Cancer. It's scary stuff. Every day, I hear another story of an elderly dog and cat diagnosed with neoplasia, and my heart hurts for those dealing with it. Without a doubt, cancer sucks, and every new breakthrough is a gift. There's lots of theories and evidence pointing to different causes of cancer. Food, say some. Chemicals, say others. Vets peddling food and chemical-laden vaccines, say many. And I'm here to tell you this: They're right. What? Say it ain't so! It's true. I've been ... Read more »
Musings
Candy Pee and Me: How Big Pharma Seduced Me at NAVC
It's been entirely too long since I've posted, and for that I apologize. I've been terribly busy responding to nastygrams depositing my checks from Big Pet Food sneering at plebians going to a continuing education conference this past week, and what a week it was. Like many of you, I read the Indy Star's expose about the loose strings of pharmaceutical companies (or, in internet conspiracy parlance, Big Pharma) at continuing education conferences such as the one I was going to attend, and ... Read more »
The Truth About Pet Food Research
About one year after I graduated vet school, I took routine screening chest radiographs of my senior Golden, Mulan. I looked them over, frowning at a small, mottled spot near her sternum. "She has cancer," I thought. It's not an unreasonable conclusion to come to with Golden Retrievers. Before I panicked, I asked my colleague to look at the x-ray, and she agreed it looked suspicious. I was devastated. I took Mulan to the local specialty hospital, where an intern I knew from vet school ... Read more »
How to find your Special Snowflake Vet
"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad." "How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, "otherwise you wouldn't have come here." Every time I come across a "how to choose the best veterinary hospital" article, I read it, because it's fascinating to me to see how different authors choose to guide you in this task. The articles exist, presumably, because not ... Read more »
What Your Natural Health Magazine Doesn’t Want You To Know
After the fifth time someone forwarded me "The Shocking Truth Your Vet Is Hiding" type articles in the past week, I had to take a stop from my scheduled 12 Days of Clinics to address it. I debated on a few clickbait titles for this post: alt: "Why Magazines are Getting Away With Murder" alt: "The Shocking Truth These Publishers Are Hiding" It doesn't really matter what the title is or if it related to the content anyway, but I imagine you already know that. But let's step back a moment, ... Read more »
The Long Dark Twee-Time of the Soul
As you probably know, I have a bit of a complicated relationship with the PTA moms. Not moms in general, mind you, just the small subset of Pinterest loving, glue-gun wielding domestic lifestyle experts whose expectations I can never, despite my best efforts, seem to live up to. It doesn't matter what school we're at, it happens every time. First it was the art project/pooper scooper incident in kindergarten. Then it was the Have a Very Agro Valentine's Day episode. And now it's crudite, crudite ... Read more »
Rumble in the Doghouse: Evil Breeders vs Crazy Animal Rights People
There was a time, back in a pre-internet era known as the Good Old Days, when two people who had different opinions on a topic could talk about it and, even if they did not come to an understanding, could at least part ways with a better grasp of the other person's point of view. People with different opinions were still, at the end of the day, people. I'm not entirely sure that is the case anymore. Lest anyone doubt me, proof enough should be the fact that we've just come off an election ... Read more »
Knuckle cracking real-time talk here.
