They Will Break Your Heart.

The months within the abyss never clarified the question. Was the sense of abandonment worse than the sense of loss?

Twenty five years later I still can't find the answer. All those many years ago, when I was the new bride with the husband asking for divorce I couldn't answer this question for myself. Would it have been better/easier if I had been grieving over his casket. Widowed, alone, and yet everyone would know my story without me actually having to mutter the words aloud. Sparing me the humiliation that his truth held. I could have had a life again. Someday. Sure, I would have lived in the shadow of our wedded life contracting so fast. Being so fresh and small then wiped away cleanly. The nuptials of a black holed loss. Our life together compressed with so much into so little. A proverb of a marriage story. Just a few sentences; we came, we tied the knot, we died. The End. But, nope. Me, my marriage, this story, had to have mystery. Intrigue. Substantial tabloid worthy dirt to smear with shame, horror, judges and public notices. Mine had to have an arrest. A secret charge for child endangerment. A pregnant teenager. A mother of same said pregnant teenager who called our house aghast at the thought her daughter was capable of complicit consent. 

He had left before. But, he always came back. When he left for good I realized he had only come back as some sense of pity. Imagine that. He pitied me, and I was the one with the clean record. Nothing more than guilt kept him. After a few weeks not even that was enough. That's a slap in the face with a reminder to listen the next time. Listen to what people tell you. Not only to what you want to believe you hear. I hadn't heard him the first time. I hadn't wanted to. 

While you watch other married couples around you treat their spouses far worse than you know you ever treated your ex the truth remains that they never left each other and yours did. Yours did it in everyway to make it feel soo atrocious you lost your own identity in the mire.

All these decades later I am not grateful for the time my ex-husband and I had together. I am still fuming from the way he left. What shit came out of that departure. My dogs and cats, the dozen plus little lives that I have lost within this same time frame, well,  I am still searching my insides for those little pieces they took with them from the weight of their loss. I miss every precious moment of everyday I had with each of them.

Frippie in the poppies. (Poppies seem appropriate, right?)

At a continuing education conference a few years ago. Three of us sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor, all hoping that it didn't have as many germs as we knew it likely did, eating our bagged lunches. I, always the oldest of the group of my vet school classmates, had by this time, owned my own vet clinic for about 17 years. They, they were 10 years younger and about 14 years shy of my ownership anniversary. New to the game, still optimistic in making all of the pieces fit, sat and talked about motherhood, toddlers and juniors of their own, and finding that elusive balance to it all. Me, I ate. I know better than to offer unwanted, pessimistic advice or lessons. They had loads of questions about bookkeeping, scheduling of staff, adequate staff to veterinarian ratios, payrates. Marketing, websites, inventory buying power, and cases that seemed too odd to be real. Their questions required minimal time to answer. They were most inquisitive about our internal slush fund, its use and my unwaivering dedication to treating every patient who crossed our threshold. They asked many questions. The one that I had learned and they had yet to feel first hand was that one lesson that time makes truest. 

"What's the hardest thing you have been through so far in owning your clinic?"

"Heartbreak. The cases can be difficult. The acceptance of life just not being fair. But, the hardest part above all, without question, is the staff. They will break your heart. You won't see it coming. You won't be prepared for it when it happens to you. You will question everything."

Its bereavement in shades of grey. 

Frippie, cold Sunday at home.

The stickiness of this, my own veterinary clinic, is the same glue trap of my existence. There is such great emotional depth here that it is impossible for it to not bleed into every other moment of our lives. It is the same canvas that paints a families portrait. Dysfunctional, adoptive, ugly with infighting at times, yet still all coming together in times of disaster, trauma, and need. We are that bunch. Proud as I am to have them all home for supper, each with children of their own. This clinic, our veterinary hospital, has weathered storms. Tragic deaths. Departures from unforeseen epidemics. Boyfriends, babies, and ambulances. Waves of changing tides, yet still trying to stay the same course. I have to be the one to leave this time. Abandon the web in the hopes it doesn't force exodus to those that remain behind. If I can logically see myself as the common denominator to all of this then maybe the problems solution remains in the crossing out, cancelling of the common thread? Afterall, excision is curative in so many other cases.

Storm, also never sure of much.

"What do you want to do?" My husband sat quietly across from me. Worried about not being there for me as much as saying the wrong thing.

"I just want to be a veterinarian, and still have a little time left for the rest of the life we amassed." Our house, now finally done. The cats and dogs all healthy enough to not leave me counting days, and pills and obsessing over calories in, weight loss out, and the pennies in the 'good day' versus 'bad day' jar to help measure the quality of life scale.  

