Hug your vet

No one with a sick dog doubts the value of expertise

Our dog Pearl passed away in October. She was 12 and by no means a small breed so it was hardly a surprise actuarily speaking. Well, I’m not an actuary. I felt blindsided.

Pearl was an active and precocious 12. Her human started a Substack last September and prominently featured her atop its first post never dreaming what the very near future might hold in store.

We adopted Pearl in 2012 at the Westchester County, New York, ASPCA. She was a three-month-old stray from Batesville, Mississippi. Pearl was transported north for adoption as part of a wonderful program created and run by students at Mississippi State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

Small ears that we called “Dorito ears” always gave Pearl the appearance of a much younger dog. Even late in life she would often be greeted by passersby on our walks as my “puppy.” Then things happened fast and she was gone.

I’ve acquired more experience this decade with both veterinary medicine and human healthcare than I would prefer. I lost one parent to cancer in 2020 and one to covid-accelerated natural causes in 2022.

Helping my parents meant returning to Springfield, Illinois, which since my departure at 18 has developed into a healthcare mecca for an aging downstate population. There’s a med school in town and my parents’ medical appointments typically began with a resident before we proceeded to my mom or dad’s doctor of record.

Initially this felt like a nuisance. I was unaccustomed to every such conversation starting at square one. However I quickly found the residents to be outstanding. They listened, they hustled to get answers on my behalf, and they would follow up with me after appointments.

As for the doctor, he was excellent and in high demand in Springfield. I particularly appreciated that he was sincerely attentive when my parents were speaking to him. At the same time I was acutely conscious that our time with him was severely limited. This awareness persuaded me to call upon, of all things, my experience working in sports.

At ESPN I was introduced to the Sawatsky method of interviewing.¹ I found this helpful in healthcare’s conversational economy of Malthusian time scarcity. Before each doctor visit for my mom or dad I would formulate the leanest possible wordings of no more than three essential questions for the attending physician. From the safe distance of a few subsequent years this feels a bit over the top and maybe it was. But these were my parents and I did feel prepared for that elusive instant when the doctor appeared.

Ideally we would have more time with good doctors who will always be in demand. It might be nice if those moments felt a bit less fleeting, nice for the doctors no less than for us.

In the categorically distinct and entirely incommensurate realm of veterinary medicine I was conscious that I never felt a need to draft questions in advance.

By the time Pearl had her moment of truth last fall she had made just one annual visit to the vet since we relocated to Boston. There was no “regular doctor” locally who knew her well. Pearl’s decline instead brought forth a random sample of the metro area’s veterinary professionals. Though we reside in the city proper we searched for and seized the earliest possible appointments wherever they were available. Wellesley? Waltham? We’ll be there.

In our experience a random sample of vets in greater Boston shared a good deal in common with the resident doctors assigned to a treasured attending physician in Springfield. After seeing Pearl the vets would text me unsolicited. How is she doing? Did we have any questions?

Doubtless there are large-scale factors influencing any such stray random coincidences I may perceive. What I can relate on a purely individual scale is how impressed we were as a family by a series of otherwise unaffiliated vets we encountered in what were, for us, challenging circumstances that kept getting worse. The vets heard us out at length, shared every realistic possibility with us, outlined our options, answered our questions, and got the radiology work done on a weekend.

We were so struck by the uniform excellence of urgent care Pearl received that we started floating explanations with each other. Are vets just a self-selecting population of uncommonly good people? Not so fast, I said. When Pearl was young in New Jersey we had a blowhard of an old-school mansplainer for a vet.

The hit rate isn’t going to be 100 percent, but possibly caring for patients unable to precisely articulate what they need requires an added measure of enriched empathy and moral imagination. Naturally these same good souls were also sharp enough to be admitted to vet school. Our working theory became that natural selection tends to produce vets who are intelligent and compassionate. At a minimum the theory aligns with our experience.

Without exception Pearl’s late-stage caregivers were notably kind even as they were bringing us bad news. Their work is not without its own particular challenges, surely. For one the vet can be obligated to guide you gently into conversations on whether you really wish to spend four or possibly five digits out of pocket on a procedure with a relatively low probability of success for your uninsured 12-year-old dog.

In our case this discussion was referenced initially as a possibility but never truly pursued. Pearl’s condition all but precluded any realistic intervention. We instead resolved to give her what even impressive vets could not, home hospice tailored just for her.

Lounging on previously forbidden pieces of human furniture was not only allowed but encouraged. In good weather we brought her bedding outside on the deck so she could conduct her always vigilant sniffing of the Boston air in total comfort. Pearl had long savored rare tastes of ice cream. Now she feasted on a cone from Sullivan’s at Castle Island on a balmy fall evening by the sea.

When we adopted Pearl in 2012 we were asked on-site about our ability to take care of a dog. We had already spent two hours in line on a weekday morning for a shot at a puppy and I recall being impatient with the questions. Yeah, yeah, I thought. I’ve done this, we had a dog when I was a kid. Let us out of here.

I thought of those questions and regretted my impatience 12 years later when I was making multiple trips west on I-90 with an ailing dog in the back seat. In effect we had been required to promise that we would do whatever it takes. Well, we did our best. I do know that when things drew to a close I was beyond grateful for the help of caring experts.

1. The training occurred early in my tenure and I believe was mandatory for a large swath of employees. Like all things mandatory it was resented on sight as a burden on busy schedules. I on the other hand thought it was pure gold. My secret is out.