Youth in Asia
Last week I was privileged to sit in on the passing of a dog at the request of his owner. This dog had somehow done something to his spine so that his hind legs simply didn't work any longer. This normally would have been a great candidate dog for one of the cute wheeled carts some paraplegic animals scamper around on, but unfortunately, this dog was also incontinent, and the owners felt they wouldn't be able to properly care for him.
I knew the week before that he would be euthanized, and truth be told, I was more than a little angry at the owners for taking what I thought of as the "easy" way out. When they brought him in for the procedure, I went into the room to assist, and changed my mind. I know from experience that euthanasia is NOT easy in any way, if you're someone like me, but there are also people for whom it IS easy. This particular owner was not one of those people. He stood over the dog and cried openly, talked about how fast the dog used to be able to run, told him how much he'd miss him. It was left to me and another tech to prepare the body afterwards for the owner and his father to take home. We put him in a cloth bag and pressed a pawprint into a heart-shaped piece of clay. We put him on a gurney and rolled him into the parking lot where a pickup truck with an open bed was waiting for him. We helped put the dog into the truck, and the owner, through his tears, thanked us.
As we were walking back into the hospital, I for some reason noticed the sunlight, and thought back to the days after losing Sarah, or Lando or Arthur, and how the lives of everyone else go on around you, while you're trapped for awhile in your own little pocket of grief. I wanted to go back, to tell him I understood, and that I, for one, would NOT just go on, but would stop occasionally to think about his dog. But of course I did go on. We always do, and I don't like that it seems easy for me so far, but I also like that I can be strong enough to help.
And so as a way of gently easing from his subject to a more lighthearted one, I can tell you that even though I may well have taken a job in a slightly hellish place, I love it. When I say hellish, I mean simply that the doctor I work for has very particular ideas about how things should be done, and has a very no-nonsense way of telling others. I was warned that sooner or later she'd make me cry--she's made every tech cry, at one time or another, but to not take it personally. And I'm not. I'm old enough to be above the drama. I can be an armour-plated bitch if I need to. Actually, I said something to one of the receptionists the other day about how I was asking for something just to be a bitch, and she said, "What, you want to BLEND?" I'm learning what I need to carry with me (lots of pens, a Sharpie, a Taylor reflex hammer, a penlight, forceps, bandage scissors, suture scissors, thermometer, yellow highlighter. I also carry a tiny notebook and have a watch with a second hand. Being able to carry around a tube of KY would be great too, but I don't have an appropriately-sized pocket.) I'm learning how to blood-type a dog, take his blood pressure, and change out his fluids bags. I can calculate the correct dosages for pre-meds and draw up the drugs. I could administer them, but don't very often. I'm hoping someday I'll be able to learn all the things I could do at the hospital. It could take awhile, but I told somebody the other day that this is the best job in the world, and it is. Yesterday, the practice manager gave me a check. Not the biggest check I've ever gotten, but for the first time, I GOT PAID FOR TAKING CARE OF ANIMALS!
I am happy.
I am also putting in a garden this year with serious intent. No more weird containers making our backyard look like it belongs in a trailer park. I'll be planting in planter boxes this year, with a 4 x 4 footprint and a special soil mix that I've gone to four different nurseries to compile ingredients for. I built The Girl her own 2 x 2 planter box, which she has chosen to fill with a tomato plant and three different flower plants. I'll be concentrating more on veggies, including lots I've never tried before, like okra, tomatillos and lettuce. I bought a packet of radish seeds for no reason other than I think growing radishes is fun--I think they taste worse than awful. Hopefully I'll be able to give them to somebody. While at the nursery the other day, the Girl and I bought a dill plant with a bonus caterpillar on it, having dreams of growing another Invisible. (A black swallowtail we raised from 'pillarhood to butterflyhood.) However, I think this time around, we'll be raising a Cabbage Looper into a moth. Not as pretty, but equally as interesting. Two days after buying the dill, the caterpillar has enclosed itself into a coccoon-like net of silky strings and dill leaves. We're watching to see what happens. The Girl named the caterpillar Heart, I think.
