cool things I've done, part 2

I met a really nice veterinarian lady and I asked her, completely expecting her to say no, if I might be able to observe a dog neutering surgery.  Well, she said yes. 

Why would I even want to observe a dog neutering surgery?  Good question. 
Normally this isn't the sort of thing that would interest me at all. I am not good with blood.  I donated blood once in college, and after nearly throwing up and passing out, that dizzy, sweaty, hyperventalating experience left me never wanting to donate blood again.  And I haven't, although I think that at this point they wouldn't even want my blood because I've had malaria.  Even getting a shot in my arm makes me feel pretty woozy.  When I watch Jean-Patrick clean and bandage wounds I sometimes have to take a seat because things start to go fuzzy in my head.
I wanted to watch a dog neutering surgery to see what it should look like.  We have a pupy and a kitty in Mali that I would like to have neutered, but there just aren't any nice animal hospitals in town.  There are a few veterinarians who make house calls - we had one come and give shots to our chickens, and one came to give our puppy rabies shots.  But it is very hard to find a vet that will neuter a dog or cat.  I have a phone number for one guy who can do it, but I guess he will come to the house and expect a few people to help hold down the dog or cat, no anesthetic, and snip snip.   I have friends who work at the hospital who can get some kind of medicine to give them to make them at least drowsy if not asleep, and I'm sure we can work out a clean table to work on (might feel weird to eat lunch on the same table later).  But it will not be like what you see in the photo, a nice sterile animal operating room, with all the right medicines and tools and experienced vets. 
So I went to observe vet surgery.  It was really a very interesting morning.  I got to watch a neutering, a spaying, a teeth cleaning, and a cat declaw.  I did get pretty hot and dizzy at one point  (I think it was when a dogs insides were pulled outside of him) and I had to leave the room for a few minutes to sit down.  I thought about saying "well, thanks, I guess I've seen enough" but I stuck it out and stayed to the end.  Kind of a strange thing to be proud of, but I do feel some sense of accomplishment or conquering of fears for having watched all of those surgeries.