(no subject)
I had to watch a dog die today. The doctor was explaining to the new tech how and when the heart stopped, etc. I thought I would break down in tears, but I was strangely unaffected at that moment. Now, I'm not so sure. Since then, I've felt like I do when I have a truly crappy day, but then I realized that nothing particularly bad happened. I'm depressed, moody, and feel like I'm going to be sick. Is it the terrible-tasting cookie I ate or the stress of seeing four dogs euthanized in one day? I saw each one of them in the waiting room. Except for one, they all looked happy and normal. They were going to their death and I scratched their heads just minutes before. And I was fine. Now I'm not. Maybe it's just the stress of having so many die in one day compounded with being tired and sick and my parents gone. It was just so strange watching this happy lab die in front of my eyes and not feeling ... anything. Then tonight I thought about his owners, how this is the first night in about 14 years without their best friend. How his spot on the couch was empty while they watched tv. Now I can't shake the thought of actually having to make the decision to kill my best friend, to kiss him, knowing it would be the last time ever. How does someone do that? The worst part is, I know it's coming. Tanner's 12. I know he won't live forever, and it's not his death that bothers me so much; it's that I might have to know that when I kiss him, hug him, tell him he's a good boy, I'll never to it again. I pray that he'll just die naturally in three or four years and we'll come home to find him on the couch. I just don't want to know when. I can accept that it will happen, just not that I'll know the exact day.
I know it'll get easier for me, but the problem isn't that it's difficult for me to watch a dog put to sleep. I have no connection to them. The problem is that it never gets easier for the owners. Imagine having to put your dog to sleep every day, sometimes two or three times a day. That's what I see. I see several black bags come back every day and in my mind I see every person that knew and loved that dog for years and is at that moment going through inexpressible grief. If I didn't think of that, I'd be fine. In fact, I was fine from the day I started work until tonight when I got home. I see the appointments in the computer and the body bags almost every day, but today there were just so many. And it was the first time I actually saw a dog before, during, and after it died. Maybe what bothers me so much is that it seemed so easy, so painless and yet I knew that in the exam room, the owners were having the hardest, saddest day of their lives. The disconnect between what I expected to feel, what the owners felt, and what I actually felt is troubling for some reason. I just don't know why.
I'm sorry I went on and on and talked in circles, but I just needed to put it all down to make some sense of it.
I know it'll get easier for me, but the problem isn't that it's difficult for me to watch a dog put to sleep. I have no connection to them. The problem is that it never gets easier for the owners. Imagine having to put your dog to sleep every day, sometimes two or three times a day. That's what I see. I see several black bags come back every day and in my mind I see every person that knew and loved that dog for years and is at that moment going through inexpressible grief. If I didn't think of that, I'd be fine. In fact, I was fine from the day I started work until tonight when I got home. I see the appointments in the computer and the body bags almost every day, but today there were just so many. And it was the first time I actually saw a dog before, during, and after it died. Maybe what bothers me so much is that it seemed so easy, so painless and yet I knew that in the exam room, the owners were having the hardest, saddest day of their lives. The disconnect between what I expected to feel, what the owners felt, and what I actually felt is troubling for some reason. I just don't know why.
I'm sorry I went on and on and talked in circles, but I just needed to put it all down to make some sense of it.