Photos of much stuff to come soon, I think. Or not.
I knew the week before that he would be euthanized, and truth be told, I was more than a little angry at the owners for taking what I thought of as the "easy" way out. When they brought him in for the procedure, I went into the room to assist, and changed my mind. I know from experience that euthanasia is NOT easy in any way, if you're someone like me, but there are also people for whom it IS easy. This particular owner was not one of those people. He stood over the dog and cried openly, talked about how fast the dog used to be able to run, told him how much he'd miss him. It was left to me and another tech to prepare the body afterwards for the owner and his father to take home. We put him in a cloth bag and pressed a pawprint into a heart-shaped piece of clay. We put him on a gurney and rolled him into the parking lot where a pickup truck with an open bed was waiting for him. We helped put the dog into the truck, and the owner, through his tears, thanked us.
As we were walking back into the hospital, I for some reason noticed the sunlight, and thought back to the days after losing Sarah, or Lando or Arthur, and how the lives of everyone else go on around you, while you're trapped for awhile in your own little pocket of grief. I wanted to go back, to tell him I understood, and that I, for one, would NOT just go on, but would stop occasionally to think about his dog. But of course I did go on. We always do, and I don't like that it seems easy for me so far, but I also like that I can be strong enough to help.
And so as a way of gently easing from his subject to a more lighthearted one, I can tell you that even though I may well have taken a job in a slightly hellish place, I love it. When I say hellish, I mean simply that the doctor I work for has very particular ideas about how things should be done, and has a very no-nonsense way of telling others. I was warned that sooner or later she'd make me cry--she's made every tech cry, at one time or another, but to not take it personally. And I'm not. I'm old enough to be above the drama. I can be an armour-plated bitch if I need to. Actually, I said something to one of the receptionists the other day about how I was asking for something just to be a bitch, and she said, "What, you want to BLEND?" I'm learning what I need to carry with me (lots of pens, a Sharpie, a Taylor reflex hammer, a penlight, forceps, bandage scissors, suture scissors, thermometer, yellow highlighter. I also carry a tiny notebook and have a watch with a second hand. Being able to carry around a tube of KY would be great too, but I don't have an appropriately-sized pocket.) I'm learning how to blood-type a dog, take his blood pressure, and change out his fluids bags. I can calculate the correct dosages for pre-meds and draw up the drugs. I could administer them, but don't very often. I'm hoping someday I'll be able to learn all the things I could do at the hospital. It could take awhile, but I told somebody the other day that this is the best job in the world, and it is. Yesterday, the practice manager gave me a check. Not the biggest check I've ever gotten, but for the first time, I GOT PAID FOR TAKING CARE OF ANIMALS!
I am happy.
I am also putting in a garden this year with serious intent. No more weird containers making our backyard look like it belongs in a trailer park. I'll be planting in planter boxes this year, with a 4 x 4 footprint and a special soil mix that I've gone to four different nurseries to compile ingredients for. I built The Girl her own 2 x 2 planter box, which she has chosen to fill with a tomato plant and three different flower plants. I'll be concentrating more on veggies, including lots I've never tried before, like okra, tomatillos and lettuce. I bought a packet of radish seeds for no reason other than I think growing radishes is fun--I think they taste worse than awful. Hopefully I'll be able to give them to somebody. While at the nursery the other day, the Girl and I bought a dill plant with a bonus caterpillar on it, having dreams of growing another Invisible. (A black swallowtail we raised from 'pillarhood to butterflyhood.) However, I think this time around, we'll be raising a Cabbage Looper into a moth. Not as pretty, but equally as interesting. Two days after buying the dill, the caterpillar has enclosed itself into a coccoon-like net of silky strings and dill leaves. We're watching to see what happens. The Girl named the caterpillar Heart, I think.
Photos of much stuff to come soon, I think. Or not.
posted by Stef | 9:03 AM
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