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Difficulties
Feb. 20th, 2004 06:00 pmSome things in veterinary medicine get easier each time you do them. Some of these are physical skills, like drawing blood or suturing or restraining an angry dog; some of them are talents - making yourself understood to clients, writing charts, calming angry or upset people. They're all challenging, and they all seem impossible the first time you try, but they honestly all do get easier every day.
Other things never do get easier, but stay difficult, in a way that sort of makes you glad that they're not changing. I never want it to be easy to euthanize an animal. At the same time, though, there are redeeming factors to euthanasia. If nothing else, I know going into it that a decision has been made by the client, and that they're on the way to coming to terms with their loss. I know that the animal's passing will be quick and painless, and that I'm helping with that, even if there's nothing else I can do.
Losing a patient unexpectedly is apparently another one of those facets that never gets easier. I suppose I'm lucky that it hasn't happened to me too much, and that I haven't had the chance to learn it earlier, but I could be happy never knowing this. And unlike euthanasia, there's no mitigating factor here. An animal is dead, and it's out of my control, and it wasn't supposed to happen. There are no words to say to the owner to make it better, there was no time beforehand for them to prepare. There's no escape for me, either - no matter how much I know that it wasn't my fault, I can't help but run around in circles inside my head, wondering if maybe there was some magic way I could have prevented this, or at least foreseen it.
Biological systems are soft and fragile and mysterious, and sometimes even all of our understanding can't make them behave in predictable and safe ways. It's one of the first things they drill into us at school. It's something that we explain to every client. And absolutely none of this helps when the odds catch up with you because at that point, it isn't a statistical eventuality, and it isn't a biological system, and it isn't an acceptable fact of practice, it's someone's pet and your patient, and a tail that was wagging at you yesterday that never will again, and I'm working myself up even more by writing this, but I have to get it out into words to make it stop banging around inside me.
I don't want it to get easier. I just never want it to happen again.
Other things never do get easier, but stay difficult, in a way that sort of makes you glad that they're not changing. I never want it to be easy to euthanize an animal. At the same time, though, there are redeeming factors to euthanasia. If nothing else, I know going into it that a decision has been made by the client, and that they're on the way to coming to terms with their loss. I know that the animal's passing will be quick and painless, and that I'm helping with that, even if there's nothing else I can do.
Losing a patient unexpectedly is apparently another one of those facets that never gets easier. I suppose I'm lucky that it hasn't happened to me too much, and that I haven't had the chance to learn it earlier, but I could be happy never knowing this. And unlike euthanasia, there's no mitigating factor here. An animal is dead, and it's out of my control, and it wasn't supposed to happen. There are no words to say to the owner to make it better, there was no time beforehand for them to prepare. There's no escape for me, either - no matter how much I know that it wasn't my fault, I can't help but run around in circles inside my head, wondering if maybe there was some magic way I could have prevented this, or at least foreseen it.
Biological systems are soft and fragile and mysterious, and sometimes even all of our understanding can't make them behave in predictable and safe ways. It's one of the first things they drill into us at school. It's something that we explain to every client. And absolutely none of this helps when the odds catch up with you because at that point, it isn't a statistical eventuality, and it isn't a biological system, and it isn't an acceptable fact of practice, it's someone's pet and your patient, and a tail that was wagging at you yesterday that never will again, and I'm working myself up even more by writing this, but I have to get it out into words to make it stop banging around inside me.
I don't want it to get easier. I just never want it to happen again.
