Re: Fleas, Brewers Yeast, Garlic

On Mon, 1 May 2006 22:39:59 -0400, "Sharon"
<askformyaddy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I have been to the USA and have seen how other vets live other then the
ones you mentioned and they certainly do bring in the big bucks.

I'm not going to try to defend our business - you certainly have your mind
made up about how wealthy vets are. But I will say this - and it comes after
a particularly rough week - I don't know many occupations where multiple
times a day you have to give bad news to people, including telling people
that a member of their family will die or has died. Not one other occupation
where someone has to humanely take away the life of a family member. In
veterinary medicine this is what we do. These pets are part of a family. 24
hours a day Veterinarians disrupt their families and attend to their
business, not because they have to - but because they want to.

When the time comes for a pet to be put to rest it isn't always on a weekday
between 9 and 5. Saturday at 4am when the doctor has to be up in less than 3
hours to be back at the practice isn't uncommon. It's rare that I have to
hire a new employee. They stay with us for many years and therefore see the
entire lifetime of our patients. They and the doctor *every day* are the
ones to hold the dog or cat when they pass whether from natural causes or
euthanasia. Comforting grown men (clients) in the parking lot as they run
out in absolute grief isn't spoken of much in continuing education classes.
Neither is dealing with the sadness that inevitably comes home with vets and
the helplessness of not being able to help someone.

My husband and I joke that nobody clears a room like the two of us. We have
seen many of the members of our community at their most vulnerable and
sometimes after a sad moment, it's hard for them to see us as they did
before. They're embarrassed and that's natural. Last week while my morning
kennel manager was out having surgery I assumed her duties. In February we
had to put our own 15 year old graceful lady dog down (don't think that's
not hard for a vet to do for his own dog). That day we didn't have much time
to grieve as a family as our oldest son was hospitalized with a serious
condition within hours. Fast forward to last week. We lost quite a few
regular patients, age or natural causes or accident. At one point, my
husband brought back two clients and their very large black lab who had
passed during the night. They had brought him in so we could make
arrangements for cremation. All we could do at that point was comfort them.
After they left I lifted the plaid blanket that had come in with him and
there he was, peaceful - looking like he was asleep - his front legs gently
wrapped around a beaten up, old teddy bear (like Radar's in MASH) that they
wanted cremated with him. I lost it right there. My husband looked at me and
simply said, "you too?"

We comfort our staff, we comfort clients but one of the nicest things that
happened was when a client who lost their very senior cat that day and one
who we had treated freqently for so many years, called my husband at home in
the evening and acknowledged that the euthanasia had been difficult for him,
asking, "How are you? Are *you* OK?"

So yeah, I will defend our 'business'. Overhead is sky high and the business
end of it sucks at times. But we donate to many charities and humane
societies out of our own pocket (not the business'), take care of our staff
like a family and have *never* regretted owning the practice and making
sacrifices. It's only when I read the crap about how rich we're supposed to
be and how we only care about the almighty dollar and not research, science,
medicine and the well being of our patients that I get personally incensed.

Sharon,

Don't pay any attention to showdogbark. He thinks Jerry Howe knows
what he's talking about, and not long ago he was posting on the
newsgroups pretending to be his dog.

Based on my experience, not all vets are as compassionate and involved
with their clients as yours, but they also aren't the rich
money-grubbers they're often made out to be. Our veterinary hospital
has several vets - the big cahuna, who's been practicing for 25+
years, owns the practice, and has been our vet for years, the 'senior
junior' vet, with about 6 years experience, and three other, younger
vets. We see the big cahuna, Dr. P., or the 'senior junior' vet, and
we respect and like them very much. I do wish that they'd consider
home euthanasia, if only for dogs that really fear going to the vet.
But I'd never really thought much about their reactions to euthanizing
patients they'd seen for years. Two weeks ago, we put one of
greyhounds, the 11 1/2 year-old spook, down. Dr. P. had seen him a
couple of weeks before for a dental and to remove a growth, and then a
week after that to stitch a cut between two toes (Matty had severe
lumbosacral stenosis and his back feet knuckled under and often
dragged over things in the yard). The day he died, he developed a
torsion, probably in the early hours of the morning. Being an
extremely stoic dog, the only signs he showed until immediately before
we took him in were a couple of gaks and no desire for breakfast. Dr.
P. explained that in older dogs, the ligament holding the stomach in
place sometimes wears out, and that the stomach can flip completely
(which it did in Matty's case) in minutes. Surgery wasn't a
reasonable option because of his age and condition. Matty was a very
special dog among special dogs, and Dr. P. was his vet for the 9 3/4
years we had him. He tried Depo-Medrol injections that he'd never
done before to ease Matty's symptoms from his lumbosacral stenosis and
saw Matty come in in diapers after he lost most of his bladder
control. Matty was a blood donor. Dr. P. knows us (we do greyhound
rescue) and he knew how much that dog was loved. He's always quiet
during euthanasia, but that day he was especially so. Looking back, I
think that day was very hard for him as well as for us. Thank you for
giving us that perspective.

Mustang Sally

.

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