This is not about Sophia Yin. I feel the need to say that before launching into a discussion about suicide and depression in the animal community, because the horrible news that she took her own life and the ripples it is causing in the veterinary world is the reason I'm talking about it today. But it's not about her or her situation, which none of us will ever really know; Dr. Yin's legacy is the work she did during her life, and it should remain that way. This is not about one ... Read more »
Then there was that time at the bordello with Dr. Lorie
This has been an almost unbearably terrible week for those in the veterinary profession, and those who love animals. First the awful news that Dr. Sophia Yin had passed away, and then not one day later, we learned of the passing of another tremendous voice and educator, Dr. Lorie Huston. Like many of you I considered Dr. Huston a friend. She was extremely well regarded for her work online as the Voice of Pet Care with the Pet Healthcare Gazette, her many contributions to various ... Read more »
Thank you, Dr. Yin
When I was in school, I accumulated a lot of textbooks. Books from the titans, the Nelsons and the Feldmans and the Fossums. I stood in line at the bookstore with these heavy tomes weighing me down, and noticed every other person in line with a tiny mahogany text balanced on top of their piles. "What's that?" I asked. "The Nerdbook," they said. "I heard you can't make it through vet school without it." They were right. I spent many hours in rounds with my Nerdbook balanced on my ... Read more »
Guess I don’t love all the animals
My first year of practice, I was talking to an owner in an exam room when I saw her eyes go wide and she yelled, "SPIDER!" I looked down and saw a large arachnid crawling across the table towards her poodle. Without missing a beat, I grabbed a large drug compendium and put an end to the assault. The lady looked up, cocked her head, and said, "I guess you don't love all the animals, then." I felt terrible, actually. My grandmother would not have approved. She would capture daddy longlegs in ... Read more »
Who do you remember?
I remember this about September 11, 2001: I felt very lonely. It was my senior year of veterinary school. My husband, who had only been my husband for about 2 months, was far away in San Diego. My mother was the one who called me, waking me up to tell me to turn on the news. She was alone too, as my father was on a rare business trip in Texas, one he ended up having to drive home from. We held the phones to our ears together until there was nothing more to do, so I said, well, I guess I ought ... Read more »
Phenomenal Cosmic Power
A week ago, I called my husband on a business trip in China for the urgent assistance in locating my DVD of Aladdin. "Why do you need it this very second?" he asked. "You haven't watched that in like 15 years." "I know," I said, "But our daughter is singing a song from Aladdin in summer camp this week and she really, really needs to see this movie." She'd seen it once before, years prior; my son hadn't seen it ever. It was an unforgivable omission, one I felt an almost irresistible ... Read more »
Cures what ails ya
In the olden days, people used to turn to carnival medicine men or the back pages of Look Magazine for the latest way to solve all of their problems. People don't change, just the technology. Now we have the internet to turn to. If the web is to be believed, and it always is for some reason, there is a new cure for all the world's ills. That cure is coconut oil. It's good for your hair, your skin, your GI tract, your dog, your mental health, and your aura. It's anti-inflammation and ... Read more »
Dog: World’s Worst Coach
I am training for a half marathon. I thought about training for a full marathon, but then the reality what that was like the last time I attempted it kicked in and I remembered that oh yeah, I don't like to run. I think you can do a full marathon once when you don't like to run, just to say you did (Rock n Roll 2001 for me), but after than there's really nothing to prove other than, "oh yeah, this hurts." A half marathon though, is doable. Still not fun, but manageable. I have decided, ... Read more »
Good health is a revelation
When I took my son in for his first routine eye exam, I had no idea he needed glasses. Neither did he. He seemed fine, wasn't running into things, was reading fine in school, but nonetheless the optometrist suggested glasses. OK, I said, let's give it a shot. One week later, his glasses arrived and we went into the office to pick them up. He picked them up dubiously, slid them over the bridge of his nose, and stood there for a moment, blinking as the refracted light hit his retina in new and ... Read more »
Do we need pet care advocates?
In the depth of my despair when Apollo was dying, the medical resident at the specialty hospital made a comment I will never forget. He was dying of a blood clot, a sequelae of hyperthyroidism and heart disease. I was in shambles, having come home from the gym to find him immobile on the couch, and rushed in straightaway, sweaty and spandex-y. I scribbled his medical history as quickly as I could, which the resident pored over with her intern as I sat in the room planning to say goodbye. I ... Read more »
Mañana
The look on the doctor's face was more bemused than annoyed as he tried to explain what happened to the centrifuge we were supposed to be bringing to Nicaragua for the clinic. The valuable piece of medical equipment had been confiscated by a leery customs official the day before, and the shifty eyed official wouldn't release it to us without running it by his boss. Who would be in tomorrow. Mañana, the official said. Come back mañana. So a local veterinarian, who understands the language ... Read more »
