Mondays suck

Mondays historically in homecare are not good days. And I imagine are that way across the board, but from my experience in the medical world, Mondays in homecare suck. And this past Monday was no exception, in fact, Monday broke my heart.

It wasn't bad enough that my husband left. Again. The shining light in that is that he'll be home for about 2 weeks at Christmas.

It wasn't bad enough that the 2 hours that I actually spent in my office were bad with 87 emails waiting to be addressed and umpteen other issues that arose.

Nope, those things apparently didn't make my Monday bad enough. Not that I wasn't already in a down mood but I came home to the following scenario (very abbreviated version).

Into the barn I go to water the cows. There's Chance, my kitten sitting in the doorway. "Hi Chance", bend down to pet him, "what the hell?" as I notice he's missing CHUNKS of fur off his back and rump. So I quick hurry up and get the cows set up and go back to Chance who is breathing like he's run a freakin' marathon and pick him up to discover that he is missing pretty much all the fur, tissue, muscle, tendons etc from the middle of his front leg up above his elbow. Not good. I manage to get him into the house without dropping him, getting bitten or hurting him tremendously and into the bathroom. And discover that my initial cursory assessment was in fact correct and that this was not a good thing. So I called my sister in law to come over to give me a hand and sat in the bathroom and just pet him to try to keep him calm and not to move him much. I eventually take him to the ER Vet Clinic (did you know that Rimadyl, an antiinflammatory for DOGS is TOXIC TO CATS???? READ: DO NOT GIVE RIMADYL TO YOUR CATS!!!). And put him to sleep. And, managed to break my heart all in one night. At the time, I wondered whether or not it was the right thing to do, even though, deep down, I knew it was. But man, that was not a fun decision. The vet couldn't tell me that after surgery, 6 wks of dressing changes & antibiotics that he'd heal, never mind not need another surgery or not have pain. And I didn't think, don't think, it would be fair to put him through that.

However, I did cry like a baby. For about 24 hrs. And even as I write, my face is not dry. I am riddled with regret and guilt. If I could rewind the clock to 0900 Monday morning, I would. I'd do that day all over again so the end result was not what it was. But if I could rewind it until the moment they put him to sleep?, that would be selfish and an effort to end my own hurt. And that's not fair. So it's a good thing that I can't rewind the clock because I'm not certain what decision I would make knowing how much it hurt.

What I find amazing is this: A. How attached we get to our pets and B. what extremes we contemplate to keep them alive, painfree and ours on this earth.

So yesterday I went to work looking like I had been crying all night, oh, which I was, and had to call the vet to cancel Chances' appt this weekend. Nope, didn't make it through that conversation without my voice breaking. And today, when I got home, there was a very nice card from my vet who cared for Chance (not at the ER, but the usual Doc). While it was sweet, it made me cry all over again.

Mondays fucking suck.