"Borrower" Vet Tech in the big world

[DocRick]

When the idea of hiring a "Borrower" as a vet tech first came up, it was met with quite a bit of skepticism, however, Tatiana's tiny, nimble hands and her ability to work on the smallest premature puppies and kittens, as well as other smaller exotic animals or birds, soon proved to be invaluable to the clinic's patients and staff. The clinic owner found a retired watchmaker in Sweden to craft 1/12 scale medical instruments for her to use. The clinic gained worldwide recognition and the owner got rich off television appearances and documentaries. It wasn't always smooth sailing though........she was forgotten about at closing time one day and spent the night in a cage, curled up with a puppy she was caring for. And they can't forget, though she can laugh about it now, about the time the crazed cat got loose in the examination room. Tatiana's career was nearly cut short on that day !!!

[DocRick]

But it's not all glitz and glamour when you're a Borrower veterinary technician. Such as when you have to bath and pre-op a gerbil the size of a St. Bernard.

[DocRick]

Anyone in the medical profession knows you have to have a warped sense of humor to stay sane and Tatiana and her "bean" coworkers were no different. Unfortunately for Tatiana today, she had only one set of clean scrubs to wear. It's a good thing this veterinary hospital doesn't have an "HR" department.

[DocRick]

With no shower facilities Borrower vet tech Tatiana could use at the veterinary hospital, one of the "bean" techs, named Vanessa, came up with a solution. Using a spray bottle with warm water and a few surgical items, she could help Tatiana could get a quick shower in one of unused examination rooms. After this, Vanessa started coming into work a little early to "help" Tatiana get ready for work. Vanessa always seemed to be available when little "Tati", as she began to call her, needed a cleanup...............

[DocRick]

Tatiana has no family as she lost her parents as a teenager when they failed to return from a borrowing venture. Her commute from the veterinary hospital to the "Borrower" community where she lived was long and fraught with hazards, so the owner of the hospital decided to set her up an apartment in the employee breakroom. He set up a small cage on the counter and let her decorate it. She tried a doll bed but found it uncomfortable, so she just sleeps on a stack of folded surgical towels. A cell phone mounted to the wall serves as a television with a couple beanbags to sit on while watching. An LED candle provides lighting and one of the techs found a set of 1/12 scale plastic doll dishes. A water bottle hung on the wall serves as plumbing and she can touch the drop of water at the end and make it fall into a cup. A mini clothes rack from a doll house supply store keeps her scrubs fresh and clean, and a screen made from a shoebox gives her privacy for, well, you know. She did settle on a doll house toilet for necessary bodily functions. Even though she doesn't need it, the watch hanging on the wall was one of her first "borrows" so she keeps it for sentimental reasons. The cage doors are closed at night, but Tatiana can easily squeeze between the bars if she wants to get out. It's more a precaution in case one of the client animals gets loose during the night. A toy ladder gives her access to the floor from the counter and as a Borrower, of course, this seems perfectly natural as she used to have use a knotted string to climb things. All in all, she has grown quite happy living life with the "beans" at the veterinarian hospital.

[DocRick]

After a few weeks of working at the veterinary hospital, some of the other vet techs have been inviting her to hang out with them after hours. One guy in particular, Zack, has been taking her rides on his bicycle to the lake and other places. She rides in his pocket wearing a pair of doll sunglasses that are a little too big but effective. He attached a safety pin to his shirt to give her a handle to hang onto. She had asked him to stop at a toy store and she found a pair of functional doll roller skates. These should give her a little more speed and agility at the hospital and she can't wait to try them out. She can't understand why her people advised her against living amongst the "beans". She's experiencing things no other "Borrower" has ever been able to do and having the time of her life.

[DocRick]

After a hard day at work, Zack and Vanessa took Tatina out to the local Dairy Queen. Tatina had never had ice cream before as Borrowers have no means of keeping things frozen and gaining access to a bean's freezer is difficult and very risky, at best. However, maraschino cherries are highly prized by Borrowers as the slight amount of alcohol in them tends to produce quite a nice buzz in a Borrower. Vanessa and Zack laughed at her gymnastics, but Vanessa was thinking to herself, "This could get messy........and interesting".

[DocRick]

The next day Tatiana had to do CPR on an exotic lizard owned by the child of the Governor himself !!! Due to her size, she was able to reach down the throat of the reptile and remove a foreign object blocking its trachea and then revived it. The Governor was quite amazed, as well as grateful, at her skills and offered her a job at the State University in the Veterinary Department. She declined the offer, preferring to stay with the beans she calls her friends.

[DocRick]

Out of appreciation for Tatiana's saving his son's pet, the Governor graced the veterinary hospital with a substantial endowment, which the owner used most of it to give his staff significant pay raises. Keith asked Tatiana to go out to dinner with him to celebrate, which she happily accepted. Keith gave the chef a nice gratuity to prepare a miniscule sized meal for Tatiana, and provided a small table and chair, and even found a sterling silver charm bracelet wine glass at a jeweler so she could feel a little more comfortable in the restaurant. Tatiana got quite a bit of attention at the restaurant from the waitstaff and patrons. When the tiny people were first discovered and this discovery was made public, most of the world leaders immediately granted the tiny people all the rights accorded to the larger people, including bestowing upon them citizenship in whichever country they had been living in. They were given the name " Homo diminutivous" by the anthropologists, though the slang terms "Borrowers" and "Beans" from the books and movies of the turn of the last century were commonly used and accepted. Even with these freedoms and protections, only a small few of the most adventurous of them chose to venture outside the world of their own kind and most "Beans" have never seen one in person, so their natural curiosity was quite obvious, some of which asked if they could pick her up with their hands, which was a rather frightening concept to Tatiana. Except in emergency situations, none of the staff is permitted to pick her up without her expressed permission, which she granted only to a select few. What she thought was to be kind of an actual "date" with Keith, turned into more of a freak show and she as the star attraction..........

[DocRick]

Story flashback: When Tatiana was a young girl, she learned she had an affinity for small animals like mice, baby birds and even small snakes and reptiles. She befriended the family of mice that shared the space under the floorboards of the house her family lived in, even playing mid-wife a few times with the momma mouse's litters. She nursed a baby bird with an injured wing, feeding it worms and bugs every hour, then teaching it to fly by carrying it up the stairs to the second-floor master bedroom and tossing it off the balcony. She bandaged up lizards that had been pecked by birds, cleaned cat scratch wounds of her mouse family and even helped a small turtle that cracked its shell with some Super Glue. When she was around 16, she found some veterinary medicine books in the basement. The male bean was a veterinarian before he retired, but he had kept all his old books from his college years. She would sneak to the basement at night when everyone is asleep and would read the books cover to cover, over and over again, until she had them memorized. She had no clue at the time where these burning the midnight oil sessions would lead to.......

[DocRick]

Tatiana had been bugging Zack about giving her a ride on his motorcycle so he told her if the weather is nice on Saturday, they would go for a ride. She expected to ride in his shirt pocket as usual when he takes her out on his bicycle, but was she surprised when he carried her out to the parking lot. Zack had found on eBay a vintage Hot Wheels 1/12 scale toy motorcycle that came with a rider with a removable helmet. Sure, it wasn't DOT certified but it had a clear visor to shield her eyes from the wind and dust. He duct taped it to the gas tank so she could feel like she was actually riding a motorcycle, something no Borrower had ever done as they are as technologically advanced as the Amish. A few hours riding out of town and along the coastal highway to the beach.

[DocRick]

Tatiana had never seen the beach or ocean before and she was fascinated by everything, even the dead fish the size of whales washed up on the sand. Zack stayed away from other "beans" as to not draw unwanted attention to Tatiana. She marveled at the colors of the sky as the sun began to set so they sat on the beach and watched it slowly slip into the waves. The ride back to the veterinarian hospital and her "apartment" was a little anticlimactic. When they pulled into the parking lot, she climbed off the bike and jumped onto his hand, still on the handlebars. She climbed up his arm to his shoulder, an easy feat for someone used to climbing everywhere and everything, then leaned in towards his face by hanging onto his earring and gave him a kiss on the cheek before saying "Goodnight". Zack got a chill when she kissed him but didn't know what he should say, if anything. He just carried her inside, placed her in her "apartment", closed the cage doors and went home.

[DocRick]

There are some annoyances to living in a world designed for people 10 times your size.....such as when Vanessa leaves the breakroom radio on New Wave Country Music and you're the only one in there. But being a Borrower, you have some special talents to overcome such vexations.

[DocRick]

The roller skate idea turned out to be a good one. When she heard "Tatiana to Emergency Room 1", she could skate there nearly as fast as the beings could walk and she could jump over obstacles such as feet or this dust mop with ease.

[DocRick]

To all Staff:

***** Roller skating on examination tables is strictly prohibited from this time forth. (Never did I imagine I would ever have to send an email like this !!!) *****

Dorthy Finestein. Office Manager.

[Little Sally]

The roller skate idea turned out to be a good one. When she heard "Tatiana to Emergency Room 1", she could skate there nearly as fast as the beings could walk and she could jump over obstacles such as feet or this dust mop with ease.

