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What if..

I was raised to feel lots of confusion over body image and weight. On one hand, I grew up thinking that if I gained weight or didn’t look just right, I would 1. Never get a boyfriend/husband or 2. My boyfriend/husband would leave me because I was no longer attractive. My parents divorced when I was in high school and once I heard that my father had said my mother was no longer attractive to him because she was over weight. My mother struggled with her body image as far back as I can remember – always dieting or trying a new exercise class, but she hated how much she weighed and even how tall she was. As a 5’11” woman in a world where she thought men wanted “cute and petite” girls, it was hard for her to feel pretty or sexy at all, but then when she started gaining weight after children, it was a downward spiral. My father, on the other hand, has been smallish from the start. He was is also 5’11” and has always been very active with playing tennis, running almost everyday, biking, swimming, whatever he can do to stay fit. It was his passion, obsession, even. He was very proud of his body.

He called me fat!

So, on one side of the coin, I was sincerely sympathetic to my mother’s cause. I hated that she hated herself. I was always very careful to never mention or hint at anything around her that might hurt her feelings more than they have already been hurt. I was quite sensitized to the feelings, frustrations, and fragility of being overweight and trying to conquer it. For my dad, the answer was easy – just go out and exercise more. Everyone sees the world from a different perspective and has different things that drive them in everyday situations. For some people, like my dad, losing weight is easy, you just do it. When he was diagnosed with a health condition where his body does not process “good” fats properly and essentially all fats for him are bad, he just cut out fat. Done. The poor man now struggles with eating enough calories in sugar and protein to maintain his 4500 calorie/day (with his exercise habits) needs and he has to do that with FAT-FREE oreos and cheetos! He immediately dropped weight when he made this change and lost his “dad bod” belly.

On the other side of the coin, I’ve seen what media (movies/tv shows, etc) and my own family experiences tell me about men and how they perceive women: you need to be thin AND shapely AND endearing or you will not be desirable and will be left or, more likely, cheated on. I went through a really rough time when I was dating Tony where I lost all faith and trust in men and just knew that I was eventually GOING to be cheated on and hurt severely. That was, of course, centered around the divorce that my parents were going through and I eventually got over it, well, learned to deal with it better, but for awhile, I was pretty sure men were the worst. Yet, somehow, while blaming men for making me feel this way, I still felt this way and was still driven to stay cute and little and always be as engaging as possible. I exercised, I got depressed when I gained weight, I didn’t complain about it to anyone except Tony because I was not overweight and would be scoffed at, but I just knew that it was a slippery slope to Tony not loving me.

My largest, pregnant with India

When I was in vet school, I gained about 20 lb and for the life of me, could not get it off. I lived on rice and beans, ran 3-10 miles or biked 30 miles a day, had air-popped popcorn and watermelon for dinner and could not drop a pound. At first I was convinced that it was all just muscle, but eventually, while pregnant with India and I reached 170 lb and the doctor said something to me about my weight, I knew it wasn’t just normal weight gain. I was crushed. I had tried for years to lose that 20 lbs and only seemed to be gaining (even before the pregnancy).

Eventually, I would be blessed with a revamped metabolism after breastfeeding coupled with a painful abdominal condition that doesn’t allow me to eat more than very small portions of food before feeling very uncomfortable to painful. Then, I was finally able to drop the weight and get back to a comfortable size for me. Yes, I’ve been to all the doctors, have had imaging done, had my gallbladder removed, and have been on every medicinal combination including natural remedies, and no, nothing helps. So, for the most part, my own body regulates my weight, but I do love to exercise or at least I love to be active and I love the feeling of being sore and tired.

Nothing makes a girl feel pretty like this amazing gift from one of the film crew teams – pregnant with Calvin

What if we showed each other love and appreciation even if we all weren’t the magazine body type? What if when you saw someone who was out for a jog but was jogging slower than you could walk and instead laughing, we said “good job! You’re amazing!”? Yes, I can agree that being overweight can be unhealthy, but not all overweight people are unhealthy, and when was the last time telling someone they’re overweight helped? Let the medical professionals worry about their physical health. We should all worry about each other’s mental health. What if we just supported them and showed them the love every human deserves? If most people react to things like my husband, then telling them how you think they should change will only make them do the exact opposite (super fun in a marriage). Looking around, I’ve noticed that seemingly everyone has body image issues. So, it totally sucks that media makes women think that men only want a certain type of woman, but if you really ask honest men, you’ll find that different men like different types of women. Some men do NOT find thin, lanky women attractive, some love the softness of larger women. Same for women – no, we don’t all want to be able to complete a muscular anatomy exam on your body, some do, but we all have different things that make us tick. So, to single out one body type and make everyone else feel bad about themselves for things they cannot change – no, I will never have curvaceous hips (“birthing hips” – my mother in law warned me with my first pregnancy I would have trouble having babies – still pushed an 8.5lb baby out in less than an hour) with my body type. If I started gaining weight (even with doing 1000s of squats) I would simply take on the appearance of a candied apple.

My mom with some of her grandbabies

Once my mom got away from all of that pressure and all of that loathing of her body, she found herself. She found activities that she loves. She walks or hikes almost everyday in the Rocky mountains and feels great about herself. I was thinking about this one time while I was running. I haven’t been able to just run 3-4 miles since I had Oscar. I found that my body and my mind do better when I run a “warm up” mile, then sprint/walk/jog the rest of the way as feels best for my body – when I can no longer breathe, I walk; when I catch my breathe, I run again. But it’s not a normal way to run. Sometimes I will skip or walk with lunges, or walk backwards or sideways, or dance or strut to the song in my earbuds, but I always have to make sure no one is looking. Why? God forbid someone sees me doing something that’s not seen as “normal” exercise. But, what if we were all in support of any activity, no matter how weird it looks to us? People wouldn’t be afraid to go out and find something they love that could also be considered exercise. Want to bear crawl across your lawn? Great! Good for the shoulders. Like to belly dance to Led Zepplin? Power to you!

I will never be able to shake the idea I got when I was 15 years old, studying the Victoria’s Secret catalogs, that this was how I was supposed to look. I didn’t yet know how I would go about adding 2-3 lumbar vertebra to my spine or develop D cup breasts and grow a second length of femur, or, most importantly, develop those perfect faces (though Tony says most of them look mad), but I knew that’s what I had to look like or I would never be loved. Yet, here I am; 35 years old, three kids later, scars up and down my belly, an umbilical hernia from the pregnancies, abdominal muscles that will never line up again, boobs that sag with age and three episodes of demanding nursing babies pulling on them while they summersault, a face that is tired, worn and pretty much needs make-up to be seen in public, but Tony doesn’t see all that. And none of that affects the way I see other people. You are beautiful.

North Mannitou Island
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Tony Takeover: A Day in My Life at Pol Vet

The kids dancing in front of the projector the film crew uses for interviews

In this blog I hope to give you a glimpse behind the preverbal curtain at my time with Pol Veterinary Service. I can’t and won’t talk about the Doctors, it is neither my place to talk about them, nor are those stories mine to tell. Instead, I can write about what my job was like, and what I did at the clinic; and, believe me, it was fast paced, loud, and hectic. Hopefully, this will be an entertaining story about a crazy busy clinic and the people who mostly stayed just to the side of the camera’s screen, but kept the clinic together. This blog isn’t about a specific day, or a specific event, but rather just a general description of a typical day. Enjoy!

7:45 a.m. The clinic opens at 8 o’clock, so I would try to arrive about ten to fifteen minutes early so I could unlock the side door and let the camera crew in. Once the side door was open, five or so guys would run around the clinic turning on their big show lights and setting up any still cameras they wanted for that day. I would have about ten minutes to get the computers up and running, the surgery patient information together, and open the front door for the flood of patients to begin pouring into the front office/lobby. On an average day there was three people working the front office where people would check in, check out, and receive their take home medications.

