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 Turmoil Of Contemplating and Deciding How Long To Fight For Your Pets Life

Jekyll has been actively dying for 6 months.  Getting here is like living in a dark tunnel you try to claw to the light from. It is an abyss of emotions that leaves you struggling with minutia details that define your whole day. You live your life in snippets that are defined by day and night and rarely last longer than a 24 hour time frame. You don't make any plans at all,, for the near future. He is dying and I am not going to miss a minute of it,, the living we have left to do that is..

For me it means I have cancelled (or rather, failed to make or dream of) any Summer plans. My scheduled list of Summertime activities which has always included a few days away to Cape May on the Weds through Friday before Memorial Day, my week to the beach for sand between my toes and a long awaited escape book, and my hopes for day trips to my favorite spots, are all laid aside for now. I would happily exchange each 'escape' trip for another day with him.. and so I do. I cancel everything, I make no plans, and remind each invitation that "I cannot commit at this time."

I live in limbo. I fight in moments.

I ask myself over, and over, and over, where my line is? Where is that place that is The End?

The abyss of dying. Of knowing you are there is where I define who I am. The adage about;

We veterinarians rarely get to that Holy Grail place of ... and the "Diagnosis Is". We plod instead in Obscurity and Guessing. These are too often the place of decisions and dire consequences in veterinary medicine. We are presented with a patient and a parent who is describing a set of clinical signs. A series of incongruous clues we try/attempt to string together into a neat series of features to fit a diagnosis and allow us to define a course to cure.

There is a short dire list of diseases you don't escape alive from. Jek picked one of those. One of the diseases that is only met by "I'm sorry," when you reveal it to another veterinarian. It is just a disease with a Hallmark card footnote. Jekyll picked a disease that is always cured by death.

For me the problem, the real life dilemma lies now in knowing where our line is?

I have been grappling with this for a long time. Perhaps made more acutely painful by the not too distant memory of Savannah who fought for a year to not die. That was a year of trying to keep her happy and alive. I vividly remember the exhaustion and uneasy release of the burden that caring for a pet so intensively takes. I remember being so tired after I finally said goodbye that I felt guilty to feel relief from that intensive care she required. I could bury her with the weight of relief that surrendering to a force you cannot defeat brings. Oh, my, God, was I spent. I was so tired I hid for days. Just sleeping and processing what life might look like and feel like without her. I remember waking up the next day feeling as if I was not used to the house so quiet and still. The fretful chaos had departed. I also remember catching myself in panic stricken moments thinking I had forgotten her outside, or hadn't heard her in a little while therefore she must be stuck/distressed/etc. The panic attacks after her passing were after shocks from the daily worrying I had grown so used to. I had to resolve these along with the grief of not knowing what to do with an easier day-to-day life. I also remember looking at the puppies she left behind, Charleston and Jekyll, who had existed around Savannah's needs for a year. I had essentially ignored them and overlooked how good they were. They had been quietly waiting for my time and attention. I remember the guilt of that too.

When you find yourself in a place where questions collect unanswered, and the ability to move in any direction is mired with contemplation so profound you end up paralyzed, you seek advice from mentors, friends, and confidants. That, well, this quest for finding myself an answer, the one single answer I am still trying to find,

"When do I give up on him?"

is not giving me answers I am satisfied with. I have asked so many people. (Heck, I am supposed to be the expert on this..).

I know why I am not able to answer for others, and I cannot come to terms with why I cannot answer for myself.

I am not another person. I am me.. way too over invested. Way too attached, and equipped with lots and lots of options (granted some are borderline crazy-town) to not be forced to give up. A large tool box and options are the curse of having the freedom to impracticality.

As a veterinarian in the trenches everyday I have to give parents terrible news about their pets health and prognosis. I do not ever underestimate the magnitude of this, nor the consequences if I am wrong. I have to be so careful to not over-promise, under-deliver and pass around prognoses based on scant advice. IF, I give a pet a dire prognosis I damned better be better than 100 percent sure of it. Lives are given up on if I hand out a premature, or an inaccurate, death sentence. I am not perfect, and no person knows all. Veterinarians, doctors of all persuasions, need to remember this. Many a person will not be able to afford long term end of life care, many more will simply chose to not strap into this lifeboat to nowhere, and others have lives who cannot weather terminality.

I learned a long time ago to be very careful with my diagnosis of certainty. You never know how people will react and act to impending, pain, suffering, or dying.

