This Time Around. Coming To Terms With The Death of My Beloved Pup..

Veteran territory. I have been here before. The wound is soo deep it seems fresh, draining, life threatening. Death has been to visit me before. We haven't come to terms with each others presence, nor purpose. IT is still an unwelcome intruder. Albeit, ominous and undeniable, still IT calls, I collude, and yet, IT always wins, as I feign fractured and defeated. Again, and, again.

Our pets never live long enough. You can try to push the limits of pet-mortality with purchasing a parrot,, get yourself a good chance at a millennia, but dogs, if you stay mainstream canine, are lucky to see their teenage years, incredibly blessed if they hit two decades, and if you like to go big, or even "giant" you may not ever see double digits together.

I have learned that my heart can barely handle this pain every 10 years. I need, want, choose, hope, pray, beg, for a decade of longevity. Turns out my track record reflects this. "The older I get, the smaller my pets get." It is a hard-learned trade secret to try to spare me the loss every 5 years, or so, and it allows me to be able to carry them when their winter starts to wither and their bones can no longer support their ambulatory requirements.

The last few years has marred me with the loss of two beagles; Jekyll (just last month), and Savannah, a few years ago.

It took me weeks to get out of the grey fog I was flailing in with Savannah's loss. I just couldn't get out of the programmed repetitive daily motion I had become so accustomed to. The getting up at all times of the night. The managing her hysteria, messes, and failing functions. Undoing the habitual duties she set into my daily life took time. All the while desperate to go back to that place of interrupted sleep that her deprived mania brought just to have her back with me. But her loss was explainable, excusable, sensible. She had made it to 16. A ripe old age. A respectable age for any dog. She could be grieved but not denied a silver lining sentiment for surpassing the acceptable tenure. I could complain that her loss hurt, but I couldn't expect sympathy that she hadn't been afforded a long loving life.

Savannah

Jekyll, my most recent loss, another beagle, passed away at 8. He got cheated. I have anger lining that grief. Bitter shards to embalm him in. Seething pain to intern him with. Dust to damnation. A cursed cruel loss.

jek

The pit of my grief with his death lies here. The time frame cut too tragically short. The agony of desperate attempts to buy another "good" day for him. The exhaustion in losing the big battle. The responsibility I feel as having been the ultimate master of his destiny and purveyor of his curtain call. It is a terribly painful place to be. The ultimate responsibility can leave you with the lifetime of despair in second guessing and brow beating every previous decision. Sad couldn't begin to capture my angry bitterness. Except to mar it with also feeling responsible. That little fact made it crushing to swallow, impossible to move on, and fraught with such self doubting so that no piece of me was big enough to reassemble.

The days after his passing were simply about getting up, getting dressed, crying in the car to work, choking on grief and visible despair , all the while attempting to trudge into a day I dreaded facing. It also brought me back to why. The why of this profession? The immense magnitude of the responsibility we carry. The joy and the pain and the immeasurable grief it brings when you build a life around another.

The why we let them into our homes and hearts? The why we incorporate them into all parts of our lives? The why it is so easy to love them and yet so impossibly hard to lose them?
The why is the reason for everything we do as a parent and a veterinarian. It is important to always remember the WHY's?

I can love this pup, let him go knowing life too often works in its unfair ways, and not be ashamed, embarrassed or surprised when it repeats itself in my clients lives. If you can't feel a loss you cannot love. They are inseparable. It is what makes a vet a real person in the right profession for the right reasons.

I know this. I believe this. The tough part is living this when my own heart is shattered after losing the little one I loved so completely. It is grieving. Understandably. Grieving without withdrawal from ever opening your heart again is what I believe to be the most devastating part of pet loss. This is where I spend time talking to clients. It is normal to grieve. Grieve, however you need to, for you. Take time for yourself. Make a place to memorialize your pets life. A place to know you can go to to tell them how much you miss and love them. Live in the memories of your time together. But, try to not blame yourself. Try not to get stuck here. I know it is hard. I spent weeks here feeling like I, me the great powerful veterinary healer, could surely have saved my beloved boy. I had time, financial resources, access to the best specialists. Every tool to make him survive even the worst disease. It didn't happen, He left too soon. I lost him. I failed him.