8:00 a.m. I have just unlocked and opened the front door to the clinic, and four to six owners with their animals in tow would pour into the little lobby because they all dutifully did as instructed and showed up at 8 a.m. sharp for surgery drop off. There are only two computers in the front office to check people in, and I step to the first computer (I tried to claim the computer on the left with a sticky note, but no one respected it). As I step to the computer, at least three clients come towards me. I have to quickly figure out which one was first, or which one seems the most in a hurry, and get that patient checked in for surgery. If the patient I pick just so happens to be deemed the most interesting case by the film crew, everything slows down. Microphones are produced and placed on me and the client, two different cameramen take their places, one behind me looking at the client and one behind the client looking at me. When everyone is ready, the check in begins.

Within minutes I have to figure out which patient I’m checking in, determine if that patient is due for vaccines, decide if the patient will get a chemistry panel (a blood test) to check their liver and kidneys, amongst other things, to determine if the patient is a good candidate for surgery or if the doctor needed to treat an underlying problem. After the patient is checked in and the vaccines and chemistry panel is decided, I take the patient from the owner and back to the surgery/prep room. I help with the blood draw and any other diagnostics the doctor orders, and start the blood test (all the while a guy with a camera and possibly someone else with a boom mic follow me through an already tight building). Once the patient is in the kennel and the blood test is running, I head back to the front to do it all over again with the next surgery patient. Also, there are one or two other people checking in surgeries, so, I’m not just working around the film crew, but my coworkers who are just as busy as I am.

Me cuddling one of our more “exotic” patients

8:45 a.m. All the surgeries are checked in and, on some days, I’m the one that goes back to the surgery room to help shave, prep, and generally work with the doctors in surgery, but on a normal day I’m in the front filing the charts from the previous day and pulling charts for tomorrows surgeries and general appointments. Sometimes even this monotonous task is filmed. My coworkers and I have about fifteen to thirty minutes to get whatever charts from yesterday put away, and pull any charts we will need for tomorrow. Hopefully today’s charts were pulled yesterday. Around 9-9:15 a.m. the first of the general appointments start to roll in.

9:15 a.m. Once the first client walks in for their scheduled appointment, the seal is broken and it sometimes feels like the levees break. The clients, from that point on, do not stop coming; wave after wave crash upon that front desk. On a typical day the clinic will have two or three doctors seeing appointments from 9 a.m. to 11 or 12, and the schedule will be quadruple booked with an appointment every fifteen minutes. That comes out to be somewhere between 32 and 48 patients coming in for an appointment in the morning. If we have three doctors, each doctor will need to see 10 to 16 patients.

Check-ins have to be quick. I have to get a patient checked in, weighed, get a brief history from the owners, and get the patient into an exam room for a doctor as fast as possible. Because, once that check in is done, another client will be ready to check out. On top of checking patients in and out at a breakneck pace, I was also expected to restrain patients, clean rooms between appointments, fill prescriptions, run blood work, fecal floats, and run urinalyses in the lab, and work in radiology. Anything a doctor needed, that was my job, and one doctor or another almost always needed something. I was doing all of this with a six person camera crew filming everything they could. A dog needed to go to radiology, the film crew followed; a growling dog needed to be restrained, the film crew was there. The film crew really was great at staying out of the way as much as possible, but there was only so much room in that clinic.

Calvin coming to see me at work

12:00 p.m. One of the good things about the clinic’s pace is that time goes by quickly. Before you knew it, 9:00 a.m. had become 12:00p.m., the flood of clients turned into a trickle, and it was time for lunch. The doctors would shove some food into their faces and hit the road for farm calls. The doctors would average three farm calls in an afternoon, but sometimes the count was much higher. Every once in a while I would go with Emily on her farm calls, but usually I stayed at the clinic. The farm call time gave the office staff time to clean up from the whirlwind that was the morning. We would unpack and stock all of the medical supplies that had been delivered (sometimes we would get three separate shipment drop-offs), restock the exam rooms, file away the 30+ charts from the morning, and, most importantly to me, eat some lunch. The doctors’ farm call time went from noon to 3:00 p.m., at 3 o’clock general small animal appointments started back up.

Winston the tetanus pig we brought home for a weekend

3:00 p.m. General appointments begin. These appointments were generally a mirror image of the morning appointments with the added bonus that not all doctors would get back from farm calls by 3 o’clock. On really bad days no doctor was back by three, and then the patients would pile up in the waiting room. With the return of the doctors, the camera crew would return, and the clinic became cramped again. It was not unheard of for a client to show up at his appointment time, and have to wait an hour before a doctor could see his pet. The afternoons quickly became a blur of checking in and checking out patients, along with working in the lab, and radiology, and pharmacy. The clinic officially closes at 5:00 p.m., but that’s not really the truth. The doctors were almost never done seeing appointments by 5:00, if Emily left the clinic by 6p.m. she was doing well. On top of this, the clinic didn’t close until 6p.m. on Monday and Friday. So, the staff wouldn’t leave until around 7p.m.

I’ve gotten a couple of questions asking me how it was working at Pol Vet Clinic, and this post sums up typical day pretty well. Working at Pol Vet was frantic, it was nerve raking at times. Sometimes, I felt like a had too many balls in the air and that kept me from spinning my plates. It was also claustrophobic at times, the clinic is small, and it was hard at times fitting the office staff, with the camera crew, and the clients into that building. But, it was also fun. I loved being with the people I worked with. I enjoyed being a part of something that helped a lot of people in the community. The guys on the film crew became some of my best friends in Michigan. I don’t miss the chaos that Pol Vet brought into my family, but I do miss the people (both clients and coworkers) there.

I hope you enjoyed this post, and, as always, thanks for reading!!

India in the Hot Seat
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Sorry, mom, it’s my favorite story: six lives to go!

Childhood is a growing experience for both child and parents. The goal of a parent is to 1. raise a child into adulthood and 2. make that child into a functioning adult (My dad once told me, much to my disgust at the time, that his job as a parent was not to give me everything I want, but to make me able to function properly as an adult). I did not always make the #1 parental goal easy for my parents. I once ran away when I was four years old (in my wonder woman underwear only) and was found in a nearby trailer park where the police came and got me. A few times, I even challenged the whole living thing. I was thinking back in my childhood about the times that I was in danger, whether or not I knew it at the time. I’ve been in some circumstances that could have ended disastrously, but *spoiler alert* I survived them all. I’m still not sure if these experiences made me who I am today (ready to dive into a challenge even [especially] if dangerous) or if who I am got me into these experiences. As I thought of the different scenarios, they all seemed to include one odd, but common denominator – my dad in water.

The first event, I’m not sure how old I was, possible 5-8, but we were at The Wakulla hotel in Coco Beach, FL for our annual family (dad’s side) reunion. I, as the youngest child of three, was anxious to keep up with my older siblings and cousins. We were at the hotel pool with everyone else and I was tired of having to stay in the shallow end. I went up to my dad, sitting on a chair poolside and told him I was ready to jump in the deep end and that I could swim now. He said “are you sure?”. I looked at him confidently, held up my swimmer’s goggles as proof, gave a quick “yep!” and took off. I placed my goggles on my face and eagerly jumped into the deep end. And promptly sank/struggled/sputtered. My dad jumped right in and rescued me -surprised, I’m sure as much as I was that the goggles did not save my life.

My fish face at Coco Beach, FL

The next incident also involved water, but occurred at the other place my family (mom’s side) took annual vacations – Pawley’s Island, SC. I absolutely love this place. We are no longer able to use that house after my grandmother died since we no longer “had a tie to the family” as my grandmother was adopted, but my most beloved memories of this place are my absolute favorite. It’s a small island off the coast of South Carolina with only privately owned beach houses that are rented out to the public. Most of the houses are large enough to accommodate a few families and are directly on the beach and come with your own private area on the beach. The beach was never crowded and there was plenty of room to run, play, fish, and crab. The ocean had fantastic waves for swimming, body surfing (where you dive just as the wave is breaking and have the wave carry you all the way to shore), and riding the waves on a raft. On this particular occasion, I was probably in the 8-9 year-old range, I had gotten onto one of the rafts and was going to ride some waves. I got out to just where the waves were crashing – ideal for catching one – but then just floated.

