I have been a veterinarian for about 15 years. The best moments of these years are those I call 'dwelling within my calling'. The cases that remind of the WHY I am here. WHY I worked so doggedly and determinedly hard, for over a decade, just to get into vet school. Never mind the hard work it was to actually get through those 4 years. I was never blessed with blissfully finding, or even fortunately stumbling, upon the road to professional salvation to that destined path toward my perfect future. I could not ever find it among the tangled brush of my day to day life. I suppose I would have been better served by looking toward the horizon in place of the daily clutter that clouds all good decisions. The WHY of me within my little veterinary life exists in the moments of the day that prove to serve my purpose. These minutes of veterinary medicine that mean so much to me are the ones no one else has time for. The cast away felines to be specific. It has become increasingly more imperative for me to look for, recognize, and live within the WHY.
There are more cats in U.S. homes than dogs. Felines are smaller, require less effort to care for. Less walking with leashes and poop baggies on those cold early mornings. Cats can eliminate in a small box hidden in some remote corner of the home. Cats are just easier; less time, energy and even expense. Cats may be in homes across the USA in greater numbers, but they visit the vet in minuscule proportions when it comes to their canine counterparts. Cats, in our current society, are provided a fraction of the investment in both time and financial resources than their canine cohorts get.
Life is not fair, we all know this, but, life for a cat is exceptionally more complicated, difficult, and cumbersome when compared to a dog.
How many stray dogs do we routinely see roaming my area of the country? Almost none, ever. We are conditioned from the love of our own bedroom occupant pups to stop, call for them, try to recapture them with the leashes we all always have awaiting in our cars. We will take the time to call the authorities as a last act to intervene on their behalf when we see a pup running loose without a leashed parent attached to them. A cat, we all pass by cats trying to survive on the most primitive and basic levels, routinely. Cats get a call to intervene as considered more "pest removal" than missing persons. Cats are omnipresent, replaceable, disposable. It is tragic that so many humans will never know the immense intelligence, kindness, adoring affection and abundant joy that they inherently inhabit. Cats are just as, (if not more so), wonderful than dogs. If you don't know this it is simply because you haven't opened your heart enough to see their magic. Why, (back to the WHY?), why, don't more people extend the same compassion to cats as they do to dogs? I have an answer; it is the failing of humans. Cats make you earn their trust. They take effort. People are inherently impatient and too many have convinced themselves that they are allergic. Milk, milk they will push themselves through tolerating milk in tiny sips, eaten in small icy spoonful quantities of Ben loves Jerry, until the body accepts it as permissible. (Did you know the huge majority of people are born allergic to milk?). Cats, they are wily, coy, cunning, and people dismiss the effort from initial rejection with excuses to dismiss their magic preemptively. "I'm allergic." People you don't know what you are missing.
Cats need help, and I always root for the underdog. It is the badge of honor for considering yourself an advocate. It is also the one species that I can make the most impactful and meaningful difference for. This is important in a profession ripe and replete with immense emotional turmoil. It is important to protect your soul as you try to navigate in the black through the business of hocking your service bespoken wares. I have had to learn this. I have had to figure out how to be a veterinarian who cares and wants to keep trying to care, in a world with tenuous intentions seeming to force you into caring less as the best option to lifelong soul preserving survival.
Kittens, the ones no one wants, those that everyone else overlooks, the ones with deficiencies, disfigurements, the ones so easily removed as so many others who meet the standard of "perfect" can replace them. Not sure what I am talking about, ask a shelter employee in the middle of March who they feed and care for when there are dozens in need of round the clock feeding every 2 hours. Which ones get the best chance? Which ones do you try to save when you fear that you cannot save them all? You save the ones people will adopt. It is that simple, that linear. There are too many cats. This isn't my opinion, it isn't even my belief, it is the numbers of those who are set to fend for themselves. Those cats who are labeled "feral" are not descendants of cougars or lions, they are the children of humans who gave up on them.
