I’ve been feeling much better this week. So much so that a few minutes ago, I found myself dancing around my kitchen eating a slice of leftover barbecued haggis (yes you did read that correctly –  it’s delicious). The working week started well with an unexpected hug from Dagny. She told me how glad she was to see me and asked whether I had received my final pathology report on my tonsils, which I had. I was able to assure her that everything had come back clear.

I had a moment of quiet confusion when I walked into the kennel room and saw Dagny again, apparently on her hands and knees cleaning out one of the kennels. When she heard me coming, she pulled her head out of the kennel and smiled infectiously. It wasn’t Dagny at all, but a young girl who looked so like her I knew it must be her daughter. She said ‘Hi’ and a few minutes later, Dagny introduced us.

‘This is my Sara’ she said. ‘She’s here to help clean.’

Irene arrived at about the same time and as there were no operations, she, Sara and I set out on a mission to give the clinic a full spring clean. Having cleaned out one of the consulting rooms, right down to the bookshelves and inside the cupboards, we were feeling quite pleased with ourselves when Dagny came in to see how we were doing. Having admired most of the room, she came to a standstill in front of a pin board in the corner, where a random-looking set of dosage sheets of all shapes and colours were hanging in squinty profusion.

‘You could tidy this up,’ she suggested. I stared at it. Amazing how invisible things become to my eyes when I am used to seeing them. No wonder my house is never perfectly tidy.

The most amusing moment with Sara came when Jan-Arne arrived. By this time, Irene and she were outside cleaning the windows. Jan-Arne walked into the prep room, where Dagny was working on the computer. His eyes opened wide, he shook his head and slowly raised a shaking hand to point.

‘But you’re out there,’ he said. The confusion in his voice was comical.

‘Do we really look so much alike?’ Dagny asked a few minutes later, when Sara was back in the room.

‘Mostly from behind,’ Irene assured her, and took a photograph to demonstrate.

My brain was functioning much better with the Norwegian this week. I find it astonishing though, how often I still can’t understand the entries made when the patients are being booked in. Considering how many times I see animals with the same or similar conditions, I find this mildly disconcerting, but mostly amusing. At least when it’s written down, I can ask before I come face to face with the client.

‘Har vært is slåsskamp’ (has been in a fight) was straightforward enough.  Can you beat the wonderful word slåsskamp? Kamp translates as match (as in football). Somehow for me then, slåss (rough pronunciation sloss) just sounds like a competition where the combatants are sloshing away at each other. That doesn’t make sense? Somehow in my brain it just works.

The next appointment was more confusing. ‘Hull i huden på hodet etter fjerning av hårsekk.’

‘Hull i huden på hodet’ (hole in the skin on the head) was straightforward enough. But ‘fjerning av hårsekk’? ‘Fjerning’ means removal but what on earth was a hair-sac? Somehow my mind was imagining a hole filled with fluff. Really though, it was logical, and thanks to google translate I was able to find out that it was actually a hair follicle.

The next case, ‘Sår etter bet’. Well I still don’t know what ‘bet’ means but I guessed correctly that this was a cat bite abscess andl I managed well enough. The hole in the skin after the hair follicle incident, was actually a gaping gap between the dog’s eyes following the emptying of a cyst. Generally when a cyst has burst, unless it is recurring, it is best just to clean out the hole and then leave it to heal. I do sometimes still find the ‘I know it looks awful, but we really don’t need to do anything,’ conversation harder in Norwegian than English. It’s far more noticeable to me when I have to translate everything, that people often repeat information in slightly different ways. There is a lot of speaking which could realistically be compressed into a very few words. This isn’t in any way a criticism. Indeed consulting here makes me realise that back in the UK, faced with an owner who was obviously confused about what I was telling them, I would re-explain in a different form. In Norwegian, that is more difficult as I tend to run out of words. Having explained to the owner that despite the fact that there was quite a large hole in the skin on her dog’s face, it would heal best if left alone, I could tell she was still unconvinced. Luckily, a quick conversation with Dagny allowed me to go back into the room and assure her that my boss agreed with me. Amazing the things I have to resort to, but at least it worked. Still, it’s cheering that consulting on cases with your colleagues is so encouraged here, that Dagny never batted an eyelid when I asked her about something as simple as a sebaceous cyst. It makes for a great working environment when everybody works as a team.