Wanna hear something fucked up...

[cheebacheeba]

...about my job?
Now this isn't gory, doesn't contain anything about animal abuse or anything like that...I was just kind of thrown into the deep end today.
Not intentionally or anything, it's not like we can expect what to take reports on and not, right?
So towards the end of my shift I got a follow up call about a job one of my colleagues had dispatched an ambulance to.
Little chick, like 13 years old? By her name (which I can't mention) I'd say she was of Lebanese descent.
Now I'd heard this job get taken earlier.
Same old story, family doesn't desex an outdoor cat, they get pregnant at too young an age etc etc etc.
This one was YOUNG young. Not TOO young (as that's barely possible) but evidently didn't know what to do.
The girl called my colleague saying they seemed to be "stuck together", and one had died. Two days without feeding, the mother showing little interest in them after trying to pick them up a few times.
These kids had handled the kittens...bad move on top of everything else...
So anyways they called it in.
Now an ambo was dispatched and it, I guess, was still on the way.
She called back right as I was about to finish.
Explained to me the situation and that she was really looking forward to the kittens etc, and went over the problem with me.
Sounds like placental afterbirth etc that has either tied or not been properly cleaned off by the mother...can't really hazard much more of a guess.
Then she said something that lead to, after all the fucked up bullshit I've heard over the last few weeks, the hardest and most upsetting thing I'd really encountered.
"Your friend said if they come out and can't help, that they would have to be put to sleep, can you just tell me what that means exactly?"
Goddamn...she knew all along is my feeling but just wanted to see on the off chance that she was wrong...so my next few minutes was spent talking about how sometimes bad things happen...animals in situations where they're badly hurt or will die, or sometimes very old and in pain, will be euthanised.
Spun the whole deal that somehow I remembered hearing from a vet about my first rat when he had to get put down about "Taking their pain away, they don't feel anything and just fall asleep very quickly and pass away in their sleep". In fact that's what I think I said, I can't even think back for some reason to the specifics.
This kid's on the phone, and I can tell she's breaking up trying to be "adult" about it...fuckin' hell, it was just so hard to leave it at that, and tell them they'd be there shortly.
I did of course say they'd TRY to help them if they could and she'd keep the mother cat which she seemed worried about too (she will), but yknow, you can only soften the blow so much without giving false hope on it.
She actually said thank you, while sniffling allover the place...and then I got to go home for the day...I can't really remember much else that went on today at all to be honest.

Like I said, all the shit I deal with...all the infuriating endless shit...and this is what gets me. Ah well, ball's rolling now I guess.
That's all I had, just thought I'd check in and tell you all about how this job I was looking forward to was going.

- B.

[TheWickerFan]

That's really rough.I don't know if you ever grow immune to moments like that.

I used to work in an animal shelter (nowhere near as tough as what you're doing) and there was a clinic where people would take the animals they adopted to be fixed. One night, a dog had expired in the night (bad reaction to the anesthesia), and by the time we discovered this, the mother and daughter were already on their way to pick up their pet. To say they were upset would be an understatement.

[cheebacheeba]

That's really rough.I don't know if you ever grow immune to moments like that.

Well yeah, not so sure either...though I haven't yet had a great deal of exposure. Considering it's something I may have to do personally in some cases in the position I'm hoping to obtain, I suppose this was a relatively tame toe in the water situation...but yeah, I just wish I was remotely prepared for that.

I used to work in an animal shelter (nowhere near as tough as what you're doing)

I think it would be in different ways...I mean nobody or their animals really likes going to the vet with the possibility of surgery, signing waivers and all that...it's a pretty sad time...I wouldn't really stack one job up against the other at all, everywhere there's life, tragedy walks hand in hand with it...just on a timer when you look at it really.

[TheWickerFan]

Thankfully, there were very few incidents of neglect, abuse, or having to break the news to an owner that their pet had died.

Hopefully, the number of animals you help will far outnumber the ones that didn't make it.

[ferretchucker]

Not much else you could have said, buddy. It's a shame that you had to explain it and this poor kid had to go through it. It won't be the last time you had to break bad news to somebody, but I know you're aware of that. Good luck.