As for me, I am trying desperately to look the creeping insidious crusade of death in the eye and stare it down... for as long as it takes.

It is the person I have asked others to consider being. Unafraid of in-eventuality and inevitability.

Life remains, for me, at this singular time, a quest. To see what I am capable of, what life brings for us to enjoy at this once-in-a-lifetime moment, and to stay on the pursuit for another meaningful moment in a fleeting life's journey.

Life or me, and my beloved beagle Jekyll exists in a place where only today matters, tomorrow is a veiled shadow of uncertainty and a line of life meets death that I cannot define.

I do not know where that place is that I give up on him. I know there are a million excuses and reasons I can give to say that it is here and now. But, I made a promise, I hold a commitment and it isn't a clearly narrowly defined moment. It is days, and little suggestive clues, and a compromise that I will find a way to say goodbye while not denying him a chance to find a meaningful moment in the shadows that grow nearer.

I have pushed death much harder than most of my clients do. I do not presume to say I am right about this. That they aren't more forgiving and compassionate than I. I can only live my own life, and beat myself up for my own decisions. I do not know what is best, nor do I know what is concrete and without exception. I accept that Jekyll is leaving me sooner than I want, but I will not let it be without a chance to gain another day, good or bad, hard or easy. My line is not here, and it is not today. My line for his life lies somewhere in managing pain and maintaining functional life dependent necessities.

There is a road of scenarios in front of us. I have shared them with my family, the people who have to share and carry this decision. I have asked the experts who share the burden of navigating his path. We have all decided where we will not go. The outskirts of medical and surgical intervention we will not cross. I may not know where the end is, or what that date, place, or picture will look like, BUT, I do know where the suffering without benefit lies, and where the boy I love so much needs to be loved enough to let go.

For all of you out there who have to decide someday, or who have already had to surrender a pet they love so dearly, I can only remind you that life isn't supposed to be easy, it isn't supposed to be convenient and simple. It is hard, the veracity of that is what makes it meaningful. It is ok to not know, to question every step. But, please remember that the "light you see in their eye" the loss of the being they once were might be a medical need, it might be that it is time to ask for help and not just say goodbye. That maybe there is beauty and deeper understanding of all that life is in the hard days? Maybe you find the answers to the questions that trouble you in just being there? Maybe humanity lies in the edges and the fringes and not in the power to end? I ask myself these questions every single day. And for us, there has been joy and happiness in each as we struggle to see the light that lies ahead.

What have I experienced as a veterinarian? That people love their pets, that they feel pain and suffer when they say goodbye, and that we often think goodbye earlier is kinder than struggling later when there is no hope otherwise.

What I have learned as a mom to my beloved pets is that the most deeply meaningful moments were in the hard days, not the easy ones, and that I can love them even when they are leaving, and that mercy is the lifeblood to salvation and peace.

More  on Jekyll here;

Jekyll Arrives

Jekyll Loses His Tail Mo-Jo. Tail Droop.

The Things Only A Mom Knows. Planning for our pets lives beyond our own.

A Tribute To A Beagle, Jekyll.

Slowing Down Without Giving Up.

If you have a pet story that you would like to share, or an experience with this condition please add it to our Storyline page at  Pawbly.com.

Please also follow me on Pawbly.com, our my vet clinic website Jarrettsville Vet, or our Jarrettsville Vet Facebook page. 

I am also on Twitter @FreePetAdvice, and YouTube

Slowing Down Without Giving Up. Why the last days don't have to last forever.

If I could allow myself a conscious vice it would be to splurge on free time more often.

For all of the self-critical New Years resolutions to be a more "correct" picture of someone else's persona we are too often very hard on ourselves and it costs us to measure ourselves by a ruler of others choosing. Eventually you will fail to maintain the vision of perfection that isn't of your own volition. Being a fake never fits.

For the life of a veterinarian there is never a short list of to-do's awaiting. There is always some phone call to make, some patient to tend to, (even the ones you saw last week who still haunt you as you try to fall off to sleep when they haven't provided the thumbs up "I'm all better" update, (OH GOD! Please don't let them be dying behind the refrigerator at their home? Are the parents able to get the antibiotics in? Will they come back for a re-check if I ask/beg/plead? What if they don't because they think I will charge for it? Okay, I'll offer to do it for free.." the internal dialogue of fear-meets-paranoia-encapsulated in over bearing responsibility (very healthy for the psyche)).

