Vet Stories: The Crazy Hedgehog Lady

It was my first long term locum in England, and I had been working there for a couple of months. I had heard a few of the other vets mention \”The Hedgehog Lady\” in tones that left no doubt that she was one of those clients that you\’d rather not see. I\’d never seen a hedgehog before I moved to the UK to work as a locum. They are distressingly cute little fellas, but often infested with fleas. They don\’t mix well with cars and roads, sadly, and lots of people rescue them. The thing is, when they get well and strong, the idea is to set them free. The hedgehog lady had Hedgehog proofed her whole back yard, so the poor little buggers were trapped. She came in very regularly with hedgehogs needing treatment of one sort or another. The other vets all rolled their eyes and sighed when she got mentioned. She was notorious!

Finally, the day came when it was my turn. I went out to the waiting room, and called her in. Her hubby pushed her wheelchair into the consult room, huffing and puffing. It took about 5 minutes just to get her down the hallway, tucked into the consult room, and the door closed. She was an old women, and huge, overflowing the sides of her wheelchair. The it took another few minutes of fussing about and ordering her hubby about (a small, pale man) – before the cardboard box with sadi hedgehog in it was placed on the consult table. I was already mentally looking at my watch, as this practice only allowed five minutes for each client. \”Right, I thought, have to be brisk with this one!\” I thought to myself…

\”Ok, what….\” I attempted to ask her what the problem was.

She leapt out of the wheelchair, grabbed the other side of the consult table leaned right over it, glared into my face and started talking at me in a loud, penetrating voice. \”I picked this little darlin\’ up just the other day from the road side – he was lookin\’ all lost and hungry, ye see, and I knowed I needed to get him intae the warm and get all the fleas offen him, and then get him all fed up and healthy, ye never know, in a week or two he might be strong enough to get out into me back yard, it\’s as safe as houses there, I\’ve fox proofed it – ye know the foxes are terrible hard on these little darlin\’s, they are, it\’s a cruel world out there for the little hedge pigs it is, I bin lookin\’ after the pigs for years, so\’s I knows what I\’m doin\’ with them, I does a grand job gettin\’ them all well and strong you know!\”

I was stunned, silenced, took a step back. I could see it was going to take more than a little bit of luck, and a whole lot of willpower just to fit in a word anywhere. She paused for a microsecond for a breath, so I said \”Wha…\”

\”This little ones got a bit of a snuffle like, so he\’ll be needin\’ an antibiotic to pep him up a bit…\” She steamrolled right over the top of me and just kept going. \”The one I always have, check through the records there, I\’ve had it dozens of times, just read up what it was, you fellas from Australia don\’t know nuthin\’ much about hedgepigs anyways. Just give him an injection like I tell you, and he\’ll be right as rain in no time.\”

I pulled myself together as she stood there, glaring at me. \”How long has he been snuffling for?\” I asked, in my best professional manner.

She gave me a withering look of contempt. \”I told ya all you needs to know. I always brings \’em down as soon as they needs it, and here he is. He needs some of them antibiotics what the vets here always gives them.\”

I looked over to her husband, and he gave me a tiny shrug as if to say \”What can I do?\”

\”I\’d better have a look at the little fellow then – could you take him out of the box for me please?\”

\”You be careful with this little one, you do!\” She told me (looking at me as if I was about to bite it\’s head off and drink it\’s blood). \”But don\’t worry, I knows how to handle them, so\’s if I sees you doing anything wrong, I\’ll be sure to let you know.\” She gave a satisfied snort, and watched me with a stern eye as I picked the little spiny creature up and checked him out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They are such cute little beings, with such wuffly noses. The crazy hedgehog lady glared at me while I looked him over, and after about half a minute, she simply couldn\’t contain herself. \”Whatchya doin? I told ya what he needs, get on with gettin\’ me medicine!\”

I\’d had enough, so I decided to do something a bit naughty. \”I know just what this little guy needs. It\’s a really good antibiotic for hedgehogs, I don\’t think you\’ve used it before, but it\’s just the thing, I was reading up about it the other day.\” I grabbed the box of oral puppy clavulox. \”Here it is, you mix it up with water, and you have to use this dropper to give him 1/2 a ml twice a day – mind you get it all into him though, that\’s really important\”

She looked a bit stunned that I\’d told her what to do, and I could see that her brain was trying to think of something to say, so I pressed on. \”Here you go, let\’s get him back into the box, and get you home as quick as we can, because the sooner you get home, the sooner you can start getting him feeling better. It\’s friday afternoon now, so if he\’s no better on Monday, do come back and see me again. She subsided into her chair, looking a bit confused, and her hubby wheeled her out. I closed the door and had a quiet chuckle, thinking about her trying to get a liquid antibiotic into that wriggly, wuffly little mouth. I knew I had set her a task next to impossible!

The next week one of the other vets mentioned in passing that she came back in on the monday, complaining that she\’d got covered in that pink stuff, and the hedgehog had got covered in that pink stuff, and even though he was better and all, she didn\’t think much of that Australian vet, and didn\’t want to see him ever again…

Which suited me just fine, to be honest!