Me and Jek at the oncologist's office.

That was exactly how I felt. Can you imagine how everyone else who doesn't have a decade of being a doctor, a clinic at their disposal, an Army of specialists, a bank account dedicated to dog care feels?

We will all lose a love because life always meets death. But giving up on loving again, ever having a pet again, that's where the real tragedy for me is.

So many clients give up after their pet dies. I think they feel it is too painful to go through again, or, like me they feel as if they will never find another pet who fills the shoes, measures up to the caliber of loyal/obedient/dedicated/wonderful there pet did. It is natural to not want to feel awful again. But not feel again? That's a loss that costs more than any heart should endure.

You cannot go through life living it if you try to not feel it,, good, bad and everything in between.

We all write the chapters of our own book. My book, each deep rich chapter of it has always been delineated and defined by the four legged family who made the tapestry the vivid, meaningful experience it was. The many homes, the varied geography, assorted jobs, were all the background that set my stage for each chapter whose central characters were always the dogs, cats, and pigs who made this life colorful and rich. They were, and are, the most important and meaningful pieces of the life I created and treasure. Some took up hundreds of pages. Some saw me through decades of questions trying to create the adult the kid was dreaming of. Some were short poems, a life too little, too fragile and too small to last past a haiku on an abbreviated page. But I am a richer, wiser, more content and accomplished thanks to their acceptance, love and wisdom.

You would think that with all of these chapters, all of the times I have been through loving and losing them that I would be better at grieving? My previous practice would make perfect assembly line efficiency of recovery? Yeah, not so much. I still invest whole heart immersed, drown in despair with loss, and trudge ugly through getting over it. Practice has not made perfect, unless that perfect implies pitiful.

The loss of Jekyll and Savannah took me weeks, months, longer/forever, to come to terms with. I will never "get over them." They were too monumental for that. All I wanted from myself when getting through their loss was to not give up. It was all I could hope for. They were loved. (I can say that with total conviction). There are millions (millions) of equally deserving (I can say that with complete honesty also) who never know a kind hand. I still have that to give. I may be broken and hurt, but I can still be kind to a furry face. I have to think beyond me. Society, civilization rests on this. It does transcend past human to human. Anyone who has ever loved a pet knows that. The world is better for all of us because we can love each other, regardless of size, shape, color, claws, fur, or fins. Love that is compassion is the key to life. All life and all living. This is what I believe, and remind myself of when reeling in loss.

Here's what happened to me after Jekyll passed away. I cried a lot, for days, weeks.  I told the people around me that while I appreciated their sympathy I couldn't talk about it at work. I had to stay busy and focused around the grief.

After two weeks I started trying to put my toes back in the water. I started looking at the pets in the shelters and at the local rescues. None of them were Jekyll. None of them pulled me into compulsion to step forward for them to come home with me. None of them were Jekyll. I was looking for that face. That smile. Those ears. Some tiny resemblance to jar me into adoption and out of affliction. I realized that obviously I wasn't really ready. I wanted to be ready. I just wasn't. I started spending loads of time with Charleston, my other dog. The left behind dog while we were all so focused on Jekyll. He had been neglected while Jek took so much of my time to monitor, treat, and obsess on. I owed him help in his grieving to. He was as heart broken as I was. We went on lots of walks, changed the room around. Got new toys. A little distracting helps pets adjust to a different routine and life. He got quiet and withdrawn. He missed his instigator and boisterous beagle brother. He was always the shadow behind that dynamic personality. He never saw his own sunshine  without Jekyll pointing the way.

Charlie was depressed.. But, he seemed more than withdrawn. He seemed deflated.. Vet mode mom kicked in (although it felt like paranoid vet mom). What would I do if he was dying too? Charlie's blood work revealed a low thyroid. I put him on medication to see if this would help resolve his lethargy, depression and sadness. It helped quite a lot. He started to wag again.

The next set of events changed everything. It added a new chapter and pulled me out of isolation and despair. A hurricane hit. Storm landed. (more on him soon). Hurricane Florence lands.

