Wednesday morning I got up all early to go to a nearby animal hospital to start on my photo story. I didn't really know what to expect, but I was expecting to get the runaround as far as getting permission to shoot goes. It turned out that they were very receptive to the idea and welcomed me in. It was slow at first because I had to wait for all the staff to come in for the day. On top of that, it was pouring outside, so there were hardly any customers. Once everyone finally got there and got situated, they took me back to the main room where they do most of their work. The staff showed me around and introduced me to some of their patients who were there being treated. They explained to me what was wrong with the pets as well as how they treat their ailments and so forth. It was quite interesting and kind of depressing at the same time. I met a bulldog wearing one of those lampshade things on it's head because it had a nasty cut on his eye that was swollen and could potentially cost him his eye if not treated properly. Next there was a one-eyed dog with a pretty bad scar over his bad eye. He was a pretty cheery dog though. Then there were 3 cats, one being treated for a urinary infection, another for a liver problem, and then there was Red. Red was a mess. He had a pretty bad case of jaundice. To make matters worse, he had some liver problem and he wouldn't eat, or if he did, he'd vomit soon after. Red vomited numerous times while I was there shooting, it was so sad. In order to keep him from vomiting so much, he had an IV in his leg that would calm his stomach. Since he wouldn't eat, they had to feed him by inserting a tube into his throat and they'd basically inject food into his stomach. I unfortunately got to witness this, which made me feel especially bad for him. But aside from the poor animals, my shoot went ok. I was really hoping to see a surgery or accupuncture (yes, they perform animal accupuncture), but none of that was going on that day. Despite it being a slow day, those people are pretty busy. They were all going back and forth the whole time and I had to do my best not to be in the way. I ended up getting a few good shots though, but I have to go back this weekend and maybe next week to try and finish up my photo story. I'm going Saturday morning because that's their busiest day, so that's a good opportunity to really get some (potentially) good shots. We'll see how that goes.
In other news, Half Life 2 came out this week. If only I had a computer to play it on... Anyone want to donate a brand new Alienware computer to me? :D