I am going to be honest about my reasons and intentions for defending and publicizing my why. The motivation to intervening on these cases. It is a vulnerability that most won't confess to and never would embrace. It leaves you open to eating your words. Made especially poignant when the world of pets, the business of pet care, and the current environment of hiding that compassion as it leaves you open to dumping (even more) problems on your lap if you admit to caring when no one else either does, or, wants to be financially responsible for, if they do. It's a predicament. Price over empathy. It is a web of disaster I navigate daily. It is the reason many people just close their doors to appearing as if they care about anybody or anything when those lives appear at your doorstep without a checkbook attached to them.
It is also a place of opportunity with little liability. It is where I have found my purpose again and again. These unwanted, unowned, broken, needy felines are the best place to fulfill my WHY.
Serafina is a perfect example. She is the why behind the longing I have to maintain a desire to keep practicing. She is the fuel to burn my continual passion for caring. For reasons beyond her control, she just doesn't have a mom. Well, she has me. That's all either of us need. I am lucky in that way. I have isolated myself so that this is the reality of my veterinary practice. She isn't about being profitable. She is more important to me than that. She is about my safe place.
Serafina was brought into my clinic by a client. This is the only way we will receive them in almost all cases. She has to be assumed to be an owned cat, before she is assumed to be an unwanted cat. Even though the later is far more likely than the former. It may sound that I am pessimistic about so many unwanted cats living among us, but people will feign and deny ownership if a fee for services is looming. We always scan for a microchip when an unknown pet lands at our doorstep. A tiny clue to help find a worried mom. Some small token of adoration the huge majority of pets are denied. In cases of emergencies I have some leverage due to my credentials to provide care to the injured, albeit unknown, pet. Many vets would just send her to the ER, or, the shelter (who without a veterinarian on staff is woefully inept to manage even the mildly sick pets of our community), or, they would just tell the finder to act as the owner and assume financial responsibility for this patient as it is not uncommon for a pet parent to claim the pet "isn't theirs" to avoid having to pay the tab. You can begin to see the landmine of pitfalls we walk among. There is no human equivalent to this. You walk yourself, or someone else, into a human ER, broken and bleeding due to skull, pelvis, leg, and tail fractures and they start helping immediately as someone else starts asking the questions. There is not an internal pause of delay to figure out who is paying first as someone is possibly dying next to them.
In veterinary medicine helping/intervening/providing even basic care isn't so compulsory. In fact it isn't even marginally compulsory. Pets are considered "property". The whole single solitary reason injustice, cruelty, and blind eyes are commonplace. I took Serafina and offered to help her, based on a few things: I knew the person who brought her in. The person who found Serafina, a speck at two pounds, dragging herself across the road, smashed from the waist down, as many other cars passed her by, wasn't lying about her story. This wasn't her cat. Serafina in the first minutes that I examined her had a chance of surviving. It was a slim, tiny chance. But enough for me to know she was best off here, and better off trying to stay alive instead of giving up on her with a small pink needle of fluid into her vein. This is a little bit of skill and just as much gut. I could eat the cost of her care because I have had cases like hers before. The first time you jump into pro bono is scary. The tenth-plus is not.
Serafina's finder also offered to help. This is a key component. Being a savior for another life is a step into unknown waters. Having someone else to help you through the journey empowers you immeasurably. It helps immensely to not want to feel alone. It's a way to share the load even if the ending is tragic. It takes a village to save both sides. We are all victims to the pressure and chillness of society. I have learned this too. Serafina's finder canvassed the area she was picked up in to see if she had a home. Nothing. Someone knew her, no one would claim her. She also reported her as found to the local authorities. I waited as Serafina got better in my clinic and no one came, or even came to check to see if she was possibly theirs. I was not in the least surprised.