I added two very sick puppies within 3 weeks. We needed each other. I remembered I had a purpose outside sadness. I am alive again with them. I can go on. Being needed and loved helped me remember to start writing the next chapter, again. I was pulled out of grief by two sick puppies. I reinvested my energy into them, constructive caring, versus my grief soaked couch. Charlie, well it took about a week to realize they were residents, but when he could no longer ignore their incesant chew-bite instigation, he started to play. Within two weeks we stopped his thyroid meds (there is no medical study to back this, but its true). Charlie, and I, were back with the living.

I wasn't ready. I have no idea how long we will get together. But the time with them is far better than the wallowing in despair. We need each other, all of us. Loneliness is the gateway to despair and my puppies are waiting for me at home.

To all of those out there drowning in grief I hear you. I know. There is a way out. Reinvest your whole self in a pet. They need you as much as you need them. You can help each other to the shore. I send you all love and support.

For more information on who Jarrettsville Veterinary Center is please visit our Facebook page, or our website.

If you have a pet question or a story about your pet to share so we can start to help others who might be in the same situation you are (or were), please visit us at Pawbly.com. It is free to use and open to everyone.

If you want to learn more about pet care visit my YouTube channel here. 

One Year Later. The Impact Of A Rant

It has been one year. My life, almost everything about how I see and live it, has changed over this past 365 days. It has been one year since the video I made about a pet who had not been given enough options to help them found me and we saved her life for a fraction of what had been offered a few hours earlier at the ER. It is a story I hear daily. People being told they have three options; fork up the deposit immediately (often 2 am), euthanize (always, as I hear it from these clients, too strongly encouraged if the deposit can't be produced), or, go home to let your dog suffer. My video opened the dirty secret of how limited the options given often are, and people were angry.

I struck a nerve. A painful, deep, resonating nerve. It followed full circle. It came to haunt me, humble me, and cause we to seriously reconsider the path I had spent my whole life, over 4 decades, building.

The consideration to bail on everything vet related, was on the table more than once. You can live life, hard already by any measure, and consciously decide to try to make it easier. At some place, affectionately (hopefully) before you slam into the bottom, it helps to try to make your life easier, or, at least not create your own landmines and road blocks.

I considered hiding, running, bailing, abandoning my calling, repeatedly. I told myself over and over again "that this job wasn't worth dying for." I live in a profession that has grown almost immune and indifferent to bailing. suicide-risk-highest-among-small-animal-female-veterinarians. I was blamed by numerous people for being part of the cause of this abysmal fact. I was even removed from the groups dedicated to helping vets in danger of hurting themselves. The profession took my voice as an attack when its intention (who everyone outside of medicine saw as it was), was a plea for a pet to be given more than she was.

Turns out the reality is that this being a veterinarian gig isn't just a job, and the problem doesn't go away because you hide or kill yourself because you got lost in the pain of feeling helpless and hurt.

Never was I the one to take the road less traveled. Me, no, i will jump into the poison ivy to make a point. The message can get lost in the delivery if your too battered to enunciate or stand at the podium.

Here's what I have learned, and how my plea for help to those we rely on and serve changed me;

• Don't make a point out of anger. Nothing good comes from that place.. it's cathartic, but not constructive. That is my only regret. A voice of passion is more powerful and lasting than anger. I was met by anger and I contributed to it. I have learned that lesson.. (the hard way of course,.,).

• Let the lunatics hang themselves.. don't feed them. I stopped responding to the hateful diatribe early on in the 4,000 plus comments left on that video post. It turns out the other side of the angry mob (the distraught pet parents) did a better job than I could.

• Keep records,,, screenshots are important. Karma is King. And, nasty people live nasty lives. Let them live them. I, and they, know who you are. You can only kill so many animals for all of the awful inexcusable reasons that you do and before you know it you have built your own legacy. Maybe indifference will help ease the burden? Maybe blaming others will? Maybe your cost of living needs to be reassessed instead of the clients standard of care? There is a #MeToo movement on the horizon in vet med. I'll be one of those women pointing the finger and reciting my experience to those some of the men and women who bully to intimidate and threaten to coerce. 

• Take the high road. Even if you have to gag yourself to do it.

• Be ready to stand by what you believe in, but always be prepared for sacrifice when you do. Remember at the end of this journey you will only have to face yourself. No one else's opinion matters. You die alone, you might as well like the person you share your grave with.

