Half-Full

Note to self: Be more optimistic
Step 1: Use more exclamation points!
Step 2: Remember that EVERYTHING WILL BE OK!!
Step 3: If all else fails, sell everything and elope. Live in California in hippie commune.
!!!!!

I volunteered to watch a litter of 6 adorable parvo puppies over the weekend as Dr. Meg had to go out of town. It was just for a weekend and only 2 out of the 6 six were ill so it wasn't a big deal.
On Sunday night, Jeremy and I leave the lab to give the puppies their nightly fluids. We have the really sick one, Matthew, wrapped in a towel on the table when he starts to flop around and then collapses and voids his bowels. Jeremy and I were both sure we had just seen Matthew die. We take him outside so the smell won't fill up the house and then I call Amy then Meg telling them he's dead. A necropsy was suggested so we're about to head to the school to put Matthew in the necropsy freezer when I do a last vitals check. He was alive.
It seems he had gone into a hypoglycemic seizure. I had no Karo syrup on hand (but I will in the future!!) so I was no help. Matthew starts to cry and groan continously in a really pitiful way. The decision was made to euthanize him.
Jeremy, me, and Matthew drive up to the vet school to the emergency entrance. We sit in an exam room for 30 min, talking to a really nice senior student while we wait for the shot to drawn up.
I had been rattled when Matthew had his seizure, and rattled when he was still alive, but I started to get weepy in the exam room because there was nothing to do but listen to him cry, which he did continously.
Of course through it all Jeremy was a rock and let me wipe my off my tears on his jacket.
Luckily, I didn't have to stay to watch.

Although this semester has been rather distressing, there is no doubt that this will make me a better vet. And maybe a better person. I can only hope ;)

When I was in my mid-late teens I used to pray earnestly that G^d would challenge me and teach me to be humble and make me wiser and kinder and more compassinate. WHY DID I DO THAT? (jk)