Compassion for Paisley

You left Paisley in my care today. When I met her this morning, she had a 106 degree fever and she was in respiratory distress, breathing harder than I’ve ever seen a dog breathe before. You agreed to leave her with me for 24 hours, so I could give her supportive care and start her on the therapy she needed. Before I took my lunch break, I walked Paisley outside, where she collapsed from weakness. I carried her, all 75 pounds, back inside and continued the plan you and I had discussed, then I ate my lunch. When I got back half an hour later, I found her dead in the kennel. I performed CPR on her for 20 minutes while my coworker called you and asked you to come right away. You both walked in on me doing chest compressions on Paisley.

You screamed at me to stop. He screamed at me to keep going.

Paisley was gone.

I watched him run from the building, big deep sobs echoing in his wake. You yelled some more, “How did this happen?! Why?!” then draped yourself over Paisley’s cold body, crying into her fur and kissing her face.

I worked for four more hours, finishing my shift without appearing to be phased, forcing myself to address every client and patient for the rest of the day as cheerfully as I had greeted you and Paisley this morning when I told you that I could help her.

I held it together the entire drive home, surprisingly.

I slid my key in the lock, turned the doorknob, took 2 steps inside, and collapsed on the tile in a screaming, sobbing heap, pulling at my hair, rocking, trying to melt away into another dimension far far from this one.

People in the medical field, police officers, and soldiers all suffer from some form of PTSD. We see things everyday that nobody should ever have to see, while being forced to pretend we don’t see them.

“Compassion hurts. When we feel connected to everything, we also feel responsible for everything. And we cannot turn away. Our destiny is bound by the destinies of others. We must either learn to carry the universe or be crushed by it. We must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the table with its worst horrors.” -Andrew Boyd

I need to stay human. I need to be the doctor that my childhood-self dreamed I would be. I need to remain logical. I need to save them all. I must remain sane.

I do not know how to be all of those things at once.

To help myself heal at night, I cram as many living, breathing, furry warm bodies into my bed as possible. By surrounding myself with their life, eventually the death that’s consuming my soul starts to subside. I keep them close while I try to sleep.

In the morning, I get up, and do it all over again. 

Alexa Veale
Colorado State University