The Nelson side of our family spent a week at Okoboji this summer. It was such a great week.
Amanda, Dad and me on the boat. Do I ever tan? NO! Did I wear suntan lotion when Cara reminded me? YES but only after I got this bad sunburn!
Once again, like I did two years ago (yes I need to do it more often - I am working on it!) I put my phone in my nightstand at home after making sure Dr. Bashara and Janna who was watching our pets (enjoying the company of Joy and the fishes and cleaning up after our jerk dog Luna) and our family back home could reach me if they needed.
I opened myself up a bit to let the doctor team see a tiny bit of my crazy by sending them a list of every patient with a serious or chronic issue who I thought might need them during the week. Four pages - it varies from two to five pages and I check half of them weekly and half of them monthly. I was most concerned about Bailey and Bailey who both did just fine because they both have awesome families and an awesome working vet team in Omaha watching out for them.
I rode my first ferris wheel with Finch!
And then I SLEPT. I slept on the way there. I slept in the cabin. I slept in the boat. My Sister-I-Love Cara, seeing that I could not stay awake, said, "It must be exhausting making medical decisions for pets all day every day." And THAT is the closest anyone has ever gotten to describing what is hardest about veterinary medicine. I love it, and the snuggles unique to our career sure do help, but I - like every other veterinary medical professional - get worn out.
I slept fourteen hours the first day we were home, then twelve, then ten and now I am trying to sleep eight hours a night. EVERYONE knows they need downtime. I keep trying to not need downtime. It has - I am not overstating this - almost destroyed me more than once.
The days off, the nights at home, the early afternoons, the vacations, they can all offset the physical, mental and emotional exhaustion if I let them. It is a GOOD exhaustion - a rewarding, worthy, where I am supposed to be doing what I am supposed to be doing sort of exhaustion, but draining just the same. Everyone - my family, my friends, my vet team and my boss - is looking out for each other, and we do what we can to make sure we are all well, but it is all for naught if the lifeline is not grabbed when it is offered.
THANK YOU. Don't forget. I will not (again) either.
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Post from one year ago today...
July 11, 2017