Serafina has been a many months long journey. She has resilience. She is gentle and affectionate, and she is the example to why I am vocal in being proudly compassionate. Even if all I end up is a good story. There enough of the others to need washing and leveraging. I will stick to Serafina for as long as I need to. She completes my why. Fulfills my ever emptying internal soul sucking public pleas for taking everyone else's problems as my own. At least for today she is the WHY. She is the who I am. She is also the reason I don't feel alone, or even oddly vulnerable, lost in a profession with so many others struggling every single day to remember, and maybe even re-embrace their own WHY?
Serafina is a small piece of my tortuous and twisted journey. She is currently residing at my clinic, Jarrettsville Veterinary Center, in bucolic Harford County. She is looking for a home. A home where her love for people can be mirrored by someone's love for her. She deserves this. We all deserve this.
Serafina's recovery story is my next blog.
Thank you to all who help me, the staff, the people who aren't afraid, nor ridiculed, when they care. We take care of each other, two, four legged, furred and skin alike.
For more information on me, the clinic, and our WHY please follow this blog, our Facebook page, and my YouTube channel.
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| Serafina. Our first meeting. |
Life is not fair, we all know this, but, life for a cat is exceptionally more complicated, difficult, and cumbersome when compared to a dog.
How many stray dogs do we routinely see roaming my area of the country? Almost none, ever. We are conditioned from the love of our own bedroom occupant pups to stop, call for them, try to recapture them with the leashes we all always have awaiting in our cars. We will take the time to call the authorities as a last act to intervene on their behalf when we see a pup running loose without a leashed parent attached to them. A cat, we all pass by cats trying to survive on the most primitive and basic levels, routinely. Cats get a call to intervene as considered more "pest removal" than missing persons. Cats are omnipresent, replaceable, disposable. It is tragic that so many humans will never know the immense intelligence, kindness, adoring affection and abundant joy that they inherently inhabit. Cats are just as, (if not more so), wonderful than dogs. If you don't know this it is simply because you haven't opened your heart enough to see their magic. Why, (back to the WHY?), why, don't more people extend the same compassion to cats as they do to dogs? I have an answer; it is the failing of humans. Cats make you earn their trust. They take effort. People are inherently impatient and too many have convinced themselves that they are allergic. Milk, milk they will push themselves through tolerating milk in tiny sips, eaten in small icy spoonful quantities of Ben loves Jerry, until the body accepts it as permissible. (Did you know the huge majority of people are born allergic to milk?). Cats, they are wily, coy, cunning, and people dismiss the effort from initial rejection with excuses to dismiss their magic preemptively. "I'm allergic." People you don't know what you are missing.
Cats need help, and I always root for the underdog. It is the badge of honor for considering yourself an advocate. It is also the one species that I can make the most impactful and meaningful difference for. This is important in a profession ripe and replete with immense emotional turmoil. It is important to protect your soul as you try to navigate in the black through the business of hocking your service bespoken wares. I have had to learn this. I have had to figure out how to be a veterinarian who cares and wants to keep trying to care, in a world with tenuous intentions seeming to force you into caring less as the best option to lifelong soul preserving survival.
 |
| Serafina, pre-surgical chin repair prep. |
I am going to be honest about my reasons and intentions for defending and publicizing my why. The motivation to intervening on these cases. It is a vulnerability that most won't confess to and never would embrace. It leaves you open to eating your words. Made especially poignant when the world of pets, the business of pet care, and the current environment of hiding that compassion as it leaves you open to dumping (even more) problems on your lap if you admit to caring when no one else either does, or, wants to be financially responsible for, if they do. It's a predicament. Price over empathy. It is a web of disaster I navigate daily. It is the reason many people just close their doors to appearing as if they care about anybody or anything when those lives appear at your doorstep without a checkbook attached to them.
It is also a place of opportunity with little liability. It is where I have found my purpose again and again. These unwanted, unowned, broken, needy felines are the best place to fulfill my WHY.
Serafina is a perfect example. She is the why behind the longing I have to maintain a desire to keep practicing. She is the fuel to burn my continual passion for caring. For reasons beyond her control, she just doesn't have a mom. Well, she has me. That's all either of us need. I am lucky in that way. I have isolated myself so that this is the reality of my veterinary practice. She isn't about being profitable. She is more important to me than that. She is about my safe place.
