We all want to point the finger.. It is natural when we are smacked in the face with something so devastating we can't find the place to put our feet back on the ground. We point, blame, and spew angry hateful things when life sends us reeling for safer waters. It is so insanely common we do it in almost every aspect of our lives.
We are living in a time and place where people are struggling. Struggling to stay afloat as they yearn to get ahead, and, dare perhaps to even get ahead. We are also struggling to find a place where we are loved for some semblance of a peaceful respite in the all too chaotic world we wander within.
I live it. I live it every single day. I see the most needful in this world, and, I see it in the most compassionate of us all. Also, and this is vitally important to remember, I see it in the voiceless, meekest, and most vulnerable. I see it in the eyes that no one else looks into.
Have you ever tried to extinguish the life of a tiny creature still fighting to live? Do you know how soul crushing that can be? Do you know what the price for this act is?
Do you have to look into the eyes of the small, meek, suffering, struggling, and fighting to live anyway and ask yourself the really hard questions? How do you reason with your own internal understanding of ability without advocacy? Or, how about the person, your client, who is so devoted to their beloved pet that they can't see reason in anything? What if you don't have the resources or knowledge base to help manage this medical and emotional debacle? It's a mess at all sides and all levels. How to avoid all of this messy stuff? Just disengage? Turn yourself off and walk away. There is a lot of this going on in our society.
We live in a place and time where medicine can provide miraculous cures. We also live in a place where fewer and fewer people help their fellow man at a sacrifice to themselves. This is a time where costs of care are skyrocketing and indifference about who is responsible for this is thriving.
The tiniest creatures cross my threshold every single day. And with each face (and they all have a face, and a voice, and a personality and a huge list of needs), I have to ask myself what I am going to do about it? What am I going to do about meeting their needs as I try to remain within my own? How do I find the place where both can be met? How do I place a value, a price, a conciliatory explanation on finding the answer, within the confines of need, for a life that costs me, emotionally and financially when neither are secure, nor, established within mine? Who do I place first in line for a feast of rations?
I could concoct a million excuses. Find a bazillion reasons,, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you rather make her little needy desperate face someone else's problem? Let them figure it out. Just turn a blind eye, make an excuse, who cares? Right? Isn't that the point? Does anyone really care if no one else knows her plight? If no one else hears her heart stop in this wood, did it ever beat to begin with?
This is a blog about blame. The safest place to retreat to when you lack the conviction to do anything more.
So, lets talk about blame.
Veterinary care is too expensive. I mean isn't it? Five thousand for knee surgery. Ten thousand for hips to be replaced. Hit by car with multiple fractures, a few days, maybe a week in the specialty clinic and you are looking at maybe twelve grand? Maybe more?
A blocked cat starts at fifteen hundred. A puppy with a sock stuck in his gut will set you back three grand,,, to start, complications, which can happen, will cause that to increase. And, remember these are all treatable. Maybe not accessible, maybe not affordable to the masses, but treatable doesn't change the fact we can help them.
So decide.. Take a chance, everything in health care is a chance, cough up a few thousand dollars.
Who pays if no one cares? What about if someone cares but no one can produce viable accessible options? Well I hope we all know the answer. The most obvious victim is the patient. They all too commonly pay for the blame with their lives. Why let them suffer any longer? There is after all no guarantee that they will recover? Why not just save your pennies from the risk of losing them, and your pet, and just blame the vet?
Your vet thinks that the blame is all yours, and, yours alone. Here's why;
The venom knows no bounds.
We live in a country where we can't care enough to provide humans health care, or, hungry kids school meals. Or decent housing that is affordable at minimum wage.
You want to place blame? Go ahead it won't get us anywhere. But you can feel better about yourself can't you?
So here we are,,, living in a place where people want monthly wellness plans. They think they are getting a good deal. I mean aren't they? Well, maybe in the short run you are, but, ask yourself, better yet ask your vet at that corporate practice how much it is going to be for these;
If you have a male cat.. How much will it cost to unblock them? What if it happens at 2 pm on a Wednesday? Or 2 am on a Saturday? Are you prepared for these? Will they even help you if it does happen? Many, dare I say, most, will send you to the ER. Starts at about $1500. I know someone who spent $9,000. Can you afford that Wellness Plan now?
If you have a 3 year old Lab who ate 5 tampons and is now lethargic, vomiting and can't keep anything down?
What if you have a cat who likes to play with thread/string?
What about the German Shepherd with the basketball distended abdomen?
Or the dog fight dog who has multiple bleeding lacerations?
