An Open Letter to My City

My eyes filled with tears this morning at the events that are going on in my city the past few days. I am filled with an overwhelming sense of worry, of concern and of sadness for the people of Charlotte. I remember a few short months ago when our city was filled with a sense of pride and camaraderie over our beloved Panthers and their success. We joined in arms as we celebrated this great city we live in. People came together to be joyous. Charlotte...where is that feeling now?

I love this city.....yes I am a transplant and people may criticize me for that saying I am not a true Charlottean but I have been here since 2007. I consider this city my home. It is where I have chosen to set down roots, to get married, to raise a family, to conduct my business. It's where I want to see my daughter go to school, make friends, take part in city celebrations, and learn to love others. But the last 48 hours this city is not the same place I know and love.

No one but the people involved know the true story of what happened a few nights ago when that unfortunate incident set off a whirlwind of emotions. I do not claim to know whether it was right or wrong. I do know that what has happened since that day is just wrong. We cannot attempt to combat hurt and hatred with more violence, more hatred, more destruction. Attacking innocent businesses or innocent people does not justify the hurt that people are feeling. Have any of these protesters stopped to think that the businesses they are looting or destroying may be owned by people who share their same mind frame? That these businesses were not the ones to offset this sequence of events? How does punishing innocent people make any of this better?

My husband and I choose to raise our daughter with a sense of acceptance and love. It is how I was raised and I am proud of it. My daughter has respect for authority and knows that if she does something wrong there are consequences...a concept that seems to be lost these days. This overwhelming sense of entitlement and that we are all 'owed something' has to stop.  The American dream has always been that if you work hard you reap benefits....when did that morph into "I am owed benefits without hard work?" When did we all stop respecting others?

As I look at the images of Charlotte this morning and the destruction that has occurred I wonder when we will feel safe in our city again? I wonder how the police officers must feel as they go home to rest knowing that tonight may bring more hatred, more protests, more destruction, I say a prayer and ask for help. Help to know how to explain these events to my daughter, and how to make sense of them myself. I pray that as my husband ventures into uptown Charlotte today that he will be safe. I pray that as the police report to work today and tonight that they are safe. I pray that the people who feel injustice today find the peace they are looking for. I pray for the families of those that have been lost in the last several days. I pray......

Charlotte.....you are the city I live in and love. I know that deep down we are the city that came together 9 months ago to celebrate success. I pray that my few words reach someone who can make a difference today. I hope that my prayers and the prayers of so many others are heard today and our city finds peace. I pray that people remember how to love. I leave you with that word...LOVE

I'm back

I recently took a little hiatus from blogging to give myself a break. There has been a lot of talk about work/life balance lately especially in veterinary medicine. I returned from my vacation to see posts about yet another veterinarian taking their life due to the demands this career puts on us. I recently shared a video from Dr Andy Roark on my facebook page regarding this topic. And I knew I wanted to comment on what is happening in our field but I needed time to think about what I wanted to say.

It makes me incredibly sad that this career that I dreamt of  having since I was 5 years old is not quite what I had envisioned. There have been many, many times in my life that I thought I should have made a different career choice. I know that sounds terrible so please forgive me and let me explain.  It isn't because I don't love my clients or my patients. It's because the part about loving animals and being a doctor is the easy part of this career. Sure there are days when the  medicine doesn't go my way, or a patient doesn't survive despite my best efforts, or a patient presents to me and I just don't know what is wrong with it. Those days are tough and challenging. As Dr Roark said in his video, veterinarians are type A individuals and often perfectionists. We like to be right. When things don't go our way it is easy for us to blame ourselves and often we are our own worst enemies. We can often beat ourselves up for something that truly was not our fault.

What most people don't take into account is all the other stresses and pressures and challenges we face. We are often not very good at separating home life and work life. Take myself for example, it is not uncommon for my husband and daughter to find me at the kitchen table doing work on my days off or in the evenings. It may be simple things like returning an email question from a client, or updating the monthly schedule for our 11 doctors, or following up on some lab work I did on a patient. There are a lot of people who are able to leave their work at work......unfortunately I have never been very good at that. And even more unfortunate, I think many of our clients have come to expect us to be available at all times. There is a connotation that if we create boundaries from clients or limit our interactions with them when we are not in the office, that it means we don't care. It is a common belief that what you do for a living is who you are.

The problem lies in that I am more than just a vet - I am a wife and a mother, a daughter and a sister, a friend and a colleague. And unfortunately as we all find out at some point, I feel like I am sucking at all those roles. When I am at work I feel guilty for not being home with my family and when I am home I feel guilty for not keeping in touch with my clients. My workdays expand well beyond the 10 hours I am scheduled on the calendar (which is much longer than I would like as it is). I spend 2 hours a day commuting to/from work and then once I am home I am busy cleaning, cooking, doing laundry and spending time with my family. Beyond that I am also available to my clients if they need me - whether it be via text, phone or email.

I'm not saying all this to make anyone feel bad for asking my advice, or contacting me after hours.  I want everyone to be able to understand that often veterinarians are stretched so thin and we feel that no matter how good of a job we did that day, that it is never enough. We want to be the best doctor, wife/husband, mother/father, brother/sister, friend, etc that we can be. And yes....often our expectations are too high. Our goals are unattainable. We know that - it's that drive and determination that got us to where we are in our careers. But that drive can damage us more than we realize.

It's necessary to take a break every so often. Turn off our laptops and our phones. Ignore the facebook messages for advice. Sit in silence with a glass of wine or cup of coffee and just remember to breathe. Maybe lie on the floor and have a tickle-fest with your 2 year old daughter. Force ourselves to remember what is really important and realize that our clients will be there when we return to our 'regular lives'. If we don't take care of ourselves, we can't take care of anyone's furry friends. We owe this to ourselves.....

Would you like Bacon with that?

A few months ago I was greeted on my way to work with the following text message "Penny keeps vomiting and it contains gravel..........do you think I should take an xray?" Penny is an energetic Chocolate Lab owned by one of the technicians at work. As all labs do, Penny likes to get into trouble and on this particular day got herself into a LOT of trouble. I chuckled a little to myself before responding and letting my technician know to go ahead and get some xrays and I was on my way in.

I don't think either myself or my technician expected to see that on the xrays. That is a perfectly sculpted stomach full of gravel. I mean FULL. No room for anything else. Nothing was getting into that thing - nothing, nada, zilch. Do not pass go...do not collect $200. We put poor Penny on some fluids to see if we could make any headway on things ( I have seen gravel move through with just some IV fluids to help) but after a few hours nothing had changed. Poor Penny was destined to have a zipper installed on her belly (ie surgery time).

When it was all said and done I think we removed around 4 lbs of pea gravel from Penny's stomach (including the amounts she vomited before surgery and passed in her stool later on that day). Penny continued to pass some small amounts of gravel for a few days but by the next week was back to her normal labrador self.

I'm sure you are wondering why this sweet girl decided to take part in an all-you-can-eat gravel fest? A poor innocent family member who shall remain nameless emptied a container of bacon grease out the back door onto the pea gravel earlier that fateful day. Without thinking about it a few hours later, Penny was allowed to go out in the yard to do her thing. When she remained out there for a while, no one really thought much of it until.....well you know the rest. No dog can turn down bacon flavored gravel.  I think Penny learned her lesson and will stick to plain bacon from now on.