Voodoo Vet

Heidi Hanson

Oregon Writing Project

July, 1999

The vet came highly recommended. Our regular vet was away on vacation and we were desperate to find a doctor that could help our suddenly paralyzed dog. We woke early that morning finding Lacey, our active cocker spaniel, curled up at the foot of the bed being perfectly still. This state of being was quite unusual for a dog who expected breakfast precisely at 4:00 AM and would make sudden leaps over the top of the bed until she got it. From the end of the bed, she watched us go about our usual morning business and then we motioned for her to come get breakfast. She just sat there looking pathetically up at us and whimpering.

I rushed over to Lacey and petted her head. "Come on," I said, "Do you want a carrot?" This surely would get her moving. Carrots were her favorite treat. She sat motionless in the same position she had been in since early that morning. I started to panic. I looked at Greg knowing that surely he would know what to do. His dad was a vet. Greg made several more attempts to get Lacey to move, but to no avail. Our baby, spoiled from the moment we picked her up from the breeder, was paralyzed.

We waited a few minutes before alerting both the print and electronic media, then called Greg's dad to seek advice. Since he was in Boise and couldn't do much over the phone, he told us to call her regular vet for a recommendation. I made the call and the receptionist gave me a name of one Nadia Tucci. Apparently, she was well-known for her work with animal paralysis in the Portland area. I thanked the receptionist, then made a quick call to Nadia's office. She told us to bring Lacey right in and so we did.

We arrived at Nadia Tucci's humble office around 8:00 AM. The office was actually a small house in a seedy area of town and the inside resembled a classic marijuana pad from the sixties. Crystals hung from each doorway and a heavy layer of incense smoke wafted near the ceiling. Greg and I looked skeptically at each other. We supported alternative medicine, but this was ridiculous. I looked over at Greg again, wondering if we needed to politely exit this strange place, but then a tall woman with dangling earrings and a long flowing skirt came from a back room and it was too late to make a move.

Nadia greeted us warmly and led us to a comfortable room in the back, quite unlike the sterile hospital rooms I was accustomed to. She stroked the dog's head and asked us questions about Lacey's medical history. All seemed normal until Nadia took a long crystal necklace from a hook and passed it over the dog's spine. She also gently stroked the dog's head as she looked for negative crystalline energy. I gave Greg the evil eye, knowing he would say something to embarrass. The threat worked. He remained silent, but his eyes rolled to the back of his head at least a half dozen times during the visit.

At one point she asked Greg to hold onto the necklace while concentrating on staring out of the window. Greg reluctantly agreed. Nadia held onto Greg's arm with one hand and ran her fingers up and down the spine of the dog with the other. Each time she pressed on one vertebrate of the dog, the necklace mysteriously swung in a circular motion. When she pressed somewhere else, the movement stopped.

Nadia performed several more rituals before rendering a diagnosis or prescribing a treatment. She handed us two bags of herbs and told us to call her in the morning if Lacey was still unable to move. We thanked the doctor and left the office certain we had just been through the biggest scam of our lives. We headed for home with a couple hundred bucks worth of herbs.