Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner.

This story was originally published on my vet school blog, “Wet Cleanup on Aisle 5.”

Last week I watched while Dr. K extracted a pendulous, two and a half pound mammary tumor from a sweet white Akita named Yogi.

The thing was bigger than a softball on steroids, and its sudden absence left a hole the size of a small dinner plate in Yogi’s skin.

Every time I watch a surgery, I can’t help thinking about Junior Mints, thanks to the Seinfeld episode in which Kramer sends a Junior Mint flying into the open abdominal cavity of a patient in surgery.

But this time was different. I couldn’t stop thinking about meat.

* Gross warning. The material that follows may be too gross for some readers. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. *

I’m a small person, with a metabolism like a gnat’s, so I get hungry about every ten minutes. It’s not surprising that I might experience hunger at any given moment. But in general I’m not a big meat eater–though I might enjoy a nice salmon every now and then–so it was a surprise to be craving red meat.

Dr. K was ripping at the fascia under the remaining skin, loosening it from the body in order to pull the edges shut.

I was fantasizing about a steak.

With the skin free, I could see the bright red of the abdominal muscles underneath.

I thought about barbecue, longingly.

Dr. K began the tedious task of “quilt stitching,” in which she pulled the skin into the desired position and added a single stitch to tack it in place, in much the same way one attaches the top of a quilt to the bottom. Another pull to the skin, another careful stitch.

I was thinking that beef jerky would be easy to find at the corner market.

The phone rang and pulled me away from my reverie, and the usual demands of running a small practice kept me from returning. Soon it was time for lunch, and I made a beeline for the corner market.

The beef jerky made it safely through the checkout line, but did not survive long afterwards.

I’ve since discovered that I am not the only one who has experienced this phenomenon, so it makes me happy that I am not a complete freak of nature, although I wonder.

Yogi’s doing fine, by the way.