Serafina was brought into my clinic by a client. This is the only way we will receive them in almost all cases. She has to be assumed to be an owned cat, before she is assumed to be an unwanted cat. Even though the later is far more likely than the former. It may sound that I am pessimistic about so many unwanted cats living among us, but people will feign and deny ownership if a fee for services is looming. We always scan for a microchip when an unknown pet lands at our doorstep. A tiny clue to help find a worried mom. Some small token of adoration the huge majority of pets are denied. In cases of emergencies I have some leverage due to my credentials to provide care to the injured, albeit unknown, pet. Many vets would just send her to the ER, or, the shelter (who without a veterinarian on staff is woefully inept to manage even the mildly sick pets of our community), or, they would just tell the finder to act as the owner and assume financial responsibility for this patient as it is not uncommon for a pet parent to claim the pet "isn't theirs" to avoid having to pay the tab. You can begin to see the landmine of pitfalls we walk among. There is no human equivalent to this. You walk yourself, or someone else, into a human ER, broken and bleeding due to skull, pelvis, leg, and tail fractures and they start helping immediately as someone else starts asking the questions. There is not an internal pause of delay to figure out who is paying first as someone is possibly dying next to them.
In veterinary medicine helping/intervening/providing even basic care isn't so compulsory. In fact it isn't even marginally compulsory. Pets are considered "property". The whole single solitary reason injustice, cruelty, and blind eyes are commonplace. I took Serafina and offered to help her, based on a few things: I knew the person who brought her in. The person who found Serafina, a speck at two pounds, dragging herself across the road, smashed from the waist down, as many other cars passed her by, wasn't lying about her story. This wasn't her cat. Serafina in the first minutes that I examined her had a chance of surviving. It was a slim, tiny chance. But enough for me to know she was best off here, and better off trying to stay alive instead of giving up on her with a small pink needle of fluid into her vein. This is a little bit of skill and just as much gut. I could eat the cost of her care because I have had cases like hers before. The first time you jump into pro bono is scary. The tenth-plus is not.
Serafina's finder also offered to help. This is a key component. Being a savior for another life is a step into unknown waters. Having someone else to help you through the journey empowers you immeasurably. It helps immensely to not want to feel alone. It's a way to share the load even if the ending is tragic. It takes a village to save both sides. We are all victims to the pressure and chillness of society. I have learned this too. Serafina's finder canvassed the area she was picked up in to see if she had a home. Nothing. Someone knew her, no one would claim her. She also reported her as found to the local authorities. I waited as Serafina got better in my clinic and no one came, or even came to check to see if she was possibly theirs. I was not in the least surprised.
Serafina has been a many months long journey. She has resilience. She is gentle and affectionate, and she is the example to why I am vocal in being proudly compassionate. Even if all I end up is a good story. There enough of the others to need washing and leveraging. I will stick to Serafina for as long as I need to. She completes my why. Fulfills my ever emptying internal soul sucking public pleas for taking everyone else's problems as my own. At least for today she is the WHY. She is the who I am. She is also the reason I don't feel alone, or even oddly vulnerable, lost in a profession with so many others struggling every single day to remember, and maybe even re-embrace their own WHY?
Serafina is a small piece of my tortuous and twisted journey. She is currently residing at my clinic, Jarrettsville Veterinary Center, in bucolic Harford County. She is looking for a home. A home where her love for people can be mirrored by someone's love for her. She deserves this. We all deserve this.
Serafina's recovery story is my next blog.
Thank you to all who help me, the staff, the people who aren't afraid, nor ridiculed, when they care. We take care of each other, two, four legged, furred and skin alike.
For more information on me, the clinic, and our WHY please follow this blog, our Facebook page, and my YouTube channel.
LOVELOVELOVE that you do what you do. Cats have my heart. This Serafina is special.
ReplyDeleteThank you!