The Well Stocked Heart And The Anemic Fridge

It's a 1941 Westinghouse. White enameled, has poor food storage abilities, weighs a ton, and requires frequent defrosting. It's big enough for the two of us although it barely holds enough for two scant meals; one entrée with sides, but, no room for dessert, or appetizer. Its a throwback from a time long ago, where all meals were home cooked and nothing was wasted. It befits me. It also helps to explain, in part, why I'm always hungry. 

My kitchen, my little fridge, and my pups waiting for dinner

I have lived all of my years always feeling hungry. My mother weighed 90 pounds, she would brag about it. She never smelled of cigarettes or vodka. She never smoked, or drank. She liked one cup of coffee in the morning and to order four things from the dinner menu when we would go out. Price was irrelevant. She never paid when she was with me, and she never ate half of what was brought to her. She was a mouse, a bird, waif. She could blow away in a breeze. Tiny at 5 feet. Never an ounce of fat, or a hair out of place. She had kids at 20 because it solidified her standing as housewife. We, her kids, were all always hungry. Why would anyone cook if you always desired to be thin above all else? My life as a child was full of outdoor escapades with our Border Collie, my pet sheep and my pony. I fed them religiously their breakfast and dinner. We adored each other for as much as we needed each other and I took excellent care of them. My mom, well, she was a housewife, but never a cook, and never a snacker. She raised her kids the same.  We worked everyday of our formidable lives, like it, or not.

My mom and I collecting pumpkins

Today I am a vet in the country,, but, not the same one I aspired totally to be. I am a worker bee, as much as I may be the queen of my own veterinary hospital, but the days are long and the cases rapid fire. I am a servant to cats and dogs, no hooves, no fields, no trucks nor coveralls. White coat, comfortable shoes and long, long days with overbooked hours and a community I feel embedded within. This week is like the two decades of weeks that predate it: full of the never ending list of pages from my emergency meets internal, entwined in surgery life. This week I have also been foster mom to Cheerio and Waffles as a matter of the local health departments mandate. 

Cheerio and Waffles

They are 8 weeks old. They were brought in with their feral momma and a speck of black fur brother. He was the only boy in the lot and about half the size of his sisters. The flurry of technicians I work with are girls who keep me running and remind me that youth is not wasted on the young. They are a tightly bound bunch of skill and talent who giggle as much as they heal. They are the hive, always abuzz and working with a fervor of laughter and efficiency. They name all of our flock, the little charcoal speck who came in with his sisters was dubbed Scrapple, a run on a theme of food items that elicit warmth and comfort. There is never a time that we aren't housing, rehoming or saving a pet no one else wants to rally for. I am as much guilty for this as they are. It is our daily affirmation to give more than seek to get back. It is our glue. The faces of our purpose and our real-life examples of vet med to help build the techs own mental medical encyclopedia of experience. Two weeks into their stay with us Scrapple declined. Within days he was unable to walk and barely conscious. He came home with me over last weekend and I euthanized him Monday when he looked like a non-responsive, non-ambulatory, scrap of pelt. I submitted him to the state lab in a tiny garbage bag for rabies five days after he fell ill. He has become the second kitten in 5 years to follow this fate. A kitten with a wound and a decline that warranted decapitation for cytology. Scrapples came back positive for rabies. As I headed off to the hospital for rabies post exposure vaccines Cheerio and Waffles were ordered to stay quarantined for four months. They will be 6 months old when their sentence is up. The dreaded too big to be cute, and unlikely to be adopted as people seek kittens over adolescents or adults. For reasons that depress me the health department reminded me that every other vet they knew would just wash their hands, euthanize Cheerio and Waffles and move on. I get it, four months is a long time in kitten days, and I have a staff of people to protect, but this life, anything involving medicine isn't/shouldn't be about quick, or easy. So, they are staying with me, either at the clinic house, or my home for the long weekends and holidays for their required 4 month long rabies quarantine period. They are a smattering of orange and black on white luxurious fur. They are explosive pistols of jumps, pounces and curiosity. They play so hard they sound like stampeding water buffalo on the ceiling. They are in the guest room in my home. It is above the kitchen where I write, sit with my dogs in the morning sun, and drink my am coffee. The clinic is too quiet and lonely on the weekends and they need a large can of kitten food every 8 hours. They are ravenous kinetic beasts burning calories so fast the litter box needs to be cleaned with each snack time. They are so healthy, all fat, fur and purrs. They are the recipe for perfect animal husbandry; play, eat, pee/poop, play, nap. They will become 10 pound examples of ideal rearing. The epitome of a grain fed collegiate bound linebacker. There isn't one need they won't have met before they realize it to be desired. Every living soul should be as lucky. 

Scrapple, very sick

I can explain my obsession for pets, pet care, the long road to, within, and from vet school in this same breath. I was hungry, desperate to not feel this, and overwhelmed with a fear of being alone so powerful the hunger never motivated much protest. It has always been the same theme. 

