Dancing in the Chaos. Cora-belle and Brittaney

 I sit to write each morning, (save for the surgeries days), to clear the clutter and calm the demons.

Me and Magpie.. morning coffee and cuddles in her windowsill at our home.

The day before is always, without fail, a thunderstorm of chaos set to a troops ballet of orderly bodily swoons. We are a veterinary clinic marred in last minute pleas to be seen, some of these dying, as they rush in the doors, and/or mysterious illnesses clutching the lives in moments of breathless abatements. There is never a quiet day, some are less heartbreaking, but, never-ever is there a day without a euthanasia or a spilling of tears at the delivery of an imminently dire prognosis. It can be jarring, draining and cruel. It is life set to motion on fast forward, condensed into a barely manageable work day as the promulgation of being a part of a community based place for decades. I depart home at 9 am, and I arrive back after 9 pm wondering if I have the strength left to brush my teeth, never mind undress from my bloodied, anal gland spritzed, poop/urine smeared scrubs. I melt into bed unable to unwind, process, or compartmentalize. After all of these days the decompression period I should provide myself with evaporates into unconsciousness. This is the justification based fodder for every social media post veterinarians make in response to a current smear campaign at our expense. We post our reality, the grit of our daily lives as a public service announcement in the hopes one soul with a torch in their hands leading the march to our demise over a case that didn't end in their favor will take pity. Unless you have danced this jig you don't know how hard it can be. I mention all of this as a preamble to today's painful sequence of events, and, for the blog, YouTube videos, and professional life-based pivot point I am about to journey upon. It is important for me, and the rest of the veterinary profession, to share these real-life stories of our days. If we can't be genuine with the everyday joy, pain, the losses and the motivations we need to have to rise up again tomorrow for another ballet of mental, physical and emotional marathons how can we expect the public, our clients who entrust their family, with our care? How can we ask for mercy in the face of animosity reaching hatred proportions?

Cora, face in the sun, with my pups;  Charlie, Storm, and Fripp.

Yesterday I euthanized Cora-belle. She was found standing in the middle of the road at the end of my driveway a decade ago. She most closely resembles Eeyore in every way possible. Short-legged, wide-stanced, stubbornly slow, and exaggerated floor length ears that mop as she saunters. I found her standing frozen straddling the double yellow line as I pulled out onto the road from leaving my house one morning. She was stoic as if given an order. After knowing her all of these years I know that was not the case; she has never taken a order in her life. Some primitive nod to defiance sluggish-sloth style. So, I suspect looking back now that she was simply paralyzed by fear. She was endearing for all of her curiosities. She was the face you loved once you knew her, it wouldn't come naturally. She never learned to walk on a leash. To move her you needed food and a short destination. Or, you carried her wheelbarrow style, pushing via shoving. Cora outlived all of my dogs. Sloth style wins. She was adopted out after a prolonged foster period to a family I now consider my own. They were fellow beagle lovers and their older beagle was at the clinic every other week for her anal gland expression, (another less adorable facet of beagles). Mysteriously, as so many of life's doings are, Cora's new family came home one day, just days after Cora's arrival and shockingly found him deceased. She landed here at my door, to be delivered postscript to them just in time. We all believe that. We know that for as many shortcomings as Cora had her timing was always impeccable and restorative. She dodged death so many times with so many ailments, dental challenges (like soft-serve-snot from both nares, twice, that required emergency dentals with end stage renal failure), impromptu bloodhound sniffing escapades as infrequent as they were frightful. one hour she was there, at your feet snoring, the next, Whoosh! Presto! Gone. It wasn't like she ran away. Ran was never in her vocabulary, short legs and "whoa is me" bravado. Nope, she just caught a whiff, let me nose meander and next thing you know there is a bellowing bay that sets the horizon on alarm. She was easy to find once her nose found its destination. It was her charm. One of her many.  Cora's kidneys were failing her for years. Tiny steps an clues that it was progressing, until a few weeks ago when it was confessed that she was confused more than could be safely managed. Last night, with her whole family present we said goodbye. I held her face, twitching with cloudiness, eyes claimed by cataracts and decayed corneas, and whispered my goodbyes in my typical pet-mom fashion. I said all of the things to her I always had, gave her that reassurance to not be afraid. Silently hoped to myself that she would carry those words back to my dearly missed departed dogs she vacationed with here at my home. That they would all be together happy, peacefully blissfully Beagling above. 

Cora, begging, while Jekyll waits for her to break my will power and distribute treats.

It is the magnitude of this burden, among the chaos of being needed simultaneously in three other exam rooms to help other pets, some with impatient, emotionally burdened, desperate, equally heavy chaotically-fraught-life people. It is this that vets try to excuse as our bad press marches on. 

They know what's coming.

While I was stealing a few pivotal moments with Cora, my colleague, the other vet in the clinic with me, was juggling three concurrent appointments while a family, one of the members a former staff member gathered to say goodbye to their life long family pet, Brittaney. She had a bleeding spleen, leaving her essentially bleeding out internally. Her bloodwork was awful, and she had multiple chest lesions which indicates the cancer causing the bleeding internally had spread everywhere. It is a perfect storm that no veterinarian would ever recommend treating for. I wouldn't have either had it been one of my own. This pup of 14 arrived at 2 pm. As she was discussing her preliminary findings the owner received a call that his mother-in-law just passed away. He left to go be with his spouse while we ran the rest of the pups diagnostics. The whole family returned hours later to say goodbye. Their day reminds me how integral we are to our clients lives and how small this town is. Both grandmother and Brittaney will be cremated together at our local funeral home. Life is like that. Brutal and poignant and bittersweetly wrenching just to remind you that our lives are given to us to feel them. 

Brittney

This is why I write in the morning. The cleaning, the folding the organizing. The baggage of lives, the honorable actions and the frailty of the lives we alter and influence. Veterinarians, me included, get so absorbed in the caring chaos we lose ourselves within the flurried storm. It is a ballet, trying to be a part of something that takes so much, and find our reasons to keep dancing when the music ques again. You will drown if you don't accept it, your part in the lives of others. 

For my dearly departed Cora; I will miss you with us. You were the determined, inconspicuous beagle we always knew existed inside. She was always looking for an opportunity or a couch. She spent all of her days considering one over the other and slowly shuffling, or, rapidly exploding into one or the other. We should all be so lucky to live a life of comfortable options.

For the next chapter of this journey, please follow me here. There are two very important blogs to post. Tomorrow morning is another chance for a new day, and the same ballet to attempt to come cleanly home for.

RIP Cora-belle and Brittaney. I am honored, humbled and grateful to know you and your families. It is a gift. I wonder how many other vets feel this as their greatest motivation to getting dressed in the morning?

Here is Cora's original blog post, so many years ago;

Cora-Belle, The Lucky Beagle