Being small and fast sometimes has it's advantages!

I've always had admiration for women who can use their talents to overcome a given situation.

[DocRick]

Being small and fast sometimes has it's advantages!

I've always had admiration for women who can use their talents to overcome a given situation.
[/quote]

Stay tuned.....not sure yet where this story is going, but it's going to get interesting............

[DocRick]

The roller skate idea turned out to be a good one. When she heard "Tatiana to Emergency Room 1", she could skate there nearly as fast as the beings could walk and she could jump over obstacles such as feet or this dust mop with ease.

Being small and fast sometimes has it's advantages!

I've always had admiration for women who can use their talents to overcome a given situation.

Stay tuned.....not sure yet where this story is going but it's going to get real interesting..........

[DocRick]

The prize breeding bitch of the Crown Prince of a small, but extremely wealthy country had been diagnosed with a terminal esophageal aneurysm 8 inches above the pyloric sphincter at the top of the stomach. Every veterinarian he contacted told him there was no hope and the dog would die during surgery even if they tried as they would have to cut him open to even see the aneurysm, let alone repair it. He was despondent as this dog was the last of a long line of royal dogs dating back centuries to the Old Empire. One of the veterinarians suggested he contact Tatiana's veterinarian hospital as he had heard of some impossible cases her diminutive size has allowed her to save some animals bean vets were just unable to accomplish. The Prince did just that and after a long discussion with the head veterinarian, the top vascular veterinarian in the country and Tatiana, of course, it was decided they would try. Dr. Thornapple, Keith and Tatiana headed for the airport where they were picked up by the Prince's private Lear Jet and flown across the ocean to his country. Upon landing, a stretch limousine met them on the tarmac and a military police escort took them to the Prince's personal veterinarian's hospital. A fiber optic scope was slid down the now sedated canine's esophagus and they all were able to see exactly what they were dealing with. The aneurysm would need a Teflon patch sewn over top of it to stop its continued enlargement and final rupture. Tatiana was understandably apprehensive as no Borrower had ever gone where she was about to go, at least able to talk about it afterwards, if you know what I mean. The staff attempted to improve a protective suit for her out of a surgical glove, but it would stick to the dog's oral tissues. Tatiana filled a bag with everything she would need to do the surgical repair, stripped completely nude and applied antibiotic ointment to her entire body. She tied a rope around her waist, tied the bag to the rope and Keith lifted her up to the entrance to the "Belly of the Beast" where she crawled over the palate, through the pharynx, past the epiglottis and headfirst into the esophagus. The aroma of the gastric juices was a little nauseating, but she just ignored it and continued her journey down the esophagus until she came to the aneurysm. Two quick jerks on the road, then a glimpse of her cute face at the end of the fiber optic scope, which had been left in place so the doctor could monitor her work, let them know she was at the site. She carefully opened her bag and pulled out the Teflon patch, which was the size of a beach towel to her, and slid it in place. Tatiana withdrew the suture needle from the bag, the smallest needle they could find was like a butcher knife in her hand, but she had used similar needles many times so she got to work and thirty minutes later, three jerks on the rope and she was gently pulled feet first up the esophagus and into the canine's mouth where she was able to turn around and crawl out into Keith's waiting hands. After the surgery proved to be successful and the dog would recover and continue its bloodline, the Prince transferred enough money into the hospitals bank account to consider building a new hospital.

[DocRick]

The practical jokes continue...............

[DocRick]

"Errrrrrr.......a little help here, maybe?"

[lonely_fetisher]

Snakes are cold blooded and guided by their basic needs, I hope this one is sleepy and has recently eaten well.

Her fate is in your hands my friend!

[DocRick]

Snakes are cold blooded and guided by their basic needs, I hope this one is sleepy and has recently eaten well.

Her fate is in your hands my friend!

They keep the temperature lower in the reptile treatment room to keep them more sedate. This boy was just getting a little frisky. Can you blame him?

[lonely_fetisher]

Snakes are cold blooded and guided by their basic needs, I hope this one is sleepy and has recently eaten well.

Her fate is in your hands my friend!

They keep the temperature lower in the reptile treatment room to keep them more sedate. This boy was just getting a little frisky. Can you blame him?

I can't blame him in least! But it's a comfort to know they have everything under control in the teatment room.. for now?

But we'll all be watching just in case.

[DocRick]

After the snake incident, the boss gave Tatiana the rest of the day off, but where do you go when the few bean friends you have are all working? You search their stuff in the locker rooms and find a receipt for Mouse Glue Traps in Keith's pants pocket. Paybacks are Hell.