The wanderings and ponderings of a vet student

Tonight I come back to you after a long hiatus, in a place I never thought I’d be, thinking thoughts I never imagined I’d have. All of this requires an explanation. But it will have to wait. I have to get my day off my chest.

I was driving to my rotation at a well known university when I clicked on my right turn signal and gently eased my square contraption of a car into the right lane. This was normal, I was making a right turn at a busy intersection that I have been taking for two weeks now, I know the route like I know that lightning leads to thunder. But on this day there was a being in my path of least resistance to school, and he immediately caught my attention. A white man, taller than me, and thin haired or balding. He wore dark pants and a grey T-shirt. He was almost walking off the side of the road, but not quite. As a matter of fact, he was in my lane, just a little. I slowed and looked at him more closely. He was holing his hands in oddly clenched fists, gently gesticulating at cars that went by him. He seemed to be walking with a stagger, or maybe just a bit of clumsiness. Then I saw his face. It was covered in dried blood.

In the space of about a half a second, I made the decision to drive right past him. I even hesitated before I picked up my phone to call 911. Surely I couldn’t stop and ask him anything, what if he tried to hurt me? I was a passing 25 year old woman all alone. What if he was mentally unstable? Besides, it wasn’t my business. But maybe he needed help? Or maybe he was running from something? Maybe he was in trouble? Perhaps with the law? Or could it just be he was disabled and lost? I didn’t know, but my brain teemed with possibilites and I felt GUILTY as I phoned the emergency operator behind the big 911 and reported the man, explaining where I was and that I thought he might need help. In the moments that followed I was thankful for 2 things. First, that the operator was a well spoken woman who had the gift of clarity and empathy in her voice. Second, that she took me seriously and thanked me for my call, told me it was appreciated, and took down my name and number in case it should be needed. I parked at my destination a short time later, and wondered why I felt guilty for trying to help someone, and if the man would be alright.

Next, I left my car and sat in a classroom where I stared at images of the livers and spleens and brains and intestines of several deceased animals and learned what could cause various lesions in each one. I was quizzed on basic bacterial agents, various viruses, and classical cancers in cats and dogs until my head spun and everything started to look the same. Then there was time for a quick lunch before we all had to head to necropsy.

Our case for the day, though I can’t disclose the details, was of two large dogs from one owner. To me, and I believe all of our team, it was evident that we probably had an abuse or neglect case on our hands. It was a dismal chore, to have to try and listen with our eyes to the last things those dogs could tell us about their final state in this world that had failed them so miserably. My faith in humanity, ever so low these days, slipped a bit further down the ladder of hope as we cleaned up afterwards and got changed back into clean clothes, and I left that place feeling the weight of matters much greater than myself bearing down on my recently sunburt shoulders.

I made it home, but addmitedly drank 4 beers in a 6 hour period. Not slamming them down, but savoring that warm fuzzy softness they afforded to my sharp and angry thoughts that were trying to cut me like razor blades from the inside out. I never let the thoughts get very deep: I didn’t dare test those waters. Instead I accepted that they were there but immediately pushed them away. I struggled to keep my mind on the shallowest plane possible, blatantly ignoring the dark shapes lurking beneath the surface of my “simple frustration.”

The boxes. It had to be the boxes.

So here I am. Trying to take to heart the measages of selfcare and introspection and selfgrowth I so believe in.

It’s my story I’d rather share with you. I grew up in Cincinnati, OH. I was fortunate to be blessed with an excellent education, an inspired curiosity, and a gentle and very sensitive heart. I have battled my way through profound personal losses, the hardship of a child living among a failing marriage, and being alone on more occasions than not. I like to write these difficult things for many reasons. One is that it helps me cope with them by handling them a different way, like turning a sculpture over in your hands to see every crevice and angle. I like to write these difficult things because it is a way of remembering the raw emotion as I felt it then, instead of letting the memory of feeling become dulled by the waves of time. And finally, I like to write these difficult things because if my story lets someone know they are not alone, or inspires someone to push through their own challenges, well then I have made a difference in the life of another simply by being honest about my own. 

I like to write the good things, too. The triumphs, the surprises, the warm summer nights with friends around a campfire. I like to write the good things to remind myself life is a balance, that there is always light somewhere in the dark. I like to write my highest highs and my lowest lows, because both are honest, and both are so unfailingly human.