All these years later I find it a bit perplexing that the stature I have grown into still leaves me feeling hungry. I made some choices along the way to adulthood. First that if the animals governed every decision I made then I could not eat them. I certainly couldn't wear them either. Vegetarian at 12 in a home that requires the father to cook leaves you skimping on the side dishes. I ate a lot of veggies. I have lived on them. I moved out at 16. I ended up at a military college with a uniform, a shaved head and a mess hall with horrible food. I used to joke that it was so bad, like almost all of the ships I sailed on for the 10 years after, that I was left to decide whether they were or were not vegetarian. I ate my weight in PBJ for 10 years. Vegetarian is not a recognized religious right. Ships, academies, and the men who run all of them feed us like livestock. Maximum calorie meals in a slop-like stainless steel pan. If you are going to be at sea for 4 months at a clip fresh fruit and veggies aren't what you pack.

My friend of 20 years died recently. We all gathered at her home the day after to try to share our disbelief, and reckon with our turmoil. She had been well, happy, and her normal gregarious self the day of her outpatient procedure. Dead 12 hours later. She was unknowingly carrying around a liver full of cancer and her biopsy procedure sent the contents spilling into her abdomen. The doctors fought for hours to stop the hemorrhaging, but they could not. She passed away in a hospital bed from a needle that should have been too small to allow the flood gates to fail. It is almost impossible for me to imagine this can happen, save for my medical degree, and innumerous abdomens I have opened to be shocked by their hidden secrets. I have had to call parents to implore them to not wake up their beloved pets as the cancer had infiltrated and eviscerated all the organs within. I had to make this call last year for a 2 year old dog with a suspected foreign body obstruction. The obstruction had turned out to be cancer that was constricting the intestines in so many locations I could not remove them all. As all of us settled into her living and dining room to share our stories and an endless box of tissues we decided to start cleaning up the mess of 20 people and our casseroles. I went to put leftovers away. Her fridge was a double door walk in closet. Packed from top to bottom. She was a fabulous cook and her dinners were infamous. Her fridge, like so many other parts of her life were abundant with pieces to create into masterpieces. We all joked when COVID quarantine hit, or a snow storm loomed. She was prepared for months long stays in her own home. She didn't need to drive to survive a weeks long stay-cation. She is survived by her poodle, aging, long list of daily medications checked with date and time, the patient who never misses a meal, a lap, or his routine. As I walked through her kitchen he followed my footsteps. He is almost totally blind, likely the same for hearing and yet his nose searched for her among all of us.

Linda, Noodle, and her walk in fridge

Vetmed is like this. Alone. We are alone in so many cases, with so many unknowns, that we too often become paranoid, or, detached, or both. We empty our hearts so many times we forget to restock. Or, we eat, drink, or medicate to remind us to feel something again. 

Linda and Noodle at the clinic, just a few weeks ago

I had lunch with an ER vet yesterday. They confessed to going into vet med for the love animals over people, but admitted that it has become easier to remind yourself to not love these patients more than the owner does and not care if they chose to euthanize versus treat, or cure. To have been worn into this five years into practice is the reality I know many other vets, esp those in ER medicine, share. I was asked how I kept myself from this place. I replied that I am never going to abandon who I am. That I came here to take care of pets, and as an extension their families. I remind myself I carry a huge advantage in understanding the path a patient is on. Just that one simple fact, the road being familiar, is enough to make the journey less paralyzing. I know what all sides of this dilemma, all routes of this journey look like. I have lived through it enough times to know it isn't personal, it isn't meant to be a stopping ground. It is a storyline in a tributary to a life full of challenges, magic and heartbreak. There is not a way to live life with one and not accept the others. Our clients don't have this advantage. This is all new to them. I am here to help them navigate both the good, the bad, the easy and the heartbreaking. I accept this as my responsibility to both them and my patient. I have to make the journey a story worth listening to and living through. I cannot satiate the hunger by shoring up my heart so that it becomes impenetrable. I have to tread very carefully in not being a party to this happening in the lives around me; my staff, my clients. 

The answer to their question is two fold. I remember that to walk into my clinic with your pet means that they care about them. How many people don't even care enough to do this? If it seems that we are at a stale mate about how to proceed with the patients care I talk about every option in every outside box to make a miracle a possibility. I use words like; "what does it take to help you find a better answer for your pet?" this is often associated with payment plans, pro bono, or some hair brained deal like, "if it works you pay me, if it doesn't you don't." I even offer to relinquish ownership. I do euthanasia's pro bono if there is little else to do outside of watching continual suffering. If nothing works I forgive myself and I remind everyone that I took an oath. That the state I am licensed in requires me to report abuse. Neglect, abuse and the nuance of these is up to Animal Control and a judge to decide. Nothing good ever comes from this ultimatum. I have learned that the hard way. I never want to end up in this place, therefore I will offer anything and everything to avoid it.

My fridge is always anemic, my heart, my soul and my sense of purpose on my professional determination and passion to be here is not. It's easier to get up and decide your preference is the road less bumpy. The sales pitch that makes the client happier, even at the patients expense. How many of us do that? its not why I am here. If you can't put your kids before yourself I'm not your girl. 

My girl is sitting on a floor telling her rabies quarantine kittens that they are in good company, along with her other animals from lots of far off, and not so far off places,, many of which who are often less hungry at any given moment than she.