Being a vet

It\’s an interesting, diverse, challenging, heart warming and heart breaking job – or is it a calling? I look back over the years, thousands of animals, thousands of their people. Routine visits, just for a checkup, with smiles and laughter, happy pets, talking about the wonderful and funny things they do to enrich our human lives. Serious visits, with sick pets, discussing what we need to do, and what steps we need to take to try to find out what\’s going on. Blood tests, x-rays, ultrasounds, exploratory surgery, or even referral for cat scans or MRI. How much will it cost, what will it tell us? Should we put this pet through the stress and pain of it all. Hard questions, often with harder answers that made me go all quiet and take a deep breath or two before bracing myself to say what needed to be said, knowing that it would hurt these people looking to me for help with their friend, their pet. Tears, held back, or flowing like a river of feeling down people\’s faces in the waiting room.

The early days in practice, long days, and sometimes longer nights, working for a boss who gave no support, and blamed me for any failure. Sleep deprivation, the tight gnawing stress in my gut of being thrown in at the deep end – and letting go the pressure valve with crazy nights out, drinking like a fish. Fresh, clear sun soaked mornings with a grand swell rolling into a reef break, a gentle offshore breeze peeling rainbows from the surf. Years in England, the cold grey earth frozen white from the train\’s window, on my way to yet another locum job. Growing into the job, feeling more comfortable and capable with what to do, and when.

Crashing into the pit of unexplained illness, chronic fatigue syndrome – going home, a mess, hardly able to take a 5 minute walk on bad days, a couple of years of being an invalid. Slowly getting better, but not ever quite well, a continual roller coaster ride of being ok, doing a little too much, and then having to pull right back to the bare bones of life, surviving as best I can. Starting a home visit practice in Townsville, so I can work at my own pace, and have flexibility in life. Having to tell clients on the phone that I\’m crook, and can\’t help them today, my heart aching as I do so, thinking of the old dog who needs help to the other side having to go into the stress of a vet hospital to draw his last breath.

Moving to Uki, the green rich hills rolling through my days. Meeting new people, new pets, starting to teach my true passion, the Whole Energy Body Balance work, seeing people\’s dogs transform under their hands as they feel their way through this new thing they are learning. Helping pets get well without using pharmaceuticals as much as I can, and finding that I only rarely need to resort to antibiotics and so on. Helping people help their pets, and loving what I do. Still struggling a lot of the time with low energy, body pain, unable to get out and do all the things I\’d love to be able to do. And appreciating the beauty in life, all the same.

 

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