I know people who have spent $400 on a broken toenail. Want to place blame on exorbitant care costs? This seems like an easy target to start with.
If you are cold enough to look at these faces and not see a life worth fighting for then you will never understand why the blame is cousin to the hateful accusations you are going to get.
People love their pets. We veterinarians love our pets. If we don't love them anymore there is a blame based excuse at the crux of our armored indifference?
We are all choosing to live a life of blame based justification. It's safer here. No vulnerability, no guilt, no shame. No one cares after all, do they? Do you?
At this time and place the last local ER is closing its doors. For good. It was the last place I could send people at 2 am to have that sock, tampon, urinary stone, twisted gut, broken nail, etc.. to go. Now the only choices are two corporately owned clinics. They are bright, shiny, well-staffed and making some group of middle aged venture capitalists driving very nice cars, with very nice clothes and very cushy vacation homes in places we have never been. Want to live their life? Own a forty-thousand dollar bag that the K's tote their laundry in? Well, it's easy. It will only cost you every other pet with a face you cannot see beyond the doe-eyes for. Just turn them away, kill them as a resolution to their ailment. You don't care do you? You love your stuff more. Its not your fault is it?
You have bills to pay. Vet school bills, a mortgage, kids to put through college, a car loan, and you need your car so you can get to work. And those poor vet techs. If we don't pay them a decent wage we can't possible help the pets who need us. And if I don't buy the most expensive x-ray machine out there, and have loads of licensed techs I can't attract a decent vet to help me stay open all of the hours that my clients need me to.
So who's fault is it?
Maybe we all need to care more? Care about the choices you make? The businesses you support? The long term acute and emergent choices you make? Maybe the blame is so evenly distributed that one small change can start an avalanche of infectious cures? Maybe you are not prepared? Maybe you love your pets like children? And, maybe on some dark Saturday night at 2 am you will be living this nightmare that is called economic euthanasia so some corporate shark can drive a convertible in a snappy zip code? He doesn't care about you, or your pet? And, really, let's be honest, you don't care about him either.
If you would like to learn more about veterinary medicine you can follow me here, at my blog KMDVM.blogspot.com, or my clinics website JarrettsvilleVet.com, or, our Facebook page Jarrettsville Vet Center.
I also have a YouTube channel, and the best place for free pet centered advice at Pawbly.com.
 |
| My cat Wren,, basking on the warmest spot in the house. |
I live it. I live it every single day. I see the most needful in this world, and, I see it in the most compassionate of us all. Also, and this is vitally important to remember, I see it in the voiceless, meekest, and most vulnerable. I see it in the eyes that no one else looks into.
Have you ever tried to extinguish the life of a tiny creature still fighting to live? Do you know how soul crushing that can be? Do you know what the price for this act is?
Do you have to look into the eyes of the small, meek, suffering, struggling, and fighting to live anyway and ask yourself the really hard questions? How do you reason with your own internal understanding of ability without advocacy? Or, how about the person, your client, who is so devoted to their beloved pet that they can't see reason in anything? What if you don't have the resources or knowledge base to help manage this medical and emotional debacle? It's a mess at all sides and all levels. How to avoid all of this messy stuff? Just disengage? Turn yourself off and walk away. There is a lot of this going on in our society.
We live in a place and time where medicine can provide miraculous cures. We also live in a place where fewer and fewer people help their fellow man at a sacrifice to themselves. This is a time where costs of care are skyrocketing and indifference about who is responsible for this is thriving.
The tiniest creatures cross my threshold every single day. And with each face (and they all have a face, and a voice, and a personality and a huge list of needs), I have to ask myself what I am going to do about it? What am I going to do about meeting their needs as I try to remain within my own? How do I find the place where both can be met? How do I place a value, a price, a conciliatory explanation on finding the answer, within the confines of need, for a life that costs me, emotionally and financially when neither are secure, nor, established within mine? Who do I place first in line for a feast of rations?
I could concoct a million excuses. Find a bazillion reasons,, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you rather make her little needy desperate face someone else's problem? Let them figure it out. Just turn a blind eye, make an excuse, who cares? Right? Isn't that the point? Does anyone really care if no one else knows her plight? If no one else hears her heart stop in this wood, did it ever beat to begin with?
This is a blog about blame. The safest place to retreat to when you lack the conviction to do anything more.
So, lets talk about blame.
Veterinary care is too expensive. I mean isn't it? Five thousand for knee surgery. Ten thousand for hips to be replaced. Hit by car with multiple fractures, a few days, maybe a week in the specialty clinic and you are looking at maybe twelve grand? Maybe more?