"What are you most worried about?" He loves to live here. In the doubting-Thomas shoes. The red spiked tail and pitchfork always at the ready in his back pocket. 

"I am always to blame." You cannot feel anything other than this. The imposter friend. The imposter boss. Never truly a part of the group. Never in on the inside scoop. The pulse of the practice. Always aloft in the crows nest looking for a speck of dry land, or, the iceberg. Sure both are there re-plotting their courses to intercept yours. The sweeping line leading to the bullseye dead-center on your radar screen. Game Over. You know you will go down with the ship. They won't save a seat on the lifeboat for you. They never even counted you into the articles. 

I left the conversation with my business partner/spouse/wise old owl that he is, with this. "I understand now why Dr S and Dr L just walked away from their practices. They had no other way out. They hadn't become different people. They just couldn't stay trapped within their own prison any longer." I am not sure he heard me. It wasn't a nugget of information for him anyway.

In the end you will find yourself alone. Life will remind you periodically to get comfortable with this. It will remind you to be at home in your own heart. That people will tell you who they are. It's up to you to listen. They will come, and go, and try to come back again. You might not be the same person the second time around. It's up to them to listen to that person too.

Serfina

Me, well, the animals, the pets I adore, the places I always invested my whole heart within, well, they never broke me. They might have stolen my heart. Sent me into grieving as violently as anything else ever dared to, but they never broke my heart in a text message or email. Humans, they are the glue trap you will chew your own arm off to get away from. They are the ones you have to become at home with indifference over.  There are people who come and go. They don't have a calling card to notify. They have a history of half hearted attempts. Broken wings. Fledglings who keep flying to a different nest, but, never set up a home. Well wishes and bon voyage. What else can you do?

 It has taken me forever to learn this. I am never the person to leave. There are cobwebs on every facet of my existence. I don't know if I am the wiser or the poorer for this. I just know I am still here. Roots, legacy and epitaph intact.

The Sensuous Bean

Bollo's

I go to a particular coffee shop a street away from my apartment. It isn’t perfect. Not the perfect replica of the one I have spent the last 20 years trying to replace, but, it’s good enough. I feel a sense of belonging there. Silly, I know to find a sense of belonging in a $3 cup of coffee delivered to me in a tiny chit of a chat to make room for the other paying customers behind me. But it’s enough. Enough to feel warm within. Enough to call me back to every morning. Enough to find solace within, and comfort around. 

Gillies.

Most days it's just that. A large cup of black coffee; strong, dark, bold, intoxicating. I breathe it in. That first hello. Steam from its surface filling my foggy head with wakeful inspiration for the days needful wanting. 

Today, standing in line, I thought I saw her. She is always near. I can always feel her around me. But she has never appeared to me in human form until today. Today she was working far behind the counter in the small staff area half hidden from the line I waited in. Today she was there, standing back toward me, hair down, filling the monster coffee grinders just out of my view. And just for a second, the briefest of seconds, I saw her. I knew as my heart overrode my heads sensibilities that this was her. Her hair was long, straight, just past the shoulders, as it always was, with the tinge of silver her box color couldn’t confiscate. She was standing tall.  Taller than she had been in the last few years when the weight of the painful burden of her bodies betrayal had permitted her. Today she was 50 again. Time had slipped two and a half decades. Oddly, or poetically, this is the same morning our clocks had been pushed forward an hour. She worked quietly. I could only see a part of her from the back. Just enough to tell my heart that she was still among us. She had decided to hide in a coffee shop. She must have known I would settle upon this one. It’s deep, sensuous allure calling me in. The cry of a baby to its mom. It’s how we just sense the other needs us. 

Sensuous Bean

I know she turned around at some point. I know she did, but there was no face my mind could correct itself into seeing. Just the back of her. When it was her. The rest I don't need, and, so, I let her stay. 

No, I countered. It's not her. She never wore black. And yet between the coffee and the crowd I was content and comforted to just know she's near.

I spent the best part of 12 years sitting here studying.
Bollo's. My corner

Giving Up On Loving. The Ultimate Cost To Grieving.

Grieving has consequences. Serious, mind numbing, life paralyzing consequences. I call it the collateral damage to loving so much it hurts too bad to consider ever doing it again. Grieving is the yin to the deep love of living that is its yang.

I get it. I really, really, do! I know what grieving is. How hard it is to get through once you get pulled into it. I know what loving costs.

Me and my beloved Jekyll, at the oncologists office.

As a veterinarian I see pet loss and grieving daily. It is the painful sunset consequence to every jubilant new puppy and kitten exam we get to share. Where there is a beginning for these new bundles there is also often a decade or more of rich, deep love that at some point meets it end. That goodbye can cost more than anyone signs up for when they go to bring home their new companion. Saying goodbye often causes a forever farewell for many pet parents. I fear too often that their grief often comes with an ultimatum for never grieving again.

Overwhelmingly I get three responses when my clients lay to rest their last pet...

1. "We want to travel."

2. "They are too expensive."

3. "I never want to feel this heartbreak again. It's too much."

Do you wonder how many people say this to me? A LOT. I have started to classify them, and by "them" I include all people who have to say adieu to their beloved pets, into two categories.

Number one. My category. The place where sharing our lives with pets is our purpose. The people who can't imagine, nor have ever dared, to not have a pet in our life. The people who can't live, won't live, wouldn't even try to imagine living without a pet in their life. I am this person. I grieve but I get back in the saddle. Again. And, Again. It never gets easier to grieve the next time. Even with all my practice.

Number Two; everyone else.

.

Whenever I fear one of these reasons I always find it is almost impossible for me to answer these without clarifying who I am and what my life looks like.

Lewes Beach, delaware. My last vacation with my dying pup.

I LOVE to travel. In fact as I pen this I am on a train to NYC and then onto Boston. It is a 5 day jaunt. My three pups are with my parents. I am incredibly lucky to have parents who tolerate two puppies who most of the time act like deranged lunatics on an endless sugar high. The puppies love being there, and my parents love the puppy antics they entertain them with. We are a pet centered family. We all share each others pets and they share each others homes. If you aren't as lucky as I am to have family or friends share custody there are other options like Rover.com, or a boarding facility like my clinic runs. If you are a person who thinks that long term boarding, frequent boarding or even day trips are needed start acclimating your pup as soon as you get them. Make boarding a "normal" activity. Ask if you can start with a day or two a week and work up to overnights. Also get to know the boarding staff. They (we sure do) will send you daily photos, updates and help make their vacation as much fun as yours. If these don't work share your home with a pet sitter, or your pet can stay at doggie camp while you are away. If finances are tight a staycation, or working vacation are options. In some cases you can even bring your pet with you, although this might be too stressful for some pets. I have clients who chose to travel by motor home so their pets can be with them at all times.

The expense, well, all living creatures need appropriate health care, food, shelter, and these take financial resources. If you think that the emotional trade off has a financial restriction I can't argue with you, you just don't get it. There is no price for the love, devotion, and companionship they give for free. If you live within a tight budget, or need to budget for emergencies consider pet insurance, have an emergency pet fund, and find a vet like us who will help you with payment options if they are needed. Money doesn't have to be a defining limitation to loving a pet, but with all responsibilities that are willingly, consciously entered upon please don't adopt a companion if you cannot adequately compensate for them. I am not the veterinarian to preach about "don't have one if you cannot afford them," I am the veterinarian who will tell you from experience that the wealthiest clients don't necessarily make the most devoted parents. I will also adamantly state that caring for a pet with limited funds is possible. It takes a team approach. It takes honesty on the part of the parents. It takes openness, truthful discussions, devoted emotional investment that you share with the veterinarian, don't be angry at the vet, don't try to coerce, lie, threaten, manipulate, it will cost your pet and break the walls of trust that allow compromise to happen. I have managed difficult cases on a shoe string. It also takes a veterinarian willing to work with a budget and compromise. Not every vet does, and it is important to establish this very early on in the relationship.

Neutering Storm..

I can say this. There is a yin to grieving. There is a sunrise on the other side. There is a peaceful awakening when you open your life again to loving someone. There is also immense joy in opening your heart back up to another soul living in the today and joyful in the delight of the moment. Mourning often robs you of this. A distraction, a life to share, and a new place to build a future on is often the only thing that heals me.

I am a slave to loving my cats and dogs. It is an addiction like no other. I miss them painfully when I am away on vacation. But I am bursting with glee when they reunite with me. I mourn them when they pass on with a grief many non-pet people don't relate to, and I go on with another hopeful friend awaiting me somewhere. They are my constant source of hope and love. I still vacation, grieve them when they are gone, and invest in the care I owe them as my family.

I often tell people that I feel as if my life has been lived in chapters. Some were defined by places I lived, the events that occurred around them, but, most were overwhelmingly defined by my companions, the dogs, cats, and pigs who shared each place in time with me. They are the foundation to my life's story. The place markers, the main characters, and often the support system to get through.

Storm and Fripp.

As I lost Jekyll I gained two desperate disposed of souls who needed me almost as much as I needed them. If you have it to give cast it like seeds, watch them grow around you. It is what life means as it matters.

This is the balance to loss, living and loving again, for as long as this life will allow me.

For more information on pet loss and grieving please see my other blogs on this subject here;

Terminal Mom; The Pet Mom I Became As I Was Losing My Jekyll.

This Time Around. Coming To Terms With The Death Of My Dog.

The Phantom Effect. Pet Loss and Grieving.

The Aftermath of Pet Loss.

For more on Jekyll, his journey, and the process of digging myself out of the loss of him please see the past blogs on him here;

A Tribute to my Beloved Jekyll-Pup. May You Run Through The Fields Forever.

Jekyll

For more information on anything and everything pet related please ask us for free at Pawbly.com.

For more information on Jarrettsville Veterinary Center please visit our Facebook page, or website; JarrettsvilleVet.com

I am also posting lots of informative videos at my YouTube channel here.

Thank you for reading and sharing your life with the companions who remind us why life is worth working so hard to keep them in the lifestyle they have grown accustomed to.

Terminal Mom. The Pet Mom I Became While Losing My Jekyll-Pup

Death. It is unavoidable.. Un-avoidable!. In my veterinary day to day practice I see death most often creeping in like an insidious pestilence. The end,, that precipice place right before life meets forever absent, well that place, where I am mired now, that place sucks,, bad.

Your life and the way you see it, the lens you see everything through, changes. It has too, you have to filter out the clutter, minimize the distractions, focus on the living left to do. Life here at the transition out of it is like a vacuum, a quiet, lonely, absent, dark void.

I was one of those overprotective, hovering, helicopter moms. I have a beagle after all. You let those beagles out of your sight and off they go, into the clear blue yonder, nose to the ground, running, ears flapping in the wind their heels kick up. Beagles live on short leashes, or in kennels, or anchored to a pack and a leader. They make bad decisions if left untethered. Truth is they don 't know any better. It's genetics screaming at their primitive primal brain imprisoned by a nose that must follow where the trail lies, the bunnies are, and the adventure is certainly awaiting. They can't help it. They are a body enslaved to a nose they cannot turn off, nor ignore. I am that mom to a kid possessed, called, beckoned, reckoned to be elsewhere (except when the dinner bell rings or it is raining...beagles are bog avoiding babies in the rain). I am also the mom who keeps tabs,, makes sure they know where their kids are at all times.. I should say, was, I was that mom.

Now I am a mom with a kid on a short timetable. Weeks, maybe months, but damned unlikely to be a enough months to amount to a year. Life changes when the calendar gets to pages, single digits, pieces of a lunar fluctuation, or,  "this might be the last time we get to..." thoughts. My wishes for him have changed, come full circle. I want him to run, play, be the boy his beagleness calls him to be. We go for long walks, unleashed, unmonitored. He gets lost in being the boy with the nose in the dirt. We live without consequences in the wild. To die on the trail, possessed and unfettered by a disease that is eating him up from the inside, and backside out. If he passes while doing what he loves, being who he has always been, kicking up the scent he is intoxicated by, tracking his shadows and howling for their surrender I will be at rest with the unfair, unjust hand he was dealt. We all want our pets to die peacefully, in their sleep, oblivious to pain, in their beds at home. Me, for my hellion child, I want it to be living the life he was most fulfilled by. Running in the woods, being caught up in the moment and living the life of the boy he has always been, unleashed, undying, and blissfully euphorically purposeful.

 

P.S. I have to post this after Jekyll's passing. It was not completed in time to see his paw prints on my doorstep any longer.

I can tell you all that he got to be the beagle he was up until his last moments with us. He was loved, on his rolling hills of lush green and endless possibilities always calling him yonder.

P.S. Jekyll passed away August 26, 2018. I miss him everyday. I honestly didn't know how I would, or could go on.... but I did.. and I'm still grateful for everyday together.

For more on Jekyll, his disease, my struggle to get through it, and what the other side looks like, please follow this blog. Or you can find me answering questions for free on Pawbly.com, or, sharing cases, and living life helping other companions at my Jarrettsville Vet Facebook page, or on my YouTube channel.

Drugs, Drink, Or Die? The shitty shady side of my last 48 hours as a veterinarian.

This is glaringly obvious...

I need a full time shrink. You know like other rich white entitled women have assistants, or glam squads. I just need full access to a therapist at all moments of the day.

How else am I supposed to deal with the shit that I do?

I have considered excessive exercise. Some cathartic attempt to tone my temple to a place of self absorbed elevation. Dump all my time and energy (the tired dog has no bad habits model) into spin classes, Zoomba, Ironmans. But alas, I can't, or rather, don't want to. It's a little excessive and selfish. Especially when you think about how much time that's going to require.

Or, I start to drink excessively.. No, not this either. No path to enlightenment here.. Watch too many of your relatives die from the bottle.. Not interested.

Drugs, Nope.. I lack the stomach for this. End up another number on the police billboard for the class of 2019. And, I'm too old. (Vices, addictions are age dependent I think? Aren't they?).

So, I am left with creative license to try to deal with the shit I can't compartmentalize quickly and quietly into lock boxes.

I deal with too much shit. Vets, those of us who still show up and give a damned (pun intended people), and those of us still trying to manage getting through the shit without it eating us alive. (I could go off on a whole tangent of suicide in this profession. How pervasive it is. How abysmal our stats on suicide vs the rest of the population are. All the little reasons it happens. The chipping away of your fragile psyche as the world tries to break your compassion with fatigue that has no end and any healthy outlet. But that is already widely publicized,,,,, I hope?)

I have resorted to blogging instead. (Slightly cathartic and even minimally effective), and, cutting back my work schedule. The tactic of minimizing exposure in the hopes the stats of the one absolute awful humans walking amongst us in society between the hundred of amazing humans I see daily. (There is always one psychopathic serial murder in a pack. Stay small. Be quiet. Hope some other victim is met sparing you the slaughter).

Blogging is great, (i.e. here I am,) but, there is still something lacking with it. My coping mechanism to handling the shit I get dumped on me isn't absolved via a blog. (hard as I hope and try)...

Getting my shit sorted out effectively AND in a healthy manner requires more than sitting down and vomiting my complaints to the world wide web. It requires an outlet bigger than that.

Here's how shitty my shit can get.. and why I need more places to put stuff. Hide it so I can try to resolve it, not let it eat me into oblivion, later.. You'll understand.

Here's a few examples of my shitty life as a vet... And to shorten my list to something people will actually try to plow through I am just reviewing my last 2 days.

The Lying, Thieving Neighbor:

The setting; new client with dog is here for exam and vaccines.

The protocol; every new client is asked to provide information on themselves, basic stuff like address, phone number, and email address for the purpose of notifications and legal criteria. We aren't like human hospitals where we must meet and provide HIPPA, but close. And we are every so often to provide proof of vaccination status to law enforcement in the cases of bite injuries. We take protecting our patients and clients info very seriously. We never provide info without scrutiny first. And even then we still never do.

The case; Quiet, reserved, somewhat shady looking arrives with jubilant compact tan dog in tow. The guy makes a point to tell you within the first sentence that you meet him that "he is a lawyer." The adorable pittie pup at the end of his leash is jumping around the room elated to be in public with lots of people who love pitties. Her name tag says "Olivia," the gem of a girl who is loved. He is a new client, a guy noir neuvo. He wants us to have her examined and update her vaccines. Olivia is not a puppy, obviously. She is a full fledged adult and she has probably been to the vet before. But, upon initial questioning he has no medical records and no clear idea of when she might have last been seen by a vet or vaccinated. My savvy technician takes her to the back treatment area and scan her for a microchip. Guess what? Yep! She has one! And guess what else? This guy still isn't a client, BUT Olivia IS!.

We go back into the room to discuss our findings and he says, "I haven't been completely honest." (shocker).

We call Olivia's mom. She has been looking for her for days. Has been filing missing dog reports and now her missing Olivia is here. With us. Great lucky joy she is safe and found.

It goes on.... She (Olivia's mom) calls back minutes later to say she doesn't want her back... she is after all running away often she admits.

She calls back again minutes later and says she does. Starting to see the problem here yet?

We are confused... We are torn. All we really care about is the best interest of this dog. Where is that in this mess? Whose side are we now rooting for?

We call Animal Control, which, thank goodness, is a part of the Sherriff's Department. We walk away wondering.... why do people steal pets?.. Well, they are either shady and use them as bait dogs, or sell them, OR, they think they are a better parent than the original parent which means they know them, they are neighbors and how you gonna hide that body?

The shit we deal with.... we save a lost dog... we have an angry lawyer because we stuck our noses in his shit,,, (oddly he confessed he already had three other dogs and didn't need anymore,, and he went to a different vet. Why did he come here? Maybe his original vet would have stuck their noses in his shit? Or, maybe not? Please just go away... like forever Mr. Lawyer-shady-guy).

And we have a client with an unfulfilled dog in need of more exercise, more supervision and more people to love and take care of her.

And people wonder why vets kill themselves? Clearly this is beyond my vet degree, AND, we are now scanning every pet with a microchip and scrutinizing those who decline them. (yes, we do stick our noses in other people's shit,,, I go back to dilemma of giving a damn).

(PS Olivia is not her name.. Mr Lawyer had changed it, gotten a new name tag, and did he really want her? Is he just a guy who cares and maybe went about it the wrong way? and how do I sleep at night?).

Case Number Two. Angry "Kill My Dog ASAP!" woman.

The cast; New client, new patient.

The stats on the cast; New client states that she just moved here, can't remember where her previous vet was, and the dog is a 14 year old lab.

The setting is ripe for disaster in my eyes already. I can see this emotionally devastating tsunami coming. Had I been the receptionist I would have found some creative way to discourage her from coming here. It is a vibe we get. Not concrete. Just a feeling. Thwart destructive people before they enter the front door in every case possible.

The next example of fried burnt out vet meets "I can't handle this shit" is the never met before woman, with the equally never met you before patient who makes an appointment to euthanize her dog and goes ballistic because she isn't seen immediately for her appointment. (This is not a proud moment for us. We get behind because we invest our whole heart and soul into every patient and these cause poor time management). She gets impatient. Really, really impatient. She then gets even more heated and ticked when we inquire about this never seen before dog who is here to be killed,,, We call it "euthanasia" because it is prettier, but let's not cloud the issue,, it is death,, no going back from that. She goes to a place that is irreparable. She starts screaming and charging through the clinic. She puts her dog in the car, yelling foul things, like a two year old without the toy she wanted, but didn't get in Wal-Mart, and then upon the intervention as I try to smooth things over I foolishly say "We don't know you, or your dog and we need to insure proof of ownership and rabies status." (And, I want to say, and who gets defensive about that?)

The worst part of this whole thing is how happy her dog is.. How much he has no idea about what is going to happen and how sick we all are to witness it.

Is this about us? Jeez, I hope not. It is not a dog we can see as being suffering. It is a dog who is older, ( reason enough for many), and she is ALL ABOUT HER. We are her servants. We aren't supposed to have a heart or a soul, We don't know her story. We don't. But his, this sweet dogs, seems apparent.

Shitty online review from her follows.

Once again soul crushing disgust in lacking humanity ensues.

So I sit here. Dilemma of the day; drink, drugs, therapist, exercise. VENT!

Get out alive people.. Pets you are at the mercy of these humans I hope to be able to hide in the pack from.

P.S. New JVC protocol; Don't call us and request a euthanasia if we don't know you. Sorry, not sorry..

Shit like this. People like this, cases like this, happen every single day at every single vet clinic. No one talks about them. We may joke internally. Share each others beaten empathetic complex. Share the burden of the pets we feel got cheated by the people who they relied on most. But most of us just internalize the frustration. Let it chip away at our fragile souls until we give up. We kill ourselves because of the shit we can no longer swallow healthily. We die internally as we comply. Find utter indifference. Abandon caring because it just hurts too much to do it anymore.

Me, single me, I am getting out alive. Protecting my heart and soul running for the goal post cradling it like a gladiator in the arena of compassion fatigue.

Those two pups in this story, I also carry them. The impact of their stories. One now deceased and one without a happily ever after ending.

Here's to praying the meek inherit the earth and do a better job than humans did.

For more information on everything and everything veterinary medicine related please follow me at my other social media places;

Facebook. The Jarrettsville Vet homepage is here.

YouTube, Krista Magnifico

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This Time Around. Coming To Terms With The Death of My Beloved Pup..

Veteran territory. I have been here before. The wound is soo deep it seems fresh, draining, life threatening. Death has been to visit me before. We haven't come to terms with each others presence, nor purpose. IT is still an unwelcome intruder. Albeit, ominous and undeniable, still IT calls, I collude, and yet, IT always wins, as I feign fractured and defeated. Again, and, again.

Our pets never live long enough. You can try to push the limits of pet-mortality with purchasing a parrot,, get yourself a good chance at a millennia, but dogs, if you stay mainstream canine, are lucky to see their teenage years, incredibly blessed if they hit two decades, and if you like to go big, or even "giant" you may not ever see double digits together.

I have learned that my heart can barely handle this pain every 10 years. I need, want, choose, hope, pray, beg, for a decade of longevity. Turns out my track record reflects this. "The older I get, the smaller my pets get." It is a hard-learned trade secret to try to spare me the loss every 5 years, or so, and it allows me to be able to carry them when their winter starts to wither and their bones can no longer support their ambulatory requirements.

The last few years has marred me with the loss of two beagles; Jekyll (just last month), and Savannah, a few years ago.

It took me weeks to get out of the grey fog I was flailing in with Savannah's loss. I just couldn't get out of the programmed repetitive daily motion I had become so accustomed to. The getting up at all times of the night. The managing her hysteria, messes, and failing functions. Undoing the habitual duties she set into my daily life took time. All the while desperate to go back to that place of interrupted sleep that her deprived mania brought just to have her back with me. But her loss was explainable, excusable, sensible. She had made it to 16. A ripe old age. A respectable age for any dog. She could be grieved but not denied a silver lining sentiment for surpassing the acceptable tenure. I could complain that her loss hurt, but I couldn't expect sympathy that she hadn't been afforded a long loving life.

Savannah

Jekyll, my most recent loss, another beagle, passed away at 8. He got cheated. I have anger lining that grief. Bitter shards to embalm him in. Seething pain to intern him with. Dust to damnation. A cursed cruel loss.

jek

The pit of my grief with his death lies here. The time frame cut too tragically short. The agony of desperate attempts to buy another "good" day for him. The exhaustion in losing the big battle. The responsibility I feel as having been the ultimate master of his destiny and purveyor of his curtain call. It is a terribly painful place to be. The ultimate responsibility can leave you with the lifetime of despair in second guessing and brow beating every previous decision. Sad couldn't begin to capture my angry bitterness. Except to mar it with also feeling responsible. That little fact made it crushing to swallow, impossible to move on, and fraught with such self doubting so that no piece of me was big enough to reassemble.

The days after his passing were simply about getting up, getting dressed, crying in the car to work, choking on grief and visible despair , all the while attempting to trudge into a day I dreaded facing. It also brought me back to why. The why of this profession? The immense magnitude of the responsibility we carry. The joy and the pain and the immeasurable grief it brings when you build a life around another.

The why we let them into our homes and hearts? The why we incorporate them into all parts of our lives? The why it is so easy to love them and yet so impossibly hard to lose them?
The why is the reason for everything we do as a parent and a veterinarian. It is important to always remember the WHY's?

I can love this pup, let him go knowing life too often works in its unfair ways, and not be ashamed, embarrassed or surprised when it repeats itself in my clients lives. If you can't feel a loss you cannot love. They are inseparable. It is what makes a vet a real person in the right profession for the right reasons.

I know this. I believe this. The tough part is living this when my own heart is shattered after losing the little one I loved so completely. It is grieving. Understandably. Grieving without withdrawal from ever opening your heart again is what I believe to be the most devastating part of pet loss. This is where I spend time talking to clients. It is normal to grieve. Grieve, however you need to, for you. Take time for yourself. Make a place to memorialize your pets life. A place to know you can go to to tell them how much you miss and love them. Live in the memories of your time together. But, try to not blame yourself. Try not to get stuck here. I know it is hard. I spent weeks here feeling like I, me the great powerful veterinary healer, could surely have saved my beloved boy. I had time, financial resources, access to the best specialists. Every tool to make him survive even the worst disease. It didn't happen, He left too soon. I lost him. I failed him.

Me and Jek at the oncologist's office.

That was exactly how I felt. Can you imagine how everyone else who doesn't have a decade of being a doctor, a clinic at their disposal, an Army of specialists, a bank account dedicated to dog care feels?

We will all lose a love because life always meets death. But giving up on loving again, ever having a pet again, that's where the real tragedy for me is.

So many clients give up after their pet dies. I think they feel it is too painful to go through again, or, like me they feel as if they will never find another pet who fills the shoes, measures up to the caliber of loyal/obedient/dedicated/wonderful there pet did. It is natural to not want to feel awful again. But not feel again? That's a loss that costs more than any heart should endure.

You cannot go through life living it if you try to not feel it,, good, bad and everything in between.

We all write the chapters of our own book. My book, each deep rich chapter of it has always been delineated and defined by the four legged family who made the tapestry the vivid, meaningful experience it was. The many homes, the varied geography, assorted jobs, were all the background that set my stage for each chapter whose central characters were always the dogs, cats, and pigs who made this life colorful and rich. They were, and are, the most important and meaningful pieces of the life I created and treasure. Some took up hundreds of pages. Some saw me through decades of questions trying to create the adult the kid was dreaming of. Some were short poems, a life too little, too fragile and too small to last past a haiku on an abbreviated page. But I am a richer, wiser, more content and accomplished thanks to their acceptance, love and wisdom.

You would think that with all of these chapters, all of the times I have been through loving and losing them that I would be better at grieving? My previous practice would make perfect assembly line efficiency of recovery? Yeah, not so much. I still invest whole heart immersed, drown in despair with loss, and trudge ugly through getting over it. Practice has not made perfect, unless that perfect implies pitiful.

The loss of Jekyll and Savannah took me weeks, months, longer/forever, to come to terms with. I will never "get over them." They were too monumental for that. All I wanted from myself when getting through their loss was to not give up. It was all I could hope for. They were loved. (I can say that with total conviction). There are millions (millions) of equally deserving (I can say that with complete honesty also) who never know a kind hand. I still have that to give. I may be broken and hurt, but I can still be kind to a furry face. I have to think beyond me. Society, civilization rests on this. It does transcend past human to human. Anyone who has ever loved a pet knows that. The world is better for all of us because we can love each other, regardless of size, shape, color, claws, fur, or fins. Love that is compassion is the key to life. All life and all living. This is what I believe, and remind myself of when reeling in loss.

Here's what happened to me after Jekyll passed away. I cried a lot, for days, weeks.  I told the people around me that while I appreciated their sympathy I couldn't talk about it at work. I had to stay busy and focused around the grief.

After two weeks I started trying to put my toes back in the water. I started looking at the pets in the shelters and at the local rescues. None of them were Jekyll. None of them pulled me into compulsion to step forward for them to come home with me. None of them were Jekyll. I was looking for that face. That smile. Those ears. Some tiny resemblance to jar me into adoption and out of affliction. I realized that obviously I wasn't really ready. I wanted to be ready. I just wasn't. I started spending loads of time with Charleston, my other dog. The left behind dog while we were all so focused on Jekyll. He had been neglected while Jek took so much of my time to monitor, treat, and obsess on. I owed him help in his grieving to. He was as heart broken as I was. We went on lots of walks, changed the room around. Got new toys. A little distracting helps pets adjust to a different routine and life. He got quiet and withdrawn. He missed his instigator and boisterous beagle brother. He was always the shadow behind that dynamic personality. He never saw his own sunshine  without Jekyll pointing the way.

Charlie was depressed.. But, he seemed more than withdrawn. He seemed deflated.. Vet mode mom kicked in (although it felt like paranoid vet mom). What would I do if he was dying too? Charlie's blood work revealed a low thyroid. I put him on medication to see if this would help resolve his lethargy, depression and sadness. It helped quite a lot. He started to wag again.

The next set of events changed everything. It added a new chapter and pulled me out of isolation and despair. A hurricane hit. Storm landed. (more on him soon). Hurricane Florence lands.

I added two very sick puppies within 3 weeks. We needed each other. I remembered I had a purpose outside sadness. I am alive again with them. I can go on. Being needed and loved helped me remember to start writing the next chapter, again. I was pulled out of grief by two sick puppies. I reinvested my energy into them, constructive caring, versus my grief soaked couch. Charlie, well it took about a week to realize they were residents, but when he could no longer ignore their incesant chew-bite instigation, he started to play. Within two weeks we stopped his thyroid meds (there is no medical study to back this, but its true). Charlie, and I, were back with the living.

I wasn't ready. I have no idea how long we will get together. But the time with them is far better than the wallowing in despair. We need each other, all of us. Loneliness is the gateway to despair and my puppies are waiting for me at home.

To all of those out there drowning in grief I hear you. I know. There is a way out. Reinvest your whole self in a pet. They need you as much as you need them. You can help each other to the shore. I send you all love and support.

For more information on who Jarrettsville Veterinary Center is please visit our Facebook page, or our website.

If you have a pet question or a story about your pet to share so we can start to help others who might be in the same situation you are (or were), please visit us at Pawbly.com. It is free to use and open to everyone.

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