Brother and cousin fishing at Pawleys
Said raft used – modeled by my dad
Pawleys Island – Modeled by Tony

I don’t remember why, but I just lost track of time or was thinking the deep thoughts that you think as an 8 yo, but, after awhile, I looked up and saw that my family, on the beach was REALLY far away. I could barely make out who anybody was. I had drifted out to sea! Luckily, at that point in my life, I hadn’t developed the fear I now have of sharks and was pretty calm about it, but I did notice my dad and another guy notice how far out I was and jump up and start waving at me. There wasn’t much I could do at that point. I tried to paddle and kick, but the ocean is much stronger than a child. My dad and the guy started running for the ocean, jumped in and started swimming for me. They finally got to where I was and started to pull me back in. The guy who was with my dad tried to dive down to see how deep we were, but could not swim deep enough to find the ocean floor. Needless to say, I was “grounded” for awhile after that.

Some of my favorite times at Pawleys – storms rolling in. Cousin seen in the back ground

The last story is my favorite. It’s not my mom’s favorite and I totally understand why, but it is the best story to bring up suddenly to people who haven’t heard it and watch their reactions. So, it was November 1st of my second grade year in school. I had spent the night over at a friend’s house for a slumber party and per standard procedure, we had stayed up all night in fear of being the first one to fall asleep and all the shame that would surely ensue. Needless to say, I was not well rested for the day ahead of me. My mom was as work and I was home, playing outside with the dogs. Growing up, our dogs (one black lab named Addie and one miniature schnauzer named Bo) were outside only dogs and roamed free. They had an old, large comforter that we had thrown to them to sleep on in the colder months in the garage, but they often dragged it out into the yard and on the driveway. That day, I had decided that I was going to surprise my mother when she got home by jumping out from under the blanket as she drove up the driveway. I imagined just how happy she would be to see me.

I curled up in that old, dirty, likely flea-ridden blanket that had so often embellished the driveway in the warm sun light on a mild fall day in Southern Georgia and waited. And then, I fell asleep. The next thing I remember is it being very dark and feeling a ton of pressure on my body. Then, there was light, but I couldn’t breathe. I threw the blanket off of me and saw that my mom had arrived home and had, in fact run over my body with the car. She got out of the car and didn’t even see me there. I tried to say something, but couldn’t catch my breath. I ran to the side of the house to try and regroup. Still unable to breathe, I heard my mother say “I see you, Emily!” before she went inside. She had no idea what had just transpired. She and my dad had likely driven over that stupid dog blanket numerous times without one of their children being wrapped up in it. Still unable to breathe and in a pure panic mode, I was doubled over on the grass when my good and faithful lab, Addie came over to… assert her dominance. She jumped on my back and started humping me.

I finally drew a breath, crawled out from under my dog and ran inside the house. My breath came more easily now and had turned into violent sobbing. My body hurt. I ran to find my mother in her room, changing. She looked at me and her face went as pale as mine likely was. “What happened!?!” she asked. Between ragged sobs, I managed to tell her “You ran over me!!!” then, I turned around to show her my back – numerous cuts and scrapes ran along the length of my back. My mother was shocked, she was tired, I’m sure she had just gotten home from an overnight shift as a nurse in NICU and now she had just run over her youngest child with a car.

I had to go to the hospital after that. I was so tired from not sleeping, I was falling asleep in the car. My mother thought I was dying. As a mother myself, now, I cannot even fathom how she was able to drive to the hospital in that state. She kept prodding me and yelling “Don’t leave me, Emily!!” When we got to the hospital she had to tell the staff that she had run over me. No one questioned her, likely due to the look of panic on her face. They rushed me back and started diagnostics. In the end, I ended up with just a broken rib and a lung contusion. The tires of the car had straddled me, but the small car was low enough to have caught my body and rolled it before leaving it. I stayed in the hospital one night and was discharged the next day.

Some of you may be wondering where my water logged father was in that last story. I was crying, having just told my mother that she had run over me, my mother was trying to put things together in her head and slow the panic in her soul when my father appeared, soaking wet, as he had jumped from the shower when he heard the news, completely naked. One day, I will recover.

Happy birthday, dad!

My dad and me.
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Tony Takeover: Athens Concerts

Emily and me at a Jukebox the Ghost show

There are so many things about Athens, Ga that I love. Emily and I were very lucky to live in that town when we did. We were both early to mid 20’s, without kids, and without cares. I mean we had cares and concerns, but those have faded with time and all I’m left with are good happy memories of a wonderful little college town that a part of me still considers home. (Sorry mom and dad, middle Georgia is home too, but Athens holds a special place in my heart.) One of the great things about Athens is that it truly is one of the music cities. Everywhere else I’ve ever lived, if you went to go watch some band you’ve never heard of, you would hear covers of songs you knew well. Not in Athens. In Athens, you would pay $5 or $10 to go see a show, and it was probably a band you’ve never heard of, but that band played their original music. It was great. You never knew what you were going to get. Some shows you payed for weren’t worth the $5, the guitarist might be terrible, or drunk, or both, or the singer couldn’t carry a tune, or maybe the drummer just didn’t show up. But, some of those $5 shows were the best shows I’ve ever been too. I’m going to tell you about some of the more memorable concerts Emily and I saw in Athens.

1) This first story won’t be long, but it was memorable. Emily and I went to a heavy metal show at the recommendation of one of my friends. My friend was really into heavy metal and said that this band (I’ve forgotten the band’s name, so I’ll call them “The Band”) was the best in Athens. Emily and I had a free night and a couple of bucks, so we went to the show. It was fun and weird being in a crowd where you were definitely the oddball. We did not fit in with the heavy metal crowd, but we were having a great time, and then finally The Band took the stage. The first thing I (and I’m sure everyone else) noticed when the lights went down and the show began was that “The Band” used several flood lights at the back of the stage that showed through the band and into the crowd. The flood lights created a harsh contrast of bright light and black silhouettes. The concert itself was what a typical heavy metal concert is. A lot of screaming into the microphone, loud and fast guitar, and insanely hard driving drums. I enjoyed it, I think Emily hated it. It isn’t my favorite style of music, but I got into it. The music was primal and raw, the rage and energy from the band and crowd was palpable. And then there was the beer spraying. The Band would shake up beers and spray them into the crowd. To me, it was fun. And then the lead singer decided to crowd surf. There was no communication, no delivering of intention; the lead singer just spun his guitar onto his back and fell into the crowd. He stiffened up his body and fell like a board into whoever was at the edge of the stage. The people down there did what people do when caught of guard, they got out of the way. The lead singer smacked his head on the concert floor. The music stopped at once and the lights came up. A lesser man (or a more sober man) would have stayed down, but not this guy. The lead singer got to his feet, blood coming down his forehead, pulled his guitar around, and started playing again. It took the rest of the band a few seconds to get back on the same page, but within a minute, the band was going hard, the crowd had pushed this guy back on stage, the lights had gone back down, and the show was on

2) One of the great music venues in Athens is The 40 Watt. It was a great place to see a show, there was a big stage and plenty of room for the crowd. I saw a lot of my favorite bands there. One unique things that The 40 Watt did was host a show called Garage-a-Trois. For Garage-a-Trois, three musicians from three different bands would come together and form their own band. These new bands would put on a short 1-3 song show, and, of course, there would be a lot of interesting blending of genres. Because of how diverse Athens’ music scene is, it was common for a pop singer to be paired with a metal guitarist and a punk drummer. And that is exactly what happened for this particular story.

Emily and I went to Garage-a-Trois for two years (possibly the only two years the show was put on). Some of the acts were really good, you could tell that the band members took the challenge seriously and put on a good to great show. Some of the bands would lean into the silliness of the whole thing, one band made up of three very large guys did a ten minute jam session in which each member took a turn dancing their heart out (the song was rightfully called “The Dance.”) And, some of the acts really didn’t seem to care a whole lot. I enjoyed all three types of acts, obviously the first two kinds were super enjoyable, but there was also something interesting in watching people fail. I’m not sure what it says about our society that we enjoy watching others fail, but there is a ton of “fail” video content; so it is something a lot of us like to see. This one poorly matched band did not fall into any of the three normal groups; they did not try really hard and put on a great show, they didn’t embrace the absurdity, and they didn’t just fail. Instead, they seemed to really hate each other. I made up the bands whole back story in my mind, which I won’t bore you with, but it boils down to this; a pop singer does not mesh well with a metal guitarist and a punk drummer. While not the same thing, the metal and punk genres of music are a lot closer to each other than they are to pop, and the pop singer never had a chance with his bandmates.

