Emily and I have had a lot of people asking for an update on our lives in Virginia. So, I’ve decided to write a little post on how it’s going in the state that’s “for lovers.”
Our hike up Hawk’s Bill Mountain
Emily and I have lived in the South (Georgia and South Carolina) and the North (Michigan.) We knew we didn’t want to return to Georgia. It is way too hot down there. Summer starts in mid February and the heat doesn’t relent until December. To top off the heat, the humidity is brutal. I would start to sweat once I stepped out of the shower, and I wouldn’t stop until I took another one. There was just no escape from the heat in Georgia, and Michigan was exactly opposite. The bitter cold of a Michigan winter would start to bite in October, with winter’s teeth sinking into my bones through January and February. I’ve seen it snow in May, and I have pictures of my family in jackets in June. So, when it was time to leave Michigan, we had an idea of what we wanted. Weather wise, we both like all four seasons. We wanted a place where we would get some snow, some heat, and a lot of the beautiful days that fall in between. On top of the seasons, Emily and I wanted to stay in the East. We considered California and Oregon, but they felt too far from family. Emily and I both have a considerable amount of family in Georgia. Our third desire was for fairly quick access to mountains and the ocean, with mountains being more important. Add this all together, and Virginia became an obvious place for us. Within Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley was appealing. The Shenandoah National Park is basically in our front yard, and there is a nice river for canoeing and kayaking. And so, we moved to Front Royal, Va.
They really really really wanted to help
The move, of course, was stressful. Any time you relocate a family there will be a lot of stress. India and Oscar still talk about friends they left in Michigan, and they bring up things we use to do but probably won’t be able to do again (like going to Glenn Arbor). But, all in all, the kids have settled in nicely. They have made new friends and they enjoy their new school and daycare. India and Oscar are about to go to their first dance, a Valentine’s Dance. We hike a lot, and the kids love it. We’ve been to the top of mountains and to the bottom of waterfalls. The kids can be hard to get on the trail, but once we get out there, they run and play. If you are ever in this area, I would recommend Little Stoney Man and White Oak Canyon trails if you only have a few days to hike. In the summer we splashed in the river a good bit. This coming summer we’re planning to take the kids down the river in tubes for the first time. Even more exciting than tubing the river, this summer will be Calvin’s first trip to the ocean. India and Oscar have both been to the ocean, but not in over four years.
This is a little aside, but I thought it bared mention; Emily and I first moved to Virginia in late June. In late spring and early summer the fireflies light up the woods every night. It was so beautiful. We would sit on our porch after it had gotten dark, and just watch the show the fireflies were putting on. It was an amazing display, an intricate ballet of light. Emily described the fireflies like being in a stadium with thousands for flash bulbs going off all around you. It is truly amazing.
This may be my favorite picture
Not only are we enjoying all the outdoor activities Virginia has to offer us. We are both enjoying our new jobs. We work together at the same veterinary clinic. Emily is one of nine doctors working there (the clinic has two locations.) And, she is not nearly as stressed or over stretched as she was in Michigan. The pace of our new clinic is much more manageable. Although it is a busy clinic, we are very well staffed with a lot of support for the doctors. To top it off, there’s also a black clinic cat named Dan. He and Tater (the Pol Vet clinic cat) are both amputees, although Tater is missing a leg and Dan is only missing half a tail. The clinic we work at now is small animal only, and Emily will admit that she misses the large animal side of things. She misses her cows and especially her calvings and foalings. Instead of doing a little bit of everything like I did at Pol Vet, I, for the most part, work as a doctor’s assistant. I’m assigned one doctor to help through out the day. In general, things are really good for Emily and me at work right now. As an added bonus, a lot of the people at the clinic have children that are roughly the same age as ours. So, our kids have a lot of other kids to play with at work gatherings.
One of those calvings that Emily misses
The only thing that’s not so great is that Emily is picking up emergency shifts at a local veterinary emergency clinic so we can pay the mortgage on our Michigan house. Actually, as I write this, she’s at her second job. But her shifts at the ER are not nearly as bad as the on-call she used to do. She only works a weekend or a few week days a month, and when she’s done, she’s done. There is no worry about being called back in. All in all, we are super happy in Virginia. The mountains, the water, the work life balance, it’s all what we wanted. It is what we were looking and hoping for.
I’m trying to talk Emily into doing a vlog for a Q&A post. She’s not all that keen on it, but I’m trying. Vlog or no vlog, my next post will be a q&a. So, last chance to ask any questions. And, as always, thanks for reading.
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.
