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Eat, Pray, Poop

3 Sep

 

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Rusty Thomas

I don’t really have a good excuse for why I haven’t posted in so long, but I do have excuses. I’ve been working 50+ hours a week. I’ve been traveling to the beach. I’ve been playing soccer. I’ve had some time-consuming summer romances. I applied to post-bac pre-med programs (fingers crossed, fingers crossed!). I’ve read some good books (Cheryl Strayed is my hero). The memory card on my phone is corrupted, and it makes taking pictures extremely difficult. So when I finally put myself in front of my laptop to write a little something, my browser magically opens to Netflix, and I find myself drifting to sleep while watching either “Law and Order” or “Intervention.”

Like I said, no good excuses.

I will say, though, that I have written a number of posts in my head, taken a number of pictures for said posts (that become corrupted, damn you technology) but it just never made it on here. So I’m sorry. That’s that.

This post I’ve been thinking about for a week, when this cat came in. Rusty Thomas. I’m completely a dog person, but this cat stole my heart. He really is a special animal. All owners say that when they bring their pets in, but Rusty Thomas, he’s…different.

He came in as a new patient, he hadn’t eaten for a couple of days. We ran a bevy of tests on him, but nothing obvious seemed to be wrong. So our new doctor, Dr. L, admitted him for observation.

It turns out that the woman who brought him in, Iris, is actually the owner’s aunt. The owner of the cat is a teenage girl whose father died two years ago. Before he passed away, he gave his daughter this cat. Iris told us that they could not lose the cat. It would be too much loss for the family to take. We had to save Rusty Thomas.

Iris is an eccentric woman, and at first, we all thought of her as a high-maintenance client. She brought in toys and blankets for Rusty T to have during his hospital stay, but she also brought a boombox with a Meditation CD. She claimed that while she did yoga and meditated, Rusty T would likewise meditate, and she requested that we play it for him.

Rusty Thomas continued to not eat. So, we were forced to insert a feeding tube into his esophagus, and four times a day, we make a paste like food and insert it slowly through his feeding tube. During this time, I like to take him out of his cage and place him on the main treatment table. He’s a good cat that just sits there while I prepare his feeding. I turn on the meditation tape, and we listen to a rather monotone woman talk about breathing, about letting go of thoughts and emotions. Rusty sits still, purring away, staring off into the distance. Our feeding time together is so peaceful.

He quickly became a joke around the office. Some started referring to him as the “yoga cat,” and Dr. S will holler with pent-up rage if he hears the meditation tape playing.

“If I have to hear that woman’s voice one more time, I’m going to break that boombox!” he’ll bellow. If anyone needs to get in touch with the Buddha, it’s that man.

But with all that mocking, this cat has had a noticeable effect on the office. Last Wednesday, I was doing his feeding, listening to the tape. The woman was telling us to breathe deeply, to focus on the breath, to feel the breath. I looked up to see everyone in the room quiet, not just quiet, but they were all breathing deeply, all in sync with each other and with the meditative instructions of the woman. The only sound was the rumbling purr of Rusty Thomas.

So we found a way to feed the cat, the only problem now was that he wasn’t pooping. We were waiting until he had a nice BM before we sent him home. At last, it came. And you have never seen a group of people happier about a cat pooping than our office on that day. He could go home to his new-age family that loved him.

He was discharged yesterday afternoon, but I fed him in the morning. It was 8:30AM, and the office was quiet. I was exhausted from working so much the last week. Since I was alone, I told Rusty Thomas how much I was going to miss him, and how happy I was that he was finally pooping. That fat cat curled up into my arms while I pushed a slurry of cat food into his tube. I put my head against his back and listened to the motorcycle-like thrum of purring. We breathed in and out together.

Oh, Rusty Thomas, I hope everything works out well for you in Yonkers. Namaste.

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Quality Advice from Dr. G

27 Apr
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SPROUT! I want a Brussels Griffon. I want one real bad.

The above dog has nothing to do with this post, other than the fact that I took it at work, and this story also takes place at work. Honestly, I’m just trying to lure you in to read my blog, because I’m sly like that.

So the worst part about working in Veterinary Medicine is the people, the clients that inevitably come with their dogs. Ironic, right? People get into this field, because they want to spend their day with animals. Yet so much of the time is spent dealing with people. And people, in general, aren’t that pleasant.

Some people are wonderful though. Like Dr. G. He’s my favorite doctor at our clinic. He’s older, so a lot of us call him “Pops” which has always been a goal of mine…to have an old man friend whom I call Pops. He’s a lifelong Yankees fans, so we’re always discussing our teams. He continuously attempts to bring me to the dark side, make me a Yankees fan. With other Yankees fans, I find this sort of thing annoying; with Dr. G, it makes me smile.