This Garage-a-Trois band managed to slug through their first song, which was a weird crooning song mixed with some harsh electric guitar. The second song, however, is where the wheels really came off. The singer did the usual count the speed of the song, “1…2…1.2.3.4!” and the song started. But the drummer must not have been happy with the pacing, because he started speeding up. The guitarist seemed fine with it, he sped up as well, but the singer couldn’t handle it, and soon he was yelling the words of the song as quickly as he could. After a few really dirty looks back at the drummer, the singer went back to the drum set and took a stick out of the drummers hand. The drummer didn’t miss a beat, drummers come prepared, he produced another stick out of a bag and drove the pace faster. This was the last straw for the singer, he ran back to the drum set and kicked a hole in the bass drum. To which, the drummer promptly leapt over the rest of the set tackling the singer. Wrestling ensued. It might have gotten ugly, but The 40 Watt stage hands were quick to rush the stage. The show ended with 3-4 stage hands holding two grown men apart because they couldn’t play together and this metal guitarist doing his best impression of John Entwistle, and just kept playing the song while chaos broke out around him. For those who may not know, John Entwistle was the bassist for The Who. He was the guy how would keep the song going as long as possible while Pete Townsend and Keith Moon destroyed their instrument around him.

This is how close the crowd is to the band at Caledonia Lounge

3) The last concert I’m going to tell you about was at Caledonia Lounge. For everything that The 40 Watt is, Caledonia is the opposite. Caledonia Lounge in tiny (though I bet they prefer intimate). If I had to guess, the Fire Marshall would only want 30-40 people in this small space. There was no place to sit except for three stools at the tiny bar, the lounge part of the name really was a joke. But for how small Caledonia Lounge is, Emily and I saw a lot of great bands there; some of my fondest concert memories happened at Caledonia. The particular show I’m telling you about was a Halloween show. There were several bands that played, but I only really remember one of them, and I don’t even remember them because they were great or super entertaining. I remember this Halloween show because of what Emily did.

Emily was in vet school (I don’t remember what year) and because of that she was constantly tired. Emily would put in long days at school and then longer nights studying. I would try to break her a way from the books from time to time. All work and no play, you know. It was hard to pry Emily away, she wanted (and still wants) to be the best veterinarian she could be, but I was able to convince her to go to this concert on Halloween. It was Halloween after all, we had to go on the town for all the people watching if nothing else. So, Emily and I go to Caledonia and we see a few shows. The acts were good, but I could tell Emily was starting to fade. Emily decided to stick it out for one more show, and this all female punk band takes the stage. I can’t say the band was good; what I can say is the band was loud and fast and fun. Emily and I were in the midst of the crowd, jumping and dancing. We were having a great time. One song ended, and I left Emily to go to the bar for a minute to get a PBR (the college kids’ beer of choice) and when I came back, I couldn’t find Emily in the crowd. I looked for her, pushing past people almost in a panic. And then I found her. She was sitting on some random instrument case with her body and head resting very comfortably on the bass drum case. Emily had fallen asleep in this tiny venue while a punk show was raging all around her. Needless to say, we didn’t stay much longer, but I also don’t know anyone else to fall asleep in quite so crazy a place.

Emily is Star Struck

I’m thinking about doing a blog where I answer some of your questions soon, so, if you have something you’d like to know, leave the question in the comments. I hope you liked this installment of Tony Takeover, and as always thanks for reading.

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How to Lose Your Large Animal Vet in 3, 2…..

I hear the statement all the time: “Nobody wants to be a large animal vet anymore! They all just want to work 9-5 and sit in an office.” Having been a large animal vet myself and having access to thousands of vet moms online, I have heard all the reasons for leaving and they’re all about the same. Are we lazy and just don’t like getting dirty? No! We love throwing on muck boots and being armpit deep in a cow (as odd as that sounds). Is it because we don’t like the odd hours of on call? Sometimes, but with enough vets to share the call and with responsible owners, it’s really not that bad – and, no, we don’t mind getting up at 3am for an emergency… as long as the emergency was first noticed at 3am (that same day). Is it that young folks these days don’t know an honest day’s work? Stop it, silly, we love working, we love helping people, we love getting dirty, but we also respect ourselves and know how to keep our job from becoming our entire life.

***Warning: all examples provided, as crazy as they sound, have actually been experienced by me or another vet***

*****Warning #2: some gruesome pictures at the very end. All animals pictured are alive and completely healed from the picture thanks to fast acting clients*****

1. Complain about the bill. I’ve already written a piece on how little money vets make so I won’t be long winded, but large animal vets already make less money than small animal vets as a general rule, but when you add in the number of extra hours, the drive time between calls (loss of production time), it can be even harder on their pockets and lives. Unfortunately for the vet and for the farmer, many times a 2am call 30 miles down the road costs the vet more to perform than the farmer is willing to pay. So, when the farmer gets the $400 bill for his cow, he may get upset at the cost – it’s just a cow and she only got 2 injections! Large animal vets know it’s a fine balance, but when you’re out for 3 hours in the middle of the night and have to show back up to work at 8 am and work another full day, it can also detract from your production for days to come. Not to mention the fact that most large animal clients are billed and when we sometimes don’t receive payments in a timely manner, we have to withhold paying our bills or even employees. – This is also the reason most vets won’t do payment plans even in small animal. I believe in my Disney movie loving heart that people ABSOLUTELY intend on paying every cent of that bill, but things come up, electric bills, hospital bills, and dare I say, some people never intend to pay. I would estimate we never see 80% of the payment plan money – thousands of dollars a month vets don’t get for believing in people has slowly soured us.

2. Only call us when you’ve tried everything else including what your neighbor’s cousin’s beet farmer friend suggested. You’ve been walking this colicky horse since 10Am, have given it 3 injections of banamine (in the muscle *cringe – see picture below*, have tried your neighbor’s recommendations of sticking an onion up the horse’s rectum, coating the tongue in a bottle of cayenne pepper, and now you and the horse are soaked in mineral oil you tried to get the horse to swallow and has perhaps aspirated. It’s now 11Pm and you call the vet – the one that you haven’t called since 4 years ago on Christmas morning when you had a foundering horse that you’d already bled 3 gallons of blood from because your friend said it would work – but it didn’t cause that’s not how any of this works. Or, you saw that your cow that was due to calve had her tail up and some membranes hanging out three days ago and now she’s down in the mud (likely rotting from the inside), or you and all your friends have already been inside the cow and despite only having a head and one leg for presentation, you went ahead and tied her head to a tree and chained the calf’s one leg and head to a tractor and had the cow suspended in the air before you gave up and called me (because now she’s down – likely a broken pelvis). As the entire veterinary community, we want you to know something – We would MUCH rather you call when you think there might be a problem and we can ask you questions and decide if it’s an emergency (and go see your colic at noon when there’s light out and the horse isn’t 90% dehydrated now from walking) than wait until the animal is practically unsalvageable. Also, your bill will be much more reasonable the earlier we see the problem. As much as you think we cost to use, we stay alive with regular visits, the “bread and butter” as one boss called it – vaccines, coggins, heard health, etc and we are much more likely to jump out of bed to help you if we have a good working relationship with you and your farm.

Success! Smart client called as SOON as they noticed a problem – no legs presenting, only a head. Saved calf and mom!!

3. Try to save costs by compromising good husbandry and only calling us when you have an epidemic. We don’t like getting called out to clean up a disaster situation that could have been prevented with a little more money, forethought, and elbow grease. Why are all of your calves getting sick and dying?

3a. Are they kept in clean, dry bedding out of the wind, rain, snow, heat, sun? Access to clean water, non moldy/spoiled food? Pens cleaned and sanitized between animals? Animals kept far enough apart to not lick or touch each other (so they can’t spread diseases)? You would not believe how much of an impact good husbandry can have on the health and production of your animals.