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, VAGeorgia AquariumVirginia SnowVirginia sunrisePictured Rocks, Michigan – upper peninsula Glen Arbor, MINorth Manitou Island, MI
I started my young veterinary career in school, knowing, absolutely knowing that I was going to specialize in Equine Theriogenology – or breeding horses. I had taken a course in undergrad where we were assigned a group of mares and then were responsible for monitoring their estrus cycle via ultrasound and palpation and then deciding when and how to breed. We even had to collect the semen from the stallions, process it, and inseminate. I. LOVED. IT. I begged my teacher to be the teacher’s assistant the next year, I got to do it all over again. I love making babies! I spent every opportunity I could travelling to the best equine reproduction facilities in the US learning more, soaking up and loving every drop, every nuance, every manure covered rectal sleeve. Then, I applied for an equine theriogenology residency after my (terrible) internship and got rejected.
I spent that summer after my internship applying for jobs. I had only known large animals to this point and there were no large animal only jobs available that I could find. I knew nothing about small animal medicine other than vague lessons learned in vet school. It was two months later that a student of mine when I was an intern contacted me about the job in South Carolina – a mixed animal practice. It was the first time I would be treating dogs and cats. I had a ton to learn. Luckily, it was a very small practice and very slow with appointments so I was able to go to the back and research for almost every case to start. My boss was also mostly out on the road seeing dairies, so I was often left to my own decisions. Luckily, I had a wonderful tech who had been in the business a long time and was able to teach me most of my methods and help me along. I think it was a fantastic opportunity to really get to learn it down deep without the chaos of a busy practice.
Then, I got the job with Dr. Pol, moved up to Michigan in the middle of February 2014 in one of the harshest winters they’d recently had – we had stopped in Ohio to adjust something on top of the car and the wind was howling with 6 degree weather and Tony claims he was 2 seconds away from leaving me and driving back south. I was lucky enough to have already been in practice for 2.5 years before starting to work with Dr. Pol as it was constant chaos at his clinic. We were often quadruple booked every 15 minutes with only 2-3 doctors working. People waiting an hour to be seen was not uncommon. I had to learn to work fast.
When I first arrived and followed Dr. Pol around, I was absolutely impressed with the shear speed in which he saw patients. He would walk in a room and basically have a diagnosis before examining the animal. I figured that this was just from his years and years of experience and I had mountains to climb to catch up to his efficiency.
It was fun for awhile working as fast as I could, challenging myself to see the most cases every day. Then, slowly, my conscience caught up to me. Was I rushing through cases just to get them done and out? Was I really giving each client their due time and consideration? Was I offering everything I could to the client? I learned along the way that you have NO IDEA what a client is willing to do until it is offered. Dr. Pol’s clinic was in a very low income part of Michigan and you could probably count on 90% of the clients being strapped for money and wanting to try something easy first, but you could never tell which was that 10%. I saw one emergency, a dog that had gone acutely blind that day. I researched and read about it, told him (almost in passing) that the dog would need emergency surgery to save the vision. The man took his dog that day to see the specialist in Michigan, who then referred him to an even bigger specialist in Chicago, and the dog ended up having a $10,000 surgery and saved vision in one eye.
I had also gotten quite sloppy in my record keeping and if I planned on keeping my license for long, I knew I was going to have to be more deliberate with that. So, while at first I was swirled up in the fast pace craziness, I was cheapening my medicine, doing a sloppy job, and also, burning myself out. Working on numerous cases every 30 minutes, juggling multiple cases at once, sometimes even forgetting clients were in the room. It also seemed like the faster I saw cases, the more cases were booked for us to see, so it just kept piling and piling. Finally, after Tony had been working there awhile and saw how the practice was run, he’s the one that instructed me to put on the brakes. Dig my heels in and slow down.
I also joined a DVMoms group on facebook where I was able to air my grievances and get fantastic and supportive feedback. I slowed down, gave my clients more time, wrote complete records and started to restore my sanity. I felt like I could offer clients and their pets much better, quality, care in this way. I would make sure that EVERY client got offered EVERY option with treatment instead of guessing based on the client. I would be sure, though, to not make the client feel bad at all for not being able to afford the most ideal option.
One of the things I liked about working at Dr. Pol’s clinic was that we were able to offer therapies, treatments, and surgeries for much less cost than other vets around – this would eventually bring up the fact that we also didn’t pay staff well. I was able to perform C-sections on dogs and save their lives when the only other option was euthanasia because the surgery was too expensive somewhere else. Our practices were not necessarily the safest or the best, but we were able to give the owner an option other than putting their animal down. Other vets that charge more are able to offer more safety, quality, and options in their care and are able to provide their employees with better compensation. Selfishly, at the time, though, I enjoyed helping the people in need.
Eventually, the stress of working there with three small children, being on-call all the time, new vets coming and leaving just as fast, leaving the on-call duties spread between mostly 2-3 of us. Being on call for me was not a matter of if I got called in, it was how many times – with no extra compensation. I would spend my entire weekend I was on-call at the clinic – my phone rang the other day here in Virginia and Tony said he got that sinking feeling like I was about to have to leave. Six months later, he’s still suffering from “PTSD” – not seeing my children, getting home to have them all squeal with delight that I was home, then getting called back in 10 minutes later and watching them cry or even scream at the door as I left.
I was having more health problems, physically and mentally than I’ve ever had. Suicidal thoughts, even, despite medication. Finally, my therapist and the fine women on the DVMoms group pushed me to reach out and find a better job. I would take a huge hit with the salary, having Nat Geo paying me twice as much as my vet salary, but I had to escape the darkness. So, I found this job that I have now, small animal only. No on-call. Scheduled appointments for each doctor that are 30 minutes long. I feel like I get to have so much better of a relationship with the clients and hear their grievances and really talk to them and educate them about their pet’s health whereas before I would just be rushing them through their main complaint.
God pushed me to leave Dr. Pol. I prayed and prayed and prayed. I finally got my answer in a very odd, non-job-related way, but that story is for another day. I started my vet career with the intention to make lots and lots of baby horses, then I went to mixed animal, and I have currently reached a small animal only – the section of veterinary medicine I knew the least about when I started. I’m even working some shifts at a small animal emergency practice and I. AM. LOVING. IT.
Loving on the barn cats at Clay Knob – miss those fellas!Last 3am uterine prolapse – I was coldLive calf from a uterine torsion – LOVEThe kids say “outlook looks good!”
First and foremost, thank you, everyone for subscribing!! We are still trying to figure everything out, so please be patient with us. My husband, Tony, is in charge of running the website and has worked on getting ads added to hopefully help us make a little extra money, but we don’t know exactly what we’re doing, so if (God forbid) something crazy starts happening that is unacceptable or offensive or even annoying, please let us know and we will try to remedy it. My first goal is entertaining and keeping you happy! Also, some of the replies you might get on this site could be Tony. Love you all!!
So, since most of you know me from The Incredible Dr. Pol show, I figured I would give you some back story into how that came to be. I had been working at a mixed animal practice with 50% on call with a egotistical, power hungry boss. Okay, I’ll give you a tiny example – once I was parked at a dairy with the company truck and one of the workers ran into the truck with a tractor, making a smallish 4-5 inch ding in a rear fender. My boss lost his mind and went off on them, me, demanding they pay for it immediately. Mind you, we frequented this dairy 2-3 times a week and it, by itself paid my boss about $20,000 per month in veterinary expenses.
Anyway, I was sick of working there and we were in our second rental house and our landlord had sold the house from underneath us. We had six weeks to move out. I started applying to several different practices locally and across the country. I included in my resume that I was probably going to be having more children. I was honest and open because: 1. That’s who I am and 2. I didn’t want to pick up and move my family to another town or state only to be “let go” and have to move again. My friend, the tech at that clinic I worked pushed me to apply to Dr. Pol when she saw the ad. My first response was “Who would want to live in Michigan!?!?” Having been raised in Georgia and spent the last 2.5 years in South Carolina, Michigan seemed like a stark, desolate wasteland of icy tundra. But, to make her happy (because that’s also who I am) I applied.
My family all went to Colorado that year for Christmas and I hadn’t heard from any of the clinics I had applied for. I was sure I was going to have to go back home and just look for another place to live at my current job and stay there forever. I was standing out on the back porch of the cabin we rented, staring at the stars in the crystal clear sky over the Rocky Mountains and just prayed and prayed (and maybe a little bit of begging) to God to help me and show me the way. I promised Him I would accept whatever He presented to me.
Two days later, I still hadn’t heard anything from other jobs, or from God for that matter, when we were driving home from the Atlanta airport. We had stopped for gas somewhere along the Atlanta Highway for gas when my phone range and it was Dr. Pol. I had not watched the show at all and only knew of it through news articles. I was still star struck, knowing this famous vet wanted me to come interview. I hung up the phone and knew that God had shown me the way.
Another two days and I took a pregnancy test that came up positive. I was thrilled, but then reality hit me when I realized I would have to go interview and admit that I was already pregnant. I considered not telling them, but was, again afraid I would move across country and just have to move back when I got fired for “whatever fits here”. I started my journey to Michigan on a Friday night. Flight got cancelled. Went back Saturday morning, flew to a connecting flight. That flight got cancelled and I had to spend the night at a hotel. I was able to extend my trip into Monday, but had to argue with an airline employee who scolded me for not scheduling an interview flight better, at which I informed her that I had planned on leaving Friday night, and now, because of the lovely airline, would not be flying out until Sunday.
I finally got to Michigan late Sunday afternoon, oooo’ed and awww’ed at all the beautiful snow. Called a real estate agent and asked about a house I had already looked at and finally crashed onto the bed of the hotel. I lay for 2-3 seconds before I mustered up the energy to call Diane Pol and tell her I was here and ready for the interview. During the interview, I eventually informed Diane that I was already pregnant to make sure there was full disclosure.
The next day, I went and saw the house that we ended up buying (which is STILL for sale!! https://www.zillow.com/homes/2931-E-Rosebush-Rd-Rosebush,-MI,-48878_rb/112243628_zpid/) flew home, and found out I got the job a few days later! So, here I am, hopefully still following God’s path. Why did I leave? That will have to be for a later (possibly much later) blog, but I will have to say God works in mysterious ways.
View from our house in Rosebush 2014New baby surviving Michigan winters 2014
Hello, and thank you for coming to read my random thoughts! I have decided to start a blog page about myself, my life, and random observations about the world in an attempt to give hope, inspire, but mostly make you laugh. I enjoy making people laugh, some for attention (otherwise why would I have the nerve to start a blog), but mostly to bring some positive light to the world when all chaos seems to be going on in our everyday lives. I plan to bring some lighthearted humor to everyday annoying situations so that you, too, can laugh at my downfalls and tribulations.
For my first Blog, I think I want to tell you about my brown stethoscope.
When I was in vet school, I got a purple stethoscope – my favorite color! Unfortunately, my dog ate it. So, then, when it was time to buy a new one, I had reached the point in my schooling where my soul and will to live had been adequately crushed (also known as clinical rotations) to allow for “remolding” – or, eventually, being happy with minimal pay for hard, stressful, skilled labor. At that point in my career, I did not exist as an individual and only was out to please my mentors and clients. Knowing that I would be going into large animal medicine, and therefore, be around barns, farmyards, horses, cows, pigs, etc, I wanted to have the best chance I could to be respected. I was convinced, as a girl, I wouldn’t be respected on the farm with “good ole boys” if I had a purple or pink stethoscope, so I purchased a brown one with copper finish. It looked very professional to me, like an elite equine practitioner and I was ready to go out and try my best to fit in with my clients and make them happy and would never allow them to think that my being a girl was a weakness.
My first real job (after a joke of an internship) was with a boss that was one of those good ole boys on the farm and despite his large stature and thick barrier of testosterone he carried around with him at all times, he employed only small women in his clinic – perhaps it was the need to feel in control, but perhaps it was just that in the veterinary world, women were becoming the majority for options. While working there, and only 3 months into my employment at my first job – granted I was already 28 – I became pregnant with my first child. I was absolutely terrified. I just knew that I was going to get fired for this and even contacted my uncle who is a lawyer to ask his opinion on my chances of getting fired. He told me that, unfortunately, because the business was such a small practice, I could, in fact, be fired legally.
I finally got up the courage to tell him and he was visibly disturbed, but, to my astonishment, did not fire me on the spot or make life harder for me to get me to quit. He did, however, warn me that the farmers around there (rural South Carolina) would not like a pregnant lady working on their cattle – that I’d make them uncomfortable and not to be discouraged if I was asked not to come back. I just knew that this would be the end of my large animal career. I worked very hard in the coming months to hide my belly with large clothes and coveralls, but at some point, you just get to the point where you can’t hide that belly anymore. The farmers did notice. They were shocked, surprised, but not one of them told me not to come back or act like they were unwilling to allow me to work on their animals. They were, maybe, a little more careful with restraining their large animals (but, really, shouldn’t they, anyway).
I went on to have the baby, remain on call, while breastfeeding and have to cart my infant along with me on some farm calls. I would park with the truck running and go pull a calf while my baby screamed in the truck the entire time. I did the same when I went out and castrated some horses, with the baby sleeping in the vehicle. Not one farmer said one thing to me – except I would get the occasional comment on how impressed they were that “a little girl like you can do what you do”.
I eventually established myself as a strong person, and no longer had to hide that I was a woman, that I was a pregnant woman, a nursing woman, a mothering woman, or a womanly woman. I eventually got to the point where I would wear earrings or *gasp* make-up or a sparkly headband that was my daughter’s out to the farms and never got a lick of push back. I still have the brown stethoscope because, well, they’re expensive and this one has not disintegrated yet, and once I cleaned all the cow manure out of the ear pieces, my ears don’t itch so much anymore. But I really love when people ask me about why I have an ugly, brown stethoscope because I get to tell them about how I used to be scared to be me, but once I was me and figured out people were okay with that, I get to be me and love it!