He’s also the only doctor that doesn’t lose his temper, that doesn’t freak out at clients, never blames any one else if things go wrong. His interactions with clients are legendary. For example:

“Dr. G, is my dog going to die?”
“Well, yeah, one day. We all are. I just don’t know when your dog will die.”
“What am I supposed to do?!!?!”
“Stop worrying about your dog so damn much.”

He’s the only one who can get away with saying this sort of thing.

A couple of weeks ago, we had a client who was persistently calling the front desk, driving us all insane. She was sobbing about how her main vet had left the practice, how someone in her building told her the food she fed the dog was garbage, how she was a single mother and couldn’t afford vet bills. Basically, she called to complain about things that don’t concern me, and I can’t fix. She just wanted someone to whine to.

Finally, she stopped in to the clinic and demanded to speak to a doctor. She was crying and yelling, but she didn’t want an appointment. We only had Dr. R and Dr. G available. Dr. R was doing an emergency emesis, so I approached Dr. G. He rolled his eyes and said, “Oh, these fucking idiots.” Then he straightened his embroidered scrubs and asked, “So, how do I look?” I gave him the nod of approval, and he headed out there.

20 minutes. This woman ate up 20 minutes of an important man’s time. She ranted. She cried. She whined. He sat there. He nodded. He told her his food recommendations. It did not look like fun.

Eventually she left, and I followed him back into the treatment area.

“That was amazing, Pops. I don’t know how you handled that woman for that long.”
“Let me tell you something I learned a long time ago,” he began. All of treatment turned to listen to the wise, old doctor. “It takes two people to argue. One person can complain and cry and scream all they want, but if you sit there calm, you aren’t in an argument, you aren’t upset. The second you raise your voice and give in to anger, they’ve won. They pulled you into a fight. So I listened to that woman’s crazy rant. And even though I sat there for 20 minutes and could only think, ‘Go fuck yourself, you crazy bitch,’ I didn’t say it, and she didn’t get to win.” All of treatment erupted in laughter and applause.

I lose my temper with clients every once in a while, but I’m really trying the Dr. G method of dealing with it. It really does work. I’m not as good at it as Dr. G is, but I suppose I have 40 odd years to perfect my craft.

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26 before 26: Attend a Meditation Seminar

4 Apr

Shunko-In Buddhist Monastery in Kyoto

In my 26th year of life, I am attempting 26 new things that I’ve never done before. Full list here.

Upon arriving in Kyoto, the man at the front desk of our Ryokan gave us a couple of English language magazines about different events and sites around the city. I quickly saw an ad for an English language meditation class at a Buddhist temple/monastery. I was hesitant, because the ad emphasized that the priest was American educated, and the picture of the class they provided showed all white people meditating. Every time I ran into white people in Japan, I felt frustrated, like they were ruining my experience. Perhaps they felt the same way upon encountering me. But the thing is, in a country of millions upon millions upon millions of Asians, if you find yourself in an area with 90% white people, you are doing something wrong.

Anyways, I decided to go for it. Meditation class was on my list after all, and any class I would take in New York would be just as WASPy. Brett wasn’t really interested, so I ventured across Kyoto myself eventually finding the temple grounds. The temple where the class was to take place was in a larger park with shrines, statues, more temples. It was a peaceful place to spend a morning, and as Brett and I got used to saying on our trip, “Buddha, Buddha, Buddha, Buddha, rocking everywhere.”

The class was an hour long, and, as expected, it was full of unsavory tourists. But Buddhism speaks a lot to inner peace and blocking out negative thoughts. So I just went right on ahead and blocked them out. The monk talked to us for about half an hour about the basic tenets of Buddhism. Impermanence, the middle way, and emptiness. It was rather enlightening (pardon the pun!). Once he gave us some of these things to think about, he lit an incense stick and asked us to use the techniques he discussed to meditate for 15 minutes.

It went well…at first. I focused on my breathing. I let my mind wander up and down, left and right, releasing negative thoughts and focusing on myself. Then, my leg went numb. Sitting in that lotus position is not very comfortable. Fun fact, this is why yoga was invented. Buddhist monks wanted to stretch and increase circulation before sitting down to meditate for long periodsof time. I, however, did not do yoga before the meditation, and at some point all I could think about was my numb leg. I tried to refocus on my breathing on my inner self. Nope. Leg. Pain. Needles. No blood circulation. At last when he rang the bell to pull us out of the meditation, I threw my legs in front of me, wobbling them up and down.

Deep meditation is a skill to be practiced and honed. Perhaps I should take a yoga class or two. My monk told us to think of meditation as a prevention, not a cure. It’s a way to strengthen your mind in order to deal with trying times. Despite my leg failure, I did leave the temple feeling elated, relaxed, refreshed, able to take in the day more clearly.

I have been studying Buddhism for roughly the last two years. I found it at a difficult point in my life where I was losing myself. It helped me find my way back, and it’s made me much happier and calmer. Being in Japan only emphasized how much more I want to study the philosophy. The Japanese are so gracious, giving, and selfless. It’s admirable, and I believe a reflection of their religious history.

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