I spent the next couple of days on pins and needles. Both at work and at home my spare thoughts seemed to drift towards my two new baby smurfs. I thought of them, lonely and hurt in the strange environment of the metal cages in the veterinarian's office. In my heart, I knew that their stay was for their own good but I still wanted to personally attend to them. I had asked if I could come in and see them during their monitoring period but was rejected. The vets reasoning was that it would confuse them too much to see me and not leave the same day. I agreed in the end, to my chagrin.
One day, while I was bathing Gus and Daisy in the sink, I got a call. My heart leapt when I saw that the number was from the vet. I quickly answered, hoping that they were going to give me a time when I would be able to pick up Lucy and Leo. I was instead greeted by a nervous sounding woman. I listened to her, my smile slowly draining from my face has she spoke. I was not happy with what she had to say. I excused myself and said I would call her back. I then quickly rinsed, dried, and clothed my smurfs. I put them in their room with a tv on to occupy them. They fumbled clumsily over their mattress and pillows as they came to the screen. They both plopped down on their elbows, shoulder to shoulder, and became spellbound at the magic images which danced on the mirror in front of them. I kissed them on their heads and then left for my room.
Calling the office back, I took a second to breathe. What little information I had received earlier had given me a pain in my stomach. When she picked up, I greeted her and apologized for earlier. She waved me off and then continued from where she had left off.
The main reason for the call was that the office was extending the duration of Lucy and Leo's stay for a couple of days. While this came as an unpleasant surprise for me, the next thing she said was what upset me. The exact reason for the extension was due to an accident which had occurred in the early hours of the morning. A late-night worker at the office was alarmed to hear crying at odd hours. He entered into the holding area discovered that the source of the crying was the smurf cages. Peering inside, he was shocked at the sight he came across.
At some hour of the night, Lucy had awoken from her rest and had shimmied out of her swaddling for the night. Since she first woke up from surgery, she had been resistant to her bandaging. She would crane her little head down to try and bite at the gauze. When that would inevitably fail, she would then flail about violently before crying herself to sleep. This got so bad that they had to get my permission to give her a sedative to calm her during the day. This night she got particularly envigored and managed to get an arm out from her swaddling, allowing her to free herself. While that was bad, what followed was worse. Lucy's stitches had gotten an infection, causing some pus to start oozing from her wounds. It had driven her crazy from the itching and the pain. As soon as she could she began to scratch and rub at her back, opening up her stitches and causing her great amounts of pain. She scratched in a frenzy at first but as soon as the pain set in, she began to scream and tremble.
Her brother, who had been sleeping beside her and was woken up by her thrashing, became scared and confused by all the sudden noise. He tried to seek comfort in his sister by clinging to her but was tossed off. Assuming he was being rejected, he tried harder and harder to get his sister to love him, unknowingly causing her pain each time. He finally got the message when he was accidentally kicked in the nose, drawing a small stream of blood from his bulbous appendage. Leo began to scream at the top of his lungs, hurt and confused at this nightmare he had awoken to. He kicked and tossed himself around, voicing his displeasure at his short life. He hit and bit at his sister before backing himself into a corner. By the time the worker had discovered them, Leo had gotten his head stuck in between the bars and Lucy was lying unconscious in some blood-soaked pajamas, having yelled herself unconscious.
An emergency call was then made and the smurf twins were taken to a nearby animal hospital. There Lucy had her back restitched while her brother was held separately. To keep him from being further traumatized he was allowed to cuddle a smurf doll. Being a very recent infant, his eyes were too underdeveloped to tell the difference and with all smurf babies, if they were receiving comfort, they really didn't care. When his sister was done, she was brought back out and then they were both moved to a new holding cage. This one had a partition in it, so that there wouldn't be a repeat of their misadventure. Lucy was put in better swaddling and Leo was kept with the doll.
The lady ended the call, giving me the information for the hospital. I called and made sure they knew me, producing my ID for verification. They communicated with the doctor in charge of the twins and relayed to me their updated schedule. They would need to repeat their monitoring time due to the incident but they had not injured themselves from the night's activities. I took that as a minor victory but was still perturbed at their suffering. I got their new pickup date and hung up. I left my room and came back to the smurf room, laying down next to Gus and Daisy. The came over to me and purred as they got comfortable. I brought them close as I looked out the window.
"I'm coming for you; don't you doubt that."