Sacrifice became a consistent theme over the last year. I repeatedly had to ask myself what I was willing to sacrifice. It was made more apparent when ER's, private practitioners, (some of them I used to believe were friends), and a few of the angry online mob all sent the cases they could have taken care of to me,,, some just showed up to say, "my dog needs a pyo surgery, my vet down the road, said you do it cheap." I did A LOT of surgeries last year. I made a real difference in peoples lives, and best of all saved a boat load of pets who would have otherwise been relieved humanely of their suffering economically. There is more to this profession, to the lives entwined in it than a simple linear mathematical equation dictated by an economist. There is more to every life than DISEASE + FINANCIAL ABILITY = OUTCOME. There is a pet, a person, and an emotional tie that far outweigh the scales ability to measure "equals."

Me and my pup Storm.

To all of the squawkers who proclaimed that the video was a "marketing ploy" I have to admit that I wasn't that calculating, nor, divisive. But, I also have to admit it worked. Business has never been better. But business doesn't last because of a catchy ad. There has to be substance to that client experience. Truth is that video, that message, was honest and compassionate. If you are trying to run a business, most importantly, a service based business, people can see through the bull, the sales pitches, the fake motto's. Don't tell people that you "treat their pets life family" and then send them packing to find help because they aren't profitable, convenient or as prepared as you expected them to be. Your family must really have their shit together, unlike all of the rest of us.

There were days of phone calls. All of them set-ups from "fake clients" trying to get us on tape declining to help them "for free." When we began to question them, like "please let us have your number so we can call you back to discuss," click. Or, yelling, screaming, cursing at us on the phone.

It seems to me after this year of questioning who I am, what kind of vet I want to be, and what my veterinary legacy will be, I have come to understand that I am really not afraid anymore. No matter what you threaten me with, no matter how long I feel that I am walking alone, no matter how tired I get from doing the pyo's everyone else wants to send my way to teach me my lesson, I am who I am. I am not for sale, I cannot be shamed, silenced, beaten, abandoned, or castigated to a quiet place. This is a profession who kills themselves at unprecedented numbers, I won't be sent there, I won't retreat there, and I won't feel lost in the finding of a place of peace. Its there inside me. ranting.

There is a peaceful resignation to knowing what you are capable of, how you can survive feeling so alone. A sense of  transcendent maturity.

I accepted months into this bashing quest to ruin me (three letters sent to the Board, multiple calls from "veterinary groups" to fuel their fires, shutting down all social media outlets, and numerous private warnings from people I didn't even know to "be careful" people are "out to get you." that if someone wants to get you they will. You can't walk through life always afraid. It just isn't sustainable if you are trying to live in and through it.

I would rather walk away from veterinary medicine proud that I never euthanized a treatable pet, gave every option imaginable and faced the wrath of a profession set out to destroy me, than let the ghosts of the voiceless steal my soul.

We all pick sides. It is the nature of conscious awakening. I picked a side a long, long time ago. I went to vet school to take care of animals. I will continue to do so. I stand with them.

There is more to come. Promise.

Here is the original Veterinary rant video,,, after being chastised by almost every veterinary group and organization to "Take It Down!" it stands. Perhaps simply as a voice for those who have been wounded by us, this profession, perhaps, as a small symbol of freedom of speech (after being challenged by the State Board to be removed/and have me punished for an ethical violation), and maybe perhaps to be a rallying cry for change?

Side note for those of you paying attention. It has been longer than a year since the video went viral. When the anniversary came around I was grieving (terribly) over the loss of my beagle pup Jekyll. It consumed me, and, the thought of trying to put words on paper about anything other than him was impossible. I took time to grieve him, and I took time to reckon this subject. It really comes down to deciding what you can and can't live without. I had to live without him (two very sick puppies to refocus on have helped me more than I can measure), and, knowing that there were people who wouldn't let me feel alone.

My slogan for 2019 exists in two parts; #transparency #getoutalive

For more information about our veterinary clinic, Jarrettsville Veterinary Center,  please visit our Facebook page, or, our website.

If you have a pet question or a story about your pet to share so we can start to help others who might be in the same situation you are (or were), please visit us at Pawbly.com. It is free to use and open to everyone.

If you want to learn more about pet care visit my YouTube channel here.