Vet Student Mom on the Beach!!!

Nancy Boren, Tufts

Experiences, Honorable Mention

    I’m a second year vet student; a second year vet student with two sons, a husband, three cats, a golden retriever and a pet hedgehog.  If you see an SUV with two car seats, dog fur, Goldfish cracker crumbs,  and perhaps a melted rogue lollypop in the parking lot at school, you know it’s mine.  After being a stay at home mom for 10 year, being back in school has been a big change.  As such I’ve sort of blended the two different areas of my life together and have developed a whole new image:  the vet student mom.  You know the one who shows up to curriculum night smelling like the pig barn because she just came from clinical skills, and more importantly the one that comes in her coveralls and muck boots to the boys’ classrooms, bandages their stuffed animals and answers all the kids’ questions about animal poop. 

During the last couple weeks of summer break, the boys and I went to the beach.  I was relaxing decked out in my full SPF 50 long sleeve rashguard shirt and swim shorts complete with large brimmed hat when suddenly I heard a commotion; a commotion that involved lots of laughter, squealing and a group of 5 year old boys.  I just knew they had caught something, just like how when I hear our dog retching on our couch I know she’s eaten a Lego.   I went over and sure enough there was a fish in a sand bucket.  All the Goldfish cracker crumbs in my car and melted lollipops didn’t just come from nowhere.  They were earned from years of explaining crucial life lessons like why the dog doesn’t get to eat lunch, or why the cat can’t sleep in the hedgehog cage with the hedgehog even if it would be cute or, and this last one we’ve had to have a few times, why bologna does not belong on the kitchen chandelier.  With my hat covered head held high and my white rashguard shirt glistening in the sunlight, alright maybe glistening is a strong word, I told them that I was a vet student and talked to them about why it was important they let the fish go which they did.  They I went back to my chair to apply more sunscreen and to be grateful that unlike my younger classmates  I’m at an age where bikinis are no longer cool and rashguards are all the rage.  

A few minutes later a mom came up to me and said she had heard there was a veterinarian on the beach.   I clarified that I was actually a student but she didn’t care.  She had heard that I had convinced a group of kids to let go of a fish and her kids had just caught a frog.  Could I please come and talk to them?  And then two more parents individually came up to me and also had me talk to their kids about letting their newly found “pets” go.  My boys were quite proud but of course kept correcting everyone that I was the “vet student on the beach”. 

The next day while we were driving to the beach they told me they had question.  Expecting to hear something like “Can the cats come to the beach with us?” I told them to ask away.  Instead they excitedly and proudly asked “Mommy, are you going to be the vet student on the beach again today?” and that right there is the best part of being a vet student mom.