A blocked cat starts at fifteen hundred. A puppy with a sock stuck in his gut will set you back three grand,,, to start, complications, which can happen, will cause that to increase. And, remember these are all treatable. Maybe not accessible, maybe not affordable to the masses, but treatable doesn't change the fact we can help them.
So decide.. Take a chance, everything in health care is a chance, cough up a few thousand dollars.
Who pays if no one cares? What about if someone cares but no one can produce viable accessible options? Well I hope we all know the answer. The most obvious victim is the patient. They all too commonly pay for the blame with their lives. Why let them suffer any longer? There is after all no guarantee that they will recover? Why not just save your pennies from the risk of losing them, and your pet, and just blame the vet?
Your vet thinks that the blame is all yours, and, yours alone. Here's why;
- You waited too long.
- You never got the preventative care to avoid this mess.
- You weren't prepared for the bumps that are inevitable in every living things life.
- You should have had an emergency fund available.
- You shouldn't have spent two grand on this dog when it was a puppy and not be willing to invest 500 bucks in them at age 10 of never having spent a nickel the last decade short of dry crappy kibble.
- You should have saved your pennies for the pet you claim to so deeply love instead of getting your nails done, your tattoos done, your new car, your new phone, your boob-job.
The venom knows no bounds.
 |
| Always observant. My pups Storm and Fripp. |
You want to place blame? Go ahead it won't get us anywhere. But you can feel better about yourself can't you?
So here we are,,, living in a place where people want monthly wellness plans. They think they are getting a good deal. I mean aren't they? Well, maybe in the short run you are, but, ask yourself, better yet ask your vet at that corporate practice how much it is going to be for these;
If you have a male cat.. How much will it cost to unblock them? What if it happens at 2 pm on a Wednesday? Or 2 am on a Saturday? Are you prepared for these? Will they even help you if it does happen? Many, dare I say, most, will send you to the ER. Starts at about $1500. I know someone who spent $9,000. Can you afford that Wellness Plan now?
If you have a 3 year old Lab who ate 5 tampons and is now lethargic, vomiting and can't keep anything down?
What if you have a cat who likes to play with thread/string?
What about the German Shepherd with the basketball distended abdomen?
Or the dog fight dog who has multiple bleeding lacerations?
I know people who have spent $400 on a broken toenail. Want to place blame on exorbitant care costs? This seems like an easy target to start with.
If you are cold enough to look at these faces and not see a life worth fighting for then you will never understand why the blame is cousin to the hateful accusations you are going to get.
People love their pets. We veterinarians love our pets. If we don't love them anymore there is a blame based excuse at the crux of our armored indifference?
We are all choosing to live a life of blame based justification. It's safer here. No vulnerability, no guilt, no shame. No one cares after all, do they? Do you?
At this time and place the last local ER is closing its doors. For good. It was the last place I could send people at 2 am to have that sock, tampon, urinary stone, twisted gut, broken nail, etc.. to go. Now the only choices are two corporately owned clinics. They are bright, shiny, well-staffed and making some group of middle aged venture capitalists driving very nice cars, with very nice clothes and very cushy vacation homes in places we have never been. Want to live their life? Own a forty-thousand dollar bag that the K's tote their laundry in? Well, it's easy. It will only cost you every other pet with a face you cannot see beyond the doe-eyes for. Just turn them away, kill them as a resolution to their ailment. You don't care do you? You love your stuff more. Its not your fault is it?
You have bills to pay. Vet school bills, a mortgage, kids to put through college, a car loan, and you need your car so you can get to work. And those poor vet techs. If we don't pay them a decent wage we can't possible help the pets who need us. And if I don't buy the most expensive x-ray machine out there, and have loads of licensed techs I can't attract a decent vet to help me stay open all of the hours that my clients need me to.
 |
| Always adorable,, really innocent. Fripp. |
Maybe we all need to care more? Care about the choices you make? The businesses you support? The long term acute and emergent choices you make? Maybe the blame is so evenly distributed that one small change can start an avalanche of infectious cures? Maybe you are not prepared? Maybe you love your pets like children? And, maybe on some dark Saturday night at 2 am you will be living this nightmare that is called economic euthanasia so some corporate shark can drive a convertible in a snappy zip code? He doesn't care about you, or your pet? And, really, let's be honest, you don't care about him either.
 |
| Charleston. My senior, a local Humane Society find. |
I also have a YouTube channel, and the best place for free pet centered advice at Pawbly.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment