jinj88 - This Little Light

April 2, 2021

Everything in moderation

***Disclaimer: photos were added 100% willy nilly and have nothing to do with the post other than to add pictures***

I was recently at our Church small group meeting and the topic was, I don’t know, something like living by example and “witnessing” in the mundane – being an example in everyday life. Anyway, we got onto the age-old discussion of whether it’s better to surround yourself with non-believers or believers. I’ll go over the discussed points with both and then talk about the benefits of including both.

Argument 1: Stay away from the “bad” crowd: The theory behind this one is obvious, but a very good point. If you want to grow better as a person, it is better to have people around you who are like you or even what you perceive as better than you.

Social situations: If you hang out with negative people who like to cause drama, you will begin to, also, look for drama to start to fit in. In the same, but opposing manner, if you were to hang out with people who really enjoy raising people up and helping and being supportive, you are more likely to integrate THAT into your own life.

Habits: If you hang out with alcohol or drug abusers, you are much more likely to partake yourself and possibly fall into a metaphorical hole. On the other hand, if you hang out with people training for marathons or are crazy into health and fitness, you are more likely to curb your life to include those or similar activities.

Spiritually: If you only hang out with people who strongly believe there is not a God or only harshly criticize those who do, you will start to feel as though you cannot believe in God for fear of being looked down upon. If, on the other hand, you hang out with people who seem more in touch with God or have more knowledge of religious texts, you are more likely to grow there as well.

Argument 2: Surround yourself with “non-believers” to better influence them to become better people is the other side of the argument, because how can you make the world a better place if you only talk badly about the “bad” people and surround yourself with like-minded people?

Social situations: If you hang out with people who are inherently negative and only see the worst in people or a situation, but you are able to enlighten them on another perspective, you may be able to slowly transition them to seeing things in a better light. Example: Car goes screaming past you driving, Negative Nancy says: “what a jerk, I hope he gets caught by the police.” You say “well, maybe his wife is in labor and he’s trying to get to the hospital”. Ms. Nancy, then, of course makes fun of you, you both laugh and move on. Try this in work situations when everyone is gossiping about another co-worker – try suggesting something no one may have thought of that could be the root of the problem so that the one person doesn’t have ALL the blame on them (unless, of course, they deserve it =)

Habits: This one is harder. I would love to say that just not being an alcoholic with a few inspirational words would be a positive influence on an alcoholic or drug abuser, but once they’ve reached that point, they need professional assistance – this does not mean you should leave them in the “gutter”. Ideally, you can inspire someone BEFORE they become a full fledged substance abuser. Hang out with them, drink with them, but cut out at a responsible level. If you keep drinking, socially, others will feel the need to keep up.

Spiritually: The basic idea with this theory is that if you surround yourself with non-believers, you could positively influence them and perhaps help them become a believer. You would be the metaphorical light house for ships on the sea. If you make friends and find out they are not believers, or even hate people who are, don’t write them off. Let them know that you are a believer and leave it at that for awhile. If you can let them know how you feel without pushing the issue, they will ideally begin to see that not all believers are crazy and may eventually become more curious, but if not, you can still be that positive influence on their opinion of people. Coming from a person who knew of Jesus growing up, but didn’t attend church and had every kid in the school in middle Georgia aimed at saving my soul, I can tell you the worst thing you can do when you find someone like me (as I was) is start the old and rehearsed rhetoric the churches shove down your throat to “witness” to others. Be a cool person, but be a cool person who has made it known that you are a believer.

So, really, both arguments make sense. But they also have their inherent flaws. If you only surround yourself with like-minded people, you cannot grow as a person, and unless you are convinced that you are perfect in every way, there is always some growth to be doing. Even if your are hanging out with people whom you deem “needing your help”, you’d be surprised by what they can teach you. Learning perspective can sometimes be the best growth you can do. People who have claimed “I would never make that life decision” get to know people who didn’t have a choice, or did it with the ultimate courage and make you revisit your perception of people who have made different choices than you have.

If you surround yourself with only people you feel needs your help, you are trying to set sail across the Pacific in a dingy. There’s also the very real fear that you will, in fact, fall to their ways and NOT grow as a person. An alcohol abuser friends with another alcohol abuser = no growth. An alcohol abuser friends with a clean person intentionally trying to change the abuser = not friends very long (OR shining success! – but not likely). Sometimes, people who need help just need someone to lean on while they try to get up.

In reality, at least in the way I feel, you should do a little of both. Hence the “moderation” in the title. You should absolutely find people whom you deem equal or superior to yourself in whatever aspect you need to grow. Whether it’s social, behavioral, spiritual, or even professionally. You should also have friends that do not fit into that cute little package – ones that are fun to be with, but test your limits and in your friendship, you even each other out.

With all being fair, and in the reality of life, you obviously will not be able to just go and select friends that match this picture. So, make friends, love them, learn from them, teach them and if you feel out of balance, join a group that would help you get a little more balanced. I, for one, am not a hugely religious person. I attend church and believe in God most days, but find my best company in the similarly damaged/awkward crowd, so I joined a small group in the church that I attend. This tends to keep me looking in the right direction and thinking about ways to refocus and become a better person while hearing the struggles of others feeling the same way as me.

February 24, 2021

Vlog: Vet Scenarios: #awkward

January 18, 2021

Date Night!!

This one took a little while. We didn’t like it, but eventually decided it might be because it was all too real.

January 15, 2021

Curbside Chaos – working in a new environment: COVID-19

January 14, 2021

Goodbye to Merlin (Merman, Schmermles, Myrtle, Schmermilator) and I love you

**Merlin on a short hike at Island Park in Mount Pleasant, MI**

I never in my life thought about owning a Saint Bernard. They just weren’t on my radar, just like Michigan was never there for me to live.

**Getting to be an old man in Virginia**

One day, while working at my first job in South Carolina, a local dairy farmer brought in a new born puppy. She owned a dairy and had a very small Saint Bernard breeding kennel on the side. Her bitch had just whelped and had killed all but two of the puppies and had mangled one of those puppies’ back legs. At first, it appeared as just a puncture on the out side of the hind leg. We cleaned it and sent home antibiotics.

The next day, the farmer brought the puppy back in. The leg wound was now bigger, draining pus, and the foot was stiff and cold. We gave the puppy a guarded to poor prognosis with infection set in and a dead leg in a newborn, frail baby. The farmer, with all of her responsibilities as a dairy woman, did not have the time to dedicate to this sickly puppy. She decided it would be best for him to euthanize as he was not getting better.

I looked down at this beautiful, perfect except for a mangled rear leg, and could not picture myself sticking his tiny heart with a needle and then tossing him in the freezer where we kept dead animals. Now, at this point, I was just exiting my first trimester of my very first pregnancy (with India). We had just moved to this town, not 5 months ago, we were renting, and already had 2 dogs, 2 cats, and 2 horses. I was absolutely not in the right place to even think about taking on a new dog, let alone one that would need intensive care for 5 weeks and would grow to over 100lb. I talked it over with my best friend working there with me, Kim, and she encouraged me to take on this (currently) 1lb project.

I talked to the farmer about surrendering him and letting us try to amputate the leg and save him. She was in tears. She was a tough woman, running a dairy farm, but she had a fantastic heart. She was so upset that she was going to put him to sleep, but was thankful that we would at least give him a chance. I had him signed over and was now the owner of a very sickly infant St. Bernard. What had I done? What was Tony going to say when I came home? I knew he would understand. He knows who he married, but he would likely shake his head a little.

I brought him home, honestly under the impression that even if he survived to, and then through surgery, that he would likely die sometime after from infection, or fading puppy syndrome. I had 0-0.5 hope of his survival (#naturalpessimist), but I had to try.

The next day, we were to do the surgery. I had to meet my boss at a dairy to continue to learn how to efficiently palpate cattle for pregnancy. I went over and over the surgery in my head. Finally, we were done palpating cows and I would drive to the clinic to cut on this three day old puppy. We put him under with just some valium and then masked with gas. There were three people gathered around this 1 lb patient. Kim, our assistant, the other Dr. at the clinic running/monitoring anesthesia, and me, carving on what felt like a chicken wing from KFC. I dissected down to the femur, at some point severing the femoral artery that was so small, it never bled. I used a heavy pair of surgical scissors called Mayo scissors to score a shallow cut around the bone, like a glass cutter, then the bone broke easily in half.

**8 weeks and type of bottle we had used to feed him, but this particular bottle was for a baby goat**

I, then filed the end of the bone so it wouldn’t be rough on the muscles, closed the muscles around the tip of the bone, and finally, closed the skin over the muscle. Whew! We were done! We took him off of gas, and put him on oxygen only and waited for him to wake up. And we waited. And waited. He wasn’t waking up. That’s it, I knew this was stupid, but at least we tried, right? Then, the doctor helping me got some injectable dextrose and just put a couple of drops in his mouth. He woke up! Thankfully, she was able to keep her calm and remembered that neonatal patients will get hypoglycemic under anesthesia.

We took the puppy home, now named “Doomed puppy” because of my pessimism and superstition all rolled into one. We had to bottle feed him. The little bottle that came with the formula had a nipple that was way too small for his mouth. We ended up having to get a soda bottle and put the smallest goat nipple we could find on it. We also had to stimulate him to pee and poop until he was a certain age. He slept in a cardboard box on a heating pad in our bathroom for the first few days of his life and came with me everyday to work. We had to set alarms to get up every few hours to feed him.

One weekend we were travelling back to Georgia to announce my pregnancy to the families. We would take our dogs with us when we travelled and had the two big dogs in the backseat with the box of puppy in the back as well. He was about 2lbs at this point. Along the way, we stopped at Subway to get dinner but didn’t want to leave the puppy in the car alone with the two dog aggressive dogs, so I picked him up and placed him in an inside pocket in my coat and carried him inside. The workers there never knew I had a Saint Bernard in my coat pocket.

Eventually, we settled on a name “Merlin” and he continued to live in our bathroom, he particularly loved the bath tub. Every night, when it was bed time, he would just shuffle into the bathroom and lop himself into the bathtub to sleep. Having only had three legs his whole life, we always just figured that he would have no trouble learning to walk with three legs. Just like four-legged dogs who get an amputation later in life seem to do just fine, and to “not miss a step,” we thought that he would have even less trouble learning the ways. We were wrong.

Having basically been born with just the three legs and having never learned to walk properly, he would just scramble. He would pull his body along with his front legs and kind of paddle with his one hind leg. Thanks to the advice from my friend, Kim, we sought a Veterinary specialist in rehabilitation in Columbia, SC. She was able to make some chiropractic adjustments, and fit him for a cart for us to borrow. He hated that cart. We would harness him up and he would freak out and run around the room, getting caught on furniture and knocking over everything. We were finally able to harness him up and take him on walks in the neighborhood. It took a lot of practice, and he grew quickly and eventually had to return the cart, but by then, he had learned better how to get up on that back leg.

**1 year – India also pictured at 9 months**

He eventually got along on that back leg like it was nothing. We couldn’t take him on long hikes and I could only take him on a 1 mile “warm up walk” before my run so that he got to feel like he was part of the pack too, but he also loved to play tug-of-war – which is typically not recommended for pets because it can make them think everything is a game when you’re trying to take things from them – but this was his main method of exercising, and I could just tell him to drop it and it was over.

He loved vegetables, fruit, tissues, and baby socks. He would wait in the kitchen while I cooked, waiting eagerly for kale stems, carrot ends, strawberry leaves; would follow the kids around or sit next to me while strings of drool hung at his lips if we dared to eat an apple around him. He EXPECTED the core. He would run outside and help the horses eat watermelon rinds or try to find the scattered sweet potato skins I had just thrown out for the deer. If you left a paper towel or tissue within reach, he would stalk it because he knew he would get into trouble for eating it and the moment we weren’t paying attention, he would suck that thing down like it was a piece of cotton candy. Even when the kids were babies and we were in a complete state of chaos, if we forgot to close the baby wipes when we were done, you would catch him sucking each one down as it pulled up the next – like his own tissue Pez dispenser. His love of baby/kids socks got him in trouble too. We would constantly have to go out and buy more to make up for his dietary needs. Our kids were so trained not to leave their socks on the floor downstairs that if we went and visited another person’s house, our kids would come up to us and ask us where they could safely put their socks. Between the tissue diet and socks he consumed, once spring rolled around and we mowed the lawn for the first time the mower would spray our yard with confetti of tissue pieces and colorful sock remnants.

As Merlin got older, he would go through phases where he couldn’t walk as well anymore. Most of the time, he responded to pain medication, time, or a chiropractor adjustment. I took an x-ray of his hips to see the horror that I was afraid of. His only hind leg he had was suffering from horrible hip dysplasia. I knew, even though we were very diligent about keeping his weight down, at 120lb, it was still only a matter of time before he completely tore his cruciate ligaments in his only knee and then it would be done. He was definitely MY dog. Tony would tell me that if I wasn’t home, Merlin would just lay in the corner of the dining room all day, not moving even to go outside. He did NOT appreciate the kids and as he got older, he only became more cranky with them, especially when they got crazy silly.

**The circled joint is supposed to be a ball and socket joint – you see no ball or socket**

This past fall, he started having trouble walking again. We knew, at almost 9 years old, anytime could be his last. He was no longer getting up on his back leg anymore and would just scramble along the wooden floors. We would assist him outside and, at first, he would get up on the leg to go to the bathroom. We had him on three different pain medications, joint supplements he had been on his whole life plus a few more, got him some fancy Dr. Buzby’s toe grips, a Help ’em up harness, but still he dragged that stump around. Eventually, he stopped eating as much and the stump became raw and bloody. We had smears of bloody trails across our floors where he had needed to be with me. I altered his harness to pad the stump, but it wouldn’t stay where it needed to. I brought home an “After surgery wear” from work and altered that to pad his stump. That seemed to work better.

I had been avoiding it. I was in denial. When he would use every last bit of energy in his painful body to get to where ever I was in the house, I just knew he depended on me, how could I let him down? But finally, I stayed outside to watch him go to the bathroom, because now he was soaking his after-surgery wear every time he peed. To my horror, and with tears running down my face, I saw him drag himself to a spot and just sit and pee all over himself. Then, he dragged himself to another spot and pooped while sitting, only swinging his rear away to keep the poop from sticking to him. I knew it was time.

The final day, he was so excited to get to go in the car with us, as that was a rare occurrence for him. We were feeding him Milkbones like he was starving and he just thought that was the best. My mother even met us at the clinic and brought him a porkchop wrapped in a paper towel. He chomped that down too, paper towel and all. He was just having the best day! Of course, it took me and Tony to get him out of the car and into the clinic to our euthanasia room. He required a sling to hold his hind end up. But he just dragged us in, found the few people working after-hours, his tail just flagging like the happiest pup. We finally got him to the euth room and he stumbled and collapsed on the floor. Tired, from all his happiness. I gave him the sedation, then cuddled his giant bear head in my lap as the final injection was given. He was only 3 days old when I decided it wasn’t his time to go to the freezer and even though I had given him 3,200 more days of pure love, it still felt like I had abandoned him as we gently lowered his body, finally, into the freezer.

**My last picture with my Mer-man – he looks so tired**

Bye buddy.

January 11, 2021

Is God in Control of Our Elections?

I encountered a discussion the other day that got me to thinking. I am very well aware of the followers I have and am likely going to lose some of those with this post. I just hope that before you hit the “unsubscribe” button, you will at least take a deeper look into yourself and think about things a little more. I thought about not posting, for fear of losing followers, but I feel that I was given the opportunity to be on TV, not just to be on TV and get “famous”, but to reach out to the world and do good. Well, here goes…

The statements that started the conversation: When Trump was elected: “Praise God who put Trump in office – God chooses our leaders” When Biden was elected: “I will pray to God that our country will survive this, the devil is in our country again.” Not only are these really bold statements in general, but they are deeply contradictory to each other. How can God be in control of one election and not the next one? If God is in control, He’s always in control, right?

**Tony and me at the City Museum in St. Louis, MO**

Now, I was admittedly upset when Trump was elected – not because he was a republican either, but I won’t get into why. Through the last four years, I’ve slowly come out of my shock and understand that God does everything for a reason. I can’t tell you why He takes babies and children away, or allows fatal wars to wage for decades, and I can’t tell you why He chose Trump to be our leader for four years either, but I have a theory.

Since the beginning of history, we have changed the way we treat each other as we have become a more densely populated species. At first it was all “eye for an eye” and “love your family and hate your enemies,” then about 2000 years ago, some pretty fantastic guy came along and said “no, love your neighbors AND your enemies.” Since then, we have been constantly redefining how we treat each other. We started with slaves that owed money, then we went to slaves that dared occupy their own land when we decided we wanted it, then we went to slaves that we went out and sought from other countries.

Finally, enough people decided that having slaves is bad. So, we fought a war to end slavery. Then we were like “okay, they’re not slaves, but they have far more melanin than me and are therefore inferior in every way.” Another wave of thought came declaring, “no, they just have more melanin and were never given a fair chance after they were freed, but they are human and should be treated as such” (BTW, this was ONLY about 60 years ago, not centuries). Then everyone (well, the privileged ones anyway) thought they were PRETTY good people and that a utopian society had been achieved.

Hitler was, at one time, the leader of Germany. Yes, I suppose God DID put him there if we are sticking with my line of thinking, but I don’t think it was to kill off a bunch of people directly. I think our entire span of history, we have been going through cycles of complacency and awakening. I’m not (by any means) a historian, but I think Hitler’s reign of terror really drove home the idea that if we are dealt a difficult enough time and a hated/feared enough group of people to blame, we can not only be persuaded into abandoning our morals, but we can be convinced that it was right and just to abandon them.

**More cousins at the Atlanta aquarium**

After Hitler, we were reawakened to the harsh realities of our human nature. We would never be like that again. We had a common enemy, he was defeated and we will never succumb to that again. We were more aware of the Jewish religion and were more careful to be nice and inclusive to those of other religions. We continued to improve our humanity, better and better every decade – slow to us, but change is slow. Then, I think we got complacent again. We (well, at least, me as a privileged white person) thought that every one was almost equally treated, the vast majority of people had love and inclusion in their hearts, and that we were almost there.

Then, something changed. Trump was elected. ***Disclaimer before you get mad, I completely understand that numerous, if not the majority of Trump supporters are good people who just believe that he was going to/did change the country for the better*** We can differ all day on policies and how the country should be run, and that’s fine! That’s how changes for the better are made, but what Trump did, whether or not intentionally, was to bring to light some of the people with evil and hate in their hearts. Trump acted as a divisive sieve to filter out all the degrees of anger on both sides. His words spurned fear, hatred, blame on the other side, and he even seeded doubt that facts weren’t facts that caused a deep paranoia among his followers. He got out on a social platform and spewed rhetoric and propaganda that struck fear in the hearts of some of his followers and made the other side hate his followers even more. Some people blame the media for dividing us, but with Trump standing on his own personal propaganda machine (twitter), we didn’t need the media to know just how scheming and deceitful he could be all on his own.

**Me and Tony Kayaking – me trying to turn a kayak into a paddle board.**

Personally, I’ve learned so much from these past four years. I’ve learned that I have been complacent until this period, I have falsely believed that racism and xenophobia were all but extinguished. Turns out we have a lot more work to do. Trump was ordained by God. Does that mean he’s a saint? No. But, I believe God places trials on us to make us realize areas where we need to improve to better do His work and spread His word and strive toward betterment as a people. I believe He wants us to stop. Think. Consider the views of the “other side” and communicate. Hopefully this will have been an awakening and we will grow toward the light instead of crawling back into the darkness.

**Baby Oscar at Pawleys Island, SC, infatuated with a kite**

December 22, 2020

First Snow of the Year!!

We’ve had our first good snow of the year, and the Thomas family made the most out of it!! Hope you enjoy the video

December 13, 2020

Covid for Christmas

We made a heart breaking decision last night to cancel our plans to visit family in Georgia for Christmas. It wasn’t responsible in the first place, but then with numbers surging recently, COVID-19 being the number one killer in the US a couple of weeks ago – even over the long-reigning heart disease, some Georgia hospitals being at 97% capacity with some having to bring in refrigerated trucks to hold the dead bodies, and with increasing numbers of people here in Virginia testing positive that are getting too close to home, we knew that it was beyond irresponsible to travel. Down right reckless. I knew, deep down, that even though this decision would break the hearts of young cousins who haven’t seen each other in over a year, and may even anger some family members, that it was the right thing to do. I mean, it would be like hosting a party for unvaccinated puppies at a public dog park in the middle of a parvo outbreak.

You may be thinking “what does a veterinarian know about this human disease?” The answer is “Not much”. BUT, I understand outbreaks and highly infectious diseases and how to manage them and keep them under control. In small animal, I have dealt outbreaks when anti-vaxxer breeding kennels broke out with parvo as well as the not uncommon kennel cough outbreaks when people take their dogs to groomers, dog parks, kennels, etc. As a large animal veterinarian, we don’t even wait for outbreaks to occur to start with careful preventative practices such as isolation of dairy calves so they cannot touch each other, quarantine of new animals to the herd, health checks before shipping animals to a new herd, isolation pens for the sick animals, and the obvious vaccinations.

**At work, enjoying a tiny, wrinkly perk**

Honestly, thinking like a large animal herd health veterinarian, the idea that people all mixed together all the time and all over the world without protective protocols before this outbreak is kind of mind boggling. Masks should have been instituted long ago for anyone with the sniffles. Temperature checks should be common when intermingling groups of people. These are all very common ideas in the animal/herd health world that we just take for granted in the human world. And, no, your immune system does not get weak by not being exposed to highly infectious things. It maintains its memory – literally in your bones (marrow). You wouldn’t lick a toilet seat splattered with diarrhea to help your e-coli or salmonella immunity, would you? Some dirt good, some will kill you dead.

When COVID was fresh in the US, there was much discussion on my vet moms’ group because veterinarians have been dealing with a coronavirus for decades with no good answers. There is a feline coronavirus that is very common in the cat population and causes a transient (goes away quickly) diarrhea for most cats, but for some cats, it can change the way the immune system reacts to it and can cause a horrible death months to, even, years later and there’s not way to test to see which individuals will react this way. COVID-19, even though it is the same type of virus as FIP, is a respiratory virus whereas FIP is intestinal. They, very well, may not have the same long term threats, but COVID has only been around 10 months. It may take another year to determine if there will be any long term effects. Unfortunately, there is no effective vaccination for the feline form. We are hoping that with the increased money and interest invested in saving our human families, that this vaccine will be much more effective.

**It really is hard to get both children and animals to be still enough to get a decent photo**

Long story short, if we can prevent spread of the disease, it would be smart, careful, it would be showing love for our fellow man. The death toll in the US is currently at 1.8% – seems low, but as my brother, who works at a cement company, pointed out – if everyone at his plant got infected, they would lose 4 people. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but if you had to look those 4 people in the eye before they died and say “well, it’s only a small percentage”, would you be okay with it? If you knew that only the people over 55 were the ones that would die, would that make it better? I mean, they’re too old to enjoy life anyway, right?

I could go on and on. Please comment with more questions. On to the point!

So, we begrudgingly announced to the kids that we would not be going to Georgia for Christmas. They were shocked, their little faces, fallen with mouths agape. Then, like little Cindy Loo Who, India muttered “but why?” When we explained to them about how terrible COVID was getting, they had lots of questions about the virus and the masks they’d been wearing. We explained how many people are dying of COVID. We explained that masks help, but are not 100% and that masks are for protecting other people and not ourselves – giving them the respiratory droplet explanation. She asked if some people were not able to wear the masks – we answered that a very small minority of people physically or medically cannot wear them, but that was even more of a reason for those of us who can to wear them, to protect others.

Then, India, my 8 year-old little girl asked me the hardest question yet: “Why don’t some people not want to wear masks?”

Was I supposed to explain the “sheeple shaming”?

Was I supposed to explain the greater fear people have of appearing to follow the crowd or somehow being controlled by the scheming government than that of killing strangers with their irresponsibility and selfishness?

How could I explain to a loving child who is always worried about how other people are feeling or doing that some people just don’t consider their own actions and the repercussions they could have? Those who don’t look past their front door for people to care about? All while teaching her the ways of Jesus?

So, I just took a few moments, trying to gather just the right way to explain it to her and finally said;

“Baby, I don’t know”

November 29, 2020

The 2020 Thomas Family Christmas Tree

I made the decision to go Christmas tree shopping this past weekend. I love Christmas, but I am willing to respect Thanksgiving as a holiday – mostly to eat dressing and macaroni and cheese. Getting a Christmas tree just two days after Thanksgiving would easily be the earliest I have ever had a Christmas tree. My mother’s birthday is mid-December and we never liked to override her birthday with Christmas, so when we were young, we would always wait until after her birthday to get a tree. Slowly, I had wiggled my way back to this day. It was going to be a perfect day! Beautiful Virginia mountains, 55 degrees F, sunny. We couldn’t wait!

**The kids are pretending to be reindeer**

Saturday morning came! I had to work at the clinic that morning, but I was just going to grit my teeth and bare it. Working Saturdays at a vet clinic is, at best, a crap shoot. Some people can only make appointments for Saturdays due to work schedules, some wait until the fear that they will have to watch their pet suffer a 42nd day in misery if they have to wait until Monday. At this clinic, I am the only doctor working and end up being scheduled to see a patient every 15 minutes – some easy vaccine boosters, some very sick, requiring extra time and care.

This particular morning, I was swamped. Sick animals everywhere, a very sad euthanasia, and a couple of headache inducing clients. At the end of the morning, ten minutes to the finish line, when the final client called and demanded her dog be seen for a broken toe nail despite our assuring her this is an issue that could be addressed at home – I mean, would you go to urgent care for a toe nail you cut too short? So, yes, we charged an emergency fee – hoping it would keep her away, but instead she spent 10 minutes griping about the price and brought the dog anyway, complaining that it wouldn’t take very long and it shouldn’t cost that much. Looking around, everyone in the clinic was super busy giving fluids to a sick cat, taking x-rays of a limping dog, cleaning, talking to clients in the cars (because curbside), and answering phones. I still had to write up all the records for the glob of cases I saw, make sure everyone was called back who had pressing questions or were waiting on lab work, make sure prescriptions were faxed out to the appropriate pharmacies. So, that, ma’am is why the extra charge.

**A better day when puppies were actually involved – yes, that’s a young puppy**

Now, in my delightfully good mood, I will go Christmas tree shopping!

I finally arrive home, in such festive spirits that, after scarfing Thanksgiving leftovers, I sink down on the couch and contemplate whether today is, in fact, a good day to get a Christmas tree. Tony feeds into my foul mood by suggesting we wait until tomorrow. I consider the full out triple sized tantrum that would ensue if the kids found out we were not going that day and finally decide to get on with it.

**Picture of our fate I saw in my head if we said no Christmas tree today**

We load everyone into the most neglected vehicle we own – “the truck” – the heat doesn’t work, it’s been rained in, the interior is likely rotted, the check engine light is ALWAYS on, but it does the work no other vehicle can do, so we haven’t scrapped it yet. On the way to the farm, we tune into a Christmas music station and the kids all join together in singing that classic yule-time favorite “A-B-C-D…” followed by Calvin screaming “NO! OSCAR!! It’s my turn!!! ABCDE…” then, all the kids joining in a harmonious fight to scream their ABCs the loudest while yelling and hitting their siblings that’s it’s their turn.

Finally, we get “the truck” to the highway where the shuddering of the vehicle in unison with the reverberations of the busted speakers finally silenced the kids into a fearful submission as I try to ignore the angry drivers passing feverishly since I would not go above 60 in a 70mph zone. We, then, get to peacefully listen to actual Christmas music and Oscar shushes everyone when “Frosty the Snowman” comes on and then we make it to the tree farm.

Pulling into the farm, we see it is PACKED! Everyone was walking around, dressed in their holiday best; sweaters, vests, and boots, when my kids jump out of the truck in short sleeves with India taking it a step farther with a flimsy cotton pink skort – Michigan raised kids, amirite? The kids all rushed to grab the deer carcass sleds they let you use to carry your slain tree, they argue incessantly over who gets to pull the thing, then Calvin decides he’ll just sit in the sled, which greatly upsets the other two as you cannot as easily sprint carelessly, demolishing all the baby trees when you have to actually try.

India sings to every tree that it is “the one” and we finally decide on one after, much unlike his choosing a life partner, Tony decides he needs to see every single tree before we settle down. We find a cute one to settle on – it’s not the tallest one we’ve ever gotten, but it’s full, green, and cute. Tony starts with the cutting down after we all have professed that this is “the one”. He gets a few saw strokes into it when I decide to help him out by pressing the tree away from the saw to open up the “incision”. At this very moment, I realize that this is the first any of us have actually touched the tree above the trunk. At this moment, it dawns on me that we have not chosen a tree, but a cactus. I CAN. NOT. TOUCH. IT. Tony asks if he should stop cutting, but we had already damaged the tree, it just was ours now. I picked up the sled to push it and we get it cut down. Tony, wearing work gloves, gets stabbed several times through the gloves to get it loaded on the sled and we consider donating this tree and getting another. “No,” I said, “it just fits with 2020 at this point.”

We get it trimmed and loaded and drive home, welts slowly growing all over Tony’s hands and arms, he is dousing his hands in hand sanitizer to help relieve the itch. India’s allergies and asthma is being triggered, likely by the mold in the interior of “the truck”. And so, we arrive home with the precious cactus, contemplating whether or not to just drag it up and down the gravel driveway until it softens.

Decorating of the tree goes much more smoothly than it could have with a destructive 3 yr. old, only 2-3 ornaments were broken, but that’s why I had my trusty hot glue gun plugged in and ready to go. Oscar ran around the ENTIRE time, hopping on one leg, around the tree, jumping over the strand of lights plugged into the wall, all to simulate being his tyrannosaurus ornament who had lost a leg. We finished adorning the tree with all the favorites, including homemade Pokémon cut-outs, a George Harrison action figure, and a Halloween dragon skeleton. Soon Calvin also joined Oscar in skipping, and then India, and we finished the day with skipping races across the living room.

Here’s to your Christmas/Holiday season!

November 12, 2020November 12, 2020

Head Games – You’re not broken

Dear my doctor, Human Doctor, HD

I really appreciate your devotion to figuring out my health – both physical and mental – and your taking the time to really listen to me and address my biggest concerns – “no, it’s probably not a brain tumor haha!” – even though I had already taken out an extra life insurance policy. I was even excited when you told me that you didn’t think I was on the right medication for my mental struggles and that you were optimistic that switching to a different medication would better address my issues of anxiety (perhaps a reason for the additional life insurance reaction to my headaches?). We planned to wean down the dose of my medication slowly – you know, so I didn’t die – and it would take about 3-4 weeks to get it out of my system before we could start with the new one. I walked out of the clinic enthusiastic that my perspective on life would be a little sunnier in the future.

**Oscar in Michigan – he LOVED the snow!**

Then, slowly, as my day went on, I began to realize at what point my body would be completely devoid of medication to stabilize my emotions… Election week. Good timing, HD.

My anxiety started with the birth of my second child in 2014 and has only continued to get worse through the third child and then the turmoil between friends and family over politics despite counselling, exercise, good diet. I used to picture me, dropping Oscar as an infant and then just vividly picturing his busting his head open, vividly feeling the emotions that would come with it. Picturing our trip to the hospital and how I would feel at his funeral. This extended to Tony, picturing him falling from the barn when he was feeding the animals and dying – continue with long emotional “daydreaming”.

**Fantastic weekend camping on North Manitou island**, MI

The worst was once, when I was nursing Calvin in the recliner in our home, should have been a beautiful moment between a mother and her infant in the early hours of the morning, everything was quiet and I was just loving his tiny, soft, warm body against mine when the nightmare entered my mind. I imagined how it would feel if I were living as a Jewish person in the Holocaust and was trying to hide with this baby when the Nazis were looking for people and shooting all they found hiding. What if Calvin was crying and I couldn’t get him to stop?? The long drives I would be on for farm calls would just add fuel to the fire as I was alone with my thoughts for 1.5 hours at a time.

I have grown up absolutely convinced that if I tried hard enough, used my attuned introspection and was honest with myself, that I could get to the root of the problem and address it. I also believed that I just needed to get enough exercise, eat right, and generally take care of myself and I wouldn’t need medication. I, admittedly, thought that people on medication for their mental issues were just not trying hard enough.

**My Halloween costume one year when I went as Cat Woman**

Eventually, though, despite my being able to look at my life from the outside and think “I’ve actually got it pretty good – loving husband, three healthy children, financial stability” the dark, suicidal thoughts slowly started to creep in.

Karma, am I right?

Finally, I sought out a therapist who helped me immensely, but eventually, I still required medication. I fought and fought her and myself with the idea of starting medication. I thought it was practically giving up. Rolling over, becoming lazy, and needing a crutch. I also was afraid that it would change my personality. But it didn’t. Through all of my guilt at being on this medication which increased serotonin (hormone that makes you feel right with the world) levels in my brain that was just not producing enough on it’s own, I complained to my vet mom’s group as we sometimes vent to each other, and someone commented something that changed my whole outlook on this issue.

She said, “Medication for depression/anxiety is no different than a diabetic who needs insulin to survive. A diabetic’s body just doesn’t make enough of the insulin hormone and we just don’t make enough of the serotonin. You wouldn’t judge a diabetic for using insulin because they just weren’t ‘trying hard enough'”

Sometimes, though, the medication you are put on is not quite the right one for you. So, after 3 years of being on Prozac, I’m now clean… and absolutely miserable. I cannot wait to start my new medication this weekend. This past 2 weeks has been absolute torture on my body – mentally and physically. I’m having to take the rescue anti-anxiety medication my HD prescribed on a nightly basis (don’t worry, it’s just an antihistamine). Last night, I felt like my chest was caving in, every single sudden or loud sound made me angry. I wanted to yell, I wanted to cry – for no reason. I just wanted to curl up in a ball, but was too restless for that.

**India – toddler’s reaction to asking her to smile for a picture**

So, Sunday, I start a new medication – Lexapro. Truly, I am very grateful for my doctor’s efforts. I’m sure he didn’t plan to switch my medication during this turmoil. And he couldn’t possibly know that this would also be the time that my sweet Merlin and my oldest cat, Delphi would be starting to go down hill and euthanasia would be on the table for both. I’m sure he was just excited to get me on a better medication to make me feel like a more normal person. And for that, I’ll forgive his timing =)

Please, if you even think you may need help, seek it out. Even just a therapist – even if only on Zoom or whatever – you’re not broken. People don’t talk about their issues because they are afraid of how others will see them. You could have, literally, everything going for you and can still have a hormone deficiency that causes you to think negative thoughts and even hate yourself. Don’t even start with that “back in the day” crap either – back in the day, no one talked about it, instead, they just drank themselves into oblivion, became abusive to their families, or got institutionalized.

**Me and my in-laws (Tony’s sister and her husband)**

We are a very intelligent species and are, therefore, more prone to thinking. Thinking can be great when it is aimed in the right direction, but can also be downright dangerous if it veers in the wrong direction. Therapists and medication can keep your thoughts on track. Hormones are ridiculously influential things. Don’t think you can outsmart them.

Seek help!