November 07, 2002
9:22 p.m.

Money. It's really just a piece of paper with pictures of dead guys on it. For the past few days, however, I have seen it truely be life or death. One man asked, 'Why is it I can go to the hospital and get treated money or not, but I can't get anyone to treat my dying dog.' There is truely no answer that completely justifies it. Countryside is just a small town vet hospital though, we can't afford to take on cases for free, or else we would have to close. That just doesn't seem good enough, not to the man, and not to his dog.

It's not that we don't try to help people like that. I mean, we are doing a seven hundred dollar surgery for one dog for only two hundred and fifty. That's why our clinic constantly sits on the fence between making profit and being in debt. It's just impossible, however, to look at a dog, struggling to breath, and say no, let him suffer. That's not what being a vet is about. I hate that a piece of paper forces us to turn people away, it's just not fair sometimes. That's part of the reason I haven't been writing the last little bit, I have just been to upset, it's just been a bad week. Not to take away from the good that has happened, the dog, near death, that we saved, but sometimes, when holding an owner, who has just put her "child" to sleep, I can't focus on the good. I mean, like my Mom says, 'Death is only hard on those left behind.'

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