” Jacob asked.

“I am helping you because Sandy thinks you need help. Sandy is your ally. You need to recognize those types of people when you are job hunting because they will bend the boss’s ear on your behalf.”

“Okay, I will try this for a couple of weeks,” Jacob said.

“Here are my notes. You read them over and prepare a resume before you start. If you need any help with the resume, Sandy can help.”

Jacob stood to leave.

“Now we need to practice the handshake,” I said. “You take my hand and pull me up out of this chair.”

I held out my hand. Jacob took it, gripped it firmly, and pulled me up out of the chair. 

“See, that is a firm handshake. Many men my age will judge you instantly on that handshake.”

“Okay, thanks,” Jacob said.

“Jacob, what color are my eyes?” I asked.

Jacob finally looked me in the eye. “Blue,” he said.

***

It was just over a week later when I noticed Jacob out in the lobby. I went out to see how things were going. He extended his hand.

“I just wanted to come by and say thanks for all you have done,” Jacob said. “I have a job down at the auto parts store. It happened exactly like you said it would happen.”

“That’s great, Jacob,” I said.

“Mom said that you taught me stuff that a father should teach a son,” Jacob said. “My father died when I was six years old. Thanks again.”

Photo by Dimitry Anikin on Unsplash