The reviews are in

There is a freedom to growing up. The kind that allows you to just stop caring about others and their opinions. Somewhere along the tripping path of life you realize that no one really is as invested in you as your worry permits. Your hair, face, body, intellect, all of the juvenile judgements that you might cast upon others just don't have to stick back on to you. 

Raffles and Birdie say hello

Veterinarians are a precarious bunch of perfectionists. We spend our whole lives making the voiceless matter. We spend countless days and nights bemoaning their fragile existence. We have only ourselves to blame, to hate, to lean upon. It is a pedestal of flower petals ready to take light in the breeze at any given moment. We exist in this place of pure emotionally driven action items. We seek comfort in a life that cannot make any decisions for themselves. We have power so crushing it dictates a suicide rate that is alarming in its own peaceful existence. There is no greater accolade than a pet parent who is made to feel good, whole, expunged and exalted in executing their power to provide a peaceful passing. Never has anyone been so grateful as when we provide a goodbye from all that we have been built and trained to avoid. Imagine that? Being beloved most at the time of your talents failings? How does one not seek warmth in indifference with these?

I have been conditioned to abandon accolades as equally as I have been castigated for advocating for the patients their parents no longer see worth within. It is a tango of twisted maneuvers you never master. While so many veterinarians now seek the avenue of at home euthanasia as a safe place to meet the professions challenges, I wish on many a day that it was not an option without a committee. That if the standard of care is to mirror and break the monopoly of advancements open to the two legged, non-furred beings then why not our own furred families? Where is the line for compassion and responsibility? These days it seems to lie firmly in the haves taking from the have-nots. Where is the morality in this?

With the open market of society comes the feedback. The reviews that the big guys can buy, bury, or expunge. The divorce of annulments that leaves whispers among parishioners as to whom was responsible?

Why does it even matter anymore? For every 1 star there are 10 other 5's. .. and yet Mr Google will send me an alert each time our name is brought up and the vote is sent. Each time I go there, in an attempt to clear an inbox, and face a judgement of some encounter with so many intangible variables it makes you pause to consider your intentions. 

If our work, our lives, our purpose and our value is representative of those rankings I take great soalce in knowing I was never going to be a 5, or an A+, or a perfect 10. What would the point be in any of them? Who wants to leave a life behind never knowing the heartbreak of a lost love? Who needs a crown when you can have a callous from tying too many sutures to save that splenectomy? Where is the bed of exhaustion if you don't sign up for that 150 pound gelatinous uterus slipping through your fingers like slime? Who among us came here for the yellow brick road and not the forest of the path less traveled?

Contentment

To all of you who know who we are, and love us in the midst of our worst days, I say a big Thank you! To the rest I hope that you fall flat on your face and just ask yourself how lucky you are to be there? We all spend time there so why not be prepared for the upside as the down makes her debut.

Here are some of the reviews I saw today;

"These folks are incredible. They saved my cats life today when I thought all hope was lost. I was an absolute mess in their office and they showed me compassion, empathy, patience and professionalism. I could not afford emergency services on a Saturday to save my cats life from a severe urinary blockage, but they squeezed me in anyway just to look him over. After believing my only option was euthanasia, and being there right when their office closed on a Saturday, they managed to pull together resources to help and the entire staff stayed late on a weekend to help my baby survive. I'm so grateful. What's even more amazing, this is not the first time they have showed me amazing compassion. During Covid, my elderly female cat died. Being the only office in the area open during lockdown, they squeezed me in then too, despite that cat not being a patient of theirs. She passed in the car on the way there, but when I arrived they took her body, checked her over, and placed her lovingly in a special box for me to bury. They didn't charge me a dime for that care. I can't say enough good things about them. I'll never take my babies anywhere else."

The reviews that matter are here

There are some 1 stars there too. 

They, most of them, came from the time I refused to euthanize a puppy. Or called Animal Control for a possible neglect case. Or, spoke out about a pup who waited days dying at home when help had been offered days before. When a client stormed the clinic, got a peace order against them and then had their whole family slam us online. There is no way to stand up for something and not have to face the crowd who doesn't like what you have to say. 

I call it integrity. But, the reality is that there are a lot of people who just get angry and become keyboard warriors behind a fake name or account. They can have their two seconds of feeling powerful and being a bully. But we all know that your dog knows who you really are. It's only that opinion that keeps me up at night.