3b. Are you vaccinating? No? Do it – vaccines are amazing tools we have that can be given as early as birth to EASILY prevent deadly diseases that *gasp* can’t be fixed with an antibiotic injection. Also, talk to your vet about a smart deworming protocol for your herd – deworming every 6 weeks is often not recommended anymore due to resistant worms (especially in goats/sheep).

3c. Are your animals being fed a diet that works best for their species? Spoiler: even though grain makes them gain weight faster, they need roughage (ie. hay) to keep their bellies happy (yes, even pigs). In fact most ruminants (cows, goats, sheep, etc) would have better health with little to no grain (think bloat, rumen acidosis leading to founder, liver abscesses, urinary blockages in male goats, etc) Good quality hay too, NOT straw or that hay that’s been sitting in the pasture for 5 years, is mostly black, and will likely cause respiratory issues for you and the animals when you break it open.

3d. Water, water everywhere! Clean water, water that doesn’t have 2 inches of ice on top of it – buy a deicer – water in multiple places if you have numerous animals and the bullies are guarding it, water that doesn’t have an electric current going through it (check that 10 year-old deicer)

4. Don’t have your animals caught when the vet arrives. I cannot tell you the number of times, after I ask them to get a halter on the cow and at least tie her to a truck or tractor before I get there and the farmer will absolutely INSIST the cow is down and “she ain’t going anywhere”. Then, as soon as my vet truck pulls up to the farm, that pet cow that was bottle raised and loves you and is so sick now she cannot even lift her head will reach down deep into her soul, grab what’s left of her water buffalo ancestry, jump up and scramble away. She will then lead an hour long chase across pastures, through woods, and briars before finally falling into a creek, losing her will to live and attempting to drown. Don’t expect us to rope or dart her. Unfortunately, they have dropped Rodeo Clown 101 and Rhino darting from the veterinary curriculum, at least since I went to school. Basically, if you have large animals, have the equipment needed to handle them – gates, corrals, chutes or head catches would be amazing, trailers that work. Make sure your horse will load in a trailer if needed. Have halters, ropes, etc. Don’t expect us to halter break your 2 yo stud colt when it has a laceration and you haven’t touched it since it was born. It’s stressful and inefficient if we get there and you’re chasing animals around when we already have 3 more emergencies waiting on us and you may get charged for the time.

See this client just now rounding up the patients? Just kidding, it’s Tony moving minis out of the pasture – just a cute picture.

5. Get annoyed when we can’t be to your place immediately. There is often only one vet working after hours calls and if we’re at someone’s farm, soaked in birthing fluids and wallowing around in the straw trying to pull a calf when you call and we don’t call you back for another 30-45 minutes and THEN won’t be to your place for another hour because you’re on the opposite pole of our practice range, please be understanding – we’re trying.

And, here are other requests from a group of 12,000 vet moms:

1) Just give me your address – GPS works great in most areas – no, I don’t know where the old Hamilton place used to be or that oak tree that was cut down a few weeks ago – also have easily visible, large reflective numbers or name on both sides of your mailbox.

2) Don’t leave the bull in the herd up until pregnancy checks. It’s much easier to estimate a breeding date when the cows are 30-90 days bred and there’s not a bull currently trying to breed the cow behind you in the chute.

3) Don’t call your vet after hours for non-emergency questions that can wait until regular business hours; scheduling appointments, etc. We have families and a life outside of vet medicine, please allow us to live as much of it as possible.

4) Please don’t call us after hours for advice on how to treat something you have no intention of having us come out for because we’re expensive. Also don’t ask us to teach you how to do something you see us doing like passing a nasogastric tube on a horse (please, for the love of God, don’t try to tube your own horse or stick a hose down their throat to “wash out the choke”) just to save money next time – bringing me to my next point

5) Animals are expensive. Please carefully consider this and basic husbandry for the animal you are about to buy or rescue. Rescue animals are often even more expensive because of all the health issues they come with. If you can’t provide it the care it needs, you haven’t rescued it, you’ve just relocated it – there, I said it.

6) Don’t call us out for an emergency that could wait until normal business hours just because it’s more convenient to you. A 5-day duration lameness in a horse at 11pm because you have to work tomorrow and don’t have time? Me too! No thanks.

7) Colicky horses (can sometimes looks like straining to urinate as well) – A) call as soon as you suspect – 5% dehydrated animal much easier to correct than 50% and with colic, hydration is 90% of the problem. B) Don’t walk the horse more than 30-60 minutes before calling – walking/trotting/even a short trailer ride can help immensely, but not to excess; the more they walk, the more tired and dehydrated they get. C) Let a laying horse lay. If they start rolling (and not getting up with a big ole’ shake off) then get concerned. Even a colicky horse can be allowed to lay quietly – think of how you would feel if you went to the doctor with a stomach ache and they put you on a treadmill for 4 hours.

8) Don’t comment on my size as a woman. You, sir, also cannot body slam a 1500lb steer, so lets let the drugs I brought do the talking.

9) Please admit to any and all treatments already given before I arrived. This goes for small animals as well – think he got into weed? just say it *big, tired sigh here*, we’re not calling the cops, but knowing that can save you $500 in bloodwork/diagnostics/referral to a neurologist.

10) Don’t ask us to look at your other horse who has had a weird, flakey skin condition for the past 2 years and also needs a coggins while we’re out treating a laceration on another animal at 2am.

Bonus: Please don’t pull a nail out of an animal’s hoof before we get the chance to shoot x-rays to see how deep it penetrated and whether it got the bone or joint.

We love our jobs and we want to help. Call as soon as you think you have an emergency. Please, the easier you make it on us and the more we can help you, the better our doctor/client relationship will be and the longer we will stay with the large animal work. Be nice to your vet. Please.

Good forethought by this client saved mom from pregnancy toxemia (too much baby, not enough mom) and saved all three giant babies!
Have horse, will have lacerations – client called as soon as it happened and got it all fixed up. Client stuffed burdock leaves in wound – he said for pain – I dunno.
What it can look like when intramuscular banamine goes awry – give it orally, please.
Repeat picture just to buffer the gross pictures. And it’s cute.

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Tony Takeover, Pepperoni Pizza

Emily and I were wondering if you would be interested in an occasional Tony Takeover. Every once in a while I would post a blog instead of Emily. You would get a glimpse into our lives told from a whole different perspective. I know it’s going to be fun for me, and I hope it’s fun for you. Let me and Emily know what you think about this idea in the comments. And now, for a story.

This story is about communication. It is very cliché to say that communication is key, but some clichés are pretty accurate. Over all Emily and I communicate pretty, but we are also both people pleasers. This usually helps out a lot in our marriage, but sometimes having two people pleasers and a lack of communication in a relationship really backfires. Enter the story of The Pepperoni Pizza.

College was a great time for Emily and me. We worked hard, we had a lot of fun in Athens, Ga (which I have a few other stories about if you are interested), but the one thing we were short on was money. We didn’t really know we were short on cash, and we were always able to make our budget work, but, when a great deal for pizza came around, we couldn’t/wouldn’t pass it up. The Papa John’s in Athens had such a deal. You could get a large one topping pizza for $3.99 on Tuesdays (I imagine this is no longer the case, but it would be awesome if it were). So, a lot of Tuesdays Emily and I ate pizza. But, before you order a pizza, a common discussion takes place, “What kind of pizza do you want?”

For Emily and I, whoever replied to the “what kind of pizza” question, would allows reply with, “I don’t know, what do you want?” (A common answer, I’m pretty sure.) And now the problem has set in. Emily and I are now intertwined in a delicate and sophisticated people pleasing dance. My goal, no, my job is to try and guess what kind of pizza she wants; all the while, trying to keep a poker face so as to keep her from guessing my pizza topping of choice. The curse of the people pleasers is that if you are the one that is pleased, you have lost the game, and, with Emily and me, it was a battle.