What life changing event has to force me to slow down and smell the cat fur? It is death. Looming, unrelenting, gravity fed death. I all too often don't stop to sit and tell my furry kids that I love them until I am driven to my knees begging for the hands of death to loosen their grip for just a few more minutes on one of them.

I have stood here before. Holding vigil, plotting attacks, preparing myself quietly for letting go, and listing the excuses to convince myself to get through.

Death is knocking again.

The calling card can come in little clues. Subtle innuendos so slight only a mom can pick up on them.

Jekyll is 8. Only eight!! (That part pisses me off). He's a beagle. We breed them to be invincible. He is at the point where his mid-life crisis should be calling him to the couch and off the rabbit trails. I expected some twilight days with him. He can't go from scent possessed wanderer to six feet under, can he? Is that fair? Doesn't anyone play by the rules?

Jekyll is true to his ancestral genetics. He is rugged, docile, and compact enough to be lithe and wily. BUT, he is a lemon. Has been since day 1. He got the short end of every needed life preserving quality shy of cuteness, (he got an abundance of that one). It has served him to be spared time and time again. For all of his misgivings and mischievousness those sad beagle eyes, that low fluttered tail of  wagging, and the way he just throws himself into you when he greets you as if you were, and always will be, the most important human who ever lived, melts you. There is no human being capable of not recognizing genuine devotion and adoration from this dog. It is a talent I will never possess. He is never shy to dole out his whole heart to someone he has never met. And, by chance if he does know you he will jump, kiss, lower and fast wag, while casting his already too big, already too low, velveteen ears to the floor. If you can say "No! Get OFF!" to that face you lack heart, and you therefore lack purpose. He is my righting rod for humanity.

He is a beagle. Built around a nose. Assigned to three tasks in life;
1. Collect and sing for food. In the off chance event of a zombie apocalypse you need only to grab him. No need for the allocation of hard to come by square footage to save food for that dark day,,,, just grab the beagle he can find a corn kernel in a cavernous catacomb. He will sound the "beagle-bay" alarm when the kernel is cornered.
2. Slay hearts. No dog possesses more unadulterated unbridled charm than a beagle. The Casanova of the canines. The saddest part of their pedigree is this possession. It is used to their demise. Ask any researcher which dog is used for testing and why? Answer; the beagle because they are so sweet they won't complain even when you hurt them.
3. Be a companion. They are loyal to their death. They know which side their bread is buttered on and they never walk away from bread (or butter),, or any other food (or condiment).

Here we are. Eight years into our love story. And then the shoe drops. He has been struggling for a while. It took me weeks to find the source to his struggle. He has a mass in his urethra growing inside the pelvis that is making it difficult to pass urine and feces. He is pushing against a plug and in the end it will kill him. It is the stumbling block I will do everything I can to keep from today being the day I have to say goodbye. But this, this will be his undoing. I am furious and falling. I am slowing down again. Trying to capture more moments and not let anyone else's problems steal the few days I have with him. I know that life is fleeting and precious and that we all have choices on how we spend whatever time we get. I am here, I am going to fight to keep him happy and comfortable. I will lose to his disease but it won't ever be because we surrendered. It will be because we loved, and we lived, and we made the best of each moment.

There is one more important thing to talk about here, in the midst of the sea of despair. I am going to go on.

The most heart breaking part of being a veterinarian is to see people suffer through the last days/months of their pets lives and then close their heart to having another pet forever. The burden of caring for an ailing companion is the ability to give your time and love to someone else. It is the greatest gift we get; To give love away and live again to share with another soul.

Jekyll is a pup who needed me. He was the sidekick to my pitbull pup after losing his predecessor. The beagle for my ailing Savannah's last slipping days. He is slowing me down. I am taking a new lease on what a "resolution" should include. I don't need to be better, I just need to be present. Again, and again. And when it seems like it might all be too much,, again.

Here is a small sampling of the life I have lived with my beloved Jekyll.

A Tribute To A Beagle. My love story of my Jekyll.

The Things Only A Mom Knows. Planning For A Life Without Us.

Tis Better To Have Loved And Lost.

Jekyll Arrives. The first introductory blog on my new puppy.

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If you would like to learn more about us at Jarrettsville Vet Center please find us here at our website, or like our Facebook page.

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