One point in our past, I remember Emily ordering pepperoni pizza. She seemed to like pepperoni pizza. So, when Emily would ask, “What kind of pizza do you want?” I would answer, “pepperoni.” And you for the longest time, we would get a pepperoni pizza for the basement bargain deal of $3.99 on Thursdays. And we were both happy with it.

Unfortunately, Emily and I were not really happy with the pizza. We were happy because we both thought we had won the people pleaser battle. I picked a topping I knew she liked, she got me to tell her which topping I wanted. We were both happy and ate pepperoni pizza, content in the fact that the other enjoyed it. And here enters the communication breakdown (yes, that is a nod to Led Zeppelin). I don’t really like pepperoni, but I thought she did. Emily doesn’t really like pepperoni, but she thought I did. We had been eating pepperoni pizza for at least 4 months (it might be closer to six), before one of us, I think it was Emily, finally confessed her true feelings.

We ate pizza we didn’t really like for months!! All because we couldn’t/wouldn’t communicate. So yes, communication is key, and I don’t care how cliché it sounds. It could have saved me and my taste buds months of eating pepperoni pizza if I had only told Emily, “you know, I’m not actually a big fan of pepperoni. Why don’t we try something else.” So please communicate with those around you, it could really save you, or, in my case, at least save your taste buds.

We didn’t eat pepperoni pizza for years after that. But here’s the kicker, it’s our kids favorite. We get it all the time now.

So yeah, there’s a small taste of tales from my perspective. If you want to hear more, let me know. And, as always, thanks for reading.

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By request: Our wedding!

I got a request from a reader to write about my marriage to Tony. If anyone else has any suggestions let me know.

Ah, wuv, twoo wuv!

Tony and I dated for 4 years before we got engaged. Our relationship up to that point certainly was not perfect. We had already broken up twice. Each time was a dreadfully, emotionally taxing, tear-filled hour to hour and a half until we got back together. Both times for silly reasons because I have a trait that is purely unique compared to other women where I read too far into things and create problems where there were not any. *wink*

I suspected the “question” would be coming up shortly when I discovered some of my rings missing from my jewelry box and knew Tony had taken them for sizes to get just the right ring. I was excited and didn’t say anything to him because, even though I knew it was coming, I wanted to feel surprised. Tony has never been good at taking initiative on gifts and surprises, so I was very excited to see what he had planned for this memorable moment in our lives.

Finally, the fairy tale moment arrived. I came home one evening after classes and work to a house (trailer) filled with lit candles. It was beautiful and I was touched. Then, I saw Tony, standing over by the dining table waiting for me with dinner all set out and ready. He said he made me dinner and then we sat. Then we started to eat. Then he started some small talk. We continued to eat. It got a little awkward, surrounded by candles, huge sweeping romantic moment it was supposed to be and we just chewed chicken in silence with a few awkward words in between. Then, like infinity and 20 minutes later, he shuffled off his chair and got down on one knee and sputtered out some loving, adorable words, and finally, placed the ring on my finger. The ring he had been so careful preparing for and sizing and researching. He had swiped three of my size 7 rings, taken them with him in shopping, picked out a ring, then carefully placed the beautiful size 4.25 on my finger. It didn’t go past the first knuckle.

Let’s skip ahead 1.5 yrs when we finally got married. It was the summer after my first year in vet school. Tony was working as an OR nurse at UGA vet school in Athens and we were planning to get married at my dad’s house – the one I grew up in. We were trying to keep costs down in any way possible. The most money I spent on individual things was my dress – bought on clearance for <$500 – and the tent. We had the most amazing friends and family who contributed to the affair. My uncle (the absolute best cook of meats on the grill) cooked barbecued chicken and pulled pork. My cousin’s wife is a pastry chef and made my cakes. (Good cakes too – not covered in fondant – red velvet, chocolate with peanut butter icing, strawberry, and something else that was amazing I just can’t remember.) A friend of Tony’s family volunteered to be the photographer to build her portfolio. Tony’s youth minister was the preacher marrying us. Tony’s mom, a hair stylist, did all the wedding party’s hair. My cousin played the guitar for the ceremony on a rocking chair on the front porch of the house – he played “Time in a Bottle” when I walked down the aisle.

Uncle Ward – master griller
Kim – master baker, but helping with veil. Fabric like $13 at a craft store. Ring of flowers picked and braided that day by me.
Tony’s mom (in the middle) – master hair dresser. My mom on the left sewing my veil
Jeff – master musician

We used my MP3 player just plugged into the sound system that came with the tent for music during the reception, we went out and bought all the decorations including mostly fake flowers and peacock feathers, but we also went to the flower shop the morning of the wedding (which was also the day before Mother’s day) and bought up all of their flowers that were white or purple and made due. We borrowed tables and chairs from the church the youth pastor was from.

The ceremony started. It was a balmy evening with a romantic haze (okay, it was smoke from the Florida fires.) My cousin beautifully played acoustic guitar. The wedding party came down the aisle. Then the ring bearer (my niece from my sister); then the flower girl (my niece from my brother) who made about 3 circles around a tree before she was finally ushered onto the aisle. Then I came down and the preacher started talking. We had written our own vows and it was all going beautifully when the deep guttural sound of a choking dog pierced the serenity. People tried to ignore it, but there was my beloved childhood dog, Maybelle a lab/pointer thing (nowadays maybe called labrointer or a pointador, but back then, just a mutt) chewing on a deer leg – she was fine, but my mother was mortified.

Tony with ring bearer and me with flower girl

The preacher finally announced that we were married and told us we could kiss when I was attacked. Like it was going to fall off, Tony grabbed my head in both hands and kissed me so suddenly I was more stunned and embarrassed than flattered. (I’ve never been much for PDA anyway). I even tried to push him away a little. After that, we announced the reception would be in the back yard and would everyone please grab the chair they are sitting on and carry it to the reception – again, my mother was mortified.

Notice the fist in his abdomen – preacher thought it was funny

The reception was laid back and fun, we ate rich southern dishes such as barbecue, macaroni and cheese, lemonade, sweet tea, and red velvet cake. Our first dance song was “Dance, Dance, Dance” by the Steve Miller band. We had a dry reception on the surface for the benefit of my grandmother who was stringently against drinking alcohol, but we had a keg stored behind a flap of the tent. Unfortunately, the word didn’t get out that there was alcohol because of the fear that my grandmother would find out, so only a few people partook. By the end of the night, Tony and I left for our hotel where we were staying before we left for Greece the next morning. My dad’s side of the family, though, probably the only ones aware of the remaining keg, stayed. My siblings and cousins all stayed up past midnight drinking and jamming out to the music on one of their car stereos, which then died and had to be jumped off. Somebody passed out in the grass and got eaten up by fire ants. Somewhere around that time my dad awoke to them blasting and yelling out the lines to “Say It Ain’t So” by Weezer which he thought was appropriate for the situation.

Cake is so funny!
So graceful…
K, bye!!

Our trip to Greece was another fun adventure. Maybe another blog.

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I appreciate it, but you’re wrong about me

Warning: stream of conscience type writing to follow so if you’re not a fan of James Joyce – whom I was forced to read in high school as a “classic” and thought he was a little overrated. I mean, I feel like literary critics/buffs sit down to read these things, see that the grammar is not atrocious, but fall asleep in the middle of it, snort awake and shout “Classic!” so as not to lose face in front of their peers. Where was I going with this? oh, yeah – then you probably won’t like this post. Also; religion; racism; and homophobia.

One time, when I was on a farm call for a cow, I don’t even remember what for, but I remember at the end of it, the farmer was so impressed with my demeanor he said “You must have been raised in a church. I can tell” I was certainly flattered, I understood what he was trying to say, but he was wrong.

I was raised in the deep south where EVERYONE had a church, normally southern Baptist, but some heathens (according to the Baptists) that were Methodist. I was raised without God. My parents were considered “hippy parents” where hippy was a derogatory word in the south. I didn’t mind. Although everyone who has ever called me or my upbringing “hippy” have never been able to consistently tell me what that means, I still ask anyone who says it. I took it as a compliment because if being “hippy” means caring for EVERYONE, loving and respecting everyone no matter who they are or what they believe (kind of like Jesus), then I was okay with that. No. I was proud of that.

My only experiences with church when I was growing up was to go when we visited grandma and occasionally if I had a sleep over with a friend who went to church. Both sets of my grandparents lived in Abbeville, GA. Wilcox county. My parents were next door neighbors when they met. Just to give you a feel of this place, they made national news when they had their FIRST racially integrated prom in April of 2013 (NOT 100 years ago, 7, less than S.E.V.E.N. years). My father has an experience when he was a child where he was going to church and a small group of young black men came up to the church steps and were stopped. They asked, very peacefully, if they could come in and worship, but the deacons all lined up to block their way and they were turned away.

When my sister became pregnant with a black man’s child, she received a letter from my very dear grandmother. A woman who had dedicated her life to worshipping Jesus; had never missed a day of church unless tragedy struck; volunteered for any and all events to help others; spent her last years when she could no longer walk knitting hundreds of sweaters for children in need; had even been one of the first teachers to volunteer to teach at the first integrated school when my mother was a child. A woman, who sent my young, scared-senseless sister a letter stating how disappointed she was in her and how much shame and teasing my sister would bring her family, but what was worse than anything to her was how my grandmother’s church would never be able to accept the child.

Then, of course, there were the friends I had who were avid church goers but would state things like “but if I ever brought a black man home, my father would kill me!” or “they need to stop blaming the system and just go out and get a job” then turn around and ask the receptionist if the person calling asking about a job “sounded black” because he “didn’t care, but some of the clientele might” and yet somehow, these people still claim not only to be not racist, but also followers of Jesus (not white). I won’t even get started on the unmentionables such as homosexuality – I mean we all know that’s why God is destroying the earth through global warming – which is also a hoax. *insert sarcasm* – my sister (you know, the one that shamed our family with her mixed race child – the child who, by the way, is now 20 and excelling in a pre-med degree at CSU) is a meteorologist (not on TV) and dedicates her life to studying weather patterns.

So, you can see why, as a young person, church was not attractive to me. I was raised by parents to love everyone and treat everyone with respect and people who I would think should be the epitome of love and acceptance were some of the worst. I started attending a church when I started dating Tony as his family were avid goers. I was attending a Sunday school session with one of the deacons when there was a small argument/discussion about how Jesus would only accept those pure of heart and how homosexuals were evil (or whatever) and I finally spoke up and said “Jesus said to love everyone, Jesus IS love, we should love everyone as we love Jesus” and the older, very bald man wearing thick black rimmed glasses (think Judge Doom from Roger Rabbit ’88) stared down at me – a teenage girl daring to speak to a grown man – with a half smirk and said “I’m not talking about that HIPPY love!” and went on with his speech.

I eventually moved to Michigan and had children that I thought might benefit from some socialization. We picked a church rumored to have a fantastic youth/childcare program and started attending. I went there with a chip on my shoulder and lots of grains of salt, prepared to put up my mental dukes and a wall around me. It wasn’t as I expected. The message was about love and acceptance and I began to soften. We joined a small group trying to get more involved and to further socialize our young children as Tony was a stay-at-home dad back then. It was there that I was introduced to the most lovely group of people I have ever met associated with a church. They taught me so much, including how every sin is equal in God’s eyes, but that He loved us so much that all those are forgiven. So, let’s say for a moment that homosexuality is a sin – so is going out in public while I’m on my period or wearing clothes of two different materials or eating shellfish. We’re all sinners, so we should stop telling each other that; just let it go and love and support each other.

These people because some of our best friends and their kids became by kids’ best friends. It was so refreshing to attend a church and socialize with people where it was all about love and acceptance. I slowly started coming out of my shell. I had always been afraid for people to know I was Christian because I knew how I felt about Christians or ones proclaiming to be in what I had seen. I knew that if someone came up to me and asked me to talk with them about Jesus, I would have immediately written them off and gone about my day. I’ve been in several groups of Christians that admit to not having any non-Christian friends because they feel like it will soil them or their children.

I would say that most of my friends are NOT Christian and I love that. I don’t take every opportunity we have together to bring it up, not even close. Some of my friends may not even know how passionately I seek answers. I tend to be drawn to the emotional train wrecks the most. Some of them seem to turn around and have ended up happy. Most of them stay about where they are, some of them (okay – one of them) completely blocked me out of his life. I guess I’ll just keep trudging along like Forrest Gump running across the country; happy for companions, sad for the ones I’ve lost, but not dragging anyone along.

So, against my better judgement, but keeping in tune with my “what comes up comes out” description someone once gave me, I responded to that farmer who made a statement about my upbringing with “No, actually, I wasn’t. I was just raised by parents to be a decent human being and to love everyone no matter what.” He acted a bit put off, but then brushed it off and thanked me for helping him.

Now, for some pictures of God’s creations

Little Stony Man, Shenandoah National Park, VA
Georgia Aquarium
Virginia Snow
Virginia sunrise
Pictured Rocks, Michigan – upper peninsula
Glen Arbor, MI
North Manitou Island, MI
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Vets are just in it for the money!

This particular blog is set out to let you see us and hopefully answer some common misconceptions about us. Vets are people pleasers; they are hard workers who like to fix things. We will go out of our way to make sure you are getting the care your animal deserves. We hate to not know what is wrong with your animal and we hate more not being able to make it better. Sure, there will be bad eggs out there, vets that just want to shuffle you along in the line of patients they have, some that want to make the most money off of you that they can, but, for the vast majority of us, we just want to help. We all worked REALLY hard in vet school and are still working just as hard to better our techniques, better our medicine, learn what is working better. We have entire social networks dedicated to sharing information and sharing what works for us and asking for help with cases. Tens of thousands of veterinarians constantly reaching out for help from vets all over the country and even the world, with tens of thousands open to helping and giving advice. Even board certified surgeons, internists, etc are answering some of our questions on some of these hard cases. I’m no 100% certain, but have asked human doctors and, to my knowledge, they don’t have this.

“Vets are just in it for the money, if they cared about animals, they would do it for free/less.” – Other than world famous veterinarians, the vast majority of us make much less than you would think. Modern veterinary school tuition is anywhere from $20,000/year to $60,000/year (tuition and fees ONLY – not rent/living expenses/food) for 4 years. So, at best, we are paying approximately $150,000 for the degree alone, including undergrad (4 years). Then, you have to factor in at least 4 years of lost financial gain where you couldn’t work enough to pay for rent/food – we had class from 8am to 5pm then ate something non-nutritional, started our IV drip of cowboy coffee and studied from 6pm to 12am/6am depending on if there was an exam (or 3) the next day- so add another $50,000 (depending on the state you lived). So, graduate with $200,000 in the hole. Unless you or your parents are independently wealthy (and they don’t hate you), you will have to take out a loan for this. In our country, interest rates can vary between 5% and 8+%, meaning that some of us pay upwards of $1200/month just to cover interest. One vet I know has paid $50,000 over 5 years toward her loan, but owes $80,000 more than when she graduated. One tells me she earns an extra $41/day in interest. Per. Day.

So, fresh out of school, with a $200,000 hole in your bank account. You get your first job, like I did, making $42,000/yr. , then, after 3 years, upgrade to $65,000. Now, you have a family, a mortgage, and other expenses to pay such as daycare so you and your spouse can actually go to work. So, you make $4000/month after taxes. You have costs of ~ $4200/month to live (these are figures from a time in my own life including only mortgage in a really low cost area, car payment, electric, daycare, gas, health insurance for the family – mine was covered by the company – and food – does not cover medical bills, car repair, other random bills) plus your $1200 interest-only payment. Your monthly costs are now at a minimum of $5400 meaning you make -$1400/month (that’s negative $1400) for being a DOCTOR. For having studied for 8 years, for continuing to upgrade and improve your knowledge as fast as you can, for bending over backwards, staying extra hours to work on a case, personally taking animals home to make sure they get the right care, crying in frustration or tragedy if the animal is not improving or dies. For storing every single one of those losses in our memory, but never seeming to remember the successes.

Some older vets may throw their younger colleagues under the bus and say that vets charge too much these days. Vet school tuition in the 60s was approximately $350 PER. YEAR, in the 80s; $1600/yr and calculated with inflation that translates to 60s: $2800/yr and 80s: $3900/yr compared to $50,000/yr now (that’s almost an 1,800% increase). I’ve had people argue with me and say “well, if you can’t afford vet school, you shouldn’t attend it.” My question is “would you rather have the best and the brightest working on you or your animal, or do you just want the rare rich folks who actually want to be a vet doing it?” – just like a larger country or state is more likely to get good athletes, a larger field of people to pull from will get better vets.

So, we don’t make a ton. Let’s talk costs of veterinary medicine. Every piece of equipment we use in a vet hospital – blood analyzers, ultrasound, x-ray, surgical instruments, gloves, syringes – all of it – is the same equipment used in human medicine and they all cost a pretty penny. Granted, they probably cost a human hospital as much as they do us, but a human hospital can charge you 10-100x what we charge for the same procedure because of insurance (*cough* “SCAM” *cough*). These are the same procedures we do with the same amount of training that goes into performing and interpreting them, but often with less wait time.

Another difference between human medicine and veterinary medicine is the way we look at our patients. In a human hospital (I imagine for the most part), patients are priceless family members and the best treatment is often not a question. In veterinary medicine, there are two very different views of the patients and a full spectrum in between. On one side, we have the pets that are considered family members, that go everywhere and do everything with their owners. Some are the only children our clients will ever have. Some are the last remaining piece the owner has of a deceased child or spouse to whom the pet belonged. Even mentioning cost of care could be insulting to them, because, obviously, this is their child and money is not a concern (though, sometimes “money is not a problem” means they don’t have any money =) and OF COURSE they will do whatever is the absolute best.

On the other side of the spectrum (which is not wrong) is people who view animals as animals. As possessions with monetary value. Some may be farm animals or hunting dogs, or barn cats and the idea of spending any amount of money above the animal’s perceived economic value is completely absurd. So, you had better discuss costs with these people before doing anything because if they walk out with a $200 bill for a barn cat, they will have a conniption.

Without a client making it perfectly clear to us where on the spectrum they stand, we offer all the options from the most ideal to the most conservative. This can make people mad. If the client is on the “my dog is my child” side they may get offended that you would even offer something that’s not the absolute best and, therefore, question your credibility as a doctor. If they are on the “it’s just a dog” side they may feel that you are pushing them to feel guilty to spend more money because you are just money hungry. Even if a client agrees to the most economic route, even if you explain all the potential risks of not doing the ideal option (again, not necessarily to push guilt, but to cover our butts) and the client signs a waiver, this still does not guarantee they will not or cannot come back at you later and sue or go for your license.

So, yes, vets are in it for the money… but mostly the love of animals, science, and fixing things. We love animals, but we must make money to live, to support our children. I’ve never heard of someone telling a car mechanic they shouldn’t charge money and just fix the car because they love it. (but perhaps they have heard that) We want to help you and your animal. That’s all we want. Please consider all of this next time you are upset with a vet bill. Consider the area that you live. The same procedure in Boulder, CO is going to be much more expensive than in Clare, MI – the same size house is about 7x the cost.

Can’t wait to see you and your animal next time!!

Pictures of my pets: 3 out of 4 of them are hazards of the job that I love!

Delphi – adopted the old fashioned way
Merlin – saved from being euthanized at 3 days old for a mangled leg that had to be amputated the next day
Penelope – found nearly frozen to death in a ditch – died once during revival.
Catina – brought in for euthanasia as kitten due to severe upper respiratory infection that had ruptured her eyes.
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How to: Bathe three children under 7

Now, for something more on the light hearted side.

So, you’ve decided to bathe your young children?

1. Contemplate whether they really, truly need a bath. I mean, they just had one, like, ….. well, let’s see: India started with her braided hair, then down the next day, then ponytail, then beavertail because she slept on it and apparently spends the entire night following the fan blades with her face. So.. like 2,3, was it really 5 days ago?? They probably need a bath.

2. Prepare yourself, mentally. This is possibly the most important step to the entire process. You may think I’m about to suggest having a drink before you start, but, oddly enough, children tend to elicit the opposite response of alcohol on a sane adult and will only shorten your patience. No, you need to pre-plan a bath at least 15 minutes to a couple of hours, and maybe, even a few days (when you get to ponytail, you’ve still got a couple of days) ahead of time to make it through this trying time. Envision the bath going well (yes, you may giggle), see the children cooperating with getting into the bath, getting properly wet, and keeping all the water in the tub.

3. Make sure you allow yourself and the children adequate time for the bath before bedtime. You haven’t seen a mutiny until you tell children they have to take a quick bath (with NO bubbles!?!) as it’s five minutes to bedtime. Make sure to calculate for the time you will spend loudly vocalizing for the 14th time to take their clothes off, that they can’t ALL pee in the toilet at once, wipe your pee off the floor and your brother, and then the “chase time” immediately following the bath.

4. Gently and lightly mention to your husband that you think it might be bath time, making sure you mean it if you say it audibly enough for him to hear.

5. Watch children lose their ever loving minds, ripping around the house like a Labrador or Boxer when you mention going for a walk.

6. Help children tripping over their own clothes as they attempt to shed them before even getting to the bathroom. You will also have the straggler who will attempt to get into the bath having only removed his pants – gently coax him out of the bath while reminding him he needs to be naked and go potty first and then watch him melt down as his brother is already peeing in the toilet and knows he will then get to the bath first (every time).

7. Help your daughter get into a separate bath/shower if she needs it, but lets be honest, she’s independent and will take care of herself for the most part – discussion on hair to follow. (Note: all three children bathed together at one time until opposite gender curiosity and shear mass of 130lb of wriggling bouncing flesh in one small bath like a small pot of boiling potatoes).

8. Allow the kids to pick colors for their bath – most important part. Argue with them incessantly over why they shouldn’t pull ALL the colors in the bath at one time, then realize the point is moot. If they want to bathe in a black lagoon, what do I care?

9. Make sure you aren’t wearing any clothes that you would like to wear the rest of the evening or make a purchase of a oceanic fisherman’s outfit. At this point, I find it most efficient to jump in (not the bath, though I’m not sure I have a good argument as to why not as you are going to be as wet as them anyway), douse the boys in water, attack them with shampoo. Catch the toddler as he runs and screams EVERY time you touch his delicate little head with water. Sometimes, holding him by his face as you rinse his hair may be necessary – don’t worry, it’s tear-free shampoo.

10. All you need to wash is heads, pits, and bottoms – boys apparently get lent rings around their penises if they’re wearing diaper/pull-ups and God knows you can’t trust them to clean these areas thoroughly. Sometimes, if I’m tired or made the mistake of having a drink with dinner, I will just squirt some extra soap in the water, agitate it really good, then close the shower curtain and let them run the spin cycle.

11. Now, they will request play time – which you will concede to because you prepared for this time (couldn’t take their antics any longer and said “BATH TIME”) This is when you will attempt to get some other small house chores done such as cleaning litter boxes or doing some laundry and will feel better about yourself and your superior efficiency when you will hear from the boy’s bathroom “hahahhah! That tickles!” which any parent of young children in the bath will immediately recognize and rush to the bathroom, pull back the curtain and discover what on earth they are doing.

12. Bath time is over. Get out. NOW.

13. Pull the drain as both boys start yelling and crying that they want to stay in the bath longer then, once all the water is gone ask them why they are just standing naked in the empty tub getting cold.

14. Catch each of them as they decide it’s a good idea to jump from the slick side of the tub to the very wet, slick floor. Wrap them in character themed towels and watch as spiderman and an adorable little ducky waddle into the bedroom and then promptly shrivel into a ball on the floor.

15. Remember you have a daughter – your sweet baby girl – STILL HASN’T WASHED HER *bleepidy bleep* HAIR!!

16. Chase children around the house as they squeal and laugh and use their wetness to slip out of your grip as you attempt to prepare them for bed.

17. Get them to bed.

18. Put toddler back in bed

19. Honor toddler’s request for a 5th kiss/hug because he says “pwease maw maw”

20. NOW have a drink – and change clothes.